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.

But the government are doing nothing about practical actions.

Words are cheap. This particular government is an environmental disaster.

@Popgoestheweaselagain

1. 75% YABU.
2. Unfounded along the lines of "you are all middle-class twats", founded - there is likely to be a negative impact on some people
3. Its not feasible to outline all of the possible NVDA activities - they range from blocking roads, to throwing soup, to breaking windows of big polluters. to spray painting Tufton street. By definition any NVDA will cause disruption to someone, somewhere

The civil rights movement did block highways actually

The civil rights movement did block highways actually

No one has offered a viable alternative strategy to try and mitigate the climate emergency
Neither has ER/JSO. The draw a lot of attention, and they disrupt a lot of ordinary people's lives. But I don't see them putting candidates forward for local or national elections where they could take responsibility for making changes. Particularly at the local level there's a lot of change that could be delivered, and the one thing that previous protest movements have shown is that the demand for change must be created from the ground up.

Flights
Food
Heating a large house
Dining out on imported beef

Buying lots of stuff

Midgetastic how would anyone know if these rich people were dining out on imported beef and buying lots of stuff?

There’s a distinction between support for the cause and support for the methods. If protest increases support for the cause then that matters to the government, even if the methods are unpopular. There is evidence that extinction rebellion increased public concern about climate change dramatically with their actions.

What would happen to your little boy if you were sent to prison for a few months

That’s not true actually

Actually the government did engage with Extinction Rebellion and declared a climate emergency based on their civil disobedience. Can you name some successful campaigns that achieved change on a large scale which didn’t use civil disobedience?

I’m glad at least you have spared your son some of these apocalyptic views. You need not be so anxious about the futures. Here’s a great NYT article about how we are actually NOT doomed: www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/26/magazine/climate-change-warming-world.html

An interesting passage given the Western protests:

The West has always had a problem with millenarianism — the fall, Christianity, all that,” says Tim Sahay, a Mumbai-born climate-policy wonk and co-founder of the new Polycrisis journal. “It’s ineradicable — all we see are the possibilities for doom and gloom.” The challenges are real and large and fall disproportionately on the developing world, he says, but they are not deterministic, or need not be. “We’re riding down the dark mountain,” he says. “That’s scary in ways, of course, but there are also so many possible outcomes. I find it all exciting. What kind of cities will Brazil build? What will Indonesia be?

Personally I am confident that better infrastructure for the developing world will
help reduce loss of life and they need to continue to develop along East Asian lines. Recall that as a country develops the birth rate will fall, too.

You of course will disagree.

The climate chaos that will come unless there is systemic change will overwhelm the NHS. Many healthcare workers are now members of XR because they understand the risks we are facing. Go and find an activist to talk to and check out their lifestyle. You will find them trying to live more sustainably and involved in nature restoration projects but they know that is not enough.

I can't believe some people are still arguing the climate emergency is not real.

We have lost 70& of invertebrates just in Britain. All those insects, spiders and butterflies are essential for our ecosystem. Their loss is not as high profile as the extinction of large mammals, but it is already causing real issues in this country.

The ‘mood in the country’ is not changing based on the actions of JSO and ER. It’s based on the tabloid headlines, which in turn is based on/set by people with vested interests in maintaining the status quo, ie Murdoch and his cronies.

People who think small individual actions ‘will all add up’ are deluded. You are p!ssing in the wind.

I have marched but that’s it in terms of protest. I feel I owe it to my kids to get more involved. They will all hate us in 20 years and I want to be able to look mine in the eye and have them believe I cared, and more importantly, tried.

Two problems I can see there for a start - the definitions of 'super rich' and 'reasonable.' Not to mention that your list is a tacit incitement to some idiot taking direct action against some members of the 'super rich' daring to dine out and eat imported beef. And it's probably harassment, as well.

Perhaps you think our politicians are going to save us? They are not. Only protests have brought the situation into focus and will continue to do so. The guardian will write about it but all the right wing media will not. Protesr may be unpopular but will keep climate action on the agenda. We need citizens assemblies with the power to change legislation to guide us out of this situation. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/07/the-guardian-view-on-rishi-sunaks-cop27-trip-placing-the-planet-on-a-road-to-hell?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Sorry to burst your bubble, but:

FLyZero - Governement funded
Wind farms- Amber = Government Approved
OREC - Government funded
CCC - Government Funded
IUK - Government funded
Zero emission propulsion - Government Funded
Zero emission shipping - Government funded

I could give you literally hundreds of examples, tell what your contribution is?

We need a carbon tax for starters. Why don’t we have one already?

@Popgoestheweaselagain Emissions trading - although I agree a tax would be preferable

I expect a lot of people though the suffragettes were lunatics at the time. But what they did worked

What worked for getting women the vote was the contribution of women to war work 1914-1918. Instead of defacing works of art and turning letter boxes into bombs (the suffragettes were very lucky they didn't kill anyone) women had proved their worth both as workers and citizens and the vote was their reward; and even then they had to be over 30 and property owners. Lloyd George was clear about that when he said that the war had ensured that women must be admitted to a complete partnership in the government of the nation.

Ffs I’ve heard of the Red Guards but I guess now we are going to have to get ready for the Green Guards 🤦‍♀️

There is still so much to fight for and hope that we can stabilise the climate. It is interesting that there are so many deniers, delayers and doomers. In a few years surely people will want to look into the eyes of their children and say that they did all they can to protect their future? To those that are so aggressively negative about the actions of XR etc, it is perhaps time to look in the mirror and ask what is underneath that stance. Lack of information? Fear? Guilt? Unwillingness to change their lifestyle? The Climate Psychology Alliance can help people deal with these reactions.

Sorry, not only do I want to continue living as I do, but I want the developing world to experience the benefits of industrialisation.

So I wholly disagree with demonising fossil fuels (which are basically the reason why we are not living miserably as subsistence farmers). Sure, I am very supportive of switching to nuclear for electricity generation, and would push for EVs in urban areas.

But I think fossil fuels was the best thing to happen to humanity.