Ctrl Meets Dan Glass, Pt. 1

Submitted by: Eva Baker

19.04.11

Dan Glass is a bit of a hero round these parts. He’s long been a fan of the work we do at Ctrl.Alt.Shift, and an even bigger fan of causing trouble wherever he goes. A dedicated environmental activist, Dan’s organised with groups like Plane Stupid and So We Stand, and is one of the most creative and charming mischief makers you could ever hope to meet...

So Dan, you organise with a lot of grassroots activist groups in the UK, tell us more about that?
Well I am a community activist with Plane Stupid, a direct action network against the social and environmental impact of the aviation industry. In my view, when it comes to climate change, you have to target the root causes of the problem, and the aviation industry is one of the biggest causes of rising CO2 emissions. The high-emission industries, such as aviation, perpetuate the biggest unsustainable psychological experiment in history – that humans can manipulate speed, time and ecological stability without consequences. The great thing about Plane Stupid is that we also look at the impact of an industry where profit is put before people, and do all we can to genuinely support communities in the UK that are negatively affected by airport expansion. Living with the daily onslaught of lies from the aviation industry as well as the surprising incidence of trauma associated with living in the polluted shadow of flight paths, it’s incredibly important that people are supported to resist isolation and be empowered to take action. The other group I work with is the mighty 'So We Stand', which is based on the principles of connecting environmental, social and racial justice. So We Stand is a people’s movement for empowering social change and building self defence strategies against aggressive forces to better our lives and communities. We provide training, support, and solidarity to grassroots struggles for environmental, social and multi-racial justice. We engage with popular education to build a culture of creative action and self-determination, connecting different local experiences of injustice to protect life. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be alive. People are no longer putting faith in a political system that has failed too many times to act in time, despair is on the down and active re-imagining of our futures is on the rise. We know there's no time to waste.


'I believe that if we want to fight for a better world we also have to fight for creativity, and the creation of an inspiring world, rather than a world where pollution, profit and passivity reign'

What is your perspective on environmental injustice?

Environmental injustice is a broad term that applies to all sorts of problems and situations faced by many people. Environmental justice means that everyone should have access to a safe, healthy environment, and to environmental resources. Environmental (in)justice affects some groups of people more than others. Part of fighting environmental injustice is therefore addressing the social injustices that mean that some groups are better able to protect themselves from environmental problems and have more access to environmental resources.

In 2011 I think it’s important to see environmental issues as issues of self-defence. You have to defend your communities and fight for your rights, and the severity of climate change means that we have to act now. It only takes a small peek out of the window to see the ever-growing accumulation of 'natural' disasters – whether this will shake humanity’s faith in our ability to dominate the Earth is yet to be seen. The reason we have got to this frightening place in the planet’s history has a great deal to do with 'individualism'. This rampant human individualism has led to our disconnection from what we depend on to keep us alive. This alienation from our inter-dependency with a healthy ecosystem may unfortunately be the ultimate undoing of the arrogance of certain demographics of the human species. For thousands of years communities have lived at peace with our ecological surroundings and species, though in recent years we seem to have lost the plot. We disassociate ourselves from the natural environment and don’t realise how much we need it, or how implicitly linked to it we are. Environmentalism isn’t a self-righteous debate; it’s a matter of life or death. We all need clean air to breath and clean water to drink. Whilst it’s humiliating at the rate we are hurtling towards disaster, people are starting to fight back and look for alternatives. People are finding the motivation to do all that is possible to prevent an ecosystem collapse and find the courage to fight. I think we are increasingly living at a time when climate change is an issue of self and community defence, not some finger-wagging, organic-shopping accusatory thing that most people can’t afford to relate to.

'I shook the Prime minister’s hand and said, 'Don’t move Prime Minister. Don't worry, I have super glued myself to your sleeve. You can run away from my hand, but you can’t run away from climate change''


Do you think that creativity is important during campaigning, and could you give us an example of when creative campaigning has worked for you?

I think we have to be creative in the actions we take, and there’s only so much of the public’s imagination that campaigning can take up. I believe that if we want to fight for a better world we also have to fight for creativity, and the creation of an inspiring world, rather than a world where pollution, profit and passivity reign. Embedding a culture of art, music and creativity reminds us why the human race should live on – we don't want to replicate institutional capitalist boring profit-driven logic in our community activism when we strive against the system which perpetuates these characteristics. Creativity can provide the magic which sparks our imaginations and make a process for change enjoyable and empowering, rather than earnest, preachy and do-gooding. I guess the most iconic example of creative campaigning I’ve ever taken part in was in July 2008, when I took the interesting decision to superglue myself to Gordon Brown.

