Tribewanted: Vorovoro

Tribal Warrioring on the Home Front

I’ve still yet to visit Vorovoro (been having a dilemma about flying all that way), but in the meantime have been doing a bit of warrioring back in old Blighty. In August I went off to Climate Camp in Kent to learn more about Climate Change, experience community living and protest against the proposed building of the first new coal power station in over 20 years.

I arrived half way through the week on the Thursday evening and after making it through the very thorough police searches, minus my obviously very dangerous ball of string that was confiscated, I found myself in a field full of my fellow climate warriors! The field was set out into geographical neighbourhoods, so I set off to find a place to pitch my tent close to my fellow heavily populated londonites.

The camp’s infrastructure is quite amazing considering that it’s set up in a matter of a few days. Fully functioning kitchens, supplied with local food produce, mains water, drinking water, grey water systems, composting toilets, recycling, wash areas and numerous marquees. There’s also electricity powered by wind, sun and bicycles that powers the sound systems, cinema and lighting. Every one is encouraged to pitch in with the safe running and functioning of the camp, whether that’s cooking, washing up, fixing/making things, emptying toilets, gate duty, fetching supplies etc.

There is no-one as such in charge of the camp and planning of the mass day of action. All decisions are made at meetings either open to everyone or with a group of representatives from each neighbourhood. They use a process called consensus decision making using a series of elaborate hand gestures to indicate agreement, dissent, points to be made, proposals to put forward. It’s quite an experience and as you can imagine at times quite lengthy! Only when all are in support or willing to let the majority rule does a proposal go forwards.

Two highlights from the week included a talk by George Marshall and I would highly recommend his book The Carbon Detox. http://www.carbondetox.org/html/index.html I also saw a preview of the film ‘Age of Stupid’ which was truly fantastic. It’s been independently made and they are currently looking for mass distributor. They hope it will be released early next year and want as many people as possible to see it in the first week to ensure wider distribution. It really is an ‘unmissable’ film so make sure you take along all your friends when it’s released. See some more here.
http://crudemovie.net/video/channel_4_news_16th_feb_2008

Get Involved
There is already a power station at Kingsnorth, but it’s at the end of its days and E.on are planning to build a new coal power station in its place. It’s received local planning permission, but is now waiting for permission from central government. If granted this could be disastrous for tackling climate change and reducing the country’s carbon emissions. It could effectively wipe out many of the other energy saving measures that the govt is pushing. E.on claim that it will be 20% more energy efficient and that it will be ready for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). However, CCS does not yet exist and estimates for its development are around 15 years at least. This is beyond the 100 months that we have to try and prevent global temperatures reaching the tipping point of 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Beyond this point various naturally occurring ‘positive feedback loops’ will kick in that global warming will accelerate, potentially beyond our control.
Take part in this action and tell the govt not to give planning permission.
http://www.nonewcoal.org.uk/?q=node/6
For further info see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/01/climatechange.carbonemissions
http://www.onehundredmonths.org/