A Daisy Through Concrete

Hay on Wye Festival!

2011-05-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

I've got a new wave of tour dates to put up here soon, but here's a quick one for next Tuesday - if you're at the Hay Festival then come and see me in the This Is Rubbish tent!

This Is Rubbish is a brilliant project that rescues "waste" (i.e. surplus) food and transforms it into fantastic feasts. Here's their full timetable for Monday 30th and Tuesday 31st May - note that I'm scheduled for 2pm on the Tuesday, and may also be performing at the Tuesday night feast (tbc):

MONDAY 30TH MAY:

11am - 12pm Breakfast Roundtable: Talk food powers - policy makers vs supermarkets
with guests including Andrew Simms, author of Tescopoly. Served with breakfast bites.
12pm - 1pm Waste Drama! acting on our waste with rubbish games and waste wordplay
1pm - 2pm Lunch Roundtable: Talk food production - methods and madness
with special guests including Harriet Lamb, Director of the Fairtrade Foundation. Served with light lunch snacks.
2pm - 3pm Is This Rubbish? Re-Writing Waste; writing and performance workshop
3pm - 4pm Low Carbon Cook Off Compete and eat!
4pm - 5pm Varied Veggies and Fanciful Fruits vegetable puppet making and stories

TUESDAY 31ST MAY:

11am - 12pm Speak with your Mouthful Food love and poetry play for all ages
12pm - 1pm Low Carbon Cook Off Compete and eat!
1pm - 2pm Lunch Roundtable: Talk food future with special guests including
Clare Patey, artist & curator, Iain Cox, Ecostudio & Martin Bowman, Food Not Bombs. Served with light lunch snacks.
2pm - 3pm Food Off! Surplus snacks and quiz with Danny Chivers, legendary performance poet & author of the ‘No Nonsense Guide to Climate Change’
3pm - 4pm Tea & Tales with Talia Dream up delicious poetry & eat your words over tea.
7pm - 9pm FEAST Dine on delicious discards transformed into delectable dishes in a 3 course intimate feast. Entertainment by ‘Bard’. Text 07966071073 to book.

Hope to see you there!

Danny x

New tour dates for April/May

2011-04-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to update you all on my ongoing book / performance tour! I’m roaming around the country doing a rather unusual series of talks/gigs, mixing poetry, tales of protest, climate change news and bad jokes. It would be great to see you at any of the times and places listed below.

In the meantime, remember you can read the first chapter of my new book for free here, see me performing my anti-cuts poem here, and watch me wearing a terrifying T-shirt at last week’s BP AGM here.

Thanks so much to all of you for your ongoing support,

Danny x

***************************

LIVERPOOL, Saturday 23^rd April, 7pm: Talk and performance at the Next To Nowhere Social Centre (next door to News From Nowhere bookshop), basement of 96 Bold St, L1 4HY - http://www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk/noticeboard/bookshopevents/index.php

MANCHESTER, Sunday 24^th April: Talk and performance at the OKasional Café, tbc (email me for more info)

CAMBRIDGE, Monday 25^th April, 7.30pm: Performance for Headstand, at The Emperor, Hills Road. https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106539526099131

ST ALBANS, Tuesday 26^th April, 7.30pm: Performance at Rrrants at the Goat Inn, 37 Sopwell Lane, AL1 1RN. https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108247199260634

WALTHAMSTOW, Friday 6^th May, 7.30pm: Night of the Green Poets at the Hornbeam Café, 458 Hoe Street, E17 9AH. https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=152139374849507

LONDON, Monday 16^th May, 7.30pm: Talk and performance at Pogo Café, 76 Clarence Road, Hackney, E5 8HB.

HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, Thursday 19^th May, 7.30pm: Performance at Rrrants at the Olde Kings Arms, 41 High Street, HP1 3AF

WOOD FESTIVAL (TBC), 20^th – 22^nd May, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire. http://www.thisistruck.com/wood/

UPPSALA UNIVERSITY, Sweden, 24^th-25^th May: Talk, workshop and performance at the “Challenging Uncertainties” conference for Education in Sustainable Development, http://www.challenginguncertainties.se/

CARDIFF, Thursday 2^nd June: Talk and performance organised by local Friends of the Earth groups, details tbc (email me for more info)

LONDON, Sunday 5^th June: Performance at the London Green Fair, Regents Park, precise times tbc (email me for more info) http://www.londongreenfair.org/

That’s probably enough for now, but there are more gigs and talks in the pipeline for Edinburgh, St Andrews, Birmingham, Leeds, Narberth (oh yes) and of course the Glastonbury Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe. Watch this space…

It's here!

2011-03-02T06:04:00.001-08:00

It starts arriving in shops this week. It's all rather exciting.

The book is a friendly pocket-sized overview covering climate science, targets, solutions, history, politics, and what action we can usefully take, all in one handy little guidebook. It's intended both as a primer for people new to the topic (or confused about it) and also as a "where are we at and where do we go from here" update for more experienced campaigners. As you'd expect, I've scattered the text with as many weird analogies, bad jokes, cheeky asides and snippets of verse as possible, and have done my best to leave the reader feeling positive and empowered rather than sunk in doom and gloom.

We're pestering various media outlets to review it, I'll let you know how that goes. It's already had a very positive review in Green Prophet, a Middle East environmental magazine.

It's available on Amazon, and direct from the New Internationalist website, but it's much better to support your local independent bookshop if you can. You can find your nearest independent bookstore on this website here. If your local bookshop doesn't have a copy yet, they should be very happy to order it in for you (why not suggest they order a few more for the shop while they're at it...?).

New Internationalist is a publishing cooperative that puts out all kinds of great books but has only a small marketing budget. That means that I'm relying heavily on word of mouth to get this out there. Do you have friends or relatives who ought to read this book? If so, please put a good word their way (or maybe buy them one as a super-thoughtful gift). While you're campaigning to save your local library from the spending cuts, why not drop in and suggest they buy a copy (this works far more often than you'd think)? Plus, of course, once you've read the book it would be wonderful if you could write up your thoughts in a reader review on Amazon, and of course share it all over the Twitbookosphere.

I'm also launching into a major run of talks and performances to plug the book all over the UK. Why not come and say hi at one of the events below? If there isn't one near you yet, drop me a line on dannychivers@excite.com with any suggestions for likely venues and we'll see what we can sort out.

Thanks for all your support everyone!

Danny x

Wed 2nd March, 6.30pm: Talk at the Dialogue Society, London on the topic of social movements

Friday 4^th March, 7pm: Panel member, “A Million Climate Jobs” meeting, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford

Sat 5th March, 8pm: Evening poetry performance at 6 Billion Ways, London. http://6billionways.org.uk/

Tue 8th Feb, 6.30pm: Panel member at "Energy Union" event, Darwin Lecture Theatre, Malet Place, University College London

Fri 11^th March, 7.30pm: Short talk at the opening night of the Conversations with the Earth festival, The Old Book Binders, 9 Green Street, Oxford

Sat 12th March, 7pm: Poetry performance at Re:Versing The Damage, part of the Conversations with the Earth festival, The Old Book Binders, 9 Green Street, Oxford

Sat 19th March: Climate activist poetry workshops, Visions for Global Justice (Scottish campaigners’ convention run by WDM), Renfield St Stephen’s Centre, Bath Street, Glasgow, near King’s Theatre. http://www.wdm.org.uk/events/scottish-campaigners-convention.

Sun 20^th March, 2pm: Talk and performance at the Manchester University student anti-cuts occupation, Roscoe Building, Brunswick St, Manchester, M13

Mon 21st March, 8pm: Talk at Green Drinks Newport (Shropshire), The Royal Victoria Hotel, St Mary’s Street, Newport TF10 7AB. http://newport21.org.uk/

Thursday 31^st March: Performance in support of Pete The Temp’s great new poetry show “Pete The Temp verses Climate Change”, Ovo Theatre, St Albans, http://www.ovotheatre.org.uk

Fri 1st April, 7pm: Book launch event at RISC, 35-39 London Street

Reading, RG1 4PS

Weds 13^th April - Weds 20th April: Various dates to be confirmed as part of the Tar Sands Speaker Tour, featuring Indigenous activists from Canada and organised by the UK Tar Sands Network and Indigenous Environmental Network: www.no-tar-sands.org.uk

Tues 26th April: Poetry performance at Rrrants, The Goat Inn, 37 Sopwell Lane, St Albans, http://www.rrrants.com

Friday 6^th May: Poetry performance at the Hornbeam Café, 458 Hoe St, Walthamstow, E17 9AH. http://www.hornbeam.org.uk

Sun 15^th May – Weds 18^th May: Talk and performance sometime this week at the Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth (tbc) http://www.cat.org.uk/

Thurs 19th May: Poetry performance at Rrrants, The Olde Kings Arms 41 High Street, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP1 3AF. http://www.rrrants.com

Fri 20^th May – Sun 22^nd May: Poetry at the Wood Festival, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire (tbc)

Sat/Sun 18/19 June: Speaking and performing at the SW Friends of the Earth regional gathering (tbc)

Thurs 23rd - Sun 26th June: Poetry at the Speakers' Forum, Glastonbury Festival, various times

Weds 13th July, 7.30pm: Talk at Warborough & Shillingford WI, The Greet Hall, Sinodun View, Warborough, OX10

August: Talk and workshop at Methodist Fellowship event, also possible performance at the Edinburgh Fringe (if I get my act together)

Undercover and over-the-top

2011-01-12T09:52:00.000-08:00

This week, I was meant to be on trial at Nottingham Crown Court on a bizarre trumped-up protest
charge. However, the trial spectacularlycollapsed due to revelations about an undercover cop
who had infiltrated the UK environmental movement. Yes, my life has become a dodgy spy novel.

I’ve written up the full story for the New Internationalist. To my knowledge, it's the only account of
the whole bizarre affair from beginning to end that you can find online. Check it out:

Undercover and over-the-top: the collapse of the Ratcliffe trial

Weird weird world.

My other exciting news is...I’ve written a book! It’s called “The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate
Change”, and it’s my attempt to write an accessible and fun pocket-sized overview of this
complex scary mega-subject, combining all the basics with the latest facts and analysis. It goes
through the science step-by-step in non-technical language, explaining the key evidence and
debunking common misconceptions with the help of (inevitably, for me) bad puns and daft
analogies. It then covers climate targets, solutions, history, politics, and the way forward, with
top tips on how you can go beyond recycling and lightbulbs and actually change stuff for the
better, all in one handy little guidebook. It’s also got a poem in, obviously (I wonder if you can
guess which one?).

The book hits the shops in March, but you can read the first chapter for free and/or order an
advance copy from the New Internationalist website here:

The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change

Please do spread the word to anyone who might be interested. I’m thinking about organising a
book tour, so if you’re part of any sort of local group that might be interested in a combined
climate talk and poetry performance, let me know!

Finally, if you haven’t already seen it my poetry video on the government spending cuts and tax
dodgers is still online here.

Best wishes for 2011 everyone!

The BBC - unbiased reporting on behalf of the powerful

2010-12-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

After last week's protests, the BBC interviewed Jody McIntyre - a young political activist who's been pulled out of his wheelchair by the police. You can read Jody's own account of the protest here, and watch the interview below:

Sadly, this is representative of most of the mainstream media throughout the protests. Much respect is due to Jody McIntyre for holding his own very effectively against the awful interviewer, but this was such a perfect example of how bad the BBC can be at reporting this stuff that I've written a complaint. Other people have too. If you want to join in, go and fill in the form here.

Here's the text of my complaint:

The context: a man with cerebral palsy has been pulled out of his wheelchair and dragged across the concrete - twice - by police officers. These officers have given no good reason for doing this - both times, their actions appear to have been completely unprovoked.

So when the victim of these attacks - political activist and blogger Jody McIntyre - is interviewed on the BBC, you'd expect the interviewer to show a bit of respect, allow Mr McIntyre to tell his story and ask him his opinions about it. Instead, the interviewer Ben Brown launches into a bizarrely aggressive series of questions, suggesting that Mr McIntyre had somehow behaved in a threatening manner to provoke the police. From his wheelchair. Which he couldn't wheel himself. Mr McIntyre himself points out early on how ludicrous it is to suggest that he could in any way pose a physical threat to a line of armed and armoured riot police, but Brown returns to this ridiculous, accusatory line of questioning again and again.

Whenever Mr McIntyre starts talking about more useful and relevant issues such as police violence against other protesters such as Alfie Meadows; the damage that would be caused by education cuts; or the media's double standards in how they report injuries to protesters as compared to the police or the powers-that-be, Brown ignores him and keeps repeating the same offensive suggestion that McIntyre must have done something to deserve being attacked by the police. It was horribly biased reporting and completely disgusting to watch. The interviewee was not given a fair hearing and was treated as though he was the attacker rather than the victim.

On a wider note: is Mr Brown's memory really so short that he can't remember any incidents of unprovoked or unjustified police attacks on protesters (or passers-by)? Why is someone so clearly anti-protest and pro-police violence being employed as an "impartial" reporter, to report from the frontline of protests for the BBC? Does he really believe that a few youths chucking stones at riot cops' shields justifies the mass batoning of unarmed protesters, horse charges against terrified children and a twenty-year-old in hospital for brain surgery after being struck by a police officer from behind?

I would like Ben Brown to make a personal apology to Mr McIntyre for his disgraceful and unprofessional behaviour, and I would like assurances from the BBC that they will use less biased journalists than Ben Brown for their frontline protest reporting from now on.

Yours sincerely,

Danny Chivers, Oxford

Shop a Scrounger

2010-12-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

Here we go - slam poetry vs. tax dodging and spending cuts!

If you like it, please share the link or embed it on your own blog/webpage. Let's remind people these cuts aren't necessary, they're ideological - and there are plenty of alternatives. Plus, everyone needs to know that there really is a rhyme for "Guernsey".

Big thanks to Zoe Broughton and Pete Speller for very generously volunteering their filming and editing skills to make this happen!

Watching the watchers

2010-11-17T02:33:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday, during the anti-tuition fees march, hundreds of people occupied Millbank (the location of Tory Party HQ) while thousands more cheered them on, in an amazing piece of direct action protest. While this was going on, a few people broke windows, there was a small amount of push-and-shove with the cops (with some students getting nastily batoned) and one person stupidly dropped a fire extinguisher from the roof (for which he was angrily booed by the crowd).

Rather than report this for what it was - an inspiring, largely spontaneous mass occupation with a bit of (understandable) property damage - most of the media chose to describe it as "a descent into violence", and sadly a lot of people who should know better (including the NUS President) seem to be parroting that line. I wish the fire extinguisher thing hadn't happened, but to condemn thousands of protesters for the action of a single person is disgraceful.

Many people who were there will now feel worried about becoming victims of a high-profile witch-hunt simply for taking part in a bit of civil disobedience. More windows get smashed on an average Saturday night in London than at Millbank on Wednesday, but elements of the media are treating it like the crime of the century, and launching vendettas against the people involved. The Government are about to gut the education system, strip away legal aid, privatise huge swathes of our public services and hurl millions of people out of work, off benefits and into poverty - we need to get our priorities straight here, and go after the Government, not the people who are standing up against the cuts!

I personally would not have broken the windows at Millbank. Property damage has its place as an activist tactic - for example, the "decommissioning" of arms factories, weaponry or bulldozers - but I suspect this particular occupation would have been more effective without it [3pm update - I've been reminded that the broken windows did achieve something useful by making the protest far more hard-hitting and high-profile - see the comments below]. However, I still want to support the people who did it - they were young people watching their future being stolen from them, and so were understandably angry (and, as this video shows, several of the windows were broken simply to let more people in). All of us who oppose the cuts should be looking to stand together in solidarity. To be successful, this anti-cuts uprising is going to need everyone, from polite letter-writers to marchers to occupiers, and while it's fine for us to debate tactics amongst ourselves - and sometimes disagree - we can't allow ourselves to be divided and ruled. Everyone who cares about stopping the cuts should show their support to the Millbank invaders.

One group who've been doing just that are FitWatch. They were originally formed in 2007 to prevent on-the-ground harassment of protesters by police "Forward Intelligence Teams" (FITs) - those officers who photograph and film you just for attending a demonstration or going to a meeting, and gather vast reams of intrusive information on campaigners. After the Millbank protest, FitWatch posted some advice on their website for anyone who was at the occupation and was worried about police harassment. The police responded this Monday by closing the FitWatch site down.

At which point, the social networks kicked into action. Within hours, hordes of outraged people had reposted the offending advice on their own websites, blogs, and Facebook pages. After a flurry of media coverage - i.e. a load of free publicity - the FitWatch site came back online today, only to seemingly be suspended once again. [Update at 3pm - the new Fitwatch site is working fine, it was just a "DNS transfer issue", apprarently. Woop!]

I'm told this is just a temporary glitch, and that some browsers just can't see the site yet. Hopefully that's correct, and the site will be visible to everyone soon. In the meantime, you can check out their advice to the Millbank protesters here. As lots of people have already reposted that one, I'm going to put up another FitWatch article that the police would rather you didn't see - all about the police trying to use the student demo as an excuse to return to the heavy-handed tactics that led to the death of Ian Tomlinson at last year's G20 protests:

Police seek to capitalise on student demo to justify further repression and their own budgets
(from www.fitwatch.org.uk)

Although the actions of the students last week were inspiring and empowering, it should come as no surprise the media savvy police are using it as an ideal opportunity to both fight back against cuts to their budgets and to counter the recent bad press regarding protest policing.

The NCDE domestic extremist units are claiming they have suffered in the cuts. Former head of NCDE, Anton Setchell has retired, and head of NETCU, Steve Pearl has been given the boot, and both have been replaced by a cheaper, junior model - Detective Chief Supt Adrian Tudway. Steve seems particularly upset about getting sacked and has been whining to the Telegraph about how, if he was still running the units, their intelligence on the riots would have been better.

As usual, he is talking nonsense. The police didn’t predict the disorder because it wasn’t planned; the march wasn’t hijacked. I read the same websites as the cops, I know lots of activists, the intelligence we all had before the demo would have been similar. Yes, there were rumours of civil disobedience, and autonomous blocs, but this is true of every major demonstration. It would certainly have been true on the entirely peaceful February 15 Iraq demo, and there was no particular reason to believe this would be any different.

This is a desperate attempt by an unpopular unit to appear relevant and we must not be fooled. NCDE are bleating about cuts when only a few weeks ago they were squandering money sending Ian Caswell to Plymouth to monitor and photograph Trident Ploughshares pacifists.

The lack of police action at the protest had nothing to do with the cuts. Ever since the bad publicity surrounding G20 and Kingsnorth Climate Camp, the MET have taken a softly softly approach towards protest, and it was always obvious that eventually this would fail and it would be used as an excuse to continue repressing and harassing protesters. One senior police officer, speaking to The Guardian admitted the protests had done them “a favour”, stating “In the past we have been criticised for being too provocative. During the next demo no one can say a word.”

The students who occupied Millbank are not domestic extremists, they are angry, brave and passionate people who care about what this government is doing to the country. They have grown up witnessing the futility of being herded from A to B and listening to the platitudes of irrelevant politicians.

Ordinary people are angry, with even a Daily Star poll showing the majority in favour of the students rioting. The fight back is on, people will not be repressed, and no amount of intelligence on the usual suspects from a redundant unit is going to make a difference.

New Poem!

2010-11-14T06:59:00.000-08:00

As usual, it works better in performance than written down (some of the rhythms are particularly awkward in this one, heh) but you should get the general idea...

Shop a Scrounger

People of Britain!
If you’re not exactly smitten
By the huge chunks being bitten
From the nation’s welfare, health and education
If you’re not sure what to make
Of the public sector being wrecked or
Stretched until it breaks
In a scrambled right-wing fiscal gamble
With our future as the stake
Don’t worry! There’s a piece of simple action you can take.

Because
While most people in this country are prepared to pay their way
There’s a minority of scroungers
Stashing heaps of cash away
Yes, it’s an interesting fact
That if we gathered all the tax
That’s owed by wealthy tax avoiders
Plus the stuff that they evade
Then we could raise twice as much money*
As the spending cuts would save.

But the Government
Seems strangely intent
On not pursuing this rich vein of wrongdoing
Which is why I’m bringing you in.

It’s your duty to try to keep an eye
– OK, to spy –
If you think your wealthy neighbours are tax-dodging on the sly.
It’s a vital civic task – all we ask is that you’re ready to grass up any dodgy-looking members of the wealthy ruling class.
It’s fine to call our hotline with anything suspicious: a secret collection of antique dishes? A breeding pond of rare oriental fishes? An offshore account in Mauritius?
If every million he earns he
Sends to a friend in Guernsey;
If her spouse runs the business from a house in the Seychelles
That should ring some alarm bells…

Have you spotted the boss of Marks and Sparks
Sneaking out after dark
To meet his accountant on a bench in the park?
Have you figured out the whereabouts
Of Richard Branson’s hidden ransoms,
Murdoch’s dirty stocks
or Lord Ashcroft’s cash loft?

If you spot a dodger, just lodge a complaint – unless of course you’re a sinister Government minister with a few million tucked away yourself on an Atlantic shelf and you’re using the deficit as an excuse to cut loose that pesky welfare state and flog off health, education and the assets of the nation to your corporate mates – in which case, best to lay off the tax divers and skivers coz if they paid their dues then your excuse to gut the state would suddenly…evaporate.

In the words of a friend who was sat on the floor
Of a Vodafone store
Tax demand in her hand
Banners blocking the door:
We just can’t ignore all this stuff anymore.
Let’s cash in our passion, not hold it offshore
Drag them out of their loopholes, lay their assets bare
And calmly demand that they pay their fair share
Till the case for the cuts melts away in the air.

Has your future been nicked by some comfortable craven
Relaxed on his back in a sunny tax haven
On a luxury, tax-free plush sun lounger?
Don’t take this lying down:
Shop a corporate scrounger.

Danny Chivers, November 2010

* The proposed spending cuts are £80bn, phased in over four years. Spread evenly, this means the Government would save £20bn the first year, £40bn the second year, £60bn the third year and £80bn the fourth year. So £200bn over four years. Meanwhile, tax avoidance, evasion and late payments totals an estimated £120bn per year, or £480 over four years - more than twice as much between now and 2014.

