Climate Change Ride
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A lone trip for the Campaign Against Climate Change.

As I left it a bit late in publising this ride I found I was the only one waiting to start at the Town Hall, but it was a really nice day without a cloud in the sky so decided to go for it. I took my commuting route along the Uxbridge road but in a fairly leasurely way, I was suprised how relaxing it was as I didn't have to rush past everything to get to work.

The nicest bit was going through the Hyde park as the sun burnt off the late morning mist. The climate change crowds were all well behaved and there were lots of iCount marshalls and police everywhere. I did not see the main group of cyclists however I spoke to to a couple who were in that group said it was very big. On speaking further I found neither were LCC members so leafleted them and moved on. A lot of the iCount banners were all premade and laid out for people to pick up, however the more interesting ones were those that people had made themselves - see pic of man being interviewed by press. There was quite a lot of press rushing around with cameras and note pads capturing what was going on near the stage. I only heard a little of the speakers and was not that impressed with them, however the numbers of ordinary people gathered was quite impressive in itself. On the way home I saw a pack of at least 12 police on bikes in the Mall tootling along on their flash bikes.

Background:

More than 25,000 people packed Trafalgar Square and closed surrounding roads to make their voices count, each one calling for urgent action on climate change. Climate Change is not 'just another' environmental problem. We have only been significantly aware of it for the last twenty or so years...in that time it has revolutionised the environmental debate, and magnified beyond measure the scale of the environmental threat. At one time talk of "Saving the Planet" was a rather meaningless slogan. Climate Change means that now it's for real.