Climate Camp's Big Day of Action.

Since its official start on August 20th activists from the UK Climate Camp have been undertaking actions to highlight the problem of Climate Change and the Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) role in contributing to it.

In order to introduce themselves on the first day of the camp 150 protesters marched on the buildings at the heart of the RBS HQ. They sang, they danced, they waved banners and they invited all the RBS employees to lunch at the camp although that offer was declined. One female protester decided to superglue herself to the front reception desk and was arrested for her trouble. The other 149 protesters returned to the camp and along with around another 500 campers spent the evening being entertained by live music and stand up comedy while planning and preparing for the next four days of the camp.

The second day of the camp, Saturday 21st, was always going to be quiet protest wise as campers spent their time putting the finishing touches to the camp and getting to know other campers from around the country. The main planned event of the day was a sort of field trip to the Midlothian village of Cousland which is threatend by the construction of yet another open cast mine at nearby Airfield farm. At Cousland campers met with the local residents who are opposed to the mines construction and showed solidarity by marching with them to the proposed site of the mine. The slightly Communist nature of the protest meant that sadly only around 50 campers made the trip to Cousland. The rest stayed on site to chat, practice and attend meeting and listen to speeches including one by two indigenous representatives of Canada's First Nations who face losing their homeland to the RBS funded Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline in British Columbia and the equally RBS funded Alberta Tar Sands stupidity. After these meetings around 200 campers decided to do something about it there and then by once again marching on the buildings of the RBS HQ. During this incursion some windows were smashed. Exact details are a bit hard to come by at the moment but this seems to be the rather stupid action of a small number of protesters with hammers rather then being representative of the marchers let alone the Climate Camp as a whole.

On the Sunday, August 22nd, the activity inclined climate campers took to the streets of Edinburgh to raise awareness of Climate Change and RBS's role in funding it. The highlight of the day was a flashmob style song and dance troupe that preformed a specially choreographed version of Lady Gaga's Poker Face outside the St Andrews Square branch of RBS. After that branch had been successfully closed for the day these dirty oil singers hijacked an RBS sponsored Fringe Festival stage and preformed again and again. Other branches of RBS across Edinburgh were closed for the day with a variety of superglue and stink bombs. The main part of Sunday's action was the tried, tested and often tedious method of simply handing out flyers and talking to passers-by to let them know about RBS and the vast sums of money it gives to environmentally destructive industries. Anyone who would stop and listen were no doubt also told about RBS' extensive "greenwashing." This is where a business attempts to clean it's reputation by claiming to support environmental projects such as Biofuels in the case of RBS. In reality the company rarely gives any real support to these projects and the projects themselves are often more environmentally damaging then the problem the claiming to solve.

Today, Monday 23rd of August, was billed as the camps big day of direct action and the campers didn't waste anytime getting started. Shortly after dawn seven protesters blocked the road entrance to the RBS HQ by supergluing themselves to the car park entrance. At around the same time another seven activists took to the roof of the offices of Forth Energy in Leith to raise awareness of the company's proposed building of four biomass generators in Scotland. This is a perfect example of RBS's greenwashing. it is claimed that these biomass generators will be a carbon neutral, renewable energy source because it only burns wood which only releases the greenhouse gases that it has absorbed when growing. What Forth Energy (and the UK government who subsidies the project with around £300m) fail to mention is that some 95% of this wood will have to be imported from South America generating huge carbon emissions as it's cut down and shipped across the Atlantic. They're also not keen to have it known that once these trees have been cut down they won't be replaced with more trees. Instead they'll be replaced by farms growing eucalyptus plants significantly changing the landscape and further destroying one of the World's largest carbon sinks.

At around 11:00 another group of protesters delivered a sort Trojan Pig to the headquarters of Cairn Energy, an oil exploration company. After this "gift" had been accepted the two metre long pig dumped it's cargo, a black oil like substance, all over the floor of the offices reception and steps. The technically minded protesters then used converted fire extinguishers to spray more of this "oil" onto the walls of the building. This was done to highlight that, with RBS funding, Cairn Energy intend to start drilling for oil in the sea off the coast of Greenland. Apart from the dangers of off-shore drilling that should now be obvious to everyone environmentalists are especially angry about this project because the only reason oil drilling is now possible in the area is because the burning of oil has melted the sea ice.

Throughout the day branches of RBS were picketed across Edinburgh and banners were dropped over the A8 road and in the North Bridge area. Three protesters also managed to shut down the Nicolson Street branch of RBS by supergluing themselves to the entrance. They were soon removed and arrested but quickly replaced by five more protesters who had much better luck with chains and padlocks.

The main event of the the day was a mass march on the RBS HQ in an attempt the shut it down by laying siege to it. They were helped by a six metre high replica of a medieval siege machine complete with catapult that the campers had built. Although successful the police did not see the funny side of this. So when an unconnected truck accidentally spilt some diesel on a dual carriageway they immediately issued a statement claiming it was a deliberate attempt by Climate Campers to endanger innocent motorists. The annoying thing about that is that as lies the police tell about Climate Camp go that isn't even one of the more entertaining ones.

The current arrest total for the week is 14 with 13 of those coming today. The campers are currently enjoying their last night on site before the hard work of returning the site to nature begins tomorrow.