No-Nonsense Teaser

2010-09-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

So I'm in the final stages of writing the new, updated version of the No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change, due to be published by the New Internationalist early next year. The book is already being promoted on the NI website so, you know, there's no pressure or anything. I am completely calm and it's all under control. Yes.

Anyway, this is why I've been absent from this blog for a while, and will be for a bit longer; in the meantime, here's a little teaser from the upcoming book. It's my take on everyone's favourite climate wonder technology, Carbon Capture and Storage!

*******************************************************************

Wouldn’t it be great if we could just make all those pesky fossil fuel emissions disappear? If we could just suck the CO2 out of the power stations, steel works and tar sands refineries, bury it underground somewhere, and just keep on burning coal, gas and oil into the future? Wouldn’t that be a brilliant solution to all our problems?

Well, if you happen to live next to an opencast coal mine, tar sands extraction project, oil well or gas pipeline, probably not. But if we forget about all the people who are being negatively impacted by fossil fuel extraction and just concentrate on stopping climate change, wouldn’t it be a great idea?

Governments and energy companies certainly think so – they’ve been pouring time and money into “Carbon Capture and Storage” (CCS) research, and talking it up at every opportunity. Listening to pronouncements from energy and environment ministers in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia or China, you’d be forgiven for believing that this technology is just on the horizon and is about to solve all our climate change problems. Sadly, the reality isn’t quite so promising.

The technology does exist to capture CO2 from fossil-fuel burning on a small scale and then either store it in a tank or pump it underground, but scaling it up to the point where we can start sucking the carbon out of entire power plants is a whole other matter. Firstly, we’re talking about a lot of carbon dioxide. A typical coal-fired power station could easily emit around 8 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Capturing, liquefying, piping and storing that much gas would be a huge operation, and no-one yet knows if it could be made to work at all at that scale. Globally, humanity produces nearly 13 billion tonnes of CO2 per year from coal alone – are we really sure we can store all of that safely underground somewhere, for ever? It’s five times the volume of oil that we currently suck out of the ground , so just capturing 20% of our coal emissions would need new infrastructure roughly the same size as the entire global oil industry. Ouch.

Secondly, carbon capture looks set to be hugely expensive – all that extra infrastructure will takes lots of money and energy to build and maintain, and is likely to make the coal plants too expensive to run (this is why energy corporations have been trying to persuade governments to foot the bill for carbon capture). Thirdly, it could only ever be a partial solution, capturing 80-90% of the emissions from each power station, at best – and it would be no help at all with vehicles, home heating, deforestation, and all the other emissions sources.

All of this uncertainty means that working CCS – scaled-up, tried and tested carbon capture that could be safely fitted to a large power station - is still a long way off (if it’s ever going to happen at all). The most optimistic industry experts reckon it’ll arrive in 2030; others make it ten or twenty years later. In other words: way too late for avoiding runaway climate change. It looks like we need to stick to our original targets and keep the fossil fuels in the ground.

Despite this, governments and business keep talking about carbon capture as though it’s an imminent solution to everything. Cynical people like me can’t help noticing that this is a brilliant distraction tactic, allowing them to fob off public concern while continuing to burn coal and dig up the tar sands. Good old business-as-usual.

It’s a bit like: You’re driving towards a cliff edge, faster and faster. The people in the back seats are shouting at you to turn the car. You shout back, “It’s just not politically possible to change direction at this point! But don’t worry, I’m pretty sure these untested home-made bolt-on wings will be ready in time.”

**********************************************************************

PS To the mysterious "Sensibleman" who submitted a comment on my last blog post: I didn't publish it because it was just a collection of personal insults. I'm very happy to be challenged and criticised, but for goodness sake have a bit of imagination about it and don't just fling boring old ad hominen attacks around. Go on, have another go. I know you can do better.

- Brought to you by the Campaign To Make Internet Commenting A Bit Less Nasty and Pointless

Intermission

2010-08-27T06:40:00.000-07:00

I'm hammering away at the third and final part of my Climate Camp report-back, but in the meantime here's a video of me performing "Consumed" this week in Edinburgh, from the fine folks at Climate Camp TV:

Five things you probably didn't know about the Edinburgh Climate Camp: Part 2

2010-08-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

OK, so Part 1 turned into a bit of a rant about media coverage. Sorry about that. I feel much better now.

Let’s get on with some more interesting stuff:

2) 150 protesters came within a whisker of occupying RBS’s headquarters

On Sunday, around 150 people from the camp, wearing white hazard suits and face masks and accompanied by a thumping sound system, strode across the small bridge separating the Camp from RBS. The police weren’t expecting any large demonstrations until Monday, and so were caught largely off-guard, with only a dozen or so officers in the immediate area. The protesters pushed through the police line and, whooping and cheering, made their way right up to the windows of the bank’s headquarters.

From my vantage point on the other side of the stream, I couldn’t make out all the details of what was happening at the front of the crowd, but I heard the crash of breaking glass and quickly realised what was going on. They were trying to get into the building!

RBS headquarters is a fortress. There’s no conceivable way in except through one of the large plate windows, and someone had obviously prepared for this moment and brought the necessary tools for the job. It seems that they did manage to create a large enough hole to get people inside, but police reinforcements arrived and just managed to push the activists back, and back over the bridge.

Just imagine what would have happened if they’d got inside. If hundreds of activists had occupied the bank’s headquarters, it would have had incredible symbolic power: bringing the message about RBS’s destructive investments right into the belly of the beast. Sadly, the media mostly reported the incident as though it was an act of vandalism rather than an almost-successful invasion attempt. All the same, it was probably the most full-on and confrontational action I’ve ever seen at a Climate Camp, and when everyone gathered to discuss it in the main marquee later that night, you could taste the energy and excitement in the air. As we lurch deeper into the climate crisis, and as governments and corporations still fail to act with the necessary urgency, we need more stuff going on across the whole of society – including increasingly bold direct action.

This kind of action can seem extreme, or frightening. I used to feel that way about this sort of thing myself, not so long ago. But the more I learn about the urgency of this crisis and our failure to address it, the more I accept the need for increasingly loud wake-up calls, so long as they are non-violent and targeting the real culprits. If this was the only kind of action that was going on, then yes, I think there’d be a risk of alienating people. But so long as we are also engaging, connecting with and inspiring people in many other ways, then confrontational actions like this one can play a vital role in pushing the debate forward, showing governments, corporations and the public that climate justice is such a serious and urgent issue that people are prepared to break the law in order to stop it.

3) The Camp was a calm, friendly, safe and inspiring place

It’s hard to express in words the sense of community that the Climate Camp can create. Unlike the Blackheath camp in 2009, this camp consisted mainly of people who were there to actively participate, not to just pass through. This meant that everyone got stuck into setting up and running the site, cooking, cleaning, putting on workshops and planning actions. I’ve never experienced anything like it outside the Camps: 1,000 people all living and working together, making decisions by consensus, from varied backgrounds but united by a powerful common cause. Not everyone is there to break the law, but there's an underlying agreement about "diversity of tactics" - that everyone at the Camp is taking action for climate justice in a way that works for them, and that we're happy to work together under the same umbrella even though some people want to hand out leaflets and others want to chain themselves to bulldozers.

As I said in my last post, it’s not perfect yet – some accidental hierarchies inevitably emerge, based on who has the most knowledge, experience, or eloquence; old hands can forget how alien the camp can seem to new arrivals, especially those not familiar with similar events (or those from very different cultures, as in the case of the Indigenous Canadian tar sands activists who visited the camp); the consensus process is very much a work in progress and there are always communication failures and things that fall through the cracks. Despite all this, it’s an incredibly inspiring thing to be a part of – a tiny glimpse of an alternative world where we all look out for each other, share out tasks equally and have loads of fun together. I’d urge anyone with an interest in climate change to get along to a Climate Camp (if it happens again) – it’s an unforgettable experience.

The fact that the policing was much more low-key than past camps also helped, of course. How much this is to do with differing policing strategies between England and Scotland, and how much it was to do with the hammering that we gave the cops in the media and the courts last year over their oppressive policing of protest, is very hard to say (but that won't stop me from saying it: I reckon it's mainly because of the media and legal hammering).

I left the Camp feeling energised (well, physically knackered but mentally energised), optimistic, and part of a powerful and exciting community of climate activists. Reading other people's words on the subject (such as here and here) it seems as though I'm not alone...

Part 3 to follow soon - which will, confusingly, contain points 4) and 5). Hurrah for forward planning!

Five things you probably didn’t know about the Edinburgh Climate Camp (Part 1)

2010-08-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

It was always going to be too good to last. After a gradual trend over the last few years towards the half-decent reporting of climate protest, we've slipped back to media-as-usual.

The Camp for Climate Action pounced cheekily onto RBS’s back garden last Wednesday night, setting up tents, marquees, wind turbines and compost toilets in the very grounds of the bank’s global headquarters. Their mission: to highlight the links between finance and climate change, to expose the fact that RBS is the UK bank with the biggest investment in fossil fuels (including the disastrous Tar Sands extraction projects in Canada), and to challenge the bonkers notion that endless economic growth is possible on a finite planet. All of this stuff was laid out in a rather good newspaper-style pamphlet that the protesters have been dishing out around the country for the last couple of months – there’s an online copy here.

This aerial photo shows the section of the Camp nearest to RBS HQ - there's more of the camp behind the trees (photo by kriptick, from the Climate Camp photo pool)

You'd know little of this from reading the newspapers, especially the Scottish press (I’ve not seen or heard any TV or radio coverage, but I don’t suspect that they’re wildly different). It pains me to link to any of it, but there are some pretty typical (and terrible) examples here and here. I’ve attended all five Climate Camps (six if you include the G20 camp), and while there have been plenty of examples of bad media along the way I think this one's had the greatest disconnect between what actually happened on the ground and the way it was reported. To spend five days in the company of such gentle, compassionate, and inspiring people, and then see them described across the media with such a weird mixture of bile and ridicule (strangely, climate activists seem to be dangerous radicals and spoilt student wannabes at the same time) – even though I know I shouldn't be surprised, I still find it pretty upsetting.

Scary, dangerous threats to society, setting up a campsite in a particularly terrifying fashion (photo by Amelia Gregory, from the Climate Camp photo pool)

The Climate Camp wasn’t perfect. There are still plenty of things that need improving in this energetic and slightly chaotic action network – but the Camp and its participants bear little resemblance to the caricatures presented by large chunks of media this week.

Here are five things that you may not have picked up from the mainstream coverage:

1) The “oil spill” was nothing to do with the Climate Camp

In 2007 it was “hoax bombs” (invented by an Evening Standard journalist). In 2008 it was “a weapons stash” (a bag of cooking and camping equipment, discovered by the Kent Police) and “70 injuries to police officers” (about a dozen cases of heatstroke, backache and bee stings). In 2009, we were told that the police were just trying to help Ian Tomlinson and the protesters got in the way (the video footage, of course, told a very different story, with protesters among the first people to try to help Mr Tomlinson after the vicious police attack). This year, we’ve got an “oil spill”.

According to a police press release, they found “a substance similar to diesel or vegetable oil” spilled onto two major roads in Edinburgh. No evidence of any kind has been presented to link this to the Camp, and no-one from the Camp has claimed any knowledge about the event. The police have provided little information on what exactly the substance was or the quantity involved, and have released no pictures of the “spill”.

Compare this with every other piece of direct action that the Climate Camp has ever been involved in (I’ve documented many of them on this blog in the past). In every case, the target of the action was a corporation or government, never the general public; no-one’s safety was ever purposefully put at risk; and each action was cheerfully claimed by the Camp and usually put into a press release.

I’ve been in enough Climate Camp meetings to know that there is no way that an “oil spill” action like this, if it existed, would be condoned or supported by the Camp. There is a good understanding between everyone involved as to what kind of actions are beyond the pale, and anything that puts the public at risk would definitely fall into that category.

So what actually happened? Giving the police the benefit of the doubt and assuming there really was some sort of spill, there are several possibilities:

Possibility a) It wasn’t an oil slick at all. Considering how many groups of people were carrying large amounts of molasses and treacle around Edinburgh that weekend (see below), it’s not hard to imagine that some could get accidentally spilt while crossing a road. "Climate activists accidentally spill cake ingredients" isn't quite so exciting a headline though.

A protest outside Cairn Energy on Monday. Note to police: this is not real oil. (photo by Amelia Gregory, from the Climate Camp photo pool)

Possibility b) It is incredibly unlikely – but just within the bounds of possibility - that some unknown person or persons purposefully poured something onto the road. Even if this happened (and I don’t think it did), and even if it was meant to be something to do with climate change (in some incredibly tenuous way) I think it would be incredibly unfair to blame the Camp for this. The network has spent the last five years training and supporting people to hold sit-ins, lock-ons and non-violent occupations, but has never done anything to encourage people to take actions that would endanger the public. On the rare occasions that I’ve heard anything along those lines suggested in a meeting (usually by an undercover journalist), it would be instantly and unequivocally rejected by the other participants. Action training sessions at the Camp stress safety above all else - the safety of both the participants and the public. If anyone had come up with an inappropriate or dangerous plan at the Edinburgh camp, the “Action Support” team would have gently but firmly steered them away from the idea. In fact, the training, education, and action support provided by the Camp over the past five years (along with other action networks such as Plane Stupid, Rising Tide and Climate Rush) has probably made UK climate protest far safer, and greatly lowered the risk of unsafe actions.

Possibility c) Whatever it was, it was spilt by someone else. All sorts of stuff gets accidentally spilt on busy roads all the time – and just think how many tens of thousands of vehicles must have passed along those roads during the Camp. This is the most overwhelmingly likely explanation.

So how the hell did this unrelated event become the focal point for all the mainstream media this week, an oily stick for beating Climate Camp? Sadly, all the usual explanations apply. The police decided to link the “spill” to the Camp and put it in a press release, where it was seized upon by a sensationalist media looking for a thrilling angle. This plays neatly into the police’s hands – all of the negative press coverage and legal cases last year after their G20 behaviour was exposed has forced them to police the Camps more lightly in 2009 and 2010, but the more that protesters are demonised in the media, the easier it will be for the police to get a free (heavy) hand again in the future. This doesn't necessarily mean that the "spill" rumour was invented by the police – it was probably just part of their usual ongoing PR assualt, of unscrupulously seizing any opportunity to portray activists in a bad light, and they just happened to score a direct hit with this one. Sadly, the media have gone back to their pre-G20 habit of automatically believing everything the police say, and treating the protesters’ side of the story with suspicion or dismissal.

Other circumstances didn’t help – the fact that the Camp’s media team were more used to dealing with the London-based media, and so had few friendly contacts in the Scottish press; the fact that quite a few of the protesters were not Scottish, but were targeting a financial institution with “Scotland” in its name; the fact that, unlike Heathrow or Kingsnorth, the climate activists were not standing together with a directly affected local community. Overstretched Camp volunteers may have got a few things wrong too, such as putting a "guide to dealing with the media" - that casts journalists in a rather unfavourable light - online where journalists were bound to read it. Plus, of course, the corporate media are rarely going to report fairly on an action movement that attempts to directly challenge the power of corporations and wealthy elites.

All of these things have added up to a largely undeserved couple of bad media days for the Camp for Climate Action - which is a shame, because back in the real world the Camp was, overall, a positive experience and some pretty important things happened. I’ll detail some of them in a separate post, because the first of my “five things” has turned out rather longer than expected! Stay tuned for points 2 to 5, which I promise will be a bit more upbeat...

This week. Be there.

2010-08-15T04:39:00.000-07:00

Radio Silence

2010-08-10T09:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry for being off air for a while - interesting occurences in my private life (in a good way!) have been taking up a lot of my time, and now I'm busy writing a book (just a small one mind), so probably won't be posting much in the next month or so.

In the meantime, you should probably figure out how you're going to get to this year's Climate Camp - it's happening THIS MONTH and it's gonna be ace.

Now THIS is a political party

2010-05-17T02:42:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, 150 people invaded a Shell petrol station in Islington to protest about the company's destructive activities in Canada, Ireland and Nigeria. Watch this wonderful film to get a sense of what it what like:

Inspiring protests like this one are happening all the time, but are often ignored or downplayed by the mainstream media. We're very fortunate to have video activists like Felix of You & I Films, who made this little gem - now it's up to us to get it out there, far and wide!

Chickening out of the climate challenge

2010-04-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

I've got a new post up on my "serious" blog - Chickening out of the Climate Challenge.

It was originally written for the Guardian website, but then they never posted it in the end. I might bug them about it and see if they'll let me do an updated version after tonight's "leadership" "debate".

Should be something by Monbiot up in Guardiansville tomorrow about our national carbon calculator though. Hopefully that'll give us a wave of new users, nicely timed coz we're just ironing out a few bugs. Wheeeeeee.

An alternative election message...

2010-04-24T01:09:00.000-07:00

Help me to shove a video spanner into the General Election!

As the election hype builds to a frenzy, it's important to remind ourselves that we're each far more than just a vote:

I would love your help in getting this out there before the General Election - please plaster it all over your blogs and facebooks and twitters and whatnots, and don't forget good old-fashioned email too.

Huge thanks to Jamie at pheme.org and Cameron Hills for all their help with this one.

Yanking the levers of power

2010-04-21T01:58:00.000-07:00

Right. It's here at last. The project I've spent nearly two years working on - a carbon calculator for the entire UK economy.

The idea was to create an interactive tool to show where all the UK's emissions were really coming from, and how different policies or behaviour changes would affect them. After slogging away at this on my own for a year, I decided to approach the Guardian to see if I could get it on their website - you'll be shocked to learn that, huge as my readership is, more people would be likely to see it over there than on this blog. I managed to catch their interest, they got their web team on the case, and we've been working to pull it together for the last six months or so.

And now, finally, it's arrived. Go and have a play, take control of the UK economy, and try to reduce our emissions to a safe level. Some particularly interesting things that stand out for me:

* Consumption is absolutely key. It's not possible to get down to a safe level without a reduction in the amount of stuff we consume as a nation.
* Ten new nuclear plants would make a pifflingly small difference to overall emissions, in relation to the massive cost and risk they would involve.
* None of the major political parties are offering policies that come near what the model tells us we need - the Guardian has got the energy/environment spokespeople for each party to have a go on the tool, and post their results online. The Conservative Greg Clark's response is particularly hilarious - he manages to totally evade the issue and talks about watermelons instead. Brilliant.

I'd love to know what you think...the model isn't perfect, and I'm hoping to be able to work on improving it as we go along. Your suggestions would be very welcome.

Being serious for a moment...

2010-04-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

I've just "launched" (i.e. hastily hammered together and shoved online) a new blog, focusing more on my professional work. That'll be the place for info about my carbon footprinting, schools workshops, and climate change speaker stuff. I won't post on it very often - it's more of an info hub for plugging the various bits of paid work I do in order to pay the bills - but if anything interesting happens over there, I'll let you know. In the meantime, you can expect the sporadic, eccentric updates on this blog that you've grown to know and vaguely register.

The reason for setting up my pro blog now is that there's an exciting project I've been working on for a while that's about to go live...watch this space.

Beyond Petulant

2010-04-16T05:47:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, I went along with some other folk to BP's Annual General Meeting, to help remind them that launching into a filthy, destructive, and poisonous Canadian tar sands project might not be their best idea ever.

I didn't go into the meeting itself, but a number of critical shareholders did, along with two representatives from the Indigenous communities on the front line of tar sands extraction. Jess Worth describes what happened on her blog:

...most people in the room were listening hard when Niall O’Shea from Co-operative Asset Management got up to make his case.
He talked about how extremely carbon-intensive tar sands extraction is, with significant impacts on water, the local environment and indigenous communities. He argued that BP’s business case didn’t stand up to scrutiny, that the figures presented were way too optimistic, in part because they are based on the assumption that we will continue to pay ever higher prices for oil, whereas in reality high oil prices tend to put the brakes on economies and bring the price back down. Furthermore, as and when they drift higher, this is likely to create demand for alternative sources of energy.
But most importantly, he concluded, there is an ethical question here about the large-scale exploitation of carbon-intensive resources when we as a society need to be going in the opposite direction.
He was swiftly followed by a powerful speech from George Poitras, the former chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation which is 240 km downstream from the tar sands region where BP's planned project will be situated. ‘Many characterise tar sands as ‘dirty oil’. But to me, it’s ‘bloody oil’,’ he began, as the row of board members sitting up on the platform feverishly scribbled notes, ‘because we are observing many rare types of cancer in my community. The governments are not coming to our assistance, the Canadian government even charged my physician when he was just doing his job.'

BP's response to all this criticism? They essentially stuck their fingers in their ears and went "la la la", by reading out a prepared statement that didn't address any of the questions they'd been asked.

But my "favourite" fact about BP's tar sands project is that the company's chosen projections for oil demand - the numbers that make the project look economically viable - are based on the "business as usual" energy use scenario in a recent International Energy Agency report - a scenario where no significant climate policies are put into place and global fossil fuel use continues to climb. The selfsame report points out that such a scenario would almost inevitably lead to "the global average temperature rising by up to 6 degrees C" and "massive climatic change and irreparable damage to the planet".

In other words, BP's proposed tar sands project only makes financial sense in a doomsday scenario. They're planning for the end of the world. This was pointed out to them in the AGM by Louise Rouse of FairPensions - and, sure enough, they completely ignored the question.

This is denial on a whole new level - the wilful ignoring of certain undesirable facts from the very report that they're relying on for their whole business strategy. The best comparison I can make is a 5-year-old child responding to facts they don't like:

"Come on now Tommy, we need to head home - it's 5 o'clock."
"No it isn't"
"We need to go - your Grandma's coming round for tea tonight."
"She's not she's not she's not."

This week, BP proudly told its shareholders that it was leading them boldly into the apocalypse - and 85% of them cheerfully voted for it. But hey, when we're all scrabbling together for tasty rats amidst the ruins of civilisation, at least those BP shares will be generating a nice return.

