That's a good question and I'm glad you've raised it

Protestors - what in the name of Mike do they want?

I volunteered for a while at Schnews, a Brighton-based newsletter for the protest movement - http://www.schnews.org.uk/index.php. They were a funny lot. There was one very intense woman who was taking a forestry course in Lewes purely so that she could obtain a chainsaw license (crikey). I didn't gain a lot of insight while I was there, but I do remember being shaken by the depth of their loathing for Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth - I suggested contacting them for some help on a story. I might as well have shat in the fridge. There was a distinct flavour of the Judean People's Front about the place. Eeee, happy days.

I'm pretty sure there is no codified set of aims or beliefs associated with this movement. However, the most unifying theme is probably anti-capitalism. Mainstream environmental/development pressure groups tend to either accept or embrace capitalism, and work within its confines. The protest movement genuinely wants to participate in an old-fashioned revolution, in which for-profit economic activity will be shut down, international economic institutions will collapse, national governments will fall, and people across the globe will return to pre-lapsarian agrarian subsistence lifestyles, albeit with any modern technology that can survive in a non-profit model.

I think they know that this would result in extraordinary levels of upheaval and bloodshed in the short-to-medium term, but they believe that the long-term outcome (sustainable lifestyles and an end to economic inequality) would be worth it.

I do have a sneaking sympathy for their reasoning. You don't have to look far to find evidence that the governments of the West are motivated by nothing but self-interest, and that the obscenity of global inequality is only ever addressed as an afterthought. Capitalism can't prioritise the needs of developing countries - that's not what it's for.

Anyway, if you look at that Schnews link you'll see a pretty cogent explanation of their aims.