To ask: what could Extinction Rebellion do to convince you?

[WallyWallyWally]

So another series of XR stunts unfolded today: a tree surgeon climbs Big Ben and unfurls a banner. Some other activists have chained themselves to the door of the Kenyan embassy. A big wooden tipi has been constructed to block Oxford Circus. In the crowds, people have been painting their hands red and are leaving handprints on pavements to symbolise... something.

They’ve camped out in public places. Climbed on top of trains and planes Performed various theatrical performances. They’ve marched and glued themselves to buildings. Held up traffic, waved banners, got kids to stay off school.

What XR want Is: for governments to declare a climate emergency, for actions to be taken to address this and for citizens assemblies to be set up to decide what these actions should be.

I’m not arguing about the science of climate heating (I’m convinced). I’m not asking them not to be hypocrites (it’s impossible to live a truly green lifestyle within our society as it is).

So: what could XR do to convince you of the right-ness of their cause? What action should they take? What campaigns / stunts / awareness raising can they do that would convince you that the house is on fire? To the extent that you would lobby your MP / campaign / join them?

TBF XR have never claimed to have the solutions. They say leave to experts to tell us what the possible solutions might be and create citizens assemblies to tell us what’s acceptable of those solutions.

Atm none of this is near the top of the agenda for government. I think that’s what they are trying ( and failing) to achieve

I was angrily concerned that cancer patients weren’t able to get to hospital for their treatments because of their protests.
I am angry that ER left skipfulls of single use plastic and fast food detritus on the streets for taxpayers to pay for their removal.
I hate that they feel sanctimonious over ‘green food’ which is so overly processed, more than chicken or pork.
It is bizarre that XR protestors should target public transport when public transport is what they want to augment.
Dialogue is the key. Greta Thurnberg has been silent bar direct accusations. Sir David Attenborough has said more about climate change than any XR protester will ever do.
XR have shot themselves in the foot.

Perhaps if they barricaded landfill sites and forced return of landfill waste to a city centre to make people see the waste that could have been reused and recycled and repurposed it might have an impact.

The problem with this is we're already at a stage where much of the stuff sent for recycling goes to landfill as we simply don't have the capacity to cope with it all.

Admit to being hypocrites.
Stop being so posh.
Stop disrupting the lives of ordinary, non privileged people.

So how do we get David Attenborough’s warnings to translate into political action? And move this up the agenda?

What would you need to see or hear to make you believe that the house Is on fire and that dealing with that is more important than anything else? More important than work or hospital appointments or other people’s hypocrisy or anything else?

I don't get why citizen assemblies are so wonderful.

We are in an emergency let's start by creating a large decebtralised bureaucracy ! We can then have experts feed into non experts who can make nimby decisions about what is acceptable ! That will fix the problem.

I already think people have their head in the sand about it and use a million excuses even when it’s their own dc will suffer most. No idea how to change this.

Nothing. I believe their stunts are poorly thought out and in many instances hypocritical.

I work in an environmental field and I’ve dealt with people who are connected to XR. They aren’t prepared to hear anything other than own self-righteous opinions. They aren’t interested in delivering improvements. They aren’t looking to find funding for projects, work in partnership or actually even attempt to find a solution. They want to just complain and tell anyone who will listen that they’re right and everyone else is wrong and the world is burning.

They seem to think that if everyone just chose more sustainable options, it would be an easy fix. But the average person can’t afford to live a truly sustainable lifestyle. They can’t afford to install renewable energy in their home, shop organically from local farm shops. They think everyone can afford to miss work, everyone can afford to just pay more for environmental projects. They are typically middle to upper class, not struggling for money. They don’t understand that there are families who are struggling to put on the food on the table, through no fault of their own, and they can’t afford an extra £5 a month on their energy bills for green tariffs.

I think their actions will turn a lot of people away from the environmental crisis. People are fed up of their attention seeking ways and it just reinforces the typical environmentalist, tree-hugger type which is very off-putting. People need to understand how the environmental changes impacts them at a local scale and not scare-mongering. They need to be informed that the change in weather patterns results in shitty crops and that many crops have had to be imported from other countries. They don’t need to be told that sea levels are rising and it will be 100 years before properties flood. They need to be told that climate change has resulted in x amount of increased food costs. Or has resulted in the loss of their local park.

Change happens when the community is invested in the change and can lobby politicians. XR isn’t interested in creating social change. They just want to use this as a chance to cause havoc. They are also only invested in a very small part of the environment with a very narrow focus.

They’re dicks.

They stop ordinary working people who can’t afford to take time off work from getting to their jobs. Their “demands” are pathetic and they seem incapable of thinking through the consequences or of proper debate. They’re like children insisting that “the government” solve all the problems in the world while they dress up in stupid clothes and dance. I can’t stand them or their doomsday cult.

As a PP said, choose an actual real problem like plastics in the ocean, or something, and work on it. Or even better just GO AWAY.

