Iv2.abi Transcribed

Abi second interview Transcribe Tom, Abi, Dan

Tom how did you first get involved in activism and what actions where you taking Abi At university I was part of the environmental society and we where just sort of doing environment campaigns locally and around the university. From that after I graduated I wanted to get experience working for an environmental organization in London and I happened to come across the campaign against climate change and climate change is such a big issue for me personally. Becoming aware about how urgent the problem was that I kind of leaped at the chance to volunteer for them. So I did that for six months and that just through me straight in at the deep end cause it’s a really small organization that does stuff on a really big scale. Because they have such a lack of resources they rely on volunteers I found myself almost running the office for them. Being heavily involved in the national climate march in 2006 and it was at that point in London that I got involved in climate camp as well. So I started going along to climate cmap meetings and got involved in the climate camp at Heathrow 2007 and from then on I found myself in amounts it ever since. Tom Where you involved in any actives before uni or did you start at uni? Abi No literally was at uni everything sort of fell into place Tom Sort of learn about Climate change there? Abi No it really was those three years in Briton. The people that I was sort of getting to know they’d been doing protesting for years and it was at the time of the Iraq war and Rostock so all these things where going on around us [WIND INTERUPTION] so I was getting more and more involved in

actual protesting and seeing how different action and different protests got different results. Tom Have you always been this passionate about it or has it steadily grown?

Abi The turning point was when I started working for campaign against climate change and just seeing how many people where out there doing grass root things and it was just getting such a lack of coverage in the press The mainstream media where still talking and debating lot of coverage to whether climate change actually existed. So you have this scientist consensus and all these people actually trying to get changes happening and getting sort of measure from the government reduced and really sort of try to tackle this problem and yet it wasn’t happening. There was this big statement because other people where still debating whether it was actually happening. So it just felt like a massive massive struggle and that I kind of at that point realised that I need to do as much as I can the next couple years to try and help make things change, make things happen and work with other people who have the same sort of commitment to the cause. Because If something doesn’t happen in the nest few years were totally fucked anyway like its not going to be solved and where at this point where the window for taking action is getting smaller and smaller and so the problem is so urgent that I cant see myself camping at this level forever and it just feels like it has to happen in the next couple years. Because if it doesn’t happen then its going to be able to achieve anything so yeah I’m dedicated to it for the next couple years. Tom So its sort of passion, like more frustration that the more it gets, the more you have to be passionate and energetic about it Abi Yeah its hard to keep up energy levels once you’ve been doing it for a good couple years but like I say its this window and its getting smaller and smaller so its kind of like this big final push to raise awareness and get action to happen so it fells like I have to find energy for this last final push and put

my all into because everyone around me is campaigning, thinking and doing the same thing. And hopefully fingers cross in the next couple years it will come off. Tom Being a public face I presume you must be happy to stick to more fluffy protests, do you find this frustrating at all? Abi I wouldn’t say that I’m a public face I managed to keep out of the media. I’ve done some high profile action but I actually haven’t had that much attention focused on me. I’ve always managed to be a part of the campaign either the campaign against climate change or climate camp and remain anonymous. Which is really good in a way, which means that with my work and at the campaign against climate change who do accessible street marches and demonstrations on the legal side of things I can be heavily involved in them and carry out my job which does coincide with my passion but along side that I can also do spike errections with my climate camp, sort of group and sort of autonomously as well so I don’t feel that I am constricted to any one method of protesting and taking action which is really good because I feel I can cover all bases and really push myself to do all the things that I am prepared to do. Tom So your not sort of left feeling left out of the stuff you would like to do? Abi Yeah im mean, theres a capacity problem of sort of time. I’m quite time poor erm so I’m probably not doing as much as I would like, erm and I do have to divide my time between doing the work thing which is the legal demonstration and protesting, deciding if ligistically I can do some of the other things. Tom So it’s as much of a job as a way of life? Abi At the moment yeah. Its not a nine to five, it’s a, your always protesting and your always organizing outside of what would be traditional work hours.

