gwersyllfa at Hinsawdd gweithred beicioleg arddull!
Bicycology arrived at Climate Camp Cymru on Thursday afternoon. I wasn’t there till Friday afternoon, so what happened on Thursday will have to get covered by someone else, but I had a great time when I was there.
We took a train that took a little over 3 hours (and two changes), but involved meeting two people we knew for chats about all things bike and climate related (and lots else besides).
When we arrived we jumped straight into the Environment Awareness Day the locals had organised in the shopping centre in the middle of town. Bicycology already had a ‘Free Bike Fixin’ presence, and we hooked up our new pedal-powered green traffic light and set up some sounds – only to discover that music was banned due to the lack of a licence, and the microphone was picking up noise from the generator.
Free Bike Fixin
A few trips to the charity shops later and we were playing a children’s story tape and some sound effects (unfortunately unhealthily loud coal mining noise was not on the list of 80 sounds), and wearing a brand new second hand Bicycology Green jumper…
After fixing up a few gears and the usual chatting about pedal-generators and cycling tips we set off up the mountain (no kidding) for the camp.
A little bit of sweating and lifting later we arrived at the snugly situated camp, less than 100 metres from a black as hell hole in the ground, and sandwiched between a main road and a dual carriageway…. in a nice way!
There were a fair number of structures, and we sort of set up in the Tat Shop, with a leaflet stash, bunting and bike fixing banner.
The plenary featured a Bicycologist (masquerading as a Stupid Planer) talking about adopting residents, and residents talking about adopting Climate Campers (and a Smash EDOer, Rossporter and Mainshiller talking about well, I think you can guess…)
Anyway, twas all quite inspiring thinking about such locally supported campaigns and the future scope for camps and action and all that…
Afterward we hung up a charity shop sheet and screened ‘Green Machine’ (pedal-washing machine), the G8Bikeride film, Bungeeboy’s Heathrow film, and some other shorts, before bed.
I ended up doing gate duty till 3am, listening to a flautist and warming wet legs on a rocket stove fire.
Saturday focussed on a walk out of the camp, a tour led by Residents Against Ffos-Y-Fran (see photos). The mine is insanely hideous, as you would imagine, and epic in scale – even from what little you could see from the limited area the police allowed us to roam on (common land, since you ask). A few people got a bit of hassle from attempting to walk down a road the police decided wasn’t acceptable to walk down, including one guy who was bitten by a police dog and arrested – I didn’t see any of this though.
Walking Near the Mine
Viewing the Devastation
Clowns and Horses
I did have a chat with a copper about why accidentally killing an innocent non-protestor is pretty unforgiveable and a sign that police tactics and training and attitude are, well, wrong, rather than… just a mishap, which went pretty well actually, especially given that he was holding his alsation on a leash, and it may well have been the one that bit the bloke earlier (I didn’t hear about that till later). The alsations were lovely but went bloody mad when I waved goodbye to the two doghandlers, god knows what they do to them to turn them so nasty…
In the morning a couple of us attended the DIY Wind Turbine workshop given by a guy from V3 Power, which was very inspiring. Then I gave a workshop on Pedal Generators and basic 12 Volt to answer some people’s bemusement from the first workshop (both were attended by over 30 people).
Pedal Generator Workshop
Saturday evening we put on an open air cinema spectacular – showing ‘Wild Horses’ (there were lovely ponies up by the mine, and the mist rolled in and out of the camp a few times), ‘Duck and Cover’ (a hilarious but sadly real American Civil Defence educational film about preparing for imminent Nuclear Attack), ‘The Humble Magnificent’ (to now standard guffawing in all the right places and applause at the end), ‘Cyclists Day Out’ to amusement and joy, bits from ‘Return of the Scorcher’ (amazement at the loads carried by bikes, and loads of bikes, in China and Holland) and the first half hour of ‘Fourth World War’ (covering mainly Argentina after economic collapse in 2001, and Palestine intifada).
Sunday involved dancing the hokey-kokey and playing Goldenballs’ new consensus-sound game as the conclusion to Molly Scott Cato’s thought-provoking and exciting economics workshop attended by 50 plus people at the end (words that *really shouldn’t* go together I think you’ll agree). After that I had a great chat about Transition and its limitations with some random dinner queue folk, then there was a closing plenary that involved lots of insanely quick consensus decision making and fine facilitation. Then we played some tunes as the Tat Down tatted away marvelously, before loading up and riding down the mountain (more fun than going up, of course) and enjoying a train journey back where the Climate Camp essentially took over the train.
Soul not Coal!
Peter Pannier
x
Climate Camp Cymru
Residents Against Ffos-y-Fran
Wikipedia entry about Ffos-y-Fran
Earth First! Action Report
Monbiot on Merthyr
South Wales Police Report
Ahem, of course, the Open Cast Coal Mine is not (according to Miller Argent) a horrific blot on the landscape and threat to the climate and future existence of life on earth, but on the contrary, “will create a better and safer environment for the local community for the benefit of future generations”.
Vestas Occupation
We had been planning a significant presence at the Big Green Gathering and had even organised a public bike ride from Bath Spa train station for people who wanted to cycle there. Unfortunately the gathering was cancelled at short notice as a result of political pressure from the police, which left us at a loose end. We discussed various alternatives and came up with a plan to take the sound system down to the Isle of Wight to support workers occupying the Vestas factory. I didn’t go myself but five other Bicycologists set off from London by train on the morning of July 30th and stayed for the weekend. One of them wrote the following report:
The occupying workers were about 300 metres away from a security fence, they had access to a large balcony. When we arrived they were deprived of food by Vestas, surviving on one small evening meal, and whatever they could get from tennis balls, which were cut open and stuffed with food or whatever else they needed and could be thrown at them with varying success as to whether the balls actually reached the balcony. One of the workers who left the occupation was sent to hospital with dangerously low blood sugar levels.
