International Rebellion – Shut Down London: Monday 15th April 2019 was the start of Extinction Rebellion’s International Rebellion which lasted for 11 days. They had said they intended to keep the roads closed until the government took necessary action on the global climate and ecological emergency. They said the government must tell people the truth about the disaster we are facing, halt biodiversity loss, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025, and set up and be led by a Citizen’s Assembly on climate and ecological justice.
Of course the government did nothing of the sort, but simply issued a number of intentionally misleading statements claiming they were world leaders in combating climate change and waited for the protesters to go home.
It’s not quite true they did nothing. They put increasing pressure on the Met Police to do something effective against the protesters, and later introduced some draconian laws that could be used against future protests like this.
Five years later every week brings more evidence that climate change is really happening and our government still fails to take this seriously, issuing licences for further fossil fuel exploration. What we need is urgency but what we see is complacency.
XR’s ‘International Rebellion’, with actions around the world as well as in London was just one of a whole long series of protests, international conferences, scientific papers and more over many years that have warned that the world is heading for catastrophe. Svante Arrhenius first warned that the increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would lead to global temperature increase back in 1896.
Back in the 1960s and 70s, when I first became interested (and spoke publicly though very few were listening) our main emphasis was on resource limitations and population growth. It was by then very clear that anyone who thought we could continue our exponential economic growth on a finite planet had to be an economist and not anyone living in the real world.
But both our major political parties (and most of the minor ones) are still committed to growth while paying lip-service to ‘net zero’. And that growth will be dirty growth, continuing to exploit our oil and gas resources as well as clear cutting forests elsewhere in the world to burn their wood.
I think it is more a failure of our political system, very much a top-down system designed to protect the interests of the wealthy, than of individual politicians. XR’s call for a Citizen’s Assembly on climate and ecological justice is an important one which would work from the bottom up and produce policies which were based on the interests of all of us – which is why it will almost certainly never be implemented.
While they went home after 11 days having failed to change government policies, these protests were impressive and did I think have some effect in changing public opinion, awakening more to the desperate situation we are now in. Even some of those working for the media if not their proprietors.
XR’s call to rebellion stated “Our leaders have failed us. It’s time to rebel – and have a damn good time doing it.” And for those eleven days they put on an impressive festival, but it was only a start of what need to happen.
Over those eleven days I went to XR’s events in London on several days, taking many pictures and writing about what I saw of this impressive protest. The pictures here all come from the first day, Monday 15th April 2019 and here are links to all my posts from that day – not all XR.
Extinction Rebellion Garden Bridge
Extinction Rebellion Sea at Oxford Circus
Anti-capitalist environmental action
Extinction Rebellion Marble Arch
Extinction Rebellion Funeral Procession
Extinction Rebellion at Shell
Save Lambeth Children’s Centres
Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos
All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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