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

The whole thing reads very childish.

Change everything. You do it. No I won't help. It's everyone else's responsibility.

If xr took personal responsibility 99% of the problems with them would disappear.

54321nought
the government are not acting though!

Further government plans announced a few days ago:

www.mtdmfg.com/news/uks-world-leading-hydrogen-economy-set-to-support-thousands-of-jobs-and-unlock-4-billion-investment/

www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-launches-plan-for-a-world-leading-hydrogen-economy

www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-hydrogen-strategy

EstuaryBird, thank you for that. It is exactly what I have been saying.

@BelleOfTheProvince

The whole thing reads very childish.

Change everything. You do it. No I won't help. It's everyone else's responsibility.

If xr took personal responsibility 99% of the problems with them would disappear.

You continue to miss the point.

Its counter-productive to point the finger at XR and KFC-munchers for not doing things the way you want them to.

Are we trying to tackle the climate crisis or lament human fallibility?

Well, I believe you missed the point because I have seen no evidence of xr having any impact whatsoever.

Do xr fund vertical farming? Do they push petitions for different energy sources? Do they raise funding for research into ways to be more sustainable?

As far as I can tell it's a lot of shouty people virtue signalling with no substance.

I agree with @Darker - it creates barriers if you give out a message that people cannot engage unless they are already doing all they can to be a model green citizen. We need everyone to engage in tackling the climate crisis, not just the people who are already on the journey.

I actually agree that you need to engage people to tackle it. But that doesn't excuse personal responsibility. If you don't set a good example you lose credibility.

But the key word is tackle. Deeds. Action.
Not just chaos. And again, where is the evidence xr actually have a positive impact?

The crisis is because of human actions, as someone already pointed out, it's a cause and effect loop. Companies producing plastic tat are only able to continue operating because people buy plastic tat.
Ditto fast fashion etc.
Xr should be focusing on concrete actions like campaigning for better quality clothes, mending stations whatever.
It's the lack of direction just means it's a pointless organisation. If they actually had plans rather than demands they'd be credible.

But the point is that both personal responsibility and government responsibility need to happen for change to be possible.

@BelleOfTheProvince

Well, I believe you missed the point because I have seen no evidence of xr having any impact whatsoever.

Do xr fund vertical farming? Do they push petitions for different energy sources? Do they raise funding for research into ways to be more sustainable?

As far as I can tell it's a lot of shouty people virtue signalling with no substance.

I’ve already explained politely to you that XR have prompted declaration of a climate emergency in 320 UK councils, and in some it has triggered and in depth consultation process looking at evidence for possible solutions and determining what the public would find acceptable. That public acknowledgement of the problem is a good step forward and has given an inroad to policy makers for those working on climate solutions that wasn’t so solid before.

There has been great work happening to develop vertical farming and alternative energy sources for a long time, particularly in universities and industry, but a mechanism was needed to bring together experts like ourselves, the public and policy makers to find a way forward for society to tackle these complex issues. I am not directly involved with XR as I am not an activist and I can see why some of the actions annoy people but to say they have no impact is wrong.

Why do XR have to prove themselves to you? Why so angry?

Awareness of the climate crisis has been raised by many groups and individuals including XR and Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough, and media coverage of horrific wildfires, flooding and droughts and of the climate change summits.

I'm not arguing anymore. They are badly organised, with mostly negative outcomes.

I, and the majority of the public think they do more harm than good.
Go join them. Change it. Prove us wrong. I'm tired of being shouted at by people that do eff all for the environment.

@BelleOfTheProvince

I'm not arguing anymore. They are badly organised, with mostly negative outcomes.

I, and the majority of the public think they do more harm than good.
Go join them. Change it. Prove us wrong. I'm tired of being shouted at by people that do eff all for the environment.

I am not sure why you are so angry. Why not channel it into positive action as some of us have suggested?

If you angry because you are from an industry that is set to lose out such as oil and gas, or aviation, you need good government engagement more than any of us. Government that has a proper, detailed plan for reskilling and transitioning thousands of workers into green jobs.

I'm not looking for any stats||? what stats do you think I'm looking for? If you want stats, find them yourself.

Hang on yoh are the one claiming

That most xr are retired professionals so can't be privileged

The universities in the 50s & 60s were mainly attended by people from poor families

That because university was free, that it was easy to get into an attend for poor. You know this because you work in education.

If you are going to talk stats, but not give them, them people can assume you are just making it up.

Why do XR have to prove themselves to you? Why so angry?

I don't think people are angry. But XR deprive people of wages, which may of them need to survive the month. They disrupt peoples lives, medical appointments etc.

Then claim people should be grateful for their 'sacrifice'. So yes, they do need to prove themselves to the people they expected to be impressed.

There is no point in the public acting on climate change. The government's of the world and all the businesses are not doing enough and never will. Cop26 will achieve nothing except make some people in Glasgow richer from renting out their houses. That's it.

Join them if you want and protest. Just don't expect change. You're never going to see change. Change will happen when it's too late. No one is willing to stop bring selfish until it's too late, and then they will complain they weren't told.

Surely if they're 'mostly retired middle class professionals', they've already got houses bought for far lower multiples of their income and paid off, a huge amount of equity, good pension schemes, more than adequate (and untouchable) monthly income and they don't have anything to fear from gaining a criminal record other than a totes hilaire tale to tell at their next informal getogether dinner party--? 'Oh, Susannah, please do tell Graeme about the time you got arrested!'.