Disasterbation

2010-03-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

Another new poem. This one's most definitely a performance piece - the chorus is sung, and I generally attempt to get the audience to join in.

I was trying to write something a bit more light-hearted and fun than my usual stuff, but it went a bit...wrong.

Disasterbation

You know it’s wrong, but still
You get a guilty little thrill
Every time there’s an explosion on the news.
And if the world is going to hell
You tell yourself you might as well
Just party hard because there’s nothing left to lose
And though you know it isn’t right you start to feel an odd delight
With each new piece of doom and gloom that’s beamed into your room tonight
Does war now thrill you to the core? Does global warming get you hot?
Does swine flu make you grunt and snort with satisfaction?
While the recession is caressing you upon your sweetest spot?
Disaster makes your heart beat faster, there’s a name for this reaction
It’s called

Woah! Disasterbation!
It’s a solution for a panic-stricken nation
Woah! Disasterbation!
It’s all too late, come celebrate, disasterbate.

So the oil is running out, while war reports keep flooding in
And politicians just keep dishing on more rhetoric and spin
If we can’t save society then, well, we might as well destroy it
And if it’s gonna happen anyway we might as well enjoy it
Let’s Armageddon it on! Fuel up, we’re driving to destruction!
Let’s light a global climate pyre using these fire safety instructions!
If billions die in floods and flames, well hey, you’ll probably be saved
And get to madly max it out in some apocalyptic rave
While singing

Woah! Disasterbation!
It’s a solution for a panic-stricken nation
Woah! Disasterbation!
It’s all too late, come celebrate, disasterbate.

But then occasionally you find in the recesses of your mind
A tiny niggling doubt that’s somewhere struggling to get out
Could there be something bad or mean in all these manic dreams you’ve dreamed
Of roller coasting into chaos toasting turmoil with a beam
While other’s lives are going to waste – could this perhaps be in bad taste?
And your own wild wasteful ways are hastening the final days
Of folks who never hear your jokes or get to join your latest craze
Those wars and famines that are happening to people far away
And leaving you – mostly - alone
Could they be real people’s lives with equal value to your own?
Meanwhile, around you is the sound of people muttering “enough”
They aren’t just loafers on the sofa; no, they’re trying to fix this stuff
And they’re delighting in the fight, they’re strangely happy just to try
It’s a whole different kind of party and you’re letting them pass by
And they’re giving you the eye…

But then the nightly news comes on and you immerse yourself once more
In your financial meltdown money shots and climate crisis porn
While singing

Woah! Disasterbation!
It’s a reactionary distraction for the nation
Woah! Disasterbation!
It’s all too late, come celebrate, disasterbate
It’s all too late, come celebrate, disasterbate
It’s all too late, come celebrate…
Disasterbate

******************************

The first time I performed it, my mum was in the audience. I possibly should have thought that one through a bit more carefully.

No

2010-02-09T02:48:00.000-08:00

Right. Time for a new poem. I wrote this after reading Merrick's piece about climate denial. As usual, it's written for performance rather than the page, so doesn't work as well written down. It's also deliberately educational - I'm thinking of using it for the A-Z of Climate Change. All feedback welcome!

*******************************************

No
Say it ain’t so
Don’t give me the facts coz I don’t want to know
I said no
Say it ain’t so
Don’t give me the facts coz I don’t want to know

It’s the sun
It’s the clouds
It’s volcanoes
It’s shrouded
In mystery and doubt
And we’ll never find out
No, it’s China -
America’s fault -
Watch your backs, it’s
A global conspiracy to raise your taxes
It’s not warming at all!
Well it is, but not much
Well, OK, quite a lot but not our fault as such
And we’ll grow grapes in London
Except, if you’re wondering,
It’s all made up by scientists to increase their funding
It’s a scam
It’s too late
It’s a natural thing
Please, just tell me I don’t have to do anything.

No.
Say it ain’t so
Don’t give me the facts coz I don’t want to know
I said no
Say it ain’t so
Don’t give me the facts coz I don’t want to know

Why would you believe it?
It’s too hard to bear
The fearful idea
That seemingly innocent things we do here
Turn on the gas, or drive down to Ikea
Could flood out into droughts, storms, to death and despair
Who cares if the science is clear?
Why would we comfortable few want to face
The fact that the future we’ve chosen to chase
Based on the assumption of growing consumption
Of ever more energy, mining and waste
Demands more fossil fuels than the climate can take?
Is it any surprise that we’re willing to cling
To half-baked answers from internet chancers
‘Bout gaps in the science or blizzards in Spring
Or fire-breathing giants from the Lizard King
As the floodwaters rise from Dhaka to Beijing
Please, just tell me I don’t have to do anything.

No.
Say it ain’t so
Don’t give me the facts coz I don’t want to know
I said no
Say it ain’t so
Don’t give me the facts coz I don’t want to know

There are three simple things that we need to show
In order to know
Global warming is real and a thing we should slow
First is the fact that
CO2 warms the atmosphere
Trapping more of the Sun’s rays down here
Now, despite all the online bitching
You can show this yourself in your own kitchen
With a bottle, lamp, vinegar and baking powder
I can point you to a video that shows you how to
Try it yourself, and see how hot all
The air gets in a CO2–filled bottle
It’s basic stuff that we’ve known since 1832*
And no-one seriously says it isn’t true.
Next we need to show that we, down here,
Have been pumping CO2 into the atmosphere
For the last 150 years.
At an unprecedentedly rapid rate
This is well measured, not a matter of debate
We’ve been churning out the stuff like it’s the only thing we knew
And no-one seriously says it isn’t true.
Add these two facts together, we’d expect to see
Our planet getting hotter as the carbon levels shot up
Over the last century
With increased rapidity
Which leads us neatly and sweetly onto fact number three
Where thousands of measurements all over the world
Have been showing the average temperature growing
In a way that’s aligned with the CO2 climb
While the heat from the Sun remained roughly the same
So there’s no other natural cycle to blame
And this is the bit where a few people do
Begin to exclaim that it just can’t be true
Find some minor detail in a stolen email
And start excitedly bleating
That this means that the world isn’t really heating
It’s an evil secret scheme
A conspiracy between
Thousands of temperature measurement stations, altered patterns of bird migration, the Arctic melting into pieces, hundreds of vanishing animal species, the thawing of Siberian tundra, Pacific islands going under, African farmers’ failing crops, trillions of individual raindrops, Indigenous people’s vanishing lands, the way the warming sea expands, the Californian wildfires, the 99% of all climate scientists who are liars, prehistoric ice cores, eroding shores, Al Gore…
They’re all in it together
Hijacking the weather
It sounds far-fetched but I’ll take it all in
If it means that I don’t have to do anything.

No
Say it ain’t so
Don’t give me the facts coz I don’t want to know
I said no
Say it ain’t so
Don’t give me the facts coz I don’t want to know

But the bit that’s really twisted
Is that - after decades of resisting -
Government and business
Are finally admitting
That the problem does exist
But are doing nowhere near enough to really deal with it
Instead they’re looking for new ways
To make climate peril pay
Setting up complex carbon markets to trade the sky away
Doing naff all for the climate but lots for the bottom line
Which leaves a disillusioned public understandably inclined
To think the whole damn thing’s a scam
And not deserving of their time
But here’s the thing:
It’s our own power we deny
When we say there’s nothing we can do it means we needn’t try
But as soon as we admit
That yes, humans are causing it
That gives us back the chance to act
Against the main culprits:
The banks and corporations chasing endless fossil profits.
For a better world let’s put our crazed economy on trial
And take a stand against the people who would keep us in denial

So I’ll say no
I won’t let it be so
Gonna act on the facts and let a better world flow
No
I won’t let it be so
Gonna act on the facts and let a better world flow

*Actually 1824 (it was discovered by the French scientist Joseph Fourier), but that didn’t rhyme. It’s true that we knew about it in 1832, though, so I figure this is OK. Poetic license, baby.

Climate Denier "Proves" Climate Change

2010-02-07T04:06:00.000-08:00

This is good for a wry, bitter laugh...

As if I didn't have enough to worry about...

2010-01-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

With slightly grudging thanks to Alice In Blogland.

Is it our turn yet?

2010-01-14T05:36:00.000-08:00

OK, so I was writing up my thoughts following the Copenhagen debacle and it kind of turned into an article - which the New Internationalist then agreed to publish on their website. It's called "Rising Faster Than The Oceans", and is all about finding a positive way forward now that the world's politicians have screwed everything up so spectacularly. Have a look and let me know what you think (I'd suggest reading it as a companion piece to the article by Jess I mentioned last time).

If you think it's useful, please do spread the link around!

I should have known, really

2009-12-12T02:27:00.000-08:00

Well, surprise surprise, I'm here in Copenhagen and I'm too busy doing things to have time to write about them. Have already seen some amazing things and met some incredible people. Outside the talks is totally where it's at - far more interesting than inside I reckon. Will try to do a proper update when I get a chance!

In the meantime, check out Jess's blog for her experiences within the summit, and a video interview with the lead negotiator for Bolivia...

COPping Off

2009-12-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

Well, this is it - I'm off to Copenhagen on Wednesday.

I'll be doing research for a climate change book I'm writing, and will also attempt to blog from the protests as best I can, web access permitting...

Watch this space for update-y things as and when. Also keep an eye on Jess's blog, as she'll be casting a critical eye over goings-on inside the conference centre.

In the meantime, why not watch Lord Monckton and Al Gore square off in a rap battle?

The Copenhagen summit is screwed - but that doesn't mean the rest of us are

2009-11-26T09:08:00.000-08:00

Worried about climate change and the Copenhagen talks? Go and read this excellent article immediately.

Then go here for some ideas of what to do about it.

Then tell all your friends.

We still have a chance here, people. Let's get on it.

Number Ones

2009-11-26T05:44:00.000-08:00

Merrick has slapped me with one of those blog meme challenge thingies - to find five phrases which, when typed into Google, bring up my blog as the number one result.

To give some context, Merrick's own phrases of Google-related glory include "An old man wanking into a sock" and "Caviar enemas". Lovely. You won't be surprised to learn that he's awarding bonus points for anything that sounds even slightly salacious or perverse, bless him.

Here are five of my number ones, which I believe reflect my spectrum of writing topics fairly well:

"sex kills more people than terrorism"
"Pink and purple sparkly cowboy hats"
"Zombie-freezing technology"
"sprayed with Kelvin Mackenzie's bile"
"police premature ejection"

Though I'd like to also give honourable mentions to:

"anarchist-eco-hippy-tree-munching-lentil-loving-mud-warrior"
"The people vs. climate chaos"

and

"a boat carved out of a giant carrot"

This particular phrase returns 101 exact matches, all of them referring to me. Which I think, according to the rules of the internet, means that I now have to get it carved on my headstone.

Merrick tagged a few others too - you can check out their results here (this is also a good excuse to plug these rather delicious blogs):

Dreamflesh
Alice in Blogland
The Quiet Road

I'm now meant to tag five other blogs and thus spread this delightful bit of time-wasting across the internet. So let's see if I can persuade this lot to do it:

Punk Science
Contains Mild Peril*
Zoetic
Graham's Grumbles
Chicken Yoghurt

Or if you fancy having a go yourself, why not declare your results in the comments below?

Mark Lynas was ill

2009-11-19T08:44:00.000-08:00

I got drafted in at the last minute to do a climate talk for the Women's Institute this afternoon.

I was given only the vaguest of briefs, so I tried to cover the basic science, climate denialism, where the UK's emissions were coming from (with the help of the Walk The Walk training that I worked on for COIN), and what we could do about it. With a focus on moving away from individual lifestyle choices towards campaigning and creating solutions in our communities, with a burst of anti-consumerist poetry at the end.

I had no idea what to expect...but I have to say that they were one of the most switched-on, engaged and vocal(!) audiences I've ever spoken in front of. Loads of useful discussion and practical suggestions from the floor, and the feeling that they really were going to go back home and take some useful action on this stuff. Followed by tea and cake all round (which reminded me that I must send the WI some vegan recipes...). Next stop Climate Camp?

This means that I've now done climate action talks for "excluded" teenagers, head teachers, the police, and the Women's Institute, as well as having had a head-to-head debate with someone from Spiked (ugh), and been sprayed with Kelvin Mackenzie's bile on live radio. I now truly feel ready for anything life can throw at me. With the possible exception of rampaging cows.

Mongrel Hordes

2009-10-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

"The indigenous British people" = Celts + Romans + Saxons + Angles + Jutes + Vikings + Normans...which brings us up to the 11th Century. Over the next 1000 years, chuck international commerce, the victims of the slave trade and the imperial colonies into the mix, and what do we get? Bloody foreigners, coming over here and being our ancestors. I blame the EU.

Ode to E.ON

2009-10-23T01:59:00.001-07:00

Swoop Swoop Swoop

2009-10-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

Direct action works:

See you on the Swoop?

You really couldn't make it up

2009-10-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

Had some fun at a BP recruitment event last night. Tee hee.

At the end, some of us cornered Peter Mather, Head of BP UK, and had a bit of a chat with him. He said some rather...interesting things, as Jess Worth documents on her blog:

He waxed lyrical about how amazingly sensitive about locals’ rights BP are these days. ‘20 or 30 years ago, I admit, the industry was doing some pretty bad things. But those days are gone. You can’t just go round the world raping and pillaging any more.’

If you fancy a slightly outraged chuckle, then read the rest.

Video Frenzy

2009-10-02T02:35:00.000-07:00

Having spent two years muttering to myself about needing some online videos of my poetry, suddenly there's been a mad rush of them. It's getting so you can't type "ranting performance poetry video climate change bespectacled freak" into a search engine without my leering face popping up in front of your startled eyes. This is my attempt to compile everything out there so far.

Most recently, the following video was made by Tenner Films at Dungeness nuclear power station, as part of a series called "Thirteen Short Films About Nuclear Power". It's my response to using nuke power as a "solution" to climate change:

Then there's the series of short films I'm making with Undercurrents, the A-Z of Climate Change. Most of them contain some poetry, but several are straight-up videos of the following poems:

Don't Buy It (B for Buying Ethically):

Consumed (O for Outsourced):

Lifestyle Choice (L for Lifestyle):

The Sustainability Manager's Statement To The Board Of Directors (M for Magic Bullets):

Plus there are the videos that various helpful people have made of me performing at the Climate Camps in April and August:

Lifestyle Choice

Don't Buy It

Risk Assessment

Election Day

And as if that wasn't enough, I was on Radio 4 last night and all (if you're so inclined, you'll be able to hear it here for the next week or so).

So apologies for all that.

Various Exciting Things

2009-09-13T03:14:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

News Part One: My debut album is very close to being released! The wonderful Stig is designing the front cover for me - it's a work in progress, but so far it looks like this:

Wanted: more images of ridiculous unecessary eco-tat, please let me know if you've seen any good ones...

The track listing for the album is:

Don't Buy It
Risk Assessment
Handles
Collapse Part 2
The Sustainability Manager's Statement to the Board of Directors
Stakeholder Engagement
A Billion Pounds So Far, Apparently
Consumed
Election Day
International Emergency
Their Wings Wings Beat
The Right Thing
Lifestyle Choice

It's all very exciting, and I'm taking advance orders right now! I'm going to be dishing out the album using a sliding scale of donations - you can choose how much to donate, based on how much you can afford and how much you think it's worth, and bearing in mind that I'm a skint self-employed writer/researcher/campaigner/eco-poet and really could use your support...

I'd suggest somewhere between £2 (which will cover the costs of production and UK postage) and £10 (if you're feeling especially generous), but it really is up to you. To order a copy, contact me at dannychivers[at]excite.com and we'll get it sorted - thanks so much. I'm away until September 27th but will respond to your emails very soon after that.

News Part Two: Tonight, I'm off to take part in the semi finals of the Radio 4 National Poetry Slam. Wish me luck - and listen out for it on the radio, at 11pm on Thursday October 1st. If you're here because you heard me on the radio - hello, very glad to have you here, feel free to browse around the site, sign up to my email list (the box on the right) and order my album (which includes both the poems I performed at the slam - see above). Marvellous.

News Part Three: The fun-packed micro-budget series of short climate change films I'm making with Undercurrents continues apace - see www.azclimatechange.com for the latest!

News Part Four and Five: I've got some interesting projects on with both Tenner Films and the Guardian, but can't reveal anything else just yet...watch this space...

Thanks for reading - when I'm back, I'll put something more interesting up instead of all this outrageous self-promotional nonsense. Until then, here's yet another video of me capering and gurning about in a field:

More live prancing and flailing

2009-09-07T02:16:00.000-07:00

The wonderful Jody recorded a couple of my performances at the Climate Camp on Blackheath - "Election Day" on the Tripod Stage and "Risk Assessment" in the Main Marquee. A bit of background noise on both of them, but you should get the general idea:

I'll write up a proper report-back from the Camp when I get the chance. In sumary: it was utterly excellent and there's a genuine feeling that we're building a real movement here...

Listen To This

2009-08-14T02:33:00.001-07:00

http://climateradio.org/climate-camps-2009/

Climate Camp(s) 2009

55-minute special featuring the voices of Climate Camp activists. Arthur of the London Camp for Climate Action media team is live in the studio discussing

* the rapid take-up of the Climate Camp model around the world - there are over a dozen Camps around the globe this year
* policing and legal aspects and
* the justification for direct action in the face of inaction to prevent devastating climate change

We have interviews with four London campers on

* what’s planned for this year’s camp
* legal and policing aspects
* the direct action training that’s on offer and
* the mass action that’s planned for later in the year

We also have four short statements from the Camps in Australia, New Zealand, US and Finland; and a range of voices taken from a recent Climate Camp promotional video.

A political reality may be emerging here that civil action could well force the government to act. This might even be one of those rare ocassions where everyday but resolute citizens have a lasting impact on the great issue of our time. - Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies, University of Bradford

Less Talk, More Wind*

2009-08-04T06:55:00.000-07:00

I've written an article about my experiences at Vestas, for the New Internationalist.

Do wander over there if you have a minute.

* This isn't my slogan, it was nicked from a placard at the Vestas camp...

Save Vestas

2009-08-03T15:03:00.001-07:00

Spent a few days down at the Vestas occupation last week. Utterly inspiring.

I'm writing up a piece for the New Internationalist blog which should go up tomorrow morning, but in the meantime here's a poem I wrote while I was down there. It's not exactly subtle or sophisticated, and as usual it works better performed than on the page, but it does come from the heart!

If you have time to be at the Isle of Wight tomorrow for the court case, then get yourself down there. If not, head over to the Save Vestas blog and send some support to the campaign!

Or you could always glue yourself to something...

**********************************************************

They chose to fight
Against the greed of industry
To do what's right
For their jobs, homes and families
But more than this
They've shamed our greenwash government
Watching ministers spin madly as the turbines lie silent
They can't be moved by hot air from
Gasbag MPs and corporate smirkers
Their huff and puff won't be enough
To shift the windmills - or the workers.

They saw their jobs sliced on the edge
Of the “wrong size” of turbine blade
They stand defiant on their ledge
We make tea on the barricades

And all of this is part
Of a global fight to save us
A frontline stretching round the world
The people vs. climate chaos
Indian farmers closing coal plants
Forest rights in Ecuador
Arctic peoples leaving melting lands
To drag Big Oil before the law
From the pipelines of Ogoni
To the Vestas factory floor
They're fighting for their futures
And the futures of us all.

Because the way to save the climate
Won't be found down at the shops
Or when “global leaders” meet up
Behind rows of riot cops
It isn't even in your lightbulbs
Or your recycled organic cotton forest-friendly Fairtrade ethical designer tank top
It's found when people stop
And then fight back against a system
That values profit over people
And the planet we exist on.
If there's injustice on the wind,
Don't take it quietly – make a fuss
And stand up for the Vestas workers
Coz they're standing up for us.

Like A Rash

2009-07-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm all over the place at the moment...but you know, in a good way.

Check out the first two instalments of "The A-Z of Climate Change", an Undercurrents project that I'm working on - these were filmed at Glastonbury in a slightly off-the-cuff way, future ones should be a little more polished...!

Also, the extended version of my "Just or Bust" article has been published in a new book from the NI called "People First Economics", where I appear to be rubbing some very illustrious shoulders. Klein, Chomsky, Bello, Morales...Chivers. What?

In addition to all this, I've made it through the South East heats into the semi-finals of the national Radio 4 Poetry Slam. It'll be recorded on September 13th, not sure when it'll be broadcast - rest assured, I will let you know!

Oh, and I've been doing some filming for a project called 13 Short Films About Nuclear Power by Tenner Films. Watch this space...I think it's going to be a good one!

So, all quite exciting really. Plus, my album is really truly nearly finished. Honestly.

Word Of The Day: Kakistocracy

2009-06-01T04:25:00.000-07:00

So. European elections this week. It's a rare occasion for me, because for once I feel as though my vote will actually mean something - I get the chance to support one of the very few politicians I have a modicum of respect for (Caroline Lucas) while also helping to keep the BNP away from power (if you still need any persuasion on the need for this, go read this blog post by Merrick).

Sadly, I feel somewhat less enthused by the prospect of a General Election. My thoughts on the subject seem, once again, to have taken the form of a poem - as usual, it probably works better performed out loud rather than written down, but here it is anyway, for what it's worth:

Election Day

It doesn’t feel like a choice.
Please tell me how I’m “empowered”, how I’m “using my voice”,
As the Labour party stumbles through its awkward closing dance,
And we all await the chance
To watch the next load of gloating, scapegoating, moat-owning stoats
Being shovelled into government
By default and by accident
By a public with plenty of spleen to vent
Giving Westminster rinsers a kick in the ballots
With a vote for Esther Rantzen, Terry Waite or Timmy Mallett
While secretly hoping that someone – the workers?
Joanna Lumley at the head of an army of Ghurkas?
Will sweep in and save us from Babyfaced Dave.
They say we’re sleepwalking into a Tory government -
I’m shouting and screaming all the way.

