At Heathrow, a potent demonstration of the new tactics of protest
LONDON–In many respects, the Camp for Climate Action is more like a festival than an act of protest.
The weeklong demonstration to oppose the construction of Heathrow Airport’s proposed third runway, as well as draw attention to the broader issues of climate change and sustainability, features music, circus acts, a wind-and-solar-powered Wi-Fi tent, a meditation area, and a kid’s playground, along with art, music, comedy, and creative dissent. Some of the protesters, for example, have dressed up as flight attendants.
“This is important, to make sure the message isn’t threatening,” says Laurel MacDowell, a professor at the University of Toronto and a specialist in environmental and working-class history. “What they are trying to get across is so difficult, but I tip my hat to them – people working on the ground, presenting things in a creative way to educate us. This is an unprecedented situation.”
“And it may be that climate change is really something that politicians cannot wrap their heads around,” she adds in a phone interview. “It may be that this is an issue that has to be changed by people themselves.”
Heathrow is perhaps the ideal location to make a statement about climate change.
It is, as its website boasts, the world’s busiest international airport. (Toronto is one of the facility’s top 10 destinations.) And though many people are aware that aviation contributes to climate change, technically the planes, often hidden from view by London’s grey skies, are a hidden contributor to global warming. Fossil fuel emissions from jets do not count toward any nation’s carbon footprint under the Kyoto Protocol.
A third runway at Heathrow would see the number of flights operating from the airport jump to more than 800,000 a year from about 473,000, charges John Stewart, leader of the Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise.
Thanks to tax breaks and new discount airlines, Europeans enjoy incredibly low fares. You can purchase a flight from London to Venice, Dublin or Paris for £10 ($21). Brits are taking advantage, flying in increasing numbers each month.
London’s immigrant population would be hit hard by higher prices for flights home. And the government and business community consider Heathrow’s expansion to be directly linked to London’s bustling economy.
Today, at least 1,500 activists, environmentalists, and residents will have come together to oppose the construction of the runway. This morning, to cap off the weeklong protest, everyone will leave the site for a day of “direct action.” Organizers weren’t saying ahead of time what that gesture would be.
“This is a line in the sand,” said Danny Chivers, one of the camp’s many organizers. “This is the test. Is the government serious about climate change? You can’t keep expanding aviation and deal with climate change at the same time. Hopefully this will be the high water mark.”
The protesters are, to say the least, not welcome. The government has condemned the protest, and the field is being closely watched by hundreds of policemen.
“In their past demonstrations, they have interfered with operational issues, and particularly with this difficult security time (with regards to the recent terrorist attacks), we do not believe that Heathrow is a valuable place for them to demonstrate,” Shaun Cowlam, logistics director for the British Airport Authority (BAA), told BBC News.
The BAA tried to legally block the camp. They failed to stop the protest but did manage to have three people, one of them Stewart from the anti-noise group, banned from setting foot inside the airport.
But the biggest problem confronting the camp isn’t legislative but conceptual: climate change is an amorphous threat. No matter how many photos we see of solitary polar bears stranded on shrinking ice floes, we cannot see the peril the same way we can, say, dead bodies in Iraq on the nightly news. Making the connection between behaviour and consequence is not easy.
So how can the cause of a small number of people grow into a mass movement?
Sometimes it takes something dramatic, often tragic – attacks on black civil-rights activists in the American south, the massacre of anti-war protesters at Kent State, the recent G8 clashes.
“People who don’t have an opinion realize that they should have an opinion,” says Ralph Young, an expert in the history of dissent at Temple University in Philadelphia, and who took part in protests for civil rights for blacks and against the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
“As you get people to think about an issue – and get them to realize that it is an issue – if you do this for long enough with enough coverage, you convince people who are neutral to side with you.”
You can see this happening at the camp: the usual crew of environmentalists, scientists, and anti-capitalist anarchists have been joined by middle-aged mums, business owners, and local MPs. The mayor of London and all the local authorities have given it their blessing.
Which is exactly what the organizers had hoped for: that citizens of every stripe will set aside ideological differences and come together to look for practical ways to avoid environmental catastrophe.
Could the camp have a bigger impact on public opinion if they dared to partner with big business? Would a Coca-Cola-sponsored climate camp reach a wider audience, just as Live Earth (and its slew of sponsors) reached millions of TVs?
Working within the boundaries of our current economic and social system, organizers argue, is never going to be successful.
“To reach the widely accepted target of a 90 per cent cut in our carbon emissions, it’s going to require huge changes in our lifestyle,” says Simon Lewis, an ecologist with the University of Leeds and one of the organizers of the camp. With wind turbines, solar panels, and more than 100 lectures and workshops, “we’re here to show what some of those real solutions are.”
But people resist change. “We live in a high-speed society, and we are very spoiled in some senses,” says the U of T’s MacDowell.
“What this camp is trying to do is very difficult: Get people to change their values.”
It can happen, but it takes time. Though the Vietnam War didn’t end until 1975, the anti-war protests of the Sixties are often cited as decisive in turning public opinion against the conflict.
“In the 1960s I remember being disappointed that our protests didn’t end segregation quickly enough,” Temple University’s Young says about civil-rights demonstrations. “It took about 10 years. But they did change in the end.
And, he adds, “the powers that be aren’t going to change unless they are prodded. Ultimately, dissent is the fuel for the engine of progress.”