Alice and I went along to the Big Six Bash organised by the Climate Justice Collective last Thursday. We wanted to interrupt the UK Energy Summit taking place inside the Grove Hotel to envision an affordable and sustainable energy system where six energy companies do not dominate the provision of energy – making huge profits and creating climate chaos while millions of people live in fuel poverty or experience the effects of climate change in the developing world.
We were part of the Dirty Energy Bloc (dirty energy, dirty basslines, dirty business) meeting outside City Thameslink Station. Despite the rain it was great to see old friends and before we knew it we were following a pedal-powered sound system on our way to the conference. The costumes were amazing – CND had come dressed as the grim reaper, lots of people in our bloc wore white boiler suits and when we arrived at the hotel we met members of the Robin Hood group dressed in tights as well as the hugest dinosaur from the fossil fuels bloc. My favourite outfit was a woman holding a giant leaf saying ‘Mass extinction is for Dinosaurs’.
When we arrived at the conference lots of people attempted to get inside the hotel but were stopped by police officers. Alice and I didn’t feel brave enough to rush the doors so we stayed back and chatted to the family friendly dinosaurs instead. We did manage to sticker the building window which means that we clocked up 3 points in the Climate Justice Collective game.
Later on in the day I watched a giant game of climate twister being played outside the conference – with people watching us from inside – and lots of activists wrote inspiring and heartening visions of an alternative future on the floor and walls outside the conference in chalk. I was standing talking to a friend when all of a sudden police officers drove towards us in vans and closed us in. For the next three hours we listened to music, danced, sang and spoke about solutions before we were allowed out of the kettle and off to the pub.
Blog post by Siobhan
