Parliament cares nothing for the world
Sinister being joins other evil ones in parliament
Crowd remained happy despite rain
Can never keep FIT away
Counting all the dodgy people filing past
closeup of above
Listening to Meacher Monbiot climate camp Sophie etc
Seize the Day band always bring a cheer
I found myself asking why are we still having to stomp the streets in this repetitive manner every year? Isn't the tidal wave of scientific evidence of accelerating climate change enough to make our politicians do anything of real substance yet without us having to metaphoricallly kick their useless arses all the time? Obviously not. I pay fairly close attention to mainstream coverage of environmental issues and in the last year, our corrupt leaders have done nothing that I see is going to be really effective at even starting to tackle this country's increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Really they've done fuck all of significance even since climate change was discovered as a global threat decades ago. Announcing more road building and a massive expansion of airports and therefore highly polluting flights shows without any doubt at all that economic growth is still what they blindly care about more than anything else. To be sure climate change is a complex issue. More and more gloomy facts and figures are emerging all the time. Latest one I heard from one of the speakers in Grosvenor Square was that a vegan driving a 4 X 4 produces lower emissions than a carnivore riding a bicycle because of the gross inefficiency of growing high energy foods to be fed to methane farting animals so they can be eaten by us. Agriculture, particularly that requiring high input of artificial nitrogen fertilisers is increasingly seen as a huge contributor to CC because it releases nitrous oxide (N2O) which is a massive 300 times more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. This is likely to become exponentially worse because of the obscene and lunatic scramble for biofuels. See here:
http://www.physorg.com/news109581631.html The FIT team were present as they always are these days no matter how tame the event might be. One interesting thing I saw on the march was a group of three cops in a good vantage point on an outside corner watching everyone go past. Every few seconds, one of them would whip a notebook out of his pocket, quickly write something in it before hastily hiding it back in his pocket. It wasn't until I returned home and was able to zoom into the pic I took of the notebook that I realised he was probably just doing a low tech tally count... Or maybe they were having an I spy competition between themselves to see which of them could clock the most from a list of known dodgy activists they carry in their heads. I suspect they normally count numbers present on demos by flying a helicopter above the crowd which must cost so many thousands of pounds/hour running cost but cloud was probably too low and wind too strong to allow this today.
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/index.php http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/ http://www.planestupid.com/ http://www.seizetheday.org/ http://www.campaigncc.org/
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Would like to have gone but I'm skint
10.12.2007 18:08
I would have gone but I am was too skint to come all the way down from where I live (Manchester), so I had to make do with being there in spirit.
Solidarity to you, all the same.
Tom A
response to DonB
11.12.2007 07:58
Simple. They receive massively conflicting messages. Every day, the public are bombarded with information that either makes no mention of climate change in regard to something that can only contribute to it - such as an exotic holiday program on TV. Or news channels treat the Bali climate change talks as a far less important issue than say one sad bloke doing a Reggy Perrin with a canoe - just even try counting the column kilometres on this non issue. Or the information actively denies climate change such as the disastrous and recklessly irresponsible Channel 4 screening of The Great Global Warming Swindle. So when Jo Public watches someone having an exciting adventure that inherently trivialises climate change. And then Jo Public watches a peer reviewed warning from scientists on the news saying that climate change is really serious shit and that we all have to urgently change our lifestyles and give up some of life's luxuries that we've become very used to, which message will appeal most and therefore be accepted? No brainer in so many cases.
Too many activists I know, by divorcing themselves so much from mainstream society really don't seem fully aware of the level of mass disinformation the public are bombarded with on a day to day basis. They become frustrated and puzzled that the climate change message isn't being taken on board when they shout about it often incoherently from the streets. Simple fact is that every day, anyone who lives in an urban environment will pass dozens of huge, chrome edged illuminated billboard adverts that legitimise and glamourise cars and cheap flights. So is it any wonder that people going about their Christmas shopping ignore our soggy scrawled banners? And every evening, anyone watching TV will be bombarded with glitzy car ads loaded with powerful psychology designed to make you feel woefully inadequate for not owning that gas guzzling model. Even if we could afford the astronomical cost of showing our own TV adverts, we wouldn't be allowed to because they would be deemed political which is illegal under this fucked up system. Promoting the carbon economy with adverts encouraging profligate use of cars and airflights though isn't considered political in the least. The continuing crime of course is that although advertising ciggies is now illegal, advertising cars, flights, patio heaters etc is still perceived as being absolutely fine and never questioned.
This may seem like a strange admission but from time to time I watch Top Gear on TV. I don't sit down and watch it devotedly, just have it on in the background while I'm cooking or something. I do this occasionaly simply to remind myself of just what sort of mentality us environmental campaigners are up against and how easy it is for people living in mainstream to be lulled into carrying on living "business as usual" lifestyles. A few years back, as he was collecting a totally un-deserved honorary degree from Oxford, someone famously pied Jeremy Clarkson right in the mush to much applause.
