Ninety one people from the South West travelled to London to join the Just Stop Oil campaign of slow marching to demand that the Government stops licensing new oil, gas and coal exploration in the UK, with more than twenty attending from our local area.

Just Stop Oil’s new tactic began on April 24th with supporters from all over the UK arriving in London to march six days a week. From Monday 29th May it was the turn of people from South West England. The strategy has proved controversial, as with other Just Stop Oil campaigns, but supporters feel it is fully justified.

Steve Pritchard, property maintenance worker from Radstock said,

“I went and joined the slow march because we’ve run out of peaceful protest options. It is uncomfortable to hold up traffic but it’s not a permanent road block and many people are realising that actions like this are now necessary to get the Government to act.”

Also taking part was Annie Beardsley, 74, a retired artist and community worker and grandmother of two from Bath. Explaining her motivation for marching, Annie Beardsley said:

“I’m taking action for my grandchildren who will have to deal with the legacy of our collective failure to act on the climate emergency.”

“We need our criminal Government to stop giving in to the fossil fuel industry’s lies, stop subsidising these immoral companies, and start listening to their own experts which means immediately halting all new explorations of oil, gas and coal.”

“We’re hurtling towards an unlivable future and our Government is complicit. It shouldn’t take ordinary people taking to the streets to stop them – but I don’t know what else to do. Every other method has failed and we’re almost out of time”.

Another of those taking action, Paul Raithby a tour operator from Bath, said:

“The World Health Organisation, The United Nations and every scientist in the field is telling us that our communities are facing obliteration. I do not want to be marching in the road but I cannot stand by and watch our Government actively participate in genocide by refusing to halt new oil, gas and coal”

Last week’s marches took place as a new study has found that the earth is already past safe limits for humans, with seven of eight planetary boundaries already pushed into risk zones. The study identified eight thresholds that define the environmental conditions needed not only for the planet to remain stable, but to enable societies, economies and ecosystems across the globe to thrive. They include climate, biodiversity, water, natural ecosystems, land use and the effect of fertilisers and aerosols. Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-author of the report, said it was “very worrying” that most of the boundaries had already been breached.

The Just Stop Oil campaign says the marches will continue until the UK Government makes a meaningful statement of its intention to halt new oil, coal and gas exploration.