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Global Climate Change March – 2007

Global Climate Change March: On Saturday 8th December 2007 around 6,000 people came to march through London in an attempt to shake the government out of its complacency and get the real change in direction needed to avoid catastrophe. It was by then totally clear that our world was heading to disaster.

Eighteen years later we are still on course for human extinction, and for taking many other species with us. Although most governments have by now taken some measures to curb emissions together these have only resulted in a slight reduction of our rate of self-destruction. Tinkering at the margins is not going to save us and there will be no magic scientific solution, we need a dramatic system change.

The main driver of our impending disaster can be stated in one word: GROWTH. The incessant demand for more, more, more – when what we really should be valuing is better.

We have a government that is committed to growth – and introducing climate killing policies such as Heathrow expansion. Protests such this in 2007 and many others managed to stop the third runway then but now it and other disastrous projects are back.

Of course it isn’t just our current government, but the whole political and economic system which calls for growth – and is dominated by the rich and powerful people and corporations who control the laws, the media and more. They aren’t our laws and our media but their laws and their media – and they lead to the obscenity of billionaires and to poverty in rich countries and across the world.

Below is my fairly lengthy account of the march in 2007 from My London Diary, where there are many more pictures of the event than the few here.

Global Climate Change March – Parliament – Grosvenor Square

The global climate change march on Saturday 8 December was intended to send a message to government that they need to produce an effective Climate Change bill and put themselves wholeheartedly behind saving the planet rather than backing projects such as the Heathrow expansion that will further increase the chaos.

The march went to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, because America is still refusing to ratify the Kyoto treaty and still sabotaging any progress on getting effective measures to cut carbon and energy use.

Cyclists were also out in force on a tour of central London before the march, visiting a picket at Tesco Metro in Lower Regent Street, where leaflets were handed to customers asking them to shop elsewhere so long as Tesco continues to promote bio-fuels.

It was a lousy day, with strong winds and intermittent heavy showers, but that didn’t stop more than 6000 marchers turning out for the event, many in fancy dress as santas, polar bears, reindeer, elves, penguins and more to highlight the problem of melting polar icecaps. At the front of the march was the ‘Statue of Taking Liberties’ with the Kyoto treaty, followed by the Earth in its greenhouse as in the Campaign against Climate Change logo. And Lucy, our favourite mermaid was there to remind us of the perils of rising sea levels.

It was hardly surprising to see such a great number of protesters and placards opposed to the expansion of Heathrow and the building of a third runway across the villages of Sipson and Harmondsworth. There also appeared to be an increasing realisation that to combat climate chaos we need to put into place changes in lifestyle and politics, with some protesters calling for an end to livestock farming – one of the main contributors to carbon emissions – and others for a revolution.

I tried hard to represent all the different groups on the march, but doubtless I will have missed some. One of the santas carried two placards, the more appropriate of which said “Santa says stop Global Warming. Its getting too wet and windy for Rudolph“; it was certainly too wet and windy for marchers and photographers, but we stuck it out

Many more pictures at Global Climate Change March.

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Brexit Now, Save the Sunderbans, Close Ripper ‘Museum’ – 2018

Brexit Now, Save the Sunderbans, Close Ripper ‘Museum’: Saturday 10th November 2018 I began at a small protest by extreme right ‘Leave’ supporters against the lack of progress in leaving the EU. From there I went to a rally in Whitechapel which was part of a global day of protest to save the the world’s largest mangrove forest and then met Class War for another protest against the misogynist Ripper museum in Cable St.

Leave Voters say Leave Now!

Trafalgar Sq

Brexit Now, Save the Sunderbans, Close Ripper 'Museum' - 2018 — *Several had sticky tape over their mouths claiming they had been gagged*

Only around a couple of hundred people had come to Trafalgar Square for a protest by extreme right wing groups led by what I think is the now defunct group UK Unity (their domain address is now for sale) and backed by others including the For Britain Movement and UKIP. There were faces familiar from other extreme-right protests.

