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National Climate March 2010

Occasionally you wish that you had misread something. At today’s March on Parliament for a Zero Carbon Britain there were people wearing T shirts which seemed to have a message about the planet and fuel. Wrong. Their slogan was "the planet is full". Three billion is all it can sustain they argue. No doubt they’ve…

Liam
2–3 minutes

P1010530Occasionally you wish that you had misread something. At today’s March on Parliament for a Zero Carbon Britain there were people wearing T shirts which seemed to have a message about the planet and fuel. Wrong. Their slogan was "the planet is full". Three billion is all it can sustain they argue. No doubt they’ve got some clever idea about what to do with the other three billion but perhaps they can begin reducing global population by leading from the front. Idiots!

imageAnd don’t get me started on the vegans! Is the collective noun a "worthy" or a "plague"? This is their annual proselytising day and they’d make you want to slaughter a pig in front of them, drink its blood and eat it raw.

The demo was actually rather bigger than one might have expected. Maybe in the region of 1500-2000 and given all the students protests, punishment of tax dodgers and general hyper activity at the moment that wasn’t too bad. The NGOs hadn’t mobilised for it this year in any meaningful way and the Cancun talks have not generated a fraction of the interest that Copenhagen did last year.

Jim has lots of photos here, one of which I’ve nicked.

The Campaign Against Climate Change’s Phil Thornhill opened the rally. Phil has often been in the habit of giving a very gloomy prognosis based on the science. Today he was different, wittily sticking the boot into the climate change deniers and the Daily Mail. He called for a green revolution and had much more of an emphasis on social inequality.

imageAt this point the lure of a cup of tea became irresistible and I drifted off mulling over one of the slogans that some people had been chanting – "you have to be red to be green". Actually I don’t think you do. The genocidal Malthusians represent as much of a trend in green thinking as do the vegans. At least one of those choices is completely incompatible with being red.

For no reason other than it’s a lovely song which should have been a world straddling hit here’s a video from Green on Red.

13 responses to “National Climate March 2010”

  1. RobM Avatar
    RobM

    Er… it was you have to be Red to be Green, not t’other way round…

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  2. Ben Courtice Avatar
    Ben Courtice

    The populationists are a serious problem because there is not an iota of useful politics in the nonsense about population reduction. On the other hand, vegans are misleading (veganism isn’t the answer) but at least they are trying to respond to a real problem, and (often wrongly) guessing at a part of the answer, i.e. that our agriculture is unsustainable. The problem is they get distracted from sustainability issues by all the animal “rights” schtick, which makes me yawn as much as you. I think it’s worth actually having dialogue with them though. The populationists on the other hand need to be ridiculed and isolated in the movement: they are poison.

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  3. Jodley Avatar
    Jodley

    Ben’s spot on about this.

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  4. Duncan Chapel Avatar
    Duncan Chapel

    I missed the march, but the rally was maybe 800 people and very low energy. One major NGO, Friends of the Earth, did speak and had a stall but the inability of the campaign to focus on the sorts of demands it can build a united front around is limiting its base to an older, whiter, layer than we we see in the anti-cuts movement.

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  5. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    Well done on spotting the deliberate mistake Rob which I’ve corrected. As a special treat I’ve added a video.

    Duncan is right about the rally. The real action yesterday was in Oxford Street.

    For the record, in view of the hot water Duncan has got himself into for a personal opinion elsewhere, I should point out that the views expressed on militant veganism are no one’s but my own. Probably a folk memory of the Famine or something.

    Ben – in retrospect I think the right thing would have been to prevent the populationists taking part in the march. There’s a meeting next week at which I will raise this as an option for next year.

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  6. chjh Avatar
    chjh

    “I should point out that the views expressed on militant veganism are no one’s but my own.” Actually, they’re quite widely shared.

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  7. PhilW Avatar
    PhilW

    Yes, it may help to debate veganism, but I suspect that many are population-controllers as well. They may have thought about the wastefulness of excessive meat consumption, but their lifestyle is incompatible with any agricultural system that could support a population of seven billion and rising. For one, in many places, it is necessary to “exploit” bees in order to pollinate crops (to say nothing of nematode worms).

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  8. PhilW Avatar
    PhilW

    Perhaps, for pop controllers, this is the way forward?
    http://www.vhemt.org/

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  9. Jodley Avatar
    Jodley

    Of all the population control organizations, vhemt is the only one I have any respect for.

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  10. PhilW Avatar
    PhilW

    Jodley, yes, the stuff on their web site is couched in humanitarian terms and it helps to have the word “voluntary” in your organisation’s name if you’re into population control/reduction/elimination, but the goal (with their methods) is completely unattainable. This makes VHEMT a diversion at best.

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  11. Jodley Avatar
    Jodley

    Of course, but they are hilarious. I particularly like their vasectomy awards (gold award if you have the snip before procreation). And take this Q&A in abortion.

    Q: Does VHEMT favor abortion?

    Only when someone is pregnant.

    Outrageousness like this makes me laugh.

    The reason why I respect them is that they are equal opportunity population control advocates, that is to say they aim most of their fire at the sense of entitlement that rich people have vis-a-vis having babies. They are also very good on the hypocrisy of the rest of the population controllers (i.e.wanting to control population in the developing world, while having next to nothing to say about population in the west). Whereas other organizations are all about what ‘others’ should do (there are too many of “them”) VHEMT tells you firmly that YOU ought not to have children. I have two, but their material makes me laugh out loud and I don’t feel offended at all. They are particularly good at discussing the tremendous cultural pressure to procreate, and raise a much warranted critique of that.

    And because they are so ‘out there’ in their statements (e.g. live long and die out, there is not enough abortion etc…), they are basically a theatrical intervention best for poking fun at our procreation-obsessed culture, and should not be considered in the same breath as heinous bodies like the optimum population trust.

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  12. Jodley Avatar
    Jodley

    And more accurately, they are not a “population control” movement. They are for human extinction. I don’t think there’s much mileage in that as a serious movement.

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  13. Ben Courtice Avatar
    Ben Courtice

    Two further notes:
    1. Excluding the populationists would be very interesting but risks generating more heat than light. Judge it on who they are; I find a lot of well meaning environmentalists go toward populationism without really thinking it through. Better if you’ve had (and won!) a big debate in the movement first. And bear in mind many, many mainstream/liberal environmentalists may not go out of their way to support populationism but see it as one valid strand of the movement nonetheless. Ian Angus has a lot of good material up on Climate & Capitalism debating the issues. Of course if the populationist activists have no great sympathy and are just cranks piggy-backing on the rally, then excluded them by all means!
    2. Obviously the anti-cuts movement is great and exciting etc etc. but it would be a serious mistake to abandon the climate movement for short term gain elsewhere. I’m sure you would agree it looks bad to go-a-movement-hopping for recruitment every time the movement slackens off; better if us lefties are in there building it up as real supporters should. Nowhere is this more important than climate; it is an issue which will only get worse, year after year and the movement is going to be with us all that time.

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