But hey
Maybe between now and May
we’ll get a sudden storm of electoral reform
so the whole thing’s no longer decided
by a few thousand voters residing
in a handful of sweet little swing seats
And maybe the media
will stop feeding us
the same old race
between one horse and
pretty much the same horse with a different face
and start giving alternative opinions some space?
Probably best not to hold your breath unless asphyxiating to death seems easier to handle than seeing the Tories bathed in glory
(which would be understandable).
How did it come to this?
Is this what generations were arrested and tried for, fought and died for?
The right to swap one sorry crop of planet-plundering, war-mongering, wealth-concentrating bastards for another lot who’ll do the same only harder?

But enough whining. I’m here to register my vote.

Here it is:

I vote for justice and peace.
I vote for not being beaten up by the police
I vote against oil, and warfare, and pride
And humanity’s slide into mass suicide
I vote for the seasons
I vote for the sky
And the thoughts in his head
And the glint in her eye
And all of the things they’re not offering us.
Our dreams are too big for their ballot boxes
For once-every-five-years pencilled-in crosses
Where do I write in the world that I want?

So I’ll vote with my body, my hands and my words
With all that I do and all that I say
I won’t vote when I’m told
I’ll vote every day
I’ll vote by getting in the way
Of all their awful plans and schemes
With a banner, or a spanner, or a tape of M.C. Hammer
And a tone-deaf karaoke team.
I’ll be the grit in their pistons
The glitch in their systems
The lump of toast in their machine
Every word and every deed
A quantum of democracy:
A little vote.

Voting early, voting often
But not voting all alone
We’ve been growing quietly in the cracks
It’s time to break the stones
It is your democratic right
To not go down without a fight
Don’t sit their feeling powerless
They can’t ignore you when you vote
By camping on their duck island
And pissing in their moat.
So every day’s election day
You coming out to vote?
Yes, every day’s election day
You coming out to vote?

- Danny Chivers, June 2009

Catch Me If You Can

2009-04-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear.

The Government want to build new coal plants. They're justifying this by saying that they're also going to build four "carbon capture demonstration units" that will be tagged onto the new power stations, try to catch some of the emissions from them, and squirrel the nasty carbon away underground for ever and ever. This somehow makes the whole plan wonderful for the climate and a big victory for green campaigners.

This is, of course, complete and utter bilge.

The mainstream media seem to have fallen for it hook, line and sinker, with this fawning piece in the Guardian being a typical example (it didn't help that Greenpeace gave a "cautious welcome" to the ludicrous plans). With some honourable exceptions (like the Omnibot), journalists have been cheerfully parroting the Government's "clean coal" nonsense without spotting some very obvious logical chasms:

1) The Government are suggesting that researching carbon capture requires the building of new coal power stations. This is like saying: "We need to beat this malaria epidemic by developing new ways of catching mosquitos, so let's build some huge mosquito farms and release millions of them into the air, so we've got more of them to practice on". Have the Government forgotten about the 70-odd fossil fueled power stations that already exist in the UK? Perhaps we should try shutting some of them down and see if they notice (oh, wait, I shouldn't write that, I might be arrested for thoughtcrime).

2) The proposed demonstration units would only capture, at most, 25% of the emissions of these super bonus coal power stations. That will still leave them significantly more polluting than gas power stations, let alone the wind, tidal, wave, solar, or stop-using-so-much-pointless-bloody-energy-to-make-useless-crap options. So these whizzy new "clean" power plants would actually be dirtier than power plants we were building last century. Woo hoo.

3) The Government have no plans to scale up the technology for 15 years - which is hardly surprising, as even the coal industry have admitted that it'll take at least that long to find out if carbon capture can work on a large scale. Meanwhile, global emissions need to peak in 2015 (6 years away) and then start to fall if we have any chance of avoiding global disaster. Large-scale carbon capture will arrive far, far too late to help with that. The only technologies that can help us to avoid climate catastrophe are the ones that already exist.

4) All of the above assumes that carbon capture will ever work at all. We still don't have any sure-fire method for the long-term storage of nuclear waste - and that only needs to be kept safe for tens of thousands of years. Carbon dioxide would need to stay underground forever - or at least for as long as the human race exists, a time span that would be considerably reduced if there was ever any major leakage from a carbon store...

Putting our faith in carbon capture is a bit like being in a car speeding towards a cliff. Rather than changing direction, we're desperately trying to develop "magic flying car technology" before we reach the edge.

More Badger Bites

2009-04-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

The excellent Bristling Badger on the Nottingham 114:

Arresting such a huge number of people smacks of a wide trawler-net strategy, too. And lo, despite the need to deploy 200 officers and arrest people before they've done anything, none of them were charged with anything at all. Not one.

However, it was reported that many were given onerous bail conditions to stay away from sites that climate activists would want to protest at.

What a smart move. Breach of bail is a crime in itself, and those who break it tend to get remanded in prison. As the summer's climate camps and similar events appear on the horizon, what better way to take the wind out of their sails than making over a hundred activists stay away on pain of indefinite imprisonment?

Then, when the protests are over at the end of the year, the police can just drop the bail conditions. No charges required, let alone a crime.

Just like the attacks on peaceful protests, this is a way for the police to make people back off. Reports say many of the Nottingham 114 had their houses raided and possessions taken away. Just like a baton to the head, this will discourage people from joining in. It is political policing. It cannot be justified to smash down your door (and bill you for the board-up), search your house and seize your computer because they suspect you of planning a crime that - even if they secure a conviction - would be unlikely to incur a prison sentence.

Go and read the rest before the thought police find you.

G20 Climate Camp - The Film

2009-04-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

The Climate Camp legal bunnies have put together this film of what happened on Bishopsgate on April 1st, and have managed to get it linked from the Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday(!) websites as well as the Guardian. Check it out - it's an excellent overview of the day, from positive protest party to police thuggishness:

Glorious 12-Hour Bishopsgate Camp Ruined by Police Premature Ejection

2009-04-02T06:55:00.000-07:00

I'll write a more personal account when I've got my head together a bit more after such a crazy few days, but here's a summary of what happened:

Yesterday around 2000 protesters set up a Camp for Climate Action in the middle of the Square Mile, closing a major road for 12 hours. The Camp was located outside the European Climate Exchange on Bishopsgate, to protest against the G20's plans to use deeply flawed carbon trading mechanisms to tackle climate change.

(See www.climatecamp.org.uk for some beautiful pictures of the Camp.)

As planned, hundreds of protesters “swooped” from all over the City at 12.30pm and set up tents, bunting and bicycles in order to reclaim a large portion of the financial district. Throughout the day there was a programme of workshops on themes such as the absurdity of carbon trading, the history of social movements and alternative economic models, whilst pedal powered sound systems and live bands provided entertainment, a kitchen provided hundreds of meals and a farmers market gave away organic vegetables.

One camper, Jessica Harward said: “The atmosphere was creative and joyful. This part of London is usually a major part of the climate problem, through the funding of fossil fuels and disastrous carbon trading schemes. For 12 hours we turned it into part of the climate solution.”

Despite assurances made on Tuesday morning by Commander Broadhurst to climate campers in the office of David Howarth, MP, at 7pm on Wednesday riot police violently attacked the camp, injuring many peaceful campers and bystanders who were not allowed to leave the area.

(You can see an extraordinary video of this here - note how all the protestors have their hands in the air to show they are unarmed and peaceful, and are chanting "this is not a riot").

Despite this incursion, the atmosphere at the Camp remained calm and happy until around
midnight, when riot police again moved in and aggressively dispersed the Camp.

Another camper, Dave Spencer, said “We were here to expose carbon trading as a financial fraud which has nothing to do with climate change. Our success in turning Bishopsgate into an eco-camp has clearly rattled the authorities, who once again have used unnecessary force against us. We won't be deterred though – climate change is the most urgent issue in the world, and our movement is growing stronger all of the time.”

The Toughest Audience Of All...

2009-02-22T03:38:00.000-08:00

I'm beginning to do more work in schools. This puts me in a challenging position: attempting to write poems that make some kind of useful political point but that aren't going to go over the heads of 10-15 year olds, whilst simultaneously trying not to be a patronising git.

I'm probably doomed. But I'm going to have a try anyway, so below is my first attempt at a poem specifically for younger audiences. As with most of my stuff, it's designed to be spoken rather than read, so the dodgier rhymes will seem less obvious in practice (I hope). Comments and suggestions very welcome...

Handles (The Engineer’s Dilemma)

In the Palace of Ultimate Malice
On the perilous peak of Mount Fear
Emperor Zawl holds the country in thrall
With strange doomsday devices, exotic and cruel
But I live in a cellar, underneath it all
And I’m just an engineer.

All the same, see, some folk try to blame me
For the Emperor’s death traps and guns
But I don’t make the blades, or the laser arrays,
The Apocalypse Sludge, or the face-melting sprays,
Or the self-launching, fun-seeking missile bays;
No, nothing to hurt anyone.

You see, I just make the handles
For the Emperor’s machines
And if that still seems like a scandal
Come with me, behind the scenes
And once you understand all
Of my reasons, hopes and plans
You’ll see I’m not some violent vandal
But a kind and peaceful man.

Though his highness demands just the finest
Rockets, missiles, death-tanks and guns
He generally fails to check all the details
And if every last handle weren’t carefully nailed
Then the Night Horror Cannon might run off its rails
And destroy not the moon, but the sun.

If I weren’t there to line up the crosshairs
With the handles on every death-ray
The next heroes who try to sneak carefully by
Our defences – the type that we’d normally fry
In an instant, might find that our aim goes awry
And their grisly end could last all day.

It’s fine to demand I take some sort of stand
And walk out – but where would I go?
And whoever replaced me would probably kill
Far more people, without my attention and skill
And how would I cover the rent and the bills?
I do have a family, you know.

So, though the Emperor has banned all
Children aged seven to nine
And with a giant Roman Candle
(That was partly my design)
Blasted three cities into sand, all
Coz he missed his morning tea;
I just make the handles
So you can’t blame me.

My Big Fat Geek Wording

2009-02-17T02:16:00.000-08:00

OK, here it is - the super extended remix version of my New Internationalist Copenhagen article. In addition to all the stuff from the published version, it also includes some extra background on the "right to development" and "common but differentiated responsibilities" in the UNFCCC process, and it includes a brief look at the concepts of historical responsibility, carbon intensity, the REDD proposal, technology transfer, carbon rationing and community-driven solutions.

It's a teensy bit long - there's a reason why I had to hack all this stuff out before it could be published in the New Internationalist. All the same, I hope it might be useful for those of you working on trying to get something effective out of Copenhagen.

My next blog post will be shorter, and probably sillier.

****************************************************************************
The Same Boat

Imagine 10 rabbits lost at sea, in a boat carved out of a giant carrot.

The carrot is their only source of food, so they all keep nibbling at it. The boat is shrinking rapidly – but none of them wants to be the first to stop, because then they’ll be the first to starve. There’s no point in any of them stopping unless everyone stops – if even one rabbit carries on eating, the boat will sink.

This is the international climate crisis in a (Beatrix Potter-flavoured) nutshell: action by individual nations achieves little unless we all act together. Of course, reality is a little more complex. While it’s easy to imagine the rabbits reaching a simple agreement where they all learn to dredge for seaweed instead, our situation involves massive global inequalities, differing levels of responsibility, and a history of exploitation and broken international promises.

Perhaps, then, we shouldn’t be too surprised that the international climate negotiations – which began in earnest in 1990 with the talks that created the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – have not yet got us a workable global solution. The best we’ve managed so far has been the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, under which industrialized nations (known as ‘Annex 1’ countries) pledged to cut their CO2 emissions by a completely inadequate 5.2 per cent by 2012. The US famously pulled out of the deal, and most of those who remained in are unlikely to achieve even these small cuts.

A Fair Point

Meanwhile, no definite plan has been agreed for ensuring that the poorer nations switch to a climate-friendly development path. The US says it won’t play unless, in the name of ‘fairness’, all non-Annex 1 countries also take on emissions reduction targets. Southern governments, however, point out that they’ve arrived late to the fossil fuel party: the industrialized nations got us into this mess by emitting, over the past 200 years, the vast majority of the greenhouse gases currently warming up the atmosphere. How can the Annex 1 countries demand that the South restrict its development with tough carbon targets when the North has mostly missed its own Kyoto goals?

At the same time, despite promised funds to support low-carbon development, to adapt to the impacts of climate change, and to transfer to low-carbon technology, the only real money flowing from North to South through the UNFCCC process has been via the highly flawed Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This has allowed wealthy nations to offset their domestic emissions with such ‘clean development’ projects as urban landfill sites, giant dams that were being built anyway, and slightly more efficient steel refineries. There are now near-universal calls for the CDM to be reformed, or scrapped altogether and replaced with something fairer.

With Kyoto limping to the end of its life, governments are feverishly trying to strike a new deal on global emissions cuts between 2012 and 2020. They’ll be thrashing it out in meetings in Bonn in April and June, with the aim of signing an agreement at the next big Conference Of Parties (COP) – Copenhagen, 1-12 December 2009.

Efforts have been focused on getting the US – responsible for 30 per cent of current emissions – to sign up. But a deal that favours the interests of wealthy nations over the real needs of the world’s people would fail on two crucial counts. The expanded carbon market demanded by the US and the EU would enrich private traders at the expense of lives and livelihoods in the South; meanwhile, any deal without a strong justice element would almost certainly be rejected by many Southern governments.

Poorer nations have fought bitterly to enshrine a ‘right to development’ and an acknowledgement of countries’ ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ within Kyoto, which means that richer countries are expected to act first. Unless the Annex 1 countries start showing real commitment to these principles – through deep domestic emissions cuts, strings-free funding, technology transfer and development allowances – the chances of the South staying on board with a post-2012 deal are slim [see Boxes 1 and 2, below].

_________________________________________________________________

Box 1: Right You Are

Kamal Nath couldn’t believe it. The Americans were at it again.

It was the last day of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, and the outspoken Indian Environment Minister was not, by all accounts, in the best of moods. Along with members of the 171 other national delegations [1], he had spent all night thrashing out the wording of the Rio Declaration – the key final statement on which all parties to the Summit were meant to agree – only to learn at the last minute that the US delegation wanted to make some changes to the text.

Morning coffee in the Indian delegation’s offices was not, therefore, a peaceful affair, with Nath declaring angrily that “at 6 o'clock this morning, the United States told us they want to remove the phrase 'right to social and economic development’”. The Kenyan ministers he was addressing whistled with amazement [2]. In fact, the US team had issued a statement containing the following words: “The US does not…change its long-standing opposition to the so-called ‘right to development’. Development is not a right…[it] is a goal we all hold” [3].

The phrase “right to development” did end up in the Declaration [4] despite American reservations, but many Southern negotiators are still reluctant to sign up to strict emissions targets that they believe would keep their populations in poverty.
___________________________________________________________________

Talking It Up

Unfortunately, the trend has so far been in the opposite direction. As the climate talks have progressed from Toronto (1988) to Kyoto (1997) to Bali (2007), the rich countries’ targets have been weakened by around 1,900 million tonnes of CO2, and the role of carbon trading has grown steadily [5].

For example, a major subject at the recent Poznan talks was the REDD initiative (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), which proposes that the carbon stored in the world’s forests be added to the carbon market [6]. In one fell swoop, forest lands where people have lived for thousands of years would be commodified and sold from beneath them, generating credits to allow wealthy Northerners to carry on driving and shopping – despite the fact that new research has revealed that recognizing indigenous forest people’s land rights would cost less and be more effective than using the carbon markets [7].

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Box 2: With Great Power…

In their 2007 book “A Climate Of Injustice” [8], Timmons Roberts and Bradley Parks show – through robust statistical analysis – how the Global South has a number of claims to climate injustice. Not only are the wealthier countries responsible for most of the total greenhouse gases emitted throughout history, they also bear a share of blame for increasing the vulnerability of many poor nations to climatic disasters, thanks to past colonial practices. Countries that were once extractive colonies are more likely to have high levels of inequality, restricted land rights, large rural populations and limited press freedom, which are all crucial factors in increasing the number of deaths and lost homes when storms, floods and droughts strike their shores.

High-income nations are also more likely to achieve international agreements that work in their favour, thanks to the amount of money and staff time they can commit to the relevant meetings. This has led to climate deals that lean more heavily towards the needs of richer nations. Poorer nations have, however, succeeded in establishing the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” within the Convention, with the wealthier “Annex 1” nations expected to make the first emissions cuts, and to provide financial support to the poorer nations.

__________________________________________________________________

Here are some of the main proposals on the table and how they measure up when it comes to climate justice.

What's on the table?

FOR COPENHAGEN

‘Grandfathering’ of Kyoto Targets

What is it? A delightfully twee name for the way industrialized countries’ emissions targets have been allocated through the UNFCCC – everyone has to reduce their emissions a certain percentage below the amount they were emitting in 1990.

FAIRNESS: 2/10 Countries that were big polluters in 1990 get to stay as big polluters, with a slight percentage cut. A fairer system would instead be based upon per capita emissions (such as the ‘Contraction and Convergence’ model championed by the Global Commons Institute), historical responsibility for emissions, and/or ability to pay.
EFFECTIVENESS: 2/10 The 1990 baseline is completely arbitrary, with no relation to climate science.
CURRENT SUPPORT: 10/10 The EU is proposing a new target of a 30% emissions cut by 2020 for Annex 1 countries. The coalition of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) has said it would prefer that to be a 45-50% cut. Both of these targets are against the 1990 baseline – it’s just being taken for granted. Alternative ideas such as ‘Contraction and Convergence’ are sometimes discussed, but not acted upon.

It’s A Bit Like… A group of wealthy tourists and destitute refugees have survived a plane crash and are stranded on a mountain. They decide to ration out the food based on how much each person ate in the week before the crash – the more you ate per day back then, the more food you get now.

Global Commons Institute: www.gci.org.uk

Greenhouse Development Rights (GDRs)

What Is It? An alternative method for setting carbon targets. It assumes that everyone on the planet below a certain income threshold should first have the right to get themselves out of poverty and are therefore exempt from any emissions targets. Responsibility for climate action is then allocated to countries based on how many of their citizens are above the income threshold, how far above it they are, and how much greenhouse gas that country produces.

FAIRNESS: 8/10 Includes an explicit ‘right to develop’ for the world’s poor (North and South), while ensuring that wealthy Southern élites are not excluded from responsibility. However, it doesn’t acknowledge historical responsibility or the ‘offshoring’ of emissions by wealthier countries, and there are many potential devils lurking in the details – such as how to set the income threshold.
EFFECTIVENESS: 9/10 The targets within the framework are based on up-to-date climate science, and if they were met it would give us a decent shot at avoiding the worst stuff.
CURRENT SUPPORT: 4/10 Some G77 governments have talked about it, and it’s gained the backing of Christian Aid and Oxfam, but as yet has no official position within the UNFCCC process.

It’s A Bit Like… A city is razed to the ground by alien invaders. The people who escaped unscathed because they lived in solid houses built from money they stole from the aliens (thus provoking the attack) are expected to take on most of the rebuilding work. The people who had left the aliens alone, stayed poor, and lived in rickety houses that collapsed on them during the attack are allowed to recover in hospital before joining in the work.

www.ecoequity.org

Other Methods For Divvying Up Emissions and Setting Targets:

Historical Responsibility: The idea that the total emissions emitted by a country since the industrial revolution should be used as a measure of how much that nation is to blame for global climate change. Gives a good sense of how much climate change has actually been caused by that country throughout history. Frequently cited by Global South governments but very difficult to use as a basis for future targets without using lots of estimates and complex calculations – Brazil had a go once, but it never really caught on.

Carbon Intensity: The amount of carbon dioxide produced per dollar of GDP. An interesting measure but useless for setting meaningful targets because it doesn’t relate directly to total emissions. Nonetheless, when the US pulled out of Kyoto in 2002, they said they were going to cut America’s carbon intensity by 18% in 10 years instead. They seem to be roughly on track to do this, but as their GDP has risen at the same time their overall emissions have continued to grow steadily. So that was a big help, then.

Emissions Trading

What Is It? It’s the main way in which wealthy industrialized countries are planning to meet their reduction targets – by trading ‘carbon credits’ (permits to pollute) with other countries. Forests are due to be added to the scheme at Copenhagen.

FAIRNESS: 1/10 The system allows polluting industries and governments to buy their way out of their carbon commitments, using complex trading rules written by Northern economists. Private trading firms get rich by buying and selling the rights to the carbon in other people’s forests and fields, investing in dodgy quick-fixes and propping up polluting industries.
EFFECTIVENESS: 2/10 The EU Emissions Trading Scheme has yet to produce any proven emissions reductions. Wealthy governments and companies can avoid difficult-but-vital domestic emissions cuts by buying (both real and imaginary) carbon reductions from elsewhere. Politicians get an excuse not to stump up desperately needed cash for more effective low-carbon development in the Global South.
MAD, BAD, AND DANGEROUS EFFECTS: 8/10 Want to unleash a genetically modified carbon-munching microbe, create a famine-inducing agro-fuel plantation, privatize a forest or build a few nuclear power stations? The carbon market is the place for you!
CURRENT SUPPORT: 9.5/10 Unless we decide to stop it.

It’s A Bit Like… Handing control of the Earth’s vital natural systems over to a bunch of grinning Wall Street traders. Oh no, wait: it’s exactly like that.

www.carbontradewatch.org
www.thecornerhouse.org.uk

Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD)

What Is It? A major discussion topic at Poznan. The latest proposal involves adding the carbon stored in forests into the carbon market, allowing countries to generate emissions permits by NOT chopping down their forests.

FAIRNESS: 2/10. In one fell swoop, forest lands where people have lived for thousands of years would be commodified and sold from beneath them, generating credits to allow wealthy Northerners to carry on driving and shopping.
EFFECTIVENESS: 4/10. Protecting the forests is vital for preventing climate disaster – deforestation is currently responsible for about 20% of global carbon emissions. However, inclusion in a trading scheme would mean these savings would be cancelled out by extra emissions elsewhere in the world. Meanwhile, new World Bank-funded research has revealed that recognising indigenous forest people’s land rights would cost less and be more effective than using the carbon markets.
MAD, BAD, AND DANGEROUS EFFECTS: 6/10. Quantifying the carbon in forests is incredibly difficult. Whatever carbon value is placed on a patch of jungle will be scientifically dubious, but then used to justify an equal amount of emissions elsewhere.
CURRENT SUPPORT: 5/10. This is very contentious and hotly debated within the UNFCCC process. Southern countries may eventually be forced to agree to it if other sources of forest protection funding don’t show up.

