Join us and get organised: your planet needs you
1:25 pm - October 9th 2010
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contribution by Hanna Thomas
I first heard about Climate Rush in January 2009. I was despairing about the ability and intention of our world’s governments to do anything about climate change.
With the spectre of the Third Runway and Kingsnorth looming then, what a welcome invitation it was to attend a (very civilized) sit-in at Heathrow and show our dissent with tea, cake, blankets and Edwardian garb!
Almost three years have passed, the world has changed yet internationally climate change negotiations are still stuck. It’s the penultimate day of yet another UN climate change conference, and still nothing is expected to change.
The US and China (who emit 40% of man-made CO2 emissions) are at logger-heads again. It looks as though the talks in Tianjin will end leaving a shadow over COP 16 in Cancun this winter. Commentators suggest that when the Kyoto protocol runs out in 2012 our leaders will have nothing ready to replace it.
The failure of action on climate change, at the upper-most level of governance, is more than depressing. It is fatal. When I consider how impossible the fight for environmental justice seems it is only the victories of past ‘impossible’ struggles that inspires me to have hope.
Climate Rush model themselves on the Suffragettes. The Suffragettes, who, in their time, used many forms of campaigning and direct action to fight against the pressing injustices of their day. The Suffragettes, whose use of such tactics, made their fight for justice the pressing issue of their day.
In the past few months I’ve heard so many people say that they’ve given up on fighting climate change. It’s sad and a little ironic since it is these people who, if mobilized, could make their dissent felt. They’ve lost hope because our international leaders fail us with every UN conference that comes to pass. Three weeks ago, as the parties prepared for their conferences, I remembered the sit-in at Heathrow and wondered where that optimistic, grass-roots activism had gone.
Two days later and I was on Nick Clegg’s doorstep, asking Miriam (ever-so-politely) to accept a large dose of climate Viagra to help Nick get hard on climate change. After six months getting to grips with what the election results mean for UK climate campaigns, Climate Rush is back and they’re recruiting.
Last week a group of Climate Suffragettes stormed into the editor’s office of the Express and demanded a meeting. For half an hour they discussed climate science and how best to encourage the media to put climate change, the facts and their impacts, on the front-page.
The Suffragettes gave hundreds of thousands of women and men a role in fighting for the votes. Climate Rush promises the same in our fight for climate justice. The sashes – red, with ‘Deeds not Words’ across the front – are being sewn. The postcards – and guides to protest – have been printed.
The venue has been booked: 7pm, Wednesday October 13th at Toynbee Hall. Your planet needs YOU, so swallow your apathy and change the world.
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Climate Rush are also on Twitter. www.climaterush.co.uk
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Reader comments
[deleted]
post deleted eh? Why am I not surprised. There is, of course, only one point of view isn’t there?
Ok, explain just what gives you the right to storm into the office of a private company and demand a meeting
post deleted eh? Why am I not surprised.
I’m not surprised either, since you don’t bother reading or adhering to the comments policy.
we should at least celebrate that the third runway has been scrapped. obvs not such good news on the nuclear front, but i’d rather we spent less time arguing how to deal with climate change and get on with actually dealing with it
these comments are loony. it’s incredible to watch the righteous anger of people who refuse to accept the conclusions of such simple science. and then to come out on the side of the express rather than a bunch of women terrified that the LIES they publish might have a bad influence on people’s awareness of climate change. more activism please and hanna, you will certainly see me on weds – thank you.
If you’re going to use direct action, you should be handing out condoms to people who burden the biosphere by having more than two children, be they rich or poor, and telling the media to spread the reality – that economic growth, and growth of the human population are the most detrimental things to the planet. Get them to look at this:
http://steadystate.org/
Anyway, shouldn’t people be at school on a Wednesday?
If you’re going to use direct action, you should be handing out condoms to people who burden the biosphere by having more than two children,
This is what what I find amusing about right-wing ideologues. They’ll make barmy suggestions like this, and then later declare that greens are barmy because someone said having less children would save the environment.
7. Trofim
‘ If you’re going to use direct action, you should be handing out condoms to people who burden the biosphere by having more than two children, be they rich or poor, and telling the media to spread the reality – that economic growth, and growth of the human population are the most detrimental things to the planet. Get them to look at this: ‘
Umm, what use would condoms be? The population of the earth is not rising because more children are being born. The global population is rising because less children are dying and life expectancy is rising. The birth rate is declining in nearly every nation on earth. Global fertility rates are about 40% below the rate of 50 years ago. The so-called ‘ population explosion ‘ is a health explosion. The population of the earth will continue to rise and then stabilise around 2050, and then it will start to decline. If you are uncomfortable with this by all means argue that people should be unhealthier and more children should die.
@ #3 sl 5:12pm when private companies fall way short of public good, then anything goes?
I’m entirely in sympathy with the green movement, and have a lot of admiration for peple like Hanna who use their energies in its service. But I do wonder whether putting pressure on European politicians is a particularly good use of that energy. The UK’s record on carbon may not be perfect – and I’m all for protesting specific decisions, such as the axing of the Sustainable Development Commission and the Green Jobs Fund – but let’s face it, it’s not DECC holding up the UNFCCC; it’s China and the US. Until those two bite down on the necessary measures (not looking likely given the make-up of the Congress), I just have a horrible feeling that it matters only a very tiny damn what anyone else does.
Rather than handing viagra to Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, wouldn’t we be better off trying to work out how best to put global pressure on US congressmen and the Chinese government? And rather than a succession of climate-based protests that – with all due respect – seems to form an indistinguishable background hum that the public generally ignores, wouldn’t we be better off taking some notes from the incredibly focused and (it seems to me) effective ‘Science is Vital’ campaign, and concentrate our collective energies on on or two specific domestic policy issues at any one time?
Sorry to be a curmudgeon.
[deleted]
” when private companies fall way short of public good, then anything goes?”
Really? What a well thought out response.
Reactions: Twitter, blogs
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Liberal Conspiracy
Join us and get organised: your planet needs you http://bit.ly/bZ6WNb
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paulstpancras
RT @libcon: Join us and get organised: your planet needs you http://bit.ly/bZ6WNb < Um, all very well but do we need you? #justasking
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Sion
Hanna Thomas writing eloquesntly on the eclipse and re-emergence of climate change activism: http://s.coop/43x via @libcon @ClimateRush
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Sion
Hanna Thomas writing eloquently on the eclipse and re-emergence of climate change activism: http://s.coop/43x via @libcon @ClimateRush
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blogs of the world
We believe in free speech but not your right to abuse our space. Abusive, sarcastic or sil… http://reduce.li/e4hhwz #your
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tamsin omond
yay to lib con and hanna for this post @climaterush http://bit.ly/8Zp3Ko
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Casper ter Kuile
Great to see @hannathomas writing for Liberal Conspiracy http://tinyurl.com/34fnaqx
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Hanna Thomas
I wrote a blog about @climaterush for Liberal Conspiracy http://tinyurl.com/34fnaqx
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Join us and get organised: your planet needs you « hannamade
[…] 9 Oct This is cross-posted from Liberal Conspiracy […]
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sunny hundal
Want to do something on environmental issues? Join us and get organised, says @hannathomas – http://tinyurl.com/34fnaqx
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Hanna Thomas
RT @sunny_hundal: Want to do something on environmental issues? Join us and get organised, says @hannathomas – http://tinyurl.com/34fnaqx
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