Climate Rush carol singers prevented from lobbying

Climate Rush carol singers in St. Stephen's Hall, having been escorted out of Central Lobby

On Monday evening, I was part of a Climate Rush contingent in Central Lobby at the Houses of Parliament. We were there to, as the venue suggests, lobby our MPs on the importance of taking action on climate change. However, we were prevented from doing so by the parliamentary authorities and the police. Their reason? Our chosen method of lobbying: carol singing.

Following successful singing sessions in Hyde Park and on Oxford Street, we had decided to take our unique lobbying method to the heart of power, and to the men and women who sit everyday and govern our country. The coalition government has promised to be the greenest ever, but so far we have seen precious little evidence of this: the so called Green Investment Bank is at present little better than a fund, and George Osborne’s green promises are looking more and more empty as time goes on.

This is why we went to parliament today: to remind MPs on all sides of the House where their priorities should lie, in an appropriately festive manner. Some members of Climate Rush were however prevented from even entering the Houses of Parliament, and those of us who did gain entry had our lobbying abruptly halted. We were part way through our first carol, a reworked version of ‘I Saw Three Ships’, when the police and parliamentary security descended, plucking our carol sheets from our hands and escorting us from Central Lobby. The deputy sergeant at arms even put in an appearance to remind us that such festive cheer would ‘disturb the good running of the house’ and thus was not permitted.

Following this somewhat humourless remark, all of the carol singers had their details taken by the police, although some officers were barely able to contain their amusement at writing ‘singing in central lobby’ as their reason for stopping and speaking to us.

At least one MP later commented that she was “sorry not to have seen [us]“, and to all other MPs who had been invited to a unique lobbying occasion, we can only apologize. Stay tuned, however, as this is certainly not the last you’ll be seeing of Climate Rush.

Also posted on the Climate Rush blog

Beyond the Climate March

I was at the Climate March 2010 today (yes, I know, I could have been shutting down Topshop – what can I say, fashion has never been my thing) and at the rally at parliament, Caroline Lucas MP was speaking. She said that she was actually kind of bored of public meetings, of speeches, of debates (pointing out that only 12 MPs attended the debate in the House of Commons about Climate Change and the Cancún summit) and even (gasp!) of climate marches. She pointed out that time was short – we have, by most estimates, between 5 and 8 years before we have damaged our world to such an extent that catastrophic climate change is unstoppable. That estimate of 5 to 8 years really resonates with me right now – my nephew was born just over a month ago. We have until he starts junior school (and is the age of the children I teach now) to basically save the planet.

So how? As Caroline pointed out, we don’t have time for debates, meetings, marches. We need to act. Government need to get their heads out of their arses and act, and we need to pressure them to do it. The Centre for Alternative Technology have recently released the ZeroCarbonBritain2030 Report, which lays out, in detail, how Britain could be a zero carbon nation by 2030. Really, it seems obvious: we get to create hundred of thousands of jobs, we get to be world leaders in low and zero carbon technology, we change society for the better for everyone – oh yeah, and we help to save the planet and her 6 million residents. Everyone wins.

However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that governments worldwide are not going to act unless there is massive pressure from the public and from campaign groups. That’s where groups like Climate Rush come in, a group that Caroline Lucas paid tribute to today – and of which I’m a proud part. Our slogan, “Deeds Not Words” makes it plain where our sympathies lie. We take our inspiration from the suffragettes, who refused to give up until they had reached their goal. Emmeline Pankhurst said it beautifully:

“You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under, if you are really going to get your reform realized.”

These are the words that we at Climate Rush live and act by. We apply pressure through creative, elegant direct action, demanding that people sit up and take notice. If you (along with the overwhelming majority of scientific opinion – you’re in good company on this one) believe that the climate emergency cannot wait, then join us at Climate Rush and refuse to rest until we have realized the changes that the whole earth so desperately needs. We are running out of time.

Random Rants

From @r4today:

‘ “It is a matter of regret” that taxpayers and not private banks have carried the burden of the economic crisis – George Osborne’

Really. A matter of regret. Is that the best that he can do? A matter of regret that those who basically caused this crisis – the government and the banks, acting in partnership – are not carrying the can. Guess what, George: you’re the chancellor. You can do something about this. Or would that spoil the conservative party’s favourite game of punishing people for daring to be poor?

From The Independent:

Carbon emissions set to be highest in history

Essentially, despite a fall in emissions in the Western hemisphere (due to the economic crisis), emissions in countries such as China and India have increased, leading to a global net increase in CO2 emissions. This is Bad News, to put it mildly.

From the article:

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned in successive scientific reports that a “business as usual” approach to global CO2 emissions is highly likely to lead to average temperature rises of up to 6C by 2100, leading to potentially catastrophic climate change.

“We are definitely on the high end of the [IPCC] projections and it’s also grim to see that as the growth increases in the emerging economies … the rich countries have to really start decreasing their internal emissions, but that is really not happening, at least at the scale that is needed to limit global warming to the minimum of 2C that the government has pledged,” Professor Le Quéré said.

