Police Clear Extinction Rebellion Protesters from Waterloo Bridge

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document 1 of 31 Police clear Extinction Rebellion protesters from Waterloo Bridge

Busby, Mattha.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]22 Apr 2019: 7.

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Arrests made after police urge activists to move to Marble Arch, where Greta Thunberg spoke to protesters on Sunday

Police have cleared the remaining Extinction Rebellion activists from Waterloo Bridge in London, despite earlier calls on social media for people that were willing to be arrested to “go there and save it”.

The roads around Parliament Square were cleared of protesters earlier on Sunday, with the northbound carriageway of Waterloo Bridge reopened to traffic by the evening. On Sunday night, police continued their operations, moving to remove the last activists, who had glued themselves to the bridge and to each other.

Officers had earlier warned people that remaining on the bridge was an “arrestable offence”, and requested that the activists move to Marble Arch, the designated protest area, where hundreds of activists remain.

However, many demonstrators chose to stay at the Waterloo Bridge site, drumming, dancing and singing all along the bridge. At least six campaigners were chained to each other by their hands, with their arms covered with various substances to slow the process of removal by officers. Two men who had glued their hands to the lampposts on Waterloo Bridge were cut free by officers and arrested.

The last protester on the bridge, a 70-year-old woman who did not wish to be named, told the Press Association that said she felt embarrassed to be the last one and was “trying to look dignified”. Having already been arrested at Oxford Circus “chasing after a pink yacht”, she said she would rather be arrested again than walk away, as per the requests of officers.

Asked why it was important for her to join the movement, she said: “I have been a nurse and a childminder most of my life. The world we are leaving for the children and grandchildren is going to be horrendous and we let it happen. It happened on our watch. So we have to stand up and fight or lie down and fight.”

The Metropolitan police has requested about 200 extra officers to help deal with the protests, in which 963 people have been arrested and 42 people, aged from 19 to 77, charged.

Extinction Rebellion have said there will be a “people’s assembly” at Marble Arch on Monday afternoon to decide what will happen in the coming week, with the movement appearing split on what next steps to take in their campaign of non-violent civil disobedience.

Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate campaigner, made a speech in solidarity with the protesters in Marble Arch. The Swedish student took aim at the “politicians and people in power” who had long been able to satisfy demands for action with “beautiful words and promises”, and declared that governments would no longer be able ignore the impending climate and ecological crisis.

“I come from Sweden and back there it’s almost the same problem as here, as everywhere, that nothing is being done to stop an ecological crisis despite all the beautiful words and promises,” she said, after being greeted with loud cheers.

“We are now facing an existential crisis, the climate crisis and ecological crisis which have never been treated as crises before. They have been ignored for decades and for way too long the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything. We will make sure that politicians will not get away with it for any longer.”

Thunberg, who has been credited with inspiring a worldwide movement to reduce carbon emissions, said humanity was sitting at a crossroads. She told those gathered at Marble Arch that they had chosen which ecological path they wanted to take. She emphasised that they were now waiting for the rest of the world to follow their example.

“We are the ones making a difference, we the people in this Extinction Rebellion and the children’s school strike for the climate,” she said. “It shouldn’t be like that, but since no one else is doing anything, we will have to do so.

“We will never stop fighting for this planet, for ourselves, our futures and for the futures of our children and grandchildren.” Later, Massive Attack played a concert for the crowds.

Thunberg will meet MPs including the Green party MP Caroline Lucas, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the environment secretary, Michael Gove, next week. She has been touring Europe throughout her Easter holidays, imploring leaders to take radical action before it is too late.

Last week, she poured scorn on EU leaders for holding three emergency summits on Brexit and none on the threat posed by climate change, suggesting that it evidenced politicians’ disinterest in tackling climate change. Her speech was given a standing ovation.

Thousands of Extinction Rebellion campaigners had blocked four areas in central London on Monday, but on Saturday police regained control of Oxford Circus.

Copyright Guardian News & Media Limited Apr 22, 2019 Subject Activists; Demonstrations & protests; Marble; Climate change

Location Sweden; Europe

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Police clear Extinction Rebellion protesters from Waterloo Bridge

Author Busby, Mattha

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 7

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 22, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2212330433

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2212330433? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-23

Database European Newsstream document 2 of 31 Greta Thunberg backs climate general strike to force leaders to act

Watts, Jonathan.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]23 Apr 2019: 3.

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Swedish activist says world faces ‘existential crisis’ and must achieve goals of Paris deal

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist, has given her support for a general strike for the climate, saying the student movement she inspired needs more support from older generations to ensure politicians keep their promises under the Paris agreement.

Speaking at a public event in London as Extinction Rebellion protests continued in the capital, the initiator of the school strike for climate movement was typically frank about the scale of the problem the world faces and the impact her campaign has made. “People are slowly becoming more aware, but emissions continue to rise. We can’t focus on small things. Basically, nothing has changed,” she said.

At several points, she stressed the need for the protests to spread. “This is not just young people being sick of politicians. It’s an existential crisis,” Thunberg said. “It is something that will affect the future of our civilisation. It’s not just a movement. It’s a crisis and we must take action accordingly.”

In a question and answer session, Franny Armstrong, the director of the climate documentary The Age of Stupid, asked whether it was time for a general strike. “Yes,” replied Thunberg in unison with the other members of the panel.

Traditional unions have so far been wary of joining the strikes. Although workers’ federations in Italy made Thunberg an honorary member, most others have given either tepid support or none due to concerns about the possible impact on jobs. But there is growing support in the UK, the US and other countries for a Green New Deal that would increase spending on renewable energy.

The talk took place on Earth Day, after a week of protests by Extinction Rebellion activists pushed the climate crisis on to news broadcasts and newspaper front pages.

Police have arrested more than 1,000 demonstrators at Parliament Square, Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge, but hundreds remain camped in Marble Arch, where Thunberg spoke on Sunday.

“I support Extinction Rebellion. What they are doing is good. Civil disobedience is important to show this is an emergency. We need to do everything we can to put pressure on the people in power,” she told the audience on Monday, prompting cheers and applause.

“Why study for a future that is being taken from us? Why study for facts when facts don’t matter in this society? It’s empowering to know I am doing something, I am taking a stand, I am disrupting.”

The interest in the event was so intense that a long line of supporters stretched along Euston Road waiting for the doors to open at Friends House. Most guests appeared to be fellow school strikers. A handful wore shirts or headbands printed with the Extinction Rebellion symbol.

But the audience included all age groups, and just about every major environment organisation associated itself with the talk, which was hosted by the Quakers and co-organised by Guardian Events. When Thunberg appeared on stage, she was greeted with thunderous applause.

Armstrong said: “I’ve been to dozens of talks here over the years, but I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s the first time I have seen a standing ovation even before the event starts. She’s a rock star.”

In the past week, Thunberg has met Pope Francis in the Vatican and addressed members of the European parliament. On Tuesday, she will visit the Houses of Parliament, meet the House of Commons Speaker, John Bercow, and take part in an event with the leaders of all the main parties except Theresa May.

She told the audience she had been taken by surprise at the swift spread of a movement that began less than a year ago, when she went on strike alone outside the Swedish parliament. “It is hard to understand what is happening during the last months. It has all happened so fast. I don’t have time to think it through,” she said.

Veteran observers of the British parliament said she has helped push the climate issue higher up the UK political agenda than at any time since the 2008 Climate Change Act.

Green party officials said they hoped the meeting on Tuesday could spur a new phase of cross-party collaboration on climate change, including monthly meetings, wider public consultations and an agreement that party manifestos should be vetted by an independent body such as the Committee on Climate Change to assess whether they are in line with the Paris agreement.

Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP, said the current wave of climate action on the streets and the school strikes gave her hope. “There is more political leadership there and here than I have seen in Westminster. It feels like a turning point in the history of how we defend our planet,” she said.

“Young people are calling out against a system that is sadly broken … We are going to change the definition of what is politically possible so that it is what is scientifically necessary.”

The discussion ranged from veganism and avoiding flying to political change throughout society. Thunberg said everything was necessary, though she put the focus on challenging the companies and governments that are responsible for the bulk of emissions.

How to deal with with people in power was a frequent subject of questions to the panel. Thunberg said her autism helped her filter out much of the greenwashing. “We are more likely to see through lies. We don’t follow the stream. You can’t be a little bit sustainable – either you are sustainable or you are not,” she said.

There were occasional moments of levity. At one point, Thunberg was asked how she dealt with climate deniers. “I don’t,” she replied.

Thunberg’s earlier point was reiterated by Anna Taylor from the UK Student Climate Network. “We are not going to be satisfied by politicians saying ‘we support you’ and then walking away,” she said.

“We won’t be satisfied until they meet our demands and act. That’s why simply taking a selfie or posting support on Twitter isn’t enough. That’s why we have to keep striking.”

For all the talk of politics and protest, however, some of the most poignant and pertinent questions came from the youngest children. One asked: “If pollution continues, how much time have we got left?” Another wanted to know: “Can we achieve our goal in the time we have?”

