While I've been stuck at my desk following the debates about Climate Camp police tactics, activists’ intentions and whether environmentalists are mostly ‘filthy adulterers’ (Julie Burchill, bless), the Climate Campers have been busy turning a quiet field into a living/working space powered by renewable energy, and debating the future of coal, the climate change movement and the planet.
Despite the police raids and arrests, all is apparently well at climate camp. Workshops are underway covering everything from The EU Emissions Trading Scheme and achieving 90 per cent emissions reductions to legal rights and off-grid renewables.
Nathan, our head nuclear campaigner who held a workshop at the camp yesterday, reports that "after a slow and meticulous search and screening by the Essex police - somewhat out of their jurisdiction but seemingly enjoying the overtime - I made it up to the camp. The atmosphere was positively charged but very serene, with everyone focusing on getting on with their tasks at hand."
The goal of this year's camp is to build a movement that can stop the new coal rush in the UK. And, as Monbiot writes, the Climate Camp must succeed; “Everything now hinges on stopping coal. Whether we prevent runaway climate change largely depends on whether we keep using the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel."
The problem is that Britain’s biggest CO2 emitter (E.On) is dictating our government's energy policy. E.On wants to build a new coal plant at Kingsnorth, and, privately, the government is making promises to the energy giant which make a mockery of its public rhetoric on climate change.
To win this campaign, we need to make it more politically damaging for the government to support new coal plants than not to. That means a mass movement to stop coal, and it all begins at Climate Camp.
If you can go along, please do. If, like me, you can't make it, the wonders of technology and the Indymedia centre mean you’ll be able to keep up with all the goings on at the camp. There are Twitter feeds for protest news, general bulletins and weather forecasts, regular posts on Indymedia, a radio station, a host of blogs, photos on Flickr and videos on YouTube.
