Various Exciting Things

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

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

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*

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