Thunberg, in response, was reassuring but measured: “Of course we can, it’s physically possible, the scientists say. It’s up to us. If we do this now then of course we will. But if we don’t, we might not do it. But yes, definitely we can.”

Subject Political activism; Audiences; Political leadership; Objectives; Paris Agreement; Demonstrations & protests; Parliaments; Climate change

Location Italy; United States--US; United Kingdom--UK

People Bercow, John; May, Theresa; Francis (Pope); Thunberg, Greta

Company / organization Name: Twitter Inc NAICS: 519130;

Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Greta Thunberg backs climate general strike to force leaders to act

Author Watts, Jonathan

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 3

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 23, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2212975302 Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2212975302? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-09-19

Database European Newsstream document 3 of 31 The Guardian view on Greta Thunberg: seizing the future

The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]23 Apr 2019: 2.

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The Swedish teenager’s clarity and urgency have cut through layers of obfuscation and helplessness – and forced climate change up the agenda

Nobody could have predicted that a Swedish teenager would shift the terms of the global climate debate in the way that Greta Thunberg has done. Since she began her school strike in Stockholm last August, Greta has addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, the European parliament and the UN climate talks in Poland. Last week she met the pope in Rome. On Tuesday she met UK political leaders at the House of Commons. That Theresa May opted out of an encounter with one of the world’s foremost young activists is an embarrassing error of judgment. By any rational calculus, Greta is in the process of doing humanity a huge favour.

That is because we struggle to give the global warming and wildlife crisis the attention they deserve. We have the science, with predictions of a manmade greenhouse effect dating back to the 1890s. (One of Greta’s distant relatives, Svante Arrhenius, was a pioneer in the field.) We have the international structures to collate the experts’ findings: the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its first report in 1990. We have some, although not all, of the knowledge and technology we need to wean us off our addiction to fossil fuels: wind and solar energy; healthy alternatives to meat; bicycles and trains. Many nations have laws to help us transition to a low-carbon future. The world has the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the agreement struck in Paris in 2015.

But for reasons that are psychological as well as political, we seem mostly unable to concentrate on the existential threat we face as global warming gathers pace (20 of the hottest-ever years were in the last 22) and climate chaos unfolds. Something else is always more important – or more manageable. Even those who recognise that we must use all the tools at our disposal, to stop emitting greenhouse gases as soon as possible, struggle to be heard.

Thanks in no small part to the eye-catching tactic of the school strike, over the past nine months the movement spearheaded by Greta Thunberg has cut through. Green activists and scholars have spoken for years of the generational injustice of climate change. The school strikers belong to a 21st-century generation who have either taken this idea on, or arrived at it through a process of deduction of their own. Greta, who believes her outlook has been influenced by her autism, says she learned about climate change at school aged eight, and became depressed at 11. By 15, her angst had translated itself into a distinctive form of civil disobedience – the Friday school strikes which spread around the world.

Hints that Greta has been manipulated by adults appear to be unfounded. As a teenager, she is in any case entitled to advice. And while it is natural to focus on her as a figurehead, the movement does not depend on her. As she told the audience at a Guardian Live event on Monday, she does not see herself as a leader, but as a participant.

How the wave of demonstrations she helped start develops will be fascinating, as will the progress of the Extinction Rebellion protesters. Peaceful protest and activism are vital to democracy. The climate crisis makes them urgent and necessary. But decision-making requires processes and structures. This is not easy, and partly explains why so many of the successful civil disobedience campaigns of the past have been shaped by charismatic individuals.

The school strikers’ message, similar to the extinction rebels, is that we should panic. Our house, in Greta’s memorable phrase, is on fire. We must embrace “cathedral thinking” – laying the foundations for the carbon-free future without knowing how we are going to paint the roof. This way of thinking does induce fear. But since doing nothing is not an option, except for nihilists and misanthropes, the rest of us have little choice but to battle through these darker emotions – and act with hope. The IPCC said last year that the next 12 years are critical, a warning echoed on the BBC by David Attenborough in a landmark documentary last week. The film should have been made a decade ago. We should have been alert to the dangers before children went on strike. But we still have some time.

Subject Strikes; Demonstrations & protests; Greenhouse effect; Climate change; Political activism; Editorials

Location Poland; United Kingdom--UK; Sweden

People Arrhenius, Svante; May, Theresa; Thunberg, Greta

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940;

Name: World Economic Forum NAICS: 926110;

Name: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change NAICS: 541712, 928120

Title The Guardian view on Greta Thunberg: seizing the future

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 2

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 23, 2019

Section Opinion

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Opinions, Editorial

ProQuest document ID 2212976247

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2212976247? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-05-16

Database European Newsstream document 4 of 31 Millennial climate protesters have called me out – and I love it

Moore, Suzanne.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]23 Apr 2019: 2.

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My empathy for the super-woke youth waxes and wanes, but Extinction Rebellion and the new wave of campaigners have woken me up

I have been called out so many times online that it’s just white noise now. For my various sins I have been blocked, deleted and “cancelled” on social media, which doesn’t resemble real life at all. In real life, one may break bread with beings who think differently from you and, weirdly, no one dies.

There are lists of what can and cannot be said now, but I am from a generation that derides trigger warnings and micro-aggressions, because we are harder than hard. I recognise myself in the rantings of the writer Bret Easton Ellis, whom I adore. His new book, White, is a long whinge about woke young people. He happens to be in love with one, but wonders about who they really are, with their multiple allergies and support badgers.

These thin-skinned, super-woke millennials seem to be a product of fear and uncertainty. My empathy waxes and wanes. I can go from “There, there …” to “Get a grip” in under three seconds.

But something has happened lately. I finally feel properly called out. And I like it.

The new climate change protest movements have challenged me. Sure, I knew about the issue, but vaguely hoped that science would swoop in and sort it all out. I also find it hard to imagine that any life will continue after my death and right now I fancy a burger. How does anything I do really affect the big stuff: that’s for corporations and governments, isn’t it? Pass the ketchup.

Then along comes Extinction Rebellion, whose existence I have been aware of for a while, as I live with an eco-warrior – albeit one who, like many teenagers, never switches the lights out. The movement’s smartly designed stickers have been proliferating, as has the energy. I have watched Greta Thunberg and wondered where her extraordinary power comes from, before realising it is in her total refusal to reassure us that everything is going to be all right. It’s a very feminine thing, an infantile thing, to want to please, and yet here is a 16-year-old girl telling grownups that it is not fine. That we have destroyed her hopes and dreams and must act.

For days now, there have been grumblings about the protests. Arguments over style versus substance, the suggestion the campaigners are just middle-class, souped-up crusties, elderly hippy women and clueless posh teenagers. When I was at Greenham Common in the 1980s, Michael Heseltine called us “woolly minds in woolly hats”. Anti-apartheid protesters were considered both middle-class fools and an imminent threat. During the last civil war – the miners’ strike – there were already rumblings about fossil fuels. We would defend a class only to close their mines and import coal from elsewhere.

The attacks on Extinction Rebellion come thick as smog: do these people not understand that they need to overthrow capitalism itself? How can they chant “We love the police” when the police have taken black lives? Why are they enjoying themselves? Do they have phones and do they travel? The hypocrites.

How dull. We can indeed call them out as hypocrites, as though doing so is itself a political action. It isn’t. It’s just more denial. Or we can all do more in our own lives, while pressuring the government to act. Civil disobedience and small changes matter.

These protests show us how. They remind us that Brexit is one issue among many. When the government stalls, of course people will take to the streets and they are always inventive. This is to be celebrated. The media grumps tell us that the kids and campaigners have got the science wrong, got their feelings wrong, got the country wrong and, well... you can smell their fear. Has David Attenborough got it all wrong too, then? Should you ignore the floods and forest fires and carry on embracing your own powerlessness?

This is all being called out loudly and it has woken me up; here I am, a little late and bleary, but here. A friend accused me of loving these protests because of nostalgia for my youth, but it is the exact opposite. I have no longing for the past. What I have is simple: a longing for the future.

Subject Civil disobedience; Middle class; Demonstrations & protests

People Ellis, Bret Easton (1964- )

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Millennial climate protesters have called me out – and I love it Author Moore, Suzanne

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 2

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 23, 2019

Section Opinion

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Commentary

ProQuest document ID 2212976248

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2212976248? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-24

Database European Newsstream document 5 of 31 The Greta Thunberg effect: at last, MPs focus on climate change

Watts, Jonathan.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]23 Apr 2019: 1.

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Michael Gove admits to feeling guilt as young activist says: your fossil fuels policy is beyond absurd

Greta Thunberg took her climate message to the heart of power in Westminster on Tuesday, with a quiet but powerful message to MPs that prompted politicians to declare contrition for their failure to act.

After the noise of Brexit in parliament and the disruption of Extinction Rebellion outside, the 16-year-old Swedish activist cut an extraordinarily composed figure as she arrived with her trademark braids, hand-painted placard and a speech that forced politicians to reflect on a crisis that is growing steadily worse despite three decades of political promises.

“This ongoing irresponsible behaviour will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind,” she told the packed audience of MPs, officials and fellow school strikers. “You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to.”

