You're not unreasonable to support them, but others aren't unreasonable to be fed up with the tactics of some do under the XR banner or feel that the group's methods may be inefficient at getting to their goals which, as shown in this thread, aren't well communicated. Most activist groups have been accused of worse and XR has had its fair share of bumps so far.
XR have already managed to push change through.
Which changes are directly linked to XR's actions?
I think this is a risk with any big non hierarchical organisation but mass civil disobedience on the whole works so well.
Extinction Rebellion are actually on the whole a very interesting group who have done a lot of research into successful movements of the past (suffragettes, civil rights etc) and have found that disruptive civil disobedience is the most effective way to bring about change.
While it can be useful when used as part of a diverse range of tactics used to tackle an issue, there isn't much evidence that 'on the whole' it works well on its own. Most well known, possibly, but not on meeting goals.
Using suffragettes and civil rights as examples repeatedly given, both involved many groups, with conflicting goals, and they all used a diverse range of methods of which there is still debate on what was most effective and often, particularly in civil rights movements, local groups trained their members on how to handle when conflict would arise so comparing it to a large group of untrained people demonstrating & claiming that's the "most effective way" is to erase the efforts those groups did -- and erase the many many mass protests that resulted in nothing.
Some parts of XR do use other tactics, but so many people keep going back to how mass demonstrations works when there are far more cases of it doing fuck all or even arguably harming a movement. There are even 'victories' attached to mass protests that caused movements to lose steam which meant the same issue came out with barely a ripple in comparison (see ID cards and surveillance issues).
Scientists needs funding...funding comes from the government
Some funding comes from government, but a lot of research funding comes from the private sector as well.
Not sure how either are pressurized by these marches to give more funding. There are marches in London all the time, none of which seem to be really aimed at anyone but general disruption.
but the reason this extreme group exists in the first place is because governments are putting Polling Numbers and Populist policy ahead of a sustainable future for the human race.
If they don't get the votes of ordinary people, it limits their ability to enact future change. They still can, and many activist groups avoid politics entirely because of that, but systems of power do create barriers when against what one is trying to do. Those that go the reformist route - using the use the machinery of the system to improve the system - tend to use political systems which need the will of at least those who vote.
The way I see it, XR isn’t trying to win hearts and minds, it’s trying to shame the government for its inaction.
This reminds me of Stokley Carmichael's words on nonviolent protest - that it relies on the government having a conscience and Carmichael felt that it had none. The whole thing relies on the idea that the government has shame and also that the actions or XR would cause them shame.
God this argument is so frustrating. If we "all lived like monks" then those 10(0) companies would go out of business. But it's easier to claim that you can't make a difference and so you'll just sit back and consume while shaking your sanctimonious head at government.
Many of the top 100 polluting companies are actually government-owned and run and do business with other governments and large corporations on the whole with a global audience. Living like monks wouldn't really effect that without also engaging in wider work too - the less glamourous, less martyr work of tedious meetings, data collection and analysis, and similar work involved in these things.
It is easy to claim that we can't make a difference.
It's also easy to claim that a protest march or anything else makes a difference, but without evidence to back it up, why should anyone believe it?
Can you really not see that if we stop consuming plastic and oil then the government will stop investing in it?
How do you expect our medical services to not use plastics?
How do you expect to readapt all the buildings as previous discussed without the plastics that are involved in that?
Green energy - also requires plastic.
I mean, every 5 minutes there is another bioplastic article that is meant to replace oil-based plastic though none yet are at a level that it can do that, but there is a reason we're using these resources and it's not just because we're lazy consumption hungry assholes - a bit we can lay there which an individual can do (which isn't what XR is targeting), but the largest issues and consumers are industries using these things that we're relying on and 'using' without knowing or having another choice.