Quick update

Quick update for anyone who may have been worried about me being away (prompted by an email and a phone call):

I got back from the Camp for Climate Action on Monday. I have several blog posts to write based on issues that arose from it (and still a couple more from Autscape, including getting the photos online), but my computer is currently non-functional (right now I am at a friend's house).

I don't know exactly what is wrong with my computer, but after buying a new hard drive (thinking that the problem was a corrupt hard drive caused by a power cut) it still won't work, so i think it must be something else. I am taking it to my brother (who built it for me in the first place, so should know how to fix it) at the weekend, so hopefully i will be up and running again next week.

In the meantime, Climate Camp reportage can be found here...

Incomplete write-up of Autscape

This isn't the post i wanted it to be, because what was supposed to be a relaxed few days in between Autscape and the Climate Camp was somewht ruined by my computer crashing completely, and me spending £50 on a new hard drive, only to have something else go wrong (i don't know what, presumably a hardware tihng) and for it to work for a day, and then become unable even to turn on. :( (I am now at a friend's house, typing this on his incredibly sticky keyboard, hence the many typos...)

So, the well-thought-out write-up of my Autscape experience hasn't happened, and of necessity won't happen for another couple of weeks, as i'm off to Climate Camp tomorrow... but I wanted to write a bit about it while it was still fairly fresh in my mind...

I had built my expectations up for being around a large number of autistic people, and in a majority-autistic environment for the first time, to be a very emotional, possibly even overwhelming experience. Actually, it wasn't that great a leap - in fact, the thing that struck me most strongly about it was how easy it felt to interact with the rest of the people there, and how "naturally" it felt like i fitted among them - people didn't mind me not looking at them while talking to them, not necessarily feeling like talking to them every time i passed by them, etc, and it was incredibly quick and easy to just fall into that, because it felt, well, natural to my own nature - which i don't often get in the mainstream world...

I definitely felt more able to do "autistc things" like rocking, other stimmy movements, etc - to feel able to rock in public without embarrassment was definitely a big thing (in fact, i felt positively encouraged to do so). I think the experience was definitely a positive one in terms of feeling able to be my autistic self, without apology and without compromise, and probably gave me more cofidence to be "out" in future social situations (although the whole "passing" thing is still, and probably always will be, a problematic area for me). Talking to people in a context where autism-specific things could simply be referred to without further explanation, rather than having to be given a whole conversation just to explain them, was also really good, and quite liberating (it made me realise just how easy it is when talking to non-autistic people, even when the non-autistic people in question are good friends, to feel the need to be a "self-narrating zoo exhibit")...

There was definitely something about other autistic people that made them easier even than non-autistic disabled people (who make up the majority of my "real life" friends) to relate to and communicate with, even if i didn't get time to explore that as far as i wanted to, and it made it very easy for me to think of them, on a very personal level, as "my people", even though on a political level i still prefer to think of all oppressed peoples as "my people". It made me think a lot about the need for both (impairment-specific) "autistic community" and a wider "disability community", and whether a stronger identification with either one weakens one's membership of the other. (I think it doesn't necessarily, but that "juggling" them is still an issue of importance in my life...)

I think i had a sort of "delayed response" after coming back from Autscae into the "NT world", when i was struck by just how overwhelmingly noisy, crowded, etc it was, and by how much greater my anxiety levels were walking aroud Birminham than they were at Autscape - although, of course, that was probably also partly down to the objctive difference between a city like Birmingham and a rural area like the Yorkshire Dales, as well as being exacerbated by the stress of all the shit with my computer.

Te Yorkshire Dales scenery was incredibly beautiful, and made me really want to go back there (almost as soon as i got back, i called a friend who, like myself, had memories of visiting that area as a kid, and suggested going on a hiking holiday there next year). I took loads of photos, but due to nt having a functional computer to upload them to, posting them here will have to wait... :(

(edit: Katja, another of the presenters, took some photos that can be seen here)

