Partial Minutes from
Occupy London General Assembly
7pm Friday 23rd March 2012
South Bank, near Shell Headquarters

Discussion group feedback: What can we do locally to help disrupt ‘dirty power’?

Group 1:

We looked at 5 main points:

1 – Outreach idea. We’ll be losing green spaces everywhere – we should be encouraging people outside London to defend local green spaces.

2 – Airports and aviations – specifically new Boris airport. Place Stupid and similar groups.

3 – Air quality and emissions actions – big issue in London.

4 – Transport policies. Rickshaw driver action: they are being targetted by police. Bring awareness to their situtaions.

5 – Everything said today, look at ways to make it more accessible – small, bitesized information that’s easier to spread and remember – to get this information out there – everything that we learn here at Occupy. Into schools, online, locally, in papers etc.

Group 2:

How to get corporations to listen to us on environmental issues? Build a mass movement, link issues of environmental devastation with social justice. People making mega profit in fuel business, collapse in renewable market. Fuel poverty and climate awareness.

EDF have got offices near Shell here – wouldn’t it be nice if all this was turned over to art. Shell etc. wasting money on expensive buildings.

Energy companies making massive profits – normal bill payers paying. Monopolist – general public got by ‘short and curlies’ – that’s a technical term. Regulartors have been bought – need to bring awareness. Need to connect with others, and show how issue connected to other issues.

Eradicate ecocide (Ecological raping the planet, casing massive problems) through international law. We need everybody to know this, and to say we don’t want this happening, this has got to stop.

Fashion – instead of wearing Calvin Klein underpants, maybe we should be wearing Occupants. Maybe T shirts with bite-size information on? On our bags, on our bums? Occujeans? 3 Branches on H&M on Oxford St – clothes made by slave labour. We need to use environmentally friendly products and encourage others to use them.

Group 3:

Transition towns: local networks, there’s a big one in Brixton. A way of transitioning beyond peak oil, finding local sustainable food networks and energy systems – solar etc.

Nuclear – some people were for, as would enable us to leave oil in ground, and changing way of life slow. Others were against because of high levels of energy needed to build, most sites on coast so susceptible to climate change, and high risk, and we still don’t know how to dispose of the waste produced.

Our way of living is unsustainable regarding all natural resources – phosphorus, lithium etc. Cuba is a good example – they grow all their food, and are more carbon neutral and healthy. A high meat diet unsustainable, transition to perma-culture and vegetarian diet would be much better.