They were angered by the lack of progress in exiting the UK and the concessions that they said Theresa May was making to the EU. This was one of five protests taking place that day, in Coventry, Norwich, Cardiff and Leeds as well as London.

They called for a 5 point plan:

Britain should leave the EU entirely without payments;
An end to mass immigration;
to properly run and fund our public services;
to scrap the House of Lords and reform democracy;
to put British Laws, British Culture and British People first.

Many also held posters calling for London Mayor Sadiq Khan to resign, though this appeared simply to be Islamophobia. I listened to a couple of speeches which I felt “reflected some irrational views on Brexit, fired by emotion and ignoring the realities.”

As I commented in 2018, “It was always the case that the kind of break with the EU that many voted for was impossible, and that if we are to leave there will be many unpalatable consequences. The best possible deal was always going to be a poor deal in many ways, and no responsible politician thinking about the future of the nation rather than their own personal fortunes would be campaigning or voting for leaving without a deal.“

Leave Voters say Leave Now!

Global Day to save the Sunderbans

Altab Ali Park, Whitechapel

The UK branch of the National Committee to Protect Oil Gas & Mineral Resources, Bangladesh, supported by others including Fossil Free Newham were taking part in a global day of protest to save the Sunderbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

*Among animals threatened with extinction is the Bengal tiger*

The Bangladesh and Indian governments were building the giant Rampal coal-fired power plant, which would become the largest power station in Bangladesh. Clearly this will be disastrous for climate change, producing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, but it also threatens the nearby wetlands, and is in violation of the Ramsar Convention for the conservation of wetlands which Bangladesh has signed up to.

The power plant will take huge amounts of water from the river which flows through the Sunderbans, and release hotter water containing toxic materials which will endanger the mangroves, marine animals and the people living in the area.

The 4.72 million tons of coal per year to the plant on ships through the shallow rivers will seriously disturb the Sunderbans and will also result in considerable pollution.

The development “will also make around 50 million people more vulnerable to storms and cyclones, against which the Sunderbans serve as a natural safeguard.” Global warming and climate chaos is already making such climate events more frequent and more severe – and the extra greenhouse gases from this plant will add to this.

Bangladesh is already one of the countries most under threat from frequent flooding. There were huge protests against the plant with numbers of protesters being killed. Despite huge opposition in the country and around the world, construction at Rampal continued and the first stage of the plant was commissioned in October 2022.

More on My London Diary at Global Day to save the Sunderbans

Class War picket the Ripper Museum

Cable St, Whitechapel

Class War had come once again to protest outside tacky misogynist tourist attraction which gained planning permission by pretending to be a museum of the history of women in London’s East End after it had failed to comply with some of Tower Hamlet’s Council’s planning decisions about its frontage.

One protester walked into the shop but was pushed out by one of the shop staff and they then called the police who arrived in a few minutes, having been waiting for the protest a short distance away. An officer tried to persuade the protesters to move away from the front of the shop and hold their ‘Womens Death Brigade’ banner on the opposite side of the road, but the took no notice.

A woman officer, CE3200, her name carefully hidden, complained to Class War about their language and told them they can be arrested for swearing. They told her the law. Swearing isn’t an offence in itself, it has to offend people – and you are particularly unlikely to be found guilty of swearing at the police, who are not generally supposed to be easily shocked.

This was intended as a short protest and Class War were rolling up their banner when a small group arrived to enter the shop. Class War talked with them politely, making clear the disgusting nature of some of the displays which glorify the gory nature of the crimes and denigrate the poor working class victims in a brutally misogynist fashion, causing offence to some of their still-living relatives.

They listened, but still went into the museum, with police ensuring they could enter safely. Class War then left for a nearby pub and I went with them.

