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Friday Aug 28, 2009

Making Welsh Campaign History!

Just to give you a flavour of the more activisty side of campaigning I thought I'd write about my experience at the Welsh Climate Camp a few weeks ago. We were there not only to highlight the problems of continued fossil fuel extraction next to the open cast coal mine called Ffos y Ffran, we were there to join forces with the local anti-mine campaign called Residents Against Ffos y Ffran.

When I arrived through one of the two gates that led onto the common land that had been swooped and taken over by the time I arrived on thursday afternoon. The local police with their van outside the gate were very chatty, saying "It's a beautiful day love where's your bikini?! get it out!" I replied with "Give me a chance I've only just arrived" and they said have a lovely day! All very pleasant. The taxi driver who dropped me off was very interested in why I was in Merthyr, and when I explained he totally understood, even though he didn't totally oppose the mine, he was open minded enough to accept my arguments and realise that he might be being fed botched info from Miller Argent, the mining company. He was covered in tattoes, with a paunch, you're average nice cabbie really, and he told me that he just loved trees! Imagine a small 60 year old guy with a strong South Walian (Wales) accent saying "I tell you what it is, I JUST LOVE TREES! I'd do anything so save 'em." Tree huggers exist all over : D

So, Climate Camp Wales went a lot better than expected, I estimate at it's best there were about 300 people there! That's really amazing for a first time, and I heard there was about 60 in Scotland, so I think that shows that the issue of coal and Ffos y Ffran, both within Wales and Merthyr Tydfil (where the mine and camp is) is a  BIG one.

Personally I didn't get to many workshops between one reason and another, but I did learn a lot from the guys at the legal tent, and I did learn a lot more about the mine itself. For instance, did you know the Miller Argent-the company mining at Ffos y Ffran ('Argent' meaning money in French oddly enough!) is invested in by the BT pensions fund-which was voted the greenest pensions fund available by some ethical green investments company. They were also in the top 3 pensions funds lined up for an award for socially responsible investing, awarded by Rathbone 'Green' Bank. On the BT pensions fund website it says:

"Social, ethical, environmental and governance issues are key areas of corporate and policy engagement for BTPS and they are present in all of EOS' engagement analysis, which is itself based on the Hermes Principles. Principles 9 and 10 recognise the short-termism in companies' externalisation of costs and appeal for companies to work together towards a level playing field anticipating much of the current debate on universal ownership."

I just highlighted the 'short-termism' but because that's one major reason for why we have to stop Ffos-y-Ffran from continuing; the short-termism of using up all our coal now while it's still so cheap, is showing a distinct lack of foresight in the face of a changing climate! They can't talk about long term thinking as they continue to pur money into projects like open cast coal mining, and investing in BP, Shell and EON! Really green guys, well done.

One of the most interesting workshops I did get to was a Q&A session will Jill Evans, a Welsh MEP with Plaid Cymru, on lobbying within the EU. She unearthed some interesting facts for me, and also demystified the world of lobbying a little. I asked "so what eactly do they do to lobby you?! Do they take you out for dinner, buy you flowers ?" She said it can be any of those, but they key to any of their tactics is face to face contact; not any letter/postcard/email/message can be anywhere near as effective as someone in front of you saying this, this is why I care SO much about this and so should you. Something to remember I think. I have to say, when we were Poznan I was thinking if only I could have a chat with the delegates, show them how much I care, and how much this is shredding us on the inside, then we could persuade them of our arguments. Except no one believed me that that would work!

Now for the figures:

There are 15,000 lobbyists in Brussels -which is where the European Union operates from, and 2,000 lobbying organisations. That's 2000 organisations specifically created to LOBBY! She also said at one conference she went to recently there were about  full time chemical industry lobbyists and 1 part time lobbier for green issues! Considering that the EU is one of the most influential alliance of countries in the world, and negotiates in the UNFCCC as a block, this does seem like a glaring oversight on our part. Anyone fancy being a green lobbyist in the EU meetings and conferences for the next few months or so?

We can also create positive incentives to change from our lobbying, instead of saying we'll take you and your dispicable actions to the nearest newspaper, offer them some positive press, and if you can, VOTES! The usual tactic of lobbyists is to threaten bad PR if they don't do what they're asking. So think positive and maybe we'll get somewhere, plus, a vision of positive changes for a better future are far more appealing and incentive-full than that stick we keep beating everyone with. 

It was great to see the peaks of marquees and tents just under the mine, with colourful banners and signs, banners at the gates reading "Clean coal dirty joke", in Welsh and English, wind turbines and solar panels, toilet blocks, a bathing sight, a colourful and welcoming welcome tent beside the main gate, geodomes housing lots of people, a bar in the evenings, a kitchen store in the form of a yurt and a solar cinema tent which fed you fresh Welshcakes and children and dogs playing in the middle. I don't think Merthyr has seen anything like it to date!

