Go ahead and make some tea.
Oh, a lovely cup of char. One with sugar.
Tell me about the relationship between tea and the revolution.
Taking tea is what the British do,
when they're in a difficult circumstance.
If you have some bad news, you have a cup of tea.
At a funeral, you have a cup of tea.
If they bomb your homes, you have a cup of tea.
We're going to make loads of tea.
So, you serve tea at most events?
Hiya. Like a cup of tea?
I've often served tea outside the Bank of England.
I've served tea to the Silver Command,
the second in command on an action, when the police are involved.
I've served tea to politicians.
Outside factories I've served bailiffs as they're evicting.
It's a free cup of tea, or if you want to make a donation, that's allowed.
Yes, but we don't have a...
As an anti-capitalist, it would be hypocritical
to start selling people tea.
You don't want alcohol on the front line, because your judgment goes,
so if you just drink tea and save the drinking for the party,
when you eventually go home...
We're professional domestic extremists -
we don't drink while we're working.
- So, you're a domestic extremist? - I'm a domestic extremist.
What makes you a domestic extremist?
You will have to ask Special Branch that.
I care passionately about politics on a global level,
but work on it on a local level, within my own country, mostly.
That's the domestic bit.
I'm extreme because I've gone well beyond
in my climate-change activities.
I've gone beyond recycling and walking the kids to school -
all that goes without saying.
I put my body in the way, and I don't mind being arrested.
You know when you watch the news and see things like this?
Our dogs will be used!
And the newsreaders say helpful stuff like this.
Let's bring you now the latest
from this so-called "camp for climate action".
Environment campaigners have scaled a London building, unfurling a banner.
I hope he's going to have a shower - his feet were filthy!
Well, this is what you don't see -
a glimpse into the secretive and clandestine world
of environmental direct action.
We just f***ing do it. We've got a banner.
We've got four D-Locks.
I'm James, and I'm your guide. How do I know what I'm talking about?
That's me climbing into a power station.
But this film isn't about me. It's about people like this.
The climate science scared the crap out of me - I'm not going to lie.
And I went, "This is not something I can know
and not do anything about. I have to do something."
I want to feel like I'm doing something,
and not just watching the world go to shit.
We don't really have that much choice about the fact
that we've put so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
What we do have a choice about is the future.
Lots of getting arrested, running around, hiding, escaping,
playing with the media.
But if you think you can make a difference,
through campaigning then that's empowering.
It doesn't matter if it's illegal or if it's dodgy.
It doesn't matter if it's big or small.
You've just got to do it.
Just do it.
It's April Fool's Day, 2009.
The world's leaders are in London for the G20 meeting,
and a flurry of protests are welcoming them to town.
More tents. More tents!
Climate Camp plan to turn the heart of the financial district
into a street party.
Their target: blockading the European Climate Exchange.
Why? They don't want the climate left in the hands of the bankers.
Exactly. Some trouble needs to be caused.
The camp had all the ingredients for a good party,
and everyone was there.
Here's Paul getting his groove on.
There's Sophie climbing into trouble, as usual.
And of course, Marina's getting the kettle on.
Even the press were loving it.
At the moment things are very calm, very relaxed.
But as evening drew in,
a bunch of uninvited party-poopers gate-crashed.
This is not a riot! This is not a riot! This is not a riot!
Sit down!
We want a revolution now
We are resisting for climate action
We want some climate action now
Policing like this would normally go unnoticed,
but a death is harder to brush under the carpet.
Ian Tomlinson, on his way home from work,
in the wrong place at the wrong time,
was pushed to his death.
The ensuing outrage led to a dramatic change in the policing of protests.
Gone, police claimed, were beatings, brute force and random kettling.
In came a PR offensive of kindly coppers and tea.
This is public land, and the police are entitled to come in here.
Be reasonable.
I would love a cup of tea. Thank you very much.
How long the police would behave for, nobody knew.
Down on the Isle of Wight,
champion tea-maker Marina is about to dig her heels in.
Hello?
We're at the protest camp, outside the Vestas Blades UK factory,
on the Isle of Wight.
The factory is being occupied by the workers. Yay!
A wind-turbine factory was closed down,
because there was no demand for wind turbines,
and over 400 workers lost their jobs.
- Reinstate the workers! - Reinstate them now!
People think that people making wind turbines must be cool people, hippies.
No, no, they are capitalists.
Profit, bottom line, is all they're interested in.
They went in with stuff, but they'd run out of supplies,
and food could only be got into there in tennis balls being lobbed in.
They were getting hungry, and Vestas, this multinational company,
was starving them out.
Well, we weren't having that, obviously.
This lady turned up and said, "I've made fish and chips,
and I want to deliver them
to the men in the factory,
and I want to deliver it myself, and I want them to eat it while it's warm."
I was like, "OK. We can facilitate that."
She wants to deliver them herself, and I think that's right.
You have to cause a diversion.
OK. Are we ready? Coming?
Fish and chips! You run the other way.
Come on, everybody!
And half the fish and chips got through.
- Are you gonna give a speech? - No!
Yes. Come on.
We can't let bullies tell us what to do.
- Exactly. - What nonsense!
It was a fantastic celebration,
because the locals were like, "Yay! They've been fed!"
And people were saying, "Oh, those terrible environmental anarchists
have fed our lads, and they've done it with the locals."
And everyone's suddenly on the same side.
But the beautiful thing about it, and what warms your cockles, is...
it was direct action for two days.
We took direct action.
We did it with manners, and we just did it with courage,
and we did it with humour.
And now Vestas has said...
"Shit. We can't have this. We're gonna feed the guys whatever they want.
And the guys want a roast dinner today."
So now we're going to take in soap, shampoo,
things to wash their hair with, new underwear, socks, T-shirts,
hand-written cards from their children and family, newspapers...
In London, a plan is afoot to get the Vestas struggle into the papers.
The target is Lord Mandelson, Minister for Business
and everyone's favourite unelected, slimy politician.
The plan is to draw attention
to the fact that he is responsible
for the Vestas factory closing down.
We're saying Mandelson has the power
to put a huge investment into the car industry.
Generally, he's good at helping high-carbon industries,
but when it comes to a failing wind-turbine factory,
he's incapable of giving them any incentive to stay,
promising that there will be a demand within five years.
Tomorrow Sally chains herself to Mandelson's house
and could be arrested.