More on My London Diary at Class War picket the Ripper ‘Museum’

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Time to Act on Climate Change – 2015

Time to Act on Climate Change – it was indeed time to act on climate change when over 20,000 of us marched through the streets on Saturday 7th March 2015, but though almost all the scientists and others who had studied their reports were convinced the nine years since then have been largely wasted years.

There have been some minor changes both in the UK and across the world, but nothing like enough to reverse the growing climate chaos – and our current government seems determined to stay on course for extinction, giving approval to new fossil fuel schemes.

Not that the current opposition, who may well become our government at the next general election seem any better. Instead of taking a firm line to oppose these climate-wrecking schemes and promising to reverse the decisions when they come to power they have said they will allow them to proceed. They have promised not to approve more, but then they have already abandoned most of the promises they had made earlier, including those related to climate change.

In 2021 Labour announced a £28 billion annual green spending plan creating new jobs in battery manufacturing, hydrogen power, offshore wind, tree planting, flood defences and home insulation in the first term when they came to power. They abandoned this pledge in Feb 2024, cutting by half or more its green investment plan.

Back in 2015 the climate march and rally demanded real action without delay with a total divestment from fossil fuels, an end to fracking and damaging bio-fuel projects and for a 100% renewable energy future which would create a million new jobs. The Labour policy would have been a watered down version of this, coming ten years at least too late, but now hardly coming at all.

The organisers of the march through London had refused to pay for any policing of the event, saying it was not needed and it proceeded peacefully largely in their absence. There were large groups of police protecting some businesses, particularly the Strand McDonalds, where some marchers stopped to protest.

A large group of the marchers, including a block from Frack Free Lancashire led by the Nanas, then sat down on the road and halted the march for around 15 minutes before getting up and continuing.

A black block of several hundred behind a banner ‘TIME TO ACT ON CAPITALISM’ made a lot of noise going down Whitehall, and then rushed off down King Charles Street rather than continue to the rally. I went with them for a few yards and then decided to go back and join the many thousands on the main march which ended with a rally on College Green, close to the Houses of Parliament.

Here is the list I gave of the speakers in the account I wrote in 2015, and there are pictures of most of them on My London Diary:

Among the speakers were John Sauven of Greenpeace UK, Kat Hobbs from CAAT, Bert Wander of Avaaz, Pete the Temp, Fatima-Zahara Ibrahim of the Youth Climate Coalition, Pete Deane from Biofuelwatch, Guy Shrubsole from Friends of the Earth, FBU leader Matt Wrack, Rumana Hashem an evironmental activist from Bangladesh, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, Tina-Louise Rothery who spoke toegther with a Frack Free Lancashire crowd, Dennis Fernando, UAF, Chris Baugh, PCS, John McDonnell, MP, and comedian Francesca Martinez. A woman from Paris (whose name I missed) invited us all to go there to protest at the climate talks there this December, and a 12 year-old read an excellent speech she had prepared.

There was then a performance by a large choir, Voices United, and the event concluded with John Stewart of HACAN who came on stage together with some polar bears from a protest earlier in the day at Heathrow who received prolonged applause.
Time to Act on Climate Change

At the end of the rally we were invited to take part in two other protests continuing the day’s theme and I went with ‘Art Not Oil’ proceeding with their Viking longship to protest on the steps of Tate Britain against the gallery accepting sponsorship to greenwash climate wrecker BP. Partly I chose this rather than the planned direct actions around Parliament as I thought it would get less press coverage, but it was also on my way to Vauxhall station where I could catch a train home.

Viking longship invades Tate steps
Climate Change Rally
Time to Act on Climate Change

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Starving Palestine and a Mad Emitters Tea Party

Starving Palestine and a Mad Emitters Tea Party: London Saturday 20th May 2006

Stop Starving Palestine! – March for Palestine

After Hamas, a Sunni-Islamic militant nationalist political movement won a majority of seats in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections, Israel had imposed an economic blockade and both the US and EU withdrew their support.

