I went along to a climate change rally last week it was great, theres a bunch of groups here but the best one politically is the Campaign Against Climate Change, which organsied a rally at the American Embassy.
The speakers were great, and gave the crowd a heavy dose of politics to ponder, including some quite good explanations of Contraction & Convergence, widely seen as the fairest model of resitricting Co2 emissions where countries have targets based on their population rather than their historical privelege/industries or bullying power. Other speakers tore apart the myth that Tony Blair is doing any more than waffling a lot of hot air (though he's still streaks ahead of Howard of course), and the need for people to take matters into their own hands and use mass action. To quote George Monbiot, president of Campaign Against Climate Change what is needed is "MOBILISATION, MOBILISATION, MOBILISATION"
After the speeches a march set off to meet the I Count rally in Trafalgar Square. Having no contingent to be a part of I let loose my inner hippy and danced along with this great drum section - not your typical rally drumming, but really tight with a conductor like an orchestra. They were fantastic! I stopped to take photos thinking I'd eventually see the end of the march but it stretched oin for blocks so i gave up. A bit of the energy was lost when it joined up with the comparatively dull, peak-body-stage-managed (ala ACTU) I Count rally. There were some popular bands and a weird mutimedia montage on a big screen involving the reversal of melting ice sheets. There was one speaker near the end (trying to find out who) who spoke about the role of british corporations in climate change and got a rousing response when he suggested re-nationalising Shell. But unfortunately the overwhelming message was "go home and write to your MP"
All in all though, more and more people are getting interested and mobilising around the issue, which I find reassuring. And you got 100,000 in australia - woohoo!
The speakers were great, and gave the crowd a heavy dose of politics to ponder, including some quite good explanations of Contraction & Convergence, widely seen as the fairest model of resitricting Co2 emissions where countries have targets based on their population rather than their historical privelege/industries or bullying power. Other speakers tore apart the myth that Tony Blair is doing any more than waffling a lot of hot air (though he's still streaks ahead of Howard of course), and the need for people to take matters into their own hands and use mass action. To quote George Monbiot, president of Campaign Against Climate Change what is needed is "MOBILISATION, MOBILISATION, MOBILISATION"
After the speeches a march set off to meet the I Count rally in Trafalgar Square. Having no contingent to be a part of I let loose my inner hippy and danced along with this great drum section - not your typical rally drumming, but really tight with a conductor like an orchestra. They were fantastic! I stopped to take photos thinking I'd eventually see the end of the march but it stretched oin for blocks so i gave up. A bit of the energy was lost when it joined up with the comparatively dull, peak-body-stage-managed (ala ACTU) I Count rally. There were some popular bands and a weird mutimedia montage on a big screen involving the reversal of melting ice sheets. There was one speaker near the end (trying to find out who) who spoke about the role of british corporations in climate change and got a rousing response when he suggested re-nationalising Shell. But unfortunately the overwhelming message was "go home and write to your MP"
All in all though, more and more people are getting interested and mobilising around the issue, which I find reassuring. And you got 100,000 in australia - woohoo!
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I love you my girl
us too! =)
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