I don't know quite how representative of autistic people as a whole the people who came to Autscape were - my first impression was that it was dominated by people who fit reasonaly well the very verbal, "geeky Aspie" stereotype (which very much includes myself), and that it would have been good to have some more people who looked more like the supposed "lower-functioning end" of the spetrum (note that i don't think "end of the spectrum" is actually a meaningful phrase, as i don't think that "the autistic spectrum" (which, of course, is a metaphor) is literally a unilinear thing like the electromagnetic spectrum, but i'm using the phrase stereotypically), and, in fact, on the first night i felt no different from how i would have felt among a crowd of fairly geeky NTs (it felt much like being at university, actually)... but, as it went on, i noticed that many people, including myself, showed their "autistic mannerisms" more, which made me think abut just how much i do, even subconsciously, in order to "blend in" to the mainsream world (without actually even having the intention to "blend in", but just semi-automatically acting like the people around me, perhaps picking up NT-ish mannerisms in a mostly-NT environment and autistic mannerisms in a mostly-autistic environment in the same way that i tend to pick up the accent and vocabulary of whoever i'm speakng to)...

Of course, apart from those who, like myself, were presenters and got their fees paid for them, everyone there was able to pay at least £155 to go to Autscape (not couting travel costs), which probably in itself made them not demographically representative of autistic people in the UK (and probaly even less so for those who travelled to Autscape from abroad - there were people there from the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Israel and probably other countries i can't remember - the people with US and Canadian accents were, ithink, currently living in the UK, tho some people talked about also having gone to Autreat in the US).

The venue could have been a lot more physically accessible, but the organisers did everyuthing within their power to improve access - unfortunately, there wasn't really anything that could be done about the actual buildings, or the long distances and steep slopes between them. It did piss me off that one friend and activist (who is both autistic and physically impaired) was unable to come because of insufficient accessibility, tho, and a couple of other people who had "hidden" physical impairments in addition to autism tld me that they did less than they wanted to because of the long uphill walk between the accomodation and the presentation room. AFAIK, it's not yet known whether Autscape will be in the same or a different venue next year...

The presentations i saw (other than my own) were all highly interesting, although i didn't get to see all the ones i wanted to beause of my own disorganisation. I missed the first half of the introductory one on inertia, but the second half had a lot of very relevant-to-my-life stuff in it (probably the subject of future posts). The LARM-UK and Autreach presentation also made me feel very inspired about the growth of autism rights activism in the UK, and contacts made as a result of that presentation and my preesntation may start a regularly meeting autism/neurodiversity group in my area. Alexis, who was giving the LARM presentation, showed this video, made by a 12 year old "non-verbal" autistic kid, which made me cry (in a good way) :)

I probably didn't have quite as many conversations about personal experience (of the "compare-contrast-empathise" kind) as i expected/wanted to, but i did have some good ones, as well as very inspiring ones about more political issues, including gender identity and sexuality as well as disability rights. Particularly interesting was the conversation about polyamory with a couple, both on the spectrum and one a trans woman, who were also in a network of poly relationships - i am going to try to write up my own thoughts abut polyamory fairly soon, but i definitely feel that it provides a very powerful framework for thinking about gender/sexual liberation, and has some particular insights for disability and relationships too...

I definitely want to keep in touch with several of the people i met there. It makes me really happy that i actually seem to be succeeding at putting people with similar or overlapping concerns and identities in touch with each other at the moment... :)

Anyway, this is nowhere near complete, but i have to go home and pack for tomorrow (and typing on this keyboard is making it really hard to be coherent, because it's so sticky and slow). I will blog about the Camp for Climate Action when i return from it (and for my posts from it last year, see the relevant category, and for a short video about last year's camp from someone who was also at Autscape, see here)...

I'm off...

OK, REALLY quick post, as i need to leave the house in about 20 minutes.

I'm off to see some friends in Manchester, then staying overnight there and going to Autscape tomorrow morning. I'm getting back on Friday night, but then within the next couple of days after that i'll be off again to the Camp for Climate Action (see my posts from last year's Camp here)...

I'll blog about Autscape when i get back from it (i don't know if "live" blogging will be possible, cos i'm not sure if there will be internet access there or not). I'll also try to reply to the various comments that people have left that i haven't had time to... sorry, i suck at replying to comments on my blog...

Hope everyone has a good time over the next week or so (this weather makes me feel GOOD :) :) )...

Tomatoes!

