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Children's Revolution Proposed at the Camp for Climate Action in Edinburgh

Nick Martian | 20.08.2010 13:48 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Workers' Movements | World

Some of the original road protesters from the 1990s are issuing a call-out to parents to bring their children to the Camp for Climate Action in Edinburgh to lend their support to a giant kids' march Children's Revolution on the day of mass action on Monday 23 August 2010.
It is being proposed that the climate campers should unite and join forces with the teenagers and students at the Edinburgh Festival to help create a new global youth movement to fight against global warming and climate change and to show the evil cowards who have threatened to burn down the climate camp that the eco-warriors will not tolerate this attempt to intimidate and terrorise them.





The Children of the Eco-Warriors held their first Children's Revolution at the G8 protest in Scotland in July 2005 where they had a picnic and blockaded the Gleneagles Hotel and successfully stopped the Canadian delegates from reaching the summit meeting where George Bush and Tony Blair were plotting their ongoing destruction of the earth.
The kids' bloc decided themselves that they wanted to have their own blockade and their parents agreed and friends and supporters of the Children's Revolution included Rinky Dink, Peace Not War, People and Planet, and some of the activists from Rhythms of Resistance and the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army.

This year some of the working class eco-warriors have been so concerned about the threats of violence from right wing extremists against the climate camp in Edinburgh and the intimidating messages that were published by the Scottish police that they have decided not to bring their children.
However most of the people in the original team that helped organise the Children's Revolution events at the climate camps in recent years are at the Camp for Climate Action right now and they are helping to make sure that the children will be safe and protected as usual.

The United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child which has been signed into law by most countries including Britain says that children have the legal right to be heard and consulted about issues that concern them.
The proposal that is being made is that the kids' bloc should be consulted about what they want to do on the day of mass action in Edinburgh on Monday 23 August, and they should be allowed to have a separate kids' march if that is what they decide they would like to do.
It can't be that difficult for someone from the climate camp facilitation team to go to the kids' space and ask the children what they want to do, rather than to continue to make decisions about them behind their backs at meetings which the kids do not attend and at which they have no voice.

A separate kids' march could join up with the rest of the protests at some point as long as high level police liaison is done on behalf of the children to make sure that they will be properly protected.
This is precisely what happened at the Heathrow climate camp in August 2007 when the kids' march was escorted by the police to the BAA car park where the riot police were battling it out with the activists, some of whom were in fact the children's fathers.
Although it might have looked very dangerous and irresponsible to take the children right in front of the riot police the fact is that the chief superintendent who was in overall charge of policing the climate camp promised that the kids would be safe in his care and all the mothers trusted him.

The Climate Rush Suffragettes have been asked to lend their support to the proposed Children's Revolution at the Edinburgh climate camp along with Rinky Dink, the Rhythms of Resistance, the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, People and Planet, Student Climate Action, and Peace Not War.
It has also been suggested that the students at the Edinburgh Festival should be invited to join in with the kids' march and that the climate campers should make a real effort to unite and join forces with the students and local teenagers to help create a new global youth movement to fight against global warming and climate change.

It is quite possible that if the Camp for Climate Action does decide to let the kids' bloc make their own decisions about what they want to do on the day of mass action at the Edinburgh climate camp a lot of the road protesters from the 1990s who are staying away will turn up with their children and get involved again.
It has always been the policy of the environmental activists known to the mainstream news media as the eco-warriors to let the journalists know about what they are doing, and it is being proposed that all the media should have full access to the kids' bloc in Edinburgh so that the children can tell their own story in their own way.

A Children's Peace Festival and a Youth Conference to save the human race from extinction to be held at the climate camps have already been proposed by the Earth Aid Environmental Campaign several times in the past, but these ideas have so far not been adopted.
The fact that the Camp for Climate Action is being held at the same time as the Edinburgh Festival should provide an ideal opportunity for the climate campers to join forces with the students and to help promote the Children's Revolution and a new youth movement to work to ensure the survival of future generations.
It also seems reasonable to suggest that the people who have been threatening to set fire to the Camp for Climate Action where women and children are living and sleeping should be reported to the police by the climate camp police liaison team for the serious crimes that they claim they are planning to commit.

The following messages were posted on Twitter @GodSaveThe Earth and on Facebook almost a week ago:
You are invited to read the script for a Children's Revolution at the climate camp in Edinburgh on Facebook page, Nick Martian:
The @climatecamp in Wales has been stormed by police and evicted.
The Camp for Climate Action due to be held in Edinburgh is being threatened with violence from right wing extremists.
There appears to have been no proper police liaison at the Camp for Climate Action in Wales.
In view of the threats of violence parents would be advised not to bring their children to the climate camp in Edinburgh.

