MONKS OF THE HOLY ORDER OF BAA...

A mass of sinners had converged together near Heathrow Airport. They brought with them their composting toilets of sin, their placards of hatred, and bellowed their blasphamous chants against our most Holy Leader: BAA!

But, as the Holy Order of BAA, it fell upon us to travel down unto this settlement of sinners and blasphemers, and mend their ways. We loyal servants of The Almighty BAA walked into the grounds of the climate camp of evil chanting our sacred chant:

"BAA, BAA,
BAA, BAA,
Growing..."

The camp's attendees were amongst some of the most fallen of all human kind. They openly talked of the subjects our most noble master had banned any human from speaking of: "climate change" and "carbon emissions". Hearing them disobey our master's commands brought tears to our eyes, but we knew we must be strong and carry on if we were the save these poor folk's souls.

They booed us as we marched past, they told us our master was a dangerous and irresponsible fraud. How tragically misguided they were. Despite the hostile attitude we stopped in the camp's centre, and begun our sacred service...

"In the name of BAA, Easy-Jet, and the Holy Government. Amen"

We begun by asking all to kneel with us so that we may confess our sins.

Yet, no matter how loud we chanted our confession not one member of the camp joined us in prayer. Instead they kept blaspheming that BAA was a murderer. They said BAA was causing climate change that would kill millions and millions. We tried to reason with them that as mere mortals we should accept mass destruction of the planet for the greater good. "What greater good?", they demanded to know. "Simple", we replied, "the sacred profits of BAA". BAA demand growth, and so we must obediantly stand aside and let their desired growth continue unhindered by our petty protests to protect our pathetic little planet.

The protestations from the camp goers grew louder and louder, but we were still not defeated in our quest to turn these sinners into the righteous path that BAA orders we take. So we took a deep breath, and burst out in song:

"All things Bright and Beautiful,
All Creatures Great and Small,
All things Wise and Wonderful,
BAA Kills them All".

Yet even our Holy Song failed to win the wrongdoers over. As Monks of the Holy Order of BAA we had failed to convert a single one of the protesters. Their world was surely twisted. They had no leaders. We had tried to offer them our Almightly Leader to put them on the right path, but they just didn't listen. With no leaders how can these people achieve anything? Who will guide them? The camp goers went on to demonstrate that no good can come from a world without leaders: this disobedient bunch shut down BAA headquarters for a day while others went on to cause disruption against holy guardians of fossil fuels such as BP and The Department for Transport. What good could possibly come from stopping the fine work of such noble and sacred institutions as these?

"Go in Peace to Love and Serve BAA", we chanted, "In the Name of Aiports. Amen". And with that we darted away on the next private jet that flew our way.

Selected Media Coverage:

• Spot the monks on Richard and Judy on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dmf5-7fgrE
• Dagbladet, Sweden: http://www.dagbladet.no/tekstarkiv/pdf.utv.php?pa=A&d=2007-08-19&p=17&read=1
• Guardian Podcast: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/08/science_weekly_for_august_20.html
  
• The Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2289177.ece


• Indymedia: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/379216.html


• The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/aug/19/climatechange.travelandtransport?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

ARK BUILDING

With all the Ice Caps melting and precipitation patterns becoming more intense and extreme, it became clear that something needed to be done to save us from Climate Change.

"How about stopping burning fossil fuels!" some naive young child said to us, to which we responding with much chuckling at her simple mind.

"It's really not that simple", we explained, "Our entire economy is based on fossil and fuels and has been for over two hundred years. We can't change that now. While fossil fuels may not make us all rich, they make some people very rich indeed and it simply wouldn't be fair to take away their enormous amounts of wealth over something so petty".

"But then what is the solution?", the child continued, "because surely if the fossil fuels carry on being burnt then we'll be flooded for good. Surely whole countries will disappear while people in our own country will continue to see their homes destroyed".

"Aha", we chortled at the child's quaint and dippy approach to the issue. "We have a solution. Rather than stopping burning all the fossil fuels, at massive inconvenience to economic growth, we're going to do something far more convenient!"