People, pay attention. We’re at the upper end of IPCC predictions. This is seriously fucking bad news. When the article says ‘potentially catastrophic climate change’, it means any or all of the following things: massive rises in sea levels, millions of people dead as whole swathes of the world become unlivable, previously tropical diseases going global, a collapse in food production, and guess what: if you think the changes in our lifestyles needed to prevent this are huge, they ain’t got nothing on the changes in lifestyle that will occur if we sit around and do fuck all.

Which is why, for me, doing fuck all is not an option.

Rediscovering politics

I was brought up in and around politics – my parents were both party activists, and so from a young age I would spend the weeks leading up to an election out delivering leaflets, helping dad put posters up and generally sharing in the excitement. On election day, our house was the local hq, and so the highlight of the day was mum sending me and my sister off down the chip shop for our tea.

At age seven, we were given some free painting time in school. It must have been the end of April, because I chose to paint a ‘Vote Labour’ poster, complete with a red rose. It was proudly displayed in our front window for several years.

In 1992, the general election was on a knife-edge, and I remember making a huge fuss about not being allowed to stay up and watch the results come in. I woke up at probably about 5.30am the following morning, and raced downstairs, turned on the tv. Then went and sat outside my parent’s bedroom and cried. I didn’t understand how we could have done so much, and still lost.

By the time I reached 18 and university beckoned, I’d had enough of politics. As far as I could see, party politics was full of bitchy  backbiting, and the Labour government were already failing to live up to all the high hopes of May 1997. While at university, I had really nothing to do with politics, choosing not to get involved. I kept my ear to the ground, and was generally well-informed, but couldn’t see that I had anything to offer, or that student politics had anything to offer me. The experience of the Stop the War protest only confirmed this view. This time my response was not tears, but anger. How could the government blithely ignore so many millions – the largest peacetime demonstration in the UK? But they did, and I could see no reason to involve myself in a politics that behaved like this.

It’s now been 4 years since I finished university, and at 26 years of age, politics is finally starting to excite me again. I’ve become involved in Climate Rush, and through this wonderful group of women I’ve found my voice, and my passion, once again.

I’m not angry now, not in the same way. I’m passionate, and hopeful, and driven by the imperative to act. Scientists currently think we have somewhere between 5 and 10 years to prevent catastrophic, irreversible climate change that will devastate life on earth. For me, doing nothing is impossible.

I’m still working out exactly what I think, what my own personal driving factors and aims are, but on a general scale, I wholeheartedly believe that the way we live now is completely unsustainable, in a way that goes beyond our effect on the world’s climate. We cannot keep growing for ever, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that unless we scale back our consumption – in every which way – we will wipe ourselves off the face of the earth.

This is clearly a terrifying prospect, but I don’t believe that it means a return to the dark ages. Imagine a world where we work less, but get time to sit and eat with our families. Where we have less money, but we spend on things that last, and that genuinely improve our lives, rather than distract us from them. Where we live as part of nature, not as its masters. Where we are not driven by an endless and unsatisfying quest for more, more, more.

I also believe that our choices matter. Every choice that we make has a global impact. It would take something in the region of 3 earths to have sufficient resources to enable everyone on earth to live the way that we in the West do today. Clearly we do not have 3 earths, so either we have to scale back our use of the earth and share its resources more equitably, or we explicitly condemn others to lives of grinding poverty so we can live lives of excess.

I know what my choice is.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog.

The inspiration for both the title and the theme of this blog – Crossing Points – has emerged from a number of things that I have been reflecting on recently. The real impetus for creating this blog, however, came just a few days ago as I was reviewing my facebook profile. I had started to write, beginning “I am..” and then stalled. There seemed to be so much I could write there, in no particular order: a teacher, left wing, a linguist, a christian, an environmental activist (ok, so not quite yet, but getting there), a mental health patient, or client, or whatever they’re calling us these days, queer, crafty…you get the idea. However, I am none of these things in isolation: I do not change costumes in my life depending on which role I’m currently fulfilling. When I’m stood in front of my class teaching them about the finer points of 3D shapes, I am still a lefty. When I’m sewing a quilt, I am no less a mental health patient. My life, and the things I do, are made up of where these things meet, of the intersections, the crossing points.

If this is true of my life, then it is all the more true of the world we live in. Nothing happens in isolation, not any more (if indeed it ever did). A statement from the chancellor is not merely economics, it is the environment, it’s social justice – indeed, it can go to the very core of what we want our society to be. And so my intention with this blog is not only to chronicle the crossing points in my own life, but also to look at intersections in society and to examine the interconnectedness of all things. Our choices have consequences far beyond what we may imagine, and in a world where all people are linked, as if in a giant and immeasurably fragile spider’s web, we have a duty to examine our action and our inaction.

So sit with me a while, and don’t be afraid to voice your opinion.