[Laurie re-adjusts]

Abi Im kind of happy to talk about things that I have done, the variety of thing that I have done. Tom If its anything that is a problem then… Abi Yeah I wouldn’t say but like one of the biggest actions I did was at the department of transport where like eight of us super glued our self’s to it. So that’s like the biggest one I’ve done Over the past few years I’ve done a variety of things. The biggest things I have been doing is the climate camps from 2007 which was at Heathrow airport runway and the kings north climate camp 2008. At the Heathrow one 2007 along with eight other people I super glued myself to the department of transport government department to the outside of the building trying to shut in down for the day in protest that they where supporting and pushing thought the new third run way at Heathrow. So that was probably one of the most high profile things I have done and then in 2008 at the kings north climate camp, I was part of the great rubber raft which was a lot of fun as well as a lot of work but that involved four different blocks that had the aim of shutting down kings north PowerStation because that was the location of the first new coal fire PowerStation that we have built in thirty years. And so the whole aim of it was that they should be leaving coal in the ground and we need to move away from fossil fuels. So I was part of the block that took to the river medway on lots of different make shift boats, we where actually in inflatable dingees and we sailed along the midway and waded through mud for a good three hours to get the perimeter fence which we did so yeah it was quite empowering to be part of such a massive thing there was hundreds and hundreds of people attacking the power station. It was really symbolic. Tom Brillinat. So you’re leading the protest at Radcliffe, how did that go?

Abi Campaign against climate change where organizing the march to the gate as part of the great climate swoop which converged on Radcliffe on sour PowerStation in Nottingham at the same time we where marching to the gate the groups where swopping on the fences. With the aim of shutting it down. the march was really good, we where really please with the turn out that lots of people came along. It’s a big action to be taking, to go to a PowerStation outside of urban areas on a Saturdays. It was really symbolic and to say and put that message out there to the media that all these people are prepared to take this step because they believe in this so much and will campaign to get this message out there. It was really good because it brought in a lot of people that perhaps haven’t done that sort of action before and it gave them away to take those sorts of actions into their own hands and show that we can do something. Tom Really helping to raise awareness of things? Abi Yeah, the more people that turn up the more effect it has not only in the media but also amounts other people who perhaps who have gone along to meetings or marches but feel that they want to do more and help chance things from the top level. So the more people that come along to them the more the message gets out that maybe a campaign of disobedience is going to work more and more people are sort of coming around to that idea. Tom Does it bother you when the media cover only the negative aspect of your protests?

Abi It’s inevitable that the main stream press will latch on to any particular stories they want to and unfortunately that is the policing at protests and sometimes the clashes between police and protesters. They are tending to move away from that slightly but it doesn’t bother me too much because there is not much you can do about it and you kind of have to remain focused on what your aim is and not what sort of play to the media. In all the actions we do we have a media team these people have the key messages about why we are doing

what we are doing and what our aims are. They work really hard to get those out and you just have to hope that eventually the message will get out and that people don’t remember the police clashes but they do remember the actions. In the wider thing they all get put into context, in the particular context your referring to after the Radcliffe action where the media where reporting a policeman was airlifted to hospital it came out a day later that he had been released with in hours with no injuries and puts these into context so you can get back to the task at hand which is climate change. Tom Why are the protests such as the one at Radcliffe so important? Abi Protests such as the one at Radcliffe are so because people say that we should use our democratic right to vote that is your weapon for getting changes made. But the fact is that everyone has tried this and it has failed and the system has failed and this has been shown time and time again because climate change is so urgent we don’t have time to wait for the next opportunity to vote for the MP who might get climate change on the agenda and that’s why people have chosen to take it into their own hands to go out there and raise awareness to target those people who are creating the problem that the corporations, the climate criminals the carbon polluters those promotion false solutions and techno fixes and governments who aren’t taking actions and leaders who are not paying it the attention it needs. So people have found that actually this is one of the only alternatives, I mean you had a million people marching out in the streets in a peaceful protest and again since the Iraq war they got ignored so massively its understandable and expected that people will start to take further action occupations, sittin’s, lock-on’s, those sorts of things because all other methods have failed and we don’t have time to wait. Tom There where a few different types of protests at Radcliffe, what the importance of different types of protests? Abi In terms of the importance of having different types of protests its really crucial you’ve got to have… the movement that Is coming out is active globally we are staring to see this peoples movement that stretches across the world. People

that are taking action against climate change and making changes in their own life……… [POILICE CAR RUIN SOUND _ REAPATED QUESTION AT END] Tom Breaking the law?

