Production of climate-wrecking
SUVs stopped
16/05/2005 — Early this morning 35 volunteers
from Greenpeace shut down the assembly line
making gas-guzzling Range Rovers. The urban
4x4s made at the site are wrecking the climate.
The volunteers used safety shut-down buttons
to cut off power to the assembly line before
handcuffing and chaining themselves to unfinished
vehicles along the 150m long assembly line
and branding it a climate crime scene. It's
the first time anywhere in the world that
protesters have shut down a factory making
Sports Utility Vehicles.
Climate change is the greatest threat the
planet is facing. According to the World
Health Organisation, 150,000 people are
already dying every year as a result of
the impacts of climate change including
droughts, floods and storms. Yet Land Rover
continues to make gas-guzzling vehicles,
most of which will tackle nothing steeper
than a speed bump.
The Range Rover is the UK's least fuel-efficient
4x4 doing a criminal 12 miles to the gallon
in urban areas. The new Range Rover Sport,
which "has been tuned primarily for
on-road performance," does fewer miles
to the gallon than the Model T Ford built
80 years ago.
Activist Tracy Frauzel in the paddy wagon
after being cut from Range Rover assembly
line. Cell phone photo via MMS.
Making cars like this for urban use is crazy.
Land Rover aggressively markets its range
of 4x4s - like Discovery and Range Rover
- in towns and cities throughout the UK.
It spends £3 million on advertising
in London alone. Land Rover's parent company
Ford has also stood in the way of government
action to tackle climate change both in
Europe and the US.
In the UK, road transport accounts for
about a quarter of the emissions that cause
climate change, which makes it the second
biggest source of greenhouse gases. The
trend of 4x4 vehicles as urban run-arounds
is increasing the amount of emissions going
into the atmosphere.
Greenpeace executive director Stephen Tindale
is one of the volunteers currently chained
to Range Rover chassis. He said: "We've
taken direct action to stop Land Rover making
these gas-guzzling urban 4x4s. The company
used to have a reputation for making working
vehicles, but now they market themselves
as the car company for people who love the
wilderness while simultaneously producing
cars that threaten our environment with
catastrophic climate change."
Range Rover's parent company, Ford, is
losing money and shedding jobs in America
because sales of their gas-guzzling models
are falling, whereas Asian companies are
thriving by making fuel efficient vehicles.
With a climate crisis developing and oil
at over $US 50 a barrel, car-makers who
want to save jobs have to stop making gas
guzzlers.
There's no future and no jobs in making
cars that wreck the climate. Land Rover
and Ford have the technology to develop
far more fuel-efficient vehicles but they
choose not to. It's time for Land Rover
to stop making gas-guzzlers and time for
Tony Blair to tax them off our roads.
