I do huge amounts of work in tbe local community. For charity, food banks during covid I delivered to those shielding, those who needed to isolate, those that couldn't get through the week. I helped run breakfast clubs in the school holidays at my sons school so that families could ensure their kids were fed, even though they were financially suffering.
Now THIS is what will change things, @Hekatestorch.
In the last thread, XR supporters invoked the suffragettes disrupting things to get the vote as a sign that disruption would bring them success. But women only got the vote because the suffragettes stopped and changed tactics when WW1 hit. They supported the homefront. They helped their communities. Then they got the vote, disruption free, after the war.
People are going to think, “Ah yes, I should definitely change my whole lifestyle because some middle class person with a graduate degree from Frome glued themselves to something so I couldn’t reach my NHS appointment.” Fuck no. (See stats on XR participants in my last comments Yes, they are middle class with graduate degrees from Frome; I’m not being funny).
But I do think, “Hey, Hekate has helped me/my child/our rec center, she’s done x/y/z, and she’s asking me to sign a petition / sent me a link to write to the MP. It wouldn’t be too hard to do that.” That’s what makes a difference. We do these things because of course we care about the environment but we want a way to help from people we know are genuine, and that if they’re already genuine about one thing, then they’re (hopefully) sending us a genuine way that we can help, too, not wasting our time.
It is truly telling that XR was founded by someone getting their degree in radical campaign “design.” Because XR seems like a lot of design, right down to “here’s the colors we’re using for this protest” (again, see my last comment), and not much else. They have statistics other NGOs have spent time and money to research, if they bother with them. No policy papers. Nothing to present to the government if they actually sat down with XR. So why would the government bother? They’re just going to wait out these protests, and maybe even hope an ambulance or two gets stopped so that the press will be even more against XR, and then they’ll meet with climate change NGOs that are doing work.
I promised myself I was done with the last thread, when OP refused to engage on any facts. She’s started a second thread so she can just do more of the same. XR can’t even get their own shite together. This is a great article, with actual research: www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/04/evolution-of-extinction-rebellion-climate-emergency-protest-coronavirus-pandemic (My favorite part was how one branch of XR occupied another branch of XR in 2019 with crying and cinnamon rolls - yes, government will definitely respect that for climate change demands).
Absolutely we need to save the environment and change the climate (lower greenhouse gases). And you should support groups who actually know how to do that. XR isn’t one of them. Don’t give them a dime. Don’t give them a minute. Support anyone who needs to get to a doctor’s appointment or other important appointment around their protests.