A direct response to Alan Cochrane
This article is written as a direct response to Alan Cochrane’s piece titled “Supporters of Climate Camp action are ‘useful idiots’” which appeared in The Daily Telegraph on 23 August.
Alan begins his charmingly reactionary article by taking the liberty of renaming ‘activists’ as ‘useful idiots’, and later adapting the more politically correct term, ‘nutters’. I must concede to being a Climate Camp-supporting ‘nutter’ myself: I love to camp, I want to help prevent runaway climate change from occurring, and as someone who enjoys foraging for food all year round, nuts are certainly a rare and welcome find this time of year.
Alan’s scathing tone should provide a pleasing experience for any activist in the green movement. The Suffragettes were female activists for equal rights who were initially labelled ‘Suffragettes’ by the Daily Mail newspaper as a way of belittling them, and I wouldn’t repeat the use of lexicon applied to black activists in America used during and post slavery. Such earnestly derisive opposition across the mainstream media of a necessary and non-violent movement only reminds me that Climate Camp – ‘so-called’, Alan says, as he further struggles to distinguish fact from hearsay- is on the right path.
However, I do have a bone to pick with Alan’s claim that Climate Camp’s campaign-focus on RBS does not show ‘common sense’. If we are ‘useful idiots’ for responding to potentially catastrophic climate change, then what should we call the main perpetrators of the damage?
Tar sands are deposits of sand and clay that are saturated with bitumen and require large amounts of energy and water to extract and process them into useable oil. Many environmental organisations, as well as Climate Camp, argue that by funding tar sands extraction, the Royal Bank of Scotland invests in environmental destruction on a mass scale. No less than five reports have been written on the impact of tar sands extraction on the environment in the last five years.
The cost of the current tar sands extraction in Canada is immense. The process produces ‘tailings’, which are a mixture of sand, water, clay, silt, hydrocarbons and toxic chemicals that are left as massive lake deposits, as there is no way of disposing of the toxic mix they hold. These lakes are so large that they can be seen from space by the naked eye: the Environmental Defence report The Report contains some striking images demonstrating this, as well as detailed information on toxic aquatic pollution, unexplained cancer clusters in local populations, and increasing problems of air pollution in Canada.
In addition to this, tar extraction has led to the displacement of indigenous people and deforestation on a mass scale: tar sands deposits currently stretch over 138,000 square km of primary boreal forest.
A detailed review by Friends of the Earth titled Tar sands – fuelling the energy crisis reports that:
- ‘Tar sands production in Canada has resulted in serious damage to local communities and the environment, including destruction of the boreal forest and increased pollution that has impacted on the health and livelihoods of the First nations communities’
- ‘Tar sands generates on average 3 to 5 times more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than conventional oil’
- ‘Canada is currently the only country where tar sands are being commercially exploited, but expansion is underway, with…exploration or planned in Jordan (Shell), Russia (Shell), Republic of Congo (Eni), Venezuela (Repsol), and Madagascar (Total). A bitumen licensing round has also been mooted recently for Nigeria’
- ‘Open cast mining techniques used to extract shallower resources have led to creation of huge lakes or “tailings ponds” for storing toxic waste matter, for which there is no long term solution’.
Page 7 of the review also shows a striking photograph of tailings ‘seeping into the surrounding watershed’, which is one of the many problems with attempting to store them indefinitely in large quantities.
A report by several environmental groups including Greenpeace and People & Planet called Cashing in on Tar Sands: RBS, UK banks and Canada’s “blood oil” explains why tar sands extraction is so expensive, and that the perpetrators are dependent on project or corporate finance which currently comes from ‘the three main high street banks in the UK (Barclays, HSBC, and the Royal Bank of Scotland)’.
Cashing in on Tar Sands reveals that RBS loaned more than $7.5 billion to extraction companies between 2007 and 2009, and has underwritten corporate debt and equity worth nearly $2.5 billion with tar sands related companies. The report goes on to outline a detailed request to reduce the escalating environmental problems in Canada, including practical measures that can be taken such as calling for a moratorium on finance for ‘unconventional oil’.