Martyn Healer responded: The kids have always been safe at all climate camps, what threats of violence?
Reply: I will be posting them as I get them.
The kids have not always been safe at the climate camps and they are not safe now.
Martyn Healer: I am a father of 7, they have always been safe, stop scaremongering.
Name one child that has been hurt, Nick.
Where are the posts!
You are not giving any facts, you are spreading fear, love you.

The following threatening messages against the Camp for Climate Action in Edinburgh from right wing extremists calling themselves “wearethebritish” were posted on Twitter and reposted on Facebook in response to Martyn Healer's question “what threats?”
From wearethebritish: Squalid eco-squat in Parliament Square was sheer vandalism - if the eco-warriors do the same in Edinburgh we will burn it down.
I would have no hesitation in using extreme force to eject filthy left wing squatters from any property of mine.
Some people think squatting is legal - all I can say is try pulling that shit in any property I own and you'll find out all about MY rights.

There were other threats from the right wing extremists calling themselves “wearethebritish” as well which have been continuing:
From wearethebritish: @offasreturn Some tubby wee leftie been squeaking at me about #climatecamp in Edinburgh – we aren't going to let them squat in our town
From SophiaCR: Re your previous threat @wearethebritish Is burning down the homes of people you disagree with British now? #climatecamp
Reply from wearethebritish: Edinburgh doesn't need an invasion of deadlocked left wing anarchists posing as environmentalists. U R not welcome
God help those filthy left minger eco-scroungers if they dare to hijack petrol stations in Edinburgh – war on #climatecamp anarchists

From wearethebritish: The people and businesses of Edinburgh will not be held to ransom by a bunch of violent #climatecamp extremist thugs – U R not welcome
Scotland doesn't want & doesn't need the violent professional anarchists of the discredited #climatecamp 'movement' - go home UR not welcome
From LordLindley: @wearethebritish What's this about these climate change retards? Nothing on the news anywhere!
Reply from wearethebritish: @LordLindley we've got a bunch of #climatechange tosspots coming up to Edinburgh this thursday to set up a squalid camp & disrupt business

From wearethebritish: @MSANNCOOPER smelly left mingers dragging their teepees and totem poles to edinburgh for #climatecamp - we will be there to 'welcome' them
They are truly revolting and have no respect for private property - the damage they do to environment costs thousands to repair
From AmeliaGregory: @wearethebritish and by the way I am not a "smelly minger" you cretin.
Reply from wearethebritish: @AmeliaGregory of course YOU are not a smelly minger, I wasn't referring to you but the anarchist thugs of #climatecamp - c u there for tea
From Amelia Gregory: none of us are "thugs" but I do consider myself an anarchist. The two are not the same thing. #climatecamp @wearethebritish
Reply from wearethebritish: @AmeliaGregory I never said you were a thug either Ms Gregory. You're too intelligent to be an anarchist in the traditional sense

From wearethebritish: Wind turbines are useless, ugly, harmful to birds and a total blot on our landscape - time to burn them down....every last one #climatecamp
Went to Edinburgh airport today - saw loads of unwashed eco warriors piling off an easyJet flight - must have been going to #climatecamp
From JamieDFC: @wearethebritish Funny how the unwashed criticise such travel but happily use it themselves, no doubt paying with our taxes #climatecamp
I bet when they get to their smoke infested teepees they won't admit to taking a plane to get there ....

From wearethebritish: @AmeliaGregory I saw loads of #climatecamp peeps getting off an easyJet flight at Edinburgh airport today ..... yes I did!
From wearethebritish: Police have a duty to protect life & property - I doubt very much that intimidating @AmeliaGregory was part of their remit for #climatecamp
From LordLindley: @wearethebritish Amelia who? The police remit should be to pour petrol over #climatecamp and set it alight, with the retards in the tents
Fromwearethebritish: @LordLindley She's harmless enough, quite nice in fact, they were on the BBC Scotland news a few minutes ago #climatecamp will achieve zilch

@AmeliaGregory some very militant clambering going on there - damaging hedges and scaring wildlife - won't get a reply but hey ho
Climate camp pretty shit so far - a few eco stooges clambering thru a hedge in search of soap rest milling about in Edinburgh Old Town #FAIL
Did #climatecamp seek permission from the landowner before squatting on private property and erecting unlawful structres

From GodSaveTheEarth on Twitter and Nick Martian on Facebook:
In view of threats of violence and lack of proper police liaison parents are advised not to bring their kids to the Edinburgh climate camp.
Most of the original Children of the Eco-Warriors no longer attend the Camps for Climate Action to hold their Children's Revolution events there.

