to support extinction rebellion - more London action tomorrow

[54321nought]

I am not sure what, but I have seen their previous demonstrations, and support their cause.

We were given badges at one event, and travelled home on public transport wearing them, and received absolutely nothing but 100% support from other travellers, which was nice, as I expected some hostility, publicly wearing their badges while roads in London were closed by them

You’d think that with an environmental protest, no litter and no disruption to public transport would be the absolute basics. Plus no protesters buying drinks in disposable cups unless they’re going to take the trouble to drop them in Costa or Starbucks for recycling.

I suggest that everyone who supports extinction rebellion goes back to a 1950s lifestyle. No central heating, no technology, no replacing clothes until they are really worn out, in fact buy nothing until the item is kaput, walk or use a bike to get around, no car, no foreign holidays, no 'gap years' travelling to exotic places, don't buy a coffee on your way to work (because of the rubbish created), no food that isn't produced locally, (so bang goes the quinoa then). Have I made my point ! Thought not.

I support the cause of raising awareness of climate change and trying to get the government to do something. I don’t support them. Normally I'm all for protest groups but the amount of chaos they cause is just ridiculous. They can bugger off.

The internet’s pretty bad got the environment too.

We don't need to go back to the 1950s, we need to go forward. Either climate change needs tackling or it doesn't. We all.know it does.

And tbf I don’t think their demonstrations are achieving anything other than making people hate them. They aren't making people take climate change seriously.

Just out of interest, OP, when in history was the global climate optimal? And when it gets back to that level, how will it be maintained permanently?

The two walkers who tried to stop the electric tube train, got pulled off the roof by exasperated workers and given a good kicking was one of my TV highlights last year.

Hopefully this time they won’t leave vast areas covered in (largely plastic litter), lets hope they refrain from smashing windows this time as well.

During their last London demo they were verbally abusing clients at the vets we use, it became so bad they had to close for the day and lock the staff in to keep them safe. As a result animals couldn’t get the care they needed and the vets lost a days money and had to replace their main door.

I very much value our environment, thats why I don’t make needless journeys, litter, use single use plastic or smash glass windows.

@KingdomScrolls

I was on a train with a load of them during one of the first waves, very middle class and all talking about their long haul holidays 🤦‍♀️

Bunch of berks gluing themselves to boats and wasting police and commuter time, demanding poor people stop travelling but not them. Their travel is always "important".

I remember their protest which deliberately stopped working class people getting to work on actual GREEN transport. That was it for me, it's nothing but attention seeking wank.

They set up camp outside our office in London a couple of years ago ... interesting to see a lot of them stuffing their faces with Cadbury’s choc ...not that concerned about the palm oil then 🤷🏼‍♀️

YANBU. Thank you for supporting them in any way you can. I am too scared to go to a protest but am donating money. They are bringing attention to an urgent crisis, and the disruption they bring is nothing - nothing - compared to what the world will look like if we stay on the current path. The current plan to deal with it seems to be “bury your head in the sand, do creative carbon accounting, and complain that the others are not doing anything either”.

Some links:
Half the world children is in extreme danger: www.unicef.org/press-releases/one-billion-children-extremely-high-risk-impacts-climate-crisis-unicef

What “the adults in the room” are doing: news.sky.com/story/greta-thunberg-says-claims-that-uk-is-a-climate-leader-are-a-lie-as-unicef-report-finds-1-billion-children-at-high-risk-from-climate-impacts-12385672

What is happening: xkcd.com/1732/

People advocating for greener policies haven’t been sufficiently heard or heeded. Extinction Rebellion makes more noise. We need that noise. They have given plenty of notice of their intention to stage a two week event in London from Monday.

People complaining about litter etc - if you attended any of their events you would know they are anti litter.

As for hypocrisy. Yes. We are all hypocrites. XR doesn’t shame people for their individual choices because that won’t help anyone. As a society we expect other people to change their behaviour before we change our own. Look at how many people (who last year were praising the clear skies and better air quality) are complaining about not being able to get on a plane for their annual holiday during a pandemic and while the planet is on code red. We love pointing the finger at others. It comforts us. However a few people sorting their recycling correctly and holidaying in Cornwall won’t save the planet - we need a wholesale review of how we live, driven from the top.

People complaining about litter etc - if you attended any of their events you would know they are anti litter.

I live on London, after their last large demo vast amounts of plastic bottles, food containers and beer bottles were left behind. They seemed anti taking responsibilty for their own litter and they very much enjoyed single use plastic and McDonalds.

I’m in Manchester and they haven’t caused as many issues here as London, the last protests we were prepared for a lot of arrests etc but they largely didn’t happen. No issue with them if it’s the same again.

But the London protests were appalling. Reports of ambulances not being allowed through. A reasonable contingent with a purely anti-police agenda looking to stir up trouble.

Disrupting the lives of individuals trying to make a living won’t garner support for their cause. Go after the big corporations responsible for massive carbon emissions, rather than causing people to miss hospital appointments or not be able to get to work.

Extinction Rebellion to me seem a bit useless. They only seem to appear now and then to jolly through london as if on a lovely day trip then they piss off again and you never hear from them. Remind me of the middle class ravers of the 90s and new age travellers.

@KonTikki I totally agree, got exactly what they had coming to them!

That may be your experience Simon and obviously that’s very unpleasant but it isn’t what I’ve observed. I also live and work in London and have dropped into a few events in passing. There is often free food and recycling facilities on site. Obviously it’s harder to be litter free when very large numbers of people are there and the police are moving people on.

Rent a mob is nothing new though, is it. It's the same bored middleclass kids or ageing hippy types who in the 80s would have been at Greenham Common, in the 90s at an animal rights protest or up trees at the Newbury bypass, in the 2000s campaigning against the war in Iraq. Whatever the cause of the day is to hitch themselves to. With a bit of superglue and press coverage thrown in.

That's not to say climate change is not worth bothering about, it very much is. But you can agree with the need to do something and think that people supergluing themselves to the street and stopping others getting to work is nonsense.

Remember this? 28 Feb 2020. It was a large and densely packed climate protest of youth, attended by Greta Thunberg who had travelled in from abroad. Many of us couldn't fucking believe this was going ahead as covid was already spreading in the community. The world is on fire indeed.

We locked down only 3 weeks later.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-51663632

XR aside, what would make governments listen? And big multinational business?

I'm sometimes in awe of the XR lot because if a Black & /or minority ethnic person tried some of that shit they'd be dragged off the top of the train and sentenced to jail for 50 years before the end of the working day.

Seen on social media that Piers Corbyn is holding a counter protest .

Are we in need of awareness though? I actually think the vast majority of people are fully aware and therefore struggle to understand XR wilfully causing chaos and costing cities money without much benefit coming out of it.

We need concrete change from
Governments and corporations all
Over the world and I'll be honest, Xtinction Rebellion is not going to achieve that