Design me a new environmental pressure group

[54321nought]

So many people appear to support the aims of Extinction Rebellion, but not its methods.

So, here is your chance to design your own group!

The aims are to pressurise the government into much more forceful policies to protect the environment

Lets say you have 2000 keen activists available today, but an unknown number are likely to show up in support

How would you go about it?

lots of posters on other threads have criticised ER, but its hard to come up with an alternative course of action

Where I live there has been a huge rise in fly tipping since the idiotic idea of restricting black bags to three per fortnight.

I would campaign to get that scrapped so that any amount of black bags can be left out.

I think this carnival style protest is old hat. It's annoying. It's might solidify group identity to go like a bunch of blue haired hippies with juggling balls but what it does is cement the idea that worrying about climate change is for other people - people who look and behave so different to yourself that they are easily ignored and dismissed as another arm of identity politics - and most worryingly this leeches over like a halo effect and taints all climate change work with this dramatic and chaotic clown act.

@FourTeaFallOut

I think this carnival style protest is old hat. It's annoying. It's might solidify group identity to go like a bunch of blue haired hippies with juggling balls but what it does is cement the idea that worrying about climate change is for other people - people who look and behave so different to yourself that they are easily ignored and dismissed as another arm of identity politics - and most worryingly this leeches over like a halo effect and taints all climate change work with this dramatic and chaotic clown act.

ok, so what do you want done instead?

What sort of protest would you orchestrate,

You have 2000 activists, and more might turn up on the day

I'd set up a climate change village, somewhere that doesn't disrupt everyday life, so a park.

I'd have stalls where people could see how technologies could work for us, house of the future technologies kind of thing, open air lectures on a whole variety of ted talk like eco- topics without the histrionics like 'billions of children will die in the next 20 years" gem - proper scientists not sure activists. I'd have low carbon footprint food stall. Bike maintenance tents. Make do and mend tents. That kind of thing.

And I'd use that arena to galvanise potential activists to lobby mps and businesses, to nudge everyday behaviours.

But I'd showcase optimism and innovation. Everyone would wash their hair, wear jeans and leave their toys at home.

To be honest? I’m a member of XR- not that there’s a formal membership process, literally anyone can be a member- and I’m constantly amazed at how much they managed to get right, especially in the initial conception. Clear, direct message, viral recruitment process (talks giving the facts about climate change), stunning “brand ID”, a menu of different kinds of action for different kinds of people, good messaging etc etc. There is, of course, a whole list of stuff that we got wrong, but that’s constantly being taken on board and discussed. I would say, for a spontaneous, 99% voluntary, mass movement that’s appeared from nothing over the course of a couple of years, it’s doing pretty well.

I generally find that those that criticise don’t have a lot to offer as an alternative. They just like sounding off- that’s fine, all publicity is good publicity, but it would be better if it led people to actually discuss the climate crisis rather than whether there are too many people with blue hair in XR 🙄 (full disclosure: I actually do have (subtly) blue hair! However, meetings round here are usually dominated by perfectly “normal” looking retired people, leading people in some anarchist groups I’m in on Facebook to accuse XR of being too mainstream and middle class 🤦)

Whatever they may be getting right is lost in a haze of bad publicity. Look at the other thread. How long can a movement be sustained when they are rejected by the majority of the public?

@FourTeaFallOut

Whatever they may be getting right is lost in a haze of bad publicity. Look at the other thread. How long can a movement be sustained when they are rejected by the majority of the public?

This thread is for suggestions of how to get it right. Do you have any?

Maybe read your own thread?

crazyneighbour Numerous XR supporters of my acquaintance have stood as political candidates at town, county and constituency level over the last couple of years. Some got in at town or county level, none were elected as MPs. This might explain why our county council has declared a climate emergency- a motion proposed by a councillor who has attended XR meetings and supported by a bunch of us waving XR banners and thronging the gallery at County Hall- but the actual implementation of meaningful measures to address climate change is largely blocked by government legislation.

Do you honestly think we haven’t tried that route?!

But the vast majority of the public have no truck with you. You are not representing a silent majority who feel that you do a good job or representing their opinions on the matter. If you initiated a ground swell of support from the public then you would have a stronger seat at the table. I don't know who you think you are convincing by making a nuisance of yourself, it doesn't appeal to the public or sufficiently upset the government.

If you think you are doing a fine job while pissing off the public, then carry on. It does seem rather counter to the thread title though.

I asked a similar question in a thread a year or two ago having been involved with XR during the October 2019 protests. Didn't get any particularly useful responses as I recall, more accusations of being a rich lay-about with nothing better to do (I'm a single parent who works full time)!

Thing is, all of the 'gentle' tactics have been tried, for years and years and years, and here we are, at code red, looking somewhat fucked. The gentler stuff hasn't worked.

The fact that many people, despite it being clear that this will have a DIRECT IMPACT ON THEIR OWN CHILDREN (let alone millions and millions of other children around the world), still do nothing, be that making changes in their own lives or protesting/lobbying etc, shows that the message very much hasn't got through. While I have my own doubts about XR's tactics, I'm not sure what the alternative is at this point. They aren't trying to win over everybody, just enough to make a change.

Groups focussing on the U.K. are pissing in the ocean. The only way to change things meaningfully is to pressure China, India and the USA to change their ways. Look at the pie chart a poster put in the other XR thread.

We can always do more but judged internationally the U.K. is not a high polluter and we have already made some fairly ambitious commitments to reduce emissions.

eurochick Depends how you look at it. Some might say that, as the country that invented the concept of burning fossil fuels to make a profit, in the form of the Industrial Revolution, we have a greater responsibility to put things right.

But you know that XR is an international movement, right? There’s a healthy network of groups in India and the US, all doing great stuff (China not so much, for obvious reasons 🙄). Obviously, as British rebels, we’re going to protest in Britain. Although the City of London, being a hub for investment in damaging fossil fuel projects worldwide, is an obvious target.

Incidentally, I do wonder why, in these threads, it’s always China and India who are pulled up as examples of bad practice, when more —white— recalcitrant nations such as Russia and Australia are never mentioned? 🤔 Especially when a large part of China’s emissions are incurred in making things for Western countries, who can then turn round and go “Oh look, we’re so responsible?” 🙄