Twitter is full of threats of extreme violence against the Edinburgh Camp for Climate Action from right wing lunatics.
Please do not bring your children to the climate camp in Edinburgh.
Please pass this message on. Thank you.
Right wing extremists are threatening war on Edinburgh Camp for Climate Action.
The threat to burn down the climate camp in Edinburgh should be taken very seriously and the police liaison team must report it officially to the police.

Martyn Healer: A few threats by faceless nutters do not constitute a worry, the welsh camp was evicted peaceably.
Please just block the wearebritish coward.
He is a twat!
Reply: I posted the threats as a result of your question as soon as you asked which seemed to make sense at the time.
I will stop doing so now but I have serious misgivings about what might happen in Edinburgh, especially if police liaison has not done their job properly.
wearethebritish are posting their threats direct to the climate camp Twitter site.
The Scottish police say they are ready for a week of what they refer to as “disorder”.

I don't think that it is me who is scaremongering or spreading fear.
I believe that I am taking a responsible approach and warning everyone about what is actually going on and trying to find a peaceful solution that will enable the climate camp to go ahead without any of the violence that is being threatened.
There will be children at the climate camp in Edinburgh and the media team should request all the television companies to help provide the kids with protection.
Ask the news media to protect the kids at the climate camp in Edinburgh:
BBC 02086249001, ITN 02078333000, Reuters 02072501122, PA 02079637000, Max Clifford 02074082350.

The kids' bloc at the Edinburgh climate camp must not be used as human shields on the front lines of the protest or put in danger of violence from the riot police.
The climate camp at Edinburgh has the perfect opportunity now to unite and join forces with students to help create a new youth movement to fight against climate change.
Martyn Healer: Who is telling you to say this Nick, or is it your own opinion?
Repy: It is my own opinion that the Camp for Climate Action should make a real effort to work together with the students at the Edinburgh Festival to help create a new youth movement to fight global warming and climate change.

In response to Martyn Healer's question the following message was also posted on Facebook:
Martyn Healer has asked me who is telling me to say this or is it my own opinion, and I think he may have been referring to everything I have been posting about the upcoming Camp for Climate Action in Edinburgh.
Nobody is giving me any orders about what I should or shouldn't say so I suppose some of what I am posting here is factual information and some of it is personal opinion.

I can understand that I have a responsibility to everyone concerned to offer a more detailed explanation of what it is that I have been attempting to communicate.
It is my opinion that the kids' bloc should be left alone to make their own decisions about what they want to do at the climate camp and not be put in the same sort of danger that they were forced to face at the Kingsnorth Camp for Climate Action in August 2008.

The original Children of the Eco-Warriors used to have their own Children's Revolution kids' marches which were separate from the main protests on the day of mass action, and they carried a banner reading "The Kids Are Revolting!"
Police liaison for the kids' march at the Heathrow climate camp was done separately from the main protest with the chief superintendent who was in overall charge of policing the whole event, which meant that the riot police were under strict orders to leave the kids completely alone.

It is my opinion that there should be a separate kids' march at the Edinburgh climate camp and that the children themselves should be asked to decide what they want to do and where they want to go.
It is also my opinion that the police officer in overall charge of policing the climate camp should be asked to meet the kids' bloc in the kids' tent to finalise all the arrangements to everyone's satisfaction, and to enable him or her to understand that the police are in fact dealing directly with the children themselves.
The kids should be given the opportunity to speak for themselves for a change rather than being ordered around by people that they don't even know and probably don't even want to know.

I also think that a public appeal should be made in the mainstream news media to all the students involved with the Edinburgh Festival to join in with the kids' march as a demonstration of solidarity and hopefully the beginning of a new global youth movement to fight against climate change.
Everyone who wants to follow the kids' march should be invited to do so and there should be a picnic at the end of it wherever the children choose to hold it, in the same way that the first Children's Revolution blockaded the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland in July 2005.

At the Stirling eco-village the Children of the Eco-Warriors were supported by Rinky Dink and Peace Not War, the student charity People and Planet, the Green Quakers, the Rhythms of Resistance, the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, and about 1000 other friends and supporters.
Martyn Healer: Actually they weren't Nick.
I was there!