"But..." cried to the child.

"No buts", we said, "you must listen to our idea. This idea is the only realistic idea that can save us from Climate Change in a sensible and mature way. We are adults, after all."

"What is the idea?" the girl enquired, finally acknowledging our authority on this issue.

"Simple. We need to build an ark that can hold 7 billion people and then the floods will no longer be an issue."

"But they're expanding airports and burning coal and oil at ever increasing rates, making the sea levels rise drastically quickly. Surely you'll never build an ark on time".

"We need to take risks. We've taken so many in the past, why stop now?"

So we pushed the girl to one side, collected some wood from a skip, and set to work constructing our ark for 7 billion people. We aimed to have it finished by tea time."

Many 'experts' have long maintained that we don't need to make any major changes to our way of life in order to tackle climate change, and that technology would save us. We were going to prove this in the best possible way. We had found a technological solution, which required little more than our GCSE woodwork skills, that was so great it meant we could save ourselves from disaster while not even needing to tackle climate change at all.

We were going to need help though, which is why once we'd gathered our wood we headed straight for Cornmarket Street in Oxford to persuade shoppers and tourists to aid our crusade. They were going to need some persuading, sure, but once they saw how great our idea was they'd surely jump on board.



We started well, but soon support for our ark was not as great as we had planned. Some people simply seemed to doubt our ability to build an ark for seven billion people by tea time. Fortunately, some wiser folk such as gay rights campaign Peter Tatchell saw the good work we were doing and joined us. Yet others merely said unsupportive things such as "you can't use cardboard to build an ark" and "that will never fit seven billion people in". Pessimists!

So on we went building our ark, our vision for the future. But no one would help us. People called us fools as we begged them to gather some wood from the forests, and they seemed offended when we offered them tools to join in. Even an Officer of the Law, who are there to protect us surely, refused to assist when we presented him with a hammer. Instead he merely threatened to arrest us if we didn't move our ark out of the way. It was like our amazing technological fix was not being taken seriously.

We became increasingly depressed as it was fast approaching tea time and our ark would barely fit two people in, let alone float. Some 'climate activists' came up and taunted us, shouting "Rock the Boat!" as they swayed our poor ark from side to side with little respect for its life saving potential. "Don't rock the boat!" we yelled back, "it's bad for economic growth!"

It became tea time. We were tired and in need of food. Our ark was not going to save us after all. We carried the remains of the ark to the skip, shedding a tear as we chucked it in.

The ultimate quick fix solution had failed, which made us wonder whether any quick fix solution could ever work. Biofuels, Clean Coal, Carbon Offsetting, Nuclear Power. All these things sound so tempting, because they offer to put the problem right with a click of the fingers causing minimum inconvenience. Just like our ark was meant to do.

We hated to admit it, but maybe a little inconvenience is just what the world needs. "I'd rather have inconvenience that mass destruction any day" said one of our former ark builders. Plus, everyone in Cornmarket had looked so stressed and unhappy all day. The 'convenience culture' didn't seem to be so convenient. Maybe change would not be so much of a bad thing.

"But everyone seems so set on these damn quick fix solutions!" I cried to the others, "no one will help us bring about the radical change we now realise we need."

"Wrong!", came a voice from the top of Carfax Tower. We looked up and saw a banner unfurled: "NO MORE BULL" it read. We were not alone in our discovery that real change was needed fast. Something big was gaining pace, and that something has a website: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/ .

Media Reports:

• www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/3471
• http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/07/377181.html?c=on#c178109

"CLEAN COAL" TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION

On Wednesday the 25th July we hit the crowded streets of Cornmarket, bustling with shoppers, tourists and locals carrying our bucket of coal and scrubbing brushes. We were Jack and Jill from the coal industry.

