09/10/2019

Extinction Rebellion Kick Off Two Weeks Of International Protests Against Climate Change

NEWS.com.au - Natalie Brown | AAP | AFP

Climate protesters in New York stage a graphic “die-in”, as two weeks of international civil disobedience to “save the Earth from extinction” begin.
Extinction Rebellion protesters covered in fake blood gather around the Wall Street Bull in New York. Source: AFP
Tourists gawk at a bloody scene in New York City as a series of protests begin around the world, demanding much more urgent action against climate change.
Activists with the Extinction Rebellion movement smeared themselves — and emblems of Wall Street — in fake blood and staged a “die-in” in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
“The blood of the world is here,” said Justin Becker, an organiser who made a link between the fossil fuel industry and the financial interests of Wall Street. “A lot of blood has been spilled by the decisions of the powerful and the status quo and the toxic system that we live in.”
New York City is one of many big cities around the world — from Sydney to Amsterdam — where activists are protesting as part of a two-week-long campaign.
Demonstrators stopped traffic in European cities including Berlin, London, Paris and Amsterdam from Monday. In some cities, they chained themselves to vehicles or pitched tent camps and vowed not to budge. Hundreds of protesters have been detained by police around the world.
“Getting arrested sends a message to the government that otherwise law-abiding citizens are desperate,” British IT consultant Oshik Romem, told AFP. In London — where Extinction Rebellion was founded — 276 people have already been arrested.
Hundreds of climate change protesters have been detained by police in major cities around the world. Picture: Timothy A. Clary/AFP
A protester covered in fake blood is arrested by NYPD officers after staging a ‘die-in’ near the Wall Street bull. Source: AFP
The activists are demanding that governments drastically cut the carbon emissions that scientists have shown cause devastating climate change.
“People are rebelling in these numbers because they realise the time to address this is right now, not in 2050, or even 2025,” Extinction Rebellion tweeted, referring to “net zero” climate emissions pledges by some governments.

What Is Extinction Rebellion?


Established in the UK in May 2018 by members of the social and environmental justice organisation Rising Up!, Extinction Rebellion (XR for short) is an international movement that “uses nonviolent civil disobedience in an attempt to halt mass extinction and minimise the risk of social collapse.”
Its founders include former organic farmer Roger Hallan and Gail Bradbrook, who formerly worked for an organisation seeking better internet access for the disabled.
The organisation launched last October, when more than 1500 people assembled on Parliament Square in London, in a peaceful civil disobedience to announce a Declaration of Rebellion against the UK Government.
Since then, the movement has staged a series of protests around the world, often featuring marchers in white masks and red costumes, splashed in copious amounts of fake blood.
The group — which uses an hourglass inside a circle as its logo to represent time running out for many species — wants governments to declare a "climate and ecological emergency” and take immediate action to address climate change.
According to its website, XR has three demands: tell the truth about what is happening to the planet and declare a climate emergency; act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025; and to reform democracy to create a citizens assembly on climate and ecological justice.
Activists outside the New York Stock Exchange. Picture: AP Photo/Richard Drew
An activist is arrested by police in Amsterdam. Picture: Romy Fernandez/AFP
Policemen carry away an activist in Vienna, Austria. Picture: Helmut Fohringer/APA/AFP
A climate protesters sits outside Britain's Parliament in central London. Picture: AP Photo/Matt Dunham
Greta Thunberg looks on during the climate change rally in Rapid City, South Dakota. Picture: Adam Fondren/Rapid City Journal via AP
Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg — whose searing UN address in September made international headlines — and academics studying the world’s rising temperatures and sea levels have backed the group, who have rejected the idea that they’re “a bunch of law-breaking anarchists or economic terrorists or ecofascists.”
“We are strictly nonviolent and reluctant law-breakers” from all ages and walks of life, they say on their website.
While nonviolent civil disobedience is central to XR’s tactics, though the group urges members to accept that they’ll risk arrest and charges, and should step outside of their comfort zone.
“We have a duty to disobey this system which destroys life on Earth and is deeply unjust,” its website says.