So last week i harvested the first crop of fruit from the tomato plants that i grew from seed this year:



The varieties of tomato i grew were "unregistered" varieties, which means that it's actually illegal to sell them in the EU, simply because they are not on the official EU plant variety register (which of course costs money to put a variety on). In protest against this law, which effectively gives the EU a monopoly over food plant biodiversity, and to preserve such varieties (which are almost always better tasting and more nutritious than "mainstream" fruit and veg varieties), various organisations such as organic gardening centres in the UK (and, i presume, other places in the EU) offer ways to get round the ban, such as "seed exchange" events where seeds are swapped for other seeds or given away free, or membership clubs in which people can pay a yearly membership fee and be able to get X number of seed packets a year "free" (a very similar tactic to that used by legally rented social centres to get round alcohol licensing costs by being "private members' clubs").

I believe it's also possible to get hold of unregistered seed varieties by ordering them from outside the EU (there are quite a few US-based seed catalogue websites which offer payment in UK£ and stock loads of unusual varieties of stuff). Most unregistered varieties are heirloom varieties.

I got these ones from a seed exchange at a weekend of events in Nottingham called "Spring Into Action" (organised by the East Midlands neighbourhood of the Camp for Climate Action) - i believe the seeds originated from Ryton Organic Gardens near Coventry (formerly HDRA... yeah, i love the linguistic resonance with hydra)...

The red ones in the above picture are a variety called "Darby Striped", which actually looked more striped when they were green:



(pic of Darby Striped tomato plant about a month ago)

The pale yellow ones are a variety called "Ivory Egg", which didn't have a description on the packet when i picked them (i actually picked them because of the unusualness of the name). As you can see, they somewhat live up to the name (although again, there are some green ones still on the plant that look more unusual)...



(again taken about a month ago; some of the ones still on the plant and not ripened yet are now quite a lot bigger than the ones in the top photo)

I also grew a couple of plants of a beefsteak variety called "Yellow Brandywine", but those haven't produced much fruit (i think the flowers might have had pollination problems)... in the photos further down of the plants, those are the ones with the "potato-like" leaves.

These tomatoes are from plants that were grown in a polytunnel on a friend's allotment. I also had 6 plants in pots at home, which grew much taller and much bigger leaves than the ones in the polytunnel, but their fruits haven't ripened. As it's now getting too cold for tomatoes to ripen on the plant, i've taken quite a few of the green ones off and put them in bowls on my windowsill with some (bought) ripe tomatoes and bananas (which apparently encourage green tomatoes to ripen):



The process of indoor ripening is supposed to take about 2 weeks, but as you can see a couple of the tomatoes in the window have turned red already, although the rest of them show no indication of changing colour as yet...

I seem to have the same problem every time i try to grow tomatoes - plants which grow huge and very healthy-looking, but take a very long time to flower and fruit, and don't manage to produce much ripe fruit before the weather gets too cold for them. (I think it was made worse this year by the incredibly wet and cloudy summer.)

Here are the plants in my garden, at their healthiest looking:





(at the time those pics were taken, the tallest plant was about 5'6", including the height of the pot - 3 of them ended up reaching over 6')

The ones in the polytunnel, which didn't grow as big (4' approx), but produced bigger fruit:



Some photos of the tomato plants at earlier stages in their development:



Seedlings a couple of days after germination (leek seedlings and part of the leaf of a runner bean plant can also be seen). I germinated about 50 tomato plants, and gave away all but 15 after potting up into the first pots (although i was kind of dismayed to visit one friend i had given some to a couple of months later, when my plants were in 12" pots and had started flowering, to find hers still in the soup/yoghurt pots i first put them in, with no chance of getting flowers or fruit out of them).



One seedling which had 3 "seed leaves" instead of 2. Sadly it didn't grow into a new, 50%-more-productive mutant breed of "threemato" (its mature leaf arrangement was normal; i think it ended up in the polytunnel) ;)



The same plant a couple of weeks later, at the "yoghurt pot" stage

If i grow tomatoes next year, i think i'll have to a) sow the seeds earlier on (March maybe rather than April) and b) pot them up into small pots as soon as they reach the 2-leaf stage, rather than waiting for them to grow in the seed tray (as they just "sat there" in the seed tray at the 2-leaf stage for about a month before i potted them up, then almost immediately started growing). Maybe they inherited some of my executive dysfunction ;)

I've always felt a real connection with plants (i possibly blame Alan Moore's Swamp Thing); growing them from seed to fruit is a real buzz, and the allotment project i'm involved with is probably among the most positive things currently in my life... yeah, i'm a hippy ;)

(The plants have also given me an opportunity to practice my photography...)

