Lights Out for Climate Change

I went up there last night (probably actually saw LJ and friends erecting a marquee without realising). Seemed pretty quiet at the time - they're pitched up on the noisiest bit of the heath though, right between two very big main roads.

Also between the Hare & Billet pub and the Blackheath Tea Hut, the latter will probably have its best week ever.

Why don't those scrounging clowns get proper jobs anyway?

a lot of clowns coming out of college now can't get jobs

Well I don't think it's right that the public should have to subsidize their floppy shoes. This is almost like Nazi Germany.

Though to be fair the clowns have done pioneering pro-environment work in carpooling.

The Mayor of Lewsiham asks 'Hooligans and Climate Campers - what's the difference?'

I somehow doubt the climate campers are going to leave the heath swathed in rubbish when they leave.

Annoying thing is, as a vote-courting mayor he's perfectly entitled to go "you don't have permission to be camping here, fuck off" but the hooliganism thing is just a really really lame cheap shot.

Am I right in thinking that this is the same site that the London Marathon starts from each year? Wonder how the levels of disturbance compare.

if you saw a guy all dressed in red, that was me. i took some pictures, but none of myself. see facebook for more details.

Haven't you got any other clothes?

this is actually a really enjoyable and eye-opening event

just like an orgy

what is the event?

http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

now i sleep

we gonna talk about this

The next day at 10:30am we were assembled at the main gates in ‘Stop Airport Expansion’ t-shirts, ready to make our way to the airport to make our voices heard. A bus and tube ride later and 60 campers and local activists took over the main entrance to the airport with banners reading ‘The rich fly, the poor fry’ and ‘Stop Airport Expansion’ singing songs and hearing from those involved in preparing the action.

I would have punched anyone who made me miss a fucking pricey air flight because of a fucking flashmob, imo.

Also, reading that Mayor's blog:

And who do you think is going to have to pay to take the rubbish away, provide water and repair the Heath when they’ve gone? That’s right you and me – the taxpayers of Lewisham who were never asked and never agreed to the camp being here.

Thinking that that the approach of the Climate Change Campers uis wrong doesn’t mean you don’t care about the issue – but for me they are a distraction from the real task of changing how we behave and persuading ever more of our fellow citizens to change the way they behave too.

He kind of has a point. A lot of people *wont* see this as anything more than hippies making a mess on the lawn for no good reason. Apart from garnering attention, what's the aim/point of this specific camp, in terms of gaining actual footholds in climate change action?

Dont see the point of his parallel with the football fights though, wtf.

we've actually said we're gonna leave the heath in better condition than when it was found...people have actually done litter-picking duty over the whole heath, not just our corner of it...as for the grass, well, this is a good time of year, is all i'll say, and some have mooted grass seed. a load of fuss over a barely-damaged 'lawn' which is scuffed up and ruined daily by footballers, walkers and kite-flyers is of absolutely no comparable scale to the issues we're discussing

the mayor of lewisham is making a fuss precisely because it is his duty as civic arm of power to make a fuss, plain and simple, he is making a fuss because he has to

the aim/point of this specific camp is to raise awareness of direct actions and informed communities; it is to coordinate and organise a body of highly intelligent, educated and diverse thinkers, activists and agitators into a fully democratic and equal mini-utopia, both to give us a taste of climate-conscious, fair society, and to politicise the climate change movement through debate, discussion and resolution

that's about as good as i can do for now, but trust me, having been there, it's a damn sight better behaved/more organised/friendly than i ever suspected it would be. it was deeply engaging and inclusive. and sure there were hippies, but more than not had a degree, were doing a degree, or were otherwise highly intelligent, aware and active individuals

if he was drawing parallels with football fights he is simply evading the entire purpose of the camp. due to the fact that everyone present was reasonable and cooperative, events within the fence were almost freakishly efficient, and deeply tranquil, even in protest

Louis, any time elected officials trot out the old 'look what it costs to clean up' canard it's your duty to tell them your (council) taxes already paid for it, as they are taken in advance, so ner. Every adult Londoner pays for the Met as well, as a component of council tax, so ner to them as well.

> your (council) taxes already paid for it, as they are taken in advance

not sure i get the logic of this.

if something has had £x budgeted for it but ended up costing £x + y then the £y has to come from somewhere, so it has cost money.

and b) i pay my council tax monthly which might qualify as 'in advance' but not by much.

the budget's set in advance for the whole year and must be balanced. they can't come back to you for £y later. and i seriously doubt they've hired extra staff for this rather than just shuffled their environmental services people around for a few days. worst case scenario: some streets didn't get swept for a bit. they'll get to them later.

it's particularly annoying that he pretends the people of lewisham are paying for this from outsiders, when most of councils' funds come from centralised taxes, so i'm paying for the clean-up as much as the mayor of lewisham is. and one of the reasons we pay our taxes is so that anyone who wants to can take part in lawful protests, so stfu mayor of lewisham.