There was no let-up for the audience. The UK, she said, was very special due to its “mind-blowing historical carbon debt”, a reference to the country’s record as the birthplace of industrialisation. But this was also, she said, because its claims of world-leading progress on cutting emissions are partly the result of “creative accounting” and are belied by the government’s plans for more high-emissions projects.

“The UK’s active current support of new exploitation of fossil fuels, like for example the UK shale gas fracking industry, the expansion of its North Sea oil and gas fields, the expansion of airports, as well as the planning permission for a brand new coalmine, is beyond absurd,” she said.

She finished to a standing ovation and cheers, then sat quietly as the panel of senior politicians gave their responses. Several appeared chastened.

“Your voice – still, calm and clear – is like the voice of our conscience,” said the environment secretary, Michael Gove. “When I listened to you, I felt great admiration, but also responsibility and guilt. I am of your parents’ generation, and I recognise that we haven’t done nearly enough to address climate change and the broader environmental crisis that we helped to create.”

Ed Miliband, the Labour politician who led the UK’s delegation to the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit and oversaw the UK Climate Act, said he recognised that what was done in the past has been proven by science not to be enough. “You have woken us up. We thank you. All the young people who have gone on strike have held up a mirror to our society … you have taught us all a really important lesson. You have stood out from the crowd.”

Thunberg listened attentively, applauding only when a member of audience criticised the government for pushing ahead with fracking. Her mantra when dealing with governments has been consistent: Never mind the words. Nothing matters apart from actions to halt emissions.

The big test on this will come on 2 May, when the climate change committee announces the results of a review of the UK’s targets, including when the country should aim to reach net zero emissions. This was prompted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report last year, which warned of the dangers of global warming exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The recent surge of demands for more ambition – on the streets, from the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, and from David Attenborough – have helped to amplify the message that Greta and others are stressing with their climate strikes.

Tuesday saw other signs of progress that would have been hard to imagine a year ago. Caroline Lucas, the former leader of the Green party, announced that during Greta’s meeting with party leaders earlier in the day, participants – including Jeremy Corbyn and Ian Blackford – had agreed to start regular cross-party meetings on climate policy, to open consultations with youth climate activists and to have an independent body assess whether party manifestos were in line with the Paris agreement.

Theresa May was the only party leader who did not attend but otherwise Greta’s visit proved an opportunity for a renewal of the cross-party consensus on climate. The mood was strikingly in contrast to the bitterly divisive debates of Brexit: Gove applauded Lucas’s moral leadership on environmental issues and said nobody had done more than Miliband to put the UK’s climate policy on a strong track.

Gove was, however, criticised for being the person in the room with the most power to change policy, but the most evasive answers. “He’s environment secretary, so it’s not enough for him to feel guilty,” said Lucas. “I hope he takes home the message that he should not be satisfied with warm words.”

The standing-room-only turnout was far better than the recent climate debate in parliament, which drew barely a dozen MPs even though it was the first on the crisis held in the main chamber in two years. Several dozen politicians attended on Tuesday, along with government officials and representatives of the UK student strikers movement. Attendees said it was the most crowded event they could remember in more than 10 years at the Attlee suite.

The young Swede spoke so quietly at first that many in the audience struggled to catch her speech above the clicks of the cameras. The low volume was deliberate, forcing people to hush and listen intently. “Can you hear me?” she asked repeatedly. “Is my English OK? Is the microphone on? Because I’m beginning to wonder. During the last six months I have travelled around Europe for hundreds of hours in trains, electric cars and buses, repeating these life-changing words over and over again. But no one seems to be talking about it, and nothing has changed.”

But now there is undoubtedly more focus on the subject. After Greta’s speech, she went to the main debating chamber of the House of Commons, where MPs greeted her with a roar of applause and Miliband asked the government whether it would declare a national climate emergency. MPs also held a debate about the recent Extinction Rebellion protests and student strikes.

Unimpressed, Thunberg said afterwards that the politicians were missing the point. “They turn this into a question of what methods the protesters use – truancy and civil disobedience – but it’s not about that. It’s about the fact that we face an existential crisis.”

After the event, she went to St Pancras station to catch the Eurostar, the first leg of a 36-hour journey back to Stockholm. Passers-by, who recognised her on the street with her climate-strike sign, gave her the thumbs up and words of support. During the Easter holidays, she has received rock star treatment, selling out venues, being followed by paparazzi, meeting the Pope and having politicians humble themselves in her presence.

As long as the attention serves a purpose it is tolerable, Greta said. But she is now ready to return home. “I like to be left alone,” she said as she headed back to Sweden, back to school and back to her regular weekly strike.

Subject Audiences; Emissions; Political leadership; Strikes; Environmental policy; Climate change

Location Sweden; North Sea; United Kingdom--UK; Europe

People Carney, Mark; May, Theresa; Miliband, Ed; Thunberg, Greta

Company / organization Name: United Nations--UN NAICS: 928120;

Name: Bank of England NAICS: 521110;

Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940;

Name: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change NAICS: 541715, 928120;

Name: Eurostar NAICS: 487110

Title The Greta Thunberg effect: at last, MPs focus on climate change

Author Watts, Jonathan

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 1

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 23, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News ProQuest document ID 2212977226

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2212977226? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-09-19

Database European Newsstream document 6 of 31 Extinction Rebellion declares end to London protests

Taylor, Matthew; Blackall, Molly.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]24 Apr 2019: 19.

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Climate campaigners will voluntarily stop occupations and blockades on Thursday

The climate “rebellion” that has led to protesters occupying sites across London for more than a week to highlight the escalating ecological crisis will draw to a voluntary close on Thursday with a day of disruption and a “closing ceremony”.

Extinction Rebellion, which has been backed by senior academics, politicians and scientists during nine days of peaceful mass civil disobedience, said it would leave its remaining blockades, but added: “The world has changed … A space for truth-telling has been opened up.

“Now it is time to bring this telling of the truth to communities around London, the regions and nations of the UK, and internationally. In this age of misinformation, there is power in telling the truth.”

The group said it would like to “thank Londoners for opening their hearts and demonstrating their willingness to act on that truth”.

The statement added: “We know we have disrupted your lives. We do not do this lightly. We only do this because this is an emergency.”

The activists said protesters had “taken to the streets and raised the alarm” in more than 80 cities in 33 countries. “People are talking about the climate and ecological emergency in ways that we never imagined,” they said.

The group, also known as XR, said it would work to build up a resilient movement to force politicians to address the climate crisis, and further direct action protests may take place as soon as the coming days.

“This movement is not just about symbolic actions, but about building the necessary resilient and regenerative culture that the world needs now. The truth is out, the real work is about to begin. The international rebellion continues,” the group said.

The move came as it emerged the environment secretary, Michael Gove, had agreed to the meet representatives of the group. A spokesperson for XR said this was “totally unconnected” to its decision to end the current phase of the protest, adding that the meeting was under consideration.

“It may or may not go ahead, depending on the details of how public it is and who will be attending,” they said.

Support for Extinction Rebellion has quadrupled in the past nine days as public concern about the scale of the ecological crisis grows.

Since the protests began last Monday, 30,000 new backers or volunteers have offered support to the group. In the same period, it has raised almost £200,000 – mostly in small donations of between £10 and £50 – making a total of £365,000 since January.

The group said the figures showed the public was waking up to the scale of the crisis, adding that pressure was growing on politicians to act.

“What this shows is that Extinction Rebellion has spoken to people who have been wanting to act on this for such a long time but haven’t known how,” said an XR spokesperson. “The debate on this is over – ordinary people are now saying it is time for politicians to act with real urgency.”

The group said numbers of people on the streets for the protests had dwindled from a high over the Easter bank holiday weekend, but the number of people who had signed up to offer ongoing support and backing for future demonstrations had risen from 10,000 before the protest to 40,000 by Wednesday morning.

The decision to call a halt to the protests came a day after Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish student who inspired a global youth-based movement when she began a “climate strike” outside Sweden’s parliament last year, visited Westminster.

In a speech to MPs, she said: “You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to. You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before.”

XR’s youth group wrote to MPs on Wednesday as parliament restarted after the Easter break, pleading with them to act swiftly to address the crisis.

The letter, which was handed to Labour’s Diane Abbott outside parliament, states: “We are writing to ask you to hear the science, to feel the public’s change of heart and to act now to save our futures … Now the time has arrived to stand up and be counted – you are our elected representatives and we need your help.”

In response, the shadow home secretary backed XR demonstrators, telling a crowd of up to 100 protesters – one of whom towered above the group on two-metre stilts while others wielded banners – that she acknowledged a “climate emergency”, one of the activists’ key demands.

Abbott said MPs needed to come together to host a “broad conversation” on one of the group’s requests to bring the country’s greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.

“I wouldn’t be in politics if I didn’t think change was possible. If things can change on the issues that I campaigned on when I was a very young woman, I think that things can change … on climate change and we can move towards the 2025 target,” she said.