Action So Far
Tens of thousands of people from major cities around the world have heeded Extinction Rebellion’s call since last October, with the group saying that emergencies like the one heating up the climate demands action from everyone around the world.
In the weeks that followed their launch, 6000 protesters blocked five bridges across the Thames and, on other occasions, members performed stunts such as supergluing themselves to the gates of Downing Street — where this year, they poured buckets of fake blood on the road outside to represent the threatened lives of children.
On Monday — the first day of the fortnight’s protests — Metropolitan Police in London had already made 217 arrests in relation to the protests, with XR expecting the demonstration to be five times bigger than those held in April.
In Madrid, around 300 activists occupied a bridge that serves as a major traffic artery in the Spanish capital; and in Amsterdam, Dutch police detained 50 people who had refused to leave a roadblock they had set up on a main thoroughfare in the city centre.
More than 30 New Zealanders were yesterday arrested in Wellington, where hundreds blocked central roads, ministries and stormed a bank branch in the city.
And in Dublin, hundreds of environmental activists took part in a mock funeral procession through the city, with a large pink boat unveiled outside the heart of the Irish parliament in Leinster House.
Protesters dance on the Pont au Change bridge as they take part in an Extinction Rebellion demonstration in Paris. Source: AFP
Police arrest a climate activist in London. Picture: AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali
Protesters hold banners reading ‘Pollute, consume and shut your mouth’ and ‘Burn the capitalism not oil’ during a demonstration in Paris. Picture: Jacques Demarthon/AFP
Back in April, more than 1100 protesters were arrested when XR brought major disruption to London, where over the course of 11 days some of the city’s busiest routes were brought to a standstill.
Internationally, XR estimates an additional 440 of its activists have been arrested since their launch, including close to 70 in New York, where in June activists blocked traffic.
Several German protesters chained themselves outside Angela Merkel’s Chancellery in Berlin earlier this year — where more than 3000 protesters participated in actions, and in Paris, the police used pepper spray to clear activists blocking a bridge over the Seine.

What’s Happening In Australia?
The organisation’s Australian branch makes similar demands to the UK’s, stating that the government must declare a climate and ecological emergency, and must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
Dozens of climate change activists have been arrested across the country — with the first day of their “spring rebellion” seeing 30 arrests, including four teenage girls, in Sydney.
Extinction Rebellion protesters are arrested at Hyde Park in Sydney. Source: News Corp Australia
Activists dressed as bees take part in a die-in protest in Sydney. Picture: AAP Image/James Gourley
Sydney protests. Picture: AAP Image/James Gourley
In Melbourne, 10 people were arrested, with one activist refusing to enter a bail agreement, and who will now appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court.
“We have tried petitions, lobbying and marches, and now time is running out,” Australian activist Jane Morton told AFP.
“We have no choice but to rebel until our government declares a climate and ecological emergency and takes the action that is required to save us.”
Demonstrators have blocked roads in Sydney — where they had to be forcibly removed — and in Melbourne, there were similar scenes as the group took over the city’s streets.
In Canberra, protesters played dead on one of the busiest roads in the nation’s capital, while in Brisbane, they used poles and chains to make arrests difficult.
Protester Miriam Robinson said the group must “get right up in people’s grills” to convince governments to take firm action on climate change.
“We always apologise for causing inconvenience,” the retired public servant told Sydney Morning Herald.
“But this is nothing compared to the inconvenience that is going to start happening when we start to run out of food and water.”
An activist from Extinction Rebellion with his arm in a barrel of cement on George Street, Brisbane. Source: AAP
Police make arrests on Spring and Collins streets in Melbourne. Picture: David Crosling Source: News Corp Australia
Protesters are seen in Russell Street in Melbourne. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images
XR first emerged in Australia in March, in a 24-hour protest at a railway affecting coal miner Adani, where a young woman suspended herself from a tree above the trailway and other protesters stormed the tracks, with one locking themselves to a train.
In May, thousands of activists staged a “die-in” in the streets of Melbourne’s CBD, and in August, 70 protesters were charged by police after a rally brought traffic to a standstill.
Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth are among the 60 cities around the world who will participate in this fortnight’s rallies.