It’s A Bit Like… “Your house is now an important carbon sink and has been used to justify 200 Australians driving to the mall. Don’t worry, follow these rules and we’ll still let you live here…for now.”

http://thereddsite.wordpress.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/17/forests-endangeredhabitats

Mitigation and Adaptation Funds

What Is It? The G77 (a coalition of, confusingly, about 130 developing countries) and China are proposing that the wealthiest countries put the climate change support money they’ve been promising (for years) into a central fund for spending on low-carbon technology, emission reductions and climate change adaptation in the Global South [9].

FAIRNESS: 7/10 Putting it into a central fund has pros and cons: paying it straight to governments instead could lead to corruption and squandering on unhelpful projects, but the central fund takes the decision even further away from those affected by it.
EFFECTIVENESS: 5/10 Will the funds be spent on effective projects such as protecting the land rights of indigenous forest people, or on expensive distractions like nuclear power?
CURRENT SUPPORT: 7/10 The wealthy nations are going to have to hand something over if they don’t want the talks to collapse completely.

It’s A Bit Like… The guy who drove a bulldozer through your house and sold off the rubble has promised to buy you a tent in compensation. As a huge storm gathers on the horizon, you post him another stiff reminder letter.

Technology Transfer

What Is It? Another hot topic at Poznan. The industrialised nations pledged to give access to low-carbon technology to the developing countries. They haven’t really done much about it yet – with international patenting rules being a major stumbling block.

FAIRNESS: 8/10. It’s clearly fair and clearly necessary – especially the relaxing of patenting rules.
EFFECTIVENESS: 6/10. It has to happen in some form if we’re going to avoid disaster – but providing the means to make solar heating systems would have a different impact to, say, helping to build new nuclear power stations. The type of technology transferred will be crucial.
CURRENT SUPPORT: 7/10. Southern countries are pushing hard for this, but questions remain around when, how much, and what strings will be attached.

It's A Bit Like...The bloke who knocked your house down gives you a bicycle so you can pedal desperately away from the approaching storm.

Kyoto2

What Is It? A new proposal, where companies wishing to drill for oil or gas or dig up coal would have to purchase permits. These permits would be tightly restricted, and fall each year in line with the demands of climate science. The money from the permit sale would go into a global fund to protect forests, pay for adaptation measures, create a ‘revolution’ in sustainable technology and help poorer communities make the transition to a low-carbon world.

FAIRNESS: 7/10 The polluters pay, and the money goes to the people and places that need it. All pretty good – so long as the poor are protected from sudden fuel price rises, and the institutions charged with distributing the funds (Oliver Tickell, who developed the proposal, suggests UN agencies and NGOs) do so in a transparent and accountable way that actively includes the affected communities.
EFFECTIVENESS: 8/10 It looks good on paper, and is based on solid climate science. However, we all know how adept fossil fuel companies are at finding loopholes…
CURRENT SUPPORT: 1/10 This new proposal would involve totally changing the terms of the international negotiations, shifting the responsibility from countries to corporations (including a lot of state-owned companies). Will it be seen as a distraction from the main debate, a Northern-biased proposal that doesn’t explicitly recognize historical responsibility, or a neat way out of the current deadlock?

It’s A Bit Like… That moment near the end of a meeting where someone suggests an interesting new idea that might make the previous four hours of discussion completely irrelevant, and you don’t know whether to shake their hand or throw the water jug at them.

www.kyoto2.org

IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES

Underpinning the climate talks are a raft of ideas for how emissions reductions can be achieved. Here are some of the forerunners.

Government-Funded Climate Programmes

What Is It? Publicly funded schemes to tackle climate change – from revamped public transport networks to mass home insulation to giant offshore wind farms.

FAIRNESS: 5/10 Depends on how much you trust your government. Publicly owned climate solutions are more accountable to the people they affect than corporate or consumer-driven solutions (in democratic states, at least). However, there’s also plenty of scope for corruption and the siphoning of public funds into expensive ‘solutions’ that benefit wealthy élites rather than the climate.
EFFECTIVENESS: 5/10 Utterly dependent on the details. However, there are some things, such as legislating against corporate polluters, and reforming national transport and energy networks, that people and community groups cannot do alone, and governments will need to play an active role.
CURRENT SUPPORT: 6/10 There are positive examples out there (such as Germany’s big renewables roll-out), but they are often cancelled out by the simultaneous development of roads, runways and fossil fuel power stations.

It’s A Bit Like… Asking a big kid you don’t really like or trust to chase away some bullies for you.

Carbon Taxes

What Is It? A government tax on sources of carbon pollution.

FAIRNESS: 5/10 Could hit the poorest in society hardest through higher fuel prices, unless it were carefully designed. Taxes on companies producing or burning fossil fuels could be fairer, if those companies were prevented from passing those costs on to others. British Columbia’s new carbon tax includes a rebate for the poorest families.
EFFECTIVENESS: 6/10 Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Italy, and a few US towns and counties have experimented with carbon taxes, with mixed results. The taxes do seem to reduce carbon emissions, but usually on a smaller scale than was hoped for – often due to loopholes and concessions demanded by industry or angry consumer groups.
CURRENT SUPPORT: 5/10 Carbon taxes are talked about within the UNFCCC process as a potential tool, but they’re not generally very popular back home.

It’s A Bit Like… Asking a big kid you don’t really like or trust to charge the bullies £1 for every time they thump you.

Nicola Liebert, ‘Why Ecotaxes May Not Be The Answer’, NI 416, October 2008

Techno-fixes and Geo-engineering

What Is It? Examples include genetically modified algal fuel, capturing CO2 for underground storage, launching mirrors into space, discovering reliable nuclear fusion, turning food crops into agro-fuels, dumping iron in the oceans and spraying sulphates in the sky.

FAIRNESS: 1/10 Most of these schemes would place disproportionate control of the global climate in the hands of a small number of companies or governments. Imagine if the US or China had control of a giant space mirror that was the only thing preventing the world from being fried, or if Monsanto held the patent for an algal fuel that the whole world relied upon for power. What a beautiful future we’d be building.
EFFECTIVENESS: 2/10 Most are more than a decade away from large-scale implementation, and would drain resources away from proven and sustainable solutions.
MAD, BAD, AND DANGEROUS EFFECTS: 10/10 Poisonous algal blooms, disruption of little-understood oceanic food webs, mass appropriation of lands, seas and forests, acid rain, sudden future CO2 eruptions, and corporate control of the climate system… will that do?
CURRENT SUPPORT: 7/10 European governments are desperate for carbon capture to materialize. There have been pro-sulphate-spraying demonstrations in Australia. An open market in carbon emissions would be a big boost to a lot of these wacky schemes.

It’s A Bit Like… Your house is on fire, so you sit down in the living room and start drawing up designs for a giant wall-smashing robot.

‘Climate Techno-Fixes’ report, Corporate Watch.

Community Solutions

What Is It? Another ridiculously broad category encompassing community-owned sustainable energy, food and transport, and the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights to land, forests and traditional farming practices.

FAIRNESS: 9/10. Solutions designed and implemented by the people most directly affected by them are far more likely to be fair and accountable. However, if they don’t also lead to major emissions reductions then millions of people round the world will still suffer from disastrous climate change.
EFFECTIVENESS: 7/10. Local solutions may lead to dramatic local carbon savings but unless they are part of a wider carbon-cutting plan there’s no way of guaranteeing that they’ll be enough.
CURRENT SUPPORT: 3/10. Most international discussions and national programmes are focused on large-scale, market-driven solutions rather than supporting community initiatives. However, international social movements are starting to get active and vocal on this issue – the powerful small farmers’ network La Via Campesina have just issued a demand for “Food Sovereignty” because “peasant agriculture cools the planet”.

It's A Bit Like... Just ruddy well getting on with it.

Open Letter From Maputo: V International Conference of La Via Campesina, 26th October 2008

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Box 3: Carbon Rationing: The idea of issuing personal carbon emission quotas to businesses and/or the public, with a national limit that gets smaller each year. An idea embraced by some (voluntary Carbon Rationing Action Groups have sprung up around the UK), and rejected by others as an infringement of civil liberties and personal freedoms. The fact that most of the schemes proposed include some form of quota-trading means that the wealthiest would be able to prolong their high-emission lifestyles by purchasing permits from the poor – although some commentators note that this could be an effective form of wealth redistribution. Others call it a privatisation of the atmosphere on a par with international carbon markets. No such scheme exists anywhere yet, although some governments have talked about it.

_________________________________________________________

The road ahead

If the talks continue in their current vein, then Copenhagen is likely to produce a similar deal to Kyoto – arbitrary (though larger) targets against a 1990 baseline, perhaps giving targets to some of the larger developing countries in return for extra mitigation funds, and with carbon trading as the main ‘delivery mechanism’. It would probably end up about as successful as Kyoto, too.

Fortunately, global dissent is growing. Large NGOs such as Friends of the Earth International, Oxfam and Christian Aid are becoming increasingly vocal on the issue of climate justice. New networks are forming amongst Northern and Southern social movements to demand community-led solutions to the climate crisis, and an end to the privatization of lands and forests through carbon trading schemes.

Down with Kyoto

We shouldn’t get too hung up on Copenhagen – we’re far more likely to create lasting change by building powerful national and international movements than by pouring all our energy into specific summit meetings. But it’s hard to deny that we need some sort of international framework for tackling this global issue. Despite its flaws, the UNFCCC is the only one we’ve got, and the urgency of the climate issue requires us to work with it.

However, the Kyoto Protocol has been a dismal failure. Should we demand that governments scrap it completely and start again from scratch? It’s tempting, but would be unlikely to gain the crucial support of Southern negotiators, who fear that a brand new deal would see them lose their hard-won ‘differentiated responsibility’.

A better approach might be to create space within the existing talks for alternative, fairer systems and ideas – such as GDRs, Kyoto2, community-led solutions, indigenous rights, strings-free clean development assistance, patent-free technology transfer – to get a hearing. Currently emissions trading, private financing and market-based mechanisms are seen as the only route to greenhouse gas reductions, and are crowding everything else out of the debate.

This suggests a simple, effective starting point for developing a successful – and just – global agreement: we need to get rid of carbon trading.

Just: do it

Many groups and movements could happily unite around a major campaign to discredit the carbon markets. However, this needs to start now. The massive protests planned for Copenhagen will be too late to have much effect on the talks (unless things have gone so badly that they need to be shut down!)

Let’s face it – whatever gets agreed at Copenhagen, governments are unlikely to stick to it unless there is an international movement powerful enough to make it happen. A global climate treaty will never be a panacea, but we can at least make sure it’s a step towards – rather than away from – climate justice.

Danny Chivers is a writer, researcher, activist and poet on all things climate-change related.

A shorter version of this article was published in the January 2009 edition of New Internationalist Magazine.

1. http://www.un.org/geninfo/bp/enviro.html
2. James Brooke, New York Times, “Delegates From 4 Nations Warm to a High-Profile Role: Global Powerbroker”. June 12th, 1992.
3. http://www.ciel.org/Publications/olp3iii.html
4. www.unep.org
5. Diana Liverman, ‘Survival into the Future in the Face of Climate Change’ in E Shuckburgh (ed.), Survival: The Survival of the Human Race (2006 Darwin Lectures), Cambridge University Press, 2007
6. See: thereddsite.wordpress.com
7. The Guardian, ‘Pay indigenous people to protect rainforests, conservation groups urge’, 17 October 2008
8. T Roberts & B Parks, A Climate Of Injustice, MIT Press 2007
9. Financial Mechanism for Meeting Financial Commitments under the Convention. Proposal by the G77 and China to the Poznan meeting.

A billion pounds so far, apparently

2009-02-05T02:45:00.000-08:00

Today I awoke into a bright, white, living nightmare.
I stared, horrified, as the fat flakes settled gently
On my driveway and lawn
Topping each gatepost with a fluffy white fez
Transforming the hedgerow into an indigestible
But beautiful
Christmas cake,
And I cried “Oh my God!
What about the economy?”

As I walked to the park I stared with mounting panic
At the parked cars adorning the street
Each coated three inches deep
Or with patches swept clean
Arsenals for snowball fights
I almost wept to think of the petrol not being burned
Of the mindless tasks not being performed
In offices thirty miles away.

In the park, it only got worse.
Children and adults were laughing together
Whole streets united in play
Great snowy constructions were rising from the ground
As the treacherous flakes continued to fall
Ramps, forts and igloos,
A menagerie of assorted snow-beings
Icy sculptures of ethereal beauty
Or lumpy majesty
My head went light and I struggled not to faint
At the thought of all that creativity
Hard work and productivity
Not being spent on the tedious administrative tasks
And the learning of pointless facts by rote
So vital to the functioning of a modern economy.
A newly fostered sense of community
Of shared experience and humanity
And the kind of childlike wonder
That reminds us that it’s good to be alive
Is all very well
But it’s not going to revive the flagging share index now, is it?

I went back home to get my snowplough -
They’ll thank me for this one day.

Copenhagen Article Now Online!

2009-01-29T04:29:00.000-08:00

Check out the online magazine version here.

Super extended version to appear here very soon...!

Dx

Just Or Bust / Risk Assessment

2009-01-13T11:53:00.000-08:00

I'm in the New Internationalist magazine again! This time in printed, not just audio form (oooh).

I've researched and written a piece about what's likely to be on the table at the climate talks in Copenhagen this December, and how the different proposals shape up in terms of effectiveness and global justice. Its quite a detailed article, with a healthy smattering of bad puns and daft analogies - the best way to check it out is to go to the NI website, sign up for a free trial subscription and wait for the magazine to land in your letterbox!

It's part of a special double edition of the magazine dedicated to Climate Justice, and the whole edition is well worth checking out, so seriously - go do the free trial subscribing thing. It's an independent, cooperatively run, informative, radical magazine and it deserves (and needs) your support.

For those of you who already have a copy, I'll be posting a special extended version of my article up here in the near future. I guess those of you without a copy of the mag might just be allowed to read it too, but it won't have the funky formatting and images and things so you'll be missing out...

In the meantime, here's the text of one of the poems that will be featuring on my upcoming album. It doesn't work quite so well written down, but you should still get the general gist - if you like it, you can hear the audio version on Radio New Internationalist here (scroll down until you find the show called "Enter Stage Left"), and more of my poetry here.

Happy New Everything and stuff,

Danny x

*********************************

Since September 11th 2001, 70 people in the UK have been killed by terrorists.

In the same period, 400 people in the UK drowned in their own bathtubs, and 500 people were killed whilst doing DIY.

This poem is called:

Risk Assessment.

I used to like bees
I’d watch them bumbling through the leaves
And hum along with their good vibrations
Until I learned that they killed more people last year than THE TERRORISTS did.
Now I write letters to the Daily Mail
Demanding strict border controls on the entrances to hives
And random police raids on patches of lavender.

Which makes about as much sense
As our attempts
At a notional national defence
Against a terrorist threat
About as dangerous as stepping outside in the wet
(Pneumonia is Britain’s fifth biggest killer)

I almost feel a kind of pride
In our innocence and trust as we’re all taken for a ride
On the paranoia bus with the
Bullet-proof windows firmly closed and every steel door secure
Glancing at the dark-skinned people outside.

Mount Snowden kills as many people as terrorism
So let’s drag it down to Belmarsh
Hold it without trial for 42 days
Til it confesses to conspiring to undermine our British way
Of life.
Whatever that is.

More people are killed by taking the wrong pills than by terrorist attacks
Which means the money that’s planned for ID cards, armed guards, putting people behind bars without charge
Would save more lives if spent instead on
Better-labelled jars.

You’re more likely to be killed by a rare disease
Or win the national lottery
You’re more likely to be killed by a hernia
You’re more likely to be killed by your furniture

You’re more likely to be done over by your lover
To meet your end at the hands of a friend
You’re more likely to commit suicide yourself
Than be killed by the suicide of somebody else.

And stress kills thousands every year
So – an ironic twist -
You’re more likely to be killed by the fear of terrorism
Than by a terrorist.

So how to explain this?
Our government’s obsessed
An endless war against a risk
Not properly assessed

For which they need broader state powers to watch you at all hours, CCTV, ID – they don’t mean to intrude, but could you include an ample selection of bodily samples? – longer detention, not to mention the need to obtain evidence mysteriously from overseas but let them explain: it doesn’t count as torture if somebody elsewhere is doing it for ya, same as having your phone tapped by some information vandal isn’t really a scandal because civil liberties must be balanced against the need for greater security, surely you don’t really need that jury, with so many new offences in store there’s bound to be one or more made just for you, even if you only meant to create peaceful dissent against society’s ills, you’ll still find yourself on the line out front in a new witch hunt during open season…

But it’s definitely all about terror and you’d be making a grave error bordering on treason to suggest that they might want these powers for any other reason.

Well,

I won’t be gagged, or tagged and numbered
Won’t have my genes and eyeballs plundered
At my own expense for a defence that won’t work against a threat that couldn’t get much smaller,
They won’t get my photograph, my details, my age
(So long as they don’t log onto my Facebook page)
And when they show up for me
I won’t go quietly
I’ll tell them to go out and fight the real enemy
Because sex kills more people than terrorism
And so does pregnancy
So let’s drop the terror cops
And swap
The thought police for the sex police.

I bet they’ll have much better uniforms.

More "Popular Mobilisation"

2008-12-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

*Coal Action Scotland media release*

For immediate use: 15/12/08

*Coal rail terminal shut down by local residents and Climate campaigners*

At 06:00am this morning thirty campaigners from Coal Action Scotland (1) together with local residents peacefully blockaded the entrance to the Scottish Coal-operated Ravenstruther coal rail terminal in South Lanarkshire (2). Having stopped its reopening after the weekend, this action is currently preventing the delivery of thousands of tonnes of coal to power stations across Scotland. Protestors intend to stay in place as long as possible.

Scotland's CO₂ emissions are increasing significantly. Because of the burning of coal it will be impossible for Scotland to meet its 80% target reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2050 (3). Angus Mcloud said "The fact is that the government will not meet its own targets. This confirms what climate protestors have believed all along – that the Scottish government is paying lip service to the dangers of climate change."

This action is being taken to impact the operations of Scottish Coal and Scottish Power in the region, stopping coal being delivered from five local open cast mines (4). The protestors are acting to oppose the five open cast coal mines that deliver coal to the rail terminal and in resistance to the thirteen new open cast coal mines due to open in Scotland.

Protestors erected and scaled a 15ft scaffolding tripod, blocking trucks from entering the terminal. Others are locked by their necks to a conveyor belt and a bulldozer, preventing coal stockpiles from being loaded onto trains.

Tilly Gifford who is at the site said: "In the face of dangerous runaway climate change, increasing our dependence on coal – the most polluting of the fossil fuels – is simply unacceptable. We urgently need to make the transition to renewable energy and close existing mines. We shouldn't even be thinking about new ones."

Today's direct action builds on recent demonstrations that have taken place all over the UK in opposition to new coal (5).

The demonstration today is in support of communities opposing new open cast mines. Rebecca Mackenzie, a local resident said: "We're here today to send a clear message that we don't want parts of Scotland such as South Lanarkshire to become the most heavily mined areas in Europe, as they will be if permission is granted for all the new open cast coal mines currently being proposed. If sites such as Mainshill near Douglas can't be stopped through legal avenues, then action will have to be taken to make sure these last remaining areas of un-mined countryside aren't destroyed".

Beth Whelan, the campaigner perched on the scaffolding tripod, said: "Local authorities, the Scottish government and companies such as Scottish Coal and Scottish Power are ignoring the scientific evidence on climate change. We have to take responsibility for our climate and our future, and stop the coal industry and its expansion. This is what we doing today: acting responsibly".

It is estimated that 6,380 tonnes of coal were stopped from being transported from the coal mines to power stations, equivalent to 11,675,400 kg CO₂ (11,675.4 tonnes) released into the atmosphere.

Coal Action Scotland apologizes to any workers affected by today's demonstration, but in recognizing the desperate need to stop burning coal sees no other choice but to target the companies responsible for mining it (6).

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITOR

[1] Coal Action Scotland is part of the UK-wide Coal Action Network of individuals opposing the developments of a new generation of coal powered energy generation. www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

[2] The rail terminal is located off the A70 road. Trains leaving the terminal deliver coal to West Burton(EDF Energy), Drax (Drax Group plc.), Rugeley (International Power), Ironbridge (E.on), Cottam (EDF), Lynemouth (Alcan), the Scottish Power – operated Longannet power station.

[3]www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

[4] Poniel, Broken Cross, Glentaggart and Glenbuck

[5] Today's action builds on recent events such as the occupation of Lodge House at Shipley open cast in Derbyshire, the stopping of a coal train to Drax, the Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth in Kent and numerous other site occupations that have stopped work at open cast sites.

[6] Coal Action Scotland acknowledges that mining communities have a long history of neglect and deprivation. The dismantling of high-emission industries must occur through a process of just transition to ensure that these communities do not suffer additionally through redundancies. Lasting and significant change to these polluting industries can only come through campaigners and workers uniting to stop climate change and environmental degradation together.

The War On Error

2008-12-12T03:24:00.000-08:00

One great thing about a blog is that when you get things wrong, it's easy to go back and correct them. So, for example, I was able to shove a few quick back-of-envelope calculations about activism-related carbon savings on my last post whilst it was still all topical and that, and then return later to refine them (I overestimated things a bit the first time round).

Some extra research has now thrown my "1,000 tonnes saved by the sneaky Kingsnorth shutdown" figure into doubt, because it seems that the extra inefficiency involved in starting up and shutting down other generators at a few hours notice might well cancel out those savings in the short term. To be honest though, the on-the-spot emissions reductions from this sort of action are only part of the picture. The surreptitious Kingsnorth switch-off also achieved at least four other vital things:

* Damage to E.ON's finances and reputation, making it even more difficult for them (and companies like them) to build new coal plants in the future;
* Yet more media coverage of the link between coal and climate change
* Inspiration and hope to millions of climate change campaigners
* Another illustration of how ridiculous the over-policing was at this year's Camp for Climate Action.

