Climate Camp has rightly been described as both “the world’s most organised protest” and “the most important protest of our time”. The severity of the climate crisis that is looming is not easy to imagine. If we do see a temperature rise of 4C above pre-industrial levels, up to half the world’s species could die out, and our descendants will face apocalyptic consequences.
The Camp is the confluence of several streams of organising going back decades. It demonstrates, among other…
On 26 July, over a hundred environmental activists and local residents met in a small church on the edge of Heathrow to discuss future action against the proposed third runway.
Predictably, the Evening Standard, reported that “hardcore activists” were preparing “a new wave of non-violent ‘attacks’ on the airport which could culminate in an invasion of Heathrow’s runways”, while the Hounslow Chronicle claimed that a “new breed of ‘grey haired, middle-aged’ protesters are gearing up…
I’ve been to the last two camps for climate action, and both were transformative experiences. At Drax in North Yorkshire in 2006, the sense of building a politically, socially, technologically, environmentally and educationally viable community in and for a week shifted my whole gut-feeling about the difficulty of changing society: it can be done, it can be fun, and it’s immensely fulfilling to be part of. Instead of policing our society, we had the irresistible Tranquillity Team in pink…
There was always a sense that the third incarnation of the Climate Camp had to push the boundaries of what we, and the authorities, thought possible and avoid “another year, another camp” mentality. People have always walked for change – Gandhi’s salt march, the Jarrow crusade, the Aldermaston marches… and so the idea emerged of a Climate Caravan, a physical movement of people connecting together the history and geography of popular resistance and environmental protest.
It all…
Presenter: And to be clear, you would be in favour of saying to E.ON: “If you want to build this station, you have got to provide carbon capture and storage for it, for the emissions.”
Brown: There’s work to be done, to scale up carbon capture to the level you would be able to use it on a power generation plant. We don’t want to stop building the Kingsnorth station until everything is ready. We build Kingsnorth, and then, at the earliest possible date, we’d retrofit it with carbon…
The third and biggest British Camp for Climate Action fed, watered and educated perhaps 3,000 people from 3-11 August, sparked actions around the country, triggered 100 arrests and two prison sentences and culminated in a massive day of action against the proposed new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Essex.
Climate Camp highlighted the importance of the Kingsnorth decision as a key indicator of whether or not Britain is serious about avoiding catastrophic climate change (see…
On Saturday 21 June, a toddler in a child-seat and twenty cyclists from the Welsh Youth Forum on Sustainable Development, Gwerin Y Coed (Woodcraft Folk) and Grwp Beic Aberystwyth completed the 157 miles from Machynlleth to Cardiff to publicise the need for cycle-lanes and provision for bikes on public transport.
At the Senedd, where they delivered a petition, cyclists were welcomed by Leanne Wood AM and Gordon James of FoE Cymru. Although cyclists endured some hostile motorists, they…
The best thing was probably shovelling the coal out of the train onto the lines. It was both fun and satisfying. The coal wasn’t in the train any more and it definitely wasn’t going to be burned.
The worst thing about the whole experience – for me – was not being given our books in the police station. For others, it was their houses being raided, and lots of stuff taken, including flatmates’ possessions. (Only people living in Wales didn’t get raided.)
There were three groups…
If you were suffering from asthma, would breathing car fumes be a good treatment? If you were suffering from climate change would you choose to build six new power stations fired by coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel we have found?
The greed and short sightedness of government and business knows no bounds. As climate chaos bites, their answer is to go full steam ahead with fossil fuel expansion.
Whatever happens to oil supplies, we know for sure that there is enough coal in the…
Can wearing a T-shirt be a crime? This was the question we set out to answer on the opening day of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 on 27 March.
I was one of hundreds of people dressed in bright red “Stop Airport Expansion” T-shirts in the International Arrivals Hall that morning.
BAA, which runs Heathrow, was unveiling its grand new terminal before the global media, as a stepping stone to a third runway and a sixth terminal.
We wanted to create a visible sign of public opposition…
Surrounded by kit, I sit facing my friends, cheeks burning so red that they suggest I am overtired. I shake my head, avoid eye contact, unsure how to admit my feelings.
Finally I break, tension flooding out: “I don’t feel prepared; I don’t think I can do it….” I was terrified our actions would be too extreme, that people wouldn’t relate to us…. So many paralysing thoughts.
This is what it’s like when you cease to keep your head down; these are the agonies you experience when…
Ffos-y-fran is the biggest open-cast mine in the UK. Situated on the outskirts of Merthyr Tydfil, it is just 36 metres from some homes and near a nursery school. Legislation requiring a buffer zone of at least 500 metres for such schemes is pending but not set to be made retrospective.
Dust, smoke and noise from Ffos-y-fra will exacerbate health problems in a town that already has the lowest life expectancy in Wales. Mining is set to continue, 7am to 11pm, for 17 years.
“…Man-made climate change is scientific fact, but consensus about its social meaning is still a way off. Why are we doing so little about it? Can resource use be uncoupled from quality of life? Is humanity's desire to consume really stronger than its desire to survive?
This activist-academic initiative is welcome, though parts of it are idealistic, polemical and woolly. The editors propose unspecified radical change in response to global warming and do not try to engage with liberal…
Two days apart in late February, two groups protesting against plans to expand Heathrow took their protest aloft, first at Heathrow and then the House of Commons.
On 25 February, four Greenpeace protesters managed to get onto the airfield at Heathrow and climb on top of the 8.15pm British Airways flight from Manchester. There they unfurled a very large banner saying: "Climate Emergency – No Third Runway – Greenpeace".
A Greenpeace spokesperson said the protest had highlighted a "…
Climate campaigners won an important victory at the end of January when multinational oil company Shell was ditched as sponsor of the annual Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine `Wildlife Photographer of the Year' exhibition.
The campaign against Shell's sponsorship of the exhibition was co-ordinated by direct action group Rising Tide and was part of its Art Not Oil campaign which seeks to end oil industry sponsorship of arts and culture. Art Not Oil used creative direct…