You did what?!

I’d been given an award for my work with Plane Stupid around supporting communities affected by airport expansion – and the gob-smacking polluted reality of living in such intense conditions - and the patron of the awards ceremony was none other than Gordon Brown, the man that was pushing for airport expansion in the first place! I thought this was the perfect opportunity to say ‘nah mate, that’s not right.’ I didn’t want to be complicit in the problem, or advocate that level of hypocrisy. I practiced super gluing myself to my housemate for about a month beforehand; he’s the unsung hero of the whole scenario! So as I received the award, in front of a huge audience, I shook the Prime minister’s hand and said, “Don’t move Prime Minister. Don't worry, I have super glued myself to your sleeve. You can run away from my hand, but you can’t run away from climate change.” My Polish grandmother was so proud I was in the paper, though I don’t know if she quite got the message about exactly why I had become so famous overnight…

To read more about what Dan's up to visit his website here

Interview: Eva Baker

Photos: Dan Glass

The Black Bloc vs. The White Toffs: Who's the Real Violent Minority?

photo credit: mini_mouse
written by my friend and compadre Eva Baker

So what happens when you put one day aside for everyone to vent their anger over a particular issue, or in this case, several interconnected issues? The March 26 demo saw thousands upon thousands of people take to the streets to march, chant, and experience a sense of solidarity with other citizens that is, unfortunately, extremely rare in our semi-detached society. So what did London look like in a rare moment when political grievances and discontent spilled out of people’s living rooms, became louder than the sporadic disgruntled muttering at the news on TV and the standard slurring rants in local pubs on a Friday night, and filled the streets of the capital in the from of a coordinated, organised event?

In a rare and vibrant moment in the capital’s history, the streets of central London were overrun with people marching, chanting, bearing placards and beating drums. The carnival-like atmosphere had to make you smile, and in the rally’s focal point in Hyde Park there was a widespread sense of good feeling, if a certain lack of dynamism and urgency. The fact that so many people from so many different walks of life and parts of the country felt the need to stand up and march for what they believe is not to be sniffed at, particularly in a society that seems to become more apathetic and cynical about politics by the minute. Apathy and cynicism dually considered, the current state of affairs in Tory Britain, and the widespread resistance to government actions, prove you can only push people so far before they start to fight back.

In Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, things were starting to get rowdy. It’s no surprise that the mainstream media have oh-so-predictably singled out the suitably scary-looking ‘black bloc’ of anarchists as their new favourite way of caricaturing and undermining young people’s anger at the state of their own society. The dichotomisation of the people around in central London on Saturday, (public/yobs) or the protesters (peaceful/mob) aggressively demonises and excludes so many groups of people and forms of protest, labelling those who wanted to assert their agency in any other way which was not the way sanctioned by official Trade Union leaders ‘the angry mob.’ But is it really fair for most of us to write off young people expressing their anger publicly as hooligans, criminals, a minority?

The fact that we’re currently being ruled by an extreme minority, an overwhelmingly white, male, privately-educated, hyper- privileged group of politicians from the upper echelons of society seems to have escaped the media’s attention. Sure, the black bloc caused some damage on Saturday by smashing up a few banks and businesses, but the white toffs are smashing up entire sectors of society with just as much testosterone-fuelled gusto: systematically ordering the splicing of public services, from community centres to disabled people’s living allowances.

The anger felt by young people towards those dictating laws that govern their present circumstance as well as their futures feels unprecedented, and I hope we continue to vent that anger in a coordinated, creative manner that forces people to take notice. The rise of social media, of course, means that this anger spreads like a particularly intoxicating disease, as do the creative symbols and acts of resistance that spring from this simmering pot of political discontent.

Unfortunately, it seems to be a natural pattern of human behaviour to single out a certain minority group, and to then blame that group for the problems and challenges society is experiencing. It seems the angry youth of today have overtaken the illegal immigrants of yesterday in the scapegoat stakes.

In this moment in history, we are living in a democracy where politicians are not representative of society’s views, nor are they personally representative members of the society we live in. A tiny, privileged sub sect of the population have been calling the shots for a long time now, and the severity and heartlessness of the cuts to public services, along with the trebling of university tuition fees, means that we’re left with a nation of young people whose discontent is more than justified. Though the media have uninspiringly swooped in on the angry young protesters, plastering their balaclava-obscured faces over the front pages in an attempt to strike terror into the hearts of middle-aged middle England, it’s important that we remember who the real violent minority in this scenario is.

