Weekly Worker 628 Thursday June 8 2006 Subscribe to the Weekly Worker

Changing solutions

Tony Stevens says broadness for its own sake will achieve nothing, as the June 3 Campaign against Climate Change conference showed

Summer Offensive 2006 No nonsense I have excellent news to report in this, the first of my weekly columns detailing the progress of this year’s Summer Offensive, the Communist Party’s annual fundraising drive. In the first seven days of the campaign, we have already received just under £3,210 towards our £30k minimum, with a number of comrades taking large chunks out of their individual targets. In particular, thanks go out to comrade PK, who has stumped up £700 - courtesy of a nicely timed rebate from the taxman. In addition, comrades MJ and MM have produced a sturdy £200 and £140 respectively, comrade AM has pushed her standing order contributions to the party up to £300 a month for the duration, comrade AD has given us £100 and PM £200, a no-nonsense start to his push for £1,000 by the end of July. The same comrade writes: “Last year I set myself a modest target initially - I was tight for cash and thought I would be stretched for both time and money. But I had a few good badge sales (the Make Poverty History event in Edinburgh and the SWP’s Marxism proved productive) and I also organised some extra classes where I teach. In the end I notched up just over £1,000. So this year I have decided to be more ambitious and set my target at £1k from the off. Again I am teaching once a week right through July and will use all the extra income for the SO.” (read full article) Click here to download a standing order form - regular income is particular important in order to plan ahead. Even £5/month can help! Send cheques, payable to Weekly Worker, BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX Donate online:

Called as part of the preparation for the November 4 global climate change demonstrations, the aim was to reach out to a wider audience than previously. And indeed some 400 people attended.

The conference was split into two sessions consisting of eight workshops each. In the morning I attended the workshop entitled ‘Building a global campaign’, with Phil Thornhill (Campaign against Climate Change and Friends of the Earth) and Jonathan Neale (also CACC and Socialist Workers Party).

Phil Thornhill said that, while we can all do a lot individually, the goal is to bring down the global total of greenhouse emissions. One country cannot address the issue on its own because using energy has a worldwide impact. “We” have to do this by cooperating on a global scale otherwise we are “all doomed”, he said. So those who do not sign up to the Kyoto protocol are against us and if nothing was done there would be an uprising in places such as Bangladesh and other affected countries. “They will never forgive us.”

Jonathan Neale said that he became drawn to the CACC after listening to Thornhill at the London European Social Forum in 2004, and since then he has been involved in mobilising for the annual demonstrations - in fact you could say he is the SWP’s climate change face. He said the CACC was not going to be like the Tolpuddle Martyrs, forced to work secretly, separate from the mass movement. In negotiations with activists from other countries, he was aiming to get as many people and groups to agree on one thing in particular: a reduction in carbon emissions. How such a reduction could be achieved was a different question, although personally he was against nuclear power.

Phil Thornhill was called upon again to replace an absent speaker in the afternoon workshop, ‘Is there a corporate enemy and if so who?’ As with the previous workshop, there was a total absence of class in the speeches and debate that followed.

Graham Thompson, formerly of Stop Esso, gave a long, rambling speech on corporate enemies Ford, Exxon and Ryanair. He said these are the companies that “mess with the political process” because they lobby parliament, try to influence policy-makers and fund pseudo-think tanks such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute that deny the science of climate change. The flights put on by Ryanair are unnecessary, he said, and our job is to target these sorts of companies.

In the afternoon there was a plenary session which featured former environment spokespersons for Labour and the Liberal Democrats respectively, Michael Meacher and Norman Baker, along with Caroline Lucas, Green Party MEP, and Mark Lynas, author and journalist. The audience were regaled with words of doom and gloom: ice caps melting, biodiversity loss, reversal of the Gulf-Stream ... The answer was that there are solutions out there, such as solar panels, wave and wind power.

What about the underlying problem - the system of capital itself? The overwhelming message from this conference was that a stable, environment-friendly capitalism could be achieved.

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