I think this last point is particularly interesting. One of the supposed reasons for the massive police presence was that if activists succeeded in shutting down Kingsnorth, it would jeopardise the UK's energy supply and threaten public safety.

We said this was complete rubbish at the time, and now everyone knows it's true: on November 28th, an activist shut down a quarter of Kingsnorth and the public (at the time) didn't even notice. The slack was taken up elsewhere on the grid, and everything went on as normal. The only damage was to E.ON's profits and reputation. Exactly the same thing would have happened if the Climate Campers had got into Kingsnorth in August.

So those thousands of police officers and 5.9 million pounds of taxpayer's money weren't protecting the public at all. They were protecting E.ON.

Worth bearing in mind, that.

Be Careful What You Wish For

2008-12-08T02:38:00.001-08:00

[Note: Calculations updated 11/12/08]

On the day that Environment Secretary Ed Miliband calls for a "popular mobilisation" on climate change...

...57 activists break into Stansted Airport and build a small fort on one of the taxi runways:

Local Councils initially refused to allow Stansted to expand but - in a fine example of democracy in action - this was overruled by the Government, who are now conducting another dodgy "public enquiry" that will shock no-one when it comes out in favour of a second runway. It now falls to brave activists like these to take action to stop the expansion of Stansted - which would produce an extra 7 million tonnes of CO2 per year, according to the British Airports Authority - and to make the wider point about aviation and climate change.

Stansted are now saying that 56 flights have been cancelled, all from Ryanair. Assuming that half of these were inbound flights (which will have been redirected to other airports), that's 28 flights that didn't happen. Let's do a rough calculation (I'll try to do a better one if I find some better data). The average Stansted flight generates 15.4 tonnes of CO2, according to the Aviation Environment Federation. To get the full climate change impact of burning jet fuel in the upper atmosphere, we need to multiply this by 1.3, meaning that today's protest directly prevented approximately 28 x 15.4 x 1.3 = 561 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. That's the same as the annual greenhouse gas emissions from about 93 UK homes (in terms of electricity and gas use).

That's clearly completely awesome in and of itself. But the protest has also been headline news on all the TV, radio and online news outlets all morning. These 57 people have not only saved more carbon in 5 hours than a typical local authority home insulation scheme would achieve in a year, they also got far more media coverage for climate issues than the thousands of people who marched through London on Saturday.

But of course, illegal direct action doesn't work and those 57 people would have achieved far more by writing stern letters to their MPs.

Meanwhile, news is also breaking that Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent was invaded by mystery intruders last Friday, who got into a control room and shut down one of the turbines for four hours. E.ON, the owners of Kingsnorth, haven't released any more details as yet but it's interesting to note that this took place during the Climate Camp's 48 hours of action against E.ON and new coal. Let's have some more fun with the numbers: according to the Times, 500 MW of generating capacity was lost for four hours. That's 2000 MWh of electricity. Coal-powered electricity generates about 1 tonne of CO2e per MWh, so that's a saving of 2,000 tonnes from shutting down a quarter of Kingsnorth for four hours. Of course, that capacity will have been replaced by firing up a back-up generator elsewhere on the National Grid, but even an inefficient oil generator will only have produced about 1,000 tonnes of CO2e, leaving a clear 1,000 tonne saving. That's the equivalent of 5,000 households switching to energy-saving light bulbs for a year. (Let me know if you want references for all these figures and I'll happily fish them out). Equally importantly, it's kept the spotlight on E.ON and their disgraceful coal expansion plans.

These are the kinds of peaceful direct actions that, as Ed Miliband notes, have been successful at creating social change in "all the big historic movements, from the suffragettes, to anti-apartheid, to sexual equality in the 1960s". If we want a meaningful deal at Copenhagen next year, we're going to need a lot more of this sort of thing, to urgently shove the whole political debate away from the current disastrous "growth at all costs" model and towards climate sanity. So presumably Mr Miliband will now declare his support for today's direct actions, and call for more of the same?

Someone's Been Naughty This Year

2008-12-02T06:37:00.000-08:00

E.ON's UK headquarters yesterday morning:

Check out the full, festive story of E.ON's seasonal surprise at Amelia's magazine.

My First Haiku

2008-12-01T03:34:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I finally got tempted by the old 5-7-5 formula. Following a chat with a friend on Friday (hi Jo), I couldn't resist writing this:

One real live case of
Carbon capture and storage:
Somali pirates.

Eon

2008-11-14T02:27:00.000-08:00

Power company E.ON is hoping to build the first new coal-fired power station in the UK for a generation on the site of its present station at Kingsnorth in Kent. At a time of climate crisis, it's an obscenity.

They've been the targets of all kinds of action, from last summer's Camp for Climate Action, to a series of smaller action on April 1st (Fossil Fools Day), to a wave of recruitment fair actions, with more action coming up at the end of this month.

One easy, comfy action can happen from this computer you're looking at. The tactic is called google-bombing.

The more links to a site, the higher it climbs in Google rankings. So, if enough people make the word 'Eon' link to the No New Coal site, pretty soon it'll top the list of anyone searching for Eon. (This tactic was successfully used a few years ago to make 'swivel-eyed loons' link to UKIP).

Two weeks ago www.nonewcoal.org.uk wasn't in the top 50 sites when searching for Eon. As I write this it's already number 13.

So a simple online action can help us get our electronic placards in their face without getting out on the cold winter streets.

If you have a website, blog, myspace, bebo, forum account, etc then please place a link to http://www.nonewcoal.org.uk.

Ideally you write 'eon' and place a hyperlink to http://www.nonewcoal.org.uk from that text.

Anyone can do this! Blog comments/forums are easiest. Good websites are most effective.

If you're wondering what else to write, you could copy or edit this.

To get a top 10 google ranking probably won't be to hard, but to pip E.ON to the top will require a lot of effort so tell your friends, consider putting this simple action in your newsletters, spread the word online...

Notes:

* 1. It works best if you mention Eon several times in an article. The correct poncy spelling is E.ON so include that a few times too, but most people will probably just search for Eon.

* 2. If you are posting the link in a blog post then put Eon in the title and the tags.

* 3.The more important the site the more kick nonewcoal.org.uk gets from the link.

* 4. If you are really determined then consider setting up a fake site like the EON Corporate Social Responsibility blog that way you can link loads of times to nonewcoal.org.uk from a site that is very relevent!

* 5. Why not take this is seriously as a real world action and forward it to people with green blogs/campaign groups etc?

This Might Actually Work

2008-11-13T03:40:00.000-08:00

Time for a short personal update.

Looking ahead at the looming recession, with uncertain and turbulent financial times ahead, there was clearly only one sensible thing to do.

I've quit my job.

This is because those uncertain and turbulent financial times will be as nothing to the disastrous and terrifying climatic times ahead if we don't all get our act together and sort out climate change. So I've decided to leave my job and spend more time campaigning. Also, I was getting a little tired of spreadsheets and wanted to give the performance poetry a proper go.

This was pretty nerve-wracking at first - I can live very happily on little disposable income but there are still bills to pay. It all seems to be working out OK so far though. In fact, I'm as busy as ever, even if I'm only being paid for a small amount of all that busyness...

I've written a piece for the January issue of New Internationalist about what the Copenhagen talks mean for climate justice - if anyone wants the lowdown on what's being discussed at the international climate talks, drop me a line coz I've been up to my eyeballs in it for weeks. Then on Monday I ran a series of workshops and did a presentation and a poem at a schools climate change conference in Hampshire, which was brilliant - loads of enthusiastic young people up for taking action. I'm definitely going to do more of this kind of thing.

I'm waiting to hear back from a couple of funding bids that might set some other projects in motion, working on a long-overdue poetry CD, mucking in with various bits of campaigning and planning a possible fundraising tour for People & Planet - I'll post details here if it comes together.

It's bloody hard work, this not-having-a-job thing.

In other news, researching a company's environmental credentials apparently makes you an eco-terrorist, and coal-burning climate-wreckers E.ON have been scared away from careers fairs by student protesters. Excellent.

Turbulence Ahead? The Latest Aviation Emissions Science and What It Means for Climate Campaigners

2008-08-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

Note: the diagrams in this post have been shamelessly swiped from an excellent presentation by Dr Chris Jardine of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University (you can see more of his work here). The words and opinions, however, are all my own fault.

Update - 8.30pm 26/08/08. I've corrected the figure for the percentage of the UK's domestic emissions that the Government estimates come from aviation, and added a reference - thanks to Joss for that one!

Update - 6.15pm 27/08/08. Stupid analogy added at the bottom of the post in case it helps.

Aeroplanes, eh? How can a technology be so utterly awe-inspiring and yet so hideously polluting at the same time? It really isn’t fair.

The roaring, jet-fuelled argument over the building of new runways at major airports has – quite rightly – dominated the aviation debate over the last year. However, a related issue that’s been quietly simmering away in the background is now coming to the boil, and pro-aviation lobbyists may be tempted to use a piece of new research to try to shift the debate in their direction.

The issue at stake may seem rather obscure at first. Aircraft don't just produce CO₂, they also produce other gases that warm the planet. In order to calculate this extra impact, should the amount of CO₂ produced by a flight be multiplied by 2.7, or 1.9, or something else entirely, in order to capture the total warming effect of burning aviation fuel in the upper atmosphere?

Although this sounds like something of interest to only the most hardcore eco-geeks and carbon obsessives, it is actually quite important for this simple reason: the lower the number used, the less polluting aviation seems to be. For an industry that’s been dragged over the coals (or the vat of burning jet fuel) for its disastrous environmental impact, anything that can make it appear less polluting is likely to be seized upon by industry apologists and milked for all its worth.

New and credible research suggests that the CO₂ from aviation should in fact be multiplied by the relatively low figure of 1.3 in order to gauge its full climate impact. So far the big flight operators haven’t made too much of a public song and dance about this, but rest assured that they are very interested. The topic is being discussed intensely at industry conferences and in environmental consultancy circles, and it’s only a matter of time before it creeps out into the public sphere. When it does, climate campaigners need to be ready for it.

The rest of this blog post is therefore split into two sections:

A) The sciencey bit: Why the correct number to use for calculating aviation’s full climate impact is probably about 1.3, and why this is less to do with science than with (woo-hoo!) accounting.

B) The policy-y bit: Why using this number doesn’t actually change things that much in a practical sense, why mass aviation is still completely unsustainable, and how climate campaigners should respond to this latest potential distraction.

A) The Science Bit – Why 1.3?

Anyone who cares about climate change (which, honestly, should include anyone who likes living on a reasonably habitable planet) will know by now that mass aviation is a major barrier between us and a saner, safer future. Back in 2007, the Government admitted that flights from UK airports accounted for about 6.3% of the country’s domestic CO₂ emissions. However, climate campaigners were quick to point out that the aviation figure was still an under-estimate, as it didn’t include the extra warming – or “radiative forcing” – caused by gases other than CO₂ being released from planes into the upper atmosphere.

The best estimate at the moment is that aviation emissions cause about 1.3 times as much warming as the CO₂ from aviation would alone. This differs noticeably from earlier estimates of 2.7 times and 1.9 times. Let me try to explain why…

The diagram below shows the chemical reaction that takes place when an aeroplane engine burns fuel in the upper atmosphere. The fuel, which is made up of carbon, hydrogen, and sulphur atoms, reacts with nitrogen and oxygen in the air to produce a shedload of motor energy and an exciting cocktail of exhaust gases (click on the picture for a bigger version):

The gases in red rectangles produce a warming effect when released at high altitude. The ones in blue rectangles have a cooling effect. NO_x is rather special because although it has no direct global warming effect, it reacts with other gases in the upper atmosphere to create ozone (O₃) which has a warming effect, and to destroy the greenhouse gas methane (CH₄), creating a cooling effect.

As if this wasn’t complex enough already, all of these gases vary both in terms of the amount produced per kg of fuel burnt, and in the amount of warming (or cooling) they cause per kg released. In addition, the contrails produced by planes have a short-lived but powerful heat-trapping effect, and aircraft also have a not-yet-fully-understood impact on cirrus clouds. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) did an initial assessment of the comparative effect of all of these factors based on total aviation up to 1992 (the blue bars in the chart below); this was later scaled up to include data up to the year 2000 (the white bars below); the IPCC concluded that, up to this date, the warming impact of aviation had been 2.7 times the warming effect of its CO₂ alone (not including the effect on cirrus clouds, which has still not been fully quantified). A more up-to-date study with improved methods (called TRADE-OFF, and summarised in the red bars below) in 2003 updated this figure to 1.9.

In the chart above, RF stands for “Radiative Forcing”, and is measured in milliWatts of warming per square metre of atmosphere - click on the picture for a bigger version

So historically speaking, aviation has been responsible for almost twice (1.9 times) the global warming that would have been caused if the planes had only been emitting CO₂.

However – and this is the new bit – this doesn’t take into account the fact that CO₂ remains in the atmosphere for 200 years (on average), whilst contrails and nitrous oxide have much shorter-lived effects. Therefore, much of the CO₂ released by planes in the past is still warming the planet today, whilst most of the contrails and other gases from historical aviation have had their impact already and have now dissipated. This means that the 1.9 figure underestimates the long-term warming impact of CO₂, and makes the other warming effects seem more severe in comparison.

A well-argued research paper by Forster, Shine and Stuber takes all of this into account and suggests that, when we consider what impact a flight taken today will have over the next 100 years (which is the standard method for measuring climate effects), a typical flight will have a warming effect of about 1.3 times the effect of its CO₂ emissions alone.

This doesn’t mean that the earlier 1.9 figure was wrong. It’s just that the two numbers are measuring different things – one refers to the total warming caused by aviation up to the year 2000, while the other represents the impact that flights taken today will have over the next 100 years. We should use this latter figure in our climate calculations because that’s how all other carbon footprints are measured.

If you’re still not sure what I’m on about (and fair enough if so), there are a couple more graphs at the bottom of this post that may (or may not) help. Do also feel free to drop a question into the comments box and I’ll do my best to answer it (or to point you to someone who might be able to explain it better than I can).

Of course, this all still leaves one crucial question: who cares?

B) What All This Means For Campaigners

First and foremost, it should be seen as a victory for campaigners that this stuff is being discussed by the aviation industry at all. The “new” research I’ve been referring to was in fact carried out back in 2006, and has only now come to the fore because of the increased pressure on flight operators to properly account for their greenhouse gas emissions. Because Kyoto doesn’t include aviation, there has been no statutory requirement up until now for the emissions from flights to be properly measured. The only real pressure on the aviation industry to own up to its full impact has come from climate campaigners, and (ironically) from the recent inclusion of aviation emissions in ineffective and corporate-friendly carbon trading schemes as an attempted response to those campaigns.

The discovery that the 1.3 multiplier is a more appropriate measure than the IPCC’s original 2.7 might seem like a boost to the aviation industry – but it isn’t really. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the 2.7 multiplier (and the 1.9 multiplier after it) came with all sorts of caveats and uncertainties (which were freely admitted by the researchers involved) and were recognised as being a rather crude measure of aviation’s extra greenhouse gas emissions; as a result neither figure was universally applied. The 1.3 figure is based on more solid methods, and stands a far better chance of being widely adopted. This would bulldoze though the aviation industry’s claims that “the science is unclear so we should only count the CO₂ and not the extra stuff”, and is probably a reason why they’re not endorsing this new research too loudly just yet.

The second reason is that, even if you don’t count the extra emissions and only look at CO₂, aviation growth is still hopelessly unsustainable. The graph below takes the amount of CO₂ that would be produced by a range of global aviation growth scenarios (from high growth to low growth), and superimposes it on top of the IPCC’s graph of the global CO₂ emissions cuts we need to make to have any chance of preserving a habitable climate (in gigatonnes of carbon, click on the picture for a bigger version):

The five thinner lines at the bottom represent the CO₂ from five different aviation growth scenarios, and show that – if the number of flights taken continues to grow – then aviation will take up between 20 and 75% of our global CO₂ emissions budget by 2050! This would clearly not only be ridiculous (do we really believe that flying is several times more important than heating, lighting, food production etc.?) but also utterly unjust (flying is and always will be the preserve of a wealthy minority). Note that these figures include generous assumptions about improved aircraft technology and flight efficiency, thus laying the huge concrete runway of physical reality over the aviation industry’s happy little village of technofix fantasies.

The above graph shows that aviation growth is unsustainable based on its CO₂ emissions alone, even without taking other greenhouse gases into account.

It’s probably time to wrap up this stupidly long post. Below, in one of those numbered lists that I love so well, is my advice to climate campaigners on how to respond to all of this:

1) Start using the 1.3 figure. It’ll probably be refined by further research over the next few years, but for the moment it’s the best we’ve got and is definitely more defensible than the 1.9 and 2.7 figures. It has another important attribute: if the aviation companies do suddenly start trumpeting the 1.3 multiplier around, with cries of “Look! We’re only half as polluting as the IPCC made out!” we’ll be ready to say, nonchalantly, “Yeah we know, we’ve been using the lower figure for ages now. Oh, by the way, you’re still utterly unsustainable and we still need to massively reduce the number of flights we take, not increase them, to have a decent shot at avoiding catastrophe”.

2) Stand firm on those extra emissions. There’s a real possibility that the industry are going to say “Look, it’s 1.3 – but we shouldn’t really include that extra 30% at all, because those gases aren’t included in the Kyoto Protocol. In order to be consistent with international carbon accounting methods, we should only count CO₂. So nerr.” This is a beautifully circular argument. The extra warming effects of aviation are specific to aviation – no other human activity creates contrails, fiddles with cirrus clouds or releases gases like NO_x or SO_x straight into the upper atmosphere (at least, not yet). Kyoto didn’t include aviation, and so it didn’t need to include these extra warming effects. In other words, the only reason that the extra impacts of aviation aren’t currently included in international climate agreements is because aviation itself isn’t yet included in these agreements – and as soon as aviation is taken into account, those extra impacts should logically be brought in as well. They may not exist under Kyoto, but they certainly exist up in the atmosphere, and are cooking us as surely as the “official” greenhouse gases.

3) Don’t get distracted. This is definitely one of those “acknowledge it and then move on, don’t waste time dwelling on it” issues. My main purpose in writing such a detailed post about this topic was to minimise the time and effort other campaigners might spend fretting about the issue. Don’t! Be aware of it if it comes up, check back here if you need the references, but remember that climate change is far more than a numbers game. We need to get our figures right, but we also need to remember what’s really at stake here, and keep focused on the bigger picture. Aviation growth is incompatible with any effective and fair solution to climate change. It’s a luxury activity that benefits a tiny minority whilst spewing out a disproportionate amount of climate-trashing pollution, devastating the lives of millions of the world’s poorest people. It’s one of the starkest examples of climate injustice in existence. A few figures may have changed, but the basic facts haven’t. So get involved!

www.climatecamp.org.uk
www.planestupid.com
www.airportwatch.org.uk
www.stopairportexpansion.org

Putting It Another Way: Further Explanation of the Science Bit (With Extra Graphs and a Daft Analogy)

If you add up all of the global warming caused by aviation so far in history, then about half of it is from CO₂ and half of it is from other gases (i.e. the total impact is about 1.9 times the CO₂ alone). This is shown in the graph below - click on the picture to enlarge it (note that this shows the amount of warming caused over time by the three different effects, not the amount of greenhouse gas produced in that time):

However, if you take the emissions from a single flight today, and look at the warming effect it will have over the next 100 years, you'll find that most of the warming will come from CO₂ and only a minority from other gases, because of the short-lived nature of the contrails and the NOx effects, as shown in the (not to scale) graph below (again, click to enlarge):

This may seem counter-intuitive, but think about it this way: much of the CO₂ released since aviation began is still in the atmosphere, and still warming the planet. This present and future warming effect from past CO₂ emissions (right up to emissions released in the year 2000) isn't counted in the historical warming graph, and so the 1.9 figure underestimates the full effect of the CO₂ over its lifetime. The 1.3 figure, by comparing the effects of all the different aviation gases over 100 years, captures more of the CO₂'s warming effect.

Remember, these two numbers are measuring different things – one refers to the historical impact of aviation, while the other represents the impact that flights taken today will have over the next 100 years. We should use this latter figure in our climate calculations because that’s the standard method of doing it, and allows us to compare the climate impacts of flying with the impacts of everything else.

Of course, if all else fails, there's always the "bad analogy" option:

Imagine a huge, pristine, white wall, somewhere near you, probably built and maintained using Our Bloody Council Tax. Unfortunately, the local Youth, probably wearing Hoodies and listening to Rap Music, have realised that it’s an ideal spot to ruin with their filthy, filthy, graffiti.

One day, ten youths arrive at the wall. Each youth carries a blue spray can, a small pot of red paint with a large brush, and a large pot of black paint with a small brush.

You can see where this is going.

Each young ruffian starts painting, using the can and both brushes at once (they’re surprisingly talented, these kids), and keeps painting until all of their paint runs out. The blue spray can produces large amounts of paint, but runs out after an hour. The red paint gets slapped on quickly and covers a decent area, but runs out after a day. The black paint with the small brush lasts 20 days – it goes on slowly, but there’s a lot of it.

The next day, twelve more kids arrive and start painting.

The following day, fifteen more join in.

The day after that, twenty more young rapscallions start painting. The next day, twenty-five turn up.

Now, we obviously want to control this disgraceful vandalism. One thing we want to know is – what colour of paint is the biggest problem, blue, red or black? And how do they compare to each other?

The first youths arrived at the wall five days ago. Looking at the wall, what do we see?

Firstly, we see that all eighty-two of the kids are still there, but that fifty-seven of them are now only applying black paint with a small brush. Twenty-five are using both red and black, but their red has nearly run out.

