....the idea of the triple
crunch (credit, energy, climate) and the cost to real people of
these 3 failures of capitalism (and the many others!) is really in
people's minds and our (climate camp's) solution is much better than all the others!

Q
I wonder what "our solution" to the triple crunch is? I didn't think Climate Camp or even London Neighbourhood had an economic policy?


A
of course there's no party line - but we all have ideas of a completely different society not based not on growth, profit, capitalism etc.

my own personal view is that we don't need to say exactly what it'll look like (as we believe it's up to people themselves how they'll live)

but continue building the climate camp movement as an example

so rather than an 'alternative economic policy' we have a concrete 'alternative society' that people can actually see, learn about and join

and our message is something like "we think the current society doesn't work, here's why, we've already got an alternative which we think is better (because it's non-hierachical, human scale, consensual etc) come and have a look"

should we be campaigning on climate change at all ?

ok, deliberately controversial title, but it is a serious question

climate change is a problem, but it's a symptom of a fossil fuelled growth oriented capitalist economy. if people aren't already concerned about climate change and doing something then they aren't going to be (at least not in time) maybe they can be motivated by something that is a bit more immediate, both in time and effect.

Peak oil, or as i heard last night, the energy crunch, is that issue. People have already had a taste of it with the huge energy price rises in the last year.This might encourage people to realise that this system and economy are the problem and take action to build an alternative, that will also tackle climate change.

what do we mean by direct action? / 'come for the community, stay for the climate'

my opinion is that the most important element of our aim of 'direct action' is the 'action' part. Actually most of things we do aren't direct but indirect, ie they don't directly stop or attempt to stop greenhouse emissions (the drax coal train is one recent example of a genuine attempt to stop emissions directly) These are incredibly important as there are very few other groups taking genuine direct action (e.g. even greenpeace do maybe one or 2 genuine direct climate actions a year - climbing the kingsnorth chimney and actually shutting down the power station more than a year ago perhaps being the last?)
however, the phrase 'direct action' is one with baggage and means different things to different people, to me having 'direct action' as an aim implies that we are the opposite of indirect action as the kind of thing the campaigning NGOs do - lobbying or asking governments nicely. I would perhaps prefer it if our aim simply said 'action' so it contrasted with those that don't do anything, but including a mixture of direct and indirect action - a wording could be something like:

'we take action on climate change rather than just talking or worrying, especially DIRECT action to actually prevent the emissions that are causing climate change'

The truth is that most of our action is indirect while still being really important. Even most of the things we refer to as 'actions' are also indirect, aimed at embarassing e.on, challenging BAA getting our messages in the media etc. But there is even more important indirect action outside of these. even a routine meeting, sticker mob, pub discussion, outreach stall is a hugely important action because it builds a community of people who support all of the other stuff and can do more than other organisations because of that sense of community.

The point of this is really in thinking about our movement building activity - i think that we could turn around our outreach and put the opportunity to join a vibrant, exciting community in which you can learn, make friends, express yourself, take responsibility, have fun AND contribute to the most important issue humanity has ever faced is what we've really got to offer. once involved people will soon respond to the knowledge, commitment and ideas of those already here, and begin to go on a number of journeys - from lack of knowledge about climate change to loads, from doubts about illegal direct action to locking on to a bulldozer, from scepticism about consensus decision making to handwaving with the best of 'em.

to sum up, our new outreach slogan could be - 'come for the community, stay for the climate'

messages must be tailored for audiences. stop coal is simple, and also simplistic - i like it because it's pretty close to what i believe in but it's not the whole story, but it can work where it isn't controversial that if coal is bad for the climate we should stop using it. but there is a growing realistation that even if only for purely practical / strategic reasons, we need to be sensitive to those for whom coal and indeed the rest of the present economy provides vital social, economic resources and is a big part of their identity. and this means explaining things slightly more to avoid misunderstandings of our position.
who are these people with an irrational attachment to dirty black fossil fuels?. well some of them are not going to be convinced by talk of green jobs and just transition (perhaps inc the NUM) - we must forget about these people - we have no hope of reaching them and no need to. the group we need this idea of just transition to reach are the moderate unions and people with a working class solidarity with the idea of coal, but also a desire to tackle climate change and make the economy better for everyone, rather than just their members - these is a large and new group of people that could bring great benefits to the climate movement.

Copenhagen climate talks

My view is that all the evidence suggests that copenhagen will produce a bad deal that will fail to sufficiently address climate change and cause many climate and other problems for people while maintaining 'green capitalism' options for those in financial power to make more money.
lobbying by NGOs might slightly improve this but the essential character of an innefective 'green capitalist' model will remain the same.

Given that governments are going to do this anyway we should actually allow the NGOs to do their thing and try and make it better (and especially encourage them to resist moves that would have negative effects - such as biofuel expansion, trading away responsibility etc), but we should say that even the best possible agreement will only be a small proportion of what is needed and the only real solution is for communities all over the world to take back the power and make copenhagen irrelevant. They are trying to use the systems that caused the problem to be a solution even the best deal will be only a small part of the solution and the worst will just be more of the problem

what we should actually DO at copenhagen

call for them to at least not make things worse and make the real world's job harder
call for measures that would enable and empower communities who are the real solution
call on communities and individuals to make copenhagen even more irrelevant than it already is
shut them in until they agree on something that wont make the problem worse

the lack of ambition for copenhagen sounds on the face of it to be a negative message, but actually it's a hugely positive one - "you've been fucking it up for real people for so long the best we can hope for is that you decide to stop doing that and allow us to get on with it - in the real world we know what to do and we know how to do it - just look at the fantastic movements that are happening"