Social Movement Appreciation Project
In our rapidly destabilising world, it's clear that nothing will get better without large numbers of people working together. But social movements remain mysterious and under-studied creatures: the Social Movement Appreciation Project aims to shine a warm and loving light on today's many efforts at collective agency and system transformation.
Social Movement Appreciation Project
Climate Camp Scotland
What is Climate Camp Scotland actually like? What’s the strategic thinking behind the whole camping thing? How is the European climate movement doing generally? Is climate still a relevant framing in the context of a polycrisis and a genocide? What does the growth of the far-right mean for social movement efforts?
Quan Nguyen, an organiser behind Climate Camp Scotland, joins us on a hay bale to hash it all out.
Highlights:
‘We were formed during a time when you could just shout ‘meeting now to challenge fossil fuels!’ and a hundred people would show up in a random room somewhere in Edinburgh – and that’s not the case any more’
'Fascism comes to the bed of a dying democracy, but not to check on its health'
- Albert Camus via Quan Nguyen
'Our democracies are not designed to withstand massive environmental disaster plus climate migration plus… Liberal democracies are not designed to do that'
Want a comprehensive view of what went down at this year's camp? Check out the 2025 programme, covering everything from The Magical World of Poo (which was about mobile toilet infrastructure) to Ecology and Antifascism in Rojava
https://climatecamp.scot/programme
Outro music: Es Lo Que Hay (it is what it is) from Maz & the Phantasms, who frankly upstaged the Climate Camp Ceilidh Collective with an incandescent performance on Friday night - check them out!
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3bxfjLBLwpN6sQjNYbBl26?si=JqJ68KDoRV6HvCPXRDWAbQ
https://www.instagram.com/mazphantasms/
Follow me on Bluesky @douglasrogers.bsky.social or Twitter at @writingDouglas if you're into that kind of thing