London Climate Camp begins this wednesday

An undisclosed site near London will host the Climate Camp this week when thousands of green activists receive a text messages alerting them to the secret location of what is likely to be this year's largest environmental demonstration. The Climate Camp starts at noon on Wednesday (26^th August) when activists will leave 10 gathering points around the capital and head for the site, whose location has so far been kept secret although the Metropolitan Police are expected to send officers to each of the meeting points. Senior officers have held five meetings with protesters to prepare for the event, saying they intend to use "community-style" policing to avoid a repetition of their controversial handling of protests during the G20 summit and the rather heavy handed and somewhat embarrassing activities of the Kent Police at the Kingsnorth coal fired power station demonstrations - although activists now seem concerned that the controversy over the policing of protests is detracting from the central issue of trying to avert climate change. It is hoped a number of Native Americans from the Cree nation will join the protest to highlight the part British funded extraction of oil from tar sands, a highly polluting practice that extensively uses water and power to extract oil – releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as part of the process. BP, Shell and part publicly owned Royal Bank of Scotland are all named as participants for their ‘criminal’ activities in extracting oil from the tar sands of Canada and the resulting environmental damage (See the Guardian 24th August 2009).