Climate Camp

Ruth Jarman who visited the camp earlier with her children on 16 August writes about the protest on 18-19 August

I returned again on Saturday, unencumbered by offspring, pitched my tent and attended pretty-much back-to-back meetings to plan Sunday's actions. There was lots of concern that the camp's action fitted in with what the children's block wanted the rest of the camp to do, and the London neighbourhood's whole plan changed when it was found out that the original plan of marking out part of the third runway involved trampling on farmer's crops.

It was an exciting couple of days living as part of this community of change and I was surprised by how many comforts there were. There was running water throughout the site, hot food and drinks provided in each "neighbourhood" and I've never used so much antibacterial hand wash! The camp was squatting in land belonging to Imperial College and they were hoping for a large team of people to stay on after the Tuesday to ensure the site was as much as possible as they had found it. Apparently the land owner at Drax, last year, was pleasantly surprised by the tidy state in which his land was left.

There was a prayer meeting at 10pm to which about 10 of us came. We prayed for Sunday's action and sang some Taize. I wished we could have done something together at the action, but there was not time to arrange - maybe next year. Jonathan Essex and others went to the local church the following morning from where they joined the children and local demonstration as they marked out part of the third runway. Despite having been agreed by the police, there were still riot police deployed to "control" them.

John Davis and I joined the main action to blockade BAA HQ and were amazed by the police's efforts and rough tactics thought necessary to prevent such a peaceful protest. We thought BAA should make a donation towards the cost of the operation!

Picture from Indymedia UK

Armed only with peer reviewed science. We all had a copy of the front page of the Tyndall Report on climate change on each hand.