We need money to organize this camp and to get hold of vegetarian food, off-grid electricity etc. Therefore you need to make a contribution. This fee includes food, access to camp-infrastructure and all events. If you have difficulties paying the money, we can give you a reduction. Lack of money should not be a reason for you to stay at home, but neither should lack of money be a reason for the camp to fail!

To be able to plan the camp properly, we ask you to register until July 31, 2010. Then you will get a bill which you’ll have to pay until the beginning of the camp.

Children and young people who are younger than 16 have to be accompanied by their parents. If that’s not the case they cannot take part in the camp unless they are with a person of age and  have sent us a letter in which their parents take full responsibility for them.
16-18-year olds need a letter in which their parents declare to take responsibility for them, and an identification (passport or driver’s licence).
When you register, we will sent you a formal letter that your parents can sign. Your registration will be valid from the moment we receive this letter.

Bearing in mind our relations with the neighbours in the village, as well as our relations on the camp, we need to agree to some rules in the beginning of the camp. Campers who offend against these rules can be excluded from the camp without getting their money back.

“System change – not climate change”

Copenhagen, December 2009: The climate summit COP 15 is taking place and causes frustration and disappointment for everybody. At the same time, a few kilometres away from Bella-Centre, a different meeting is happening – the Peoples’ Summit. Thousands of people from all over the world met on this Klimaforum, for 12 days they listened to each other, gave lectures, built up networks, planned mutual actions. In contrast to COP 15, they came to a result. The solutions for climate change are ready. They were worded in a declaration that was signed by 295 organizations from all continents (number from Dec. ‘09).
The core message of this declaration is that you cannot leave the solutions for climate change to the system that has caused it: System change – not climate change. Brokering for numbers or years remains a farce as long as the root causes of the problems are not tackled.

Carbon trading leads to moving around emissions instead of reducing them. Instead of getting strong limits for their CO₂ emissions, big polluters can cut their emissions cheaply in developing countries. The structures of inequality remain untouched. The global players who have so far earned their money by exploiting human beings and natural resources, now promote ‘climate friendly’ business that follows the same recipe. The examples for misery caused by an alleged “sustainability” are endless: rain forests are cut down to grow plant for agrofuels, people are evicted from their lands in order to build ‘clean’ coal power stations or wind power stations.
Those examples follow the same pattern: economic growth is planned without paying attention to the needs of the affected people or eco-systems; decisions are made by people already in power, profit is made by those already rich. This will go on happening if we do not change the political system that favours inequality. Climate Change is not only an environmental problem, it is a social challenge.

For this reason, the declaration of Copenhagen demands, e.g.:

- Phasing out fossil fuels in the next 30 years
- An immediate global ban on deforestation of primary forests
- Recognition and the climate debt that the North owes to countries of the Global South, payment of reparations for the damage done in countries affected by climate change.
- Democratic ownership and control of economy

The message of Copenhagen is not frustration but awakening.
The solutions exist. It’s our job to make them happen.

The global movement that we need already exists. In Copenhagen, hundreds of organizations knitted their networks. Hundreds of people got into touch with them.

We are becoming more and more.

Are you with us?

For the complete declaration see the homepage of the Klimaforum.

Seven truisms you can erase from your world view:

Below you can read why exactly our climate camp focuses on soft coal. We listed and contradicted the following seven widely-held beliefs:

1. We can use soft coal and tackle climate change at the same time.

2. There are new, ‘clean’ coal power plants.

3. CCS is a technology that is going to reduce CO₂ emissions.

4. Soft coal is a cheap source of energy.

5. Dispossession is something that only communists do.

6. There are no alternatives.

7. We cannot change anything anyways.

1. We can use soft coal and tackle climate change at the same time.

Soft coal is a top climate culprit. Every burned ton of soft coal blo

ws one ton of the greenhouse gas CO₂ into the atmosphere. Even other fossil fuels such as hard coal and gas have a better efficiency. The coal that is exploited in the open-cast coal mine Garzweiler II is responsible for 40 millions tons of CO₂ per year. That’s about 5 % of the all-German greenhouse gas emissions. And it’s as much as the total yearly emissions of Finland.