Get ready London, climate camp is migrating your way, see here for details on this weeks UK climate camp.

Posted by Isabel ( 6:26 PM )
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Sunday Aug 09, 2009

A big hello from Isabel

Hi! I'm Isabel, I'm 19 and from Wales. I'm just finishing my gap year between finishing school and starting at Bristol University. On this blog I'm going to show you what I'm doing about climate change and how I campaign on it.

The environment wasn't always my passion, and I used to want to be a fashion stylist, it seemed to be what I was best at, where my natural talent lay. Then I got interested and more and more curious about ethical living; tracking down where my clothes and toothpaste had come from, who had made it and for how much. Once I'd started I couldn't stop, that led me to the environment. Initially I campaigned on sustainable development in Wales, through the Welsh Youth Forum on Sustainable Development (WYFSD website) and in my huge secondary school. We did presentations, started a green group, I tried to toughen our schools environmental policy, make them less oil dependant and more efficient. It was tough, especially at the same time as doing my A levels, but you when you feel strongly about something you always find time.

I went to my first youth conference near Amsterdam in 2007, and then became a British Council Climate Advocate for Wales. In September 08 I took a risk and applied to be part of the UK Youth Delegation to the UN Climate Negotiations in Poland. I was a bit hesitant, thinking the write up for applicants sounded a bit heavy going and out of my depth-I didn't think I was that hardcore!

Anyway, I applied successfully and the next thing I knew I was raising a grand to get there, and on a train to Poland with 15 people I barely knew. Meeting over 500 young people all with the same values and goals in life was inspirational, and to hear their stories was amazing. Ever since those hellish two weeks in Poznan, Poland (see my blog for the details.) I have tried to continue the work we started as an international youth movement, doing talks about my experience, inspiring others to show the Government at home what needs to be done on our behalf, joining Climate Rushes, going to conferences, speaking at them, questioning them, living with lots of activists and joining campaigns like Remember Saro-Wiwa and Climate Camp. While I was in London  I did 2 internships for Lib Dem MP's, to be able to greater understand the structure that underpins our society so I can campaign as effectively as possible for the things I feel strongly about, so expect some political sides to my arguments.

In short, I'm a youth campaigner who tries to amplify the voice of our generation in anyway possible, because it's our future they're messing with-lets take it back!

Make every day count

Isabel

 

Posted by Isabel ( 11:11 AM )
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Tuesday Aug 04, 2009

UKYouth Voice conference 2009

Well it all started on Wednesday morning 7.30am I actually woke up before my alarm..must have been all the excitement of the conference, do you think? On the long journey from the North East down to Avon Tyrell.  Was feeling good about the week that followed as well as a bit nervous as it was the first UKYV conference I was part of.  On the whole the journey down went quite quick no mishaps, no getting on the wrong trains, all good.
 
So Wednesday evening catch up with the UKYV girls and guys and put some of the finishing touches to the conference for all our lovely delegates.
 
Thursday was all go....Printing info and questionnaires for 'Movers & Shapers' and putting together the Youth Achievement Award Movers & Shapers presentation together. Making sure I had the right information about Movers & Shapers as I introduce the whole Movers & Shapers section just before I delivered our own YAA presentation on results so far.  Going over of 'Education, Education...Inspiration' workshop make sure everything was set for the weekend.
 
The whole conference and year has been an experience and huge learning curve. Running the workshop was even more experience in itself.  It had a lot to cover from YAA to Dance, Volunteering to CV's. There was a wide variety of things to talk about as well as a wide variety of delegates and so each time we run the workshop there was something differently and those running the workshop with me and myself; adapted it accordingly.  The workshop groups were split into groups of animals Ducks, Sheep, Elephants and Lions. I was leader of the Ducks and basically each day I would meet with them and let them know where they were going for the day and it was put on display where each group where going at what time for everyone to see.  It worked well as we then had a mixture of people in the workshop.
 
Obviously though not all topics of the workshop in the case of our workshop; that I know of, was to everyones taste so we had a plan that we were able to adapt each time to each groups needs and interests.

The disco on the Saturday night end with a faulty fire alarm going off! So everything that could happen did.

On the whole I think the conference went really well and really enjoyed working with everyone and look forward to doing my second year and hopefully an even better conference next summer and I will miss the everyone who has left this year loads, but hope to keep intouch with them all.

I think I'm still recovering from the whole week, was really exhausting but loads of FUN.
 
So heres to UKYV conference 2010!

Posted by Moira ( 2:53 PM )
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