Climate Camp Cymru 2009: Ffos-y-Fran

I attended my first Climate Camp yesterday, catching the train to Merthyr Tudful and walking to the camp near the Ffos-y-Fran opencast mine.

I had been invited months ago but had let the invitation sit in Facebook without a response. Friends have been to previous UK Climate Camps at Heathrow and Kingsnorth. They sounded like interesting places where ideas were hatched and debated. They were places where action was planned and taken to highlight the Governments' contradictory decisions regarding climate change: "we'll cut emissions by 80% but we're also going to increase airport capacity". But I didn't sign up straight away, probably because I was still quite dubious about the nature of these camps (what could they achieve?) and the people attending them (just how hard-core were they?).

Talk in the pub a couple of weeks ago reminded me about the Ffos-y-Fran camp and I decided to go. Not to camp overnight, mind you, but to go and see for myself one Saturday afternoon. On the train I asked myself why I was going. The urgency of climate change: one. Two: support the locals in Merthyr who I know have been fighting the mine hard. Three: take myself out of my comfort zone and experience something new. Four: see this mine that I'd read about.

First impressions were good. The camp looked organised, there were plenty of people milling around and ducking into one large tent I heard a few minutes of informed, impassioned debate about credit unions and the current banking mess. Things got even better when I found the kitchen tent and, parched from the slog up the hill from the train station, was able to procure a cup of Rosy Lea.

I wandered around, into and between the Bicycology tent (free repairs!), the face-painting tent, the Toilets: Poo Only, Gwagle Gweithdy 2, the Toilets: Wee Only. I noticed in the Handbook that had been given to me at the Welcome tent that Gwagle Gweithdy 3 would, at 2.15pm, see a discussion on the effectiveness of internet-based activism. As I'd only be around for one workshop before catching the train back to Cardiff, this looked like the one.

When I got to Gwagle Gweithdy 3, which was next to/part of Gwagle Gweithdy 2, the chalk on the small blackboard outside had been drizzle-smudged. I stuck my head in. Another similarly novice-looking guy came in behind me. A few people were applying clown face-paint. "Have you got mobile phones?" we were asked. I fumbled in my pocket while my novice friend said "I've turned it off." "You need to take the battery out." Stupidly, I did this without asking why. Having complied with the clown's request, I asked if this was where the internet activism workshop would be. "Dunno. But if you find it, mate, will you come back and tell me about it cos I'm interested in that." "Err, yeah, if I find it." I left the tent.

Feeling as though I really shouldn't have come I began wandering around the camp again. "Site meeting!" someone suddenly shouted through a loud-hailer. "Everyone meet!"

A circle of about 80 people gathered in the drizzle. Apparently there was some confusion over just what had been decided on Friday regarding a march on Saturday afternoon. Could someone clarify what they thought had been agreed upon?, a lady asked. Someone did. Could I take any points on that?, the lady asked. Lots of people did. 45 minutes of points simple, technical and directly-relevant. Lots of frustration.

It seemed the issue was that locals (and some protestors) were not happy with "breaking the law direct action" as compared with going on a march up the hill to the mine. If we all went together, so it appeared, then the police would not be able to distinguish between who was marching and who was more intent on mischief. Fair enough. But this was talked over, under, around and through for 45 minutes in an attempt to reach consensus and we didn't get anywhere.

After about 20 minutes, someone pointed out that we had arranged to meet local residents for the march at 2.30pm and if we didn't leave now then the locals might get annoyed waiting. Not even that shook people out of the discussion. Someone proposed that the Affinity Groups (small groups of people willing to take direct action) should leave 2-3 minutes later than the march to show the police that they were separate. 2-3 minutes wasn't enough time to make that distinction, someone countered. Does anyone have a proposal to make that distinction more obvious, asked the lady. Ummm, I pondered, how about more minutes? Bonkers.

I had gone from being impressed by the organisation - erecting a squatted camp and sustaining themselves for days is a truly impressive achievement, to being utterly disengaged. The principle of consensus decision-making is a valid one but I couldn't help thinking that people with even less experience of it than I have would not stick around for the action that it might produce.

I wandered off again, not sure whether I'd go on this march. I didn't know whether it was illegal, whether I'd be arrested, the route we were taking even. I spoke to a nice woman weaving baskets. When I looked back at the meeting the meeting had dissipated. Had the march actually started? I walked over, thinking about whether I should join, and saw another meeting circle. The people who were staying behind to protect the camp were talking tactics. Bloody hell. I ran to catch up with the marchers.

Over the stile and up the hill. A woman applauded out of the window of her car in support of the protest, others beeped. The mine was further than I had hoped. Near the top of the hill, the police had erected a human wall and informed us that the road was closed. People milled about. I had no idea what was happening; no-one had talked about this eventuality at the meeting. What were we doing?

Some people drifted onto the common land at the roadside to circumnavigate the police roadblock. I, too, walked up the hillside as there was no view of the mine from the road. What I saw from the top was truly upsetting and I didn't see half of it. This mine is huge. The plan is to extract 11 million tons of coal over the next 15 years, burn it to produce electricity and pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as Mozambique over the same period. Despite having been live for more than two years, the 'Environment' pages of the official website are conveniently and unbelievably still 'under construction'.

This mine is also ridiculously close to people, just 37 metres in some places. Looking down from the hilltop it was easy to see (and hear) the nuisance caused by this proximity. Merthyr has been shat on.