The Ratcliffe Trial - 'While Governments Talk, People Act'

The trial is just entering into the 3rd week - check http://www.ratcliffeontrial.org/



Feature: The Ratcliffe Trial - 'While Governments Talk, People Act'
Submitted by: CtrlAltShift.
24.11.10

As we approach the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun (November 29-December 10), a collective of climate change activists have come together to provide this report which measures the Ratcliffe 114 trial against the summit event...

In our opinion, last December's climate talks in Copenhagen were doomed to failure. As early as 12 months before they took place the media, national leaders, and scientific experts were bemoaning the fact that nothing positive could come out of them. Now the COP16 talks in Cancun have arrived and the press may as well have copy and pasted the articles they'd written two years ago.

And yet our government and those of so called 'developed countries' all round the world continue to profess that they are trying their very hardest, doing the very best they can...

'So while governments talk and energy companies lobby - people act. Then they face severe retribution for their actions, despite evidence... that by preventing those CO2 emissions, they would in fact be preventing a greater crime'

Some of those who really are trying their very hardest, refusing to comply with neglect for the environment, taking collective responsibility to reduce the UK's carbon emissions and strive towards a sustainable future - are currently facing a prison sentence for their courage to act.

Cancun could be a breakthrough, but there's no evidence to suggest it will be and plenty to suggest it won't. Whereas by succeeding in shutting down Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station the 114 people arrested last year would have been preventing at thousands of tonnes of CO2 being emitted. A tiny amount in the bigger picture - maybe - but perhaps more than any of the recent COP talks has managed. And all the while sending a stark message to the country that governments, legislation and corporations have to act more in our favour when it comes to climate change, because the energy industry is driven by profit, not a conscience.

So while governments talk and energy companies lobby - people act. Then they face severe retribution for their actions, despite evidence by senior climate scientists - such as Jim Hansen, appearing in court for the Ratcliffe trial - that by preventing those CO2 emissions, they would in fact be preventing a greater crime. The truly guilty parties here? E.ON and anyone (including those in the government) that allows energy companies to continue to build power stations fuelled by coal.

The 20 standing trial at the moment deserve our support for daring to act. The prosecution itself has outlined the measures to which the accused were planning to ensure the safety of all those involved and the effort they were taking to ensure the message would be heard. So instead of filling column inch after column inch with depressing condemnations of COP16's progress, why not fill them with support for the Ratcliffe Trial, and maybe, just maybe more will be inspired to take climate action and take responsibility to steer our country towards a sustainable future.

We ask for support in challenging those who say that conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass is a greater crime than emitting hundreds and thousands of tonnes of CO2 which contributes to the 300,000 already dying each year due to man-made climate change.

To read more about the trial of the Ratcliffe 114 and show your support go to www.ratcliffeontrial.org

Words: ratcliffeontrial
Photo: Flickr user Matt West, of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.

Disclaimer: This is an article provided by various members of the Ratcliffe 114, and is not necessarily reflective of Ctrl.Alt.Shift or Christian Aid views.

Lessons from our grandparents - the parallels of fighting big issues of our generations - the Nazi Holocaust and runaway climate change

'Lessons from our grandparents' is coming out in the next issue of the great 'Coracle' the quarterly magazine of the Iona Community. www.iona.org.uk . It is a letter I wrote to my grandfather speaking of the parallels between our families personal experience of being Nazi Holocaust survivors and the delicate lessons we can learn to the big issues of today.

Lessons from our grandparents
Dan Glass is a young climate activist with Plane Stupid and Climate Camp,who has taken part in non-violent direct action against airports and power stations. In June 2010 he was convicted, along with eight others, of ‘breach of the peace’ for a runway at Aberdeen airport, protesting the growth of aviation and its contribution to climate change. He is Jewish, the grandson of Holocaust survivors. In this article he explains his actions and his motivation to his grandparents, and the significance of his Jewish faith to his commitment.

