The Handmaids behind Extinction Rebellion

[Silentlyobserving]

Yes those people who blocked London bridges and prevented emergency vehicles getting to hospitals and had all their sheep trailing after them:

The current members of the Holding Group are:

• Gail Bradbrook, mid 40s, raised working class white cis, straight woman, since educated to PhD. level. She’s a mother and lives in Gloucestershire. She’s helped run a small charity for 15 years and has a variety of skills as a result, for example fundraising and strategy. She’s been involved in tax and economic justice work, and was a Director of Transition Stroud.

• Jay, mid-thirties, white and middle class, educated to degree level (but the real education definitely started after leaving), queer, gender non-identifying but assigned female at birth. A mix of interests and involvement, including permaculture, teaching and facilitation, community work, migrant solidarity, queer organising, art, bodywork and nature connection, all of which will hopefully be put to good use in the hugely inspiring RisingUp!

• Stu Basden, thirties, non-binary, white person with a middle class background who studied an MA in Philosophy, Theology and Psychoanalysis in Toronto, Turtle Island (aka North America). They have organised with Toronto350.org around climate issues for over three years, and towards the end of that time increasingly became focused on issues around indigenous sovereignty. Having participated in various struggles, activist camps and resistance communities in Europe for over a year, they decided to get involved with RisingUp!, and so moved to the UK, settling on Bristol as a place from which to organise and put down roots.

• Lizia Woolf, early 20s. Second generation Malaysian British vegan Londoner. Dropped out of private sixth form in pursuit of empowerment, connection and ‘real life’. She’s dedicated to learning and preserving various arts and skills that can be incorporated into a sustainable, zero-waste lifestyle. She believes very strongly in the power of the individual and that change begins from within. She’s had years of experience in performing and teaching. Within RisingUp! she’s eager to hold the welfare of people as people are at the centre of everything we do.

docs.google.com/document/d/1l3h6R4kWJGYGxJd3sLbQdG8zjV4sj5bmlM4Z-9Tk5X8/edit#

Taken from the website: rebellion.earth/who-we-are/

How are people so sodding gullible?

Am I missing something - why is this on here?

Eh?

Is the point you are making, that middle class white women shouldnt protest climate change?

I don't know much about the March but I do know that it made the headlines that thousands of young people were marching with the aim of convincing political leaders to take concrete steps on climate change.

Whilst I'm cynical that they will be listened to (by a political class that is hellbent on ignoring the issue), I think it was an excellent awareness raising initiative. Beyond that it will hopefully encourage those involved to follow their passion, to work in the sector and drive real change, to keep making their voices heard and to make changes to their own lifestyle. In this way it could be very significant.

So whilst there may be issues that I'm not aware of, I think we should be commending the organisers (can't remember but mainly women?).

What is your point, OP?

Climate change protest is the new religion? Seriously?!! This kind of thread makes GC feminists look like total nutjobs, and I say that as someone firmly GC.

I'm glad people are starting to protest climate change, about time, I'll be joining in closer to home. At least these people are not being science deniers about climate change, it's a start.

I will go rake a forest. We have plenty in my country

Yes, climate always changes but those changes are gradual. The salient thing about the increase in global temperatures, especially over last 35 years is the RATE of acceleration.

The vital signs of climate change
climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

This is science. Observable evidence. From NASA.

Obviously still prone to error and bias but 95% of climate scientists, (which is a broad field but includes measurements of ice cores, ice sheets, glaciers, tree rings, ocean temps and acidification, sea level rise, extreme weather events) agree that we are getting hotter and this is not a good thing for survival purposes.

From the web page

"The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.4 Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with the five warmest years on record taking place since 2010. Not only was 2016 the warmest year on record, but eight of the 12 months that make up the year — from January through September, with the exception of June — were the warmest on record for those respective months."

Our addiction to fossil fuels is unsustainable on so many levels yet we keep ignoring the consequences #sillyhumans

Our addiction to fossil fuels is unsustainable on so many levels yet we keep ignoring the consequences #sillyhumans

Yep - this - exactly (but depressingly)

Jared Diamond's work on human's tendency to self destruct is very interesting. Easter island for example, deforestation by the inhabitants led to massive soil erosion which led in turn to issues with food supply (both directly and indirectly - wood for canoes for fishing), conflict and ultimately the self destruction of the society

@SilentlyObserving
I don't understand why you have posted this here, or why you have called them handmaidens. Are you suggesting that straight white women protesting climate change are somehow upholding the patriarchy?

What? Probably not, but I've got that thing on Wednesday so if I have time I'll try. Sorry, was that yes or no to a coffee?

they weren’t interesting when they were blocking bridges (just stupid, that really doesn’t get on side) and they’re not interesting now. I’ve been involved in climate campaigning and the most successful campaigns were the witty engaging ones with good information this is just counterproductive.

Don't use the word "cis" as it's offensive.

MsJemina Jared Diamond writes such excellent books. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive (2005) is my favourite and what happened to the inhabitants of Easter Island very sobering (although Guns Germs and Steel is great - why did the white man get all the cargo?).

Chapter 16 (Collapse) really lays it out. The twelve environmental problems he discusses are interlinked and unsustainable. From destroying natural resources (habitats, bio-diversity, farming, fishing) through to pollution (chemical, alien species- can be rabbits or disease, green-house gases) to our ever increasing, highly wasteful population, we're not boxing clever.

It's a terrible legacy we are bequeathing to our children and future generations because we don't have the political will to solve/change things.

All hail money and economic growth!

People have been protesting the effects of human activity on the planet since the 70's; they aren't handmaidens, they aren't nutjobs, and they aren't holding up the patriarchy.

Not sure what this has to do with feminism, OP.

The earth is effectively a finite system.

Unrestricted growth in a finite system doesn’t work. We sort it or we die. It’s fairly simple.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at in your OP? Do you not believe we are straining the life support systems of the earth? Water, land, biodiversity - all under great strain.

Can you explain what you mean?

You realise ‘handmaiden’ doesn’t mean ‘woman doing something I don’t like’, yes?

Blimey...even the Mail, with campaigns against plastic, get this one.

Climate change, plastic polution etc is absolutely terrifying. I wish governments, supermarkets, individual consumers, etc would do much, much more. People protest in different ways. My nearest bridge was closed, so I used a Boris Bike to go the long way round. Good for them.

Wait, where they all wearing red robes? Did you mean that kind of handmaiden?

Op I get your point (I think). I completely support anyone wanting to protest about climate change. I think this group has genuinely good intentions. It's the fact it looks like it's led by the same type of middle-class, non-binary, privileged bit desperate not to be individuals who are actually being pretty thuggish in the trans debate.

I suppose at least in this instance they are working for change which badly needs to happen.

The self-descriptions are a bit wanky, but I assume they're expected to present themselves that way and if they didn't they'd have a hard time recruiting and working with young volunteers.

WTFITDOFWR?