While clowns and protesters dressed as penguins spread across the common land to avoid the police, I came down off the hill and caught my train back to Cardiff. I feel I have achieved what I wanted to achieve. In marching up the hill I demonstrated support for the people of Merthyr and their campaign. In being at the camp I took myself out of my comfort zone. In being frustrated at the site meeting's circular arguments, seemingly without urgency, I experienced something new. And in climbing the hill I saw the mine. I saw the mine and I was ashamed.

500 places to see before they disappear

There's a new book out that lists 500 places to see before they disappear because of climate change or aggressive developers. According to Holly Hughes, co-author, "this book is a carefully chosen list of last-chance destinations that eco-conscious travellers can enjoy - if they move sharpish". Eco-conscious?! How best to move sharpish? By plane I'd wager.

Travelling to see somewhere before it disappears because of climate change simply hastens its departure date. You get to see it, admittedly, but you reduce the number of other people that will be able to enjoy it. You'd have to be pretty selfish to say, "I think I'm important enough to fly to the Everglades/the Dead Sea/Peru/The Falklands/New York before they disappear/change forever. Other people might not get to see them but I should because I'm me."

There are some British entries that you might be able to get to in a relatively sustainable way such as the Jurassic Coast in Dorset and Roundstone Bog in County Galway but here the authors remain oblivious to the idiocy inherent in their work. Also included are Hadrian's Wall, whose biggest threat is identified by The Guardian as being the "tourists who walk [its footpath]", and The Burren, County Clare, where "more hikers are trampling over it to marvel at the stone relics of its ancient inhabitants."

Hughes's co-author Larry West states that "The planet is poorer every time we allow something beautiful to die." The planet is also poorer every time some idiots bring out a book urging us to be selfish.

Cwmniau Cleantech clodfawr

Two of the top ten hottest clean technology companies in Europe are based in Wales. According to Cleantech 100, produced by The Guardian and Library House, Deep Stream Technologies in Bangor and Atraverda of Abertillery are worthy of a place in the higher echelons.

Deep Stream Technologies are reshaping electronic circuits to monitor, measure and manage energy at the point of use. Sensors within the circuits help to control the use of power.

Atraverda work with conductive ceramic that stores power better than conventional lead-acid methods. This allows for smaller, lighter, more powerful and longer-lasting batteries. The bipolar batteries developed by Atraverda can be 40% smaller, 30% lighter, and use approximately 50% less lead than normal batteries.

Other Welsh companies to make the list are Inetec, Bridgend, generating energy from food waste, Pelikon, Caerphilly, developing next generation liquid crystal displays, and G24i, Cardiff, creating new solar cells that operate in low-light conditions.

Miliband of Brothers

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has claimed that climate change is a 'low impact risk'. Interviewed in the October edition of Prospect, the former Environment Secretary compares climate change and terrorism in terms of their probability and the risk they pose to the UK (his second answer under ' On British politics, the future of Labour and the left'). He says that terrorism is low probability but high risk, while climate change is the opposite.

On the risk that climate change poses to the UK Miliband has got it wrong. It is true that we might not suffer most from changes in our immediate climate - although the floods will most likely get worse and more frequent, and the summers might disappear as they did this year - but the mistake that Miliband makes is to consider climate change solely from an environmental perspective. It is much more than that. It will create huge movements of peoples, seeking land safe from rising sea levels, floods, droughts, and hurricanes, and suitable for agriculture to sustain them. It will create conflict where these migrations inflame tensions between the nations of the world. There is in reality no limit to the impact that climate change will have, particularly for a nation like the UK that will be seen as a haven due to its relatively unaffected climate and its wealth.

One can only hope that his brother at the newly created Department for Energy and Climate Change has a different view. Although seeing the government's recent approval of a new runway at Stansted, it doesn't look like Miliband Jr has much clout at the Cabinet table.

Re-thinking recycling

First we learn that Wales is recycling more than ever before. Then we hear that the amount of harmful gases Wales releases into the atmosphere continues to increase. This is reminiscent of a story earlier this week about a couple who had recycled enough tins, bottles and cans at their local supermarket to earn thousands of loyalty points that they then spent on two return flights to the US. (Point, the, missed, they).

Recycling is commendable in as much as it develops understanding that many resources are finite, and it is an easy way for people to engage with the climate change agenda. People and politicians alike have latched onto recycling precisely because it is easy, but it is only one aspect of a familiar refrain: 'Reduce, re-use, recycle'. It is obvious that even recycling double what we do now will not prevent the disastrous consequences of climate chaos - especially if that means twice as many loyalty points and twice as many transatlantic flights.

WWF have calculated that if everyone on earth lived as we do in Wales, we would need three planets to sustain that lifestyle. We simply have to reduce our levels of consumption; the way we are living now literally cannot last.

The world has recently been caught out living beyond its financial means and is suffering a massive 'correction'. The WWF research shows that an environmental 'correction' is inevitable, and it would be more devastating in the long term than any financial collapse. Reducing drastically our environmental footprint now will make that environmental 'correction' less painful.

In one way Wales is lucky. Power stations account for over a third of Wales's carbon dioxide emissions and Wales has wind, waves and tides in abundance that could replace dirty coal. If we are going to cut emissions, leadership needs to be evident and big decisions taken about the de-carbonisation of our energy supply.

An Inconvenient Youth

Al Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative in New York yesterday, "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."

This comes on the back of Greenpeace activists being found not guilty of causing criminal damage at Kingsnorth Power Station in Kent earlier this month. Their defence was 'lawful excuse'; they argued that the emissions produced from burning coal at Kingsnorth put property around "in immediate need of protection". As one of the Greenpeace activists Ben Stewart asked, "If jurors from the heart of Middle England say it's legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet, then where does that leave government energy policy?"