Protestors climb on train

[omikron]

What on earth to ER hope to achieve this morning?! Such arseholes

It’s not really sustainable travel, whichever way you dice it.

As with most of XR’s UK antics, it’s a stunt and not massively significant either way. Just grating.

Then again, as the mother of a teenage girl with Autism - and a similar clutch of comorbidities to Greta - I have huge misgivings about her speaking career, etc, anyway.

Grow your own food or hunt for food, eat berries and other things from bushes, throw away all computers, tv's, play stations, mobiles, switch off all electrics and gas. Walk everywhere, cull 4 billion people and live in a tent or under bushes so the environment takes over. Stop buying things, shut down manufacturing, close all shops, eliminate all transport systems and finally make your own clothes. Then, in about 100 years things might improve and we won't experience climate change to any degree.

ight, lets all start today, asa that is what XR wants, a wonderful future.

It doesn't matter if it is the wrong type of soil or environment, it means more will die of starvation and thus leaving more room for survivors.

I am one of those arrested in the last fortnight in XR's London protests. I am not a 'professional protestor'. I work in a demanding job 4 days a week and I have children. I took a couple days annual leave and asked DH to look after the children for the days I was at the protests.
Extinction Rebellion is not perfect, the people in it are the first to admit that we make mistakes. We are learning and growing all the time. But we are also trying to raise awareness and create change, and I was drawn to the movement when I saw its openness and radical thinking.
Within my own small 'affinity group' are two teachers, a university researcher, a conservationist and a nanny. We all work, but we are all also trying to do what we can to prevent the environmental disaster that scientists tell us is likely to happen within our children's lifetimes. You may not agree with our tactics, but please don't assume that we are taking part without careful consideration.
For what it's worth, I voted in XR's internal poll against the action in the tube and was very sad that it went ahead, due to the decentralised nature of the movement.

I think a lot of people have missed the point in the XR message. By raising awareness they are forcing people to have these discussions about what, on an individual level, they can do to help slow down the negative effect we have on the environment. We will never have the ablility to do this alone though, look at plastic bags and straws. That had to be dealt with systemically, requiring a TV show and pictures of cute animals wrapped up in plastic just so that supermarkets would take note that they cannot continue generating so much plastic packaging! The protests are the same thing, raising awareness, getting the attention of the decision makers and getting people thinking.

It also gets people thinking about larger solutions to problems in the right way. While I, and many others don't have the solution to zero pollution air travel there are enough fucking people on the planet right now that there could be a bunch of people who can solve that problem without making things worse. Otherwise shit like this will become commonplace...

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/qatar-air-conditioning-temperature-weather-heat-climate-change-athletics-world-cup-a9160751.html

By raising awareness they are forcing people to have these discussions about what, on an individual level, they can do to help slow down the negative effect we have on the environment

Are they though? everyone i know who has heard of them thinks they a bunch of morons and dont listen to any message they have. Its had no affect on how we live our lives day to day. Literally none.
If they held me up it wouldnt make me listen, id me more even inclined to ignore their message AND favor policies and politicians that allow their BS to be shut down.

They are not protestors they are activists... big difference.

I think Blue Planet made a much bigger impact on people re-thinking their habits and actually doing something different (however small) .I'm not sure xr have had the same impact in that the only mention of them is how much if an irritant they are!

The only discussing done by those of us on the lower end of the income scale is how they've got a final warning from their employer for lateness and how fucking nice it must be to be able to afford/be entitled to take a day off from a 'demanding' part time job (does that happen to be 'well paid', by any chance?), get the husband to look after the children (so he can obviously also afford to take time off from being busy and important) and then congratulate herself on being such a special person for potentially costing us money.

Rule of thumb for life; what you think people are talking about is not necessarily what they are.

@skinnychip totally!!

XR is just a collection of ordinary people from various walks of life who genuinely want to save the planet from the ecological disasters predicted by scientists, and are trying to spread awareness and create change through civil disobedience. Why not save your fury for those who are trashing the planet, not those who care so deeply for it? And why not keep your mockery for those who are sleepwalking into environmental collapse, not those who are trying to raise the alarm?

Problem is now the message is starting to be lost and the more they piss people off the less they'll care. The train stunt was stupid and didn't achieve anything other then headlines for the wrong reasons.

Only changes you're going to bring about are a greater loss of freedoms, making being concerned about environmental issues a sign of potential political extremism (I for one don't fancy falling foul of PREVENT when applying for jobs towards the end of my current contract because I've been volunteering for environmental and animal welfare organisations for the last thirty years and that ends up lumping me into a category with drone flying plane sabotage and people superglueing their arses to the pavement) and costing already poor people their employment.

