A “Reclaim the Power” rally, organized by Climate Justice Action and Climate Justice Now, turned violent after protesters tried to break through the security barrier around the Bella Center in Copenhagen. Police declared the protest illegal and shut down the rally, using clubs and pepper spray, arresting many people.

Contrary to many reports, it was the protesters who started the confrontation. I was photographing the event as it unfolded, sitting atop a fence with a good view of the scene. Everything was peaceful and good natured between the authorities and the crowd until demonstrators began crossing the line. At first, a couple guys climbed up onto the police vans and danced around until they got arrested. Then, a voice came through the megaphone on the protesters’ truck, calling for everyone to push through the police line, penetrate the perimeter and break into the Bella Center. Come on, do you really think that is going to work?

“On the count of five, we need everyone to push through the police! One! Two! Three! Four! Five!” yelled the voice. The police were calmly holding the fence line, and when people ganged up and charged at them, they do what they are trained and paid to do: push the people back, using force if necessary. So people got hit, and sadly, they were not able to retreat because the people behind them were still trying to push forward. In this case I blame those pushing, not the police, for the unfortunate pain that so many people received.

Cameraman gets hit in the head with a bottle

What happened next was that the rally was declared illegal and the cops proceeded to shut it down, arresting about 230 people. Delegates inside the Bella Center who planned to join up with the street rally were at that point prevented from joining the chaos. When UN Security couldn’t dissuade them, the police came and held them back. No surprise there – except for the delegates had no way of knowing the extent of the chaos toward which they were headed.

Now, I’m completely against violence, and I think it is terrible that people got hurt, and yes, perhaps the police could have been less brutal. However, trying to break into the Bella Center was an idiotic idea. Unless you’re mentally retarded you know that if you push your hand into the fire it’s gonna burn. But what I’m most upset about is that these few people who chose to rattle the fences were undermining the dedicated, creative efforts of thousands of NGO delegates, who for many months worked very hard to bring the voice of civil society to the conference. Not only did a lot of people take a beating and get arrested, but the ALL of civil society was barred from the remainder of the conference. Thanks a lot, guys, that really helped.

If you’d like more details on events that day, check out The Guardian’s live blog archive.

The Intergenerational Inquiry Panel brought Yvo de Boer, elected Youth representatives and Negotiators to testify on Youth Day at the UN Climate Conference.

Ruchi Jain Ruchi Jain, an activist from Mumbai, India, told a moving story of how she was recently stranded by flooding in her home town, wading through waist-deep waters for five days to get home. Touched directly by the increasingly notable effects of climate change, she has committed herself to full-time climate activism. In her testament, Ruchi said she is putting her trust in our elected officials to do the right thing at COP15, to which Yvo de Boer responded with words of caution, that “trust must be earned” and we should not give it out so freely. During Ruchi’s eloquent and emotional speech, a butterfly appeared in the room, fluttered about and landed on a woman’s hand. Ripe with symbolism, it really felt like a magical moment.

Sara Peach, a multimedia environmental journalist based in North Carolina, followed Ruchi Jain around Copenhagen as she rallied other youth activists, to find out why she left her marketing career and what her current focus is. “I have a lot of hope in the Youth Movement,” Ruchi says, “because we can really change a lot. The thing about Youth is that we’ve cut across our differences… we are not bound by answering to our Prime Minister, for instance. You negotiators keep negotiating for our lives, but we are going to do what we have to do, so we can tell our children that when it was time, we did something, but the negotiators didn’t.” Sara’s short video is embedded below:

Video Profile by Sara Peach

The International Youth Climate Movement

I was invited by Project Survival Media, a global collective of media producers, to visualize the Youth participation at COP15. Together, we reported back from Copenhagen through new media publishing networks at www.ProjectSurvivalMedia.com and syndicated to an array of online magazines, blogs and news organizations. Learn more about the IYCM at itsgettinghotinhere.org and youthclimate.org

See also the post about the 350 Metro Message action.

View my IYCM photo gallery for more images of youth activity, or click through any image below.

Lily and Liyu, twins from Ethiopia

Youth and United Nations Global Alliance group photo

Civil society blocked from entering UN conference at the Bella Center

Google Earth had a cool immersive display experience setup in the main lounge area of the Bella Center at COP15. Six large HD monitors were powered by some serious computers and a fat pipe to the internet (T1 perhaps?). The virtual tour of the planet was streaming live through the web, and you could go anywhere you wanted, controlling the flight with a robust joystick in the center of the room. I would love to have this setup in my house, but I just don’t have the spare $75k, nor any extra room in my NY apartment! Needless to say, it was a great to see how with the right tools we can easily know the the planet as “one place” that we all share. This awareness is a fundamental ingredient in any successful diplomatic resolution that may emerge from COP15.

Video from www.YouTube.com/cop15

The United Nations revoked access to the Bella Center for all NGOs and civil society conference participants on December 16th, after a nearby street rally turned violent. The following morning, Youth activists organized method to convey a silent visual message to commuting delegates, reminding them of the ever-important metric they should keep in mind: 350 parts per million, the scientifically determined threshold for carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere, beyond which the climate is bound to go haywire with disastrous consequences. Currently we have reached 390 and the COP15 negotiations are thus far agreeing to peak the level at 770 by the year 2100. In plain English, that spells certain death for our grandchildren. Not happy. Anyway, these brave souls stood for several hours in below-freezing temperatures holding beautiful images from 350.org to serve as a reminder, and I made a couple long-expose photos to show the passing commuters.

The GeoDome, an immersive visualization environment by The Elumenati at COP15 UN Climate Coference. “The global climate activist organization 350.org will be at KlimaForum, December 15-18, using the GeoDome to explore human interaction with the environment and facilitate dialogue on solutions for a sustainable future.” (www.elumenati.com) The full press release is here.

What looked like an inflatable tent in the corner of this giant warehouse space turned out to be an inter-stellar voyage of cosmic consciousness. I swam in the dreams of Gallileo, waltzed with Einstein’s ideas, and took a reading of the current state of the Earth. Overlaying graphical data sets over interactive 3D graphics in an immersive experience, we journeyed from our familiar terrestrial geography to the outer bounds of the known universe. The story was narrated by David McConville, who drove the animation. It’s a gallactic mind-trip that I highly recommend at any age – it can sweep you off your feet in a way that you’re always grateful for.

Avaaz organized an outdoor aerial image and candle vigil for the end of the COP15 climate change conference, December 18, 2009. Several hundred people gathered downtown Copenhagen holding torches and standing in formation to spell Climate Change, then form a circle, for the aerial photograph. The image was to be taken from an elevated cherry-picker, but police intervened in the last minute and forbid, not the torch burning itself, but the use of an elevated platform. Project Survival Media team member Robert Van Waarden managed to capture a couple great shots from a nearby rooftop.