Extinction rebellion protester, ask me anything

[Market1]

I support extinction rebellion protests, ask me anything you like - ( I have a very thick skin, nothing you say will upset me)

So what is it people would like XR to do then? And why are a people so obsessed about OP last went in a car?

Sure XR make things inconvenient for some people but the world is literally burning around us.

https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/24/new-north-sea-oil-and-gas-licences-emissions-greenpeace-government-uk

surely this is where we should be directing our anger?

Seriously, as you have a person from XR here why don’t you contribute some ideas about how to take action.

Please provide links as the poster asked. I've not seen any evidence that you have the support of the public.

Why do you do it more for attention than the cause? I don't mean to bring the subject to light but I mean you all seem like you love making people's lives difficult and you enjoy when they're ra ting at you. I think if people ignored you and went with it, you'd all just get bored lol!

Ranting

If you believe in your cause, why do you work under code names, even when communicating with others in the same group?

Were the reasons you were arrested justifiably illegal, in your opinion?

100% this.

we use code names to maintain anonymity, so one person cannot give evidence, deliberately or unwittingly, about another rebel to the police - even through a phone being confiscated and searched.

No, the grounds on which I personally have been arrested , or stopped and searched ( dozens of times!) are legal, and I have no issue with them.

Other people have been treated worse, arrested on flimsy grounds, or stopped and searched on flimsy grounds

You have my support OP. I don’t know what the answer to climate change is,
especially when our policy makers don’t seem to give a fuck, but doing nothing is no longer an option. How people can endlessly nitpick while the planet burns I will never understand.

This could just be luck of the draw but whenever I have heard an ER protester interviewed in the media, they have sounded hysterical, been rude to the interviewer, and had no idea what any of their policies would cost. Do you have any discussions with other protesters where you talk about what your ideal world would look like, or how much the things you are protesting in favour of would cost? And do you think your cause might be advanced better if you gave people some free media training?!

Also, if you say it's ER policy to let emergency vehicles through, does that mean that anyone who doesn't let emergency vehicles through is not entitled to legal protection from ER? And if they are, doesn't that make a mockery of the claim that it's policy to let emergency vehicles through?

There was a video the other day of a JSO protester refusing to move so a mum could take her sick baby to hospital. I watched XR block ambulances on Westminster bridge. An XR protester (who incidentally worked in events and DEFINITELY flew business class) once told me that if it was his two year old stuck in an ambulance and they died he would look on it as ‘for the greater good’

It’s not right. Causing innocent individuals harm and justifying it because ‘polluting companies cause other people harm’ makes you as bad as the people who pump sewage into water supplies.

also saying ‘oh but we all use the same name but I’m not one of the BAD XR people’ is just a shit argument. If XR and the like are a banner/ figurehead they should denounce behaviour they disagree with otherwise they are just complicit.

I dont know how you can justify disrupting ordinary people getting to sick and dying relatives / or disrupting their hospital apts- how it that ok? all in the name of clinate action? Did you go on holiday / do you drive a car?
JSO are hypocrites to " their cause'

It's not in the name of climate change, they just enjoy personally, the attention they get.

Code names make it harder to identify the police infiltrators
hth

media training might be helpful, I know some spokespeople who are very media savvy - the media prefers to interview people on the spot though, and then chooses which interview to play, according to what they want to portray us as. The more rational, calmer interviews are less likely to be played.

yes, we discuss policies and cost - but the cost of not taking care of the environment outweighs the cost of taking care of it, every time!

no, as I have said, I don't drive a car or go abroad on holidays.

And as I have said, more people's lives and health is disrupted by roads being open than roads being shut

police infiltrators are very welcome!

So advice is to walk what could be miles down a gridlocked motorway leaving ill toddler in car alone, to request access? And then walk back? Great thanks. But then how do I drive my car through the gridlocked traffic?
If I needed to call them, what's the best number to reach them on?
The plan seems flawed.

Is there an estimate as to how many people may have already died from climate change for the uk? I would class unusual storms like the Arwen series and last years heat wave as climate change events

And how does that compare to the numbers who may have died as a result of your organisations actions ?

speak to them directly, if you can, or ring them, if you know which organisation it is

So what if you can't and you don't? Is there a plan B for the person transporting a sick child to hospital? Actually it would be a plan C because plan A and B have failed.

I would like to congratulate you! Everything you have done so far has turned people totally against you and any support I may have had for your cause has gone completely out of the window.
You are all seen as a bunch of spoilt brats, whose parents own gas guzzling SUV’s and are multi millionaires, hence the fact they can support you all in your protests, instead of actually getting a paid job.
It would be far better to use the English language to put across eloquent, factual statements rather than stop people getting to hospitals and to their jobs.
You have actually done more harm to the environment because you’re actively turning people against you and your cause. If you were that brave, you would picket the embassies of those countries whose policies do cause most of the problems (assuming you wouldn’t have the guts to actually go to those countries)!

I know of an Extinction Rebellion protester. She asks friends to give her a car lift to the train station so as to travel to protests. Has also asked to use friends' tumble drier. I have no idea how she justifies this. Is this a thing? Do you do without driers/cars/log burning stoves/holidays where you have to take planes? I guess I'm asking how individually responsible your choices are and how it impacts your life on a daily basis?

Yes, picketing. That's a great solution. When was the last time you head of someone on a picket line making the front page of the news?

I agree that it's hugely inconvenient but not nearly as inconvenient as the catastrophic effects of global warming.

Also the amount of people going along withe Daily Mail narrative of these all being rich kids with parents who live in draft castles and driving land rovers to the shops - honestly wake up.

Were you privately educated?

The reason I ask is because my only direct experience of ER is getting stuck in a traffic jam they'd caused in Bristol city centre and my car being surrounded by 100s of laughing posh students waving placards. One of them banged on my roof and I told him to fucking watch it. He looked absolutely terrified.

personally, I don't have a car, a log burner, or a drier and I don't take holidays abroad.

People make their own decisions about individual issues - I expect ER protestors to try and live in the least damaging way, but even people who live in very damaging ways are very welcome to come and join in protests, it may be that they are quite early on their own personal journey

It means whatever you want it to mean which is why they say it. In reality it means nothing