To risk arrest for protesting about the climate emergency?

[medicellen]

I have recently taken part in climate protests with Extinction Rebellion but have stopped short of activities that would lead to an arrest.

I am a scientist and it has been beyond doubt for some years that the climate emergency is accelerating.

And yet, global carbon emissions continue to increase. Our government is granting new licences for fossil fuels, whilst oil companies rake in massive profits. This is utter madness (aka "collective suicide" according to the lead of the UN).

I have an 8-year old son who says one day he might like to have children. I have avoided saying that this may be either not possible or not desirable due to the state of the climate by then.

Petitions, campaigning, pleas, marches have failed. In my mind, the only option left is civil disobedience. Mass arrests advanced the causes of suffrage and civil rights and I am now contemplating arrest as the only meaningful contribution I have left.

The messages I have taken away from the discussion thus far are:

1. The majority do not support non-violent civil disobedience as a form of protest
2. The same majority offer a range of founded and unfounded criticisms about protests and protesters
3. No one has offered a viable alternative strategy to try and mitigate the climate emergency

I'm still interested in how you think this would work?

How would the members of a CA be elected/selected? What power would they have? How would they be held accountable?

This is pointless. We have a whole system of representation for a reason. You can’t bypass it with an unelected group.

@fernfen - I dont think its as simple as that
theconversation.com/just-stop-oil-do-radical-protests-turn-the-public-away-from-a-cause-heres-the-evidence-192901
environment-review.yale.edu/do-climate-protests-shift-public-support-climate-change-action

Sorry

Why isn't it viable to target the super rich as I suggested

Make a public list of everyone rich or famous and list everything that you can find that is carbon intensive with approximate carbon footprint - name and shame

Flights
Food
Heating a large house
Dining out on imported beef
Buying lots of stuff

Estimate for each and every famous person how much more carbon they produce than the average person, how much more they produce than is reasonable

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves - I feel like I have offered a reasonable amount of information about CAs. If you are genuinely interested then there is plenty of info out there: citizensassembly.co.uk/

Whether you think it is a good outcome or not, it is down to CAs that women in NI can access abortion. It was a political no go

Has it made you turn your back?

No one has offered a viable alternative strategy to try and mitigate the climate emergency
But neither have you op, no more than anyone else, you've just pointed and said someone should do something about this. You are the scientist, you are the one to find the solutions and please do. Civil disobedience is for the students, solutions are for grown ups. Stop being a self indulgent martyr and lead from the front.

1. I absolutely support nonviolent civil disobedience as a form of protest. I just don't think it is working with regard to this particular issue. In fact, I think it is having the opposite effect, and it is detracting from the real issues. The protests have become the story, when the story should be climate change itself.

1. I think it's fair enough to criticise protests and protestors if you disagree with their approach. Unfounded criticisms are never particularly illuminating but, in a democracy, we all have a right to our opinions.

1. The only real viable strategy to try and mitigate the climate emergency is to persuade people to elect a government that is actually committed to doing something. If you think that chucking soup at a painting or glueing yourself to the road is going to persuade the general public, then crack on. Personally, I think you are alienating them from your cause and there are other tactics that would be far more persuasive.

@medicellen well feel free to quote all the blogs, random websites and non peer reviewed sources you like. But anyone can write any old bollocks on websites.

But you are fooling yourself if you think activists change more than people with in the industry and government. I work in the industry and protestors never ever have any impact or sway on our desitions. Unless you want to get actually get involved and be the actual scientist who is creating and realising peer reviewed data you will always be the joke in the daily mail.

No.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-56041849.amp

amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/04/abortion-services-in-northern-ireland-almost-nonexistent-despite-legalisation

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/29/abortion-legalised-2019-northern-ireland-human-rights

I see no mention of citizens assemblies and there was none during the campaign.

Can you show your evidence for that statement please?