Although the Royal Bank of Scotland is not the only investor in tar sands extraction, the reason for Climate Camp’s focus on RBS this year has is due to the fact that 84% of the bank is owned by the UK taxpayer, which means that the general public has (or should have) a say in what RBS does- this is known as public accountability.
Cashing in on Tar Sands exposes complex details of the loans; the report contains tables showing finance made to companies engaged in tar sands between 2007-09, corporate debt, underwriting and equity underwriting: ‘The data shows that RBS led underwriting for over $7.5 billion in loans to tar sands related companies, over five times more than Barclays and over eleven times more than HSBC.’
Alan claims that people who support Climate Camp’s actions are ‘supporting a malign cause in the mistaken belief’, but he fails to reveal what this ‘cause’ and ‘belief’ entails. From where I’m sitting, it is common sense to target RBS to me. Indeed, a cinching point for the general public may be the fact that RBS is the UK bank that received the most public money during the financial crisis of 2008, meaning that the public owns 84% of the bank’s shares, and yet Alan does not seem to be aware of this.
Part of the reason for Climate Camp and other environmental groups zoning in on RBS’s actions in recent years is due to the fact that RBS has repeatedly failed to respond to criticism from the public. In May 2009 RBS came last in a league table of consumer banks in Ethical Consumer magazine, and ‘in September 2009, in conjunction with Oil and Gas UK, RBS sponsored, and provided a key speaker for seminars on how to revitalise the oil and gas industry in wake of the financial crisis.’ In December 2009 thirty public figures, including Andrew Smith MP, called on Alistair Darling to clean up RBS, which we have yet to see take place.
Other publications detailing the local and global impact of tar sands extraction include Unconventional Oil – Scraping the bottom of the barrel? by WWF and Dirty Oil – how the tar sands are fuelling the global climate crisis by Greenpeace Canada.
Back to Alan Cochrane the so-called reporter (to replicate his own use of lexicon), then, his argument that it is against comment sense to put pressure on RBS, the people’s bank, lacks understanding of the fundamental issues underlying RBSs actions, and the environmental impact of tar sands extraction.
Alan continues to defend RBS by vaguely suggesting that people cannot actually protest oil investment because, admittedly (and thanks for pointing this out, Mr Cochrane), we are all dependent on oil use. (I’ll leave that ‘complex argument’ as a treat for Monbiot to unravel). He also defends RBS because they will not be able to pay the UK taxpayer back without ‘making successful investments’. However, in late 2009 a group of investor organisations stated in a letter to the Senate that tar sands are a ‘risky investment’, and the Greenpeace report BP and Shell: Rising Risks in Tar Sands Investments states their concern that ‘the risks are significant for BP and Shell shareholders, and that investors should question the companies more deeply on their tar sands strategies and call for greater transparency regarding the assessment of the mid to long term viability of these projects. Investors should call for full disclosure of the risks involved in the tar sands strategy in a carbon constrained world and the development of new tar sands projects should be halted’.
Meanwhile, according to Cashing in on Tar Sands, ‘An investigation by The Guardian showed that in the first six months following the bank’s initial recapitalisation in October 2008, RBS has been involved in loans worth nearly £10 billion in oil, coal and gas companies – a quarter of the total amount of public funds put into RBS at that point’. Does this seem at all reckless to you?
Next, Alan asks in his article why police didn’t leave protesters glued to a bridge over the A8. This is possibly the best idea he has offered us yet (albeit unintentionally), as in my own opinion protestors left glued to the bridge for a long period of time in self-deprecating celebrity style might have actually been able to harness the short-term memory of the mainstream media, and cultivated some actual interest in what the protesters were protesting (note to Alan: RBS and tar sands investment).
Regarding Alan’s accusation that protesters fail to ‘mention’ certain points that he has actually thought up himself as being important, perhaps there would be evidence of these points if Mr Cochrane has actually visited Climate Camp himself and spoken to some of protesters there, instead of lifting a little information from the statement about RBS on the Climate Camp website, and failing to pick it apart successfully. Alan continues his rant against these supposed unnamed points that Climate Camp have apparently not considered by suggesting that another reporter’s ‘detailed account of how ordered everything is’ in the Climate Camp amounts to nothing- unlike the very organised and well-prepared nature of his article, evidently.