Abbott also suggested meeting XR for a detailed discussion of policy aims, a proposal met with rapturous applause. She reiterated her commitment to learning and listening to protesters, arguing that in the long term, climate change was more important than Brexit.

More than 1,000 XR activists have been arrested in the past nine days. Protesters occupied four sites across London and staged acts of civil disobedience including blocking roads, disrupting a railway line and demonstrating at Heathrow airport.

Subject Civil disobedience; Activists; Demonstrations & protests; Climate change

Location Sweden; United Kingdom--UK

People Abbott, Diane

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Extinction Rebellion declares end to London protests

Author Taylor, Matthew; Blackall, Molly

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 19

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 24, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2213638838

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2213638838? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-25

Database European Newsstream document 7 of 31 Extinction Rebellion holds Hyde Park rally to mark 'pause' in protests

Mohdin, Aamna; Blackall, Molly.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]25 Apr 2019: 3.

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Ceremony in London park marks break in activism after day spent targeting the City

Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion activists have gathered at Hyde Park Corner in London to mark a pause in the protests that have gripped London for more than a week and are preparing to take the fight back to local communities.

Climate protesters targeted the city’s financial hub on Thursday to highlight the role the sector plays in climate change. The environmental group said it was the last day of action before it would stop this stage of its campaign of peaceful mass civil disobedience, following protests in which hundreds of people were arrested and thousands of police officers deployed to sites occupied by the group.

The closing ceremony started with emotional speeches to congratulate protesters for bringing the issue of climate change back on to the political agenda. Skeena Rathor, a Labour councillor from Stroud, Gloucestershire, told the crowd: “This is our pause ceremony. Welcome to the beginning of our pause. We invite all you wonderful people to rest, to rejuvenate … and reflect on all you’ve achieved.”

A group of protesters, dressed in red robes and with their faces painted white, circled the crowd. There was music and poetry, with one group of performers calling on the crowd to “honour the Mother Earth”.

Sinoed Eirian, a 21-year-old student, said she was moved by what she had seen during the week, adding: “[This is] not the ending, but the beginning.”

Alan Woodward, a 45-year-old gardener, said he had been working eight to 10 hours a day and joining the protest in the evenings for the past week. “I’m not so fearful of standing up for what I believe in any more,” he said.

The final day of action kicked off early, with protesters glueing themselves on to the front and back entrances of the London Stock Exchange at 6.40am. Activists were wearing LED signs saying “Climate emergency”, “Tell the truth” and “You can’t eat money”.

An hour later, five demonstrators in east London climbed on top of a train at Canary Wharf holding signs including “business as usual = death” and “don’t jail the canaries”, in what the group said was a reference to “the financial sector’s role in our collective suicide”. Among them was Phil Kingston, 83, who had previously chained himself to a pipe in Oxford Circus.

“Like all parents and grandparents, I want a future,” he said. He expressed his concern over the impact of climate change on the poorest people, arguing they would be most affected by ecological collapse. “Everything is going to have to shift,” he said.

The protest resulted in minor delays on the DLR. Officers from British Transport Police used ropes and ladders to remove the protesters. Kingston, who added it was his birthday, was arrested alongside four other demonstrators.

The protest followed similar action on Wednesday last week in which Cathy Eastburn, 51, from south London, Mark Ovland, 35, from Somerton in Somerset, and Luke Watson, 29, from Manuden in Essex, were remanded in custody until their trial in May, after they were charged with obstructing trains or carriages on the railway by an unlawful act, contrary to section 36 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861.

Savannah, 20, a student said: “After the last DLR action the state used its power to put people in prison on remand and in response we have to escalate – not back down.”

More than 300 demonstrators then split into groups of 10 to stop traffic in moving protests across the City of London to highlight the role of the finance industry in fuelling climate change.

The road blockades were brief until a group obstructed the road outside Goldman Sachs and refused to move, bringing traffic on Fleet Street to a standstill for several hours. A dozen protesters lay on the floor and connected their arms with tubes, blocking up to 30 buses and several cars.

As activists were arrested and taken away one by one, they were serenaded by a samba band. One of its members – Brooke Tate, 25, a painter and musician – said Extinction Rebellion had created a warm, inclusive community. “You never feel alone, you feel part of a community. If this carried on, eventually all of London will join in.”

The protest was then taken to the Treasury where seven activists glued themselves to each other in front of the entrance. Among them was 17-year-old Belle Lewis, a sixth-form student who has been on several student strikes this year. She said: “I just don’t think the government have realised the urgency of the situation … I don’t understand why it’s not the most important issue. We are facing a sixth mass extinction.”

She said she was drawn to the protest for a simple reason. “I’m here out of love. I love people as I love the world and I want it to prosper.”

Subject Rites & ceremonies; Activists; Demonstrations & protests; Climate change

People London, Mark

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940;

Name: London Stock Exchange NAICS: 523210;

Name: British Transport Police NAICS: 922120;

Name: Goldman Sachs Group Inc NAICS: 523110, 523120

Title Extinction Rebellion holds Hyde Park rally to mark 'pause' in protests

Author Mohdin, Aamna; Blackall, Molly

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 3

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 25, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2214626380

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2214626380? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-26

Database European Newsstream document 8 of 31 How to stop climate change? Nationalise the oil companies

Jones, Owen.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]25 Apr 2019: 5.

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Extinction Rebellion got the ball rolling, but more radical action is now necessary if humanity is to survive

If only the Daily Express was right. That is not a sentence I ever expected to type. “Extinction Rebellion protests have WORKED as MPs succumb to calls for change”, bellowed the rightwing rag. Alas, the government has not capitulated to demands to declare a climate emergency, let alone to decarbonise the British economy by 2025. But Extinction Rebellion has retaught a lesson every generation must learn: that civil disobedience works. Amid the spluttering of obnoxious news presenters, it has forced the existential threat of climate change on to the airwaves and into newsprint.

But as this phase of protest winds down, the demands must radicalise. With capitalism itself rightly being challenged, the focus must shift to the fossil fuel companies and the banks. As long as they remain under private ownership on a global scale, humanity’s future will be threatened.

Take ExxonMobil, which plans to pump an astonishing 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than it did in 2017. As that well-known bastion of eco-socialism, the Economist, puts it : “If the rest of the industry pursues even modest growth, the consequence for the climate could be disastrous,” adding that “the market cannot solve climate change by itself”. According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if we wish to prevent global temperatures rising by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – beyond which climate disasters multiply – then oil and gas production has to fall by 20% by 2030, and 55% by 2050. However, the economic self-interest and political power of the fossil fuel industry is deliberately sabotaging this goal.

Last year, the industry spent an astonishing $124,837,199 on lobbying politicians in the US. During the 2016 elections, the industry spent over $100m on campaign contributions; recent top donors include the Koch brothers, Chevron and ExxonMobil. This is not wasted money, far from it. In the neoliberal era, rolling back the state has in practice meant withdrawing state support and social security for the majority, but continuing vast subsidies for vested interests. One recent study found that worldwide fossil fuel subsidies amounted to $4.9tn in 2013. It estimated that eliminating those subsidies would have cut global carbon emissions by 21% and air pollution deaths by over half.

The tentacles of Big Fossil reach further into the political elite: in the US and Europe, there is a revolving door between government and public sector on the one hand, and fossil fuel companies on the other, with lucrative jobs in these Earth-destroying industries on offer for compliant politicians and civil servants. As Bill McKibben – one of the most prominent US environmentalists – tells me, the primary challenge now is not having the means but the will. “We have the tech we need,” he explains. “The work of engineers over the last decade in lowering the costs of solar and wind panels is quite remarkable. We can do what we need to do, or much of it. The problem that remains is fighting the political power of the fossil fuel industries. If we can do that, we can proceed quickly.” Then there are the banks. Since the Paris climate agreement on tackling climate change was signed in 2016, 33 global banks – led by big US financial institutions such as JP Morgan Chase – have provided $1.9tn in finance to the fossil fuel industry. HSBC is funding the expansion of coal plants in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam; while Barclays bank has shelled out $85bn of financing for fossil fuels since 2015 alone.

So long as these sectors remain in private hands, they will continue to place short-term profit for elite investors ahead of the future of the planet and continued existence of humanity. They must be brought under public ownership, with a legal mandate to “green” the economy. One suggestion by the Next System Project is that the US government could create a community ownership of power administration, modelled on Roosevelt-era New Deal agencies. It would grant legal authority and funding mechanisms to buy back the energy grid and take over energy utilities.

But there are more radical solutions. Since the crash, quantitative easing (QE) has been used extensively, with central banks creating money to buy bonds from financial institutions. Why not use QE to buy a controlling stake in the fossil fuel companies? It has been estimated that the US has spent nearly $6bn on its post-9/11 wars. If it has the resources to engage in catastrophic wars, could it not afford to pay a small fraction of that sum to help save the planet from destruction? The same goes for the banks – except rather than nationalising the risks and privatising the profit, as the state did in 2008, they should this time be brought under democratic, accountable public control.