Abi When ever there has had to be big changes in history, thinking about how we came up against the challenge of world war two, fascisms, partides in south Africa, civil rights movement, suffurjets, the women’s movement over here people have had to break the law to get their voices heard and to get change made. Historically has shown that sometimes it is just a minority of people taking really really direct action that gets these changes made and unfortunately its what has to happen and climate change is the biggest threat we have ever had, it is must bigger than the issues that have come before it. And there for it is absolutely justified to take these sorts of measures. Tom The press feedback from these demonstrations is often negative, focusing on injuries to police and damage done to private property. Do you think the actions behind these headlines strengthens or dilutes the message. Abi When the press focus on damage to private properly or injuries to the police which occur as a result of an action it can dilute the message however I would say that the press are increasingly not focusing on those things it tends to be that those things don’t actually happen I have to say that most of the things I have been involved in there hasn’t been any damage to private properly and there hasn’t been any police injured as a result of what we are doing and I don’t think the press do focus on it particularly any more, the main stream press have really moved away in the past couple of years away from these sorts of distractions and from debating the issue. They’ve really come on board with what the scientific world and political world now all agree on. They seem to be coming on board with how urgent the issue is aright there not going far enough but they have come a long way and are

starting to focus on what our messages are. You saw from the G20 in the city that we managed to get the word out about carbon trading which is what we where targeting and the press went for it. So I wouldn’t say that the question is completely valid.

Tom Whats Cop 15 and why should people care? Abi Cop 15 is the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December 2009 and it’s the opportunity for the UN to come together and come up with a global binding agreement for tackling climate change and reduce emitions hopefully, ideally it will provide funding for adaptation and really come up with a plan of how the world is going to unite and tackle climate change. And do it urgently in the next couple years re-putting that frame work so we can reduce emitions so they peak and then decline in time for us to avoid catastrophic climate change. Tom So why should people care about this? Abi Cop 15 is really important everybody world wide because it’s the only opportunity we have at the movement for the un to come together and an opportunity to get every country on board and signed up. Unfortually what its looking likely to happen is that there wont be an effective global legal binding agreement. Cop 15 the opportunity for the U.N to come up with a global binding agreement for the world to put them on course to tackle climate change effectively its an opportunity for the global north to make a commitment to reducing there admissions and its an opportunity for them to fund the adaptation of climate change because the global north primarily are the cause of climate change. They where the culprits of climate change, they where the ones who caused it and the global south need to know the global north are going to be taking action and reducing there emotions and commit to that in oder to bring the rest of the world on board. As long

as the rest of the developing world knows that the rich nations are committed to this. And once you get all these country’s on board you are then setting the world on path to tackling climate change and avoiding a two-degree rise and avoiding catastrophic climate change. So the un talks in Copenhagen are an opportunity for that deal to come up. Tom So why you people care about his? Abi People should care about he talks in Copenhagen because they set us all on the right path to settling climate change however there not the be all end all its now becoming obviously that the deal we need is not going to come out of Copenhagen but people shouldn’t be demoralized by that, there are lots of things happening around the world to encourage people to feel that something will happen. China and India are putting them self in a position that if the global north does commit to reducing emitions they will follow. What its been shown is the global north need to take a lead on this so here in the uk we really need our government to implement strict measure to set us on the course of reducing emitions and really start to lead by example and we really need America and Obama to get through the seneight emitions reduction program, if these things happen it will bring the rest of the world on board. We need to show to the south that we are serious about reducing our emitions and supporting them in doing the same. The global south are set to suffer hardest the first with the impacts of climate change, and they already are. It has been proposed that there maybe a walk out by the G77 country’s at Copenhagen. The G77 country’s actually represent 136 country’s and because its becoming more obvious that there isn’t going to be a global deal because say of the position of America then the G77 country’s are saying that they may walk out, because the process has already failed before they’ve reached the negotiating table. As a campaigned and someone who is part of these grass roots movements that are taking action on climate change, Im really excited by that fact that we are coming together at Copenhagen and its lots and lots of groups from around the world, global north, global south are all joining together and everyone from different talks of life not just climate movement but also human rights movements anti globalization movement indigenous peoples movements all coming together on the issue of climate change. People who have been working successfully to make changes for years are now coming together to share those idea’s about what there doing globally and join forces globally, to show that regardless what happens in the bela center, in the talks there are enough

people out there who are committed to tackling it. To making the changes that are necessary. To getting back to reducing our emitions but also preserving our planet and habitat and working along side each other and forgetting about the democratic process that have broken down in our country’s but actually taking it into our own hands and making the changes that are necessary. So bringing all those people together at Copenhagen and the talks going on in the Bela centre and failing ultimately you have this amazing congregation of people who are working together and really achieving some big changes. There are amazing programs and schemes that are happening around the world both here in the UK and in all other parts of the world where people are showing that they can reduce their admissions, they are not waiting for the government to show them how to do it, there doing it them self’s. But I think there is a real positive lesion to come out of that on top of this in Copenhagen what will be really important are the street demonstrations because it will highlight to the rest of the world that we’re not happy with what’s going on in the UN and in the conference in the Bela centre. And show our dissatisfaction with there absolute inaction to climate change and there continued inaction times running out and if they can come to a global agreement in Copenhagen, I mean they’ve been at this process since kioto its ridiuculas. All those people out on the streets saying that we’re fed up with this I think it is really really important but in conjunction with that to still be moving forward with a global movement that is going to tackle it.