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Climate Change Poses A ‘Direct Threat’ To Australia’s National Security. It Must Be A Political Priority

The Conversation - 

Climate change is expected to increase the severity of natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific region, straining Australia’s ability to respond through humanitarian missions and fuelling more climate migration. Vlad Sokhin/UNICEF handout
It is evident from Australia’s increasingly severe droughts and record-breaking heatwaves that time is running out to take action on climate change.
Yet, despite persistent calls from eminent scientists to reduce global dependence on fossil fuels, a call to action has gone unanswered by our political leaders.
And we aren’t just facing an environmental threat alone in Australia – there are significant implications for our national security and defence capabilities that we haven’t fully reckoned with either.
This point was made abundantly clear in a speech prepared for Defence Force Chief Angus Campbell at an event in June, excerpts of which have been recently published by the media. It noted that Australia is in
the most natural disaster-prone region in the world … [and] climate change is predicted to make disasters more extreme and more common.
If the predictions are correct, [climate change] will have serious ramifications for global security and serious ramifications for the ADF [Australian Defence Force].
What kinds of security risks do we face?
Climate change works as a threat multiplier – it exacerbates the drivers of conflict by deepening existing fragilities within societies, straining weak institutions, reshaping power balances and undermining post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding.
This year’s IISS Armed Conflict Survey noted how
climate-related drivers for armed violence and conflict will increase as climate change progresses.
The survey points out that the 2011 uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that escalated into civil war was preceded by the country’s deepest and most prolonged drought on record. One study has found the drought was two to three times more likely to happen due to climate change, and that it helped fuel migration to large cities, which in turn exacerbated the social issues that caused the unrest.
In May 2018, I was among numerous experts who provided evidence to a Senate committee examining the potential impacts of climate change on Australia’s national security.

Increased climate migration and disasters
One of the biggest threats I identified was the possibility of mass migration driven by climate change.
There will be nearly 6 billion people in the Asia-Pacific region by 2050. And if the region has become increasingly destabilised due to climate change, many people will likely be affected by rising sea levels, water and food shortages, armed conflicts and natural disasters, and desperate to find more secure homes.
This is already happening now. Since 2008, it’s estimated that an average of 22.5 million to 24 million people have been displaced globally each year due to catastrophic weather events and climate-related disasters.
And a new World Bank report estimates that 143 million people in three developing regions alone – sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America – could become climate migrants by 2050.
They will migrate from less viable areas with lower water availability and crop productivity and from areas affected by rising sea level and storm surges. The poorest and most climate-vulnerable areas will be hardest hit.
Australia, with its very low population density, will likely be an attractive place for climate migrants to attempt to resettle. The World Bank has called on Australia to allow open migration from climate-affected Pacific islands, but successive governments haven’t exactly been open to refugees and asylum seekers in recent years.
If we don’t have a plan in place, our estimated 2050 population of 37.6 million could be overwhelmed by the scale of the national security problem.
Other experts agreed. American climate security expert Sherri Goodman described climate change as a “direct threat to the national security of Australia”, saying the region is
most likely to see increasing waves of migration from small island states or storm-affected, highly populated areas in Asia that can’t accommodate people when a very strong storm hits.
Australia would also struggle to respond to worsening natural disasters in our region either caused by or exacerbated by climate change.
As part of the Senate inquiry, the Department of Defence noted an “upwards trend” in both disaster-related events in the Asia-Pacific region and disaster-related defence operations in the past 20 years.
As alluded to in the speech prepared for Campbell in June, we could easily find ourselves overwhelmed by disaster relief missions due to the severity and scale of future weather events, or due to a series of events that occur concurrently in dispersed locations.
This would stretch our available first responder forces – defence, police, ambulance, firefighters and other emergency services – even in the absence of any other higher priority peacekeeping missions around the world.
The HMAS Canberra transporting Army vehicles to Fiji to assist with disaster relief following Cyclone Winston in 2016. LSIS Helen Frank/Royal Australian Navy
Recommendations for a way forward
The Senate report listed 11 recommendations for action by national security agencies and the government.
Among these were calls for:
  • the government to develop a climate security white paper to guide a coordinated government response to climate change risks
  • the Department of Defence to consider releasing an unclassified version of the work it has undertaken already to identify climate risks to the country
  • the government to consider a dedicated climate security leadership position in Home Affairs to coordinate climate resilience issues
  • and the Department of Defence to create a dedicated senior leadership position to oversee the delivery of domestic and international humanitarian assistance and disaster relief as climate pressures increase over time.
Some of these findings were contested. In their comments, the Coalition senators made a point of saying how well the government has been doing on climate change in the defence and foreign affairs portfolios. Sufficient strategies are in place
to ensure Australia’s response to the implications of climate change on national security is well understood and consistent across the whole of government.
They also considered that a separate recommendation on defence emissions reduction targets fell outside the spirit of the inquiry. They did not support it.

