“The Climate Rush is a group of gallant women and intrepid men who will act now to save the world.” This is anarchism for the middle classes, or at least those that don’t want too much risk when out protesting. This group came to popular attention last year with a take-over of Parliament Square celebrating the centenary of the Suffragette Rush and campaigning in support of three demands: No new coal power stations, an immediate stop to all airport expansion, and 80% reductions in carbon by 2050. With number three ticked off, this group are about to tackle number two with a protest on Monday 12th January 2009, the day that MPs return to parliament.

When the Evening Standard reported this (18th Dec 2008) it was suggested that “the protest could emulate the sit-in at Bangkok airport that led to it being shut for several days.”

One source said today: “If there are only 50 of us I doubt it will stop the airport from running but if there are 500 of us that is a lot of protesters in the check-in area. If we are really successful, we could attract thousands down there and that would stop the airport functioning on the day.”

So, what’s the plan?

“We will arrive in Edwardian dress (under a big coat!) with hampers of food to have our ‘Dinner at Domestic Departures’.”

Not quite the same as the boots and balaclavas of the anti-Stansted expansion special-forces. But the idea is similar. Go to an airport in some kinda costume, make a spectacle for the media and disrupt the normal operations of the airport.

Which will be fun! In the photos of the Parliament Square invasion, everyone looks like the are having a riot! Save the planet and have fun!

This is civil disobedience. “Civil disobedience on grounds of conscience is an honourable tradition in this country, and those who take part in it may well be vindicated by history” Lord Justice Hoffman

On the recent granting of bail to Climate Rush organiser Tamsin Omond, District Judge Michael Snow spoke of the need for ‘proportionality’ in civil disobedience cases, and his reluctance to refuse bail to someone who was “simply exercising her democratic right to protest”.

“The word ‘democratic’ is key here. The idea of democracy is perhaps the key to explaining why middle-class fathers and middle-aged ladies are donning sashes and chanting slogans all of a sudden.”  - Hazel Cullen at Greenvoice

I’m looking forward to this. It’ll be interesting to see how The Climate Rush get on. It’ll also be a great test of the surveillance and policing of the public transport links to London and Manchester’s airports (climate change protesters wouldn’t drive, would they?) Can anti-terror police and airport security spot and intercept a potentially large number of people wearing concealed Edwardian dress and carrying hampers, heading to the airport? Or will 50? 100? 500? 1000? people be able to just walk right up and sit down to a picnic in the domestic departures area of two major airports? Imagine if all of the Campaign against Climate Change marchers, something like 7500, turned up at airports and just sat down…

“BAA is understood to have invited Ms Omond to talks to discuss the protest.” Perhaps BAA do feel threatened! Perhaps they think she’ll call it off if they ask nicely.

Earlier this week 50 or so Plane Stupid activists managed to breach Stansted Airport’s perimeter security fence. Idiots. If someone really wanted to shutdown an airport and cause over a week of disruption, all they would have to do is get enough people to sit down.

Last month anti-government protesters in Thailand where able to close the country’s major international airport for over a week. Hundreds of thousands of people and hundreds of flights were disrupted and rerouted where possible. The world’s attention was focused on the protest, shining a light onto the political problems in the country. Most amazing was the peaceful passing off of the protests. I doubt that within a few days the mass sit-in will fade, becoming just a surreal memory. This protest was a success, internally and internationally.

The Beeb asks a few questions, some of which are pertinent to the Plane Stupid protesters:

• How could a country as advanced and as dependent on exports and tourism as Thailand allow such a vital transport hub to be stormed by a mob that never numbered more than a few thousand?
• What is the PAD, and what gives the movement the confidence to commit its dramatic acts of economic sabotage without fearing any legal sanction?

No more than a few thousand people halted a major international airport for over a week. This large group took action with impunity; Thai police could not or perhaps would not use force against these protesters.

Now, how does all this relate to the old-school black-ops methods of Plane Stupid this last week? To my mind the protest which closed Stansted was a flash in the pan, a stunt. The airport authorities and police responded with force, treating this militaristic assault on key infrastructure as a terrorist attack. Rightly so! What if these were not Plane Stupid protesters but rather stupid hi-jackers?