Random crazy tomato factoids:

- Tomatoes were once believed to be poisonous, and to be the "apple" from the Garden of Eden.

- According to Wikipedia, the world's biggest tomato tree has a harvest of more than 32,000 tomatoes and a total weight of 1,151.84 pounds :o (Presumably this is a perennial tomato variety, which could have really interesting implications for permaculture...)

- The Soviet regime in Russia (partly influenced by their... unorthodox, ideology-"informed" approach to the theory of evolution) experimented with trying to grow varieties of plant crops that would resist very cold climates. A result of this was the Russian black tomato varieties, one of which was named after Paul Robeson, who was regarded as a hero by the Soviet regime (if they really are cold-resistant, maybe i should try to get hold of some of those for next year...)

Spiders!

(This is my first attempt at uploading images to this blog. Hope it works... if it doesn't, i'll probably delete the post and try again later...)

One of the things that there were absolutely loads of at Climate Camp were spiders, of many species ranging from tiny to reasonably spectacular (like the first one pictured here). Quite a few small ones took up residence in my tent (not entirely sure why, there can't have been much chance of catching any insects in there). Anyway, i got to practice my close-up photography on some of the bigger ones...

(I'm not sure what species either of these are - possibly Andrea can identify them?)

This one was found by a friend in her tent - being somewhat arachnophobic, she asked me to remove it for her. In the photo it's in a white plastic bowl. It was really a quite spectacular specimen, among the larger spiders i've seen (outside of a tropical vivarium) and unlike any other spider i've seen in the UK (as we were only a mile from Heathrow Airport, i'm thinking perhaps it might have stowed away on a plane or something...) If anything, its colours looked brighter in real life than they do in the photo. As you can see, a couple of its legs look like they have been lost and partially regrown. Its head/body length was about 20-25mm...

This one was an orb-web spider a lot more like the common British garden spider, but a different colour. It had spun a web on the wooden frame of the men's straw bale urinals, presumably hoping to catch flies attracted by the smell... size probably about 10-12mm...

I'm really pleased with these photos especially considering i only have a very cheap, bog-standard (Kodak EasyShare C433 to be exact) digital compact camera. Probably more wildlife and landscape pics to come...

Feminism, misogyny, Climate Camp and Chris Morris

One interesting workshop that I went to at Climate Camp was one on "Feminism and Climate Change". It was kind of a retread of a workshop from the previous year, and the issues covered were much the same, but during the workshop we split into two groups, one mixed group (which, obviously, I was in) which discussed more theoretical stuff, and one all-female group which discussed experiences of sexism and misogyny within the environmental movement,

One woman from my neighbourhood (henceforth referred to as R) came back after the groups rejoined visibly upset but feeling relieved by the solidarity she had got from the other women present after describing an incident that had happened within our neighbourhood, which later that day she told me about, because a discussion about sexism involving me, R and R's (male) partner developed during cooking dinner after the workshop: basically, while putting a marquee up, a man in the neighbourhood (I'll call him A) proposed a "game" consisting of each person in turn describing a "humourous" way in which ze would sexually assault a woman. R objected to this and was met with derisive replies such as "lighten up, it's only a game" from other men and women present.

The next day, during a small gap of time in which R and I happened to be sat next to each other in a site-wide meeting, I said to her that, as someone who does not think misogyny should be tolerated under any circumstances, and especially not within a radical social movement, with her permission I would propose at that day's neighbourhood meeting that A should be removed from Climate Camp. R's reaction was surprised, maybe even shocked, and saying that if I felt I should propose that I could, but she didn't feel like she had or ought to have the power to have someone removed from the camp. She obviously had not expected anyone to take such a strong stance "on her behalf".

