The resurgence in UK environmental direct action is discussed in the context of internal movement dynamics by examining a combination of pre-existing and new environmental/climate change-focused campaigns and networks that have been simmering for some time, accounting for significant moments of protest since the roads protest movement ‘peaked’ in the late 1990s. These latent/emergent (Melucci, 1996) networks and campaigns are starting to become more visible as they build up capacity. Accessing Indymedia on 2 November 2005, two climate change- related links were the most visible and undeniably, climate change has been a key frame for both G8 leaders and anti globalisation activists for the last three G8 summits.

Strategically, a re-cycle ofeco-action would appear to be likely, due to the discursive linkage between core frames of capitalism, climate change, and war by the ‘anti-globalisation’ movement. It is, of course, partially the result of an earlier learning curve by eco-activist networks in the United Kingdom, linking ‘single issues’ to the ‘bigger picture’, that caused the anti globalisation movement to mobilise so successfully (Plows, 2004). In recent years, feeding back the other way, actions, campaigns and network cross-over by key eco-‘prime movers’ such as! (EF!) and Rising Tide (RT) have been instrumental in making explicit links between capitalism, climate change and eco-‘single issues’. Core work by RT critiquing carbon trading is a good example of this.

There are also key background preconditions, which may ‘predispose’ the general public to have support for eco-based direct action, and are also likely to trigger it. Globally, devastatingextreme weather events such as Hurricane Katrina and the Asian Tsunami, and scientific evidence for melting ice sheets, is forcing international concern over climate change.

There is an uncanny similarity in global and national political conditions at start of the 1990s and in 2004- 05:climate change is high on the political agenda following a global sustainability summit (Rio in 1992, Johannesburg in 2002); frustrated environmentalists are critiquing ‘business as usual’, there is also another war in Iraq, while nationally a domestic policy for ‘economic growth’ is again focused counter-intuitively on road building and airport expansion. Rather depressingly, environmental factors globally appear worse, although ‘green’ discourses and actions on, for example, renewable energy and food miles have diffused out into civil society and governance spheres more broadly.

Environmental issues continue to be on the action agenda in form of climate change campaigning, especially through the nascent Rising Tide (RT) campaigning (set up to catalyse grassroots action on climate change issues in 2000), action and networking strategies, which ‘seeded’ climate change actions around the country, and well coordinated international actions around the Kyoto summit in 2001. The fuel protests and the extreme weather conditions of 2000 provided an opportunity of sorts for environmentalists to get climate change issues on the agenda - as they are doing again now (Doherty et al., 2002).

Oil/war discourses and environmental connections in relation to ‘the war on terror’ were to the fore from the moment Afghanistan was bombed in 2001- 02. Already mobilised by events in Afghanistan, by the time the United States and United Kingdom declared war on Iraq in 2003, oil and war and capitalism had escalated in emphasis as explicitly inter-related themes within the broader movement, triggering direct action by eco-groups such as RT, EF! and anti-war protestors (often drawing ‘membership’ from the same networks). Furthermore, an internationally coordinated day of climate action was held on 3 December 2005, and a UK direct ‘climate camp’ was held in August 2006 and another is scheduled for August 2007 (See www.risingtide.org.uk and www.climatecamp.org.uk). While predicting mobilisation is a risky business, these conditions do seem to be indications of an emergent cycle of eco-action.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that anti-globalisation actions will continue to dominate the activist agenda, evidenced by the scale, scope and success of anti-G8 protests in 2005. The strength of ‘bigger picture’ symbolic protests (Melucci, 1996) has been to demonstrate that a myriad of different networks and campaigns ‘share the same struggle’. However, that network base also needs to be consolidated as the ground from which anti-globalisation action springs, through a continued focus of generating and building capacity at local group level (Doherty et al., 2003b). Tactically, it is also necessary for the movement to move between largely symbolic protests demonstrating opposition to the dominant paradigm and targeted protests which aim to have a tangible effect in real terms, such as driving up the costs of roads construction through direct action.

The obvious seemingly needs pointing out again – that it is impossible to meet even the compromised targets of Kyoto while we continue to increase CO2 levels through infrastructure development. Another standard activist discourse is that environmental and socio-political conditions, caused in part by our dependence on oil, are fuelling a war on terror in a vicious circle of cause and effect. These discursive repertoires, while not new within activist communities, are more relevant than ever before to civil society, and ‘single issue’ eco- action provides a clear frame through which to make these arguments. Given the current (political) climate, the UK public are probably even more politically and culturally predisposed to be supportive of eco-action, especially if the movement makes the links explicitly through broader framings of ‘single issues’, as seems likely. It will be interesting to watch for UK eco-action flashpoints in the coming months and years.

* Dr. Alexandra Plows is part of the centre for the economic and social aspects of genomics (CESAGEN) and will collaborating on other vision projects. Based in Cardiff, she did her PhD on UK social movement networks in the 1990s and has a keen interest in “green politics”, both as a researcher and an activist. The following is an edited version of her article “Blackwood 2004: An Emerging (Re)Cycle of UK Eco-Action?” published in Environmental Economics, commenting on the strategic role civil societies can play now the environmental issues are increasingly important priorities on national and international political agendas.