climate camp mass action is on!

[Miss-Shelf]

if we're considering our personal energy usage the biggest % of it goes into our food in agri-business, transportation and processing and packaging.

transport and water/heating is also a slice

ok I'm not in plane stoopid and I do ask the question why people need to take so many flights both for business and holiday

I have a family and I enjoy travelling in the uk and occasionally taking a ferry or train into Europe. I don't feel I am missing any pleasure or adventures because I don't jet off to cancun. And I am a single parent on a medium wage if that pegs me into any brackets you want to

 

[e19896]

Poverty means my carbon footprint is a whole lot less than a person in work and i disagree with most thoughts on climate change.. My thoughts are our western lives are the problem here. I disagree with the third runway on these grounds: it means more consumption.. We are going to have to build the thing, to get there we are going to have to demolish a community, then we are going to have to replace said community.. The need for for a third runway is due to the fact in part that the transport infrastructure i.e. trains means it is far more easy to get a plane to Scotland and for the cost of a third runway we could upgrade much of the rail network.

If we stop using food and other goods from abroad and invested the cost of this back into the waterways we would have a means of moving locally grown food and produced goods. No, instead we are told it is climate change another means of making the working class in fear and become the victim. When in fact it is often the middle class who are creating the most impact. Good on them for highlighting some of the issues. But once again their protest was about easing their empire guilt (and how many of them will have flown in the past?), placing the blame back at the door of the working class. There is only one solution and that is the class war.

 

[jæd]

PThe need for for a third runway is due to the fact in part that the transport infrastructure i.e. trains means it is far more easy to get a plane to Scotland and for the cost of a third runway we could upgrade much of the rail network.

How many trains go to New York...?

There is only one solution and that is the class war.

There are lots of solutions with differing costs associated. (We could build trans-atlantic tunnels, greener airplanes, etc...)

 

[Miss-Shelf]

My thoughts are our western lives are the problem here. I disagree with the third runway on these grounds: it means more consumption..

it is often the middle class who are creating the most impact. Good on them for highlighting some of the issues. But once again their protest was about easing their empire guilt (and how many of them will have flown in the past?), placing the blame back at the door of the working class. There is only one solution and that is the class war.

you're right in saying that in class terms there was a strong middle class element
there was some feeling about this within the camp that the middle class voice had more power in general at meetings
there was a variety of feeling at the camp about flying and past flying history I didn't come across anyone who was blaming working class people for flying - there was a broadly consensual target of those who profit from the aviation industry

there was also a strong feeling in the camp that consumption and growth is the general problem fuelling climate chaos and that this needs to be challenged on a personal and societal level

 

[e19896]

How many trains go to New York...?

There are lots of solutions with differing costs associated. (We could build trans-atlantic tunnels, greener airplanes, etc...)

None and if i desired to go then i would by boat but it has also been proven this is just as bad so it is simple i have no real need so i do not go..

Yes there are and one of them being The Middle Class stoping there over consuption and the only way i feel is a mass upriseing and this would mean a class war.. Get over it..

you're right in saying that in class terms there was a strong middle class element
there was some feeling about this within the camp that the middle class voice had more power in general at meetings
there was a variety of feeling at the camp about flying and past flying history I didn't come across anyone who was blaming working class people for flying - there was a broadly consensual target of those who profit from the aviation industry

there was also a strong feeling in the camp that consumption and growth is the general problem fuelling climate chaos and that this needs to be challenged on a personal and societal level

I know my sister was there and a lot of comrades also and no doubt they was the element of people who brought up these facts was it not The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy who talked about Hypocrisy Being the Greatest Luxury and the middle class are full of it..

 

[jæd]

Yes there are and one of them being The Middle Class stoping there over consuption and the only way i feel is a mass upriseing and this would mean a class war.. Get over it..

Some how I can't see this happening...

 

[Wilf]

Because I happen to think that it's bullshit for these stupid hippy cunts to go around telling people off for such terrible sins as owning a car and enjoying yourself. The majority of carbon emissions are not caused by leisure flights*, and it's not as if driving to work is something a lot of people can just opt out of.

It's pretty rare that I can afford a foreign holiday, but when I can (and I can get the time off), I'll take one. Fuck Plane Stupid.

*And the majority of commuter flights through cheap companies like EasyJet aren't for holiday purposes, for that matter

Okay, okay, the word 'hippy' has been uttered, which means that you have to run off your excess energy. But when you've done that, answer this: do you really think the majority (or anything approaching a majority) of people at the camp were anti-working class/telling people not to own cars/saying don't enjoy yourself?