Because of you – Oma, Granny and Grandpa, as well as the rest of the family – I have been aware of the lessons of the Nazi Holocaust from a very young age. I have been in-built with an awareness of how people struggle, of human depravity, of the nightmarish effects of calculated destruction, of the depths of people, of how much people can withstand; of the great issues in the world. My eyes were immediately opened to issues of injustice. And once my eyes were opened they could not be shut. The unspeakable cruelty of the Holocaust is beyond comparison. However, the Holocaust can teach us valuable lessons about the genocides occurring today. Climate Change is the defining issue of our generation, just as for third generation survivors the Holocaust has tragic resonance. After the Nazi Holocaust, society said that nothing like this would ever happen again. ‘Never again,’ they said…

Actions have consequences
Today we are beginning to witness genocide as never seen before. Eighty-six percent of the scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most authoritative body on climate change, have recently said that society is likely to soon emit enough greenhouse gases to tip us over the point of runaway climate change: a global increase of 2°C. The consequences of even less than a 2°C increase will be that the Arctic Sea icecaps will disappear, changing the Earth’s energy balance dramatically as reflective ice is replaced during summer months by darker sea surface. This is now expected by 2030, or even earlier. Tropical coral reefs will suffer severe and repeated bleaching episodes due to hotter ocean waters, killing off most coral and delivering a hammer-blow to marine biodiversity. Droughts will spread through the sub-tropics, accompanied by heatwaves and wildfires. Worst-hit will be the Mediterranean, the south-west United States, southern Africa and Australia, resulting in ‘environmental’ refugees in incomprehensible numbers. Already, 300,000 deaths each year are attributable to climate change, according to the Global Humanitarian Forum, headed by Kofi Annan. We are now so far down the line to irreversible climate change that we are no longer in a position to be morally self-righteous: telling people that ‘they shouldn't fly’ or ‘to drive less’ or ‘to shop at certain places’.We have gone from thinking we should do the morally correct activity to acting from plain instinct:‘If we don’t act now, it will be too late for us – we need to fight for our survival.’ If we know the solutions and yet continue to plunder the planet,we are complicit in this devastation.

The world’s top climate scientists state that airports cannot expand and that coal-fired power stations cannot be built if we are ever to meet the CO2 reduction targets necessary to preserve our future. Today carbon-heavy industries can pollute relentlessly with barely a legal challenge, and when ordinary citizens challenge this, they are criminalised. If climate change is indeed the main concern of our courts and government, then this logic must be challenged; and the question must be asked:‘Who are the real criminals?’

Are the criminals the people of this nation who are clearing up this social and ecological mess to prevent devastation for future generations? Or are the criminals those filling their pockets with cash,whilst the poor get poorer and our future is snatched from us? Indeed, the people who are aware of this knowledge and who continue to support the expansion of polluting industries,wholly aware that there are alternatives, are complicit in the crime. As complicit as those who drove the trains to the concentration camps. If we are to stop runaway climate change we need to support the people taking the necessary action, and expose those working to defend a system which protects profit over the planet.

Turning against the tide
This ‘banality of evil’ has shown tome how everyone is complicit. How a terrible situation in society can become ‘normalised’, shows to me that in order to take off our blindfolds to the consequences of our actions,we must stop, take a step back, and go against the madness. Climate change is not an abstract notion or something ‘out there’ but will hurt us all personally, as genocides in history show us. Climate change is an issue of civil liberties. What we are seeing today is a system where police lash out at young people listening to the climate science, the police thus protecting a state which protects polluting industries and not innocent people. Just as in Nazi Germany, where the spirit of Nazism was enshrined in the German constitution, it is lawful for companies today to pollute relentlessly at the expense of the whole world. So just as people illegally challenged that people were being sent to the Nazi death camps,we must challenge these companies. This is both a ‘radical’ approach, as it investigates the roots of the problem of limitless growth on limited resources, and very reasonable at the same time, given the current climate.

So, you may ask (and reasonably I think), if things are so bad why not just withdraw into inaction? Because, as in the Nazi Holocaust, communities facing injustice stick together. It’s instinct. Like stopping a child from walking in front of a car. Or not banging your head against a brick wall. Or stopping unnecessary climate change. If you see something you love being destroyed – whether a lover, a trail in your local park, your mates, your community, the planet – you act to protect your beloved. It’s natural.

Faith and human responsibility
Through my faith I have learnt the importance of understanding humanity’s role within global ecology. Judaism teaches us that human diversity arises from ecological diversity. The reason why there are different human cultures and religions is not only or primarily political, it’s because each society finds unique ways to teach the generations how to live in harmony with a particular place, through rituals and stories. Hence, the lulav (palm branch) and sukkah (temporary structure) on the fall of the full moon. Hence, the teaching that Adam (person) is so-called because the human was created from adamah (earth or soil). Judaism teaches us that the earth is not ours to use for our own benefit. We are here to serve the earth. Our existence is legitimised not through our subservience to the economy, but through our subservience to the planet. The Old Testament teaches us that the land will get to rest for a full year and on Shabbat, no matter what we plan or do. Let her rest and you can rest with her: don't let her rest and you will be thrown into exile,while she still gets to enjoy her Sabbath.