These proposals will undoubtedly be dismissed as extreme, but they are nowhere near as extreme as the fate awaiting humanity. According to the IPCC, we must cut global emissions by 45% by 2030 – little over a decade away – compared to 2010 levels to meet the 1.5C target. If not, the droughts and floods will come, the crops will fail, the seas will rise, the ice will melt, the heatwaves and extreme weather will kill and millions will be forced to flee their homes. What do we value more: an economic system which privileges profit above all other considerations, or the continued existence of human civilisation as we recognise it? A reckoning is coming.

• Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Subject Civil disobedience; Fossil fuels; Politics; Subsidies; Financial institutions; Campaign contributions; Political power; Climate change; Extinction

Location Bangladesh; United States--US; Vietnam; Indonesia; Europe

People McKibben, Bill

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940;

Name: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change NAICS: 541712, 928120;

Name: Daily Express NAICS: 511110

Title How to stop climate change? Nationalise the oil companies

Author Jones, Owen

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 5

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 25, 2019

Section Opinion

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Commentary

ProQuest document ID 2214712990

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2214712990? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-26

Database European Newsstream document 9 of 31 The Guardian view of UK’s climate responsibility: zero emission target needed

The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]26 Apr 2019: 2.

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Activists are changing the discourse on climate change. Politicians must respond with policies that meet the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C

Climate change is becoming hard to ignore. Extreme weather has grown more frequent. Scientists are loudly and urgently sounding the alarm – and people have noticed. The 10- day Extinction Rebellion protests were the biggest act of mass civil disobedience in the UK for generations. The protests, by people drawn from all sections of society, are sure to have a lasting impact. This month has seen the most mentions of climate change in the British media since the landmark Paris agreement in 2015. The country’s political class has been at pains to show it has been moved by the unprecedented outpouring of political feeling. But politicians need to overhaul policy in a far more substantial way than is currently envisaged to stop net emissions of greenhouse gases. The question is not whether this country should achieve a net zero target, but when. Presently the UK is committed in law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. This is not ambitious enough.

Last year’s UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report suggested that to limit the warming effect to 1.5C, global CO 2 emissions must reach net zero by around 2050. Next week the UK’s Committee on Climate Change is expected to formally recommend the government goes further. Extinction Rebellion (XR) would like the UK to reach zero by 2025. Underlying this ambition is a commendable sentiment but the target is impractical. Britain, as the first country to industrialise and therefore responsible for a large historical stock of carbon dioxide emissions, ought to aspire to reach the UN’s 2050 goal faster, but not as fast as XR demands.

This is not a flight of fancy. The costs of renewable energy have come down, with falls in the costs of wind, solar and batteries that are much bigger and faster than were until recently thought possible. The example of organisations that have set bold decarbonising agendas, such as the National Farmers’ Union, should be applauded and emulated on a national scale. Norway has agreed a net zero goal by 2030; Sweden by 2045. If other modern European societies are willing to accept the costs of transitioning to a greener and sustainable existence, it is hard to see why the UK could not.

It must be acknowledged that having a goal is not the same as meeting one. Projections show the UK will, on its current trajectory, miss its legally binding carbon budgets for 2023-32. The government’s own advisers last year warned that to deliver decarbonisation in the most cost-effective way, even to meet the 80% reduction target, the UK must achieve deeper emissions cuts than those currently set. Putting off difficult decisions will only increase the cost of mitigating and adapting to a decarbonised global economy in the decades to come.

What has been heartening is that the climate protests have been rooted in facts taken from UN reports, official statistics and government papers. The demonstrations worked because their supporters had arguments that resonated and could be easily understood. Whether this translates into votes for XR candidates in European elections will be worth watching. Meanwhile the school strikers have made their own set of uncompromising demands, with a youthful energy that could not be written off. Theirs too is a reasonable reaction to an emergency that politicians are staring at but seem unable to see.

If those in power did not respond to recent protests, they risked losing a generation of voters not prepared to accept a future decided by politicians many of whom will, by the time the scientists’ predictions come true, be dead. Remarkably, with a US president who does not “ listen to the science ” and disrupts international cooperation on climate change, green activism seems to be gathering momentum and has not only shifted the global discourse but also put pressure on decision-makers to change their policies.

Subject Paris Agreement; Politics; Greenhouse effect; Climate change; Emissions control; Alternative energy; Environmental economics; Editorials

Location Sweden; United States--US; Norway; United Kingdom--UK

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940;

Name: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change NAICS: 541712, 928120

Title The Guardian view of UK’s climate responsibility: zero emission target needed Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 2

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 26, 2019

Section Opinion

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Opinions, Editorial

ProQuest document ID 2215415792

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2215415792? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-05-16

Database European Newsstream document 10 of 31 Farage and Extinction Rebellion: two politics of protest, only one has a future

Younge, Gary.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]26 Apr 2019: 1.

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The Brexit party and climate protesters share a frustration with conventional politics. There the similarity ends

Watching Nigel Farage, leader of the new Brexit party, saunter the few minutes from a Wetherspoons pub to Clacton pier on Wednesday, surrounded by media and supporters, I recalled Michael Rosen’s poem explaining that fascism does not arrive “in fancy dress” : “Fascism arrives as your friend. / It will restore your honour, / make you feel proud, / protect your house, / give you a job, / clean up the neighbourhood, / remind you of how great you once were …”

The point here is not to insult – though those it describes will, of course, be insulted. It is to offer the closest, most accurate description of the social base, rhetorical impulses and political orientation of those attending and addressing the Brexit party event. They are the same people you will see at a Le Pen, Salvini or a Trump rally: older, rural, exurban and provincial (they were white, too, though since this was Clacton, that is hardly an indicator). The collection of pinstripes, tattoos, Barbour jackets and tracksuits marks a crude illustration of the class alliances at play. Rich and poor, brought together by a chronic grievance.

'If I say I don’t like foreigners taking all the jobs, I’ll be arrested,' one man said, before not being arrested

They call him Nigel, and he arrived as a friend.

You can smell the nostalgia on them. You are never too far from mention of the forthcoming anniversary of D-day, the wonders of the Commonwealth or the golden era of British fishing. “We’re a proud nation,” one woman told me. “We’re a fighting nation. We will not be humiliated.”

Whatever else they are, they are not racist. This point is declarative, not discursive – a statement made in response to a question that has not been asked and a point that has not been made. They insist on their own decency and persecution. “Britain’s over, manners are over,” one man told Farage. “If I say I don’t like foreigners coming over here and taking all the jobs, I’ll be arrested,” he said, before not being arrested.

They are motivated, they say, by democracy. They may be following a man who has stood for parliament seven times and lost on every occasion, but they won a referendum and that victory should be honoured. They have a point. The trouble is that the parliament to which they wish to return sovereignty – the very democracy they are fighting for – has not found a way to honour it, and now this is part of the problem too.

And so, ultimately, they are galvanised by betrayal – betrayed interchangeably by all parties, the political class, the establishment and the parliament. This is an itch that can be scratched until it bleeds but will never go away. The country they mourn never existed; their place in the world, as Britons, white people, working people, posh people, is not what it was and is not coming back.

There has always been more to Brexit, and the people who voted for it, than this. But there has never been much more to the driving force behind Brexit than this.

Some remainers have been pining for an electoral force, as single-minded and determined, that might thwart Farage’s advance in the forthcoming European elections in particular, and Brexit’s progress in general.

But so long as we remain trapped between remain and leave, crude identities foisted on us three years ago by a referendum few wanted, we are unlikely to detoxify the culture that made them possible. As urgent as this moment is in our relationship with the EU, Brexit is simply too limiting and distorting a prism through which to engage with the challenges we face.

The kind of politics that might provide a more effective and optimistic counterpoint to the Brexit mentality is, however, in full force. It just doesn’t announce itself as such.

As Farage was winding up on the seafront, environmental protesters in central London were winding down. After almost two weeks of protests against inaction over climate change, Extinction Rebellion (XR) has announced that it will end its blockades. “Now it is time to bring this telling of the truth to communities around London, the regions and nations of the UK, and internationally,” it stated.

It is not obvious how such a movement might provide a counterpoint to a moment like Brexit. In a literal sense, of course, there is no direct connection. True, there is overlap with issues of migration and deregulation. But XR cannot prevent Brexit any more than Farage could prevent climate change – even if he wanted to.

But they share some qualities. To some extent they start in the same place. They view the political system as broken and accuse the political class of having let us down. They believe the status quo is unacceptable, drastic action is necessary, and the push to make things better will have to come from the outside. The similarities pretty much stop there. One is a group without a single leader that holds creative, joyous, disruptive protests that attract a span of ages, not least the young, with a view to building a new future. Its most prominent standard bearer, Greta Thunberg, is a 16-year-old Swedish girl with Asperger’s. The other is centred around a garrulous 55-year-old Englishman, who in the course of several resignations has left his teeth marks on the spotlight, leading embittered, mostly older people with promises of a return to former glory.

In XR we see an inchoate expression of a different worldview. For starters it is a “worldview”. There is no meaningful national response to global warming, because however much you fortify your borders you can’t stop CO2 emissions from migrating. As such they see themselves as part of a global movement to save the planet, which requires seeing foreign people as human beings, and agreements and alliances between nations as fundamental to any possible solution.