Choose not to marvel at it if you will, but if you did actually visit the camp yourself and see the organic site come together, with people communally erecting marquees and kitchens, assembling compost loos, scribbling last-minute signs regarding last-minute alterations, dealing with plumbing issues, organising tents for Media and for Legal business, erecting workshop spaces and a space for music and a Tranquillity tent for people to rejuvenate in (and for anyone who might have taken Cochrane too seriously), as well as people preparing and serving meals together, cleaning up together, and camping without conflict in an occasionally-wet and constantly police-surrounded field for a week, making decisions concerning Camp matters via consensus (which is more than our politicians are able to achieve) – if you have seen this and really not appreciated the coming-together and self-governing of people of all ages, including children and office workers, teachers and builders, artists and families, then fine. But I concede to differ, and I ask that you at least visit the welcoming Camp first, before passing judgement on it.
And I certainly wouldn’t recommend writing a snide article about Climate Camp prior to doing so.
Alan attempts to twist his twisted tale into a defence for the general public in relation to ‘taxpayer-funded policemen’ who are apparently ‘caught in the middle’ of the conflict he wishes to create. However if he had actually approached the site himself he would have in fact found the police to be overall smiling, friendly, talkative and happy. Not only did we share hugs with various policemen and women surrounding the Camp and at some of the direct actions that took place in Edinburgh, I was actually told more than once and unprompted by several policemen that they enjoyed policing the Climate Camp because it was a nice break for them from the regular policing of the streets – and I witnessed this myself in the form of two angry locals who shouted abuse at us including that age-old statement, ‘go home’- the police present immediately assured us protesters to ‘take no notice’ of the two men, and then took them aside to explain that we had a right to be here. One local newspaper (I failed to note the name, having already looked away in disgust) actually ran the front page headline ‘protestors: go home’, so it seems to me that the local tabloids caused more trouble for the police than us protesters.
Camp for Climate Action is a non-violent protest movement, and the 2010 Edinburgh camp was the 5th of its kind, however there have been no cases of violence by protesters in its history. Alan seems keen to dub this growing peaceful movement as ‘violent’ in view of police who are supposedly ‘vilified if they act against law-breakers’, as if police violence at the Kingsnorth Climate Camp in Kent in 2009 was acceptable- and I won’t even mention Ian Tomlinson. Also, much of what was reported by the media regarding the Kingsnorth Camp at the time turned out to be lies.
Alan’s high-profile attack goes on to state that RBS investment and all that it entails ‘is not the UK’s most popular concern at the moment’. However the Kingsnorth Six changed government policy with their activism, which seems to suggest that the UK needs more radial action in order to help keep the legal system up to date in regards to climate change.
I’d like to thank Alan for pointing out that the Edinburgh-based direct actions were not already about high-profile issues. The protesters had clearly worked hard to create a high profile surrounding RBS and tar sands investment because they thought that it receives enough media attention already. I think a certain commentator may lack understanding of the fundamental reasons for any protest or media campaign.
Cochrane does, however, concede on one point. RBS, he writes, have been very naughty boys: ‘banks such as RBS have not exactly been innocent in helping to deepen this country’s economic doom’. In reality, the real effects of the current cuts that are taking place have yet to really reach the general public, yet Alan seems to think that the £20 billion of UK taxpayer money that went to RBS in 2008 is ‘nothing of which they should be ashamed’?
Alan concludes that supporters of Climate Camp should hang their heads in shame. He argues that the Campers are outside of the law because they have no effect on in what happens in the UK, and also that they should be ignored by the law- he cannot fathom why ‘the police bothered to remove them’, while also condemning the protestors for speaking out about an issue that he admits has little attention and concern in the UK ‘at the moment’.