Reply: Rinky Dink helped with the initial planning, Magic Dave and Rob the Rub of Peace Not War organised the kids' disco, People and Planet, the Rhythms, and the clowns allowed members of their groups to join in independently.
When the kids paraded in front of the riot police with their "Kids Are Revolting!" banner about 1000 activists followed them singing "When the kids are united they will never be defeated".

You may have been there but you might not have seen everything that happened over the course of the weekend.
Ask Raga or Brian Visiondanz, they are Green Quakers and like George Washington they never tell lies.
The parade in front of the riot police took place when we were under siege locked in the site and not on the slip road over the motorway.
Martyn Healer: I was in the parade with my kids over the motorway, so OK!
That's what I thought you were talking about.

All the mainstream news media received an appeal to help provide protection for the first Children's Revolution in Scotland via Reuters and the Press Association, and the BBC, ITN, and Sky News all said that they would fly in tv crews in helicopters to broadcast the event but unfortunately the London bombings put an end to any publicity for the kids.
Martyn Healer: I was there with the kids' block and it was the best, most effective action!
Reply: Between us we stopped the Canadian delegates from reaching the Gleneagles Hotel.
The BBC and ITN both asked to be kept informed about any future Children's Revolution events and they promised to give them full coverage to make up for being unable to televise the children's blockade of the Gleneagles Hotel.

It is my honest opinion that the safety and protection of the children at the Edinburgh Camp for Climate Action should be paramount and that the people posting threats of violence against the climate camp under the name "wearethebritish" on Twitter should be officially reported to the Scottish police.
Martyn Healer: Report to Twitter!
Reply: As far as I am concerned it is up to the climate camp to take responsibility and to do their police liaison properly and to get as much good publicity as they possibly can for the cause.

The following message was posted on Facebook on Tuesday 17 August:
Facebook asks “what's on your mind?” and the fact is that I haven't been able to sleep for worrying about the violence that is being threatened at the Camp for Climate Action which is about to begin soon in Edinburgh.
I read about the police storming the climate camp in Wales and evicting the site, and then there were the intimidating messages about a “week of disorder” from the Scottish police.

Then I was horrified to discover that right wing extremists in Scotland were threatening on Twitter to attack the protesters and burn down the climate camp.
I posted a message on Facebook saying that as a result of the threats that were being made parents should not bring their children to the Edinburgh climate camp.

Martyn Healer asked “what threats?” and he said I was “scaremongering” and “spreading fear” so I answered his question by reposting a few of the threatening messages.
Then I posted the suggestion that the kids at the climate camp should be consulted about what they want to do there and I said there should be a separate kids' march and proper police liaison to make sure that the children would be safe.
I can't help feeling that we have seen all this before over and over again.

The stage is set for a protest which could end in a violent confrontation with the riot police and people could get badly hurt as a result, which is exactly what has happened in the recent past.
The organisers encourage the televising of the battles with the activists because they want the publicity and they always blame the police for what occurs.
Then they make appeals for money which the public seems to believe is going to the protesters that the media likes to refer to as “eco-warriors” who live and work on the protest sites.

This is just an embarrassment for people like me and some of my friends who actually do campaign full-time for the environment on the eco-sites and who never ask anyone for any money for anything that we do.
We don't agree with begging for money to fight capitalism nor did we agree with the Camp for Climate Action spending thousands of pounds of other peoples' money flying delegates to the Rights of Mother Earth climate conference in Bolivia earlier this year.

Genuine environmental campaigners are totally opposed to the Bilderberg capitalist system that is destroying the earth and driving the human race to extinction this century by the burning of fossil fuels.
Martyn Healer discouraged me from continuing to post messages about the threats being made against the climate camp in Edinburgh and my plea to my friends not to bring their children.

Instead I proposed that the kids' bloc should be allowed to hold another Children's Revolution if they wanted to, and I hoped that there would be enough people who liked the idea to help to make it happen.
Last night I tried to make friends with everyone at Climate Rush hoping that they might lend their support to a peaceful picnic blockade by the kids, but Facebook warned me that if I carried on they would close my page down.

Time is fast running out and my proposal to try to bring peace to the Edinburgh climate camp and protection for the children who will be there has probably not been read by many people.
I would like to ask all my friends on Facebook if they would be good enough to suggest to all their friends that they should send me a friend request so that a lot more environmental activists will be able to read what I am proposing.