@fernfen - er, you could try reading them. ive cited 2 sources that are led by university academics. which resources do you think would be more reliable?

@wibblewobbleboard - my apologies. Irish republic rather than NI. Not a good mistake to make. However, the CA principle remains

www.electoral-reform.org.uk/the-irish-abortion-referendum-how-a-citizens-assembly-helped-to-break-years-of-political-deadlock/

@medicellen

No one has offered a viable alternative strategy to try and mitigate the climate emergency.

Simply put we need to stop burning fossil fuels, in that context JSO are correct but sustainability also has social and economic pillars. Bearing this in mind I suggest to you that we need to reduce our reliance on gulf and Russian oil and the conflicts and inequalities those states perpetuate. So we need to create an energy buffer, which reluctantly can only only come from fossil fuels while we also massively increase our renewable energy supply. Net zero by 2050 is doable but we need to be pragmatic and realistic in our journey.

(And no-one will need to stop flying).

Being blunt, while there are of course some complexities, I think abortion is an infinitely simpler issue than climate change. I would not trust the general public to come up with anything better than our elected politicians already have done. To me, it sounds like just another talking shop - yet another way of kicking the can down the road.

If the public truly wants action on climate change, then they need to reflect this in the choices that they make in the ballot box. If the activists themselves truly want change, then they would do well to stand for election to public office, persuading people to support them by putting forward viable and credible policies that will actually tackle the problem. Soup on a painting is not going to persuade anyone of anything.

If you're going to state things as facts and get them wrong it throws your whole argument off tbh.

Well, until China sorts itself out re climate, anything we do here is pretty much pointless. So you will be wasting your own time and annoying/inconveniencing a lot of people who are just trying to work and get through their day.

Because it hurts ordinary working people.

Imagine you live paycheck to paycheck and can't get to work for 2 days because of protestors, you get deeper into debt because you aren't paid, maybe even lose your job.
Imagine you've waited a year and a half for a hospital appointment for treatment that may improve your life significantly, you miss that appointment and get put to the end of the queue again.

It's not hurting the people that can actually do something, it's hurting the most needy, the people that can afford it least.

Think about that.

The daft little teens on TV chucking food at things, they are privileged idiots, why the hell should someone on minimum wage look at them and decide now is the time to change?

I'd applaud protests at the houses of Parliament, hardly anything seemed to happen last year at cop26, etc. It's all just hurting the people that struggle the most.

That prick on YouTube on the gantry over the M25 stopping thousands of people getting to work? Pathetic. That pretend weeping that didn't even reach her eyes, whiney little twerp. "We don't want to do this!"
Well do something else then.
It really does drive a hell of a lot of people from the cause. I used to care a lot more until this bunch of middle class fuckwits decided that everyone should "wake up!" And be just as smart as you.

@Daftasabroom - I agree with what you think "we" should be doing. But the government are not doing it and have been found to have a legally inadequate strategy to get to net zero. So the how is about how we get them to do what is needed

Please don't do this. A criminal conviction will follow you forever.

I understand your sense of powerlessness, but with your skills and training there are better and more constructive ways to deploy them, as many posters have suggested upthread.

I also agree with what other people have said that this method of protesting is doing a lot of harm to the cause, and no good that I can see. The strategy needs to change- which is where your training could be of value.

I agree with this. I just disagree that the methods currently being used by the XR activists are likely to be effective. In fact, I think they're going to have the opposite effect.

They are doing it. I am absolutely no fan of the Tories, have never and are very unlikely to ever vote for them but offshore wind is due to increase by 500% in the decade. They are also putting huge sums into R&T.

1. We haven't said that. We don't think it's working in this context.
2. would help if we know which were founded and which were unfounded
3. we've asked you a number of times to more clearly outline what kind of civil disobedience plans are and what specifically you hope to achieve. You haven't answered us.

Actually the government did engage with extinction rebellion and declared a climate emergency in response to their civil disobedience.