[Cc-webedit] [Fwd: for a blog post?]

Thu Nov 5 15:44:40 GMT 2009

i think it is a good piece and should be put up.
Ig.

2009/11/5 Jon Leighton <j at jonathanleighton.com>

> Proposal from Kevin below, what do people think?
>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> > From: kevin smith <kevin.smith at gmx.net>
> > To: j at jonathanleighton.com
> > Subject: for a blog post?
> > Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:50:02 +0100
> >
> > hi jonathan
> >
> > lots of camp big ups in this...  do you want to use it as a blog post for
> the site?
> >
> > kev
> >
> >
> > http://www.tni.org/article/direct-action-against-climate-change
> >
> > Direct action against climate change
> > Kevin Smith
> > Nov 4 2009
> >
> > (As politicians meet for more climate talks in Barcelona, they continue
> to be fixated on measures like carbon trading that will only exacerbate the
> climate crisis. Fortunately the last year in the UK and worldwide has shown
> that direct action against carbon-intensive projects can deliver results.)
> >
> > I was a bit puzzled earlier this week when the new intern in our office –
> a conscientious sort – didn’t show up to work this week. It all made sense
> when I got a call from her yesterday saying that she had only been released
> from police custody after spending two nights camped high up on a smoke
> stack on a coal-fired power station in Oxford. As far as ‘not coming to
> work’ excuses go, it’s pretty water-tight.
> >
> > Taking direct action on climate change has become a regular feature in
> the UK political landscape. The motivation for people to get involved in
> these sorts of activities has received a huge boost in October as climate
> activists suddenly started to see the fruits of their labour. 2009 will be
> remembered in the UK as the year when direct action got the goods!
> >
> > Two of the most emblematic sites of climate struggle in the UK in recent
> years have been the proposal to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport,
> and to build the first coal-fired power station in the country for thirty
> years at Kingsnorth in Kent. Both of these bright ideas resulted from
>  massive pressure from the business lobby and would have locked the UK into
> an even greater level of carbon emissions for decades to come. In both cases
> the government was assuring us that we needn’t be concerned about their
> devastating climate impacts because it would be taken care of by carbon
> trading and offsetting.
> >
> > Within the space of one memorable week in October, the companies behind
> the two contested developments, E.ON and BAA, quietly announced that they
> were shelving their plans. Although the recession was cited as the reason,
> it was widely acknowledged that the protracted direct action campaign in
> both sites by groups like the Camp for Climate Action, Plane Stupid and
> Rising Tide had played an enormous role in delaying the decisions by turning
> non-issues into political hot potatoes.
> >
> > The dazzling array of imaginative, and often confrontational actions have
> included mass trespass, lock-ons, fence cutting, office occupations,
> blockades, runway invasions, an armada of homemade rafts laying siege to a
> power station and many, many people super-gluing themselves to pretty much
> anything and everything within reach.
> >
> > It’s not just a question of trying to grab headlines - although a certain
> degree of media savvyness has played an important role. Activists had
> expressed a commitment to physically intervene if and when the bulldozers
> rolled in. In the village of Sipson, where a thousand families stood to lose
> their homes in order to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport, a speed
> dating service had hooked up local residents with affinity groups to develop
> plans to resist any eviction attempts.
> >
> > One big lesson that climate activists in the UK have learnt from previous
> direct action campaigns is the importance of sensitive engagement with local
> communities for the success and legitimacy of direct actions. When thousands
> appeared unannounced one afternoon in August to set up the Camp for Climate
> Action in a park in the borough of Lewisham in London, the local outreach
> was so successful that the local council subsequently passed a motion
> congratulating the camp on holding a successful and stimulating event!
> >
> > It’s been a busy year. In the UK, we’ve seen actions ranging from
> thousands of people camping in the heart of the financial district of London
> outside the European Climate Exchange to protest against carbon trading
> during the G20, to the ‘Great Climate Swoop’ on October 17 which saw some
> 800 activists invading one of the biggest coal-fired plants in the country.
> One of the most exciting actions involved the cross-fertilisation of labour
> and environmental movements, when Climate Campers occupied a factory roof in
> solidarity with the sacked Vestas workers who barricaded themselves inside
> England's only wind turbine factory that was being closed down. During the
> final week in October, people occupied a coal-fired plant in Oxfordshire and
> camped for two days on top of the smoke stack, while other activists
> disrupted work at two opencast coal mines in Derbyshire and Scotland.
> >
> > The UK climate movement’s successes, however, are just one small part of
> global efforts against fossil-fuel dependent economies. A whole host of
> inspiring and crucial struggles are taking place in Southern countries that
> don’t necessarily identify themselves as being about ‘climate direct action’
> and don’t enjoy the privilege of as much media coverage. Yet these struggles
> are also of key importance in the fight for climate justice – such as the
> indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon fighting to resist the
> expansion of oil companies, and the organising efforts of peasant
> communities the world over struggling for the right to maintain existing
> low-carbon livelihoods.
> >
> > Groups like the Camp for Climate Action are also mobilizing to go to
> Copenhagen with the intention of using civil disobedience as part of Climate
> Justice Action. They are being joined by growing number of groups frustrated
> at the way the talks have become dominated by business interests and
> rail-roaded down the path of failed market-based mechanisms. In response,
> the UK police are already using anti-terrorist legislation to harass climate
> activists travelling to Copenhagen for preparatory meetings, while the
> Danish government is rushing through repressive legislation to crack down on
> dissent ahead of the talks.
> >
> > With the Copenhagen summit doomed from the outset from agreeing anything
> that would begin to meaningfully address the threat of climate change, and
> with governments the world over failing to stem the tide of new
> carbon-intensive infrastructure, there is a clear role for mass civil
> disobedience and targeted direct action. In the UK, like many countries
> around the world, communities and concerned citizens are starting to take
> matter into the own hands out of frustration at the failure of governments
> to take action.
> > Kevin Smith
> >
> > Team member of Carbon Trade Watch
> >
> > Kevin Smith has been working with the environmental justice project at
> TNI since 2005, although he has been more informally involved since it
> started out as Carbon Trade Watch in 2002. He has a degree in Human
> Sciences. He used to be the editor of the Green Pepper magazine and in 2003
> he helped to establish Escanda, a residential project in Northern Spain that
> combines sustainable living with political engagement at local and
> international levels. He currently lives in London works part time at
> Platform. He has been active in climate justice issues since the COP 6 in
> Den Haag in 2000 and participates in the international Durban Network for
> Climate Justice.
> >
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