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26.07.08 Climate Camp press conference

Billy Macrae | 26.07.2008 21:55 | Climate Camp 2008 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Globalisation | London | World

Images from the climate camp press conference, Saturday 26th July 2008.
The climate camp will move this weekend from its location at Heathrow Airport to a new location - Kingsnorth power station in Medway, Kent. This conference aimed to examine the ongoing situation at Heathrow and bring different groups such as Camp for Climate Action, local campaign groups HACAN and NoTRAG), and Greenpeace to discuss a broad strategy against expansion.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference, Harlington Baptist church.

UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference. Activist Dan Glass.
UK, Greater London. Climate camp press conference. Activist Dan Glass.


This climate camp press conference took place at Harlington Baptist Church, near Heathrow airport.

There was a large turnout - one or two hundred people by my estimation, packed into a small church. These were mainly local residents who are concerned about the impact expanding Heathrow will have on the surrounding areas, and activists / environmentalists who see the airport as an environmental disaster area.

Speakers included members of Greenpeace, the wife of the Vicar who had kindly lent the Church for the day and who publicly lends his support to the activists, people involved in 'Flashmobs' at Heathrow in the past, local MPs, and also an environmental scientist who gave a detailed account of what scientists believe the effect of pumping vast amount of CO2 into the air is doing to our planet.

Also present were several people who have recently taken direct action against the Government to raise awareness about Heathrow, including one of the activists who climbed onto the houses of Parliament, a Greenpeace activist involved in a recent high-profile action, and activist Dan Glass, who managed to superglue himself to Gordon Brown a few days ago, urging the PM to 'Stick to his promises about Heathrow.' (This really happened!)

The atmosphere was cheerful, determined, and informative. The crowd was a mix of young and old. From what was said, it was difficult not to come away with the feeling that Climate Camp has genuinely affected public opinion on the matter, having gained a vast amount of positive media coverage over the past year.

Links:

CLIMATE CAMP WEBSITE:
 http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

STOP KINGSNORTH POWER STAION WEBSITE:
 http://www.wdm.org.uk/kingsnorth/index.htm

SUPERGLUE INCIDENT:
 http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/07/stuck_on_you.html

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

All images Copyright Billy Macrae 2008
These lo-res versions may be circulated in connection with Climate Camp.
(For hi-res versions, drop me a line.)

An edit of this story will be placed on my photo-blog along with other stories on similar issues:
http:www.billymacrae.blogspot.com

Billy Macrae
- e-mail: billy.macrae.online@gmail.com
- Homepage: http://www.billymacrae.blogspot.com

Comments

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your being ripped off

27.07.2008 10:07

Whilst your out there frightening old bluerinsed grannys with all this codswallop about climate change; remember this, G browne family and chums have invested alot of money into this climate change thing, but guess what, they also invested alot of money into pushing more nuclear powerstations too, and into the companies whom have already been awarded the contracts to build them. So keep on peddling hooha science that you don't even understand, attack coal powered fire stations, show solidarity with the nimby's opposing the wind farms and we will all have some more nice hot waste to keep us warm over the next 50,000 years. And maybe i will keep reading the daily mail, lol!

oi yoi


The New Consensus

27.07.2008 10:19

On March 4th 2007 Channel 4 aired The Great Global Warming Swindle.

The programme was a lone voice. Whether or not you agree with its conclusions, the documentary was a little bit of free speech, arguing against a consensus. Surely free speech means that even people who are wrong are allowed to have their say.

One documentary that stands against a tide of opposing opinion leads to Channel 4 being taken to court. Surely this only reinforces the contents of the offending documentary. We are not allowed to question the new consensus on global warming.

When it comes to global warming, people are divided into two groups: believers and deniers!

Belief and denial have very little to do with science, and far more to do with religion. Looks like we got a new religion on our hands: Global Warming.

Make The Middle Class History
mail e-mail: worldwarfreeatriseupdotnet
- Homepage: http://pretentiousartist.com


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

pudding

27.07.2008 10:38

Well, proof is in the pudding, let's see if our comments are censored by the common purpose spooks at indymedia.

oi yoi
- Homepage: http://www.commonpurpose.org.uk


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

It is our policy to jump on every bandwagon and exploit it.

27.07.2008 11:21

It is our policy to jump on every bandwagon and exploit it. Right now the big thing is global warming. We need to get into that campaign and make our mark on it. It is also our policy to insist that global warming is made made and to frighten the public with scare stories. This is because we think that this is the best way to smash the system.

UK Indymedia collective


Self censorship?