Standing up to adversity
Most striking of all is how you all have taught me, often subconsciously, about the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity. From these lessons I have delved into finding out about the amazing resistance methods used during the Nazi Holocaust,which inspire strategies for action today. I have learnt about underground fighters in the Jewish ghettos planning escape routes for those caged. I have learnt about the chilling consequences for the brave families who hid Jews, like Oma. I have learnt about soldiers who refused to wave a patriotic flag; about the men and women who refused to fight; about those involved in the resistance movement who got up everyday knowing that they would ‘fail’. Almost every day I notice signs that more and more people are longing for our species to cease its self-destructive war with the earth and each other. Strategies of resistance in the Holocaust speak loudly today. Despite the hype around the brave new ‘globalised’ world that is supposed to bring all manner of blessings for our generation and the next, an unsettling stench is seeping out through the cracks and those walls in the information superhighway. Beneath the shiny surface of our super-techno, digitalised, genetically engineered, wonder societies, our planet and our humanity is decaying. I don’t want to ever look into the bright clear eyes of a child and try to explain why the whales are being killed and the forests burnt. Never, ever. I don’t want to have to explain why playing naked in the sun is dangerous and some streams are poisonous. Why some frogs now have five legs, and teenagers blow themselves up in the process of killing other children in the Middle East. I don't want to wonder why some of us work so furiously, while others can’t find work, and why, either way, a deep satisfaction and a sense of belonging is so elusive. I don't want to experience these things.

An inter-generational crime
The younger Jewish generation feel that the issue of climate change is deadly serious. Just as with everyone who will live long enough to see a 2°C increase,we are taking this personally. This makes me very scared: for my generation, for my children’s generation and my children’s children. The people today who are continuing the plunder of the earth’s resources are leaving the younger generations with no option but to clean up their mess. Climate change is an inter-generational crime. Just as in the build-up and duration of the Holocaust, today we are intrinsically part of a vicious moment in history where we don't know whether we will survive. I have transferred this knowledge to the situation today, and knowing that whilst I have the (small) window of opportunity before the storm arrives to act, I will. As staying quiet on genocide is as political as speaking out. How will I feel if we can’t look our children in the eye and say that we did all that we could? I have to do all I can. Not just hold a banner singing songs about giving peace a chance, or even supergluing myself to the Prime Minister as a publicity stunt – but act in all my capacity to take back control for our generation and stop emissions at their source. Climate change is a ‘generational opportunity’.We have a large responsibility on our shoulders. Never before, and never again,will one age-group be burdened with the responsibility of saving the entire human race.
The next generation will either thank us for taking the necessary action, or lament us for not doing enough when we had the chance.

Keeping the faith
I have learnt about having faith in desperate situations. About keeping the faith that change will happen even while it seems that we are living in a lunatic asylum: Scientists tell us we need to stop burning fossil fuels up into the atmosphere and yet the UK as a country continues to fly more than twice more on average than any other country in the world! But authentic hope requires clarity. Clarity which witnesses the troubles in the world – and imagines what might lie beyond these situations that are perhaps not inevitable and immutable. Faith that makes the impossible, possible. I see ourselves as being so gone these days that we've moved way beyond reason and logic in what we’re trying to do – we need to open new places that allow for new forms of thinking to emerge; to work from a place of beauty and truth. Direct action, such as the work that I do, attempts to do this, and this has always been the point of religion also. The whole structure of religion is set up around trying to create the framework to enable these places of truth to be opened in the practising of them. These spaces then create community and perpetuate a spirit of hope. Both religion and direct action (in the broadest sense) can attempt to speak to the human condition, to the innermost core of people which everyone shares. When we witness these spaces opening, I see opening the critical and fundamental understanding of religion; how faith and hope drive activism and, ultimately, that change is possible. These inherent ethics and morals of Judaism, of struggle and hope, are what grounds me in my action on climate change. It is this faith that supports young Jewish people not to burnout, to keep grounded and to sustain their action on climate change. For it is not purely my faith, or a leadership generation of upcoming Jewish people that will inspire me, but being involved in a movement which draws out a whole range of backgrounds and diversities.

