Campaign against Climate Change

At the Climate Camp, I learned that helicopters are weapons of mass disturbance, as a strangely attractive chopper was flown over the workshops on a regular basis, down low, clearly in an attempt to disrupt the communications between people.

At Climate Camp I learned that the Police were incorrect in some of their assertions. I felt completely safe in the field, and I found not a scrap of evidence of a small group of agitants or violent people that the Police maintained were there.

Admittedly, it was the declaration of a small group of individuals to commit illegal acts of ingress at the Kingsnorth Power Station, and be prepared for the consequences. But that could not be said to be irrational violence or anger.

These are sane people, and they have a clear objective. They believe that in order to build weight in the argument against coal-fired power generation, they need to take direct action against the industry, to shut it down literally, with their own hands and bodies, non-violently, without guns or bullets or bombs.

However, all the so-called violence was actually intended for the power station, and there was none at the camp, apart from minor skirmishes with the Police at the stand-offs at the gates. Yes, my opinion is that the "sensitive" policing was responsible for the minor outbreaks of frustration.

Clearly, the Police wanted to stop people scaling the fences at the power station, so they decided to confiscate anything they felt could be used for protest purposes, by searching everyone coming on to and off the site. They arrested some people on a range of grounds, if they found they were carrying certain items.

But this was completely the wrong strategy to stop the protest against the power station. Instead of using blunt force, with undeterminable effectiveness, they should have enlisted the help of the Secret Services to learn how to infiltrate the camp undercover, and find out who was involved and detaining them or derailing them individually.

Instead, they annoyed and harrassed all the people in the camp, by taking away toys, kitchen equipment, tent poles, the pole for the wind turbine, games, costumes, wood intended to construct compost toilets, a whole list of things.

Yes, the camp are compiling a list of confiscated items that many will not be able to claim back, as the conditions of return cannot be met by many victims of this unnecessary clampdown, and so a complaint is in order.

I learned at the Climate Camp that no one is immune from suspicion by a Police Service who have resorted to mass inquisition because their strategies are so poor. People attending the camp have been drawn from all levels of society and all walks of life.

The Police have been unable to profile the kind of people they think they should search, so Members of Parliament, elderly peace campaigners, young Sussex students, respected experts from public policy groups, mothers with babes, all have been stopped and searched, and forced to carry their tents and luggage for half a mile, as vehicles were kept back from the campsite.

Food deliveries were disrupted as food and equipment had to be carried in wheelie bins from the outer Police checkpoint to the campsite, as vehicles were restricted from entering.

A large gazebo structure was erected at the central Police checkpoint in order to accommodate large numbers of people, as everybody was being stopped and searched, for no reason at all that I can determine.

The Police had no clue as to the motivation of the campers. That much is clear. They also had no clue as to what the campers were like in character or lifestyles. Their understanding was restricted and their vision was cloudy. They did not get the big picture. Deliberately creating obstructions to camp life has been unjustified, as nothing illegal was going on in the Climate Camp itself.

What else did I learn from Climate Camp ? That I can facilitate a meeting with no preparation if the person timetabled to hold the space has been arrested and nobody else knew about it. I rely on simple facts : collectively, people have much of the information they need. They just need to be encouraged to share it.

I learned at Climate Camp that journalists have such a strong corporate narrative ingrained that they are always protecting their profession even when they think they are speaking for themselves. Playing "spot the hack" was so easy !

At Climate Camp I learned that there are fundamentalists in every sector of society, but that it is possible to hold all these views together with appropriate consensus-building techniques when everyone shares the same basic concern.

At Climate Camp I learned that autonomy can produce surprising coherence, as we all have the same basic needs. If you let people know what roles are useful, they participate at random times and places of their own choosing, and with sufficient people that amounts to consistent service.

At Climate Camp, I learned that there are people who think like I do. One example in particular : a youth male individual was hosting a workshop and as he presented various ideas, I kept thinking "that's what I would have said !"

At Climate Camp, I have, for the first time in my life, fitted a toilet seat. Now I know why they keep working loose. Bad design.

I have shared kitchen duty with an British ex-civil servant and an Italian hardcore hippy. I have shared gate duty at 2am with a radical isolationist who couldn't understand that everyone cannot live the way he does. I have joked with the Police. I have bantered with the frustrated. I have counselled friends who feel torn.

I have listened to those who were brutally removed from the Agrofuels protest without proper care and attention for their safety. I have seen a young girl who was sleeping with her friends in a ditch as part of the barricade against Police incursion, get news of good exam results by phone and leap up to hug the Police Officers in her joy.

I have heard myths exposed, sense talked, and some scary new science.

I have been in the same tent as people who do not agree with me, and yet we have found a unified common sense of purpose.

I have eaten well and had a good time, in every way Low Carbon.

The Police operation has burned more electricity on their un-needed security lighting at their inner checkpoint and gates than all the power used by all the protestors at home, probably. The constant, useless helipcopter forays over the field burned up more fuel than all the train journeys of all the campers in six months, more than likely.

If it were put to the vote, I would say : let Malcolm Wicks chopper into the field at Climate Camp to avoid being stopped and searched, and let him explain to us how fast Carbon Capture and Storage can be fitted to all coal-fired power stations in time to avert catastrophic Climate Change.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/08/carboncapturestorage.f...

Safe ? I was more safe at Climate Camp than anywhere else in the World. The only risks to life and mind were from the bungled, intrusive Police operation, whose lack of sensitivity added much to the sum total of Britain's Carbon Emissions in exchange for irritating us all, including the officers who had stupid night shifts.