Callout for organising! Scottish Camp for Climate Action

Build­ing a more sus­tain­able future in four easy steps:
1. Get out your diary and find a pen
2. Open it at the pages for the 4–16 June and 3–10 August
3. Write in very large, bold let­ter­ing: CLIMATE CAMP SCOTLAND across these dates
4. Get involved in this excit­ing move­ment for social change and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice!

What’s the Scot­tish Camp for Cli­mate Action?

Some time between 3–10 August, activists, cam­paign­ers and com­mu­ni­ties from all over Scot­land will set up camp! We will be liv­ing sus­tain­ably and equal­ly, and tak­ing awe-inspir­ing col­lec­tive direct action to hold greedy cli­mate crim­i­nals to account.

In a time of epoch-mak­ing eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal change, we’re going to be mak­ing direct changes for the bet­ter. We’ll be tak­ing con­trol of our lives, of our soci­ety, and stand­ing up for what we believe in. We’ll refuse to believe the greedy pol­luters and financiers, when they say it’s just not the right time to clean up their act. We’ll clean it up for them!

The Camp (whether urban or rur­al) will be a liv­ing exam­ple of col­lec­tive, imag­i­na­tive low-impact liv­ing, full of prac­ti­cal solu­tions. Its not just about plas­tic bags and light bulbs any more, these things iso­late us and dis­tract us from the real prob­lems. Instead, we will work togeth­er to build strong, sus­tain­able and pow­er­ful com­mu­ni­ties.

Whilst we haven’t decid­ed where the camp will be yet, there’s no short­age of options. Whole swathes of air­ports, coal pow­er sta­tions, open cast mines and agro­fu­el instal­la­tions and motor­ways are planned for Scot­land. We also have the lux­u­ry of host­ing the head­quar­ters of inter­na­tion­al banks like RBS and HBOS, whose greed got us into this eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal mess.

What’s hap­pen­ing in the run-up to the camp?

Some time between June 4–16 there will be a Cli­mate Camp Con­ver­gence, with infor­ma­tive and prac­ti­cal work­shops and dis­cus­sions, oppor­tu­ni­ties for build­ing links between cam­paigns, and the chance for us to col­lec­tive­ly plan the future of cli­mate activism across Scot­land. By the time the August Camp rolls around we’ll be a force to be reck­oned with.

How do I get involved now?

Mak­ing this hap­pen needs loads of ideas, ener­gy and input. In short, it needs you. And all your mates!

Come to an organ­is­ing meet­ing!

We organ­ise hor­i­zon­tal­ly, with­out lead­ers, and every­one has input into deci­sions. At the moment, most of the organ­is­ing is being done in Edin­burgh. We want this to change! We plan for local organ­is­ing meet­ings to feed into reg­u­lar Scot­land-wide Gath­er­ings.

Next meet­ing: Edin­burgh, Tues­day 24th March, 7pm
at the Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh (ACE) www.autonomous.org.uk

The fol­low­ing meet­ing will be on April 7th , 7pm, ACE in Edin­burgh.

On the agen­da, Tues­day 24th:

1.What focus each of the sum­mer con­ver­gences will have: direct action, edu­ca­tion, move­ment build­ing etc, And what some of the spe­cif­ic con­tent will be.
2. What the exact dates of each con­ver­gence will be.

Start organ­is­ing in your area!

- Get organ­is­ing with peo­ple in your area and see how much time, ener­gy and resources you can bring to a Cli­mate Camp in Scot­land. To be effec­tive, Cli­mate Camp Scot­land needs to have strong, decen­tralised groups doing the plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion.

- Please get in touch if you want to help organ­ise Cli­mate Camp Scot­land! so we can work togeth­er to find meet­ing times and loca­tions that as many peo­ple can get to from around the coun­try.

- Host the Cli­mate Camp Scot­land Info Tour in your area, to find out what’s hap­pen­ing this sum­mer, what has to be decid­ed and pre­pared, and how you can get involved.

- Email: climatecampscotland@riseup.net to request the Info Tour and with any ques­tions how­ev­er big or small!