Camp for Climate Action: 2007 location announced!

This years Climate camp will take place from August 14th to August 21st near Heathrow Airport. The exact location is unlikely to be announced before it begins.

To keep up to date with arrangements join the climatecamp mailing list. Sending a blank e-mail to climatecamp-subscribe@lists.riseup.net will do it or go to http://lists.riseup.net

See http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/ for regular info

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Climate Camp headlines from Indymedia UK:

• ANOTHER Oil rig explodes in the Gulf of mexico!
• Danish Court: Climate activists are innocent
• Climate Action Film Night
• Stop Bilderberg Campaign Began With £50 Billion Bonus at Climate Camp
• Bullying Council Takes Anti-Open Cast Community Council to Court
• More from the Indymedia UK Climate Camp newswire...

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Camp for Climate Action comes to Heathrow this summer

Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, and all our efforts to tackle climate change in other sectors are undone by the massive growth in air travel. Holding the camp at Heathrow aims to highlight the lunacy of the government's airport expansion plans, target industry giants profiteering from the climate crisis, and raise awareness of the need to fly less. The camp will also support local residents in their long-term struggle against the building of a third runway and the destruction of their communities.

There will be a day of mass direct action aiming to disrupt the activities of the airport and the aviation industry, but in the interests of public safety there will be no attempt to blockade runways.

Although the location is different, the philosophy of the camp remains the same: to be a place for the burgeoning network of people taking radical action on climate change around the country to come together for a week of low-impact living, education, debate, networking, strategising, celebration, and direct action. The camp will feature over 100 workshops covering topics such as climate change impacts, carbon offsetting, biofuels, peak oil, permaculture, practical renewables, campaign strategy, skills for direct action, and much more. Run without leaders by everyone who comes along, it will be a working ecological village using renewable energy, composting waste and sourcing food locally.

It all comes down to us, now. We are the last generation that can do anything about climate change. In 20 or 30 years' time, should we not change our ways, we'll be committed to emissions increases that will see forests burn, soils decay, oceans rise, and millions of people die. If we don't get this issue right, so much else is lost too.

We still have time, but not for long. Make it count.

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Our view on the symptoms, science and solutions to climate change

The environmental problem.
Emissions of carbon dioxide, mostly from oil, gas and coal are rapidly raising the temperature and changing the weather. This is happening faster than at virtually any time in the Earth’s history. Most scientists, and even governments, agree that if we keep to business-as-usual then people, society in general and the ecosystems we all rely on for food and water will not be able to adapt to such rapid changes.

The scale of the problem is mind-boggling: the new report from the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change says that if we continue with rapidly increasing fossil-fuel use, global average temperatures may rise by 6 degrees Celsius. The last time this happened was 251 million years ago and some 99% of all living individuals died. We must rapidly and radically reduce oil, gas and coal use.

The social problem.
Almost everything we do produces carbon dioxide emissions: work, travel, housing. To cut emissions, as many scientists suggest, by 90%, means serious changes need to happen. Who is going to solve climate change? The usual answer is either governments and changes in regulations, or individuals affecting companies by changing the products and services we buy. This is not going to work for one simple reason: the world is geared towards the extraction of profit, and increasing economic growth, and not lives of dignity for all. Just ask any of the 800 million people who will go hungry today. Profits come first. With this reality in mind, it’s easy to understand why only the rhetoric changes. And emissions keep rising.

We, so-called ordinary people, will have to solve the worlds problems, largely in spite of the actions of governments and corporations. This social problem - the logic of economic growth superseding all else - is not new. The solution - that widespread grassroots social movements are key agents of change - is also not new. There is just a new urgency. We believe that climate change is effectively a referendum on what kind of world we want. A lot is going to change, whether we like it or not. So we'd better be involved in the creation of something much better than the world as it is now. To do this we must search for solutions that both reduce emissions and make our lives better.

Solutions?
Too big a problem? Too small a person? Join with others! The Camp for Climate Action is uniting people into a community taking collective action on climate change. The emphasis is to reduce emissions and have a 'better life' in many different ways. At last year’s camp, over 600 people converged outside Drax power station for 10 days of living, learning and making decisions together, all powered by renewable energy. The camp culminated in a day of mass action against Drax, which shook up the UK’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter, and got the attention of the world’s media.

The camp, "a blend of Glastonbury and open-air science seminar" as The Independent put it, was an incredibly inspiring event that catalysed a new wave of radical action on climate change across the UK. This year, the camp’s effect will be amplified by simultaneous camps across the US. Who knows what changes thousands converging again will create. See you there?

See http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

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