Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Meet the green boss, same as the old boss...

One of AF | 26.08.2009 18:10 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Repression

A brief look at some of the reasons why Climate Camp's so important, and some of the dangers it faces.

We all know why Climate Camp's so important, right? We all know how quickly climate change is getting out of control, we've all heard the terrifying predictions about just how bad things are going to get, and we've all reached that point where we realise that apathy and terrified paralysis just aren't good enough, and we need to start acting now.

But actually, there's more to camp than just that. The actions and the big debates aren't the only valuable things about Climate Camp; it's also exciting because of the way it's run – from the bottom up, with everyone having a chance to get involved in decision-making. This openness is a huge contrast to our everyday lives, where (whether we work, study, or try to survive on pitiful state benefits) we have little or no say over what we do or how we do it. At its best, Climate Camp isn't just a way of helping us move towards a saner world, it's a tiny glimpse of what that world might look like.

Just as we can overlook some of the things that make camp so great, it's also easy to miss some of the dangers that we face. At first, the enemy seems obvious – it's the fossil fuel industry and all the other companies making big profits from killing our planet. But when we start trying to act, things get more complicated – before we can ever approach the power stations or corporate headquarters, we have to deal the police, who are there to protect the rich and powerful, and are happy to use violence to stop us having a say. And, of course, the police don't act independently – they're just the most visible part of the state, that massive body that's decided that direct action is a crime, but environmental destruction is not, and will come down hard on any challenge to its authority. And the problem doesn't end there – before we can take on the state, we also need to tackle the arguments of those people inside our movement who insist that, because the crisis is so urgent and the state is so powerful, we need to be using that power to stop climate change.

When anarchists say that we can't use the state for our own ends, that's not us rejecting ideas that work because of our own abstract principles - that's us rejecting ideas that don't work because they don't work. Unlike Climate Camp, the state is not democratic, the violence it uses to crush opposing voices (like the camp in London during the G20 earlier this year) makes that clear. Calling for the state to tackle climate change means calling for the state to be made stronger, which in turn means making us weaker. Companies don't care about the climate because they exist to make money, and the state exists to protect the market economy, so any real, meaningful action against those companies can only be against the state, not through it.

What does all this mean in practice? We don't have all the answers, no one does, but we have a few suggestions about how our movement can be most effective. First, we should openly celebrate the camp's roots in the radical, anti-capitalist environmental movement, and the way that those roots influence the camp today. Living and making decisions communally as part of the camp is better than the crap we have to put up with in normal life, and we shouldn't be shy about saying this.

Secondly, we need to avoid getting divided over the question of militant vs. "fluffy" tactics - the police attacks on the London camp earlier this year showed that they're willing to attack totally non-violent protesters, so there's no point in avoiding militancy to try and avoid provoking the police. We'll never stop climate change if we stick to the limits of what the police will let us do, and at times it will be necessary to use force to break out of their control.

Third, we need to be a lot bigger than we are now. That means that we need to be careful to avoid seeming elitist or moralistic. Yes, changing our lifestyles is important and it's frustrating that people are so slow to realise how big the problem is, but no-one will want to listen to us if we come across as telling them off for not being better people. Collective action is far more effective than individual action anyway, so our priority has to be persuading people to get active, not lecturing them about renewable lightbulbs.

Fourth, of course, we need to constantly be on the watch for our enemies trying to find ways to use us. Green is big, and getting bigger, so we're already having to deal with capitalists and politicians trying to find ways to use our arguments to boost their popularity or bank balances. From biofuels to carbon credits, they've got no end of ideas that won't do much to fight global warming, but are great for making money. Whether it's buying green products or trusting the government to pass green laws, we need to expose these dead-end paths so we can be clear about putting forward real alternatives.

One of AF
- e-mail: info AT afed DOT org DOT uk
- Homepage: http:// http://www.afed.org.uk/news-and-events/120-meet-the-green-boss-climate-camp-leaflet.html

Comments

Display the following 7 comments

  1. Link to leaflet — AF bod
  2. Is this getting distributed at CC? — A+
  3. from the bottom up? — veg@n
  4. good article — greentea
  5. Horray — card
  6. Yeah — Stroppyoldgit
  7. "Tartan Bosses" ?! — Danny
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech