Extinction Rebellion

Extinction rebellion (XR for short) has hit the streets of the UK and is being just as provocative as usual. Opinions of this current movement of concerned climate revolutionaries vary greatly, depending on who you are, and whether you are trying to get to work or not. The young, in general, are far more pro-XR than the old who are probably still trying to work out whether having petrol drenched seagulls for breakfast is a bad idea yet.

XR, frustrated with the lack of response to the impending Climate Change induced disaster from central government have turned to the Vietnam era method of inspiring political change – civil disobedience. Methods such as mass protest, gluing themselves to public transport and in general being a nuisance are specialties now widely associated with the sandal wearing, lettuce loving environmental enthusiasts. The overall effectiveness of this method for achieving their objectives remains to be seen.

XR in the UK have three main demands:

• Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
• Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025.
• Government must create, and be led by the decisions of, a citizens’ assembly on climate and ecological justice.

The first two demands appear reasonable. Declaring a climate emergency would be in line with the policies of other governments such as Canada and probably matches the level of gut-wrenching fear we should be experiencing when considering the prospect of the potential for chaos as a result of a Climate Change induced alterations to the habitability of the entire coastline. Unless you’re from Norfolk, or perhaps Windsor, you’re unlikely to be equipped with gills, or the webbed feet to thrive in 2050 Blackpool. The government acting now would be a very sensible thing. Reducing emissions to net-zero by 2025 would likely be very challenging, but perhaps we could manage it.

It is the final demand that I truly take issue with. The formation of a citizens’ assembly to oversee the decisions of the UK parliament is truly moronic. I understand that they are mostly composed of anarchists and left leaning libertarians that trust central government as much as a Kulak in the 1930s, but honestly. Their proposal is to take 100 random members of society and assign them a leading role in combatting climate change. To quote a television programme, “the problem with the public, is that they’re fucking horrible.” If you thought it was easy for corporations to manipulate politicians to their ends, you’d be surprised how little it takes to get a standard human being to go from respectable to despicable. Give a person a breadknife, a fiver and a sense of national pride and watch them go and commit atrocities.

That’s the thing that really annoys me about XR. They’ve forgotten that the main reason Vietnam stopped wasn’t the protests- it was the NVA fucking murdering everyone.