I’m sure we’ve all heard about the climate camps taking place across the UK in recent years, in such exotic locations as Heathrow Airport and Kingsnorth Power Station, to highlight the causes of climate change.
Well, last Wednesday (27 October), a new kind of climate camp was set up at the foot of the Millennium Bridge, in central London. The intention on this occasion was not to highlight the causes of climate change, but its affects: millions of displaced people.
A German campaigner called Herman Josef Hack has been very busy making hundreds of miniature refugee tents, in order to create a vision of what this future may look like. Similar camps were simultaneously staged in Brussels, Berlin, Dublin and Madrid to coincide with the EU climate talks taking place last week.
Already, Oxfam estimates that 26 million people have been displaced as a direct result of climate stresses and each year a million more are displaced by weather-related events. Homes are being washed away, crops are being devastated through torrential rain - or drought - and putting health and lives at risk.
Wednesday’s camp certainly generated a lot of interest from passers-by, who were understandably curious at what the tents were all about. On being asked if he wouldn’t mind sparing some time to save the world, one smartly-dressed gentleman remarked: “I’ve already done that!” Unfortunately, he hasn’t, and that’s why we continue to highlight the massive climate protest march taking place on Saturday December 5 in London.
‘The Wave’ is expected to be the biggest-ever such march and will demand action from world leaders when they meet for the UN climate talks in Copenhagen. So we’d love to see you all there!
For more pictures of the Climate Migrant Camp, check out our Flickr site.
Tags: climate camp, climate change, climate migrant camp, Copenhagen, herman josef hack, millennium bridge, The Wave