A lack of urgency and response
The findings in the report are a cause for concern. The recommendations lack timetables for action and a sense of urgency.
The Senate committee also admitted its own shortcomings. For instance, it couldn’t adequately examine the potential impacts of climate change on Australia’s economy, infrastructure and community health and well-being due to a lack of substantial evidence on these issues.
Furthermore, and most worryingly, it seems the government just doesn’t care enough. It has yet to table a response to the report more than a year later.
A welcome development would be if the government announced a climate change security white paper that clearly spells out where ministers stand on the issue and the specific measures we need to take to prepare for the threats ahead. It would also dispel the concerns of many Australians about our future readiness.
But the Coalition’s response to the Senate report is breathtakingly complacent and smacks of reckless negligence since Australia is on the front line when it comes to climate change and our national security faces undeniably serious risks.
Climate change is already presenting significant challenges to governance, our institutions and the fabric of our societies. It’s time we recognise the potential threats to security in our region, as well.

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How Extinction Rebellion Put The World On Red Alert

The Guardian - 

The radical group has galvanised young and old. But in the year since it formed, what has life been like inside the movement?
Extinction Rebellion’s ‘blood protest’ outside the Treasury last week. Photograph: Simon Dawson/Reuters
In the last week alone, members of Extinction Rebellion have been described as ecomaniacs (Daily Mail), ecoradicals ignoring our economic doom (Times), dangerous and a bloody mess (Daily Telegraph). They have been accused of “pulling 83,000 officers away from their normal duties” according to the police and costing Scotland Yard £16m. In London last week, dressed in funereal black, rebels tried to paint the Treasury red using 1,800 litres of fake blood and an old fire engine with a sign reading “stop funding climate death”.
While its actions may seem controversial in some quarters, Extinction Rebellion’s rise and influence have undoubtedly been extraordinary, galvanising young and old across party lines. Last October, the journalist and activist George Monbiot introduced the group in the national press, a homegrown movement “devoted to disruptive, non-violent disobedience in protest against ecological collapse”. The hope was to turn a national uprising into an international one by March. In fewer than 12 months, Extinction Rebellion has become the fastest-growing environmental organisation in the world.
“We have seen protest movements on climate change before, but they haven’t attracted anywhere near as many people or had as much impact,” said Clare Saunders, professor in environmental politics at Exeter University. “For the first time, you have ordinary people engaging with radical action. It’s unique – I can’t think of any [protest movement] historically happening in that way.”
There are now an estimated 485 Extinction Rebellion affiliates across the globe and, over the next fortnight, they are promising to shut down 60 cities, including London, New York, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Cape Town and Mumbai. Government buildings, airports and financial districts will all be targeted with protests aiming for maximum disruption to provoke urgent political action. In a bid to pre-empt the action, on Saturday police raided a warehouse in south London and arrested nine activists, charging them with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and obstruct the highway.
People think going vegan and recycling will stop climate change – it won’t. Government has to act
Jules Bywater, Cardiff protester
How did they come so far, so quickly? The Observer has watched the movement at work in city centres, at festivals and meetings across the UK to try to find out.
“It’s maintaining hope in people because people are feeling so worn out by the inaction,” said Steven from Cardiff, who joined the summer uprising in the city in July. When the Observer met him, he and his partner Clare were sitting on the green outside the town hall, where Extinction Rebellion had set up base with a boat, an impromptu campsite and stalls serving free food to the public. “I’m not sure the damage to the planet is irreversible at this point – all the science points that way, it’s grim reading – but this is pricking people’s ears up more than any other group, and that can only be a good thing.”
