Extinction Rebellion: events and actions [edited subject to be more general]

[Captain Marvel]

'Extinction Rebellion?s protesters include a princess, aristocrats, posh Guardianistas. And the target of their protests is ordinary people trying to get to work or go on holiday. These are eco-snobs driven by contempt for the masses'

- Brendan O?Neill

[diable rouge]

Apparently the protesters are ''old anti-capitalist rent-a- mob ravers combined with naive school kids and their virtual signalling parents'' and '' protesters include a princess, aristocrats, posh Guardianistas''. So, quite a varied demographic then.

And as for someone quoting O'Neil...:)

[Hemingway]

diable rouge Wrote:

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> Apparently the protesters are ''old

> anti-capitalist rent-a- mob ravers combined with

> naive school kids and their virtual signalling

> parents'' and '' protesters include a princess,

> aristocrats, posh Guardianistas''. So, quite a

> varied demographic then.

> And as for someone quoting O'Neil...:)

Quite varied lifestyles - but on the whole fairly white and middle class

[Hemingway]

rahrahrah Wrote:

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> The accusation of hypocrisy is so easy to level

> against those living in a system that is

> fundamentally at odds with the environment. But

> the ER crowd are demanding systematic change.

> There is a limit to what individuals can achieve

> alone - it requires collective action by

> governments / large corporations. To say, you

> can't have a view, or ask for change until you are

> 100% carbon neutral yourself and are doing nothing

> that contributes to mass extinction and

> environmental degradation is simply nihilism. To

> suggest that those who live in affluent countries

> or are privileged shouldn't be able to have a

> view, is the same. If you have privilege it is

> more incumbent on you to use the power which comes

> with that privileged to try and improve things.

> It's easy to dismiss people as 'crusties' and

> 'hippies', but when the sh*t hits the fan, your

> kids aren't going to applaud you for being

> cynical.

But our and most EU governments are doing something - it's protest for protests sake now and alienating many people. You know that people will die if tomorrow we stop fossil fuel, flying and go to negative GDP. Poverty is a massive killer in its own right, as left wingers are normally so keen on telling us, a lack of available and affordable fuel for heating, cooking, clean water, food processing etc. let alone the funding of social care, health services etc with our economies going to some kind of ruritarian uncapitalistic fantasy land. We can't just go straight to carbon free green paradise. We have to set achievable and manageble targets. The technology isn't there yet. And all of this parks aside the obvious fact that India and China and, under its current president, the US aren't going to join with us. There are solutions but they involve using the cleaner of the current fossil fuels whilst we develop greener technology better and using nuclear, good luck with selling that to the people gluing themselves to Waterloo Bridge.

[JohnL]

protesters don't stop people getting to work in London - you just go around them or take an alternative route - late and cancelled trains are a bigger problem.

the biggest problem for holidaymakers this year were the drones that didn't exist.

[diable rouge]

Hemingway Wrote:

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> Quite varied lifestyles - but on the whole fairly

> white and middle class

To be filed with ''on the whole northerners are Leave voters''...

[Hemingway]

JohnL Wrote:

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> protesters don't stop people getting to work in

> London -

well they did at Shell, Smithfields, The Bank of England, City Airport, the BBC, I could go on

[malumbu]

We can make massive strides by changing our behaviour - 20% reduction in road transport emissions at bugger all cost - using cars more efficiently, lift sharing, ownership models, better choices about on line purchasers and how these are delivered. We just can't be rrssed. It shouldn't need a big stick.

Stuth JohnL, 33 miles in a year? That isn't just the need to change behaviour for environmental reasons, but financial as your costs of ownership would cover an Uber driver in a gold plated Rolls Royce on that sort of mileage (with a back massage thrown in too).

Cella et al, sorry our debate is so boring. Sad that you don't have anything to say. I don't necessarily agree with some of the posts but I am prepared to debate with the contributors.

[uncleglen]

Hemingway Wrote:

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> er, we are moving towards renewables already and

> pretty quickly. We have some of the most

> challenging emission targets in the world. it's

> just the old anti-capitalist rent-a- mob ravers

> combined with naive school kids and their virtual

> signalling parents. Outrage from the privileged,

> searching for some sense of victim hood.