I was and still am very conflicted about this. Should I have said what I said to R, or not? Was I being sexist, as a man (or at least someone who appears to be a man, which in this context IMO is the same thing), to act or propose acting "on behalf" of a woman? Or would it have been empowering for me to support her in something about which she didn't feel empowered to speak up herself? If the latter, would my gender have made a difference? I suppose this feeds into the general question, one I have never really fully worked out the answer to, of what exactly is (or should be) the role of anti-sexist men in fighting against sexism? Can there even be such a role, or is this women's fight which men should stay out of (much as I would argue, for example, that the fight against disablism is disabled people's fight which "carers" should stay out of)? A doctrine which seems to make sense is that men should only act in this context at a woman's request but, still, that isn't 100% clear - does "at a woman's request" mean only if the woman brings it up, or can/should a man bring up the subject and then ask the woman for a yes/no on his proposed action?

Before asking R if I had her permission to bring the issue up at the neighbourhood meeting, I had a short speech prepared in my head, culminating in "I have too many friends who have survived rape, and some who did not survive rape. I do not want to be in the same affinity group, the same neighbourhood, or frankly the same Climate Camp, as someone who finds rape funny". Leaving aside the potential dodginess of the "not in my name" style of "I-centred" rhetoric, which didn't cross my mind at the time, I couldn't answer the question of would this have been "appropriate" (not that what is "appropriate", in normal-human-social terms, IMO anywhere near equates to what is right, but talking in terms of stuff like divisiveness, intolerance, etc)?

In the end I didn't bring the issue up (and felt and still feel guilt over my own possible cowardice in that), not because of my uncertainty over whether it was what R wanted (although both that and the fact that A is/was a close friend of several outspokenly feminist women in the neighbourhood were both nagging presences contributing to my uncertainty), but because, while rehearsing the last line in my head, I remembered my appreciation of the works of Chris Morris, and most particularly the paedophile episode of Brass Eye and the two rape sketches in Jam, and the hypocrisy that his would have made me guilty of...

Watching and re-watching Jam, I still can't decide what I think about these sketches - whether they are part of the same whole dark, twisted, fucked-up vibe that it was Morris's intent to create in the whole series, or something that goes beyond a line from "acceptable" humour (is there even such a thing?) and offensiveness (the open question of whether Jam even is humourous, or even "comedy", makes it even more difficult...) A woman forgiving her cheating partner because he was raping rather than seducing the other woman he was seen with, and a woman being aroused by the injuries caused to her male partner by a homosexual gang rape - can such things be funny? but then again, is a plumber "fixing" a dead baby or a man slowly committing suicide by throwing himself off a first-floor balcony 40 times "funny"? Is "funny" even part of Morris's intent? I kind of want Morris to be on the other side of an arbitrary "good/bad" line to the unambiguously sexist, racist, disablist (etc) likes of Bernard Manning or Jim Davidson, but can he justifiably be placed there?

All too often I encounter what seems to be a complete contradiction between my passionately-held moral beliefs about what things should never be tolerated, and the "normal" social protocols of accepting, forgiving and remaining friends with people, and I lapse into a terrible uncertainty, in which it feels like to speak out against something would only mark me out as someone outside the bounds of "reasonableness", or even sanity, or someone who "just doesn't get" basic social concepts. Incidents of misogyny and/or sexual exploitation seem to be a particularly common context for this - particularly when I, despite being male, am the only person to see something as oppressive or offensive when none of the women present do...

Is this the sort of thing that is meant when autistic people get accused by neurotypical people of overly "black and white" thinking? Radical feminists get accused of "black and white" thinking too, and about many of the same things, so I often feel aligned with a (sometimes possibly stereotyped or "straw man") radical feminist position - but then that leads me to what I feel are (or at least may be) intolerant positions incompatible with my libertarian and "sex-positive" beliefs...

Lots of questions, no answers (though I'd like some). Is this the sort of thing anyone else feels guilt or conflict over?

Disability and the Climate Camp

One of the things on my mind throughout the Climate Camp was its relationship with my disability activism. There are ways in which I think they are deeply and inextricably connected, and other ways in which I think there is an almost total gulf between them. Certainly, in the face of the apocalyptic visions of the future presented by some fairly incontrovertible (despite the efforts of government- and business-funded "scientists) climate science, concerns like disability rights (or gender equality, or ethnicity, or any kind of human rights/liberties/equalities activism) arguably seem almost irrelevant; what does it matter if crips, or transgender people, or any other group, are worse off than the rest of humanity, if the whole of humanity is doomed to extinction within (what would be) the "natural" lifespan of most people alive today anyway?