Tom How long are you willing to keep campaigning for? Abi Personally I don’t know if ive got more than a few years left in me campaigning. I find that I can only do it if I put my all into it and it becomes a 24/7 thing and it really does take over your life I make those decisions for it to do that [DRILL NOISE] to be honest with you I don’t know that ive got more than a few years campaigning left in me I find that im a all or nothing person when it comes to campaigning. At the moment its just been all, for the last few years ive found it a real 24/7 thing and dedicating so much to it that it does kind of take over your life. The other thing is that if changes don’t happen in the next couple of years then we’re pretty screwed anyway if we don’t make the changes necessary and if the government

doesn’t act in the next few years by 2012 then we’re on the path to a two degree rise anyway so yeah im going to carry on giving it my all for the next few years and then ill probably go find my house on the top of a hill somewhere in the country side. Tom Do you know what you would do afterwards?

Abi Its only been my life for the last few years but yeah I still would want to work in an environmental organization and yeah there’s lots of other things I want to be doing. It just so happens that it seems to be my ultimate focus at the moment it really is because how urgent the problem is and the opportunities that have presented themselves to me such as working for the campaign against climate change and going to Copenhagen I couldn’t afford to miss them personally because I want to be able to make them a success.

[Repeat of 6] 36min Tom Why are protests such as the one at Radcliffe so important? Abi Protests such as the one at Radcliffe are so important because they have been proven to greatly highlight a particular issue and really over night get the exposure it needs to get a the wider public aware of the issue and to put the pressure on the people behind those things we are targeting for example at Heathrow where we held climate camp at Heathrow in 2007 to object to the third runway. Over night I got on all the news and all the radio channels in the UK over night it educated the masses about what was happening under their noses and what the Government and the AA where doing and how awful it was that they where doing in terms of climate change uprooting a community that lived there it really opened peoples eyes to what was going on. People had been campaigning against Heathrow for years and years and they hadn’t had that type of exposure, no where near that type of exposure so direct action is really good at bringing these issues to the fore and highlighting the baddies in it and the criminals who are behind it all who are making really bad decisions and who are abusing the democratic system we

have and pulling the wool over people eyes. And is in those terms they really are crucial. Dan How long you think you’ve got left as a campaigner Abi In order to avoid a two degree rise and avoid catastrophic climate change, when you say catastrophic climate change or runaway climate change you are talking about when we go past the point of no return when we go past a two degree rise in temperature, doesn’t matter what we do after that we are not going to be able to reverse it. At the moment we are in this unique position where if we peek and start to reduce our emitions in the next couple years we are able to mitigate most of the effects that people have been predicting. If we don’t do that we are setting our self’s on a path where it will be too late and the reductions we make in 2050 will be too late because we have already gone past the point of no return. So with that in mind it makes me feel like, ok im going to put my all into it, to campaigning for the next couple years because that the time, that’s the window we’ve got to take action which will go some way to solving the crisis. So im going to put my all into it for the next few years but im not prepatired to sacrafice my entire life for it. People quite often talk about when talking about climate change, what are we going to say to our children and our grandchildren when they have to suffer the effects of climate change. Where actually coming into a time now where we don’t need to worry about them because its going to be us that is suffering it in my life time and my generation. So I feel aposolutly completed to do everything I can in this moment in time but there is lots of living that I want to do. And it would be really terrible thing to have, I mean I think I would be quite hipicritical stance to go to all these lengths to preserve the planet and keep in inhabitable, preserve all the things that I appreciate and love and the natural beauties that it has and then go to all these lengths but not actually appreciate it my self because im so busy climate campaigning. But actually saying that I gave it my best shot but didn’t actually get to enjoy it, so hopefully at some point im going to escape the madness of London and climate change campaigning and do a bit of traveling and enjoy what’s left of the world to my self. Which sounds quite dramatic