Yes- it's a pity the older ones didn't act after hearing Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi, or reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, or all the bumph put out by Friends of the Earth over the decades.....but they were too busy breeding and consuming and extending their perfectly usable houses and driving cars around the UK and flying around the world...

I see their co-founder Gail Bradbrook took a hammer and screwdriver to a large pane of glass yesterday...how utterly juvenile

[Angelina]

Hemingway Wrote:

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You know that people

> will die if tomorrow we stop fossil fuel, flying

> and go to negative GDP. Poverty is a massive

> killer in its own right, as left wingers are

> normally so keen on telling us, a lack of

> available and affordable fuel for heating,

> cooking, clean water, food processing etc. let

> alone the funding of social care, health services

> etc with our economies going to some kind of

> ruritarian uncapitalistic fantasy land. We can't

> just go straight to carbon free green paradise. We

> have to set achievable and manageble targets. The

> technology isn't there yet. And all of this parks

> aside the obvious fact that India and China and,

> under its current president, the US aren't going

> to join with us. There are solutions but they

> involve using the cleaner of the current fossil

> fuels whilst we develop greener technology better

> and using nuclear, good luck with selling that to

> the people gluing themselves to Waterloo Bridge.

That is one massive excuse to over look the small things people can do to make a difference - and those small things add up to a HUGE impact.

Our government should be leading the way and influencing other countries to use non fossil fuel and .... (omg, do I need to spell it out?)

[Hemingway]

it is.

according to the Climate Change Performance Index, the UK is number 6 in doing most to fight climate change and given that position 1-3 don't go to anyone, we are the 3rd best performer, so we are leading the way and half of our electricity is now from non-fossil fuel.

So idiots blocking central London for weeks screamung 'we are doing nothing' need to get hold of some facts and maybe invade the Chinese or Indian embassies rather than the easy targets they go for to feel good about themslves.

[JohnL]

Hemingway Wrote:

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> So idiots blocking central London for weeks

> screamung 'we are doing nothing' need to get hold

> of some facts and maybe invade the Chinese or

> Indian embassies rather than the easy targets they

> go for to feel good about themslves.

London is a global city though - it's one of (if not the) worlds capital city.

yes - maybe they need to emphasise this is a global issue more

[TheArtfulDogger]

To play devils advocate for a moment

Maybe humans need to become extinct and allow another species to run the planet

It happened before with dinasours and as we've done such a rubbish job then maybe we need to step aside, die off and let Mother Nature do what she does best.

[Ruffler]

Angelina Wrote:

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> Our government should be leading the way and influencing other countries to use non fossil fuel and .... (omg, do I need to spell it out?)

The UK was a founding member of the Powering Past Coal alliance. https://poweringpastcoal.org/profiles/united-kingdom. It?s already way ahead of many other countries in the west.

[katanita]

So many interesting and unfounded assumptions going on up thread about XR and what they are and aren't "screaming" whilst glueing themselves to bridges and what facts they do and don't have, and what they are "telling" people to do or not do. I see this all over the place e.g. "how dare they tell us not to fly any more" (er, XR are not telling people not to fly any more). There is a lot of putting words into the mouths of XR going on! And in a way that assumes they are a bit homogeneous group, which they are not (individuals within XR may say these things, but they don't speak for everyone). Moreover, I have actually heard people within XR acknowledging that there is some positive progress within the UK, but top 3 of a very bad bunch isn't that impressive and from what I understand many stats based on UK emissions ignore the fact that we actually effectively outsource much of our emissions to other countries by importing so many products etc. We are also disproportionate funders of climate damaging companies given our small country size (15% of *global* funding for this comes from the City, I heard today).

So if you are going to criticise XR, at least maybe bother to read the actual demands and principles and think about what that might mean. Even better go attend a talk or event where you'd see that actually there is quite a diversity of opinion within the movement, and a lot of very well informed people (e.g. Scientists for XR are a big group of climate scientists who do a lot of fact checking etc) and that they continually iterate and reflect on tactics and information etc and do not all agree but work together to move forward and find common ground and consensus (it's actually incredibly refreshing working in this way).