Luckily the impression that I got of utter hopelessness after the first climate science I went to was somewhat countered by the following debates, which left me with a bit more hope. But what is the relationship between environmental activism and disability activism? Ideas of austerity, the need for stripping back society to much lower levels of technology and energy consumption, local self-sufficiency, and similar survival-oriented conceptions - inherent in which is often the evolutionary idea that only those who are "fittest" for their environment will survive - can be in opposition to the liberation of disabled people through assistive technology and the demand for economic and technological fulfilment of impairment-related needs. The concept of biodiversity, in my view, is (at least one) key concept that can connect disability rights with ecological preservation - but the question of what to do if unsustainable technologies are needed to preserve that biodiversity (whether it's IVF for pandas or feeding tubes and respirators for humans) remains unresolved...

Nevertheless, I was massively inspired by the fact that there seem to be at least a few other people (in addition to the couple of disability rights activists I already know who are also ecological activists, of course) who make a positive connection between the issues - there were at least 5 people with very visible impairments at the camp, 2 of whom I managed to have conversations with about disability activism, one of whom already knew people in DAN and the other who wants to get involved in it... sadly I didn't find a pretext to talk to the others, since just going up to them and starting a conversation about disability rights (especially since my own impairment isn't obvious) didn't seem quite right... but still, the fact that they were there is testament enough to a genuine desire for inclusion and accessibility within (at least the radical end of) the ecological movement...

The accessibility of the site itself was also pretty impressive, with an accessible compost toilet (tech that is both disability-friendly and eco-friendly is extra, extra cool), wooden boards for walkways to make them more wheelchair accessible, interpretation available for BSL users (I think there was only one there, who also uses speech, but it's the fact that it was thought of), and a general vibe of acceptance of difference and willingness to do everything necessary to ensure inclusivity. Some other common issues to do with access simply didn't come up - eg. no lift/stairs issues, because no buildings above ground level...

I did have some really mixed/ambiguous feelings in the small immigration detention centre action at the end, with one individual who appeared to have some type of mental impairment (possibly something on the autistic spectrum, possibly something else) - he was continually talking, at normal conversational volume, but apparently to himself rather than anyone else, repeating and improvising slogans and statements in a way that was a bit suggestive of echolalia, and was swearing a lot (in the "using "fucking" as punctuation in most sentences" way that I find completely unoffensive and harmless, but which was an excuse for police attention and threats of arrest) - on the one hand I felt, or wanted to feel, solidarity with him, but on the other there was also something cringing, something embarrassing, that made me want to disassociate myself from him, then left me feeling guilty about that... this, I think, has at least something to do with me not being as "out" as a mentally impaired person as I would like to be, and something to do with that blurred zone in popular perception between having a mental impairment and being an unpleasant or irrational person, but is something I think I need to explore and analyse more in order to get some coherent thoughts on...

While helping to "tat down" at the end, it struck me that it felt almost laughable to think of myself as "disabled" in the context of life as it was lived at the Climate Camp: it truly felt like this was a "world" in which my differences from the "normal" human neurological model were almost completely irrelevant. Is this what it would feel like to live in a world without disablism? I don't know; certainly, for people with other types of impairments than mine (mobility and/or visual impairments, most obviously) a camp in a field is a lot less accessible than the "mainstream" built environment. The design principles of low-impact living and those of universal accessibility may not always match each other - but a genuine spirit of fairness and inclusivity, and most importantly the belief that disabled people are people, and thus deserve their needs met as much as anyone else - it particularly inspires me when this is "automatic", as it so often isn't, but at Climate Camp (in most cases) was - can get round many a lack of technology, even if not actually substitute for it...