So, have you been arrested?
You've not? Are you prepared to be?
I guess I have to be prepared to be! Yeah.
It's a slow decision. I'd met people who had been arrested.
I'd heard their stories and knew what it entailed.
You make a theoretical decision...
I guess the crunch point of the decision
was in saying I'd get involved with the Mandelson action.
If they can bail out the banks with 1.4 trillion pounds,
they need to bail out our green future.
As hoped, the stunt propelled the Vestas struggle into the headlines.
When I changed from medicine, there was a lot of uncertainty in my life
about what I would do instead of this career plan,
but as I've got more involved in activism,
I think it's become really clear to me what the most urgent things are.
Activism is a whole other education,
outside of this narrow education you sometimes get in Cambridge,
being taught to think in an academic way,
disconnected from the real world.
And I want to use the education I've got here
and put it into the real world, and learn from the people.
So, that's what really excites me about having these two worlds.
Pitching up on the doorsteps of places like airports and power stations,
Climate Camp run direct-action training camps
and have shifted the climate-change debate in the UK.
But if you've seen Climate Camp on the news,
you'll know they are frequently portrayed as violent hooligans.
Police say this was why they had to go into the Climate Camp.
There's a knife which was discovered in a tree,
and here we see grappling irons
that could be used to scale a building,
and these are white suits that protestors might wear, they say.
Also, we see bolt croppers.
They could be used to try to take down any fences.
And over here we see wetsuits.
The protesters said they'll try to reach Kingsnorth by any means -
by air, by land and by sea.
Now, Climate Campers may be extremists, and they definitely are,
and they may even be prepared to break the law, which they often do.
But let's be clear - previous Climate Camps have faced police violence.
But the campers have resisted this peacefully.
This is not a riot! This is not a riot!
This year the Camp is in London,
targeting banks that finance climate change.
Marina's in a group from the south coast.
Today's Times.
Page 12 and 13.
An image of a petrol bomb exploding -
which is ludicrous, because we use biodiesel, not petrol!
We're doing some basic techniques that might come in useful
for the first 24 hours, while we settle down with the police.
If we do need to use blockading techniques,
before we have our defences built,
then these will be the sort of things we'll use - bodies.
That's all we've got.
If you were going to give me the bumps, you'd do it like this.
Yeah, so four people.
That's rigid. Easy to pick up. Now, try floppy.
Face the other way!
That's a lot harder. That's a really good way of doing it.
Across London, groups of campers are gathering at meeting points,
ready to pounce on the secret location for this year's camp.
Today we're doing the Climate Camp bicycle swoop.
Would you like a flyer?
We'll receive a secret message, revealing the location of the camp,
and we'll all be swooping there.
We've received a text message.
It says there is an intricate plan,
and they would like us to all stay together.
I'm very excited about today. There's a lot of unknown things,
so that kind of makes me nervous, as well.
We don't know where it is. It's a secret.
Who hasn't taken part in any meetings involving consensus?
In a big meeting, if you agree, it's hands up and wiggly fingers.
We're not a mad cult, unless you think Climate Camp is a mad cult.
It feels ridiculous to begin with,
but when meetings are working, it's very effective.
"Left out of Blackheath station.
Up the hill, bear left onto Hare and Billet Road.
Walk to the top, and the site is on your right."
It's then a race across London to secure the site,
before the police can stop them.
They've done it here. Wow!
You've had your training. It will count more when the police arrive.
Months of meticulous planning has paid off,
and the site is occupied before the police arrive.
Let me hear a massive cheer for getting Climate Camp 2009 started!
The Climate Camp is a temporary encampment, totally autonomous.
There's no hierarchical power structures.
Everything is run through consensus.
It doesn't seek to be given permission to be there.
Climate Camp is about direct action and seizing power
and making the changes that you want to see.
And it's in its nature and it teaches that
to everyone who comes.
Well, here we are on Blackheath, in London,
taking on capitalism, which is quite scary for the capitalists, I hope.
And we expected three-deep riot police.
We expected to be doing all sorts of naughty things
that I can't tell you, cos we might need them in future.
And we get here, and you can't even get a copper when you need one.
Hi. All right. Have a successful camp. Bye-bye.
Have a nice night.
It's a camp where people can come together and do workshops,
training, share ideas, plan direct action together.
A lot of us knew each other.
We already had a form of affinity.
We'd done a few different things together already.
And we came together to plan and carry out an action.
The police may have made themselves scarce, but they're watching.
Since the plan needs to be top-secret, the activists take precautions.
They remove batteries from phones
and are careful about what they say.
I was just gonna say another thing. I don't know...
Talking about the target might be OK,
just as long as the time and the date is not talked about.
I don't know.
There's no need to say it, if everyone's seen it,
so we could just refer to it.
Can we use another word, instead of the target?
And we all know what we're talking about.
"The target", maybe?
So, I don't think we'll be able to blockade the whole building,
but we wanted to blockade the front of the building
and stop people getting in there.
I think probably three ladders, with people at the top,
and people at the bottom locked on.
The idea of this was to blockade it, to reclaim it as the people.
It's our bank. We're reclaiming it.
And we're gonna build it into what we want.
So it can be read in a more anti-capitalist way.
Now, it wouldn't be a very good idea
to go directly from the camp to the action,
since a group of activists setting off with D-locks and ladders
would be likely to get rumbled.
So, they head to a temporary base for the night.
- Shall I start the sauce? - Yeah.
Has everyone got their batteries out of their phones?
We've discussed whether we want people
going into the building with superglue.
Either trying to get past the barriers up the escalators,
and into offices, or a trading space,
and supergluing to each other.
If we superglued to the building, that would be criminal damage.
But we'll be supergluing to each other.
And the idea was to sing songs.
Not nasty disruption, but disruption, nonetheless, inside the building.
So the likely charges of both going inside and being outside
is aggravated trespass,
although going inside will probably be slightly more.
If this goes to court, you're likely to get a fine or community service.
Nothing too heavy, but it will be more if you go inside.
Criminal damage we have avoided at every cost in planning this action,
which has much more severe consequences,
so I think we should keep it that way.
They could just try and bail us for a long time away from Climate Camp.
With the Stansted protest that some people did,
it happened in less than a month that we went to court.
But in other cases, like the Drax case,
it took almost a year, so it can be any time.
And if you get called to court, you have to go right then and there?
So, who's going arrestable?