There's no point yelling at me IT'S HALF PAST EIGHT! When I've already been up for three hours and am already at work, thanks, so I won't be thanking you for that, either.

You aren't solving any problems. You are, however, directly adding to them.

I agree the train stunt was misplaced - and almost all XR activists also opposed it. But it was one action. The crisis we are facing is way, way bigger than one action, or even one organisation, or even one country. XR's message is really urgent, time is running out for change. Are we all just going to laugh and put our heads in the sand, or listen and act?

XR have turned off more people with their show of moral superiority, when we know they all , like the rest of us , make massive demands on this planet just by existing .What really gets people pissed off is the grandstanding and self indulgent posturing from many obviously wealthy and privileged people who have no solution to the issues and denigrate the science and industries that will actually provide the remedy..( even if those industries may have caused the problems in the first place )

@mitzik I know I'm lucky to be able to take a couple of days leave from work. I know I'm lucky to have a DH who does his fair share of childcare.And because I'm lucky I want to do something before it's too late. There are lots of people I know in XR who couldn't join the protests for more than a few hours due to their work commitments, or just did bits of remote support online/over the telephone. We all just do what we can. I just wanted to explain how it was that I was able to be at the protests, because people up thread were saying that none of us worked or that we were all professional protesters.

@ginandbearit I don't feel any moral superiority. I feel awful about how I too have contributed/will contribute to the climate emergency. And like so many, I am grieving for the world we are destroying, and looking for ways forward. Can't we try to listen and move forwards together, rather than mock one another for caring and trying to do something?

Within my own small 'affinity group' are two teachers, a university researcher, a conservationist and a nanny.

Adamum you are helping me reassess what I think about XR (in a good way) so thanks.

XR is just a collection of ordinary people from various walks of life who genuinely want to save the planet from the ecological disasters predicted by scientists, and are trying to spread awareness and create change through civil disobedience.

Because there a good majority that act like a bunch of louts. I have lost all respect for XR, I don't need idiots wafting about in face paint to make me aware of the environmental crisis we are facing, I already knew.

@marshabradyo thank you for that! I really appreciate your comment.

What the fuck more do you want from me?

I don't have a car.
I don't go on holiday.
I don't buy fancy shit because it looks good on social media.
I buy loose veg (because it's cheaper and nobody needs a swede shrinkwrapped in plastic when it takes half my body weight to get a fucking knife through one of the bastarding things). My garden veg failed this year because I don't use pesticides, herbicides or poisons, so the fucking mice got everything that the caterpillars and slugs didn't.
I don't overconsume in the first place because I can't fucking afford it.
I reuse, repair, repurpose and, if all else fails, recycle everything.

The only single use plastics I have that I willingly accept are the injector pens for the medication that keeps me functioning as a member of society.

Until I couldn't do the job anymore, I walked to work and now rely upon buses to get to my current one (electric buses, usually crammed full) when they aren't too full to stop because somebody has caused an absolute fuck up on public transport.

The moment I am physically capable, I actually go out and do heavy physical work in my time off (unpaid) for environmental and animal welfare charities.

I have actually taught the Science. I am well aware of the nature of power discourses.

My MP is a fucking tosser Tory in a safer than safe seat. So he won't be missing my fucking vote, because he never had it in the first place and doesn't need it anyway.

There is fuck all else I can do about it.

But then you're all butthurt that I don't thank you (the collective 'you') for fucking over the journeys to work of the people who are always at the pointy end of any shit? Because you're 'raising awareness'?

We fucking know. And we also know that you will be fine, even whilst you wring your hands about your future, because your future will still be considerably more pleasant than ours.

@mitzik I don't want anything from you! You sound like you are doing all sorts of amazing things and living so bravely in the face of massive challenges. And anyway I'd never ask anyone personally to do more. We need government, industry, to act. Agh. I'm not used to posting much here and when I wrote 'Why don't you' etc above I meant a collective/rhetorical 'you'. I'm sorry if it came over as at all personal. The post I addressed to you above I just wanted to clarify about my job - I know I'm lucky, I really do. I'd never assume that everyone could take time off to protest even if they wanted to. I'm so sorry, if I've offended you.

@adamum no one wants or needs your lectures. The actions of XR over the past few weeks have done nothing but make me angrier. The privilege on display is sickening.

@adamum and the fucking egomaniacal self-important masturbatory self-congratulation that suggests that no one knows about any of this without the help of some preening wankers prancing about will do nothing more than repel people.

Adamum: so what are you doing about XR's issues with racism and classism? What are you doing about the fact that plenty of other people and other groups have been working to protect the environment for years yet XR's squealing tantrums often suggest that they are the only people who 'care'. Another reason XR is achieving the reverse of its stated aims is the bloodyminded arrogance of so many of the protestors and the complete inability to understand that other people aren't stupid.