“Is money the only thing stopping you from going?," she said. "Because if it is then we are going, and I am paying. Money is the problem, with everything, the whole world, so I won’t let it stop you from coming to Climate Camp.”
I called Natalie again the night before we left: “My tent is going to be strapped to the outside of my backpack, is that going to make me more vulnerable, more grab-able?” She jovially reminded me that we weren’t going to a riot, but that I should pack as light as possible because I might have to run from the police. I was in safe hands, Natalie had been to two previous camps, but on the train from Devon we were getting jittery, mainly because we didn’t know what to expect.
We caught up with our ‘swoop group’ in Trafalgar Square. We had a sit down, played with an inflatable planet Earth, read some interesting leaflets and met some passionate people. Then the texts came: instructing us to move to Charing Cross, then to get the train to Lewisham, then directions to the site.
Running total: 100 campers, 10 police officers and 80 journalists!
One of the opening speeches that raised the biggest cheer was from an activist who was brought up in Lewisham. She spoke of when she was a child: if she stood on her tiptoes on Black Heath (the site of the camp) she could see Primrose Hill. This view is now completely blocked by Canary Wharf and other city tower blocks. ‘I know that they haven’t always been there. They were put up. And we can bring them down.’ This was my first taste of the power of people: people who know that to avoid catastrophic climate change and for everyone to have a reasonable standard of living, we all need to make changes, some of them bigger than others.
In many articles I read, people are trying to find out who the secret leaders of Climate Camp are, but there really aren’t any. Each and every important decision involves each and every camper. There are ‘neighbourhoods’: regional groups that have meetings and events throughout the year. Each neighbourhood organises its own kitchen for the camp and deals with its own issues in morning meetings.
In addition to neighbourhoods there are ‘working groups’: open groups that meet throughout the year, and on every day of the camp. Each working group deals with one aspect of the running of the camp, such as Media, Medics or Outreach (involving the local community), and campers are actively encouraged, needed in fact, to join in with at least one of the working groups.
Consensus decision-making is an important part of Climate Camp. Everyone must agree before a meeting can move on, which can take some time. But with experienced facilitators, we managed relatively quickly to develop a camp wide policy towards the local council and the police. There was something special about walking past people from another neighbourhood, who you had never met, knowing that they had agreed with you that morning.
Running total: over 5,000 campers, about 50 police officers, hundreds of journalists!
Because there is no hierarchy at Climate Camp, if you observe something that you don’t feel happy about, you are just as powerful and responsible as the next person to bring it to everyone’s attention. Furthermore, because everyone must agree, each individual has the power to stop a decision going ahead.
There is very much a focus on personal responsibility, with regard to the camp and climate change in its wider context. As far as I am concerned, to pick holes in the direction, organisation or actions of Climate Camp, without attempting to influence them, is to miss the point.
Before I arrived at Climate Camp I knew very little about it, I just knew that I didn’t like climate change. Now I can tell you that Climate Camp has four main aims:
- To educate people about climate change.
- To inspire and train people to take direct action against climate criminals.
- To exist as an exemplar of sustainable, community living.
- To build a strong, progressive movement to tackle the causes of climate change.
Even thought this was my first ever involvement with Climate Camp, I can now also tell you that this Camp:
- had over 200 workshops to educate.
- acted as a base for several ‘actions’ through the week, including a visit to a major bank and some guerrilla gardening (‘developing’ unused city land into a garden or meadow).
- accommodated, fed, watered, and entertained over 2,000 campers and over 2,000 visitors, with feasts of vegan and ‘freegan’ food, minimal water usage, compost toilets, and was powered by wind turbines, solar panels and lots of bikes.
- half of the campers had never been to a Climate Camp before.
Climate Campers are a mixed bag. I was an unemployed graduate and Natalie is a midwife. There are lawyers, students, academics, doctors, scientists, full-time activists, poets and engineers.
Throughout the camp, many cars passing by beeped their horns in support. Many of the other drivers shouted “get a job”. To which I heard one camper shout back “I have... A good one”.
Next time, I look forward to joining those campers in their chorus: those campers who took their annual leave to attend; those campers who are activists in their spare time; those campers who find time, somehow, to stand up for what they believe in. I say I look forward to joining them because I had to leave the camp early to start my new job, and it’s a good one.
Life feels good when you do what you believe is right, and as such my involvement in the Camp for Climate Action has only just begun.
By Amy Wilson (Photo: Rob Logan)
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