Unless you have been living under a rock this year, you will have heard about Extinction Rebellion. But who are they and what is their main goal? Some would say it is just to annoy Londoners trying to go about their days and earn a living.
Most recently, Extinction Rebellion had a two-week long protest in London which resulted in lots of press coverage and 1,768 arrests. In London, the aim was too “peacefully occupy the centres of power and shut them down”. The aim of the disruption was to encourage governments to take-action against climate change.
Extinction Rebellion is an international activist organisation using non-violent methods as their means of protesting.
What do they want?
- They want the government to declare a “climate and ecological emergency” and work together with other institutions to help spread the message calling for things to change.
- They want the UK to “act now” to stop loss of habitat and reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025.
- They want a special group called a Citizens’ Assembly to be put together. It would be made up of people from across society, to decide how to solve the climate crisis, with advice from experts.
Critics claim that these goals are highly unrealistic as it would require a lot of lifestyle and personal changes to the behaviour of people in the UK. Researchers at the Centre for Alternative Technology said it would be a huge challenge to get to zero emissions by 2025. For this to happen, flights would need to be restricted and people would need to make daily changes to eat a more plant-based diet and change how they travel. To get enough renewable energy to replace gas boilers we would need to install thousands more wind turbines.
What do they do?
There has been a variety of protests and methods that Extinction Rebellion has used to get attention to their protests. Members have glued themselves to trains, blocked traffic, chained themselves to politicians houses, planted trees on Waterloo Road and a smaller group protested at Heathrow causing delays to flights.
These sometimes-controversial protests have resulted in a lot of arrests. One of their most publicised campaigns, spraying fake blood over a government building from a fire engine resulted in 8 activists being arrested. At the large protests held in April around 1,130 activists were arrested mainly because they didn’t move after police told them too. This resulted in a complete standstill of London’s busiest routes for more than 11 days.
The most recent controversy
Extinction Rebellion is no stranger to controversy and criticism but the most recent round of this comes from a group of activists protesting on the trains at Stratford, Canning Town and Shadwell during rush hour. Eight protestors were arrested according to the British Transport Police and the Jubilee Line and Docklands Light Railway were temporarily suspended.
This incident caused controversy as members from the public dragged Extinction Rebellion activists down from the train, where there was footage of them being attacked by rail users. Most of the criticism stemmed from the fact that at these stations it is largely working-class citizens trying to use public transport to get to work – something which should be applauded, not hindered. Targeting the big money areas of London makes sense, disrupt the days of the people who are in positions of power to change things – not the everyday person trying to make ends meet.