I will confirm every request that I receive and hopefully there will be enough people who will read my script for a Children's Revolution at the Camp for Climate Action in Edinburgh and they will help to make it happen.
Many of my friends no longer go to the climate camps because they have become disillusioned with what they see as part-time publicity stunts by middle class liberal reformists and green capitalists.

Many of the original Children of the Eco-Warriors who started the first Children's Revolution at Stirling in July 2005 have given up on the Camp for Climate Action because they objected to being told what to do by people that they didn't even know.
Personally I have continued to try to support everyone who is doing anything about trying to solve the global environmental crisis, but I won't be coming to the Edinburgh climate camp because most of my friends won't be there.

I still think that it would be safer if nobody brought their children to the Camp for Climate Action in Edinburgh, but in my opinion the kids who will be there deserve to be supported and protected by everyone, including the police and the mainstream news media.
I also think that the wearethebritish right wing extremists who are continuing to publish their threats of violence against the climate campers on Twitter should be reported to the police by the climate camp's police liaison team.

These nasty characters don't scare me personally but I am very concerned for the safety of other people who might be more vulnerable than myself, and it horrifies me that the new generation of eco-activists has tended to ignore and neglect the children who go to their climate camps.
Anyone who wants to is welcome to phone me at any time on 07883242168 (Three) or 07574092829 (Vectone) or on Skype at Earth Aid and I will be available 24 hours a day to assist with any help or advice that might be needed, to the best of my ability.

Who knows, maybe the Camp for Climate Action in 2010 will be remembered for putting an end to the violence against environmental campaigners and for turning the Edinburgh Festival into the Children's Peace Festival and Youth Conference to save the human race from being driven to extinction by the burning of fossil fuels.
After the insipid hippies in the 1960s and the ineffectual punks in the 1970s surely it is time for a real youth movement to emerge onto the world stage and to be supported by the environmental movement to help ensure the survival of future generations?
THE MARTIANS ARE COMING!

Nick Martian
- e-mail: earthaidcampaign@gmail.com

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

I'm not an eco-warrior

20.08.2010 16:30

I'm not there and haven't been part of the planning gatherings, so I can't say do this or that on the day of action. But I guess people might not want a march as they want it to be direct action, especially after last year's lack of it, and general trends. Marching and direct action are different things. One of the Camp for Climate Action's stated aims is direct action.

I find it funny that you use the term eco-warrior, which was invented by the mass media and not us. There are other problems with the term too...

> It has always been the policy of the environmental activists known to the mainstream news media as
> the eco-warriors to let the journalists know about what they are doing

I was there in the 90s too (though I've not bred since) and that's a generalisation and just not true.

There's so many other points, but your post is too long and I don't have the time to read and respond to it all.

The camp is and has been a welcoming place for all sorts of different people, as long as they respect the 'safer spaces' policy, and are there for the aims of the camp. We shouldn't try to turn it into something it isn't - if you or anyone else wants to organise different things as well, go for it.

though I was there in the 90s!


so why aren't we hearing from the children?

20.08.2010 17:00

how old are you nick?
why are you speaking on behalf of these young people?
(incidentally doing exactly what you claim is problematic when other people do it)

as someone who has been active for a long time, and described as an "eco-warrior" by the media myself, i have to disagree with your analysis. most of the folk i know who were living on anti-roads camps in the early 90s are so fucked off by their experiences of journalists back then that they are now highly cynical. they're wary of swampification, and mistrustful of mainstream media circuses.

i cringe every time i hear you use the phrase "children of the eco warriors"! none of the kids i know (whose parents were road protestors) would ever use that term. so who exactly are you speaking about/ speaking for?

i am not heavily involved in climate camp, although i have attended them in the past. as far as i can see those involved do try to make the planning and organisation as open as possible, and there is no age limit to attend those meetings. so if there really are a bunch of revolutionary-minded kids out there who want to communicate with those adults on an equal footing they could do so.

it sounds like it's just you, with a bee in your bonnet, exhibiting enough negativity about climate camp that my gut advice to you would be "just don't bother going!" save your energy for projects that you feel happier about working with/on....



suffer the children


Safe spaces for kids

21.08.2010 09:53

You state that " it horrifies you that the new generation of eco-activists don't take the saftey of children seriously"
My young children have been to g8,climate camp,coal caravan,faslane 365 etc..
I have found most people at these events really caring and proavtive toward childrens welfare.
Every year the climate camp happens somebody on a cyberspace forum reckons their gonna give the hippys a beating, it never happens!!

Mainshill forever

Nodirtycoal
- Homepage: http://www.toonclimateaction.tk