Oily Money Out!
- Naomi Orrell
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Every week across the City of London, oil and gas companies, climate deniers and far-right lobbyists meet for conferences, dinners and drink receptions. As they pop champagne corks and toast to their obscene profits, we are seeing the ef
fects of their actions across the world: extreme weather events, climate breakdown, and destruction of biodiversity. The climate crisis is being orchestrated in London.
Fossil Free London—a group that I have been organising with since joining LCW—refuse to let this happen. Our group exists to make our city inhospitable to the oil and gas industry by disrupting their events and confronting them with the reality of the climate crisis.
Our goal is to shut down events that allow companies like Shell, BP or Equinor (to name but a few) to be present, and shatter the facade of their legitimacy. Not only do we refuse to let them party in peace, but we are there to confront them with the consequences of their actions. We tell them stories of the lives that they have destroyed, the biodiversity and communities that have been decimated. We are not there to engage in dialogue as we believe that the time for civilised conversation is over.
Since joining Fossil Free London, I’ve managed to get into award dinners, conferences about gender equality in the fossil fuel industry, events about the use of AI, even a drinks reception of Republican Party Overseas members. Perhaps the most nerve-wracking was when we disrupted a venture capital event where Richard Tice (Deputy Leader of Reform UK) was speaking. It’s amazing what manner of mischief you can get up to with a confident stride and a business-like outfit! Our tactics vary depending on the type of event we are disrupting, but our aims remain the same: bring noise and disruption to spaces that need to hear the truth.
Getting involved with Fossil Free London has made me realise how deep my grief for the climate is. Before every action, we take a moment to remind ourselves why we are here. We hear stories of obscene oil company profits or yet another supercharged climate disaster. We share stories of people we know whose lives have been turned upside down. Often when I go into these actions, I think of our guests, many of whom have travelled from countries that have been torn apart by the climate crisis (or conflicts over natural resources). Indeed, there is something particularly disturbing about how these companies exacerbate the issues that cause people to make dangerous journeys across borders, all the while calling fossil fuel extraction good, plain financial common-sense.
Confronting the very people who are destroying our planet can be challenging: there have been times that I have come back from an action feeling rather shaken up. Perhaps this is because actions like these require you to bring your whole self. Physically, I have to be willing to be manhandled and dragged out of buildings by overly enthusiastic security guards (sometimes even by disgruntled event attendees). But it also requires you to believe that justice for the climate is intricately bound up in justice for displaced people everywhere. Unlike some climate groups that I have been involved with, Fossil Free London are clear that there cannot be climate justice without justice for Palestine, the destruction of fascism, and the liberation of all workers and people.
Our calling at the London Catholic Worker is to build community with some of the most marginalised people in our society. But we are also, crucially, a community of resistance. Dorothy Day once wrote that “we must cry out against injustice or by our silence consent to it”. For me, our hospitality work is informed and fuelled by our activism and vice versa- indeed, I truly believe that we cannot do one without the other. So while I do bring my rage and grief to these disruptions, I also bring my faith and, in turn, the Catholic Worker’s desire to create a new society formed by love and justice out of the shell of the old. I believe that one day we will live in a world where ‘justice [will] roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’ (Amos 5:24)- but we must fight in order to get there.
Naomi Orrell