You'd also come to see that as a decentralised movement individuals can carry out their own actions (e.g. taking a hammer to something silly) that others may not agree with. There has, for example, been a lot of internal debate and polling today about proposed tube train disruption (as there was for the Heathrow action) and it is clear that most people within XR are against it. But those groups within XR who proposed the action may still go ahead, and we don't have the right to stop them within the movement structure, only to make our feelings heard. It's tricky because people outside of the movement will still see it as having blanket XR approval probably, because everyone is so used to top-down organisations. It's a risk to operate in this way, for that reason, but the overall non-hierarchical self organising system is so much more humane and empowering that it's a risk worth taking.

[katanita]

Anyway I hope that was coherent, it's been a long couple of weeks and I'm tired!

But I did also want to share the crowdfunder for the local Southwark XR group https://chuffed.org/project/xr-southwark-crowdfunder, if you can help out with any donations they/we can do more, and that includes lots of positive community actions, hopefully.

(And thank you for supportive comments here too!)

[Sue]

TheArtfulDogger Wrote:

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> To play devils advocate for a moment

>

> Maybe humans need to become extinct and allow

> another species to run the planet

>

> It happened before with dinasours and as we've

> done such a rubbish job then maybe we need to step

> aside, die off and let Mother Nature do what she

> does best.

Yes, it's a bit like us.

First we aren't there, then we are born, then we are there, then we die, then we aren't there again.

The earth hasn't always been here, and it is going to die one way or another at some point, and humans would all die with it then anyway.

Which doesn't mean I don't think we should do all we can to halt or slow down climate change, just that there's a bigger picture.

We are a tiny speck in the universe and a tiny speck in time.

[cella]

malumbu Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> We can make massive strides by changing our

> behaviour - 20% reduction in road transport

> emissions at bugger all cost - using cars more

> efficiently, lift sharing, ownership models,

> better choices about on line purchasers and how

> these are delivered. We just can't be rrssed. It

> shouldn't need a big stick.

>

> Stuth JohnL, 33 miles in a year? That isn't just

> the need to change behaviour for environmental

> reasons, but financial as your costs of ownership

> would cover an Uber driver in a gold plated Rolls

> Royce on that sort of mileage (with a back massage

> thrown in too).

>

> Cella et al, sorry our debate is so boring. Sad

> that you don't have anything to say. I don't

> necessarily agree with some of the posts but I am

> prepared to debate with the contributors.

Not everybodys debate is boring.

[Hemingway]

in the vein of decentralised 'people power' I see commuters in Canning Town have taken their own direct action against XR this morning

[uncleglen]

yes if this bunch of trust fund revolutionaries, champagne socialists and has-beens KNEW anything about Canning Town they would NEVER have gone anywhere near there- most of those commuters would be in low paid jobs, have rent to pay (yes- RENT- they cannot afford their own homes- some people can't afford their own home- (let alone a second one) Some of the Extinction Rebellion are being paid ?400 a week to do this....obscene...hopefully they will all return to their Surrey and Berkshire commuter belt homes and leave the actual EXPERTS to sort out the climate thing and fossil fuels....

[malumbu]

I walked to Canning Town once after a West Ham match and it was truly scary. A lot of East Enders moved out to Basildon, Barking and the like, but many seemed to have stayed in a little enclave. Parts of Bermondsey are similar but it doesn't feel quite as frightening. I'm talking football here but also a bit of a social commentary. Not that I am agreeing with the post above, just that in the great scheme of things probably wasn't the smartest place to take what is now starting to feel a bit extreme/desperate.

[malumbu]

And funny as you go to the London Stadium the big change from the Boleyn Ground is the number of hipsters, bit like Dog Kennel Hill....

[maxxi]

I lived in Canning Town from 87-89. The good points were the Abbey Pub and being able to walk to the football. There were no others. It was f*cking bleak. I hear it has gone upmarket since the Jubilee Line arrived...

[fishbiscuits]

TBH I think raising awareness is good, and anything that may (even remotely) possibly accelerate the pace of change is all fine with me. But as a general guideline :

Protests - fine

Placards - fine

Die-ins - a bit daft, but if that's what floats your boat, then yeah OK

Gluing yourself to a train - basically asking for a punch

[JohnL]

There's no difference to me why trains are late - it seems to happen with about the same frequency

XR superglue, no driver turned up, person under train, train broke down, this train is cancelled because of .

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/jubilee-line-delays-commuters-hit-with-morning-rush-hour-chaos-due-to-unavailability-of-trains-a4264626.html

And how does superglue work so well for them whenever I use it nothing sticks for more than a few minutes :)