I got sent a link to this Be That Change blog - a good and thoughtful post on the perpetual debate about the future direction of climate movement. Here is my response.

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In the end change will be pushed by some and resisted by others.

Gandhi said "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." There was a time I thought we were moving into the 'fighting' stage but maybe it is not a straight line process and perhaps we've actually gone back to being ignored.

But back to the point that not everyone will want to join the 'big tent'. Do we even want to share a tent with some of these cynical apologists? Before the change that's needed occurs there will be a fight - hopefully not a violent one but such events can't be predicted. Would you oppose an African uprising against foreign owned land banks when the going gets tough?

We need to be prepared to 'fight' and by that I mean we need to become really inconvenient. They mustn't be able to ignore us. Yes we want to build the movement as large as possible but i think that point has probably been reached in the timeframe that we have. You build the movement and then you mobilise the movement (which is what 10/10/10 was about - only it got ignored). People's actions need to be confronted and challenged and they must be forced to justify them. They won't like it one bit but I think it is the way forward from here.

In April I was involved in a protest that involved stopping a coal train. This was largely ignored by the media too but I have mixed feelings about the results. In some senses this was the kind of small localised action causing inconvenience I think we could see much more of. In other senses though the resultant court case and the question that 'did stopping one day's work really make much difference?' meant that on balance i'm not certain it was so worthwhile. But things were learnt and I'm glad it happened.

Environmentalist are hippies and don't like anger but getting angry is OK as long as it is coherent and strategically directed.

I might come across here as a real extremist. I guess I am. I don't mean to be. The reason I found the ill judged 10:10 film to be amusing is that it represented the complete contradiction that exists for me between taking effective action and allowing for personal liberty. The reason it was ill judged is that it was too much of an in joke for people with a pretty dark sense of humour. But on liberty I think that Liberalism needs to recognise that allowing liberty to cause environmental damage does not fit with allowing liberty to live on a safe planet.

The 'final solution'? short of the 10:10 film's means I think must be carbon rationing on an individual/family/household level. It is the only fair way to distribute our 'right' to pollute the planet and the only way to bring it under control. Enough people won't voluntarily give up the good life they have just to see other people continue and the end result stay the same. If rationing is our goal how do we get to that point? I don't know. Because it would be unpopular, democracy seems incapable of achieving this.

On a different note can I pass to you a couple of ideas I've had for campaigns? They are pretty 'fluffy' and so don't have to alienate our opponents as i seem to've been half advocating in this post. Do with them what you will - let me know what you think. If you like them, can I help?

In relation to carbon rationing: during the civil rights movement there were well known protests with placards reading 'I am a man' - I think imitating these but replacing it with 'I am 1 man - ration me' could be a powerful message that links in well with other historical parodies like plane stupid's Suffra-jets and highlights the issue of equality within this movement.

The other idea I had is that in April 2011 we have the census and perhaps a movement to write 'SOS' in the religion section could be built.

I live in Bristol btw
Best wishes