I'm normally dead against censorship but really he should have a sock forced permanently into his mouth. And of course, the same should go for his co-presenters - the smug, scruffy public school git and the smug short-arse git who sadly survived when he crashed some rocket car. If you do watch this program - and I'd really recommend activists do for the same reason as I do at least once - you'll hear these three bufoons consistently denying, triviliasing or joking about climate change with quips like "this car isn't a hybrid so it keeps the earth nice and warm". You'll see the adoring audience hang on their every utterance, be filled with envy as they rip up stunningly beautiful wilderness in humungous 4 X 4s, thrill to them driving totally unaffordable and impractical Italian super cars where the emphasis is entirely about speed, speed and speed.
They recently drove a fuck-off-great 4 X 4 to the north pole which caused the adulation from the fans to reach fever pitch.
Never mind the symbolism of such a rapidly disappearing wilderness being driven over roughshod by the same kind of vehicle which is also melting that ice cap from thousands of miles away by being (equally absurdly) driven around urban roads on the school run. No worries that due to the now increasingly warm Arctic, the north pole only existed in the liquid state during some summer months.
I didn't actually watch that polar episode as it would be just too painful. You'd be sitting on the edge of your seat throughout, actively willing the heavy metal beast and smug occupants to suddenly plunge through the thinned ice and sink deliciously into the icy blue depths of the Arctic sea. But at the back of your mind you'd know that they did arrogantly complete their pointless journey and poetic justice so tragically missed its chance.
Is this responsible television? Hardly, but just try shouting Top Gear down and see how far you get. This isn't a program that just appeals to a few hard core petrol heads. It's consistently in the top five programs on British TV along with dross like East Enders and probably earns the beeb a fortune from export revenue from around the world too.
So what's to be done about this seemingly hopeless level of ignorance and denial of the importance of climate change? One thing we should all do is outreach at every opportunity and not just by means of direct action which, you have to recognise, for too many people can be an instant turn off.
Follow your local rag if you can bear to. For every local development they report on, bang in a letter asking if the development has been assesed for its impact on climate change and if not why not. Always suggest positive alternatives. Keep on an on raising the importance of climate change at every opportunity.
Trawl the internet for any kind of forums where climate change denial or disinterest is obvious. These can be feedback forums from TV programs or newspapers or holiday sites or motorists sites. I call this extreme outreach when you venture right into the belly of the beast by logging into say,
or a fuel protesters or 4X4 forum that attracts red-necks. This can be quite fun. Always be polite, well informed and non hysterical. You can use a little sarcasm or comedy by, for instance, gently calling them flat-earthers. Never ever come out with shrill stuff like "mankind will become totally extinct" or they'll utterly ridicule you and switch off. Don't let it degenerate into a slanging and name calling match - remain calm and knowledgeable at all times.
For every fact you come out with, you'll need to back it up from a website with CREDIBLE science not some hippyish rant. Many activists have a poor understanding of science which will show so you may need to bone up first from sites like:
There are many other good sites like this but I don't have time to search for them myself. Maybe someone else can supply some good links to help others? Be careful as there's all sorts of bad science in evidence on some of the more amateur climate action websites. For instance, some abbreviate Nitrous Oxide (N2O) - a very powerful greenhouse gas - to the totally different NO2 which is actually Nitrogen Dioxide and is more an acid rain gas than a greenhouse gas.
The deniers will keep coming back at you with "facts" they've gleaned from weirdo petrol head sites and particularly the Great Global Warming Swindle which they all worship as the absolute truth like fundies quoting the bible do. There's a blow by blow scientific response to this pack of lies here:
Keep on debunking the content of whacko sites they'll respond with. It's normally not very hard to demolish their arguments as they are invariably based on knee-jerking knowledge. Best way to ultimately get through to them is to gently guilt trip them by asking stuff like "so why don't you seem to care about the state of the world in which your children and grandchildren will be living after you've gone?" or "How do you imagine they will think of you then, knowing that you had all the evidence of climate change but you decided to ignore it?" Don't expect to change the views of every last rabid nutter on such forums. Realise that it's often the silent "lurkers" who you may be persuading but because they rarely speak out, you may not realise that you're having much effect when in fact you are..
Good luck with this and have fun doing it.
PS to DonB:
Thanks for extra pics but please, in future resize large ones before uploading as it's really hardeveryone to see the whole picture on an average size screen. There are full instructions for doing this (sort of) pointed to by the publish help page here:
Also your Sony Ericsson camera phone has its white balance setting set to Tungsten light source (old fashioned light bulb) setting. This is why the first pics have such a strong blue cast to them. To other viewers - it really wasn't as cold as these pictures make everyone on the march look! Change the White Balance setting to something like an Auto setting.
hope that helps
kriptick
Reason v common sense
11.12.2007 13:09
the adverts that are so persuasive are actively structured so as to eliminate the capacity to reason- if people applied reason to their purchasing habits they would probably not make them. There are also punters who are actively opposed to environmentalism on the basis that they do not give a fuck. They are trapped in the mindset of an animal although they would probably identify themselves as hedonists.
This does not mean that people cannot change their perspectives. Only that any attempts at reasoned debate must be accompanied by spectacle. It is spectacle, theatre in the form of direct action that has the capacity to subvert.
By the way, to the organisers of this march the stewards I encountered seem to have been solely employed to suck up to the police. Why?
Eugene