- Can someone count? - 18.
Oh, yeah!
Has anyone used superglue? How do they deal with it?
I'd like to hear about that.
If they use the solvent, it shouldn't hurt at all. It does just come off.
It slides off.
If all else fails, it's every man for himself.
Just lock onto whatever you can.
Sally will be a spokesperson tomorrow, so she checks her facts and figures.
As well as oil and gas, they're also involved in the coal industry.
And specifically Eon. They've given Eon loads of loans.
They've given them £6 billion of loans since the bail-out.
To Eon, who are the company who are involved in Kingsnorth.
If you were going to quote a figure,
make sure you say, "Took part or were involved in loans,"
because what RBS do is, they're like the intermediary
between investors and investment projects...
We're making up the arm locks.
Arm locks are a cunning way to lock yourself to someone,
so that it's hard to be separated.
It may appear like these guys are seasoned pros, but don't be fooled.
Only a couple of them have been arrested before.
The lock is on the front of your neck, so you can undo it.
That's more comfortable.
How quick was that, guys?
- Pretty quick - That was really good.
Can we have a talk-through? James, your first part.
I'm going to drive down and check out RBS subtly, have a cup of tea.
Look for any abnormal security, police movements.
If that's all fine, I'm going to park up and wait for you guys.
If it's not fine, I'm going to call you.
People in the white marquee, people blockading the outside -
go to the van, get everything out.
Then, as soon as everything's out of the van,
that's when arrestable inside need to go.
We follow straight afterwards, and just behind us,
we need to have the non-arrestables.
I'm writing the number of the Climate Camp legal support,
which will be the number we'll call from jail, if we've been arrested.
And they'll contact our solicitors and put all of that into action.
It's good to have it on you, rather than on a piece of paper...
..because your possessions might be taken away.
They say, "Who do you want to be informed about your arrest?"
Give them that number.
Yeah, I've got one of our phones,
so when we're in position, I'm going to call James.
Oi, you're gonna hurt me. You're gonna hit my head.
Oi! Whoa!
Can somebody take the other side of this ladder?
Can you see them at all?
No, they must have got right inside.
Our money! Our future!
- Whose money? - Our money!
- Have you got a spokesperson? - I'm the spokesperson.
- OK. - You'd like to know why we're here?
I would. Obviously, you are causing a disruption.
We're renovating the RBS, because we won't stand for the fact
that the government has invested £33 billion
in the RBS, to bail it out, and that is financing climate change,
due to the way that money is invested.
You do realise that you're obstructing
people's access and egress from the premises?
And obstructing people on the highway.
Michael Hannard, UK Security Operations Manager.
You've entered unlawfully.
You've been asked to leave and you've refused.
You've caused intimidation to staff and disrupted the business.
Let me finish. As a representative of the business, I will inform you
that if you refuse to leave and are arrested,
then as a company, we will prosecute you all.
Is there anything else that I can do or say
that will make you leave the premises?
If you commit that RBS would stop investing in the fossil-fuel industry
and change over to serious investment in renewables,
we would happily leave, if that was the commitment.
The touchy-feely policing means the news is not distracted
by police violence
and can now find time to actually report why the activists are there.
Campaigners have chained themselves to the London headquarters of the RBS.
Dressed as construction workers, they used bike locks and superglue
to attach themselves.
We aim to shut down the bank for a day.
This is an anti-bank's holiday.
They're angry at the investment in fossil-fuel projects.
Can I just ask where you guys are from?
I'm from Hackney.
- And you? - Bedfordshire.
- Where are you from? - Daily Express, unfortunately.
Well, the Daily Express. Shit. Where's that?
Before long the removal team arrive to unglue the guys on the trading floor.
Just move out of the way, please.
- Is it superglue, or...? - Yes.
It may sting a little bit.
I just heard that the people who are sitting on the second floor
are at the police station.
They must have been taken by a back way.
Are you happy with these at the front?
- Whose bank? - Our bank!
- How's it going? - Really well, I think.
We're still here - that's always good.
The blockade has managed to hang on until the end of the business day.
RBS are funding climate change
It's shit, it's tax-payers' money
We won't stand for this
Once again, Climate Camp has grabbed the nation's attention
and inspired a new generation of outlaws,
determined to be a thorn in the side of capitalists.
I'm Tracy Howard. I am a wife, mother,
resident and local campaigner in the village of Sipson.
What's going on in the village of Sipson?
At the moment we're under the threat of the third runway.
BAA propose to demolish everything around here
in this beautiful village,
to make way for a horrendous runway, extending Heathrow airport.
And a bigger airport means more flights
and more emissions into the atmosphere.
So, a third runway at Heathrow has become a climate-change battleground.
Plane Stupid is a grass-roots, direct-action network...
..that focused on the aviation industry
as a key contributor to climate change.
Since 2006, Plane Stupid have been bringing aviation back down to earth,
with actions like a banner drop from the Houses of Parliament
and occupying the runway at Stansted Airport.
I have been involved with Plane Stupid for the last couple of years.
I was occupying the runway at Stansted last December.
And I've been involved in Climate Camp, as well,
which was the turning point in my political motivation -
the 2007 Climate Camp.
I'd been on the fringes and I'd always been interested.
I'd been to lots of marches.
And then in 2007 I was like, "Right...
Enough's enough. We've got to start doing stuff."
It's so drastic and potentially affecting my future so detrimentally
that I have to try everything I can to do something about it.
Through Plane Stupid, I've had a lot of connections
with the campaign and communities around Heathrow
that were facing complete destruction.
Tarmacing, effectively, of their communities.
The community there are trying to resist.
They need more support,
and there's lots of people who need to get engaged with the debate.
So, I think the idea of us moving down there
is to do some real, grass-roots, community-resistance-style stuff,
to really build the community there
and make it a resistant hub, an example for places across the country,
where there's plans for airport expansion or coal power stations.
If you look at this map, this is the proposed site of the third runway.
It's going to cut right across Harlington,
which is next door to Sipson, which is going to get demolished
if the 3rd runway plans go ahead.
I got involved about six years ago, with the threat of the third runway.
They was also threatening to bulldoze Cherry Lane cemetery.
My husband's nan's there, so it became more poignant
and involved my own life,
so I got involved in all the different action groups.
I go from leaflet dropping to direct action. I'm quite variable.
I go from the basics right up to the main squeeze, shall we say?
