Saturday was a big day for climate protests in London, with the COP-15 Climate talks about to begin in Copenhagen, around 50,000 took to the streets to emphasize their view that all governments – including our own – should be doing more.
Of course some people and organisations have been doing that for years – notably the Campaign Against Climate Change, (CCC) whose demonstrations I’ve been photographing for years – here’s one with a rather youthful looking George W Bush from the days when photography was on film and mainly black and white – March 2002:
Campaign against Climate Change. George Bush – the ‘Toxic Texan’ had rejected the Kyoto Treaty. March 2002
The ‘tiger’ in the picture wasn’t in anyone’s tank but was in bed with George Bush and being pushed to the Houses of Parliament, but unfortunately the wheels fell off before we got there!
Actually I was I think mainly photographing in colour at the time – still on film, but the library where I put most of my pictures at the time only really wanted black and white, and colour needed to be on transparency while I was more sensibly shooting colour negative. Of course I had a scanner, but they wouldn’t have known what to do with a digital file – it’s easy to forget how quickly things changed.
Since then I’ve photographed quite a few more events organised by the CCC, both the series of annual National Climate Marches and smaller events in London – including recently those against dirty coal, airport expansion and the closure of one of our few green industries, Vestas Blades (and here and here.) So as well as the bike ride I’ve already posted about, I was determined to photograph their rally in Hyde Park on Saturday even though it was rather overshadowed by the much larger event organised by the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, which brings together a wide range of well over a hundred varied worthy organisations with a concern over the climate, including various overseas aid charities, the RSPB, the Women’s Institute, trade unions and more – including the CCC.
At their ‘Alternative Parliament‘ at Westminster in July, CCC had made their demands on the UK Government clear – as their banner shows.
CCC Alternative Parliament, July 2009
These two were the key demands of the Hyde Park rally:
- Declaration of a Climate Emergency
- 10% cuts by end 2010
- A million green jobs by end 2010
- Ban domestic flights
- 55 mph speed limit scrap the roads program
- End Agrofuel use
If like me you missed most of the speeches at the rally, addressed the crowd of several thousand, you can listen to them, along with five songs that ‘Seize the Day‘ performed live there on YouTube. I always find it very useful when videos from events I’ve photographed are posted like this. When taking pictures I’m concentrating on finding visual solutions to show the event, and often miss much of the speeches, and its good to be able to come and watch them – when I have the time. And just occasionally its good to be able to fast forward or even skip the odd one. Although it wasn’t the case on Saturday I have photographed many political events were the ability to do this would have been incredibly welcome.
As usual you can read more about the actual event and see more pictures – including my favourite mermaid with a fish – on My London Diary.