The Cardiff rebellion, staged over three days, saw a massive police presence deployed as a procession of families and activists marched through the city centre. Jules Bywater, a builder of eco-homes, had travelled from Powys to join the action. “People think going vegan, banning single-use plastic and recycling will stop climate change – it won’t. Government has to act, and it’s on us to cause these disruptions to force them to. This has to be a mass movement.”
Alice Taherzadeh, a PhD student and one of the key organisers, was buoyant but exhausted. “We had less than a month to get this together,” she said. As a decentralised organisation, XR, as it is known, claims no hierarchy: it is open to all and operates a “regenerative culture”.
In theory, this means responsibility and workload is designed to be a shared, collaborative effort with heavy emphasis on community, and mental and physical wellbeing. In practice, a hierarchy does still exist, albeit under the surface, where some people are in the loop, go to the pub together and have access to the latest comings and goings from HQ, while others volunteer more on the periphery. Still, to witness it across uprisings in London in the spring, and across the UK over the summer at festivals and meetings, the spirit of XR is warm and often moving. The culture it has fostered also allows for a surprising amount of internal criticism of its founders, Roger Hallam and Gail Bradbrook.
“The movement and its principles are far bigger than both of them; they’re not these messianic figures they’re made out to be,” said Taherzadeh wearily.
Hallam is a former organic farmer who went on to study civil disobedience at King’s College London after “the weather went weird” and caused his business to fail. He formed XR with Bradbrook, an academic involved with Occupy and anti-fracking protests, and the two have championed non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. Their methods, including advocating a shutdown of Heathrow, have been effective but divisive.
“I don’t think Roger is the best spokesperson, necessarily,” said Taherzadeh. “Some of his tactics – drones at Heathrow for instance – have caused huge conflict. But the unity in the movement exists because of the three core demands: get government to tell the truth, get government to act now, and to draw up citizens’ assemblies.”
There is a quiet desperation and sometimes despair at how hard and possibly futile any personal effort seems in the face of the climate crisis. But those touched by Extinction Rebellion find it impossible to ignore the ways in which they are contributing to global heating. This isn’t just about recycling, switching to bamboo toothbrushes and buying in bulk; people are re-insulating their homes, dramatically scaling back family holidays to eradicate air travel and, in increasing numbers, deciding not to have children at all.
The movement’s Summer Uprising occupied Bristol city centre in July. Photograph: Miriam Quick
“I’m scared of my own future,” said Dahlia, a 20-year-old student at the Bristol uprising. “How could anyone think about having kids now? It’s not even just about the carbon footprint and population growth … what kind of world are you thinking they’re going to live in?”
The summer rebellion in Bristol took over the city centre and installed a pink boat and white gazebos on the Bristol Bridge. Billy Bragg performed, and hundreds joined talks and workshops explaining how activism works, how to get involved and what legal rights might be for protesters who get arrested.
But it isn’t just for the loud and energetic, or those willing to go to prison for the cause. At a crafting session in Totnes, a dozen women quietly work on their “craftivist” skills; almost every one joined XR in the last few months, and they volunteer as behind-the-scenes environmentalists making flags, banners and the like. Some are put off by the noise and physical toll of being on the streets; others describe themselves as too introverted to protest in that way. Yet the zeal is still palpable.
“We’ve just spent our family holiday in the UK,” said Sarah Strachan. “Once you learn about it, read up on it … I can’t countenance how we could fly somewhere. You just can’t, and it does consume you. But how can you not try?”
Strachan works as an artist in Totnes and lives with her partner and their son and daughter. She began making tiny doll figures of the school strikers last year, as a casual distraction from the puppets she was already crafting in her home studio. Nine months ago, she had barely heard of Extinction Rebellion, but in the summer she joined the rebellion in Bristol and is working for the next one.
