i am sparticus: Stop Climate Chaos Protest

Stop Climate Chaos Protest

At least 50% of these people will head straight to Starbucks after this, of those 62% will feel some sort of hypocrisy about this. After some maths it seems like I'm in the 19%

Before I talk about today's Stop Climate Chaos Protest, a brief caveat: While this entry may carry on in the spirit of pointing out the things there that were comic or entertaining and ignoring the major issue of the earth and our deliberate destroying of it this is not to say that I'm not wholly in favour of changing our attitude and actions towards the earth's climate and ecosystem. It's just that it's much more fun to go to big protests to take photographs than it is to actual stand around and protest. I'm fairly certain this isn't the right attitude to go to one of these things with, but lets deal with that issue some other time. Anyway, as Simon Amstell said on stage, "You see, I'm using humour to point out the big issues that we're facing" and as someone heckled, "Well you're doing a crap job of it".

A protest about climate change under a statue of a man who burnt hundreds of wooden ships in view of a huge ferris wheel sponsored by a gigantic airline company whilst a naked amputee looks upon. I think the irony is evident in all of those things.

Overheard spoken by some middle class lady who if I was to make her into an unfair stereotype would come from a landed family, would drink Earl Grey and has a some point given her daughter a horse, "Of course, last year we got a hundred thousand people". Shortly afterwards overheard spoken by the world's mildest mannered socialist as he tried to give out copies of the Social Worker, "The Socialist Worker, ummm we'reagainstclimatechangenuclearpower and uh... thewarinIraq".

Of the signs kicking around my favourites were "Ban Lawn Mowers" (If that's not someone taking the proverbial then I'm not sure what is anymore), "Cars Suck" and "We're so worried about climate we brought our mums" (nuclear family = yes, nuclear power = no). The best actual sign were probably the Tearfund (give them your money) ones "Climate Change Hits the Poorest Hardest" which manages to reduce most of the arguments into one concise and catchy slogan. Disappointingly, I think, were all the stop the war protest slogans. I'm fully in favour of a carefully thought through withdrawal from Iraq but it seems wrong to somehow lumber it with the climate change protests. Both issues are important enough that the deserve their own space. I'm sure you can argue quite convincingly that actually the ideas are all part of the wider misgiven political ideology of the American Government and therefore should be linked in protest but I feel that's not going to help either case. I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode were Springfield is about to be destroyed by a meteor¹ and the US Government try to push through a proposal to evacuate the entire town but someone tags an addendum on that grants everyone the right to not pay tax (or something similarly dumb) whereupon the proposal is dropped.

Other things heard or seen: Simon Amstell telling a story about promising never to buy Nike shoes, but then Converse got bought out by them and now he faces an ethical dilemma or would if people knew that Converse were owned by Nike but as no-one does he can wear them with impunity (which lead to the earlier comment about humour to raise awareness of issues). KT Tunstall covering the Jackson 5 and "I Want You Back", which if she meant as a deliberate re-imagining about the world and not an ex-girlfriend is absolutely appalling. Also the Bishop of Liverpool and Razorlight but not at the same time.

It was good to see vast amounts of people though and hopefully it made a difference. More photos by me and by others and more information here.

¹ Which rather ironically doesn't destroy the town but instead burns up due to Springfield's highly polluted atmosphere.

Your Comments