Thoughts on Extinction Rebellion and Climate Strikes
Lou and I recently headed down to the climate strike in Bournemouth. About 200 people attended the event on a, fittingly unseasonably warm, September day. We are both very passionate about the environment and like many of us, we are becoming more and more alarmed by both what we are experiencing by the day, the inertia from business and government to change and the subsequent scientific predictions to what is to come. Which is why, like pretty much everyone else who attended, we were there.
While everyone wanted pretty much the same thing, the question highlighted by the event is how do we really get things to change?
The event itself was meant to be an extension of Greta Thunberg’s Schools Climate Strikes allowing the school children of Bournemouth to down tools and attend, to express their connection, affiliation and shared belief that the generations before them have been and still are being selfish and ignorant beyond reason, leaving a shit show behind and they are going to be left to pick up the pieces.
It was therefore really disappointing that only a handful of kids actually turned up. It turns out the reason for this is not because they did not have the gumption or motivation to attend. It was that the local schools had taken up a zero-tolerance stance, locked the gates and prohibited attendance. This did not feel good and the question is why is this? Now it is beyond any reasonable doubt this (the climate crisis) is a problem that needs to be addressed, why are businesses and local government either keeping their heads down, reluctant to get involved or worse deliberately impeeding change?
One of the big problems I noticed was the most of the attendees of and in turn, the movement seems to be largely represented by just one segment of society which is not always everyone’s cup of tea. Why should it be only the “Hippies, Crusties, Lefties, Greenies ” etc etc who turn up to these sort of things? Is it because no-one else cares or understands? I don’t think so but I think it does come down to affiliation. Rightly or wrongly some people just don’t feel they have much in common with someone with a CND t-shirt and dreads just as someone might refuse to share a platform with an uber-conservative like Donald Trump.
My overall feeling is that we need to move the climate change movement out of the fringes and to do this we need more engagement and participation from businesses, from more prominent people and need government and local authority to take support the initiative.
The US civil rights movement succeeded when politicians, businesses and celebrities really got behind the movement making it culturally unacceptable not to support it. This was the way to change the status quo, which until then was not changing quickly enough even though most people could see what we happening was wrong. This more mainstream approach in who and how to support climate crisis action has to happen quickly as this issue is affecting us all and is only going to get worse.
It is time to make climate action mainstream. We are ready to help in any way we can.