Earth Equity News

Climate Camping in London. By Jeffrey Marlow, NYTimes, September 2, 2009. "Camp for Climate Action is a loosely knit British campaign group that seeks to highlight what it sees as corporate and government footdragging on the issue of climate change by, well, staging large and generally peaceful camp-ins at controversial locales. In the past, the group has singled out the planned Heathrow International Airport; and the Drax power plant -- Britain's largest single source of carbon emissions. Most recently, several hundred protesters have set up camp in Blackheath, southeast London, in a protest aimed at the city itself. According to the group's Web site, London is 'the natural habitat of the transnational corporation, one of today's most powerful causes of social and ecological injustice.' Over the last several days, protesters have descended on the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Treasury, the energy company E.On, and London City Airport. Local opinion on the protests have been mixed. Some, like Peter Beumont, writing in The Guardian newspaper, see the protesters as self-absorbed ideologues with nebulous goals. Others [like Giles Hattersley in The Times of London] have nodded to the group's inclusiveness and populist appeal."