My direct action involved
going to the Architect of the Year award
and sabotaging it.
We gave Pascal and Watson the We Don't Give A Shit award,
as they don't give a shit about us.
Good evening. We won't take up much of your time.
We're here from Plane Stupid and the residents around Heathrow.
And before the awards start, we'd like to give our own award,
and we'd like to give it to Pascal and Watson.
I think Pascal and Watson are here, and we want to give them an award,
because they've been at the forefront of aviation expansion since the 1960s.
Josh gave a talk about the environmental issues,
and I gave a talk about my life.
Ladies and gentlemen, would you kindly leave the stage?
Would you leave the stage, so we can proceed with our ceremony?
You've been incredible! You've been destroying the climate,
people's homes and local community.
It's for Pascal and Watson! Anyone else want it?
Would anyone else like the award?
They're digging up my grandmother's grave! My grandmother's grave!
When I was asked to leave, I did leave.
I had to go back on stage, cos I left my coat there,
but we did actually leave.
We were non-threatening. We just made a point.
We distributed lots of leaflets about the situation, and it was fine.
It would be really interesting to put a transition town
in the space where they would like to put the third runway,
and contrast those two things.
So, start to build the world that we'd like to live in,
where they'd like to Tarmac.
Lily, Paul, Rowan and other Plane Stupid members
are moving to a threatened village near Heathrow.
How long do you think you'll be living out by Heathrow?
I'm committing in my mind to being there for at least a year.
Hopefully, by next year, they'll say, "It's getting dropped,"
or, "We've changed our minds and we're gonna do it."
- So, here we are. - Here we are.
Welcome to my new home.
A resident of Harlington now, which is quite exciting.
You can hear the aircraft noise already.
I'm going to have to get used to that.
I suppose people live with it every day,
so I'll just get used to it eventually.
At the Vestas factory,
the workers have been forced to end their occupation.
But some have joined Marina on the traffic island,
blockading the removal of the machinery from the plant.
Living on a roundabout, poking two fingers up
to a multinational corporation
which makes profits out of climate change, rather than helping.
It feels like direct action every day.
We're making it difficult for them to work.
Quite right. They've sacked 400 workers.
This is our living room, which is a bit too comfortable.
Four months I've been here.
I don't know how long I'm going to stay on the Isle of Wight.
Once you start a campaign, you see it through.
These are my broad beans, which I'm particularly proud of.
Earlier in the year, back in Brighton,
I planted broad beans in memory of the Diggers of 1649.
I brought the seeds from that crop that came up for G20 Meltdown,
the anniversary of the Diggers taking St George's Hill.
I put them in just before Halloween, and now I have beautiful broad beans.
Does all of this do any good?
I think you can't do... Thank you.
You can't do nothing. That wouldn't have done any good.
I think there have been...
One problem is, if people realise there's a problem
and don't think they can do anything, that is suicidal-depressing.
That is roll-over-and-die depressing.
But if you think you can make a difference,
through campaigning or obstruction, that's empowering.
So, you are taking control of your life,
even though all these decisions are made by politicians over there.
So, yes, it has done good.
After four months of trying to do good, the authorities have had enough,
and an eviction order has arrived.
- Hello. - Mr Quinn, High Court enforcement.
We're here today...
Can you turn round, so I can get the sunlight on your face?
- Is that all right? - Yeah, that's better.
- OK? - Yeah. So, what are you saying?
We're here from High Court enforcement to enforce the writ.
OK. Now, would you like a cup of tea?
No, thank you very much. I've just had coffee.
Well, the kettle will be on while we pack up.
- How long will it take you? - Oh, it's going to be a few hours.
Do you reckon an hour? Shall we give it till 12?
Oh, I don't think we'll have finished elevenses by 12 o'clock.
OK. We'll go for 12 o'clock.
I don't think we'll be packed by 12, but we'll try.
OK, lovely.
- I'm their beat officer! - Too late now!
This is Trudy, our beat officer.
Marina's got a favourite police officer, and it's me!
I got emotionally engaged. I got so involved.
I'm not too sure if you're going to be able to do this.
You're removing property that belongs to another person.
I know that you planted the seed...
..but you're removing the earth, aren't you?
Marina, I don't know.
I'm just saying that this is all being recorded. You are removing some earth.
- If they wish to... - Prosecute me.
- I'll have my day in court. - OK!
Crumpets, everybody!
Crumpets?
We require you to leave in five minutes.
I hated the way the authorities tell you,
"Your campaign is ending today." How dare they?
So, let me get this straight. You're not giving a woman long enough
to put her crockery away,
because you think an hour is a reasonable time to tat down a camp?
We've given you enough time, and nothing's been done,
so this is what we now require.
No!
Here they are, taking down my tent.
Excuse me, I now require you to leave the site, please.
I'm not leaving without my belongings.
We've given you a chance to get your personal possessions.
You haven't given us a chance.
Because I'm packing up all three places.
I now require you to leave the site.
- Are you going with them? - I want my bed.
They're telling me to go.
They're going to pack it up. You can collect it later.
If you don't leave the site now, I'll have to arrest you.
No, I've got to get my kettle. I'm not going without my kettle.
Where's my kettle?
Can you come with me, please?
Marina, you're under arrest, under Section Ten.
You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence,
if you do not mention anything you later rely on in court.
Anything you do say may be given as evidence.
Being arrested for trying to leave with two things.
There was just nowhere...
There was no space in the interview for any understanding
of the fact that you've been living somewhere.
The policewoman who arrested me,
the day before, she visited and I thought we got to know each other.
She gave me a hug goodbye when she turned up with the bailiffs.
She arrested me, anyway.
She cried during my interview because...
I mean, I cried.
And even then, I keep polite. It was like...
They're telling me that I should have packed a bit earlier.
I left my stuff till last.
So I suppose my tears were more for the sadness
that there's so much to overcome.
The only way we can overcome
is if lots of people agree the law is an ass and start ignoring the laws.
Because that's how you get the laws changed.
Rosa Park sat down on a bus.
The law changed because lots of people agreed with her.
So that's what we have to do.
But it has to be fun and exciting.
We have good friends and we get over getting arrested
and we get on with the next job.
That's what we'll do. We're not hoping for arrests.
We're hoping for lots of new recruits to the revolution.
This is Ratcliffe on Soar Coal power station,
the second largest power station in the UK
and soon to be the target of a publicly announced mass action.
