I am bathed in the warm glow of the righteous, for not only did I march with them, but I marched in the rain. Once you've made the decision, a little bit of meteorological adversity boosts everyone's sense of camaraderie. Apart, that is, from my fair-weather 'friend' Richard, who buggered off to the pub about ten minutes in, and is therefore the worst sort of part-timer and highly deserving of public contempt and derision. I try to do my bit.

So, apart from Richard the faithless, we were all there to send a message to Bali, where our glorious leaders are trying to save us all from climate Armageddon without imperilling the ability of large companies to make more money. Fortunately, climate change was recently reclassified from environmental disaster to business opportunity. Phew.

A banner flies over the camp, alongside a plane © Kristian Buus

I got the train from Paddington to Hays and Harlington Station on Wednesday, and then the 140 bus to the corner of Harlington High Street and Sipson Lane. A nice fellow I met on the bus showed me some of the alternative entrances I could use if the main entrance is blocked, and then we strolled down Sipson Lane to the main entrance.

I’d been super-cautious, and left my wallet and anything else I didn’t want to be seized as evidence at home. I wasn’t planning to do anything which would require evidence to be seized, but what with our heightened state of something-or-other, I thought it was best not to take any chances. I was gutted when no-one searched me.

Part of the Climate Clinic blog

So, having lambasted the leader of the opposition for being all talk, perhaps in fairness I should talk a bit more about what he talked about. It's mostly good stuff. Blair may have said that climate change is our biggest threat and challenge, but he clearly hasn't put it at the top of his to-do list (although as Bush seems to have editorial control that's not really surprising). Cameron stands in marked contrast for having given the issue as much time as Tony's apocalyptic pronouncements imply that it deserves, so firstly that should be acknowleged - every time Cameron has spoken about the climate, he was sacrificing the opportunity to talk about law and order or some other issue which might have given him a political benefit. Talk may be cheap, but it isn't free.

Part of the Climate Clinic blog

The Hadley Centre, part of the Met Office, has just released some research, today, in the Climate Clinic, at the Tory conference. The main headline finding is that drought is set to double this century due to climate change. A spoil-sport serious newspaper would also mention that this figure refers to 'moderate' drought. Moderate drought can still be pretty dangerous if you don't have much in the way of resources to fall back on. Generally the agriculture in a particular area is suited to that area's climate. If you have an agricultural system which requires a lot of rainfall, such as paddy fields, then even a drought which doesn't look like a drought to the average observer could ruin your harvest and lead to a famine.

Part of the Climate Clinic blog



BAA spin doctors (seated) look shifty when probed about how more runways mean less aviation emissions ...

I was so excited by my discovery of environmentally aware conservatism that I may have missed out some of the detail. The bloke from BAA wants inreased capacity (bigger airports) whilst dealing with emissions via efficiency gains and the European Emissions Trading Scheme - ie air travel will continue more or less unchecked, but the aviation industry would have to buy carbon credits from industries which had managed to cut back. I'm not aware of anyone outside the industry who thinks that this might work unassisted - certainly Gummer was quite clear that it wouldn't, and my understanding is that were we to follow this track every scrap of industry or society outside of aviation would have to get down to zero emissions by 2030.

Part of the Greenpeace Motor Show blog