Less Talk, More Wind*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: