2006 will go down as the year when everyone finally sat up and recognised that climate change is real and that it's not a good thing. With climate change being mentioned on mainstream media on a daily basis, high volume coverage of the recent climate camp,
 http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/
and the recent Stern report
 http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm
it was to be expected that today's march would be the largest yet and it certainly was. The Campaign against Climate Change protest started outside the US embassy. It was a master stroke to have the brilliant Seize the Day band
 http://www.seizetheday.org/
play there with some very upbeat and witty songs as the accomanying speaches about impending climate chaos can be pretty gloomy. The band had the crowd perfoming the Guantanamo shackle shuffle.

Grosvenor Square seemed like a tardis. While we were there packed into the embassy side it was crowded but one would guess just a few thousand people were there. It was only when the protesters marched out towards the existing crowd already in Trafalgar Square that one became more aware of the true numbers present. I stood still in Picadilly which was filled end to end watching 10 or 15 protesters march past every second. I did this for half an hour but still didn't see the back of the protest as I became bored and rejoined the march myself. You do the maths. Trafalgar Square was absolutely packed - see the very wide composite photo to see just how. There was a very extravagant multimedia display being shown on a huge video matrix screen. Icebergs lifting themselves out of the sea and rejoining the galcier's snout. Smoke disappearing back into factory chimneys etc. Inspiring? Well maybe but the mainstream MPs present were still speaking about climate change only "moving up" the political agenda. WTF? it should be top of the agenda and should have been there for years now. Until our glorious leaders stop concentrating on putting their hateful sustained economic growth first then they'll achieve far too little change far too late.

I retrieved my bike and when I returned to the square the crowds of people had already been replaced by choking traffic.