A planning meeting is held in Nottingham. Anyone is welcome.
Morning.
Well, except the police.
There's a load of secrecy that goes with taking direct action.
It's hard for any member of the public to take direct action.
If they want to stop a power station, they don't know how.
The point of the swoop was to say:
"We'll shut down this power station on this day, with loads of people.
Anyone who wants to help can come along."
A power station is on high alert tonight
as environmental campaigners have vowed to shut it down.
One advantage of a publicly announced action
is that news coverage starts before the target is in sight.
Protestors arrive at Nottingham tonight.
Hundreds more are expected tomorrow.
I'll show you how extensive the security operation is here.
There are dozens of police officers. Some are in riot gear.
All day, the police helicopter's hovered overhead.
Take a look at this. Mile after mile of razor wire and fencing
has been put up around the site.
All this security is with one aim:
to stop the protestors from getting inside.
State-sanctioned protests are good for one thing.
But we need to start doing things
that will directly impact on those offenders.
And the coal industry is a massive offender.
They are causing carbon emissions that will destroy our planet.
And one thing about direct action, I suppose,
the target is meant to have an immediate effect.
The idea with the climate swoop
was to shut down a power station and stop it emitting
dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere.
To actively stop it.
It wasn't just to stand on the line, with a placard saying,
"We don't like what you do."
It was actually to do something.
On an action, it's important to look after each other.
So everybody has a buddy to watch their back.
So Sophie and Mary are buddies, and they will stick together.
They are paired with Rowan and Paul to make what we call a brick.
As a four, they can make quick decisions and work as a tactical unit.
So there might be someone that's happy to cut a fence open.
There might be someone else that's not.
But they'll support someone cutting a fence.
And so they work out their roles
so that one person might be carrying all the food.
That enables the person that's happy to cut a fence open, to do it.
Their brick is part of what we call an affinity group,
who will work together for the day.
Their affinity group joins others so they can move en masse to the target.
You walk in the footsteps of history.
You're doing it because you want to stand up and defend the future.
A lot of people have made a lot of change in history.
And they have done it by working together
and challenging the status quo
and finding hope and faith
where it might seem like there is none.
But, in the end, somebody has to take down the fences.
There are campaigns involving letter writing.
You can do frightfully nice picnics.
But sometimes, you have to get messy.
The coal just has to be stopped.
So I've come with a messy attitude.
I'm just getting in there, being a bit ooh and ah with my balaclava up.
Somebody's cut a hole in the fence over by the bridge. That way.
Let's not point.
He's waiting for some kind of critical mass
to make their way and storm it.
It wasn't just about destroying the fence.
It was about getting through it
and locking ourselves onto different points.
This is one way in which we can change things.
And a really important way
because mass civil disobedience shows that the law is unjust
and people are willing to become outlaws to change things.
Keep moving back, please.
It empowers people to take control of their own lives
and their own actions and futures.
Criminal damage pointed at the right organisation is completely warranted.
Especially when you figure that the damage that they're causing
is a billion times worse than what those people inflicted on the fences.
I nearly got arrested that day.
I was walking through the woods with my affinity group.
Suddenly, a police officer grabbed me from behind. I shouted "De-arrest."
And all my friends came to my rescue and helped me.
If you get in a position where a police officer is arresting you,
you don't have to accept that's going to be your destiny.
I got away. We ran, very fast.
If more people, as a collective, decided to de-arrest people,
then less people would get arrested
and the police would find their job much harder.
They didn't manage to shut down the power station that day.
But, as Sally says,
the sight of people becoming outlaws sends a powerful message.
London streets are buzzing
as the biggest climate change march in UK history is about to start.
Our guys are attending,
but today dressed in their finest capitalist suits.
Don't worry about climate change. Just keep shopping.
And yeah, that's me. And that's my mum.
She's not totally sure what she's let herself in for.
- Cap? - Cap and trade.
What that means is that...
Governments set a cap on the amount of carbon that can be emitted.
And they give permits to large polluters like power stations
to emit things.
- So they could then sell it? - And make a lot of money.
And literally, it's money, is it?
It's a financial mechanism to manage climate change.
- So we're saying ironically... - Ironically.
- ..that actually that's a good idea? - Yeah.
Power!
Power...
Power to the privileged, because the privileged got the power.
Tell me, can you feel it?
I'm ready to tell those well-meaning liberals what's what,
how to make some money out of this crisis.
- How did you get involved? - Well, you know...
I've always had an eye for an opportunity.
This is the biggest one I've ever seen.
So, if there's going to be a "three tree in a year" market,
I'll get in there at the ground floor and go to the top.
Yeah, baby!
That's a beautiful moustache you've got.
- Oh, you're a girl! Sorry. - Yeah, it's a fake moustache.
I thought you were a boy.
Greed is green, greed is green!
- Carbon Trader! - Eco Crusader!
- One solution! - Trade pollution!
Carbon trade!
Trust us with your futures.
We are bankers. Give us your money.
We'll trade it for carbon. Go back home, watch your TVs,
and we'll just make lots of money.
Let's hear it for carbon trading!
My sister said to me today, "Are you excited about your holiday?"
She slightly misunderstood the purpose of my trip to Denmark, but yeah.
Preparations are being made to travel to Copenhagen,
where the United Nations are holding a conference of world leaders,
to hammer out a deal on tackling climate change.
Do you reckon they'll take this off us if they find it?
- They might. - Keep it hidden in the mini bus.
It's only the Danish border that it will be a problem.
Everywhere else, it's legal, it's bought in a chemist.
It's legal, it's just they stopped selling it.
They've banned the sale of it.
- What is it? - This is Maalox.
And it's used to treat the effects of CS gas.
Mix it with water, pour it on your eyes, and it stops the burning.
They've got no outside police, apart from intelligence officers,
but loads of German police dogs.
Does that mean they just come in on their own?
Just unleash the dogs.
The Danish government have prepared
by granting the police new powers to detain protesters at will.
It says: "You will be taken to the police station and placed in a cell."
"The Danish police are arresting not just for vandalism,
they can give you 40 days if you inhibit police work."
This is obstruction. That's anything, basically, standard.
But 40 days for obstruction is quite a long time.
Obstruction is a flexible term. It could mean standing in front of them.
What do I need for Copenhagen?
Are you expecting to get arrested?