By the end of day five, the wall will have been daubed with the contents of eighty-two blue spray cans, eighty-two small pots of red paint, and about 13% of the contents of eighty-two large pots of black paint (yes, I worked it out, I am that sad). The wall is half black, a quarter red, and
a quarter blue.

“Aha!” we cry. “The black paint is only half of the problem. The red and blue paints make up the other half!” And in terms of all the painting that’s happened so far, we’d be right.

However, what we need to know today is: how much of a graffiti menace is one of these youths compared to, say, a professional street artist or an activist with a pack of marker pens? To work this out, we need to compare these different vandals fairly, so let’s say: how much graffiti would each of them produce in ten days?

In ten days, one youth would produce graffiti equal to one blue spray can, one small red paint pot, and half a large black paint pot. This ratio turns out to be about 77% black and 23% other colours – or to put it another way, multiply the amount of black by 1.3 to get the total amount
of paint used.

How's that?

(To be totally clear: each youth is one flight, the paint pots and cans are the different gases, and the paint on the wall is the amount of warming caused. Also, I have very little shame.)

Climate Camp – How was It For You?

2008-08-20T04:42:00.000-07:00

Stand-out memories for me:

Watching the site transformed from a few tents in a field to a full-on sustainable community, education centre and action hub in a matter of days, despite the police confiscating half of the infrastructure.

Giving visitors tours of the camp and watching their preconceptions crumble.
Watching campers gently but firmly removing the police from the site on Sunday night using straw bales, wheelie bins, and bad karaoke.

Watching E.ON and Government officials squirming in the media as they attempted to defend their bonkers plan to build a new, dirty, coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth.
Chasing a BBC camera crew across a field towards a line of invading riot cops, and shouting “Wait! You can’t film them yet, it goes against the media policy, we need to have a meeting and reach consensus first!”. Strangely enough, they didn’t stop filming.
The resulting BBC interview with a riot cop who clearly had no clue why he was on the site. “We had intelligence received that said we needed to come onto the site”. A few riot police got into the camp at one point and stood there, bemused, with nothing to do: children were playing, toilets were being built, people were in workshops…five minutes later these cops were posing for photographs with campers. Meanwhile, some of their colleagues were beating unarmed campers round the head at a nearby gate in order to get onto this “dangerous” site. Utterly, horribly surreal.

Suddenly having to arrange transport for Arthur Scargill.
Performing poetry in the main marquee, around the campsite, and to the people on the barricades before the day of action. This is one of the main reasons why I write this stuff.
Not knowing whether to laugh or cry at this headline in the local paper. The picture shows a children’s play area that campers had built in the shape of a pirate ship; surprisingly, we had no plans to launch this onto the Medway. On the day, of course, everyone on the boats was completely safe and many got close to the power station before being nabbed by the water police.

Discovering that the camp was a major news story, despite the Olympics and Russia/Georgia; we even got an episode of Newsnight about coal vs. nuclear. It was also pretty much the only story in the local media all week, with the ITV Meridian reporter getting especially excited – his breathless, war-zone style reporting from above the scene on Saturday is particularly recommended. Watch it and tell me he’s not thinking “My big break at last – next stop Basra!”.
Realising that this was the biggest Climate Camp yet, despite everything the police were doing; feeling buoyed up and more powerful than I’ve felt in a long time, as part of this amazing and growing community of resistance.

Getting excited about all the small-group actions that happened during the Camp: the Cargill blockade, the Vopak action, the Gatwick invasion, the Royal Bank of Scotland double whammy, the miniature activists, the BERR naked stick-on, the pylon banner drop, the Selfridges shocker, the Smithfield rooftop vegans, the Mildenhall military manoeuvres, and the BHP Billiton brouhaha.
Getting more excited about all of the actions that are going to happen in the future, thanks to this fantastic network of people the camp has created - people who are prepared to stand up for a fair transition to a sane, low-carbon society, even if it means taking non-violent direct action and risking arrest in the process.

One fact that I currently love is that despite the extraordinary provocation, all of the 2,500+ people who came to the camp and on the action remained non-violent throughout. You can guarantee that if there was a single bit of evidence of anyone fighting back against the police, the cops would have plastered it all over the media by now – but no. The only “violent clashes” (how the media love those words) that we’ve seen anywhere have been police trying to break (unlawfully) into a peaceful, legal camp, and attacking unarmed people with batons and pepper spray. There were a few “scuffles” (another favoured media term) on Saturday, as people were whacked by the cops as they did dangerous things like walking towards a power station carrying a banner, or trying to climb over a fence, but again there was only peaceful resistance from the campers. The term the police use for this is “obstruction”, and it’s no surprise that this was the most common thing that people were arrested and charged with – 25 arrests out of 132, and 21 charges out of the 50 charges we know about (I’m thinking about publishing a summary arrest list here if I can get hold of the relevant information).

That’s right – the supposed “hardcore, violent minority” that the police love to talk about didn’t show up. Again. For the third year in a row. Instead, we had thousands of peaceful and committed people taking meaningful action for climate sanity and global justice.

The Camp for Climate Action is holding a “What Next?” meeting in Manchester on the 26^th – 28^th September. It’s open to all, and it should be great. I’ll post more details here when I have them.

(All photos taken from the Climate Camp website - loads more can be seen here.)

Blog Resuscitation

2008-08-20T02:52:00.000-07:00

Right – it’s time to kick this blog back into life. Let’s start with the following, which I've cribbed from the front page of the Camp for Climate Action website (and updated a little bit), and which pretty well sums up my feelings about the whole, extraordinary, glorious event:

We Really Did It – And We’ll Be Back

It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of huge institutions such as energy corporations and governments. But the Climate Camp has shown that we don’t have to feel that way. On that August weekend, we proved our power.

We have now learned that - despite E.ON’s bluster that the power station had been running normally all weekend – we most definitely succeeded in disrupting its operations. We learned this from a most unlikely source: the police.

On Saturday 9^th August, four bold rebel rafters got very close to the power station water intake pipe before being boarded and captured. They were arrested and charged with aggravated trespass and, according to their charge sheets, “they did an act, namely disrupting the running of the power station by causing the water inlet cooling system to be shut down.” That doesn’t sound like E.ON’s claim of “business as usual” to us!

Despite the fact that we had publicly announced what we were going to do months in advance; despite E.ON spending millions on extra security, and the Government spending millions on policing; despite the extra fences, the smear campaigns, the scare stories, and the most repressive and heavy-handed policing of peaceful protest for many years; despite all of this, we got over the fences, disrupted the power station, and massively embarrassed an international energy giant. We outsmarted 26 police forces to run the biggest climate camp ever. We covered the river in boats, filled the streets with people, covered the power station gates with banners and hit eleven other targets with autonomous actions. We flooded the national, local and independent media with our stories and messages. E.ON and the Government threw everything they could at us, and they still couldn’t hold us back.

We’re just ordinary people with a cause. And we proved our power – not just to the outside world, but to ourselves. Now we know what we can do, and our movement is stronger than ever. If the Government gives Kingsnorth the go-ahead, we will be back to stop it.

Why not join us? The Camp for Climate Action is an open and welcoming network with a group near you. Check out the “Local Groups” page to find out more!

More Poetry Shenanigans

2008-03-28T06:34:00.001-07:00

Right. Sorry for the infrequent posts - since January, I've been mixed up in this as well as this and this which have absorbed a lot of my time and energy...

I am working on something rather interesting that I will post here soon. Honest.

In the meantime, it's all kicking off poetry-wise: I'm performing tomorrow at a Gappy Tooth Industries gig (poetry before and between the bands - it'll either be great or a disaster, I can't wait to discover which). Then on Wednesday 2nd April I'm doing two gigs in one night - "Re:Versing The Damage" with Hammer & Tongue and Climate Xchange, and then "Ha Ha From The Madding Crowd" as part of Oxfringe, which will be my first attempt to perform at a comedy night. Again, glory or failure awaits - why not come along and find out which?

Also, rather awesomely, Radio New Internationalist are using one of my poems in their current show - it's broadcast from loads of different stations all around the world, and is also available online right here. Radio NI is always fascinating and informative listening and I totally recommend it (with or without the inclusion of my own cheesy verses).

A regular post with the more usual ranting in will follow soon.

I've been kind-of-semi-sort-of-quasi-web-published

2007-12-17T10:57:00.000-08:00

The New Internationalist magazine are using one of my poems to promote the latest issue, "Corporate Responsibility Unmasked". Don't let this put you off, though: it's a great (and very timely) edition of the magazine, and you should definitely check it out.

The NI is one of those publications that despite still having a lot of subscribers (about 35,000 apparently, more than the New Statesman, the Ecologist or any other ostensibly left-wing UK magazine), it hasn't really established itself on the web yet and so seems to have slipped off a lot of people's radars. This is a real shame, as it's one of the most consistently well-researched, incisive and thought-provoking publications around. Although I do need to declare an interest here (my girlfriend is one of the editors), there aren't many magazines out there that have managed to remain fiercely independent (unlike most political magazines, they have no wealthy backers and are kept afloat by sales alone; they're also very strict about what advertising they accept), continually tell stories that no-one else is telling, bring in marginalised voices from around the world, undertake proper research and write stuff that is genuinely interesting rather than the recycled opinion and ill-informed bile that passes for analysis in most "current affairs" magazines.

Sometimes it's rather dense, or a bit too worthy; they also really need to sort out their web presence and get more up-to-date stuff online. However, when you're trying to find out what's really going on in the world behind the puffing, pouting and posturing of the corporate media, then the NI rarely disappoints. If Corporate Watch is the fervent, fired-up colleague who meets you in the pub to tell you about the shocking new scandal they've just uncovered, and Schnews is the friend who bangs on your door unexpectedly to drag you out to some outrageous event that you'd no idea was happening, then the NI is the knowledgeable, worldly-wise mate that you go to when you're feeling confused about something important and want to talk it through properly, figure out what to think, and decide exactly which piece of planet-wrecking machinery you most need to D-lock yourself to.

However, magazine subscriptions are falling across the board, and the NI's aforementioned stringent advertising policies and lack of billionaire backing mean that if we want it to continue to exist, we need to keep supporting it. So check out the latest edition, sign up for their free trial subscription (if you're not already a subscriber), and help raise their online profile by giving them a friendly link or two!

This shameless pluggery is now over, and I'm going home to make some soup.

Look At My Big Train

2007-11-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

I’m so sick of transport campaigning.

We know what the sustainable transport solutions are - it feels as though we’ve known them forever - and yet we’re still having to fight the same wretched battles over motorway expansion, the privatisation of public transport, new runways, and the continued existence of Jeremy Clarkson.

But wait, Danny, wait! What about the Shiny New Eurostar Terminal?

This was Greenpeace’s comment on the matter:

This did make me smile. However, even though commentators all over the place are queuing up to declare that this is a Jolly Good Thing and Why Did It Take So Long, and despite the fact that a two-hour-and-fifteen minute journey from London to Paris should make any flight-free holidays I might want to take in the future notably easier, my cynicism muscles still won’t stop twitching.

A fast train to the continent is clearly a good thing if it gets people out of planes, but why isn't this kind of money and organisational clout being used to sort out local bus services, cycling facilities, inter-city coaches and so on? Where are the decent, affordable public transport facilities for all of the people in the UK who don't make frequent business/shopping trips to Paris and Brussels, but do want to travel within their local area and occasionally around the UK (i.e. most of us)?

I think this article on Indymedia illustrates this problem all too well:

“Around 30 cyclists met at 8.30 this morning for the opening of the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras station, London. They were highlighting the poor facilities and planning for bikes in contrast with the much-publicised claims of carbon-neutral travel to Paris…”

As well as the complete lack of cycle access and parking at the station, the author also notes that if you want to take your bicycle to France,

“you either have a choice of dismantling your bike, putting it in a bike bag and carrying it on as luggage - I've done this and it's not great! - or you can take it to the station the day before you want to travel, and send it ahead for some £40 each way (adding another two-thirds to the price of a cheap passenger ticket).”

This is just one more small example to add to the heap, but once again a huge gleaming "prestige" project has taken priority over less glamourous but equally vital people-scale solutions. Sadly, it seems that the government (on the rare occasions that they’re prepared to give some serious backing to a public transport project) have decided that sorting out bikes, buses, coaches and pedestrian routes is fiddly and boring compared to big shiny trains, and might involve pesky "controversial" stuff like clamping down on profit-hungry private bus operators, subsidising "unprofitable" public transport routes and making things a bit less convenient for car drivers. Plus, of course, there isn't much scope for the government’s corporate mates to siphon large amounts of public money out of bicycle lanes and free bus rides for the elderly.

We definitely need more fast, reliable train services, but we mustn’t forget to get out there and shout for all the other, less prestigious (and less elitist) kinds of sustainable transport too. Even though the very thought of yet more bloody transport campaigning makes me want to crawl under a big pile of John Whitelegg transport policy documents from the early 1990s and weep.

What I Did On My Lunch Break

2007-10-17T01:19:00.000-07:00

This is a video.

It happened on Monday as part of a National Day of Action against the Royal Bank of Scotland. At least 25 different actions happened all over the country. I'm feeling rather inspired by it all.

What I Did On My Holidays / A Climate Uprising

2007-08-31T11:31:00.001-07:00

It was around 1am, and in the small tent village that had appeared across the only vehicle entrance of the British Airports Authority’s corporate headquarters, a giggling gang of protesters ate lentil pate sandwiches and sang daft songs while a large white bunny rabbit scampered around the feet of the bemused police officers standing nearby. This unlikely scene was part of the much-heralded Day of Mass Action for the Climate Camp near Heathrow, and it was the culmination of the most extraordinary, hilarious, inspiring, exhausting, terrifying and wonderful week of my life. Even as I fought through my fatigue and tried to prepare myself for the barrage of stupid questions that the morning media scrum would bring, I was filled with the warm, glowing knowledge that this week had been A Very Good Thing.

Inside the BAA car park shanty town (Image by Kristian Buus)

The fact that I have such powerful, personal memories of the Camp for Climate Action might cause some to doubt my ability to take a cool, rational overview of the whole affair. To such doubters I say: ahh, you’re just jealous that you weren’t there. Plus, you’re missing a really important point: many of the two-thousand-odd people who came through the camp will have left with similar feelings of inspiration, energy and hope – and this, more than anything, was the camp’s real achievement.

Yes, the camp got incredible global media coverage, reaching news outlets serving ¾ of the world’s population. Yes, activists were able to appear all over the mainstream media hammering out the key messages about aviation expansion being madness, about how climate change will only be solved by major social change, and about the importance of mustering people power against entrenched political and corporate interests. Yes, the political balance in the UK seems to have shifted, with Heathrow’s 3^rd runway no longer seeming like a done deal, and the government now talking about including aviation in the Climate Bill. This is all fantastic stuff – but these weren’t the most exciting or important things to come out of the camp. Oh no.

During the eight days the camp was officially open, I counted at least nineteen peaceful direct actions taking place against climate criminals. You can find more information, pictures and first-hand reports at Indymedia, but the brief run-down goes something like this (with much text taken directly from the Climate Camp website):,

13/08/07:

- A group of activists set up a climate camp on the wing of an Airbus A380 on its way to be assembled in France. The Welsh police decline to arrest them, and they all walk free.

16/08/07:

- Farnborough and Biggin Hill airports, both exclusively used by private executive jets, are blockaded by two teams of climate activists in disgust at the obscenity of the super-rich using planes as a taxi service.

17/08/07:

- The doors of six London travel agencies are chained shut and plastered with signs saying 'Closed, gone to the Climate Camp.'

- Activists superglue themselves to the front doors of the Department for Transport's London headquarters. A tourist spontaneously joins the protest by chaining himself to the doors.

Main entrance to Department for Transport - closed (image from Indymedia)

- Ten people occupy the office of private charter company XL, which has a contract with the Home Office to deport rejected asylum seekers, exposing the connection between climate change and forced migration.

18/08/07:

- Children and their parents blockade the World Freight Centre at Heathrow in protest at the damage to the climate caused by unnecessarily flying food around the world.

Cargo terminal closed by slightly damp picnickers (Image from Indymedia)

- 60 people occupy Carmel Agrexco's Heathrow warehouse in Hayes, where produce is air freighted in from territories occupied by Israel, highlighting the issues of food miles and the unjust and unlawful distribution of natural resources in the Middle East.

19/08/07:

- Several marches take place around the site of the proposed third runway, involving local residents from Sipson and Harmondsworth (the villages that BAA is planning to demolish), John McDonnell MP, and the striking sight of hundreds of activists wearing copies of the Tyndall Report on their hands, carrying a banner reading, 'We are armed....only with peer-reviewed science'.

Pictures of people affected by climate change that doubled as handy cardboard shields when the police got their batons out...leading to the horribly surreal sight of cops trying to beat their way through the faces of Bangladeshi children to get at peaceful protesters. (Image by Kristian Buus)

- Despite the presence of 1,800 police wielding batons and the Terrorism Laws, BAA’s attempts to slap injunctions on people, and the fact that the date, time and target had all been announced in advance, hundreds of protestors still make it to BAA’s corporate headquarters, blockade the only vehicle entrance, set up a new neighbourhood of the camp and stay there for 24 hours. BAA tells most of its staff to stay at home or work elsewhere on Monday.

It was around this point that the words of the song "Power To The People" became changed to "Shower to the people...coz the people need a shower..." Look, it was funny at the time, OK? (Image by Kristian Buus)

- BA World Cargo depot is blockaded for about four and a half hours by eight protestors locked to each other.

- Three teenaged girls make it onto the roof of the Heathrow Business School and unfurl a banner that reads “Make Planes History”.

20/08/07:

- Two carbon offsetting companies (in Oxford and London) are targeted by protesters dressed as red herrings. In Oxford the campaigners get into the offices and have a round table discussion with the staff about the problems with offsetting.

- Five protesters use a concrete lock-on to block the entrance to Sizewell A and B nuclear power stations. Their banner reads, 'Nuclear power is not the answer to climate chaos.'

(Image from Indymedia)

- Eighteen protesters occupy the office of the owners of Leeds airport, Bridgepoint Capital, on Warwick Street in London, armed with Yorkshire puddings and a banner declaring “Yorkshire’s flooding, yer daft puddin!”

- Twelve protesters superglue themselves to the entrance of BP’s headquarters.

It's clearly meant to look like oil, right? Not blood. Journalists are weird. (Image from Indymedia)

- A troupe of rebel clowns stake out a fourth runway in the garden of Clive Soley, pro-runway lobbyist and Campaign Director of Future Heathrow.

21/08/07:

- The building works for a controversial gas pipeline being constructed through the Brecon Beacons are sabotaged overnight.

Despite the patchy-at-best coverage of all of this in the mainstream British media, it’s not hard to see why a CNN news bulletin referred to the week as a “climate uprising”. And for those of you sceptical about the effectiveness of this kind of action, here’s why it’s so important:

1) It’s proportionate to the scale of the problem. As George Marshall has pointed out, it’s hard for people to see climate change as a huge problem when the proposed solutions are “change your lightbulbs” or “pump up your car tyres”. Once people start taking peaceful, arrestable action on climate change – demonstrating that they are ready to break the law and go to prison over this issue – it significantly raises the game and marks climate change as a “real” issue.

2) It raises the political temperature. The Iraq war demonstrated how much attention the Government currently pays to large numbers of people marching from Point A to Point B. Every past movement which required major social change – from the anti-slavery campaigners to civil rights in the US to women’s suffrage – required an element of civil disobedience and peaceful law-breaking to keep the issues on the political agenda. Tackling climate change will require bigger changes than all of these previous campaigns were calling for. Direct action helps everybody working on climate change issues across the whole of society, by opening up new political space and pushing the debate forward.

3) It identifies and confronts the culprits. The uncomfortable truth is that the prevention of catastrophic climate change won’t happen with a big warm cuddly consensus. We have to stop burning fossil fuels, massively reduce our reliance on cars and planes, and make some fundamental changes to the way we run our lives and the economy. A lot of influential people and corporations who rely on the current system for their wealth and power will lose out in a big way (while the great majority of people should benefit from a low-carbon world, if we do things properly), and so we can’t pretend that there won’t be confrontation and conflict. There will. We have to accept that, and then figure out how, in the battle of people vs. corporate profits, the people are going to win.

4) It’s the most genuinely empowering form of action that anyone can take. To strip away all of the distractions and just place your body in the way of the bad stuff…it’s not enough by itself, but it’s infinitely more powerful and inspiring that turning down your thermostat or paying £50 for a pop concert.

There are now thousands of people all over the UK who have been informed, trained, educated and inspired by the Camp for Climate Action, and are gearing up for more action (as Green Party Speaker Derek Wall put it, the camp “built capacity, with a vengeance”). Hundreds of new people have been drawn into the movement (the poets and folk singers at the camp's open mic session were joined by rappers, post-rock noise merchants and a teenage emo-punk duo), and loads of older activists have been re-energised and re-inspired. If you want to know more about what’s happening near you and how to get involved, have a look at www.climatecamp.org.uk, or Indymedia, or ask whichever one of your online friends seems to be a member of the right sort of Facebook groups.

Even if you’re not ready to take peaceful direct action yourself, then think about what you can do to support it – the actions around the camp couldn’t have happened without the time and energy of hundreds of helpers, and the camp would have received far less favourable media coverage without the quiet (or, better yet, noisy) support of millions of people across the UK. So turn up to meetings, make sandwiches, organise benefit gigs, gather donations, give talks, write supportive letters to the local paper, set up or join community food/transport/renewable power projects, create stunning political artwork for people to take on demonstrations…there’s loads you can do. The Climate Camp was important, but it was still just one step along the path to building a real, powerful movement for climate action in this country – a movement that we all need to be a part of.

Mr Foot! I’d like you to meet Mr Bullet.

2007-08-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

Oh my word. Whoever would have thought it?

The award for the biggest supporter of the Camp for Climate Action 2007 goes to…the British Airports Authority and their ludicrous attempt at an injunction.