Unlike the unfortunate fuckers on ZHC trying to get to work and either getting away with just having not enough money to pay their rents and mortgages or, as is even more likely at that end of the socioeconomical scale, being fired.

As a last from me (yes really). My DH and I have just been reminiscing about our time at university. We realized, again, that there were no end of people who thought it was fashionable to pretend/claim to be working class. So, they dressed in awful clothes, lived in squats, joined IS or the Worker's Revolutionary Party, claimed to be Trotskyists or Marxists or Maoists (god!!) and generally played games. Of course, eventually, they all became the middle class that they had always been, but it was such a lark, wasn't it? Those of us who really were working class went back to home to slog a bit more and try to improve our lives with no help from our relatives who couldn't assist financially. We knew all along they were playing games. I suspect some still are.

@BelleOfTheProvince

You talk about sacrifice, but I don't see it from xr. Getting arrested if you are retired means nothing. Protesting in central London and getting takeaway food is hardly a hardship.

Real sacrifice involves making an effort. And then getting the government to implement measures for business and the public to do the same.
I'd be interested to see how many xr protesters melted away like snow if they campaigned to get rid of subsidiaries for meat farmers. Because it would mean a big lifestyle change. How many are willing to do that? You saw that video right, 'That's for the government to decide'. No planning, expecting others to do the work. Other movements have had people actually coming up with solutions to problems. Not just whining that something should change.

If you don't think getting arrested is a sacrifice, then why don't you do it to protest?

its a huge sacrifice in terms of comfort, personal freedom, earning potential, finances, everything

Yes even if you are retired.

Do you think sitting in a police van or police cell for hours is not a sacrifice? Hours or days in police custody? Legal fees? Possible prison sentence?

I don't really see how the sacrifice could possibly be much bigger

@BelleOfTheProvince

It's not about 'inconvenience'.

It's about lack of forethought.
Protests on public transport have lost a person their job.
An emergency services worker had said they've stopped them getting through.
Someone else could not get to their medical appointment.

And sorry, I don't buy it's really about the planet when it's always on sunny days and involves a visit to McDonald's or KFC.

what do you mean always on sunny days? How can anyone know in advance which days will be sunny? You do know protests continue in all weathers?

If you don't know that, why don't you realise that?

Its a very odd thing to misunderstand

LoislovesStewie I met a number of them in Goa. They were also in touch with being ethnic as shown by wearing similar clothes to older locals and didn’t feel the need to wash much (not quite sure who they were identifying with then)

Same old entitled mc comrades from the 60’s just different generations

[quote SimonJT]@54321nought So you think you know the proportion of working class/poor students in the 1950/1960s yet you don’t know what the stats are. If you don’t know what statistics I’m talking about, how do you know what proportion of university students were working class/poor?[/quote]
I'm a teacher, this data is in the public realm, and frequently referred to, especially when planning how to improve current social mobility to match past social mobility..

It really isn't in any dispute

The thing is with social mobility, is that people misunderstand it.

It means moving up on your own merits

It also means moving down on your own merits too

So giving an opportunity to one person often means taking it away from someone else

Hence, in the homeless shelters I work in, I have many professionals, and the occasional guest with a title

[quote Clavinova]54321nought
the government are not acting though!

Further government plans announced a few days ago:

www.mtdmfg.com/news/uks-world-leading-hydrogen-economy-set-to-support-thousands-of-jobs-and-unlock-4-billion-investment/

www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-launches-plan-for-a-world-leading-hydrogen-economy

www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-hydrogen-strategy[/quote]
You know the government are not doing anything like enough, they are leading us to disaster

@BelleOfTheProvince

Well, I believe you missed the point because I have seen no evidence of xr having any impact whatsoever.

Do xr fund vertical farming? Do they push petitions for different energy sources? Do they raise funding for research into ways to be more sustainable?

As far as I can tell it's a lot of shouty people virtue signalling with no substance.

XR supports all those things, and liases with organisations who do all those things, and those organisations liase with ER for the other side of activation needed, the pressure on governments and companies.

None of these organisations exist in a vacuum, its all about coordination.

If you don't want to be involved with the way ER go about things, then fine, support another organisation doing environmental protection work, but they all need ER too

@54321nought Why don’t you show us all this widely available data?

Do you think sitting in a police van or police cell for hours is not a sacrifice? Hours or days in police custody? Legal fees? Possible prison sentence?

i don't really see how the sacrifice could possibly be much bigger

Sitting in a police cell isn't really a huge sacrifice, if you believe in the cause.

What we're the XR protestors accused of, when they were kept days?

And whats the worst charge they have faced, just for protesting. Longest sentence? Legal fees? All just for protesting.

And no, earning potential when you are retired and financially well off, isn't a huge consideration.

If you don't see how that sacrifice could be much bigger, you genuinely have no clue about much of anything.

I feel that I should be able to say 'actually after protests 96% of XR meet at the nearest McDonald's, eat copious amounts of burgers and laugh about how they have conned people into believing this give shit.

I won't provide proof or stats, because according to OP, that's not for me to do. I can just make claims that are entirely made up and says its fact, because I said so.

So yes XR, do go to McDs and laugh at all the people who think they are genuine. I said it so it's true.