I don't know. This is a really, really ongoing contradiction/tension in my life - I don't know if I'll ever be able to reconcile "crip stuff" and "environment stuff" fully. But the experience of Climate Camp suggests to me that a society which is ecologically sustainable could also (especially if, as I believe is necessary for sustainability to be achieved, capitalist paradigms of work and employment are rejected, and a "mutual aid" ideology adopted - more on this in further posts) be a society in which human physical and mental differences would be more accepted, understood and accommodated - and this gives me some hope...

Camp for Climate Action: a (hopefully) somewhat more coherent post

OK, so i've come down from the poetics a bit ;)

The Camp for Climate Action 2007 (or just Climate Camp) was an awesome experience. Over 1000 people coming together, through a leaderless, decentralised and locality-based autonomous process of organisation, for a week of low-impact DIY living, high-quality climate science discussion, workshops both theoretical and practical, and high-impact direct action.

I'm going to write a few more posts about specific events and issues that arose from the Camp, including disability issues, sexism/gender issues, and particular aspects of science/technology debates. Also possibly a few pics, but i only have a few and they're mostly not of the "standard" views of the camp etc (i was working on the presumption that there would be plenty of those on Indymedia and elsewhere, and also a lot of people involved, including myself, weren't particularly keen on being in many photos), but of little things that were of specific interest to me...

It was a huge emotional rollercoaster for me, involving moments of utter hopelessness for both personal and scientific reasons, but overwhelmingly one of the strongest feelings i have ever had of genuine community and being a part of something that has some hope. There were workshops and discussions on all aspects of climate science (possibly somewhat reassuringly, there was not absolute agreement between all scientists involved), and other things as diverse as feminism and practical off-grid electricity.

The camp was organised on a decentralised "neighbourhood" basis, with each area of the country having its own neighbourhood with consensus-based meetings and its own area on site with a kitchen and meeting/chilling space (this was pioneered at the anti-G8 convergence at Stirling in 2005, but, possibly because of the smaller scale, worked a lot better at Climate Camp). This meant that no one group was "the organisers", but everyone could be involved not just in the camp itself, but in the (equally if not far more important) work of building active groups in their own localities...

As well as seriousness there was a real party spirit, with music, comedy, a bar and all kinds of social networking going on (i even managed to meet some other disability activists). The awesome pedal-powered Rinky Dink sound system was a highlight, although its music policy was a little incomprehensible, consisting of heavy dub and jungle, crusty folky-punky stuff, and then... Disney movie theme songs (???)

On Sunday and Monday there was a day of mass direct action involving an all-night blockade of the British Aviation Authority's offices. Police were incredibly heavy handed (not surprisingly for anyone with experience of UK or European activism, but i think this may have been an awereness watershed for the UK media) - I among many others got some rather spectacular bruises to show for it - and the complete contrast between the attitudes to life of the state and the people was shown as overwhelmingly obviously as that betweenm life and death.

Indymedia's report on the Climate Camp is here, there are loads of pics including some awesome art drawings, photos of the big day of action including these, these, these, these and these, photos of the camp itself, and some of the other actions (including daft puddings, red herrings and many more)...

(links now unbroken)

Camp for Climate Action 2007

unordered thoughts, getting them down while i can... probably about 10 "proper" posts to come about it... also, i seem to have somewhat channelled the spirit of Larry Arnold for this post, as i did that of Dave Hingsburger for the last one... i think this may be a form of echolalia, but apologies to both for what might seem like unintentional plagiarism...

The Battle of the Beanfield, mark II. Baton blows like brutal lightning. Bruises like magnificent thunderstorms. NVDA meets BDSM. Oh my God - I am human. So weak and so strong. So broken and so whole. So monstrous and so beautiful. Confrontation, so different from humiliation - the very opposite of trauma. Pain can heal.

We are Hydra, they are Leviathan. If they are a big tree, we are a small axe - or better yet, if they are one big blunt axe, we are a million tiny trees. Nevertheless, the old proverb bears repeating that when the axe came into the forest, some of the trees said "the handle is one of us". Will the social tipping point be reached before the atmospheric tipping point?

A tantalising glimpse, just for a week, of what reality can be - feeling more like a real living being than in normal circumstances i would even think it possible to feel, yet almost instantly vanishing as if it was no more than a dream.

The rollercoaster of at least two completely different kinds of despair, and blazing, angry, defiant, unstoppable hope.

This is how it feels to be alive.