Aided and abetted by corporation-lovin’ lawyer Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden (famed for defending poor defenceless multinationals from nasty peaceful protesters), BAA have spent the last week attempting to slap climate change campaigners with the most extraordinary and wide ranging criminal injunction in British legal history. They wanted to make it illegal for members of fifteen groups (ranging from local anti-runway lobby groups to the National Trust) to protest anywhere near Heathrow Airport, including the Piccadilly Line and parts of two major motorways. BAA tried to use the 1997 Prevention from Harassment Act to criminalise up to 5 million people and prevent them from coming to the Camp for Climate Action (14^th – 21^st August).

They completely and utterly failed. One farcical court case later and BAA’s proposed sweeping ban on peaceful protest was reduced to a small civil injunction against three individuals and the direct action group Plane Stupid, with the upshot being that if certain people do certain things at Heathrow that are already illegal, then they might face stronger penalties than usual, if it can be proved in court that they were breaking the terms of the injunction as well as the law. For this glorious non-triumph BAA ended up paying not only Lawson-Cruttenden’s doubtless extortionate fees, they also had to pay for everyone else’s costs as well (apart from the three injunctees and Plane Stupid, whose costs were covered in any case).

The mini-injunction (minjunction?) that BAA ended up with provides no extra powers of arrest and does not cover the Climate Camp, which will go triumphantly ahead and will probably be much bigger than it would have been thanks to the enormous amount of publicity generated by the court case. (You can check out the latest fantastic-looking timetable of workshops and events planned for the camp here.)

Other good things to come out of this:

Thanks to the juicy court case story, campaigners were able to pop up all over the media this week talking about the link between aviation and climate change;
BAA managed to simultaneously look evil and buffoonish, which can’t really add much credibility to their already-pretty-pathetic arguments for airport expansion;
The judge (Mrs Justice Swift) made some clear rulings on how the Prevention from Harassment Act was not intended to be used to stifle peaceful protest, which will hopefully make it much harder for amoral slimetoads like TLC to play their nasty little legal games in the future.

There was one slightly sour twist in yesterday’s events, however: those cheeky rapscallions BAA sneaked out of court before the hearing was finished and, displaying the integrity and honesty that make them such a beacon of good corporate practice, they told all the media that they’d won the case. Combine this with a healthy dash of lazy journalism and what do you get? All the major media outlets trumpeting BAA’s “victory” for a few hours before getting round to reading the results properly and realising they’d got it wrong. By this time, the almost hilariously dire freebie “London Paper” had already printed their brilliant “Heathrow kicks out eco-demo” headline, accompanied by an article so crudely cut-and-pasted from the newswires that it included both of the following sentences:

“But campaigners claim the order will stop up to 5 million people using the roads and public transport near the airport.”

and

“A spokesman for Plane Stupid, one of the organisations behind the protest, said: “BAA sought a criminal injunction against 5 million people and in fact didn’t get anything like that – it was a complete failure.””

Sheer genius.

Even the usually-reliable George Monbiot managed to get confused over this – in today’s Guardian he’s written what would have been a great article about the erosion of the right to peaceful protest if only BAA had won their case. Except they didn’t.

One last time then, just to clear this up: as explained on the camp’s website, the Camp for Climate Action is completely injunction-free, is going ahead as planned, and is going to be utterly brilliant.

Special thanks must go to BAA for all of their hard work in making this possible.

Injunctivitis

2007-08-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

See below for a statement from the Camp for Climate Action on the injunction that BAA are currently trying to get imposed on peaceful protestors (originally posted as a comment to my earlier posting). For some background see this Independent article, for the news from yesterday's hot court action see this Indymedia article. The court case is due to finish tomorrow, and the first best place to look for the outcome will almost certainly be Indymedia.

Sorry I've not posted for a while - ludicrous busyosity!

Proper update soon...well, probably at the end of August.

Dx

*************************************************************

Whether or not BAA win their injunction today, the Camp for Climate Action and direct action against corporate criminals will go ahead.

We accuse BAA of abusing these people’s right to freedom of expression.

We accuse BAA of pushing for the expansion of airports in the full knowledge that it will lead directly to climate change and indirectly to the deaths of millions.

We accuse BAA of lying to local people, having first promised an end to the expansion of Heathrow in 1978.

We accuse BAA of being climate criminals. A crime for which they cannot be punished under UK law and which the government is actively supporting them in committing.

Today we are sending out a call to anyone that believes that BAA are the real criminals in this case, that knows that governments and corporations will not solve the problem of climate change but that it is down to ordinary people to find the solution, that sees that we are living beyond what the earth’s resources can sustain and need to create major social change to live sustainably.

We call on anyone who wants to find a way back from the brink of climate catastrophe to come to the Camp for Climate Action near Heathrow Airport from the 14th to the 21st August. To join a day of mass action against corporate climate criminals on the 19th, and to learn together how we can turn this situation around.

The responsibility to tackle climate change lies with us all.

============

The injunction's under the Protection from Harrassment Act 1997, intended to protect vulnerable women from dangerous stalker ex-boyfriends. It's insane that one of the best protected sites in the UK could feel harrassed by peaceful protesters outside its perimeter, let alone a member of the RSPB with a balloon - one of the named prohibited items - standing on a Finsbury Park tube platform.

A Flight Of Fancy

2007-07-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

(Note: I updated the passenger statistics in this post and put in proper references on 07/07/07. Instead of watching Live Earth. I feel I made the right choice.)

Slightly teeth-grinding article in the Observer Travel supplement this week. After a great start (two opening paragraphs about the Camp for Climate Action) the article meanders with cheerful incoherence through a mish-mash of statistics and quotes from the Indian government, Airbus, a Kenyan health and conservation project, the British Airline Pilots Association, an engineering professor from Lancaster University, the Tyndall Centre and Greenpeace, before concluding:

"So should we stop flying? If no one set foot on a plane again, it would undoubtedly help to stop climate change - though at the expense of killing off the tourism-based economies of many of the world's poorest countries. But in the real world, with the US and the developing world demanding thousands of new planes, surely we have to take a more sophisticated approach: to choose airlines with greener, newer fleets, and thus encourage plane makers to prioritise environmental performance; to travel to destinations that help local communities rather than destroy them; to take the train where possible; to reduce carbon emissions at home; and, above all, lobby politicians to tackle deforestation and to switch to green forms of energy.

"Do all this, and we can start to cancel flights in the knowledge that it really will make a difference"

Sigh. Once again a well-meaning journalist tries desperately to prove that we can tackle climate change without a drastic reduction in flights. I have some sympathy - it must be a really, really tough thing to come to terms with if you're used to flying off to all kinds of wonderful places as a travel reporter - but the unpalatable truth is that it's a highly destructive activity and if left unchecked will wreck all our efforts to reduce emissions in other sectors. Flying is a luxury - most of the population of the planet have never done it, and never will. There is no sustainable alternative, so we need to do much, much less of it.

For a more clear-eyed viewpoint - and a fantastic example of the self-contradictory nature of the mainstream press - you might want to check out the article about Plane Stupid from the same edition of the paper. Or, if you've got a few minutes to kill, you could join me on a merry journey through rant-land as I make myself feel better by pointing out the main things that are stupid or wrong in this article. Hurrah!

"Some ferries emit more CO2 than planes"

This is true for the high-speed ones with the inbuilt shopping centres which come out worse than planes even when you include radiative forcing (the extra impact from other greenhouse gases that planes emit, and the fact that they're emitted in the upper atmosphere). However, just because some ferries are highly polluting doesn't magically stop planes from being highly polluting. The same goes for inefficient cars and badly-designed trains. We shouldn't be using any of these things. Stupid argument. Next!

"Even if we cut our flights, the rest of the world's flights will still grow massively - India, China, blah blah blah"

Cutting flights in Britain would send a hugely significant signal to the rest of the world. It's hard to think of many things that could send a stronger message about the unsustainability of air travel. More generally, action on climate change must begin with the biggest polluters, and if we want to have any credibility in talking about global emissions cuts with the rest of the world we have to get our own house in order first. The Government's plans on aviation expansion would make it impossible to hit even their own inadequate targets, even using their favoured wacky measuring system of only including UK citizens' outgoing flights (even though, you know, most people do fly back as well). So this argument is pretty weak as well.

"People talk about taking fewer flights but no-one's really doing it, or if they are Ryanair haven't noticed, and it wouldn't make much difference if they did, except that we only need to take a couple fewer flights each per year to hit the Government targets"

Huh? OK, I'm going to ignore all the weird self-contradictory stuff in this article and just respond to the points raised. Clearly, the fact that people have started realising that flying everywhere is bad for the climate is a positive step, and shows the message is getting through. However, any individual action people are taking seems to be being lost amidst the overall growth of aviation. The author of the Observer article enjoys some GCSE maths fun by working out that, on average, five flights are taken per person in the UK per year, and so to make a 60% cut in emissions "we simply need to slowly wean ourselves down to two annual flights - one return trip". This is misleading in three ways. Firstly, it misrepresents the reality of the IPCC's carbon emissions reduction target: to hit a global reduction of 60% by 2050 will require larger cuts in the most polluting activities like flying in order to allow developing nations some room to develop – unless being able to fly out to one’s Spanish cottage every year is just as important as powering a Tanzanian hospital or an Indian school (this is what Contraction & Convergence is all about). Secondly, it pretends that all flights are the same length. Thirdly, it ignores the fact that UK citizens are not really taking five flights each per year - it is a minority of wealthy people who are taking the majority of these flights. Here are some statistics you might find interesting (with thanks to Airport Watch):

* The richest 18 per cent of the UK population are responsible for 54 percent of flights, whilst the poorest 18 per cent are responsible for just 5 percent (calculated by WDM based on 2006 data from the Office of National Statistics).

* In 2005, 86% of the passengers who used Heathrow were from the better-off socio-economic categories A, B and C1 (my calculations, using data from the Civil Aviation Authority 2005 Passenger Survey)

* The average annual income of people using Stansted (where low cost carriers account for nearly all the flights) is more than £50,000 (Civil Aviation Authority 2005 Passenger Survey)

* Each year, 60% of UK residents do not step onto a plane (MORI poll 2001).

The article claims that 3% of people have stopped flying and 10% have cut down because of "environmental concerns". If this is true, fantastic - but this will have little impact on the overall flight numbers if it doesn't include the people who are actually taking all those flights. The continuing boom in airline ticket sales suggests that it probably doesn't.

This is why campaigners like me aren't just asking people to stop flying - we're demanding that the Government halt, and then reverse, airport expansion. The only thing absolutely guaranteed to reduce the number of flights in the UK is a reduction in airport capacity. If we don't seriously reduce our flying, we are absolutely guaranteed to miss all our CO2 reduction targets, destabilise the climate and turn the planet into a floods-droughts-storms-and-resource-wars lucky dip of disaster. It's that simple.

“Flying is only 1.7% of global emissions – deforestation is much more important”

There's actually a good point hiding in here somewhere - deforestation is a massive problem, and we don't just contribute to it by purchasing forest-unfriendly products (burgers, palm oil, Government office refurbishments); the UK Government's role in the WTO, IMF and World Bank helps to encourage, finance and defend disastrously destructive projects all over the world. We do need to take action on this. However, there are some excellent reasons for the current campaign focus on flights:

Flying is growing rapidly, and we have the opportunity to stop it before it gets completely out of control. Flying is done by the wealthy, which puts the onus firmly onto us. Flying is an activity that produces benefit for a tiny minority but has a proportionally huge impact on the climate. When we try to figure out what a sustainable, low-carbon lifestyle would look like, flying is too polluting to fit into it as more that a once-or-twice-in-a-lifetime luxury. In addition, one of the major technological solutions being suggested to reduce the impacts of flights – biofuels – would massively increase deforestation. The UK Government is proposing a huge airport expansion that would wipe out all of its own climate change targets. If we don't win this one, everything else becomes much, much more difficult.

“Stopping flying is less important than insulating your roof”

Clearly, this depends on how much you fly! But more importantly, we know that there is a limit to how much greenhouse gas we can put into the atmosphere. This means there is a limit to how much we can each emit per year (somewhere between 1 and 2 tonnes of CO2e per capita by 2030, depending on whose analysis you go with). This means a massive, across-the-board cut in the UK’s emissions – we have to cut our energy use AND our flights. We can’t choose between them. The only difference is that no-one in the UK needs to fly, whereas everyone needs a warm home.

"Techno! Techno! Techno! Technofix!"

The absolute best case airline industry scenario is that aeroplane fuel efficiency might increase by 1-2% per year. Planes have a lifespan of about 20 years and so are replaced too slowly for efficiency gains to take effect at even this slow rate. Air journeys from the UK are currently increasing by 4% per year. No-one has any feasible plans for running planes on anything except kerosene, or kerosene with a splash of biofuel (bye bye rainforests).

“Flying isn’t a luxury activity – it’s vital for tourism in countries like Kenya”

This argument is fairly awful for three reasons. Firstly, unchecked climate change will do far worse damage to countries like Kenya than the loss of tourist revenue, and the fossil fuel industries that fuel the planes are already destroying the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in the Global South. Secondly, the only way to cut global emissions whilst still allowing poor countries to develop is for the wealthy countries to make deeper, earlier cuts – with flights being top of the list of luxuries we can afford to lose. Thirdly, the equitable solutions to climate change that social movements in the South are demanding – renewable energy transfer, local and regional food and energy networks, the halting of extractive industries, community control of land and resources, a moratorium on biofuels and destructive offsetting projects – have the potential to provide far greater benefits to the people of the South than tourism ever has.

OK. Enough ranting. I'm going to try to condense some of this into a probably-doomed-but-worth-a-go letter to the Observer.

D xXx

A Changing Media Climate?

2007-05-25T07:01:00.000-07:00

Following on from the last post, looking at some of the other press reports (the Guardian, Bloomberg, the Times ) in conjunction with the Telegraph article mentioned earlier, shows a strange trend – they all take a reasonable or even sympathetic angle on the protest. The Times is probably the most surprising, with a well-balanced and even – gasp – interesting article on how more “mainstream” NGOs are now considering non-violent direct action to be a reasonable tactic in the face of environmental destruction and climate chaos.

A big chunk of the credit for this must go to the volunteers on the Climate Camp media team who’ve spent the week talking to journalists and newsdesks to ensure that our side of the story gets across. But perhaps – just perhaps – this more sympathetic tone reflects the fact that the public mood has changed in our favour, and that activists standing up for the climate and for social justice can no longer be written off so easily?

Well, maybe. Just don’t read the Express. But then, when isn’t that good advice?

Anarchists and Eco-Warriors

2007-05-25T04:12:00.000-07:00

From last night’s Evening Standard:

Thousands of green campaigners are planning to cause massive disruption at Heathrow airport.

‘Eco-warriors’ say they will set up a Greenham Common-style protest camp near the perimeter fence.

They intend to use it as a base to disrupt flights at the peak of the tourist season in an attempt to focus attention on climate change and global warming.

At a secret meeting in London at the weekend, protesters said they would occupy land around Heathrow between 14 to 21 August.

From there they will threaten the boundary and attempt to cause havoc inside the airport - or at least tie up hundreds of police.

The (lack of) Standard’s parent paper, the Daily Mail, unsurprisingly carries a very similar article.

Ah, those lazy right-wing journalistic standards we know and love. Anyone who’s disillusioned with what passes for a political system in this country and sick of the three major parties’ utter inability to grasp the urgency of the climate change issue, and who therefore decides to take a stand in the name of our common future is clearly an anarchist-eco-hippy-tree-munching-lentil-loving-mud-warrior and must be DESTROYED.

Sigh.

Luckily, the Climate Camp media team are darned sorted and well-organised, and through well-prepared press releases and media appearances have so far mostly succeeded in managing this sort of dross and putting out the real story of what the Camp is actually about. A quick web search reveals a good selection of much more balanced articles with significantly less mouth-foaming – it’s all rather refreshing, really. Even the Telegraph has a surprisingly friendly take on things.

I thought I’d try to do my bit to help, so last night I wrote the following response to post in the Comments section of the Standard and the Mail articles:

“The direct action mentioned in the above article will be happening as part of the Camp for Climate Action – see www.climatecamp.org.uk. The camp will be a 10-day event encompassing practical low-impact living, education and training as well as direct action.

“As already announced on the website, the aim of the action is not to target passengers, but to highlight the lunacy of the government's airport expansion plans, target industry giants profiteering from the climate crisis, and raise awareness of the need to fly less. The camp will also support local residents in their long-term struggle against the building of a third runway and the destruction of their communities. In the interests of public safety there will be no attempt to blockade runways.

“The meeting last weekend was not “secret”, but was advertised widely and free for anyone to attend. This are an open, non-hierarchical movement of people from a wide range of ages and backgrounds, united by the belief that we need to take action, as citizens, to avert climate catastrophe. Labelling everyone involved in the action as “anarchists” and “eco-warriors” is inaccurate and fails to represent the diversity of the people involved; anyone reading this now could walk into the camp and be a part of it, or take action where they live and be a part of the same growing movement for climate sanity.

“Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, and all our efforts to tackle climate change in other sectors will be undone by the government’s proposals for massive growth in air travel. Government and business have already shown that they are unwilling or unable to act with the urgency required to avert disastrous climate change. It’s time to take things into our own hands – please visit www.climatecamp.org.uk and learn more about how you can get involved and make a difference.”

Clearly this was far too long, but it made me feel better. Other members of the excellent Climate Camp networking team then took up the baton, wrote a shorter, punchier response and actually got the Standard to post a good chunk of it in the (moderated) Comments under the Standard article (though there's no sign of it on the Mail site yet).

Only a small thing, but indicative of the hundreds of small but potent actions that are being carried out every day in the build-up to the Climate Camp. As a huge, sprawling, disparate collective who are organising - in a non-hierarchical way - a massive, high-profile and hopefully very effective action camp, I find it really encouraging that these smaller details are still being picked up on. Of course, this assumes that we're on the case with the big things too...ahhh, of course we are.

This is a great thing to be a part of. If you're reading this, you should join in too. Get yourself over to the Climate Camp website and find out how to get involved!

Dx

The Festival Of The Summer

2007-05-25T01:51:00.000-07:00

HOT NEWS. See below, then visit www.climatecamp.org.uk to find out more and get involved. Hope to see you at the camp!

Danny x

PRESS RELEASE

2007 location announced!
Camp for Climate Action comes to Heathrow this summer: 14th – 21st August

Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, and all our efforts to tackle climate change in other sectors are undone by the massive growth in air travel. Holding the camp at Heathrow aims to highlight the lunacy of the government's airport expansion plans, target industry giants profiteering from the climate crisis, and raise awareness of the need to fly less. The camp will also support local residents in their long-term struggle against the building of a third runway and the destruction of their communities.

There will be a day of mass direct action aiming to disrupt the activities of the airport and the aviation industry, but in the interests of public safety there will be no attempt to blockade runways.

Although the location is different, the philosophy of the camp remains the same: to be a place for the burgeoning network of people taking radical action on climate change around the country to come together for a week of low-impact living, education, debate, networking, strategising, celebration, and direct action. The camp will feature over 100 workshops covering topics such as climate change impacts, carbon offsetting, biofuels, peak oil, permaculture, practical renewables, campaign strategy, skills for direct action, and much more. Run without leaders by everyone who comes along, it will be a working ecological village using renewable energy, composting waste and sourcing food locally.

It all comes down to us, now. We are the last generation that can do anything about climate change. In 20 or 30 years' time, should we not change our ways, we'll be committed to emissions increases that will see forests burn, soils decay, oceans rise, and millions of people die. If we don't get this issue right, so much else is lost too.

We still have time, but not for long. Make it count.

Slammed

2007-05-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

I’m slightly dazed. I’m a bit confused. But I’m also Hammer & Tongue Poetry Slam Champion 2006/7!

Yup. Last night, I somehow emerged triumphant from Oxford’s infamous annual live poetry showdown using a poem about consumerism and the environment, and a poem about pigeons bent on world domination. I couldn’t tell you the exact scores but it must have been pretty ruddy close – the other contenders were all excellent (particularly Sian Robins-Grace, who came in second place), plus I think I scared the judges a bit by adopting an (admittedly rather disturbing) high-pitched freak-voice for parts of the performance. I should probably have given them some warning, but of course that’s far less fun. Heh.

Poetry slams are weird things – each poet performs a short piece, then the judges (who are 5 random audience members at H&T) hold up scorecards to show what they think. This makes the whole thing pretty unpredictable, as you can probably imagine; excellent poems can get low scores if they’re not immediate enough in their impact, and poems you wouldn’t think much of written down can capture the crowd if they’re performed with enough panache. Poetry slams are great fun, but are probably best thought of as a way of raising the profile of live poetry and getting more people involved (it worked for me), rather than an objective method of finding the “best” poets.

All of which means that although I did put a lot of time and effort into writing and practicing the poems, I wouldn’t have won without a big fat dollop of good luck as well, and so I shouldn’t let it go to my head. Despite all of this, though, I can’t help feeling REALLY EXCITED, especially coz the poem “Don’t Buy It” – which is my attempt to challenge the warm fluffy myth of “ethical” consumerism – got the highest score of the evening. Hurrah - people are up for a bit of politics in their poetry, based on this totally representative sample of people who live in Oxford and go to performance poetry competitions!

I’d better call a halt to all this shameless self-congratulation, but if anyone’s actually interested in my poetry here are some ways that you can see/hear it:

Buy the book and CD “This Poem Is Sponsored By…” from Corporate Watch for only seven pounds – it includes “Don’t Buy It” and loads of great political poetry from an amazing selection of poets.
Contact Hammer & Tongue for information on their forthcoming CD “OxTongue”, featuring performances by Oxford-based poets (including me).
Come to one of my upcoming performances: the Christian Aid climate change poetry event in Oxford on May 15^th, the Corporate Watch book launch as part of Acoustic Night in Bristol on June 18^th, or (hopefully) the Poetry & Words tent at the Glastonbury Festival!
Go to my lonely, barren new MySpace page (which I’m still in two minds about because of the Murdoch connection).
Send me an email at dannychivers [at] wildmail.com and I’ll keep you updated on future gigs and things.

Enough of this. I’ll try to do a proper post again soon about exciting important things like the Climate Camp and suchlike (OK, I'm getting overexcited about this whole embedded link thing now).

Best,

Danny