No, but it seems like a strong possibility.
Why?
Well, I suppose, on the 16th of December,
the plan is to go and get into the conference ourselves
and hold our own conference
to let people who have been affected by climate change have their say.
They won't be very happy with us doing that.
I'd like not to get arrested, but never say never.
We're off!
The Kyoto protocol was ending.
And there was going to be a new UN conference
to discuss how the world would then take up those climate issues.
And I decided that I wanted to be there.
I felt it was important
to put your body in a place just to say:
"I care about this, I'm a citizen of this world."
I took on organising transport and accommodation.
We're on the ferry. It's very exciting.
The world's eyes are on the UN summit
because the scientific community made it clear
that, if a deal on reducing emissions isn't struck this year,
then next year may be too late.
"Danish police haven't much used border patrols recently.
It's the Danish police who decide who they want to reject.
Lists of activists and activists with criminal records
are a possible way of selecting who comes in.
We're going the right way. It's cool.
No sooner do they cross the border into Denmark
than they are stopped and searched.
- Can I have a look at your passports? - You can indeed.
There's all the passports.
- How many are you? - We are 17.
- 17? - Yes.
- It's OK. - Thank you.
Have a nice day.
That's it. You can see the end.
It isn't just our guys heading for Copenhagen.
Activists from round the world are coming
because they believe that corporate interests supported by governments
have hijacked the process.
So it's highly unlikely that a fair or effective agreement will be reached.
We've gone to our little building where we're staying, which is nice.
It's warm, which is a plus.
We have to cross a riot.
Where are we going?
We're going to the candy factory,
to a bike bloc meeting, but we're late.
Because we missed the bus.
The bike bloc will use bicycles as a tool for civil disobedience
on the day of mass action.
We were on an old, disused candy factory
that was a community art space and a legalised squat.
And there we set up this outdoor workshop,
an indoor one for bike maintenance,
and another separate space for bike welding.
Every evening, we had training.
We started making some of the DDTs, the Double Double Trouble.
We'll cause some double double trouble with them.
This is a double trouble, not a double double trouble.
That worked. And so this is...
The police are here.
We do games, training, at three o'clock.
At three o'clock?
It's not a demo. We go to the park and train in the park.
So...
Are you going to stay and intimidate people or going away?
We just take a look.
Just to announce that the cops just said they were coming to have a look
because they thought that we were stealing bikes.
I said we love bikes and wouldn't steal them.
So they said they weren't going to stand there and intimidate us.
Now, our role on the 16th of December
is to be a bit like the cavalry, OK?
So, always moving, and always taking the police away
from where they're trying to stop the people coming into the Bella Centre.
Because what will be happening
is that people will be coming into the Bella Centre
but also about 500 people will be coming out.
And that's the beauty of the day.
So we're going to play some games to get used to the bikes.
Put your bike up like that. You use your tyre to defend your body...
Ready? Go!
- How does that feel? - Scary.
Scary! And that was your mates.
So, in this one, the thing to do...
The cops are filming us.
We're in Copenhagen.
This is the UN talks,
where carbon trading is one of the only solutions on the table.
- Carbon trading is the table. - It is the table, indeed.
We are in the seat of that. It's not like we're away.
It's not just about capitalism, though that's great.
It's that the UN summit that's taking place in Copenhagen right now
is presenting capitalist solutions to something that shouldn't.
We're just making very quickly
our carbon trader WACT Association posters
which we're going to be taking on the big NGO march today
to illustrate just how important a solution carbon trading is
to put on the table in Copenhagen.
Just subverting what Greenpeace is doing
and flipping the tables around.
What do you want out of it?
Just to look at it. Just open it.
You can check it for weapons if that's what you want.
We just found a lot of explosives. So we're looking around.
- OK, thanks. - No, no, that's cool.
Now then, bankers.
Let's shake off any goodwill of humanity,
starting at your feet.
Three cheers for the police. Hip, hip, hooray!
- Have a nice walk. - And you!
Let's go, then.
- One solution! - Trade pollution!
Is this the first hippy you've stopped today?
- We don't want those hippies! - Are you gonna stop lots more?
He's a hippy. Just take him away, it's fine.
It's just a hippy. We don't want him.
Power!
Power to the privileged!
Because the privileged got the power.
Tell me, can you feel it?
We get richer by the hour.
We are singing for carbon trading.
We want to make some money now.
- Is it funny? - Is it funny?
Yes, it's funny.
We thought about it for a long time and now we find out it's irony. Yes.
One solution is to trade pollution.
200,000 people turned out that day for an entirely peaceful march.
However, late in the afternoon, as temperatures dropped,
the police used their new powers and pre-emptively detained 968 people.
With a week left at the summit,
the police are taking increasing control of the streets
and tensions are rising.
Excuse me, do you have guns?
When do you think you'll need to shoot people?
What law are we breaking? We're not doing anything wrong.
We have a democratic right to protest.
Kettle escaped!
That was so funny when you climbed into the kettle.
But, on returning to base, they find the police are already there.
They're not allowed into their accommodation.
- How come we can't go inside? - Because they are making a police...
With a girl inside, they're talking to her.
Lauren, the film's producer,
is being arrested under anti-terrorism law and tapes are being seized.
She works with me. So, can I please go inside?
No, not at this moment.
But she's only come here because she's my assistant.
So I think I should be allowed to.
She's probably quite scared.
I'm a card-carrying member of the press and you're taking my material.
And that's a really illegal thing to do, as far as I'm concerned.
Thank you very much.
It won't take a long time. Do you want your bags? Or you can leave them here.
You trust these guys?
Can I just give her a hug? Because I'm sure she's very upset.
Now, what the police don't realise is that Emily's hug was just an excuse
for Lauren to palm off some potentially incriminating footage.
Lauren, you haven't done anything wrong.
- Probably not. - No, definitely not.
She hasn't. We know she's not done anything wrong.
We just have to get that confirmed, that's all.
The whole police operation is about...
..showing the force in their organisation,
terrifying us with their force and organisation,
arresting people and putting them in cages.
Even the cages have been designed to look like Guantanamo.
All this stuff is really...
It's a fine art of psychological intimidation.
But we have our orders.
We don't know the reason but we have our orders.
Not all of the outlaws have headed to Copenhagen.
In London, Marina and co have something up their sleeve.
The politicians are going to Copenhagen to cop out.
So we're taking to the streets of London to camp out.