XR, like Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street and the anti-war movement before it, has shown that there are significant constituencies for global campaigns that have humanism and international solidarity as their core. Since the demonstrations started, 30,000 new members have offered support and the organisation has raised £200,000. But the victories of Donald Trump and Brexit and the rise of the far right in general show that while these movements may be powerful, they are insufficient, in part because they have failed to convert mobilisations into electoral success. Which brings us back to our friend Nigel. The logic of Brexit is, in its essence, against any worldview. It seeks a retreat from the rest of the planet into an isolating pastiche of independence so that Brexiters might grab what they can for themselves. “If you want to see what Brexit will do for Clacton, just look out there,” Farage told the crowd, extending an arm towards the waves. “It’s called the North Sea – and half of it should be ours. Not to be shared with the Dutch or the Danes or anybody else. It’s ours. It’s our birthright.” The sea, as any XR protester will tell you, belongs to all of us. Farage would welcome the fish that make it through. But God forbid a human being in search of food, work or refuge might brave those waves.

Subject Political campaigns; Fascism; EU membership; Referendums; Demonstrations & protests; Politics; Climate change

Location North Sea; United Kingdom--UK

People Trump, Donald J

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940;

Name: Black Lives Matter NAICS: 813319

Title Farage and Extinction Rebellion: two politics of protest, only one has a future

Author Younge, Gary

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 1

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 26, 2019

Section Opinion

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Commentary

ProQuest document ID 2215416249

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2215416249? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-27

Database European Newsstream document 11 of 31 More than 400 arrested at Extinction Rebellion protests in London

Grierson, Jamie; Gayle, Damien.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]18 Apr 2019: 3.

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Police cells filling rapidly, with reports of people being taken to Luton, Brighton and Essex

There have been more than 400 arrests linked to the Extinction Rebellion protests across London and reports suggest the capital’s cells are rapidly filling up.

The Metropolitan police would not release up-to-date figures on cell capacity, but data from two years ago showed they had 799 cells available across London. With cuts to policing budgets, this number is likely to have fallen, so reports that cell space is under pressure are credible.

Extinction Rebellion protesters, activists and legal observers have told Guardian reporters some of those arrested are being taken to police stations outside London, with several saying demonstrators are being taken to Luton, while others mentioned Brighton and Essex.

The Met would not confirm or deny the claim. “Those who have been arrested are being taken to MPS custody suites throughout London,” a spokesperson said. “Contingency plans are in place should custody suites become full. We will not discuss [the matter] further for operational reasons.”

However, despite the volume of arrests, anecdotal evidence from those on the ground suggests the police are approaching the protests with a distinctly lighter touch. One legal observer said the diminishing capacity might be a reason why police were arresting people so slowly. “The other thing is that if they come in and do a mass arrest, they might lose public support,” she added.

Policing protests has long been a sore point for the Met, with the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 summit demonstrations in 2009 leaving a lasting mark on the force’s reputation, as did the scenes of kettling at the student protests in 2010.

There is a sense the Extinction Rebellion protests are being policed with a strict adherence to guidelines on public order policing. Forces are supposed to follow six principles when policing public order operations, according to the College of Policing, the professional standards body.

Under “policing standards and tone”, commanders need to set the style and tone at the start of an operation and be aware of the potential impact on public perceptions. Under “communication”, police are told to “use engagement and dialogue whenever possible”, and “establish and maintain links with communities, groups, partners, event organisers”.

Under “proportionate response”, officers are told to “demonstrate consideration and application of relevant human rights principles”, and police powers should be used appropriately and proportionately.

The legal framework sets out statutory and common law powers in relation to public order policing, which must be used in accordance with the European convention on human rights. The relevant acts include the Public Order Act 1986 and Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

Subject Arrests; Demonstrations & protests; Human rights

People Tomlinson, Ian

Company / organization Name: Group of Twenty NAICS: 926110

Title More than 400 arrested at Extinction Rebellion protests in London

Author Grierson, Jamie; Gayle, Damien

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 3

Publication year 2019 Publication date Apr 18, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2211207353

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2211207353? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-19

Database European Newsstream document 12 of 31 Scotland Yard defends response to climate change protests

Rawlinson, Kevin.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]18 Apr 2019: 34.

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Met comes under pressure to crack down on the Extinction Rebellion demonstrators

Scotland Yard has defended its response to the rolling protests in London that have caused disruption to millions and pushed climate change towards the top of the national news agenda.

The Metropolitan police has come under increasing pressure to crack down on the Extinction Rebellion demonstrators who have blocked transport networks in the capital in recent days; not least from the home secretary, Sajid Javid, who has urged officers to “take a firm stance”.

On Thursday, the force said the demonstrations were proving such a drain on resources that police were having to release under investigation many of those arrested, even if that meant they simply returned to the protest sites, while Easter leave was being cancelled for officers who were being asked to work 12-hour shifts.

Scotland Yard took the rare step of releasing a detailed statement setting out the difficulties they have faced keeping control of the protests, while avoiding infringing on the activists’ rights to demonstrate. It came on the same day as the protesters said their next target would be the UK’s largest airport – Heathrow.

Police said the demonstrators’ tactic of lying down meant four officers were needed to make an arrest and said there was no legal justification for more draconian measures, such as kettling and mass-arresting groups, because the demonstrations were peaceful.

“Those arrested are then taken into custody which again means our officers are off the streets temporarily while that process takes place,” the statement said.

Police added: “We have been asked why we are not using tactics such as containment, physically and forcibly stopping the protesters from moving around. The simple answer is we have no legal basis to do so. These are peaceful protesters; while disruptive, their actions are not violent towards police, themselves or other members of the public.

“We are looking at other tactics, such as tighter police cordons, but again that is resource-intensive in terms of officer numbers and, more often than not, it just shifts the protesters to another location nearby and does not assist in reopening roads.”

Police said that, by Thursday night, more than 500 people had been arrested in connection with the protests; primarily on suspicion of minor offences. Ten of those have been charged with breaching section 14 of the Public Order Act, under which police can impose conditions on public assemblies to prevent serious disruption, and obstruction of the highway.

Police added: “It is better for us to keep our resources and custody capacity moving and flexible than leave protesters sitting in cells for up to 12 hours before going to court for what, although highly disruptive, are lower level offences.

“So, everyone else arrested has been released under investigation and will be brought back to be formally interviewed and charged as appropriate in due course. We are aware that means some protesters immediately return to the area to resume their activities; those people will be arrested again.”

Scotland Yard warned the protesters they face a “robust response” if they target Heathrow on Friday. The force said it has “strong plans” in place, while the airport said it is “working with the authorities” to address the issue.

Earlier on Thursday, Javid held talks with the Met commissioner, Cressida Dick. He said: “Everyone has the right to protest peacefully … But people do not have the right to break the law.”

Javid added: “Let me be clear: I totally condemn any protesters who are stepping outside the boundaries of the law... I expect the police to take a firm stance and use the full force of the law.”

The Met said it considered London’s Marble Arch a legal protest site but that three others – affected areas Parliament Square, Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge – were not and that conditions prohibiting demonstrations there had been extended until Sunday, Saturday and Friday, respectively.

Subject Arrests; Demonstrations & protests; Climate change

Location United Kingdom--UK

People Javid, Sajid

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Scotland Yard defends response to climate change protests

Author Rawlinson, Kevin

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 34

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 18, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2211207359

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2211207359? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-08-28

Database European Newsstream document 13 of 31 Extinction Rebellion targets Heathrow as activists held in jail

Taylor, Matthew; Gayle, Damien.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]18 Apr 2019: 34.

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Climate campaigners plan to disrupt London airport at start of Easter bank holiday

The organisers of this week’s Extinction Rebellion climate protests have vowed to step up the campaign by targeting Heathrow airport, as three people look set to spend a month in prison for their alleged part in protests.

The trio – Cathy Eastburn, 51, Mark Ovland, 35, and Luke Watson, 29 – were remanded in custody for a month following a protest in which activists climbed on top of a train at Canary Wharf station in east London to highlight the climate crisis.

The decision to deny them bail pending a trial in May came as Extinction Rebellion – the UK group behind the week-long protests – confirmed it would be targeting Heathrow airport at the start of the bank holiday weekend.

A spokesman for the group said: “We are approaching a moment in time when no one can say they did not know about climate breakdown. If David Attenborough is starting to tell the truth, politicians have no excuse to not act now.”

Activists have successfully occupied four landmark sites across the capital since Monday morning in a bid to highlight the escalating climate crisis and demand urgent government action.

On Thursday evening the Met police said they had arrested 460 people so far and had cancelled leave for some officers over Easter.

“This is putting a strain on the Met and we have now asked officers on the boroughs to work 12-hour shifts; we have cancelled rest days and our violent crime task force have had their leave cancelled,” the force said in a statement.

On Thursday as the demonstrations entered their fourth day, more people joined from across the UK. Others who had been arrested earlier rejoined the protests.

Police said they had 1,000 officers on the streets but were still unable to prevent roadblocks continuing at Marble Arch, Parliament Square, Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge.

