(Energy Wales)
The Guardian Weekend's front-page headline was "Police to use terror laws on Heathrow climate change protestors". Under these laws police can stop and search without even grounds for suspicion and people can be detained without charge.
After the workshop discussion a nice woman called Sandra accosted me and asked: "Are you a journalist? Here's what protesters should do. For every one that gets arrested, there should be another ten or twenty people ready to jump out and say: "Take me too!" The police are trying to scare us, let's frighten the police instead. The jails are overflowing already, they can't arrest everyone." (more...)
The role of the media in relation to the environmental lobby was raised in more than one discussion at the festival. It's a great hindrance to radical change. George Monbiot feels the press only respond to ‘events' such as the climate camp, that the environmental lobby need to create more direct action protests for journalists to report. "But as long as they are employed by Murdoch, reporters are not going to change their own position."
Margaret Minhinnick had another perspective. Margaret is well-known in Wales as a tireless environmental campaigner and former director of Friends of the Earth, now running the independent agency Sustainability Wales which uses a softer approach, trying to "draw people in". It also provides strategic advice to the Welsh Assembly Government on environmental issues and education.
"I've had to change my approach, even had to change myself," she admitted. "I had to stop campaigning, it was just too difficult. We've re-branded our organisation, we're more mainstream-looking. And that even comes down to personal appearance. It's not effective to dress like an ageing hippy, we need to look 21st century. We're being challenged by massive companies, we have to play them at their own game. Now we're using guided press releases to get into the mainstream media, developing contacts with journalists."
But how radical should the message be? How can we best communicate? How can we give people the inspiration to go out and take action? Or influence political change? These were some of the questions raised.
César Aponte told us that at the free university in Venezuela there are only three programmes of study: environmental development, community development - and journalism. Why? Up till now the media has been controlled by 2 or 3 middle class organisations. The socialist regime wants to build up the alternative press. There's been no history of community radio, newsletters and so on. Now, local people are finding a voice, there's a lot of enthusiasm. "This is a very important tool, it promotes social inclusion, it spreads the message at every level."
It may well be that in Wales there is more chance for new structures to be introduced, it's a small enough scale "where we can get to know everybody, there are opportunities to interact and move forward en masse." Additionally, the Welsh Assembly Government does promote sustainable development - see their newsletter GloballySusDCymru.
I remember SUS from 1970s London, then it was the term for police powers to ‘stop under suspicion' any young black person wearing a rasta hat. It's good to see that the term has been recycled (for the moment) with a constructive meaning in Wales (though not at Heathrow). But George had just come back from south Wales where he had learned that the (central) government are planning to redevelop open-cast coal mining, meaning exploitation of fossil fuels (and carbon emissions) in a big way.
As Margaret bemoaned the fragmentation of society through consumerism that prevails in the UK: "A lot of people are doing things individually. We're not a movement."
