The night before swooping
‘Twas the night before swooping, on the eve of events
All the campers were stirring, and packing their tents…
What I’m bringing:
- Tent
- Wind-up torch
- Sleeping bag
- Vegan snacks (don’t worry, a week’s worth of food will be provided!)
- London A to Z
- Sense of solidarity
- Wellies
Baggage we don’t need:
- Carbon trading
- War criminals telling us what to do
- Global North bigotry
- Vestas bosses
While we sort out our stuff and hang on our phones for last minute updates, this might be a good moment to take our collective breath and remember why we’re doing all of this.
Right now the world seems even more chaotic than my half-packed rucksack, what with the economy being predicted to swing first one way, and then the other and extreme weather patterns threading their way across Europe. But we need to stop listening to the oscillating opinions of the ‘business community’, and instead lend an ear to the voices of hundreds of millions of ordinary people around the world, whose livelihoods & communities are being threatened by our fuel-guzzling nations. Yesterday, representatives from African nations made demands for financial compensation for the damage done to their land by the industry-heavy global North.
So let’s just look at some of the facts about how our ‘leaders’ are supposedly tackling the climate crisis right now:
In the run up to the United Nations conference on climate change in Copenhagen this December (the infamous COP15), there are hopes for promises of emissions cuts of as much as 80% by 2050. But the market systems concocted to achieve this are collapsing like a tent without tent-pegs.
Business opportunities and bankers’ initiatives, seen as a method of ‘going green’, are being given the thumbs up by war criminals, but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the world’s largest companies are 39 years behind in achieving the necessary emission reductions. No wonder: even carbon trading is being caught up in back-room deals and corruption – as if it weren’t enough of a crazy and unjust idea already!
To make radical reductions in carbon emissions, we need to take radical action. The Isle of Wight workers show how communities in the UK can fight for a just transition to clean energy, that the effects of climate change are being felt by people around the world everyday, and that it’s up to all of us to do something about it. So make sure you stuff a feeling that the world can change and a sense of solidarity into your rucksack as well.
We’re going to try and build another world. We’re geared up to discuss alternatives, to resist climate criminals, and to create a vision of a sustainable world. We’re camping for Climate Action, one tent at a time.