*pretends the people of lewisham are paying for this damage caused by outsiders, i meant to say

What's not to understand? Joe nailed it. Mayor of Lewisham probably performs virtual fellatio on any corporate who wants to run an event in his end of the park, which makes more mess and requires plus de minions to clean up.

A smart rebuttal would also involve the extra revenue generated in the area by the presence of the campers and the big fat DUH that volunteer stewards from within the camp substantially cleaned up after themselves, for free.

There's a partial climbdown here, although it's a bit rich for him to claim people misunderstood him when his original argument was so poorly expressed and completely incoherent.

The Mayor's an old friend of my parents from way back and I sent my dad an email mocking him for all this. I'm pretty sure he jumped to a public position to ingratiate himself with the voters then realised he'd called it wrong and made himself look a tit in the process. Even the residents of Blackheath didn't seem unduly bothered by the camp, there was a noticeable lack of hysterically boarded up shop fronts in the village.

That said, when even Labour figures who are supposed to be relatively close to ground level are using that kind of sub-Daily Mail scare tactics is it any wonder no one wants to vote Labour?

^^^a lovely raft of OTM today

Am tempted to go along later and report on the 'mess'. Maybe with pictures. It is beautiful how Labour are showing their true colours without even trying.

LOL have been watching so much Big Bro that any mention of TRUE COLOURS now gives me a panic attack.

I haven't been following this series. I trust one of the housemates is a recidivist crap-meme-generator?

No, it's just if I had 10p for every time one of the housebears of little brain reached for the trusty 'we're seeing this person's true colours now' in this series I could probably buy Endemol.

Many tory frontbenchers down there (now they've all signed up to the Guardian's 10:10 campaign)?

To be fair, you'd only need that to happen about 13 times xp

Tory frontbenchers? I don't bloody think so. You think they give a fuck?

They are totally committed. Dave says so.

Oh yeah! If a wholegrain bar falls in the forest, Dave'll come a-riding.

Are you coming up to Ratcliffe in October, Louis?

Ratcliffe? Possibly. Depends on MA situation. But I shall try to.

> the budget's set in advance for the whole year and must be balanced.

that was kinda my point. the extra £y spent cleaning up the park has to come from somewhere else in the budget. something isn't going to be done because of the extra cleaning. you've inconvenienced someone. your action has had a negative effect somewhere.

suzy's point, that people who hold corporate events also pay for the cleaning up, is exactly how it should be. but somehow that equates to the mayor sucking cock...

That was not my point. Please replace the handset and dial again.

my point was that there is no extra £y to clean up the park. lewisham has a fixed cost, £30m contract over ten years to maintain its parks.

Technically it's not a park so no idea whether it actually falls inside that budget.

dunno what kind of hairsplitting you're aiming at there but lewisham council thinks it's a park and it's managed by the same contractors, which is what matters here:

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/LeisureAndCulture/ParksAndRecreation/LocalParks/Blackheath.htm

When I go to the park I have no problems cleaning up after myself and I assume most climate campers are similar. I don't know why Koogs needs remedial instruction today but this is an easy one: a Veolia-type company was awarded the contract for the maintenance and really, if you're whinging because some private company has to slightly narrow its profits because of a handful of days over a 10-year period (and it's not proven that this is even the case, see volunteers within camp doing own cleanup) then that whole stance is just some weird Thatcherbaby BS I can't understand.

Suzy that kind of condescension coupled with putting words in other people's mouths is really not cool, especially given the cleaning contract hadn't even been mentioned when Koogs posted. Also your initial post wasn't terribly easy to parse, in fairness.

Joe - ah okay fine. Wasn't attempted hairsplitting, just wasn't sure what the deal was.

I'm sorry you feel that way, Matt. In fairness, I've never been near Koogs' mouth ;-)

^my feelings are more to do with hatred of contracting out services to private companies for silly money, arguably the only people inconvenienced by Blackheath climate campers in monetary terms are shareholders...

Yeah I know - there seems to be a lot of talking at cross-purposes here though. We're talking about two different views coming from two different ideas about where the money's coming from, only one of which is actually right. I don't think Koogs was defending the rights of GardeningCorp shareholders.

Whenever people start going on about protestors or strikers being an inconvenience or a nuisance or an extra cost to society, I really can't help but finding such a reading of the situation shallow (if it's from one of us) or a form of straight-up emotional blackmail (in elected officials or other leaders). It is also marrow-level Thatcherism (apologies for being old enough to remember it).

lol record sales of rolling tobacco and houmous:

http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/4577371.BLACKHEATH__Climate_Camp_leaves_as_shops_count_profits/

You a local lad, joe?