I was pleasantly surprised by the tone of the different workshops and meetings. Was a pretty consistent focus on capitalism and business as the source of the problem - and an avoidance of blaming ordinary people for their own consumption. Of all the meetings I went to (plenaries aside), the biggest was an AF session, which discussed - as you might expect - the futility of looking to business or the state as a way out. Also, anything hinting at green authoritarianism - the Meyer Hilman (sp) session in particular - was widely condemned. I also heard a bit of Monbiot's talk where the fuckwit was going on about the need for massive construction projects (solar panels in the Sahara direct current pylons ). He got a good round of applause in what was a kind of revivalist preacher session - but talking to people afterwards, most said his ideas were shocking.

Was the usual stuff with a few people wanting to 'chant' the earth better - and the usual accusation could be made about the middle classes predominating (it had about the same social make up as the anarchist bookfair in that respect + a few quakers). But i thought there were signs of progress - with the green movement engaging more with anticapitalist and antistate ideas. Were also some groups going out to support the baggage handlers strike. Long way from what I'd like to see in terms of a green/red/black alliance - but some progress. None of which is really covered by the term 'hippy cunts'.

 

[butchersapron]

Any more on the AF session? How did it go down? Did it spark anything?

 

[Wilf]

Any more on the AF session? How did it go down? Did it spark anything?

Very well attended - the guys who were running it guessed at 100, which might have been pushing it, but still pretty good given that there were 5 or 6 other meetings on at the same time (and heaps of other things going on site wide). From the contributions, I would guess that the vast majority were not self defined anarchists, but had come along because they were interested.

The AF guys did a short intro but wanted it to go more as a discussion - so it wasn't all that much about the AF itself. A lot of the meeting was around the 'what is the state' question and its relationship with the capitalist class. Loads of interesting input and i didn't get the sense that many were parroting party lines. I was banging on about seeing the environment as a class issue and about building links between green campaigns and workers struggles. Seemed to be a lot of sympathy with that idea though there wasn't much practical discussion of those links. Throughout the week however, the way that environmental disasters play out around different social divisions were consistent themes. Suppose the only things that came out of the meeting directly were lots of people taking copies of organise - and maybe an increase in the number going to the picket lines.

 

[butchersapron]

Thanks!

 

[behemoth]

will it be revolution?

Apparently not, except in your fantasies.

 

[In Bloom]

Okay, okay, the word 'hippy' has been uttered, which means that you have to run off your excess energy. But when you've done that, answer this: do you really think the majority (or anything approaching a majority) of people at the camp were anti-working class/telling people not to own cars/saying don't enjoy yourself?

Where did I say that? I just really, really hate the likes of Plane Stupid and I don't think you can ignore the influence of those sort of ideas within the environmentalist scene.

Some aspects of the camp sound pretty interesting, particularly the campaign against expansion and those involved who were challenging the ethical consumerist/business oriented "solutions". Letting Monbiot get his filthy mits on some speaking time was a mistake though

Glad to hear the AF meeting went well anyway. How did the action in support of the baggage handlers go?

 

[Random]

Where did I say that? I just really, really hate the likes of Plane Stupid and I don't think you can ignore the influence of those sort of ideas within the environmentalist scene.

i've really taken my eye off the ball - what are 'the likes of plane stupid'? Are these groups more on about individual choices, etc?

 

[In Bloom]

i've really taken my eye off the ball - what are 'the likes of plane stupid'? Are these groups more on about individual choices, etc?

That kind of thing, yeah. Plus the grating, moralising tone that they often employ.

 

[Fruitloop]

And that's the fault of people who own cars, is it? As opposed to, say, the people who control the process of production and manage it in an unnecessarily wasteful way? It's not down to me or you if the agricultural industry happens to find that it's more profitable to import food from abroad rather than grow it locally, nor is it down to people who drive if their workplace is innaccessible by public transport and too far away to walk.

It's down to anything that emits substantial quantities of CO2.

How many workplaces are genuinely inaccessible to public transport? I mean OK if you are a hill farmer then you probably can't function without a vehicle, but I don't think anyone is arguing for the abolition of all cars, even amongst the numpties in Plane Stupid.

I don't get where you're coming from with this stuff, what do you imagine people should be doing? Is it good enough to just say 'well, I don't want to eat stuff that's flown in daily from Kenya, but shucks, that's the way it is'. It just seems like yet another way to abdicate responsibility to me.

Edited to add: criticisms of 'tone' are weak, because it's not something that is really contendible. It's exactly the gambit that right-wingers use to smear those people who do manage to get into the mainstream media to put across points of view that they don't like, like Pilger et al. - i.e. that we should just disregard them because of their preachy or hectoring tone or whatever.

 

[In Bloom]

I don't get where you're coming from with this stuff, what do you imagine people should be doing? Is it good enough to just say 'well, I don't want to eat stuff that's flown in daily from Kenya, but shucks, that's the way it is'. It just seems like yet another way to abdicate responsibility to me.

