Johann Hari has been taking part in the Heathrow protest camp: the result is a fine article in the Indepedent. (Article pasted here coz the Indy's links cost money after a certain amount of time.)

A couple of things leapt out:

I recognise an undercover journalist from a right-wing newspaper. "This is terrible!" he says "I've been sent to find stories about drug-addicted layabouts and they're all nice people with PhDs."

and

When I see the police seizing bags and thrusting cameras into the faces of these peaceful people, I keep comparing it in my mind to the policing of fuel protests back in 2000. A group of truckers, enraged that their God-given right to burn cheap oil was being infringed by mildly green taxes, brought Britain to a standstill. Supermarket shelves emptied; people began to panic. Through it all, the police did nothing, treating the barricaders like mildly naughty children. The very newspapers now damning direct action as "undemocratic" and "disgusting" cheered them on. So according to the police and the right-wing press, protesting to speed up global warming is fine, even if it causes food shortages; but protest to halt global warming and you become a mini Bin Laden.