2. There are new, ‘clean’ coal power plants.

Coal power stations are climate culprits and they will stay climate culprits. They emit 1 kg of CO₂ for every kwh of power they generate – that’s nearly twice as much a gas power station. RWE promises to reduce their CO₂ emissions by building new efficient power plants. However, even if these power stations can produce more power per kilo of coal: there will still come the same ton of CO₂ out of the furnace. The only way to reduce emissions is: exploit less coal, burn less coal. The opposite is happening. The new coal plants have a much bigger capacity than the old ones. In absolute numbers, the CO₂ emissions are not going to decrease.

3. CCS is a technology that is going to reduce CO₂ emissions.

The idea of the CCS-technology (Carbon Capture and Storage) is to separate CO₂ in the waste air. It’s then pressed into the stratum under the earth’s surface. However, this technology cannot be put into practice on a large scale yet. CCS requires so much energy, that it would actually lead to a higher consumption of fossil fuels. This would make the efficiency of coal even lower. Moreover, nobody knows yet which risks are involved in pressing CO₂ under the earth’s surface.

4. Soft coal is a cheap source of energy.

It is a widely-held belief that the coal sector doesn’t require subsidies. However, according to a study that was conducted on behalf of the Federal Office for Environment (Umweltbundesamt), the state does support the coal sector massively, in an indirect way: by tax exemptions, the possibility to cheaply use public resources (e.g. water) or by financing the necessary infrastructure. These benefits for the coal sector amount to ca. 960 millions Euros per year. This sum does not take into account the external costs: i.e. the costs that arise from negative impacts on health and environment, and which society has to pay. The damage of burning coal is estimated to amount to ca. 3.5 thousand million euros a year.

Every private household has to pay a fee for being allowed to put out their garbage on the street. Strangely enough it is tax free to blow greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. If those responsible for the emission of CO₂ finally had to pay for the costs that arise because of climate change, soft coal would not make the competition on the free market any more.

5. Dispossession is something only communists do.

According to article 14 of the German Constitution, dispossession for the common welfare is legal. Because of this law, in the last 50 years more than 30.000 people lost their homes due to the exploitation of coal. For Garzweiler II, 7.600 people in eleven villages were expropriated. They were recompensated for it – but can you pay for the loss of roots, memories and the achievements of your life time?

In this context, the ‘common welfare’ means:

- Villages, some of which have a 1000-year-old history, are ‘displaced.’

- Old forests and protected eco-systems are destroyed and inadequately replaced by young saplings somewhere else.

- Exploitation of soft coal makes the level of ground water sink. Important water reservoirs are damaged irreversibly.

- Society is faced with a damage to natural resources that costs millions and millions.

- On top of all that, there are no or hardly no taxes on the profits made by coal companies.

6. There are not alternatives.

Do you really think, a civilization that can fly to the moon wouldn’t be able to organize an energy supply from alternative sources? The technologies for the post-fossil age are ready. However, the political is lacking to implement them consistently.

7. We cannot change anything anyways.

Numerous grass-root initiatives and non-governmental organizations protested against the plan to build a new coal power station in Berlin-Lichtenberg: they were successful. In January 2009, the energy company Vattenfall gave up this project. In October last year, E.ON postponed for an undefined time the plan to build a new coal plant in Kingsnorth, Great Britain. Here, too, there had been a huge campaign against the project. In Mainshill Woods, Scotland, groups of climate activists, local residents and groups from the Global South occupy an area, were large amounts of coal are to be exploited.

What is going to happen in Garzweiler?
Sources:

Der globale Countdown. Finanzcrash, Wirtschaftskollaps, Klimawandel. Harald Schumann/Christiane Grefe. Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Köln 2008; S. 237-263

www. bund-nrw.de/themen_und_projekte/braunkohle

www.greenpeace.de/themen/energie/fossile_energien/artikel/braunkohle_gift_fürs_klima

www.umweltbundesamt. de/uba-info-presse/2004/pd04-095

Friends of the Earth’s Orchard Protest Camp 2008

In January 2008, FoE and Young FoE activists set up a protest camp against the open-cast coal mine “Garzweiler II”. For ten freezingly cold days they offered successful resistance to this project of environmental madness. The activists camped in an orchard owned by FoE that was supposed to be baggered away by RWE, although now legal dispossession had taken place. Despite the frost, about a dozen activists occupied the field day and night until it was cleared by a full-force contingent of police.

The local population supported the activists with hot meals and drinks, and touching loyality.

At times the orchard abounded with up to 100 people. Moreover, the camp attracted a lot of attention by media and a large public. Not only German tabloids reported about the forced eviction of the activists!

You find more information about the Garzweiler Camp 2008 on BUND-NRW-Homepage!