We're going to take a space in the centre of London, pop up our tents.
All over the world, there'll be actions.
Our personal bit is camping out for cop out in London.
What's supposed to be happening is,
four groups coming from four directions
will swoop at three o'clock.
And no-one else is here.
What's your text said?
That's changed.
Jubilee Gardens, outside the Shell HQ.
We should have just gone with f***ing Parliament Square.
Oh, God.
This is my worst nightmare.
Stay where you were.
We're going back to where we came from.
Apparently, this is the diversion.
I've never given up and gone home on an action before,
but I'm getting a little bit tired and a bit confused.
And a little bit longing for a hierarchy.
Tell me what to do! Be my leader!
I'm going to go and sit on a bench.
I would have to look into my crystal ball to tell you.
Nothing is happening.
We have a decoy in Jubilee Gardens and a no-show on the site.
I don't know where the vehicles are, what's happened to the communications.
I don't see what was difficult about them.
And then, like a Christmas miracle, tents pop up in Trafalgar Square.
As fast as can be, the camping elves get everything set up.
Before Marina can get the kettle on, the police arrive and ask for tea.
It's a very hard surface to be sleeping on.
Yes, it is, and I'm hoping we've come prepared.
But it's a pretty forbidding floor.
When did you leave the Isle of Wight?
When they threw me off.
If you're going to set up here...
Trafalgar Square is not running out of tea, and neither is Copenhagen.
I'm worried about them. Those Danish police, they've no manners.
Let's hope they all come back safe and sound.
I wouldn't get plastic cups out in front of those Danish cops.
Never mind the second best China.
It's the day before the mass action against the UN conference.
All hands are on deck.
Have you got papers?
The Danish police has permission to go into places here.
According to the Danish Police Act,
we are to see what's in here and then we will leave again.
If we find anything
that we think can be used to do anything bad in the future,
we will take it with us.
We don't need any papers at all to go in here.
We'd like you to turn off the camera. I got the message from my chief.
- I've showed you my press card. - This is a crime scene.
A crime scene?
I'm a member of the press. I showed you my accreditation.
I'm not turning off the camera.
If you have a press card, you have to wait outside.
No, I don't.
- But it's private property. - That doesn't matter.
The Danish police act gives the permission.
I am aware you have another system in those countries where you are from.
But in Denmark we are actually allowed.
We'd like you to turn off the camera. If you don't get the message...
- Don't touch my camera. - We will take it. It's your decision.
I was here filming a piece. This is a matter of public interest.
I'm not going outside. Please stop pushing me.
I am not being unreasonable.
Just relax.
- Why have you removed me? - Excuse me.
It's so that nobody can see what you're doing.
It's a crime scene. We have to search the place. That's why.
- What is the crime? - So we don't want you to film.
- Tell me. - We will tell you later.
You came in there, you said that you were searching for weapons.
You've not found any.
You will have to turn it off now.
- If you're doing nothing wrong... - Then I'll take it.
Everyone needs to be at the table having a conversation
about what to do to stop climate change.
But that wasn't what was happening at Copenhagen.
The action, 16th of December,
where NGOs and small nations and countries,
all sorts of people from inside the conference...
Delegates were going to come out
and meet the grass-roots movements on the outside
and meet at the fence, meet in the middle,
and have a people's assembly
to find an actual solution to climate change.
And then, on the day of action, we set off quite quickly,
got on our bicycles.
It was snowing and cold.
As we got quite close to the Bella Centre,
all of a sudden, this riot van full of police turned up.
"Right, we're nicking you."
We hadn't done anything,
we were being arrested and detained in jail for the day.
Cuffed us all, on the floor, in a blizzard
for about an hour and a half, whilst they rounded up more people.
"We're taking you to the chicken coup," their temporary prison.
We'd done nothing and we'd be released later.
At that point, we felt the full force of repression from the Danish state,
sanctioned from the world.
We are peaceful. What are you?
Why do you do that?
It felt like martial law. It really did.
It felt like we were in a war zone. And it was...
That element of it was a really horrible experience.
They'd just got every road block armed in this direct confrontation.
In that direct confrontation, there was no winning.
They always have better firepower, stronger numbers.
They're fully armed, just like Robocop.
18 arrested from bike bloc.
Aimee's been bitten by a dog off leash.
Then Paul rings.
- Do they know you have this phone? - No, they don't, no.
- I smuggled it in, in my pants. - Can you see people in other cages?
Yeah, I can see loads of people. There are hundreds of people here.
- Hundreds? - Men and women.
We were trying to go to the People's Assembly. We got lifted on the way.
The inner wall has just been ripped up.
The cages are destroyed. They can't put people in them.
There was this general feeling of, if we demolish our cells,
they can't hold us physically.
It was a matter of getting everyone on each side of the cage
to put their back towards the dividing wall and hold it.
You lift it out of the runner at the bottom
and you can start shaking it from side to side.
It snaps all of these jubilee clips which are holding it at the edge.
You just run in together and they come and blast you all with mace.
So, gradually, throughout the day,
I went from this position of being totally gutted
that I had gone to go and participate in a people's assembly
and been really compliant...
I was angry with myself for being compliant and being searched.
Then I was arrested for no reason.
..to a position where I felt like we were breaking down that process
by asserting our humanity.
Let us all free! Let us all free!
What was quite beautiful about it was, this was a collaboration
between people from all over Europe and all over the world.
The chanting and singing was in every language.
You pick it up as quickly as possible and try and get everyone chanting it.
It was so powerful to hear complete indignation about what was going on,
and we had to unify.
After weeks of wrangling, Obama and his pals cut a back-room deal.
But they couldn't get the rest of the UN to back it,
leaving the process on hold until next year.
The left-wing Latin American countries are denouncing the whole thing.
They are saying that the conference has been a total failure.
They are saying they want a world referendum on what should be done.
They are blaming America specifically and capitalism generally.
I think it's not even... It can't even be called a deal.
It could be called a cop-out.
Technically, our politicians are meant to be on our side but they're not.
So I went to Copenhagen to protest at what was being proposed
by the governments taking part in the summit, which is carbon trading,
and disrupt that conference.
In doing that, hopefully, you hoped that...
..governments would seek another path to solving climate change,
which wouldn't be a capital-based money system.
Everything would be solved
because we told them not to do that and they listened.
- But they didn't listen to you? - They didn't listen. Of course not.
