SA, the climate crisis is less like falling off a cliff and more like walking into a minefield.
Extinction Rebellion has already had considerable success. It was after the April 2019 actions in London that the BBC stopped treating climate change as a debate – that’s big progress on XR’s Demand 1, Tell the Truth. XR rebels also glued themselves to Jeremy Corbyn’s front fence, prompting him to present his Climate and Ecological Emergency Declaration. It was passed by Parliament unchallenged. Since then, governments and local authorities all over the world have declared climate and ecological emergency. These declarations are more than empty words; they can and have been used successfully to challenge proposals such as new airport runways and road-building schemes.
Demand 3, for a Citizens’ Assembly was also acted upon, but the government gave it advisory status only, not legal power, and its remit was decarbonisation by 2050, omitting the halving of emissions by 2030 as the IPCC tells us we must do.
So, humanity is walking into the minefield slower than we were. That’s big progress, and XR are not about to give up.
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SA, the rest of my reply to your October 17 18:15 comment #79733 (see subsequent comment):
– “Climate action and so on are all doomed because none of these actions will change the underlying power structure”
The system cannot function without the majority’s cooperation. More and more must be persuaded to rebel! The Suffragettes won the vote despite a deeply patriarchal parliament, and India won independence despite trenchant British opposition. The more people who learn the truth of our dire predicament, the more that will be prepared to remove their cooperation. People do care for their kids, and their grandkids, far more than they care about plastic trinkets and their next holiday. But decades of appalling coverage by the corporate media has convinced people that there is no crisis, that climate change won’t affect anyone for centuries.
Let me tell you a story. In Autumn 2020 I was in London with XR. I had been camping illegally in Brockwell Park for about a week; I was in a right state; unshaven, partially washed, two days into my last change of clothing; I looked a mess. It was the last day of actions. We assembled at the Bank of England for our finale procession to Parliament Square. The schools were just going back, covid case numbers were rising nationally; I had my mask but I wanted to socially distance, so I took my place near the back of the procession where the density was lowest.