This led to more than two-thirds of the people in the country being below the poverty line, lacking basic necessities such as sugar, oil, milk, and even bread is rationed. A ban on the import of vital medicines threatened many lives.

Around 20,000 people came to the Stop Starving Palestine! march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and supported by many other organisations including peace groups, the Muslim Association Of Britain and leading trade unions.

Among the speakers were Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas, Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, Baroness Jenny Tonge of the Lib Dems and Manuel Hassassian, the Palestine Liberation Organisation representative to the UK (appointed by the Palestinian President as Ambassador but not recognised by the UK.)

As usual there were many Jewish protesters among the marchers, most noticeable of whom were Neturei Karta orthodox Jews who had walked from Stamford Hill on the Sabbath to attest to their support for Palestinians and their opposition to Zionism.

I left the event as the rally in Trafalgar Square began to go to Grosvenor Square.

More somewhere down the page at My London Diary – May 2006.

Bush in Wonderland, a Mad Emitters Tea Party – US Embassy

Campaign Against Climate Change had organised “bush in wonderland, a mad emitters tea party” held outside the heavily barricaded front of the US embassy in Grosvenor Square. The party was a part of an ongoing series of protests including a weekly climate vigil outside the embassy taking place since the breakdown of The Hague Climate Talks in November 2000.

“There was a picnic table with sandwiches, cakes and tea, music from the eco warriors and guests with some appropriate lyrics, as well as samba from rhythms of resistance, and fancy dress. balloons, banners and a short speech by a White Rabbit called Phil reminded us of the need for protests like these. “

“The USA continues not only to pollute on a massive scale, but increasingly acts to sabotage international efforts to take any effective action on climate change.”

Protests such as this, publications by groups of leading scientists and COP talks after COP talks have done a little to move things on, but the climate situation has worsened and actions taken by governments so far are woefully inadequate.

The USA improved its rhetoric under Obama but didn’t do much and it went backwards under Trump. Biden has also failed to make the real changes needed – and like most politicians is still living in Wonderland rather than the real world.

Politicans are still pursuinging economic polices based on infinite growth under capitalism and we need to move to a new economics which recognises that we live on a planet with finite resources both physical and in the natural world and we need to move to living within sustainable limits.

More somewhere down the page at My London Diary – May 2006.

XR Marble Arch

Extinction Rebellion’s largest site during their multiple occupation of London was in the area around Marble Arch. It’s were one of inner London’s busiest north-south routes, Park Lane on the east edge of Hyde Park, crosses the East-West route of Oxford St and the Bayswater Road, with Edgware Road, the A5 starting out its long journey well beyond Edgware to the far Northwest (and there is another similar arch where it ends in Holyhead.).

The Marble Arch itself is on the north edge of the traffic island in the centre of the large gyratory system here. It had been designed in 1827 by John Nash as a ceremonial entrance to Buckingham Palace, but in 1851 it was moved to its present position to serve as an entrance to Hyde Park at the time of the Great Exhibition.

Unfortunately the widening of Park Lane in 1960-64 led to it being cut off from Hyde Park, in isolation on a traffic island. No traffic passes through it now, although you can still walk through its arches. Until the late 1960s three rooms inside the arch were in use as a police station, but are now unused.

XR blocked traffic on all the roads leading to Marble Arch and tents filled most of the grassed area around, with the hard standing in front of the arch being used for stalls and performances, as well as a lorry equipped as a stage on Cumberland Gate. The area was occupied from the early hours of Monday 15th April. Police got the traffic moving again on Wednesday 24th, and XR finally left after a closing ceremony the following evening.

There wasn’t a great deal happening on either of the occasions I visited Marble Arch, but there were some major events on various of the evenings, with some well-known performers coming to perform and show their support. But I like to go home at night to a comfortable bed (and a good dinner) and left it to those staying in the camp to record.

More at Extinction Rebellion Marble Arch.

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