There's no responsibility on my part to abdicate in the first place.

Personally, I don't think that anything can be done about climate change under capitalism, because the necessary steps entail a massive shift in the way that things are produced, to an extent that the state and capital would never concede it willingly. You're not going to achieve that by buying bits and bobs from the farmers market.

 

[In Bloom]

criticisms of 'tone' are weak, because it's not something that is really contendible. It's exactly the gambit that right-wingers use to smear those people who do manage to get into the mainstream media to put across points of view that they don't like, like Pilger et al. - i.e. that we should just disregard them because of their preachy or hectoring tone or whatever.

Do you know what an "amalgam attack" is?

 

[Fruitloop]

The responsibility lies with everyone that reproduces that system IMO. Where else?

 

[Fruitloop]

Do you know what an "amalgam attack" is?

Nope. Something to do with fillings?

 

[In Bloom]

Nope. Something to do with fillings?

See also - Trotsky-fascist.

The responsibility lies with everyone that reproduces that system IMO. Where else?

How can you be responsible for something that you have no control over? You know, that whole kerazy capitalism thing where we all* reproduce society, but have no control over it.

*and that includes George cocking Monbiot

 

[Fruitloop]

Do you know what an "amalgam attack" is?

I don't see the relevance of this (a bit of googling seems to reveal it to be some weird terminology of leftist in-fighting). The point about the 'tone' argument is not that it is dishonest because right-wingers use it, but that it is a dishonest form of argumentation that happens to be used by right-wingers.

 

[In Bloom]

I don't see the relevance of this (a bit of googling seems to reveal it to be some weird terminology of leftist in-fighting). The point about the 'tone' argument is not that it is dishonest because right-wingers use it, but that it is a dishonest form of argumentation that happens to be used by right-wingers.

What's the signifigance of it being used by right-wingers then? In any case, tone is extremely fucking important if you intend to convince anybody of anything.

Would you care to explain how somebody can be responsible for something which they have no control over, by the way?

 

[Fruitloop]

In answer to your other question - I don't think that portraying the w/c (still less everyone ) as the passive victims of the evil capitalist system is in any way a constructive basis on which to promote radical social change. I mean it's in danger of entering phildwyer territory of ascribing agency to completely abstract things. Where does the agency actually lie? Only with actually existing people IMO.

 

[Fruitloop]

What's the signifigance of it being used by right-wingers then? In any case, tone is extremely fucking important if you intend to convince anybody of anything.

None really. Just pointing out the dodgy company you're keeping.

 

[In Bloom]

In answer to your other question - I don't think that portraying the w/c (still less everyone ) as the passive victims of the evil capitalist system is in any way a constructive basis on which to promote radical social change. I mean it's in danger of entering phildwyer territory of ascribing agency to completely abstract things. Where does the agency actually lie? Only with actually existing people IMO.

You appear to have misunderstood me altogether.

We don't have control over capitalism because we aren't bosses/MPs/what-have-you, that doesn't mean we have no agency, capitalism depends upon us to reproduce it, that's where the power of the working class lies, the point is that ascribing moral responsibility to everybody who reproduces capitalism is fucking retarded, because we all reproduce capitalism, whether we want to or not.

I'm crap at explaining these things properly.

 

[In Bloom]

None really. Just pointing out the dodgy company you're keeping.

So your entire objection to right wingers in on the grounds that they find George Monbiot smug?

 

[Fruitloop]

I never mentioned moral responsibility. Morals are purely a matter of value judgements, a sort of post factum ethical accounting that really isn't of interest to me. The question is who are the actors involved in bringing something about - that kind of responsibility.

 

[Fruitloop]

So your entire objection to right wingers in on the grounds that they find George Monbiot smug?

I get the impression you are taking the words out of my posts and playing a kind of scrabble with them, seeing what other sentences you can form.

 

[Fruitloop]

Hilarious though this is, wage-slavery is over for me today, we will have to continue later. I think what I am trying to say is that there is more to be gained from asking people to look at their own role in the perpetuation of the current situation, since offloading the blame onto the r/c, the bourgeoisie etc is a feature of that present situation, and one that the bourgeoisie is happy to accommodate since they are materially well rewarded for it.

Later.

 

[In Bloom]

Hilarious though this is, wage-slavery is over for me today, we will have to continue later. I think what I am trying to say is that there is more to be gained from asking people to look at their own role in the perpetuation of the current situation, since offloading the blame onto the r/c, the bourgeoisie etc is a feature of that present situation, and one that the bourgeoisie is happy to accommodate since they are materially well rewarded for it.

Not if we hang them from the nearest lampost, they can't

They also seem to be putting quite a lot of effort into trying to get people to "look at their own role", though.