Love and Preservation
The last lesson I have learnt is about love and preservation. I have learnt about the importance of preserving what we love, not just resisting what we hate. How life is about both resisting destruction and salvaging what you treasure whilst you can. Waking up in the morning and knowing that everything you love could be gone in an instant,makes you act ever more to save it.

Ctrl Alt Shft - Plane Stupid Blog: Reframing Race And Climate Change

http://www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk/article/plane-stupid-blog-reframing-race-and-climate-change

We should never succumb to racial or climate injustice. We should never forget those lost in the battle. We should fight on, as a unit, for a better generation. Dan Glass from the Plane Stupid crew reports…

The convergence between racial equality and environmental justice is becoming clearer every day. As runaway climate change intensifies, every hour people from overseas continue to knock on UK immigration office doors. They do this not because they have damaged their own homes or are bored of their cultures, but because the nations in whom they seek solace have disrupted their way of life (in one way or another).

'In order to tackle the almighty task that is environmental injustice, everyone must be supported to take action they need'



Carbon-intensive lifestyles in the West have caused floods, droughts, resources wars and continued exploitative exploration throughout communities in the Global South. In my own opinion, non-white communities in the developing world bear the brunt of environmental injustice. Meanwhile, at home in Britain, communities who work in high emission industries also face the worst. Before runaway climate change really hits home in the UK, as it has done already for people all over the world, we have a tiny bit of breathing space to understand the interlinked nature of its impacts. In the age of the 'Big Society', when it is supposedly our duty to help our neighbours, how do we begin to understand these issues and mould society into what we want it to be?

In the UK, fresh evidence highlights that ethnic minorities are more exposed to low air quality - a social consequence of carbon heavy industries. As research develops, the battle-lines are being drawn. Whether we’re talking about communities living daily with pollution from London's major airports, witnessing the building of gas plants in many major British cities, or referencing inner-city poverty in areas of multiple deprivation accross the UK, non-white communities often come off worse. What's more, the poor are being hit ten times as hard as the rich during the imminent budget cuts which we are told are 'across the board'.

Every day, people are being violently oppressed when trying to stop the impacts of environmental exploitation. We remember Ken Saro Wiwa and others who bravely challenged Shell's oil exploration in Nigeria, who received the death penalty instead of being listened to. We remember those people all over the developing world caught in the firing line for challenging environmentally destructive 'development'.

It can be disheartening to witness the continuation of a carbon-heavy, and psychologically unstable system. I wish it was simpler. For me, it is almost possible to wade through the congealed mass of society and see the isolation which is tearing apart its collective spirit. It is, however, still possible to wade through and pick up floating pieces of community cohesion, of youth support, celebration of ethnic diversity, of dignity. But the beauty lies in the interconnected nature of environmental justice - once you unravel one string in the massive tangle that is the problem, it makes it easier to understand the rest.

And how exactly can we hope to agitate, radicalise and empower ourselves for our common goals? Our strength will come in understanding the consequences and implications for those taking action to counteract structural oppression and injustice. Many people experience exploitation, environmental or racial, because certain social structures and policies that interweave their lives are controlled by and benefit disproportionately elite groups at the expense of the masses, limiting people that want to take action on their concerns.

'In the UK, fresh evidence highlights that ethnic minorities are more exposed to low air quality- a social consequence of carbon heavy industries'



Whenever you hesitate to open the newspaper for fear of fresh daily diagnosis of environmental and social problems, when your stomach churns at the racial or environmental injustice perpetuated by those in power, there is something you can do.

Patrol the police, hold them to account and help them swerve their line of vision to the real corrupt criminals, those lining their pockets with profit at the expense of people and the planet. For us all to stop carbon heavy industry expansion, state repression against environmental refugees and more, we have to understand and support where people are coming from.

Movements mutate and develop by engaging in each others struggles. Fighting for climate justice becomes the same battle as fighting for racial, class and gender equality, through struggling for the right to voice our concerns, to protest and ultimately - to exist in peace and dignity.

There's your Big Society. There are hundreds of projects out there and a lot to be excited about, from anti-racism projects in your local community to UK wide networks for environmental justice. These interconnections and links are our starting ground in addressing injustices that have raged for generations.

Photos: Paul Choy and Kristian Buus

Disclaimer: This feature is written by Dan Glass of Plane Stupid and is not necessarily reflective of Christian Aid and Ctrl.Alt.Shift views.

www.planestupid.com


So We Stand is an emerging grassroots movement of people who consciously work for empowering social change to develop multiracial politics and self defence strategies for environmental and climate justice.

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