the times | Tuesday April 5 2022 27
News
Climate change activists are planning
weeks of disruption across Britain, in-
cluding using a network of secret tun-
nels to frustrate the operations of key
oil facilities.
The nationwide action by protesters
from the pressure groups Extinction
Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, which
began on Friday, is aimed at Britain’s
biggest oil companies before further
disruption in London from April 9.
The groups have said they will stage
events in Hyde Park every day from
April 9. Activists have been instructed
to “be ready to continue civil resistance
in London on at least the first three
weekends following 17 April” according
to messages shared on the Telegram
platform.
Yesterday, more than 30 Extinction
Rebellion protesters returned to the
Esso West oil facility in west London as
part of its campaign to force the gov-
ernment to end its reliance on fossil fu-
els. Police said that 275 people had been
arrested since Friday.
Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop
Oil said activists had dug a network of
tunnels at the Navigator Oil terminal in
Thurrock and Grays oil terminals, both
in Essex, and would remain under-
ground. Activists said yesterday that
Green activists plan
weeks of disruption
at UK oil facilities
they had blocked the entrance to the
Esso West oil facility.
The group accused police of “endan-
gering life” to help Esso, a trading name
for ExxonMobil, after officers started
“dismantling” a bamboo structure used
to block the entrance to the oil facility,
while a protester remained “attached
[to it] at height”.
At the weekend, Just Stop Oil blocked
depots in Grays, Purfleet, Buncefield,
Tamworth and central Birmingham.
More than 30 people climbed onto
tankers at the Navigator Oil Terminal.
Just Stop Oil, the successor move-
ment to Insulate Britain, started in Feb-
ruary, delivering an ultimatum to
Downing Street that if its demands
were not met it would be its “duty to in-
tervene”. The group was formed by
Roger Hallam, the man behind Extinc-
tion Rebellion and Insulate Britain,
which blocked roads 19 times between
September and November last year.
Andrew Smith, from Extinction Re-
bellion, said yesterday: “Right now,
governments are choosing to exploit
the crisis in Ukraine to hand out oil li-
cences and continue the fossil fuel eco-
nomy that’s destroying us.” The gov-
ernment said: “Any criminal activity
will not be tolerated, and swift action is
being taken by the police, preventing
disruption to the public and industry.”Kieran Gair, Jaya Narain
has also suggested why:
when life is easier, you
can waste energy on
fripperies.
Christopher Cooney,
from the University of
Sheffield, and his
colleagues
photographed more
than 24,000 individual
birds from more than
4,000 species and
examined them for
variability in plumage
colour. They found a
clear gradient from the
dull-coloured starlings
nearer the poles to the
exuberant songbirds in
the Tropics. But why?
One reason could be
that when there are lots
of birds it pays to make
your species stand out:
the last thing you want
is to waste energy
seducing the
wrong species
because you
all look the
same.ALAMYF
rom the
moment
Victorian
naturalists
arrived in the
Tropics, the evidence
was there — flapping,
swooping and dazzling
all around (Tom
Whipple writes).
Alfred Russel
Wallace, the explorer
and biologist, looked at
the skies and noted an
“immensely greater
number of richly
coloured birds.”
Now the biggest study
of the issue has
confirmed it: birds
really do get more
colourful towards the
equator. The researchIt’s official:
birds really
are brighter
in the Tropics
Painted buntings are found
in the southern US states,
mountain bluebirds in
Alaska and, top, gouldian
finches in Australia