There’s only one conclusion I can draw from his confusion. Alan Cochrane, Telegraph commentator, promotes protecting banks that we the UK public own, from our own scrutiny. He is happy for the immense environmental destruction to continue in Canada because people drive cars and read newspapers that have been delivered by cars, which apparently means that we should never criticise anything, lest we realise our own hypocrisy. I could adopt more of Alan’s lingo and call his arguments daft and deluded, his agenda a ‘malign cause’ based on a ‘mistaken belief’, but as I have provided a breakdown of a complex issue due to the need to clarify the other side to Alan’s arguments, there is really only one word left to respond to Mr Cochrane.. He is the real idiot in this discussion- though he has, admittedly, been useful with his contributions to this article, which is a direct response to his phenomenal idiocy.
Zion Lights
A painstaking debunking.
If the Telegraph thinks fit to attack your supporters, you must be doing something right.
Pat on August 28, 2010
Very sound response indeed!
Although one thing struck me – I haven’t made it this year, but at the climate camps I have been at, local people (and usually local media) have been very supportive. I was sad to read that this apparently wasn’t so much the case this year. I think it is very important to address this – why has the relationship building apparently not worked so well this year? Does anyone have an idea?
Looking beyond Cochrane’s reactionary piece of bad ‘journalism’, he seems to ‘report’ very much on Scottish issues. I’m a big supporter of Climate Camp, and I think one of its big strengths has been the building of mutual understanding that has happened in Heathrow with Sipson villagers, in Kingsnorth with the initially angry coal workers, and at Mainshill in Scotland. While I certainly don’t want to endorse Cochrane’s rant in any way, I think it is important to question where the ‘pissed-offness’ might come from, and if there’s any more to the local reactions than what has been addressed in the direct response. I’m a firm believer in the struggle of local communities and workers being very strongly connected to the issues we’re addressing when fighting for Climate Justice, and where that connection has not been made, there might have been something going wrong along the communication and PR lines?
That said, I didn’t make it this year, and I congratulate every Climate Camper to all the hard work and the kick-ass actions that have come out of it!
sonja on August 28, 2010
“local people (and usually local media) have been very supportive. I was sad to read that this apparently wasn’t so much the case this year. I think it is very important to address this – why has the relationship building apparently not worked so well this year? Does anyone have an idea?”
Lack of outreach before camp due to lack of time and funds and energy due to Cochabamba. I believe,
Neil on August 28, 2010
we picked the wrong target in the wrong country at the wrong time. it was a huge waste of time and effort and counter productive. who cares what allan cochrane says we know this just didnt work and the idiots in our midst played straight into the pr hands of the police and rbs who – whatever we think of them – are not stupid. lets get back on the case of the oil majors
Reality check on August 29, 2010
The big banks are in bed with big oil. It’s a massive issue that needs to be attacked from all angles.
Why so negative, RC?? Camp was amazing, the fact that the media hated it just proves it’s power..
Reality doesn't need another cheque on August 29, 2010
“we picked the wrong target in the wrong country at the wrong time. it was a huge waste of time and effort and counter productive. who cares what allan cochrane says we know this just didnt work and the idiots in our midst played straight into the pr hands of the police and rbs who – whatever we think of them – are not stupid. lets get back on the case of the oil majors”
Alternatively, instead of the kind of air-headed petty vandalism that was perpetrated in Edinburgh – sheer onanism – it achieven nothing beyond confirming the public’s view that this group is just a bunch of obsessive hooray Henrys and Henriettas, why not travel out to a nasty evil open cast lingnite mine in China and try some direct action at source (at least that would kkep the whole crew out of circulation for a decade or two).
Edinburger on August 30, 2010
Why not actually read the article and repond to it if you have something to say, instead of bringing your activist-bashing here? I’d like to see what you would do if it was YOUR home being uprooted thanks to tar sands extraction. Cower, most probably.
Edinburger should learn how to read on August 30, 2010
Uprooted? – how so?
If anything, Tar Sands extraction brings welcome employment to areas of Canada where folk just used to subsist on state benefits!
Edinburger on August 30, 2010
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/1760
Edinburger – could you at least do a little bit of research and educate yourself before coming away with ridiculous comments like your last post.
Probably not as I’m now convinced you’re just some troll working for some sort of right wing propaganda merchant.