So you don’t believe that The End Is Nigh? You aren’t convinced by the science

What has science got to do with ER.

Also the hypocrisy grates on me. Emma Thompson flying over first class from LA to London to protest. So she's allowed air travel but use normal people shouldn't be allowed it?
Benedict Cumberbatch bring the face of MG cars In India. So he can advertise cars but we're not allowed to use them?
Protesters getting food from McDonalds. Doesn't seem like time sort of company XR protesters should be giving their money to.
The litter left behind after gatherings and protest.

Nothing sorry. They're the 2010's equivalent of Swampy.

Antibiotic resistance will kill the human race before climate change anyway.

What would you need to see or hear to make you believe that the house Is on fire TBF I do believe the house is on fire as it were, but dancing about and glueing yourself to things isn't gonna solve it. They need to put forward serious proposals for how to stop climate change, actual concrete plans.

Absolutely nothing. I don’t care about their cause and I think they’re a load of selfish idiots.

@CakeAndGin People need to understand how the environmental changes impacts them at a local scale and not scare-mongering. They need to be informed that the change in weather patterns results in shitty crops and that many crops have had to be imported from other countries. They don’t need to be told that sea levels are rising and it will be 100 years before properties flood. They need to be told that climate change has resulted in x amount of increased food costs. Or has resulted in the loss of their local park.

Is this information being shared with «people»? Is anyone getting down to the nitty gritty of what the impavts will be and what really needs to be done to avert it?

@Jupiters they need to put forward serious proposals for how to stop climate change, actual concrete plans.

Their point is that we should listen to the scientists about the best ways to tackle this, and citizen assemblies to decide which actions are acceptable. They aren’t claiming to have the answers - only that we need to look to the experts for them.

Nothing. They have annoyed me so much they have put me off doing anything. Middle class wankers.

No. People share information in a very large scale way, doomsday way. Which is not engaging and not relatable to the public.

The public engaged with really well with something like Blue Planet but at the expense of seeing plastic as all-evil. Rather than living a lifestyle trying to balance all environmental impacts, people have gone full-tilt anti plastic but without taking into consideration the overall picture and considering all aspects of sustainability.

What would you need to see or hear to make you believe that the house Is on fire and that dealing with that is more important than anything else? More important than work or hospital appointments or other people’s hypocrisy or anything else?

Here are my suggestion:

1. Stop using expressions like “the house is on fire”. It fucking isn’t and you sound like an idiot.

1. Stop forcing your agenda down the throats of ordinary people who can’t take 2 weeks off and just want to get through their day, get themselves or their loved ones to the doctor, or go to work so that they can earn some money.

1. Stop acting as if nothing has ever been done about environmental issues in the Uk before XR came along, and that the government has never thought about this stuff before. Acknowledge the fact that we have been working on this for decades and that we actually have a pretty good record on environmental issues.

1. Do us all a favour and take the XR stunts and dressing up and dances and climbing buildings and gluing bodies to roads over to China! I’m sure we’d all love to see what kind of political action “David Attenborough’s warnings” provoke from the authorities over there!

I'm completely convinced OP and have been for 35 odd years. I have very mixed feelings about XR tbh, they are getting attention but it's annoying people rather than making them act with concern.

Personally I don't think we've got a cats chance in hell of stopping let alone reversing climate change as all humans enjoy their standard of living too much and those that don't already want ours understandably. I feel really scared as to how it's all going to pan out, I fear it ain't going to be pretty

More important than work or hospital appointments or other people’s hypocrisy or anything else

You lot just arent listening are you. I started getting a real sense of deja vu re you lot not listening. Because working class people and BAME get not listened to a LOT. See Grenfell

Work and hospital appointments are important. But its obvious to me that you have the attitude that because climate change is more important then working class , poorer and BAME people can be the collatoral damage. And people attending hospital appointments in some cases because of life threatening conditions.

You do realize that Dan Browns Inferno and the character of Bertrand Zobrist was a novel not a manual right?!

Offer to do the council’s litter picking for no wages, beach cleanups, donate some of their millions to improving public transport. Make a big remorseful donation to cover the cost of police time spent on them, and time in prison. Remember the fathers dressed as Spiderman climbing cranes, and wasting more police time? At the moment, they’re no better.

And they’re not helping the cause of peaceful protest. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one of their ”achievements” turns out to be much harsher penalties given to protesters.

It’s going to pan out just fine. We are wealthier and healthier than we’ve ever been. We have access to incredible technology. Millions of people are being lifted out of poverty. We have some problems, but human beings are incredibly good at solving problems. We don’t all have to join the human-hating cult of XR.

The end of the world is not nigh.

I dont have children...................by choice.

I dont drive.

i dont fly (apart from twice , Once in 1977 and once in 1983) Both times i was a child so out of my control.

I dont buy or use (let off) fireworks.

Nothing.