unlawful arrest

So Dirk and I went to the Climate Camp last week, to add our voice to the growing number of people who are actively seeking alternatives to fossil fuelled way of life, and who are protesting against the new planet-threatening coal powered station at Kingsnorth in Kent.

As we arrived we were greeted with a wave of police who had corralled everyone trying to go on site into a pen for searching. Dirk and Dave (who turned out to be Dave Morris of McLibel Trial fame) refused to be searched as the law being invoked – a terrorist law – required police to suspect individuals of intent to do harm. Which clearly most of us weren’t. Dirk and Dave successfully made their case, and then returned to invite the other detainees to break ranks. Two days later, when they tried again (by this time police were also searching people leaving camp, often forcibly and brutally) Dirk was arrested. That's him being bundled into the van.

He was let out on bail at midnight during the dramatic thunderstorm and since he wasn’t allowed back on camp made his way back to Lewes by dawn. He was charged, with a trial date of 3 September. He’s fine now. He lodged a complaint and lawyers will be contesting this and the many other illegal actions carried out by police (I won’t go into them here for risk of sickening you as much as I have been). Norman Baker, who was also nearly caught in pepper spray by riot police against peaceful people during his visit, has also lodged a complaint to the top brass.

The camp itself, in contrast, was stunningly organised, with its self-managed consensus decision making and very diverse culture. Compost loos, brilliant vegan food, passionate and intelligent speakers – amazing legal backup with legal observer training, and 1,500 people looking after each other, peacefully and playfully. A real celebration of human ingenuity, a little ray of hope for humanity.

From outrage to action

I think it was listening to Malcolm Wicks, the Energy Minister, on the radio yesterday morning that made me decide to cancel my plans for this week and head towards the Climate Camp at Kingsnorth.

He said that people going to this camp are deluded, that the new coal fired station on the drawing board was a minor move, and in order to keep the lights on we need to continue to build several new coal power stations. He said though the carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology isn’t yet developed, we could retrofit it later.

So much of what he said and the way he said it outraged me. Intelligent commentators have been expecting this collision of paradigms for some time. The ‘Keep the show on the road at all costs’ v the ‘learn to live lightly’ camp. The two are almost definitely incompatible. Sure, I hope we can keep the lights on with renewables, but we’re not going to be able to live the high life we’ve come to expect. In order to make the transition, we have to accept that we will be consuming less and living more simply in order for others to simply live, so to speak. Anything less than that is suicide and thoroughly immoral – if I were religious I’d even say sinful.

My feeling of outrage at our leaders’ behaviour is moving from simmering to a slow bubble – and I find myself saying, it’s all very well making a positive change in my community but if our leaders continue to bugger us all up, I’m not going to take it lying down. So I’m heading east, tagging along with George Monbiot, Mark Lynas, Caroline Lucas and many others. What else could possibly be more important?

eat your own fruit

Last night I made 25 jars of blackcurrant jam from an uplifting visit to Maynards Pick your Own farm. This is one of those places that’s remained affordable and blessedly innocent of PR, so it is just a shed and 50 acres of fruitfulness. After a morning of more gorging than picking – the traditional PYO experience - we came home loaded with strawberries (eaten with friends for lunch) raspberries (mixed with sugar and made into fridge jam) redcurrants (for winter jellies) and blackcurrants (the best jam ever). Stacking those jars into the store cupboard soothes me. As does making yoghurt (and the wonderful yoghurt cheese libneh from the failed batches), harvesting onions and leaving them to dry in the open. Working in Robin’s field, finding bus and train routes to the places I want to go to; learning to maintain my bicycle and becoming fitter. Making do and mending; freecycling things I need and don’t need. Learning how to resolve conflict and get on with others. Helping support my community through the transition with positive action.

And I need soothing, because I am tapped in to the zeitgeist – and it is mainly painful and sometimes exhilarating to witness the showdown that’s currently playing out. There’s some incredible movement towards grassroots solutions and people taking personal responsibility. And there’s also tidal waves of denial, particularly among our leaders – who still think it’s OK to build new coal stations while preaching carbon reduction - but even among my friends and family - some of whom vastly over-consume. Perhaps, as George Monbiot wrote yesterday, a swathe of the professional classes, who have the most freedom to lose, just don’t want to know.

