Monday, August 31, 2009

Should activists smoke?

what do you think?

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Media prespective at Climate Camp 2009

Watch the video
Journalist Natasha Bird discusses the media coverage and local reaction to 2009 Climate Camp. Recorded using solar power inside Climate Camp overlooking London http://visionOn.tv

Friday, August 28, 2009

Heathrow song by Green kite midnight - live on climatecamp.tv

Watch the video
Recorded at solar powerd live edit studio at climatecamp 2009. For more music goto http://Greenkitemidnight.com For more radical film everyday check out http://visionon.tv

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Climate Camp 2009- Welcome to the site

Watch the video
Climate Campers have swooped and taken the site on Black Heath, near Greenwich. Tv chat shows will be here every day so tune into http://climatecamp.tv

Some constructive thought on climatecamp website, for next few days

Things to learn from the climatecamp website

*the whole visible part of the site is static, it doesn't change.
*you have to scroll down to the bit that updates
*the updates come in VERY slowly, tweets are all over 1 hour old so with hundreds of tweets a hour 98% of them are never seen and they appear to just be anther static part of the website.

What we could do

* we should have a live aggregated video widget on the sight at all times - as a stop gap can we put a link to our aggregated page here http://climatecamp.tv/ontheweb
* use the live twitter widget to show all tweets, both from the CC and aggregated about the CC like the one on front page of http://visionon.tv

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Reflections on climatecamp process so far

Last year we did http://climitecamp.tv as an affinity group action, ie. a group of trusted people got together and did it, no meetings, organized in 3 days. It worked very well producing over 20 live edit shows in the solar power studio.

We played a role in setting the policing on a back foot by supporting the legal team with video help, which continued after the camp producing the film that was used in the committee in the Parliament and at legal conferences. Holding a CC archive of video helped in a number of court cases, getting at least one case dropped.

The interesting issue this year is that we have got more involved in the "process" which has displaced a lot of time and energy, but the project is more "embedded" this year which hopefully will do some good. We didn’t engage with the "process" last year because of what am going to say next:

All activist "organizing" is full of bureaucracy, backstabbing and design by committee, invisible hierarchy are rife and decision by obstruction is endemic. Life stylise is core to many groups, if you don't talk, act and most importantly dress like them you are excluded/marginalized. These issues have seriously hampered the growth of the climatecamp movement so far.

700 first year
1500 second year
2500 third year

This year might be different, many of the most active organisers form past years are now much less involved, and a whole new group of more “liberal” campaigners are filling the spaces they have left. From my prospective this is both good and bad:

* Good - outreaches to a much wider community

* Bad - the core of the climatecamp is in the spiky anarchism and the fuck off attitude which creates the very exciting space full of real radical alternatives.

This year decides if the climatecamp is co-opted or acutely starts to build a real alternative – lets see what happens.

Ps. Any radical people out there, can we try and stop all the sectarian crap – I mentioned above as this pushes the liberal agenda which isn’t the outcome I desire.


Monday, August 24, 2009

Letter to the Met

The police demanded to know the location of the Camp for Climate Action 2009 - this is our response.
Images by kind permission of: Amy Scaife, Amelia Gregory, Mike Russell and Mike Langridge
http://visionon.tv
http://climatecamp.tv
For more info http://climatecamp.org.uk

Saturday, August 22, 2009

'Boys on the Balcony'

Following the wind turbine manufacturers, Vestas, decision to make their 600 staff on the IOW redundant, the workforce decided to take power back into their own hands. They occupied the factory in Newport and climate camp activists took the roof of the other factory in East Cowes. 'Boys on the Balcony' is the song of the campaign written and recorded by Seize the Day, Vestas workers and their families. It is a powerful and inspiring account of the first month of the campaign, occupations, evictions and the continued determination to fight for a 'world where the turbines spin'.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

G20 Climate Camp in the City of london

Watch the video
A Film by Emily James and James Bayliss-Smith. To read witness statements from people in the incidents shown here , go to www.climatecamp.org.uk and click on the 'Camp Legal Team' link on the left.