Thinking of going to XR Big One in London on Sat...but will it be very full-on?

[Noteverythingisasitseems]

Want to go, and take DC. I'm not amazing with big crowds, but can handle it if it doesn't get too pushy/shove-like and full on. Never been to an XR gathering before - if you have, what should I expect, please?

If everybody at the protest vowed never to buy an avocado again, it would make a huge change to the water waste in this world.

Exactly this!
Also going with our church tomorrow, maybe we'll walk past each other at the Faith hub

I prefer to go on my family history rather than statistics if it's all right with you @Bamboux . It is an expensive area now but was a bit shitty before and just after the war and for quite some time afterwards.

This is my family neighbourhood but I would never say new people had no right to live here or question you on your right to live where you live.

But if anyone's counting, think my family have paid our dues and I can say have an opinion in what happens 15 minutes down the road. Just like you can wherever it is you live.

There are plenty of mixed neighbourhoods in Central London. London is not paris

Stereotype ahoy. The XR folk I know are neither violent nor extremist.

Bamboux, so it's not protests per se, that you are against, just this one ?

I remember queuing in a Pret behind some people from an XR protest just outside, & being the only one there who’d brought a reusable cup.
Both the woman on the counter and I were a bit bemused at that one.

I read that as not wanting the marathon to be disrupted.

Not that they minded the disruption of the marathon.

There are 40,000 runners, plus their supporters, plus organisers, staff volunteers, plus other spectators. It's a huge number going through Parliament Square, many roads closed (and marshalled crossing points only) and much of St James Park and Green Park closed to the public.

There's a large Peabody estate within the 15mins walk criteria, which is still largely social housing. And quite a lot more public housing if you extend that to 20/30 mins walk.

Property is expensive to buy, but ownership and private rental is not the only sort that exists there.

I would imagine if you are, what some would think is fortunate enough to live in Central London - be it in a fancy apartment or social housing - having your day to day life interrupted by large scale events of any kind, comes with the territory

No, I meant I don't want anything to disrupt the Marathon

Sausage, I'm guessing they're may be a cross over, some marathon runners may be in favour of the protest

100 years ago my family lived on or just off Brick Lane, Whitechapel Road, the Cut and the Old Kent Road

The fact that these were working class neighbourhoods a century ago says absolutely nothing about what they're like now

There are tourist tours around Brick Lane now. If I moved there (not that I could afford it) it would be laughable bollocks to claim that it was 'an ordinary neighbourhood' because of what it was like a century ago.

Anyway I remember your posts. You grew up in Essex. You living in an expensive area of central London has fuck all to do with where your grandparents lived. Just like if I moved to Brick Lane it would have no link to my grandparents.

There are still working class areas in those places

I want to go with my child (10). I've been with him on some with friends and children years ago. They tend to be very family-friendly, very well-coordinated and organised (the organisation is very thorough with groups e.g. therapists, scientists, writers, artists, doctors organising different sections and emergency help/medical on hand if needed.

People I know who are part of XR are very well-educated in environmental issues (for example I did a master's in environmental energy years back and many people from that are involved).

I live in London close to most protest routes and have always found them lovely.

Most of us here in central London are working or under class and live in social housing actually.

Sounds shite. No I wouldn't take my kids there. I'll look forward to reading about what the climate activists are going to get locked up for next.

This. It's a jolly. It's virtue signalling but most of all its a massive waste.

I've had travel London disrupted by a bunch of mindless fools from XR. I ended up having to take several ubers to get to places by a specific time, all far more polluting than the mass transit plus walking I had planned to do (I walk a lot especially in cities). So that day because of their planet saving antics, the planet actually ended up a tiny bit worse off.

They're a bunch of thoughtless attention seeking idiots. They don't really care about the environment, all of their 'protests' and the inevitable clean up make things worse by consuming yet more of the earth's finite resources. They care about having their smug hypocritical faces on telly.

But worst of all they rile people up and turn them off of protecting the environment, rather than the opposite. Who can forget the idiot on the train at Canning Town? I don't think he was winning friends and influencing people.

Why don't they do something useful for a change. Clear up an area inundated by rubbish? Plant some trees? Remove plastics from a beach? Boycott businesses they don't approve of environmentally? Nope those things aren't high profile enough, despite actually doing some good, they won't make them feel sufficiently sanctimonious.

It's just Instagram environmentalism done for show. It has no substance.

Surely the normal Londoners who live within fifteeninutes' walk are evidence of it?!

As for the transport questions, yes some use coaches or public transport. Also there are many Londoners who have offered beds or sofas to people coming from outside London so they can travel in advance or stay for all three days of the protests.

All the people I know involved in XR do the things you suggest and more. Most work in the field, so are for example research scientists, environmental architects, lecturers, ecologists, people working in environmental education, recycling, etc..

Yes . I've been part of loads of marches and protests. Including protests against the Criminal Justice Bill and anti nazi protests, among others. I've taken my own children on several demos.

my dad was arrested in 1968 on a student protest. My mum was at the first ever sit-in in Britain. My grandfather and great uncle were at Cable St (on the right side) and fought respectively in ww2 and the Spanish civil war.

I'm not at all opposed to protests in general. I have massive problems with this one.

There aren't very many of those. At all. How well do you know London?

You live less than 15 minutes walk from Parliament?

I live about 35 minutes' walk away and have done all my life.