Or will you take me up on my offer of a face to face meeting that I’ve extended to you and the various other trolling nom de plumes, on the previous blog? If not the above suspicions will be pretty much confirmed for me.
Beir Bua on August 30, 2010
Did you actually read the biased agitprop article yourself?
“Many of the elected First Nations leaders are also feeling torn between the need to bring economic prosperity to their people and the need to protect the health and environment of their communities.”
The NEED to bring prosperity to their people – ever since some evil hominid ripped a branch off a tree to fashion a spear to facilitate slaughtering an animal for food rather than waiting for it to fall to the ground naturally, mankind has been making use of the earth’s natural resources for personal benefit. That’s clearly what we’re hardwired to do.
For every indiginous person who’s managed to latch onto some ginger group to leverage their PI claim there’s probably a dozen or a hundred who are perfectly happy with the transition to a regular job and a full bank account.
In China, there wouldn’t even be extensive consultation and a full partnership contract – why don’t you go there and bleat about the “plight” of people shouldered out of the way in the face of inevitable development.
Edinburger on August 31, 2010
Very good pal, you’ve hit the nail on the head for me there – you talk about man using the earth’s natural resources. Of course we have evolved to do this and have for the most part of the past, couple of hundred thousand years (as far as we are aware)or so, managed to do so in a harmonious symbiotic manner that doesn’t compromise the integrity of ecosystems and the capacity of the planet to continue to provide resources for future generations.
With the technology we have presently and the apparent capacity for destroying and altering these ecosystems (see Tar Sands) we need to use greater judgement and employ the foresight that our supposedly evolved minds grant us, not blindy follow our innate animal impulse unchecked until we have fucked up the planet’s natural balance and reservoir of natural resources for eternity (oh it’s ok we’re hardwired to do it lol – the most tired justification for unfettered capatalism ever, yet still used. Evolution is blind pal, take the plight of the giant panda). All in the blind pursuit of profit because we’re collectively still refusing to employ our more recently evolved neo-cortex instead we continue to allow our brain to work on the lower order circuits that satisfy some innate need of socio-domestic security and ego boosts.
When in reality the historical functions of these brain circuits are already fulfilled (at least for those of us fortunate enough to have been born in the rich North) the continual refusal of humans to move beyond them serves only to concentrate resources/money in the hands of the few, widen inequalities and unfairness and strengthen power dynamics that are constantly abused.
It’s ironic that you use the analogy of the early human hunter to clumsily assert your simplistic, unrelenting zealot like position, when the article explains how, through pollution caused by tar sands development, this very activity which has served the indigenous populations so well for millenia is now becoming untenable.
No social impact assessments have been carried out into the impact of these large scale developments on communities. The environmental impact assessments that have been undertaken are highly dubious.
You asked how they were being uprooted, the article explains how. It’s not really surprising that some members of the communities are interested in economic development but I doubt they envisage working themselves to the bone in precarious polluted environments for a comparatively paltry share of the spoils in an industry that divorces their people form their land. And I think you may find that indigenouos native American ideas of prosperity differ greatly from your own.
Not going to waste any more of my time in front of computer on yourself so don’t respond to me again unless it is to accept my offer of a face to face discussion, one evening next week in Edinburgh perhaps? Maybe we can plan a trip to China together.
Although if previous form is anything to go by someone of your ilk will try to get the last word by adding a flippant snydey comment.
Beir Bua on August 31, 2010
I think the article clearly demonstrates the tactics used to perpetuate the ‘business as usual’ mentality adopted by the higher echelons of the political-corporate-media alliances that are scrambling to counter all forms of resistance.
At Climate Camp this year we did the best we could with the resources we had, and – as ever – created a wonderful environment to come together to discuss, learn, innovate and experience forms of climate education, communal living, consensus decision making and direct action.
In my opinion RBS was the right target at the right time: Whose bank? Our bank! There were things we could have done better; and so we learn and move on with the knowledge and experience we have gained. There are certain things that are in our control – the media however is not one of them.
Reflecting on the camp I feel that we succeeded in contributing to the discourse of:
*tar sands and other fossil fuel extraction;
*RBS’s investments, and its ethical & environmental policies;
*the responsibility and accountability of public institutions;
*the role of the public on engaging in these discourses, particularly where vast amounts of public money are involved; and
*the importance of direct action as a tool for change.