The support crew on the roundabout consisted of us, the climate camp & climate rush folks, seize the day, rmt union workers and SWP people. There was a kitchen and nice meals, locals are well behind the campaign and kept turning up with loads of food. The atmosphere was mostly good, and improved during the time we were there.
It was great that our kit, especially pedals, was really appreciated by everyone. Pedals enabled people to speak movingly to the occupiers about why they had come to support them, amplify a seize the day song written about the occupation with the relatives & locals, a band to play a kayleigh, and a comedy inuendo-filled late night question and answer session to take place between the occupiers and us, which hopefully elliviated the boredom for a while, and had the added bonus of informing us that there was a crass fan amongst them. The cinema screen was great, but unfortunately the street lights prevented people from being able to see the projection well enough, which was a shame.
Shortly after we arrived there were various attempts to get food to them, and the Vestas management then said it would allow food in, which they did, only to withdraw their offer later on. So people defied the security and fencing to get food to them including a granny from a local catholic church with a holdall of chips!
It was really nice to be involved in something that it felt like the whole of the island was supporting. To see people taking direct action and be really respected for it almost universally.
Update – here is a video of the church granny getting through with chips and another one of Pedals in action.
The Bicycle Diaries
The Bicycle Diaries is a three part radio series that illustrates how the bicycle is used today and what impact it has on people’s lives.
Bicycology at the 2008 Climate Camp
Okay it’s a bit late but I thought I should have a first go at blogging by adding little piece about Bicycology at this year’s Climate Camp at Kingsnorth in Kent.
We had our own space for the first time, with a small marquee for bike workshop, evening events etc. and a dome to retreat into when we needed our own space.
Bicycology
Power came from solar panels and a battery array in the dome, supplemented by pedal power. We did several pedal powered film shows, an spoken word event with our friend Ben, and music from Son of Pedals, our tandem-pulled soundsystem, which you can see in the photo below.
Son of Pedals soundsystem on the move
We helped provide a fair bit of bike load-carrying capacity, which proved really useful moving food (and beer) after the police decided to prevent vehicles accessing the site.
Brox load carrier leaves the cars behind
Kids on the Brox
We had a some pedal generators for children, including a pedal-powered gameboy.
Pedal-powered gameboy
That’s all for now.
Pedals Rides Again
We took the Son of Pedals sound system up to Lancaster for the Routes to Solutions event where it met the original Pedals for the first time.
Pedals meets Son of Pedals
Unfortunately Pedals was in a bit of a sorry state so we could not play them together as a stereo pair. After the event we left the newer system in Lancaster and (with considerable difficulty due to the hostile attitude of National Express train staff) got Pedals back down to my garage where it sat for a while, awaiting repair.
The biggest problem was a strange bass feedback that occurred as soon as you tried to turn the volume up. I didn’t really know what was causing it so I opened up the box, rewired everything and checked the settings on the amplifiers. I noticed that the sensitivity on the bass amp had been set to maximum so I tried turning it down a bit (with a matching adjustment on the top amp) and that seemed to solve the problem. The battery was not holding a charge so I got a new 85 amp hour leisure battery and installed a voltmeter from a scrapped car battery booster pack to reduce the chances of it being drained to damagingly low levels.
On Friday I dragged Pedals onto a train down to London, reunited it with the tandem, and took it on London Critical Mass. The Law Lords had recently handed down a unanimous judgement against the Metropolitan Police in the appeal brought by regular CM participant Des Kay. He brought cakes along to celebrate and Pedals added to the party atmosphere. Towards the end of the Mass overenthusiastic use of the volume knob caused the tweeters to blow (again) during a Chuck Berry song but apart from that it performed fine.
I stayed in London on Friday night and in the morning a crew of four Bicycologists took Pedals to Hounslow for a local protest against the proposed third runway at Heathrow.
Bicycology Massive
There were no less than five Bicycologists present on June Critical Mass in London, as well as the Bicycology soundsystem, Son of Pedals, which had been repaired just in time for the event. G8 Bike Ride veteran DJ Eon took the back seat of the tandem and played some nice tunes as the Mass made its way down to Brixton for a gathering to pay tribute to a fallen comrade, Marie Vesco, who was tragically run down and killed by a car on June 4th whilst on a ride down to Brighton for the SmashEDO Carnival Against the Arms Trade. After a minute’s silence under the tree outside the library where Marie used to give out free food the Mass headed North again, moving relatively quickly until the police tried to enforce the loudspeaker ban in Parliament Square. This resulted in all traffic coming to a halt for a good quarter of an hour before the DJ eventually agreed to proceed without music. Of course he cranked it up again before he was outside “the zone” but the police let it go and the Mass concluded with a bit of a rave outside the gates of Buckingham Palace. Doug was filming and has uploaded his footage to the Internet Archive.
Pictures from Stroud events
Here are some photos of recent Bicycology Stroud events. These photos were the spur to finally set up this blog so I hope you like them, and hopefully this will be a much easier way of sharing our photos etc… Most of the photos are from the Stroud to Chalford bike ride, and events in a park at the end. Peter Pannier