The environment secretary, Michael Gove, said in an interview on BBC One’s The One Show that the government had “got the message” from the protesters, prompting an invitation from Extinction Rebellion for him to come to Parliament Square to discuss the crisis.

“I know one or two of the people who have been involved in organising this,” said Gove. “We’ve talked in the past and we’ll be talking in the future … I do think that some of the stuff that’s gone on has been over the top, and I do think, however, behind that is a legitimate desire to put climate change and the environment further up the agenda.”

On Thursday, Heathrow said it was working with authorities to deal with the threat of protests and the home secretary, Sajid Javid, urged the police to use the “full force of the law” to deal with the demonstrations.

Earlier in the day, Eastburn, Ovland and Watson were charged with obstructing trains or carriages on the railway by an unlawful act, contrary to section 36 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861, over the protest on Wednesday that halted Docklands Light Railway (DLR) services.

They pleaded not guilty at Highbury Corner magistrates court. The district judge, Julia Newton, denied the three bail and remanded them in custody to appear at Blackfriars crown court on 16 May. The maximum prison sentence under the charge is two years.

Thousands of people remained at the four sites on Thursday and activists hoped that more people from across the UK, freed from the constraints of work by the long Easter weekend, would also join in.

On Thursday afternoon, police continued to enforce their section 14 order in Oxford Circus. Under the order, protesters have been told they can continue their demonstration at Marble Arch.

The Guardian watched as police carried away one protester after another, while crowds chanted “tell the truth” and “we love you” as each demonstrator was taken away.

Emmy Stocking, 35, a landscape gardener from Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, was handing out free food from a tent. “So far it’s just been lovely vibes,” she said. “Police have been arresting people but the atmosphere is awesome.”

It was quiet on Thursday at the Marble Arch site where activists have been camping all week. A woman played acoustic guitar and sang folk songs from the solar-powered stage while passersby visited information stands or had clothes printed with Extinction Rebellion logos.

The protests have continued despite police imposing conditions at three of the four sites where protesters have blocked traffic since Monday. Parliament Square, which was partially seized by police after they appeared in large numbers early on Wednesday evening, was retaken later the same night by protesters who arrived with a samba band and re-established roadblocks.

In Parliament Square on Thursday, protesters had reinforced their lockdown protests. One group had attached a coffin to a safety rope holding a man up in a large tree outside the supreme court. If the coffin were moved, the safety rope would fail. Dav, 40, from Bristol, who built the contraption, said: “I learned to do this on a tree protest in Tasmania, where we were protecting old grove rain forests from logging corporations, and we have adapted it numerous times around the planet.

“This is the most lo-fi version of it I’ve done, and it just suited the need of blocking the road with just one piece of rope.

“It was then just so wonderful because the police suddenly evaporated, but there were still lots of us and we had a samba band and lots of supporting people who arrived.”

#ExtinctionRebellion protesters have beefed up their lock down fortifications at #ParliamentSquare

This coffin is attached to a safety rope holding a man up a large tree outside the supreme court. If the coffin is moved, the safety rope will fail. #RebelForLifepic.twitter.com/qdtvuryy2N — Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) April 18, 2019

Police have come under heavy criticism for apparently targeting legal observers – volunteers who collect evidence on protesters’ behalf during interactions with officers – as they worked on Waterloo Bridge. The Guardian witnessed officers pointing out the observers, who wear orange tabards, before moving in to serve them with notice to leave.

One observer, Stu Daniel, from Devon, who was arrested on Tuesday, said he had never seen police target legal observers before. “We are impartial in our note-taking,” he said. “We aim to facilitate a peaceful arrest process for activists choosing to take that step.

“We are a strong symbol and a deterrent for the very rare but occasional occurrence of heavy-handed police behaviour and, equally, can provide a reminder were there to be any slips from [Extinction Rebellion’s] non-violent protocol in protester behaviour.”

Subject Criminal sentences; Roadblocks; Holidays & special occasions; Activists; Demonstrations & protests; Parliaments; Climate change

Location Tasmania Australia; United Kingdom--UK

People Javid, Sajid

Company / organization Name: Guardian (newspaper) NAICS: 511110;

Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Extinction Rebellion targets Heathrow as activists held in jail

Author Taylor, Matthew; Gayle, Damien

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 34

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 18, 2019

Section UK news

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2211208723

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2211208723? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-19

Database European Newsstream document 14 of 31 Extinction Rebellion and Attenborough put climate in spotlight

Davies, Caroline.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]19 Apr 2019: 36.

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New bulletins are leading on global warming and the BBC is shedding some of its ‘balance’

With Extinction Rebellion making headlines and Sir David Attenborough broadcasting The Facts on BBC One, climate change has gone mainstream this Easter. A nation has been watching protesters glue themselves to trains, turn London’s roads into gardens and actively invite arrest in their hundreds.

As a media strategy it is working. How did glueing yourself to a train highlight climate change, Radio 4’s Today presenter Nick Robinson asked Dr Gail Bradbrook, an Extinction Rebellion co-founder. “It gets you on the Today programme,” she replied.

For Chris Packham, an environmental campaigner and BBC presenter, this is welcome progress, marking a long-awaited moment when news bulletins lead daily on global warming.

He, like others, has detected a recent change in the BBC’s coverage. Attenborough’s much heralded programme, broadcast on Thursday, was part of a series of hard-hitting documentaries by the corporation, along with a forthcoming programme on human population growth presented by Packham. “They [the BBC] are certainly making sure they are moving away from criticism levelled at them in the last few years of only showing a rose-tinted view of the natural world,” Packham said.

Demonstrators dancing down Oxford Street or planting shrubbery on Waterloo Bridge attract headlines, which in turn influence programme-makers, he believes. “So I think there is a change, yes. The BBC has got its fingers on the pulse.”

From the start Extinction Rebellion has made it easy for the media. Through its “Declaration of Rebellion” on Halloween, its “Blood of our Children” stunt in Downing Street and strip protest in the Houses of Parliament, it has made and nurtured key contacts at media organisations in the buildup to this week’s direct action.

Another co-founder, Roger Hallam, has been clear that the strategy of public disruption is heavily influenced by Saul Alinsky, the US community organiser who wrote Rules for Radicals, and Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement. “The essential element here is disruption. Without disruption, no one is going to give you their eyeballs,” he has said.

That means accepting negative coverage in some parts of the media, such as hostile front-page stories in the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail on Thursday. “Obviously when you shut down central London for several days, you are going to attract attention,” said Howard Rees, one of Extinction Rebellion’s media organisers. “Getting media attention is very important.”

Rees said media reaction had been “mixed but fairly positive”. There had been some negative commentary, such as describing protesters as “sanctimonious eco-zealots” and “prancing hippies” whose direct action was merely a “tawdry New Age circus”. “It gives everyone a really good laugh because it is so totally inaccurate,” Rees said.

The protesters were pleased with the mainstream broadcast coverage, he said. “The BBC often does its best to try and ignore the issue and us, so we are pleased to see we have managed to have a bit of a breakthrough there.”

Twice in three years complaints have been upheld over Today programme interviews with the climate change sceptic Nigel Lawson for failing to challenge his views more robustly. In September last year the BBC’s director of news and current affairs, Fran Unsworth, accepted the corporation had got its coverage of climate change “wrong too often” and told staff: “You do not need a ‘denier” to balance the debate.”

In October Radio 4’s The World Tonight and BBC World Service’s Newshour announced they would be covering climate change at least once a week, every week.

Rosie Rogers, a senior climate campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: “The BBC’s slightly odd decision to maintain an even balance between climate science and conspiracy theory seems to have finally been overturned, and that’s extremely welcome. We do understand the pressure they have been under from the denial lobby, but science is not a political ideology and should not be treated as one.”

Richard Black, a former BBC environment correspondent and the author of Denied: the Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism, said the pressure exerted on the broadcaster by contrarians had been “quite extreme at times” in the past.

Much of the mainstream media was now having to take the issue seriously, he said, “because the facts have changed. And in the end, if you want to be credible you have to go with the facts.”

Negative commentary about Extinction Rebellion would not affect morale, said Black, the director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank. “They have got one central aim, which it to get people talking about climate change. And on the basis of what we have seen, they have been successful in that. Everyone in the media is talking about them. Politicians are talking about them.”

He added: “I think, though, what is probably more profound for the future is not Extinction Rebellion but the schoolchildren’s strike, which is a very organic movement, utterly driven by kids for kids.”

Subject Demonstrations & protests; Climate change

Location United States--US; United Kingdom--UK

Company / organization Name: Greenpeace NAICS: 813312, 813940;

Name: Daily Telegraph NAICS: 511110;

Name: BBC World Service NAICS: 515120

Title Extinction Rebellion and Attenborough put climate in spotlight

Author Davies, Caroline

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 36

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 19, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2211487799

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2211487799? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-20

Database European Newsstream document 15 of 31 Climate campaigners may sound naive. But they’re asking the right questions

Hinsliff, Gaby.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]19 Apr 2019: 1.