Where do you go when it hurts so much? Cynicism was never an option; alcohol no longer works. Denial – the blue pill - is perhaps the most addictive and damaging drug of all. For me the best refuge is with what I love and what I can do – making blackcurrant jam with my family.

Not-so-supermarkets

Last month I took the decision to let go of the last vestige of dependence on all supermarkets. Whew. It only took two years. Now I have to source my Guardians, booze and bulk yoghurt from other, local, shops. We go through huge quantities of yoghurt in our family, dolloping it on muesli, veggies and stews, mixed with fruit, honey, garlic or herbs. I’ve been wanting to make my own yoghurt for years and after a disheartening attempt in my 20s, had lost the nerve. Time to take the leap.

As ever, the Universe met me half way and as I stepped into Steamer Trading I encountered a display of a new yoghurt maker, the EasiYo. Developed in New Zealand, these babies don’t require fossil fuels and have no moving parts – great intermediate technology design. Disappointingly, but so bloody predictable in this stupid dependent society, you have to buy a packet of the EasiYo proprietary yoghurt mix (£1.75 to make 1litre). Adding water to the mix you put it in a thermos-like container with boiling water to keep it warm for 6-12 hours, depending on the consistency you want. The first two batches - organic and Greek – came out miraculously well and I accosted all our visitors with the marvel of thick, creamy, delicious – and smirkingly good for you - home-made yoghurt. But though having it packeted makes it easier to store, it costs too much, and it’s not wholefood, really. Tonight I take the next plunge: home made from scratch. According to the internet, you can DIY yoghurt with just milk and some kept aside yoghurt. I’ll keep you posted.

Knowing our onions

Despite the background chatter, news of the world crisis/opportunity is deepening daily. The future scenarios vary from apolcalyptic to idealised, so I stick to comment by deep thinkers and visionaries. Richard Heinberg, who visited Lewes recently, describes this time as the calm before the storm and encourages us to appreciate what’s around us. When he was in Lewes he spoke of the need for the world to develop resilient, localised communities, which are flexible and able to respond intelligently to shaky economies, resource shortages and climate impacts such as flooding.

In this recent video, he notes that we’ve already missed several opportunities to do so but that we still have the luxury of time and relative wealth to prepare ourselves and our communities. In terms of a risk assessment, it seems sensible, however surreal, to respond even to a small risk with a big potential impact.

These days I’m developing my food growing skills, since I’ve always had a latent smallholder in me. I’m already outgrowing my tiny garden and am planning next year’s experiment: a medium plot of potatoes, onions, beans and pumpkins. I’ll grow leafy greens and herbs at home and am looking for a plot near enough to commute to for those staples. Robin has offered me a corner of his field, or perhaps I’ll look for someone who wants to share their garden in Transition Town Lewes’s Garden Buddies scheme. One of the most radical positive acts we can do in these times is grow our own organic vegetables or buy them from a local grower.

How do we know?

OK so we have this bloody great challenge to make a rapid and managed transition away from fossil fuels and create community resilience. I’d not expected oil prices to start to spike so soon or so quickly but now they have, we’ve just got to sort ourselves out even more urgently.

Lewes is one of the most high profile transition towns so people often ask me, How do you know it’s working? I was at SEEDA (South East Economic Development Agency) this week trying to get funding for SETI (the South East Transition Initiatives, of which there are now more than 30 emerging) and they basically told me I’d only get government funding if we were able to demonstrate behavioural change in terms of per capita CO2 emissions saved. Not on your nelly!

So how do we measure success? This morning I ran into a friend who was getting on a train. She’d dropped out of Transition Town Lewes because she was too busy. But, she said, she’d been busy creating a new vegetable garden and cycling to Lewes from Ringmer. How could she get the council to make the Ringmer Lewes Cycle route to happen more quickly? Someone else admitted she was taking the train for the first time because of rising fuel prices. Another friend passed on an old book in a cotton bag. One of my neighbours was riding home on a new bike last night and my next door neighbour asked me over the weekend about where to find willow for a raised bed of vegetables to replace his lawn.

How do you measure those changes? How do I know they were as a result of Transition Town Lewes? Is the change fast enough? I don’t know and I don’t care. I am trying to do what Joanna Macy, the deep ecologist, says: to free myself from the tyranny of constantly trying to calculate our chance of success.