27.07.2008 12:36

What happened to the 4th comment

Title: It is our policy to jump on every bandwagon and exploit it. — UK Indymedia collective

Can anyone from the UK Indymedia collective clarify this previous comment as being authentic or as not under general consensus of the UK Indymedia collective?

I smell trouble.

BTW, are you both participating, organising and reporting on protest, cause that doesn't read like news to me, it's more like propaganda.

oi yoi


More Censorship

27.07.2008 13:40

this time, it's one of my comments that have faced censorship,

Comment title: Pudding

Well done UK Indymedia collective, you have just proven the point i have been highlighting all along, you can find it here..

Only click this link if you wish to visit the 'view all' page for this article..

 https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/07/404722.html?c=all

oi yoi


Participating etc

27.07.2008 13:48

Hi, I do get your point but I don't participate in or organise protests, I just document them.
Billy

Billy Macrae


your innocent, don't worry

27.07.2008 14:15

your right, you didnt.

oi yoi


keyboard warrior

27.07.2008 18:10

Hi, I do get your point too but I participate in or organise protests, I don't just sit on my arse and shout from the sidelines like a keyboard warrior, slagging others off. Whatever action people take to put the political and public agenda onto climate change is a good one imho..

klaus


Bistow Boy

27.07.2008 19:31

Keyboard warrior? careful, if it wasn't for activists on keyboards this text field wouldn't be here for you to type your nonsense into Biggoted Bistow Boy. So when we sabbed the coal fired power stations, wind farms, what energy producing alternatives to Nuclear power are we left with? solar energy, hmm, ya maybe in sunny Spain but not under the canopy of cloudy Great Britan. Maybe if we were to highlight the carbon bi-product of breathing, maybe, just maybe if we could get some of the 6.680 billion useless eaters off the planet it might help reduce our carbon emissions on a global scale? What do you think? Doing something bad is far better than doing nothing at all?

Maybe, if we ceased the oppertunity, we could use the global warming agenda to push in a global carbon bassed tax system, yes, that's it!

oi yoi


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

NUM protest at Climate Camp

28.07.2008 11:21



The protest during the climate camp against their attempts to see working class people lose their jobs reached a new stage today when the NUM confirmed that miners from other parts of the UK would be attending a protest at the camp on the 4th of August. Miners from Yorkshire and other areas are coming to help educate and inform the climate camp attenders of the realities of clean coal, the need for coal in the UK and the effects of working class communities of the destruction of the coal industry in the UK.

The British coal industry now has less than 3000 miners left, and the NUM organisd a Clean Coal conference in Sheffield 2007, they wish Clean Coal technology to be developed as a way of offsetting the drive for expanded nuclear energy production.


Chris Kitchen NUM National Secretary responded today to those protesting against the local council's decision to allow a new coal-fired power station to be built at kingsnorth in Kent. Chris said:

"As the local council gave the go-ahead for the development of the proposed coal-burning power station at Kingsnorth, near Rochester in Kent the no-coal at any price brigade came out in force. The Guardian and Independent newspapers made the protests by Greenpeace and the environment lobby the main story running the case against the power station rather than presenting the compelling case for it.

Anyone would think, listening to these crackpots, that we no longer burn coal in this country. The truth is we import 56 million tonnes of coal a year from places like Russia and South Africa and burn it in our coal-fired power stations to meet the nation’s energy requirements. If we did not burn coal the country would grind to a halt and the lights would go out tomorrow. Coal is our saviour as the price of oil, now more than $100 per barrel, and gas continue to rise in price and become harder to find.

What these protestors should be doing is supporting clean coal technologies to eliminate between 85% and 90% of carbon emissions. Britain still needs coal and will have to burn it well into the future but it can be done cleanly if new technologies such as carbon capture and storage are developed. These very technologies are being developed around the world and should be developed here.

Furthermore our country still sits on vast coal reserves which for a fraction of the cost of building new nuclear power stations could provide energy security well into the future and we must exploit them rather than import coal from around the world. Coal is the real fuel of the future. Those detractors who oppose the use of coal also oppose the use of any other form of energy apart from the utopian idea that windfarms and other renewables will meet all Britain’s energy needs – it is fantasy.

The Government should immediately finance at least 12 demonstration sites for the development of clean coal technologies and then exploit Britain’s vast deep-mined coal reserves."

COAL NEED NOT BE BLACK IT CAN BE GREEN.


We urge all those who support working class people, their jobs and their communities to respond to this influx of middle class, misinformed, Londoners by standing with the miners and their families.




Ian Morgan
- Homepage: http://www.num.org.uk


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