Direct Action

Make friends and influence people…

Intrepid rafters at this year’s climate camp. Yarr, matey.

Tree-huggers, eco-warriors, militants, extremists.

Civil disobedience and those who do it often gets a bad press. Yet as anyone with experience of events like the climate camp will tell you behind all the spin and hype, activists are, in short, ordinary people. The residents of Sipson, a small village near Heathrow which hosted the climate camp last year were the first to cheer on the climate campers, because like the rest of us, they are concerned about our collective future, and willing to do what they can to help those who will suffer terribly as a result of the actions we take now.

It is easy to think of periods in the past when non-violent lawbreaking has won us some of the most basic freedoms we enjoy today: the US civil rights movement; the movement against British colonial rule in India; the sufragettes’ struggle to win women the vote. All these seismic shifts in public consciousness and fundamental political reality – changes which must often have seemed nigh on impossible to those pursuing them – took work.

The movement against coal in the UK is gathering momentum and gaining political legitimacy. We know this is winnable – we know we can stop new coal power plants and mines, and a whole bunch of people agree with us, from climate scientists, to the Women’s Institute, to the Environment Agency, to an apparent cross-party agreement that new coal would be a bad thing. Pretty much the only people on the wrong side of the fence are a few Labour ministers who hold the reins of energy policy.

Al Gore said recently:

“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,”

The best way to get involved at this exciting time is to hook up with a group that’s local to you.

So – check out our campaigns page for details of groups in your area. Learn what’s going on, and talk your ideas over with some receptive people.