Environmental protesters like Plane Stupid should take notice of Flash-mobbing, silent raves and other network-powered interventions in the public space. Organise a flash-mob of an airport, all the airports! Just get a lot of people to head to their nearest airport and just sit down….

Here are a few steps to taking over every airport in the country on one day…

1. Pick a day, any day and a time… just make sure its far enough in the future to allow your network of activists to…
2. …Buy up tickets on the cheap flights (this is the important part) on that day all around the same time.
3. On the scheduled day, set off with a packed bag, a passport and a ticket to local airport - this is the black-ops part, when the radical environmentalists disguise themselves as people going off for the weekend on a cheap flight.
4. Wait for the agreed time and sit down.

If Plane Stupid or another similar group were to co-ordinate such an action this would be a flashmob of epic proportions causing much more serious and significant disruption to air travel infrastructure.

Yet the real beauty of this networked direct action is that the Plane Stupid protesters would most likely be able to close every airport in the country even without having to turn up on the day. The very threat of this direct action and very fact that of it being discussed openly, perhaps via Facebook or a custom social network site hosted on Ning, would probably be sufficient for the authorities to seriously reconsider opening airports on the appointed day.

Some may call this weeks action by Plane Stupid terrorism, others may call it civil disobedience. What I’m proposing here combines direct action and electronic civil disobedience backed up with the threat of real people turning up and paralysing infrastructure in a very public way. For the cost of a place ticket on, say, the 1st April 2009 (which is cheap if booked now) Plane Stupid could close every airport in the country…..

Just a thought.

I received an email from the MapRA Network advising me of some local Open Gardens in the National Garden Scheme. In this scheme, private gardens of national interest are opened to the public, in aid of charity. Here is a map of the local open gardens.

View Larger Map

For more information on the NGS visit www.ngs.org.uk The main charities supported are: Macmillan Cancer Support; Marie Curie Cancer Care; Help the Hospices.

What factors are increasing the price of oil, recently over $135 a barrel? Is it the speculative ‘unregulated’ oil trading that William Pfaff, writing in the IHT, criticises? Certainly the black magic of contract trading is a factor, a parasite on the ‘real’ market for the commodity. According to the BBC, OPEC has so far blamed price rises on speculators and says there is no shortage of oil. Likewise, Pfaff considers the present situation with rising prices dissimilar to the 1973 oil crisis, when OPEC announced that they would no longer supply oil to nations that supported Israel in its conflict with Syria and Egypt.

Paul Krugman, also in the IHT, is somewhat naive if he thinks that we are entering merely an era of scarce, expensive oil. This is more than an era. The buried sunlight that we like to burn is running out. Scarcity is the true reality. It’s more than Half Gone. Not only is the raw material that we are critically addicted to becoming more expensive as it becomes increasingly scarce, feeding our addiction in consuming oil is one of the major causes of global warming.

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You may have read a letter in the Kilburn Times from a residents in Queen’s Park questioning the sanity of planning regulations that prevent people from moving towards renewable energy. I bumped into Rupet Degas from the Brent and Harrow Green Party in Queen’s Park yesterday and he nearly split our sides laughing at the lack of joined up thinking. This morning he forwarded me a reply he wrote that has, as yet, not been published by the paper.

“It saddens me to hear yet another story of Brent Council’s ludicrous policy regarding solar panels (’Council policy has gone mad’, letter, Times, 12th April). For the Labour led council to declaim support for renewable energy and then deny planning permission to those who want solar panels on their houses is at best hypocritical, at worst utterly irresponsible and environmentally destructive. Solar panels don’t look much different from your average dormer window, so my guess as to why the council doesn’t want them up probably has something to do with bottom-line profit or some such nonsense. The fact remains that the sooner more people go to the initial expense of installing solar panels, the sooner prices will come down and everyone will have them. I’d buy shares now if I were you before the Labour boys finally wake up and want a piece of the action. Joking apart, self sufficiency should be strongly encouraged and advocated by the council, but without any Greens at the table to get things moving, what hope is there? Look on the bright side though - at least you can watch Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda channels without the fear of Brent Council asking you to remove your satellite dish! Funny that.”

Rupert Degas
Green Candidate for Queens Park
Brent and Harrow Green Party
PO Box 42434
London NW10 3XT
rupert@qsound.uk.com