We’ll have an exciting stall for the whole of the festival and at 1pm on Saturday we’ve got an hour’s session in the Speakers Forum and Sunday 4pm it’s a workshop on Direct Action.
The 2014 Speakers’ Forum line up includes:
Molly Scott Cato: CAN’T PAY, WON’T PAY
Molly is the Green Party spokesperson on finance, Green Party Euro MP, and a professor of Green Economics. Molly has links with the Co-operative and Transition movements and recently produced a report – Can’t Pay; Won’t Pay – for the Greenhouse Thinktank. Molly argues for the setting up of a Citizens Audit process, which would ask how we came to be in the debt we’re in, and who would lose if we chose not to pay some of our debts. More info at GreenEconomist.org
Ewa Jasiewicz: NO DASH FOR GAS – RECLAIM THE POWER
Ewa, an activist and writer, climbed and camped up the West Burton power station chimneys for a week in 2012 with No Dash for Gas. She frequently writes for New Internationalist and is involved with a number of different groups and struggles focused on climate change, fuel poverty and working conditions. Ewa has been involved in solidarity work in Palestine and Syria.
Jamie Kelsey Fry: TALK FRACKING
Contributing editor of New Internationalist and author of Rax Active Citizenship Toolkit, Jamie has also been involved with Occupy, Reclaim The Power and the recent/ongoing Vivienne Westwood backed campaign We Need To Talk About Fracking.
Jenny Jones & Merrick Badger: UNDERCOVER POLICING
Jenny is Green Party, London Assembly, House of Lords (aka Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb). Big on civil liberties www.facebook.com/greenjennyjones.
Eco-anarchist activist and blogger Merrick is currently involved in campaigns to end human rights abuses by undercover police. See Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance.
Paul Mobbs: FROM FRACKING TO DRONES
“Free Range Activist” Paul Mobbs knows a lot about stuff. He has three slots in Speakers’ Forum: Fracking Our Food and Farming Systems looks at parallels between intensive agriculture and extreme energy extraction; Drones, the Internet and Surveillance: New Technology and Why the Government Doesn’t Trust You covers the changing nature of security policy, and how ordinary ‘democratic’ action is seen as a threat to society; and On-line Activism: From Surveillance to Ecological Footprint looks at the problems surrounding how activists use IT, and how to address them
Jonny Gordon-Farleigh, Josef Davies-Coates & Zoe Wangler: COMMONING & COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP
Jonny is editor of STIR magazine, organiser of this year’s Tolpuddle Pilgrimage and works on community engagement for co-operative and communitiy initiatives. Josef is the founder of United Diversity. Both are part of the new Green Gathering Co-operators’ Camp … so points raised during this talk in the Forum will be continued around their campfire. Zoe is co-founder of the Ecological Land Co-operative which provides affordable sites for ecological land-based livelihoods.
Tamasin Cave: CORPORATE LOBBYING
Writer and campaigner Tamasin works primarily for Spinwatch, investigating the UK’s lobbying and PR industries. She is co-author of A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism and Broken Politics in Britain. Tamasin will talk about how to expose and counter lobbying.
Simon Fairlie: LAND
Editor of The Land magazine – also a farmer and author of Low Impact Development and Meat – Simon will be talking on Access to Land : New Threats and Opportunities (Text: Matthew Ch 25 v 29).
Duncan Law: BIOFUELS
Biofuelwatch campaigner Duncan Law poses the question: “Burning Biomass for Electricity – solution or disaster?“
Louise Somerville Williams: FRACK FREE
Louise is a longtime Green Gathering co-ordinator and Frack Free Somerset activist; she’ll be sharing her experiences of community organising around fracking and other destructive corporate activities.
Kirsty Hughes, Chris Coates & Simon Fairlie: CO-HOUSING & INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY
As the parallel housing and economic crises thwart both the ‘right to buy’ and the right to rent a dwelling place of reasonable condition at an affordable rate – and as old-fashioned notions of community, commons and a sharing economy are revived – so interest in co-housing, intentional communities and housing co-operatives rises. Find out more with this Co-ops Camp panel; then continue the discussion and experience a taste of intentional community around their campfire in the evening.
Shane Collins: CANNABIS LEGALISATION IN THE UK
A look at how cannabis legalisation is working around the world and how it could work in the UK. Shane Collins is a Green Gathering director, ex Green Party Drugs Spokesperson and licencee of the Cannabis Festivals 1999-2004.
Hugh Warwick: LOVE & NATURE
Hugh Warwick is an author and ecologist with a particular passion for hedgehogs. He argues that these passions are vital, because: ‘We will not fight to save what we do not love.’ We need to find a way of falling in love with the natural world if we are to truly commit ourselves to fight for it. He will explore ways of reconnecting with nature, finding a gatekeeper species and learning how even the most mundane of wildlife has so much to offer. www.urchin.info
Iain McGill – COWS AND BADGERS
Why does the Government insist that culling badgers is a good idea, when a great many scientists seem to think the opposite? Vet Iain McGill has been co-ordinating veterinary opposition to the badger cull. Formerly working as a government scientist, Iain was the insider who blew the whistle on the government cover up over BSE. Iain looks at how the stress placed on cows by modern farming methods is encouraging the spread of TB… and why killing badgers is only going to make it worse.
Dr Jenneth Parker, Schumacher Institute: SOCIAL JUSTICE & SUSTAINABILITY
In the light of rising inequality, destruction of welfare systems and environmental crisis we need more united movements for change. This session will introduce some ideas and research on social justice and sustainability and then move into a facilitated discussion of some ways forward.
Tony Gosling: JOURNALISM – A REVOLUTIONARY ACT
How does power really work in the Western world? Who owns the means of communication, who decides what is and isn’t news? A journalist himself, Tony reveals the mechanics of censorship and who owns the media. His talk brings to our attention the stories that get swept under the carpet in mainstream journalism.
David Taylor: RETHINKING GREEN POLITICS
David is a long term supporter of The Green Gathering and involved with 40Forward.
Gordon Clarke: STEINER EDUCATION
Gordon has worked within the Steiner movement for 25 years, and parented three children through the Steiner School system; at the Forum he’ll be introducing the radical ideas about the human being that underlie the Steiner movement, and will look at how these have formed five generations of free thinking children. The new free school initiative has opened the way for Steiner Academies to reach a much wider range of children. But why is it so special, and is it right for your child?