At home and at work, the climate crisis has engulfed her; last month, Ghost, her biggest piece yet, went on display in a local church and is set to tour next year. In it, she assembled 1,000 donated and secondhand toy plastic animals, painted them white and installed them as an eerie-looking herd. “It came from the horrible realisation that these plastic animals will be around for hundreds of years and will outlive some, if not all, of the animals they’re modelled on. How have we let this happen?”
Extinction Rebellion’s success goes beyond the efforts of its volunteers, known as rebels, who are determined, as they are often heard to say, to be on the right side of history. Business has also been under by pressure to respond to a shift in public opinion. A sustainable building designer, who asked not to give his name, said: “Extinction Rebellion have had a tangible impact. Would things be moving as fast otherwise? Shortly after [the spring rebellion], the UK government became the first to pledge to cut [greenhouse gas emissions] to almost zero by 2050. Every architectural and engineering practice has been or should be trying to work out how net-zero carbon can be delivered.”
Since XR’s launch, the architecture, engineering and construction industries have all declared a climate emergency, committing to work together to reduce emissions and work in a sustainable fashion. At least 232 councils out of 408 across the UK have followed suit. Possibly as a gesture, 15 universities including Bristol, Newcastle, Manchester and Goldsmiths have done the same, as has the UK music industry and “Culture”, an umbrella group of more than 50 organisations and artists. The National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company have severed financial ties with Shell and BP respectively. It remains to be seen what all this activity translates into: while some organisations have simply adopted the vernacular, many are actively working to force change in their industries. Either way, Extinction Rebellion has been credited as a catalyst – albeit not one without criticism within the environmental movement.
Extinction Rebellion’s Rebel Rebel stage at this year’s Bluedot festival in Cheshire. Photograph: Tomm Morton
“Some grassroots groups hate them because they’re not anti-capitalist [enough], they are for-profit and pro-arrest,” said one anonymous worker from a major environmental organisation. “The pro bono lawyers’ group Green and Black Cross [GBC] have been working with activists for decades and they’ve taken on so much casework for XR – for free, despite them raising so much money and the core crew being paid – that it’s taken away from other crucial activism work.”
Earlier in the summer, GBC ended its relationship with XR, citing “serious concerns about the safety of both legal observers and those taking part in action associated with Extinction Rebellion”. Meanwhile, Wretched of the Earth, “a grassroots collective for indigenous, black, brown and diaspora groups and individuals demanding climate justice”, wrote an open letter to XR asking that their voices and experiences not be erased from the fight.
“Making people feel guilty without offering anything else is a waste,” said Sylvia Kingston on the bridge at the Bristol rebellion, when asked whether XR could do better to engage marginalised communities. She described herself as a pensioner standing up for my grandchildren” who, like so many others at XR gatherings, claimed she wasn’t an activist, “or a hippy”, or particularly on the left. “You want people to feel energised, which is why things like this are so necessary. Perpetual despair will burn you out … My generation, people like me, can afford to be here – and they should be.”
While the momentum behind XR shows no sign of slowing yet, answers for what happens next aren’t in easy supply. “We’re not claiming to have solutions,” said Bywater. “There are experts for that, there is a great deal of technology, there is plenty of knowledge to be harnessed. What we’re doing is telling government to listen to that. To act. And that pressure can only come from more of us being here.”
It’s seen as good that minds are being changed, even if XR’s demands are not always perceived as realistic. “They must know what they’re asking for – net zero carbon by 2025 – is virtually impossible. I guess their statement is a calculated risk,” said the building designer.
Saunders agreed. “There are very good reasons that Greenpeace and WWF will have to publicly distance themselves from XR – if you have more radical actions out there, your organisation’s demands might seem reasonable and palatable to a government taking steps to act.”

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