We are a dynamic movement and our struggles will always encounter tensions, require diverse tactics and attract derision – be it the work of calculated corporate elites or merely the ill-informed ramblings of dicontented middle England, or indeed bonnie Scotland.
According to statistics provided by Bloomberg and posted by Rainforest Action Network (http://understory.ran.org/2010/08/24/decoding-rbs-greenwash/), since the bank was bailed out the investment into fossil fuels has inflated massively in relation to investment in alternative energies.
Despite public ownership, no instrument exists for the public to cast a vote or have our voices heard AND ACKNOWLEDGED through RBS or UKFI (the government arm of the Trasury that manage our (now 83%) stake in RBS. We are shareholders without shareholders rights.
I for one do not want any more of our money being invested in corporations whose activities are destroying our planet and our future. Our task now must to be to build on our work in Edinburgh and bring RBS to account.
There must be a moratorium on all tar sands investment, and we must not let the momentum slip for this, whatever Alan Cocherine or Edinburger have to say. This is a sticky business, and we need out of it – now!!
Sticky business on September 1, 2010
“Despite public ownership, no instrument exists for the public to cast a vote or have our voices heard AND ACKNOWLEDGED through RBS or UKFI (the government arm of the Trasury that manage our (now 83%) stake in RBS.”
Nonsense – buy some RBS shares (they’re still very cheap but rising in value thanks to a sound investment strategy) and engage with the democratic process that way.
Similarly, you can write write to your MP if you feel that HMG ought to be using its shareholding to deal with RBS’ policies.
Either way, I’m afraid that you’ll find that you’re simply a minute minority and your opinions will be dealt with accordingly. But hey, that’s democracy!
Edinburger on September 1, 2010
“I doubt they envisage working themselves to the bone in precarious polluted environments for a comparatively paltry share of the spoils in an industry that divorces their people form their land.”
Have you actually been to Alberta? I have, and whilst I like a slice of white tailed deer or caribou as much as the next person, the idea that the Indians spend their days out in the pristine vastness, sensitively chatting to the great spirit whilst looking for an Elk that wants to meet ist maker is laughable.
They’d much rather have a nice house with a 4×4 and a job at the reservation casino.
The vast majority already do.
Edinburger on September 1, 2010
UKFI own RBS, not the taxpayer… FACT
against Climate Camp on September 2, 2010
And I doubt that any of these Climate Campers actually pay tax!!
against Climate Camp on September 2, 2010
Happy to disillusion you, aCC – lots of people with worthwhile jobs, paying plenty of tax, NI, pension contributions and all the other trappings that you probably consider the markers of respectability – take part in Climate Camp.
We fill in tedious forms in order to request annual leave to do so.
Believe it or not, some of us have MBAs. Some of us even have had RBS bank accounts opened for us when we were old enough to start saving.
Please open your mind to realise that Climate Campers are not the enemy or an alien species – we are people just like you.
But maybe a bit better informed about environmental issues and a bit more willing to put our heads above the parapet and speak up about how the world can be a better place.
has_a_job_and_still_cares on September 3, 2010
FYI, I wrote this article and I work full time as a teacher. What positive energy do YOU put into society, ‘against Climate Camp’?!
Thought as much.
Zion on September 3, 2010
I’m more concerned about where that tax money goes, anyway. Wish I could opt out of paying money towards war, Trident, etc. That’s the real issue here.
common sense on September 3, 2010
“Lack of outreach before camp due to lack of time and funds and energy due to Cochabamba. I believe,”
If it were not so tragic, it would be funny. Too busy “networking” internationally to do the tedious local stuff. I wonder if there is an analogy to be made between the national and the local as well?
There is a difference between mobilising and movement-building – or a very big tension between them. Climate Camp has told itself for years that these big set piece events are the best way to movement build. For various reasons. The organisation (sic) seems immune to evidence to the contrary. Caught in a praxis trap entirely of its own making.
dwight towers on September 10, 2010