edinburgh

We held a stall at the Edinburgh farmer’s market at the end of June. Passers-by were interested in our migration leaflets, and took away CETA postcards to sign

The next meeting of the group will be on Monday 11th March from 7pm to 9pm.

There will be a talk from Johnanna Carrie and Pat Abel on “Edinburgh Transition Towns, Sustainability and Climate Justice.” All are welcome!

Watch the video below to find out more about Transition and please share the event with friends!

Join us for a Scottish skills and networking day for campaigners. WDM Edinburgh will be holding a stall at the farmers’ market in the morning from 10:30 and then joining others from Amnesty International, Christian Aid, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Jubilee Scotland, Oxfam Scotland and SCIAF. All welcome, its free and you can book at the link below.

Making a movement: a skills share and networking day for local campaign groups in Scotland
When: Saturday 27 October: 12pm – 5pm
Where: Augustine United Church, Edinburgh
Details at: www.wdm.org.uk/events/skillshare-and-networking-day

WDM Edinburgh and Lothians are hosting a film night on Wednesday the 15th of December at the Brass Monkey pub on Drummond Street.

The film which we’ll be showing,  Food Inc. ,  reveals the malign workings of the US food industry and is sure to give you plenty to chew on while you sit back and relax over a pint in the comfortable surroundings of the Brass Monkey.  So gather your friends and head on down for a laid-back evening of film and discussion.

The evening kicks off at 7pm, which gives you plenty of time to get to the bar, have a chat and get comfortable before the film starts at 7.30pm.  We hope to see you all there!

Free Entry – All welcome!

Watch the trailer for Food Inc. below:

This weekend several members of the Edinburgh group attended a very well-organised evening of talks on the tar sands developments in Alberta, Canada, the world’s largest fossil fuel project.    This was a joint event between The Co-operative, The Royal Scottish Geographical Society, WDM and FOE Scotland, and had a very good turn-out – particularly considering it was a Friday night!

The talks kicked off with an introduction by the very eloquent Colin Bains, Campaigns Adviser at the Co-operative Financial Services.   Colin gave an overview of  what is at stake if tar sands developments are allowed to continue – and, if the accompanying slide show was anything to go by, it isn’t a pretty picture.  If you want an idea of the scale of these developments, have at the Tarnished Earth photo gallery here: Tarnished Earth Picture Gallery from the Guardian

This was followed by a very moving account from Chief Al Lameman from the Beaver Lake Cree Nation.  The Beaver Lake Cree are a small indigenous community from North East Alberta, whose homeland is being systematically destroyed through tar sands operations, and the hundreds of kilometres of pipelines and seismic exploration lines that accompany it.  The community has launched a legal challenge to protect their environment by putting a stop to any further tar sand developments within in it’s ancestral lands, taking on not only the government of Alberta and Canada, but also the world’s largest oil companies.  Jack Woodward, the lawyer representing the Beaver Lake Cree, explained to the audience the particulars of their two lawsuits (watch him explain it here)

Other speakers included Duncan McLaren, Chief Executive of FOE Scotland and Head of Campaigns for WDM Scotland, Liz Murray, who explained the link between tar sands and our current campagin to clean up bailed out banks – tar sands being one of sevaral dodgy deals that the Royal Bank of Scotland are currently investing in.    Liz Murray’s talk was accompanied by a great new video which focused on the RBS week of action last year – this will be available to watch online soon!

Followed by a Q&A session with the audience, all in all, it was a very informative and inspiring evening – thanks to everyone who helped organise it.

If you have a minute to spare, show your support by taking online action here:

• Tell the Chancellor, George Osbourne, to stop RBS investing taxpayer’s money in projects and companies that are wrecking the climate and threatening human rights
• Call on your MP to support the introduction of mandatory carbon reporting by 2012
• Say NO to tar sands (photo petition

The Co-opererative’s photo exhibition ‘Tarnished Earth’ will be touring the UK, starting in London.  Find out more details here.

Hi everybody, apologies if you tried to access our site and couldn’t, we were experiencing some technical difficulties, which have now been fixed. Now that we’re back online, we’ll be keeping you up to date with all the latest news and what the group are doing, so be sure to watch this space!