You say, "Of course not".
Some people would say you knew it was futile from the beginning.
Of course it was futile.
But sometimes, even when you know something is futile,
it doesn't mean you shouldn't try, because you've got to have hope.
If you don't try, then you never know if you're going to win or lose.
Because you might surprise yourself sometimes.
Other people might surprise you. And you've got to try.
A lot of us came back disheartened.
I know I certainly...
..interestingly, have shifted my perspective away from climate change,
and realised I need to shout more loudly about capitalism.
I need to shout much more loudly about the system,
rather than what the system's doing.
Copenhagen forced me into that position.
I went there to discuss climate change
and came out discussing capitalism and state control.
It totally radicalised me.
So, thank you, Copenhagen police for pushing me into that corner.
Post-capitalism. It's better than what we've got already.
I'm not sure how to get there, I'm not sure how it's going to work.
But I think we can give it a go.
You're into post-capitalism, aren't you? Give it a go.
Vote Sophie Nathan!
- Have you voted? - Yes.
Good, nice, like it. Are you pleased with your choice?
- No. - I wasn't either.
I think they're trying to trick everybody.
All right, well, you didn't vote for me, I'm guessing?
I'm standing as an independent, Sophie Nathan.
I set up my own party called the Post-Capitalist party
for a life beyond profit and growth.
You never know. Fingers crossed.
Back out near Heathrow,
Lily and the Plane Stupid crew
are about to try something different.
Today, we're starting the first big project of Transition Heathrow.
We've taken a piece of land which was in a state of disrepair.
It's got these beautiful green houses. We'll have a land clearing weekend.
We're going to get our community down
and get people to decide what they want to happen here.
I'm a council tax payer. They're welcome in this village.
The locals have been backing us in this project.
They keep dropping around bags of food
and just dropping in blankets and sleeping bags and everything,
making sure we're warm, joining us at night.
So everybody's really excited about what it could become.
When Climate Camp came and these young people came to support us,
we haven't looked back.
It's the autonomy of a project like this that makes it direct action.
It's disregarding the existing power structures and doing it ourselves.
When my life's over,
I hope that my contribution to it added something positive
rather than took something away.
If you want the future world to be a certain way, or to be different,
then we should start to pre-figure that future world in the here and now,
and be the change we want to see.
We've started something and our hearts are into finishing it.
So we hope we are winning.
If we're not,
we'll take a rain check and we'll be in there doing something.
- We'll be in there doing something. - Will it be legal?
It won't be legal. You can definitely bank on that.
Don't know the meaning of that word.
I want to see a future where people work together
and create things together and have control over their workplaces
and their housing and their lives.
That's really important to me.
I don't want to sell my time to people
to do jobs I don't care about to gain a lifestyle which won't make me happy.
I want to carry on working with people in this way.
Everything's changed for me about the future.
If you were going to sum it up in one word, it's anti-capitalism.
But, for a lot of people, that doesn't mean anything.
I think what we need to understand is the connections.
The system that puts profit over people is the same one driving this.
Revolution!
I can see the end of capitalism
as the only rational solution to solving climate change.
I've tried thinking and reading about all sorts of different things.
Every time it comes back to money and power.
I see capitalism as the epitome of money and power.
It worries the people in power what we're saying.
You've got to ask why.
Because it's not threatening to anyone.
It's asking for a better quality of life for everyone else.
If capitalism wants to stop that,
then capitalism has to go.
The yield of something is limited only by your imagination.
A site like this is giving so much in different ways,
in ways that I didn't think about before we started talking about it,
like being drawn together by principles of growing.
They're rebuilding a community blighted by the threat of the airport.
We're doing a fundraiser for the Grow Heathrow project,
a thank you to everyone who's helped set up this project,
who are currently involved in keeping it all going,
and a way to celebrate how much we've achieved in such a short time.
Because we couldn't have done it alone.
Yeah, I'm the sous chef.
He's in charge, he's head chef. I'm just helping out.
So our tale is coming to a close.
But before we say goodbye, Rowan's got one last story for us.
We had a plan
to shut down Didcot Power Station.
We ended up at four in the morning, a convoy of maybe 20 of us.
Cycled straight past security barriers,
split into two groups.
One group was headed for the coal conveyor belt,
and the other group headed for the chimney.
I was in the chimney team.
Got to the base of the chimney, cut the lock off the gate.
We got inside. We ran up this chimney.
We thought we were being chased.
And it was a spiral staircase, a square spiral staircase going up.
We had no idea of how high we were.
It was pitch black. We only had torches.
You can't see anything. It's just a void below and above.
It was like, "We're screwed." We thought we were halfway up.
And then someone was like, "I can see stars."
And we realised we were at the top. We cheered and it was amazing.
We got out on top
and it was like a flood of endorphins, an unbelievable feeling.
The police begin removing the other crew locked on a conveyor belt.
Give me a feeling about what your intentions are.
- We intend to be here three days. - Three days?
Any particular reason why three days?
Because that's how much food we've got.
By day three, the power station had stopped burning coal.
Their supplies running low, but mission accomplished,
Rowan and crew came back down to face the consequences.
So were you making a point or stopping emissions?
We were doing both.
We were making a point that this shouldn't be continued.
We were trying to make a point to RWE NPower,
who owned Didcot Power Station,
that this isn't a good thing to do
and you shouldn't plan to build new coal firepower stations.
At the same time, we were directly stopping carbon emissions.
I'm not in the way now.
Are you going to stand up for us?
She's not actually in the way. You're quite right.
This is what I'm living to do now, cos it needs to be done.
I hope that doesn't sound nonsense. It's what life is all about.
There is more to life than being judged on your ability to shop,
based on an income and what you've accumulated.
I think we all still agree
that the spirit is still an important aspect of humanity.
And it's to be expressed and lived, and I try to do that.
I can't help doing that.
People think "I can't glue or lock on, I don't want to be arrested."
It doesn't matter. Get involved.
I started off making tea.
Now I'm just like, "Oh, bloody hell, come on, let's sit down here."
If anyone out there is thinking, "I want to do more", just do it.
Doing something is better than nothing?
Absolutely.
Doing nothing about climate change makes climate change worse.
So even doing a little something is better than doing nothing?
And I don't mean "I recycle". I don't mean that.
I mean civilised disobedience.
Do it.
Subtitling: www.ITFC.com