Fifty one years ago, on this day, March 31st, 1973, there was a demo in London.
We found out about it first when we went down on 31 March to London, where Commitment were blocking off Piccadilly Circus from cars. There were about 400 people there and a lot of police, who swooped in and arrested the obvious ringleaders”. The attempt to block the road was in fact not much of a success as most of the remaining protesters seemed unwilling to do anything. “I ended up as one of the organisers – it became that ridiculous!”
http://www.muthergrumble.co.uk/issue17/mg1708.htm
Horace Herring, H. 2003. Energy Utopianism p.104
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 329ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Young Liberals had been banging the drum about environmental issues. There had already been a similar style protests in 1971. This one seems to have garnered even less press but will have influenced some people I guess? The war against the car or the war against motorists. What can you do? What a species we are!
What we can learn is that antipathy towards cars being taken over by cities goes back a long way. “Reclaim the Streets” goes back a long way. And our failure to succeed goes back a long way.
What happened next, Commitment could not be maintained. But people within it stayed committed to the broader cause of ecological sanity. Including Victor Anderson…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
March 31, 1998 – another report about #climate and business in the UK
March 31, 1998 – two business-friendly climate events in UK and Australia