Smiling, young and beautiful we became the shiny new faces of the coal industry. Coal has largely caused the global catastrophe of Climate Change. It is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, producing far greater carbon per unit of energy than oil or gas. With such a burden of guilt upon its back its not suprising that the coal industry spent years denying the existence of man-made climate change. However, with the recent floods across the UK that have caused mass devastation to so many people, the coal industry realised it simply couldn't deny what was staring it starkly in the face. Houses have been flooded, businesses and livelihoods destroyed, and many have become deprived of essential resources such as fresh water. All these dramatic effects have taken place in one of the planet's most temperate zones, which begs the question 'just what could happen in places who have long suffered extreme weather conditions?' Predictions are that there will become millions of climate refugees, many places will became far less stable as wars erupt over the reduced resources, and extreme weather will cause a massive spread of infectious diseases in areas where there is no functioning health systems in place.

The logic would surely then be that to avoid climate change getting even worse, and to prevent runaway climate change (where we affect the climate so much that it spirals out of our control completely) we should stop burning fossil fuels such as coal and move towards other methods of energy generation such as renewable energy, while also radically cutting our energy consumption. But the new shiny coal industry with our best interests at heart, has declared that we don't need to do anything so rash. They've told us we can carry on burning coal as normal and living our lives as normal while at the same time tackling climate change.

'But how?' you may ask. Surely coal is dirty, filthy, and we can't claim ignorance like we could before.

'No', reply the coal industry. 'Coal does not have to be dirty. Coal can be 'Clean'. We've invented "Clean Coal"'.

"Clean Coal? How on earth can the dirtiest fossil fuel ever be clean?"

It is here that the coal industry haven't actually got an answer. But they are investing in technologies, while they continue to burn normal coal, that hope to one day achieve "Clean Coal" in our power stations. Until then they ask us to bear with them and remain loyal customers.

"But surely Climate Change needs to be tackled right now? Surely we haven't got time to wait for new technologies that might not even work to emerge?"

Jack and Jill listening to this problem and they realised that this was right: climate change did need to be tackled right away. So if coal had to be clean it had to be clean straight away. So they set to work in Cornmarket Street scrubbing coal with soap and water hoping to spread the word that coal could be clean.

The trouble was that no matter how hard they scrubbed at the coal it remained just as dirty. Also, as they desperately scrubbed they got themselves more and more filthy -hardly in keeping with the coal industry's new "clean" image.

Members of the public asked them how scrubbing the coal would actually take away the carbon from the coal, and poor Jack and Jill didn't actually have an answer to this. But in their defence no one else from the coal industry has come up with a better idea as to how to "Clean" coal. Some members of the public suggested maybe coal will never be "clean" and the only way to genuinely tackle climate change is to move away from coal entirely. Poor Jack and Jill. They're never going to get those lucrative promotions they seek in the industry if they are giving such a negative impression about the coal industry to the public. They didn't mean to get so filthy. They'd no idea coal was quite so dirty -the coal industry 'experts' told them it was clean!

Desperately worried about their careers, Jack and Jill resorted to booming "Come of Guys! Coal is as Clean as we are!" The only problem was, they'd forgotten they were actually completely coated in disgusting black coal stains. People just laughed at them.

At the end of the day, Jack and Jill became demoralised. They'd seen homes flooded across the UK and really wanted to do their bit for Climate Change. They were desperate to find a solution that would actually work, and the coal industry gave them that solution. "Clean Coal" seemed so perfect to them. It meant people could continue living just the way they do without any major changes being made, while at the same time solving the dilemma of climate change.

Yet at the end of the day when they were sick of being pointed at; laughed at; covered in coal and feeling a mess; refused entry even to a greasy spoon cafe for looking so disgusting, Jack and Jill questioned whether they hadn't just wasted precious time by listening to the coal industry. Time that should have been spent seeking the real genuine solutions that already exist. Solutions such as renewable energy, public transport, reducing consumption... Jack and Jill soon realised there were so many real solutions out there they didn't need to waste time with coal any longer.

They felt kind of bad for the coal industry though, because if coal really does have no future in a low carbon society, then nor does it's industry.

MEDIA REPORTS OF THE EVENT:

• http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/07/377021.html