Samba In London City

A small but spirited group of concerned people brought a mini-carnival into the home of capital on 13th October to make clear connections between profit, climate change, floods and fuel protests. A makeshift Rising Tide samba band went through its paces as commemorative blue plaques, such as Londoners see fixed to the homes of famous historical individuals, were fixed to the offices of a selection of companies causing climate chaos as well as attempting to make money out of it through emissions trading and other fabulously dodgy 'mechanisms’.

The leaflets handed out showed the tip of Canary Wharf - one of London’s most distinctive high finance landmarks -redesigned as a shark's fin swimming through floodwaters, and presaged a somewhat long-winded text that managed to take in floods, fuel protests, the uselessness of government & democracy, the monumental misguidedness of green NGO’s; not to mention Big Oil and climate justice. The carnival was headed by a silver banner reading ’A Rising Tide for Climate Justice', unexpectedly blocking the traffic while heading out of Liverpool Street and towards British Petroleum. A blue plaque was applied to BP Finance, Merrill Lynch (analysts to Shell & BP) and Shandwick (PR Company for Shell during the Ogoni ‘crisis’). By now the police 'facilitation' of the 'protest', which ’allowed’ them to process up and down the street, was becoming a bit claustrophobic as the expressionless ones in big boots formed a close cordon. When the Samba band grew tired they ended the event in a local cafe.

Further info:
http://www.climateconference.org
http://www.risingtide.nl
http://squat.net/climate