Morning:
8°c
This morning, in between rooting around in my camping cupboard, hanging up the tent that never dried out post-Glastonbury and locating my vegan tanning lotion, I have been keeping an eye on my phone.
At noon, the location of this year's Climate Camp is revealed by a text message to thousands of activists at six starting points across the capital.
Since the camp began three years ago the climate debate has moved on fast. From endless arguments about whether climate change is really happening, we all now accept the facts; the issue is how each of us can make a difference.
First we need more people talking about the problem; next, more people demanding government action.
We've heard the call from all sorts of surprising places - Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate, says: "When you think about the big historic movements, from the suffragettes to anti-apartheid all the big political movements had popular mobilisation." So here you are Ed: Climate Camp has come to town and with it, popular mobilisation.
This year there is no one target or day of action - the City of London will not be shut down, Heathrow Airport will not be encircled and Kingsnorth coal power station need not turn off its fires.
Instead Climate Camp will be a place of education in the heart of a nation that desperately needs educating about climate change.
It will be small light of inspiration in a city that needs to be lifted out of unemployment and given something new to do.
Environmentalists and activists from across UK and the world will come to talk and share their skills through workshops and informal discussion.
Thousands of people will learn how to make power off-grid, grow their own veg, mend their clothes and make their protest count through direct action.
Climate activists need to get their message out. They have no marketing budget or PR firm. We are just thousands of people worried about our changing climate.
The six locations where people are gathering combine symbolic sites in the recent history of protest and the headquarters of corporations that get rich from climate change and can consider themselves targets for future action.
The police have searched high and low for the co-ordinates of the camp. They've been tough then sweet, and still the camp refuses to tell them where it's heading.
I've been to three Climate Camps and left each one shocked by the behaviour of the police.
At the end of the Climate Camp's G20 protests in April I was hauled along the ground and whacked across the thigh by a riot cop in a balaclava and helmet who had no identification numbers.
It makes me smile to know that the police are scratching their heads and wondering where those "eco-terrorists" are going to turn up next.
People worrying about their safety or disruption to their day should rest easy. The most sustainable, "right-on" community of eco-activists might be arriving on your doorstep.
They'll put on workshops, invite bands and cook vegan food. They are not going to cause a disturbance; the idea is that you join in.
Three years ago I went to my first Climate Camp and was inspired. This summer thousands will turn up and who knows where their story might end.
When I pull up my tent pegs and leave the camp this year, I'll be heading out of town with the group I began, Climate Rush, for a month-long tour of the South-West with horses and waggons.
Three years ago I'd never have imagined my life would be defined by climate activism. Now I wouldn't live any other way.
Tamsin Omond is a campaigner for Climate Rush and author of Rush: The Making of a Climate Activist (published in October).
Reader views (13)
Anti Vietnam, Miners Strike, Wapping, May Day, Stop the War, Cimate Camp, G20, what have all these got in common, apart from the smell? Thats right, they made absolutely no difference to government policy, just served to inconvenience commuters and annoy normal people who were trying to get to or from work. If you want to actually make a difference then stand as an M.P in Parliament, instead of using the green opposite as a toilet, albeit an eco friendly one with saw dust.
- BlueRedBlue, London, 23/07/2010 22:12
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Eco terrorists at work. Lets hope it rains this weekend.
- Mr S.Port, London, 27/08/2009 14:40
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I was listening to all this 'ecology'(as it was called then) guff back in the 1970's.
It is an industry,a bandwagon.
Is it really in Blackheath?If it is,what a cop out.
Leafy,posh Blackheath,not some inner city park or roundabout.
Lentil burger anyone?
- Jimfred, London Uk, 27/08/2009 10:46
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This will be interesting, The Bank Holiday fair will be located on the heath at the weekend. I don't see the chavs and thugs putting up with yoghurt knitting layabout hippys for too long, oh well let's look forward to more reports about violence and the workshy !
- James, London, England, 26/08/2009 19:34
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"From endless arguments about whether climate change is really happening, we all now accept the facts"
Absolute rubbish. Science is never settled, and with something as complicated as the climate it's impossible to state such a thing. The computer models cannot cope with even a fraction of the factors which influence the climate - we can see how poor they are at predicting the weather a few days in advance, let alone the climate years in the future.
It's arrogant in the extreme to think there's a thermostat that Man can control. It doesn't exist. Kyoto was the biggest waste of money ever, and there's nothing we can do to control the climate.
Nuclear power would be a help, but the environmentalists tend to be against that too.
Climate Change believers are religious nuts - they want a cause to believe in, regardless of the facts.
- Tom, London, 26/08/2009 17:15
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What nasty mean minded comments. I am delighted to see a generation of young people who can see that something needs to be done and are setting about doing it - with humour and organisation. Check out their video response to the police which they posted on You Tube this morning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gKRl5lsPOA
- Angela Phillips, London England, 26/08/2009 16:54
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Since when did we start listening to unelected, misguided individuals' opinions about questionable science?
I must have missed that meeting.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, 26/08/2009 16:17
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This is a positive article promoting healthy discussion and action. Unfortunately however the unwarranted, intransigent, purile, inttroverted and myopic mindset displayed in the previous comments is a hurdle although not a mountain. Many unrealistic olde worlde notions are due for for an idealogical revamp.
- Brad., Wales, 26/08/2009 14:52
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What a bossy, smug and patronising little diatribe. You have to laugh at these people.
- Carl, London, 26/08/2009 14:24
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What does this woman mean, we "desperately need educating about climate change"? It's all we've heard about night and day from the government and the media for over 5 years. It's all kids learn about in schools, it's the theme of many big budget Hollywood films, it's never off the BBC, politicians never tire of thinking up new ways to tax or fine us on its behalf. What planet has she been on? It seems to me these people just want some of the attention.
It's also untrue to say man made climate change has become more accepted over the last few years. In fact the sceptics' case has grown much stronger and is winning more and more popular support. And it will continue to, since it's becoming clear that what these scaremongers claim is happening to the planet is not.
- Kevin T, Beckenham, Kent, 26/08/2009 13:51
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So another posh private school type, this time the Oxbridge educated grand daughter of a baronet, gets onto a soapbox to boss everyone else around, with Mummy and Daddy's money backing her up no doubt, leading a load of unwashed benefit claimants and Guardian reading sociology lecturers to cause chaos and expense for those of us who have to do a real job to earn a living.
If I'd any doubts about whether the Blair/Milliband/BBC "climate change" mantra was credible, watching these people convinces me otherwise. Go away Tamsin, just go away. No one who matters really cares about you or your causes
- Max, london, 26/08/2009 12:20
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You are quite clearly a bunch of nutters and will do a marvelous PR job for the climate-change deniers, of who I am a proud member.
- Ken, Bexleyheath, 26/08/2009 10:57
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Actually, we don't all "accept the facts", and many of us object to being told how to think and live our lives by climate change fanatics. You're just the latest bunch of ideologues who believe they're entitled to impose their views on other people.
Go and do something useful. Get a proper job.
- Mark Demmen, bath, 26/08/2009 10:46
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