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Extinction Rebellion might be mocked for unrealistic demands. Politicians, however, would be fools to dismiss them

Spring has sprung, and overnight the high street is awash with miraculously cheap summer dresses.

Flick through the racks of floaty, swishy nothings in any H&M store right now, however, and it’s clear something has changed in the last few summers. Swinging from all that throwaway polyester are tags bragging about how much of it is sustainably made from recycled plastic bottles, not oil. Their tights and knickers use a man-made fibre made from recycled fishing nets, and by the till is a bin of reusable shopping bags.

These stores know their young customers are eco-conscious where past generations were oblivious, impressively fluent in the evils of plastic and diesel. But they’re also human, still occasionally craving the disposable fashion they’ve always had. They want what most people secretly want, which is to enjoy the pleasures of a pre-climate-conscious age – foreign travel, strawberries out of season – but in ways sustainable enough to let us feel good about it.

The protesters have public sympathy for their broad aim. But that’s a very long way from securing consent to specifics

The Extinction Rebellion protesters’ big pink boat has been moored a stone’s throw from H&M’s flagship branch at Oxford Circus for days now, floating on an ocean of what looks like general goodwill from passers-by. Doubtless it’s exasperating for anyone who just wants to get home on the bus, or for 999 services trying to move around a gummed-up city, and if protesters deliver on threats to shut down Heathrow over Easter then perhaps the public mood will turn sour. But last week, at least, it was impossible not to get swept up in the infectious optimism of it all. What’s not to love about chilled-out tunes, free food, the sunny feeling of reclaiming streets from the traffic and, above all, the very strong feeling that they’re on the right side of the argument?

To watch passing shoppers and tourists stop and film the protest on their camera phones is, however, to wonder how prepared we really are for the life of minimal consumption inherent in treating climate change as an emergency. The protesters have public sympathy for their broad aim in the bag. But that’s a very long way from securing public consent to the specifics.

Extinction Rebellion wants Britain to commit to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2025, rather than 2050, as the government is considering (which would itself be a step up from a target we’re not even currently on track to meet, to reduce them by 80% by 2050). And in practice, that indicates the kind of collective effort rarely seen outside wartime. It means goodbye to petrol cars, gas boilers and cookers – fine for those who can afford to replace whatever they’ve got now, impossible for the poor without significant subsidy – and hello to restrictions on flying. It implies eating significantly less meat and dairy, and no longer treating economic growth as the first priority, with all the possible consequences that entails for pay, tax revenues and public services. We might hope to create jobs in green industries but shed them in carbon-based ones, with no guarantee of the new, clean technologies basing themselves in those towns hit hardest by the loss of old, polluting industries.

All of that might be necessary to stop global warming in the long run, but the difference is that doing it in six years, not 30, means it would have to happen at breakneck speed, with painfully little time for communities to adjust. Those who are prepared to accept sacrifices for themselves need to be honest about what they’re wishing on others, which is why alarm bells ring when Extinction Rebellion’s Gail Bradbrook says that “this is not the time to be realistic”. We’ve seen in the three years since the Brexit referendum what can happen when campaigners win an argument by refusing to be realistic about what their dream means for other people.

Yet there’s another lesson from recent history here, and it points towards taking campaigns themselves more seriously than campaigners. Eight years ago the tents were sprouting in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, not Marble Arch, and the cause was economic inequality, not climate change. But otherwise the similarities between the Occupy movement and Extinction Rebellion are uncanny. Then, too, the protesters’ demands were dismissed as wildly unrealistic, and they were mocked for demanding the overthrow of capitalism while queuing to use the loos in Starbucks.

If their argument was at best half-formed, however, they were just doing what protesters are supposed to do, which is articulating a powerful feeling that something is wrong. I didn’t see it at the time, but in retrospect they were canaries down the mine. They were pointing to a boiling anger building up against a perceived elite that would ultimately manifest itself in far more destructive ways.

You can trace a direct path from Occupy not only to the rise of Corbynism but to Vote Leave’s exploitation of those anti-establishment feelings, and to their weaponisation by the far right. What starts out as a relatively benign movement of frustrated leftwing idealists doesn’t necessarily stay that way. In years to come, if the effects of climate change start hitting home in tangible ways – rising food prices hurting the poor, natural disasters triggering upsurges of migration or territorial conflicts – what stops all of that being somehow weaponised, too?

What we should have learned from 2011 is that when protesters are asking a valid question, it’s no good scolding them for not having all the answers, or even for personal hypocrisy. It may not look good for Emma Thompson to pitch up at Oxford Circus in solidarity with climate change protesters shortly after flying in from California, where she was appearing on a chat show. But in the broad scheme of things, so what? Climate change is an existential threat, and the response to it doesn’t currently feel urgent enough. So long as they keep hammering those two essentially inarguable points, Extinction Rebellion is going to resonate, not just with woke teenagers but increasingly with older people loath to bequeath their grandchildren a fried planet.

So if ministers had any gumption, they wouldn’t be sitting in Whitehall talking tough about police crackdowns. They’d be down at Oxford Circus, chatting to the crowds, pointing out what’s already being done – starting with the fact that the government’s independent climate change experts are about to publish a landmark report on speeding up progress to zero emissions – but also listening to arguments for why that might not be enough. Giving protesters exactly what they ask for is rarely a good idea. But identifying what the millions who broadly agree with them actually want is critical, and the lesson from Oxford Circus is that what people want has changed. Woe betide politicians who fail to keep up. • Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Subject Circuses; Climate change

Location California; United Kingdom--UK

People Thompson, Emma

Company / organization Name: Starbucks Corp NAICS: 722515

Title Climate campaigners may sound naive. But they’re asking the right questions

Author Hinsliff, Gaby

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 1

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 19, 2019

Section Opinion

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Commentary

ProQuest document ID 2211489007

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2211489007? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-20

Database European Newsstream document 16 of 31 Climate group reports inﬂux of support as protests continue

Watts, Jonathan.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]19 Apr 2019: 1.

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Police seize Extinction Rebellion boat as organisers plan to extend London action

Extinction Rebellion activists reported an influx of supporters on Friday, as the Easter holiday, balmy weather and promises of support from school strike leader Greta Thunberg injected new momentum into the weeklong climate protest.

Despite more than 100 arrests on Friday, taking the total to 682 by early evening, the demonstration which has blocked four major London landmarks looked set to continue beyond the weekend, with organisers preparing to extend their disruption on Monday to “picnics on the motorway.”

Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist and founder of the school strikes for climate movement, will visit parliament on Monday and Tuesday and told the Guardian she was also keen to join the campaigners on the streets.

There were new waves of detentions elsewhere on Friday as police spent most of the afternoon trying to clear Oxford Circus junction of hundreds of activists and a pink boat named Berta Cáceres after the murdered Honduran environmental activist. Officers with angle grinders cut through the bars below the hull, which activists had chained and glued themselves to.

The sympathetic crowd clapped and roared in support of each of the people removed. “Nothing else worked,” said one of them as he was dragged away by four officers. “Come and join us.”

On Thursday night the police had demanded the activists remove the boat, saying it was a safety hazard, citing risks to public safety if it continued as a impromptu party venue over the bank holiday weekend.

Late on Friday afternoon police managed to remove protesters who were glued to the boat and dismantle the sound system that had been installed. As police tried to remove the boat from the junction, protesters blocked side roads, attempting to thwart them, leading to a stalemate. In the evening, as the pink vessel was finally loaded into the back of a truck and driven away, the crowd chanted “We have more boats” and “We will not be moved.”

The Metropolitan police has admitted it is overstretched and officers said additional forces were called in from Wales and other regions to prevent Heathrow from becoming a target, but fears proved exaggerated. A group of 15 youth activists staged a two-hour peaceful protest at a road junction close to the airport.

At the biggest of the camps at Marble Arch, organisers said they had about 300 signups in the afternoon alone, with dozens of people volunteering to work as brochure distributors. Wolfgang Wopperer-Beholz, who manned the sign-up desk, said there had been a marked increase compared with the previous day. “Earlier, the people who put their names on the list were already knowledgeable. Now we are seeing more people who don’t know so much, but are pretty enthusiastic.” He said many had mentioned the David Attenborough documentary on climate change that had aired on the BBC on Thursday night.

Induction sessions at a tent in Parliament Square were so packed that the attendees spilled outside. “It’s growing at an amazing rate. I think the Attenborough documentary lit a fire in people’s bellies,” said one of the activists, who gave only the name Archer. “They are not just the usual dirty hippies either. There are doctors, architects, and the ethnic diversity is getting wider.”

“I’ve campaigned on this for 30 years with very little effect. It’s only with Extinction Rebellion that I have a sense that we are getting somewhere,” said Bing Jones, a retired doctor from Sheffield, who was arrested and placed in a police cell in Belgravia on Thursday night. “When I was released, there was a volunteer waiting for me outside with a Mars bar and big smile. He had signed up that day, been trained and then sat outside the police station for four hours until I came out. This is a wonderful, strange movement and new people continue to come along.”

Among the newcomers on Friday was actor Sonera Angel, who was waving a yellow banner marked with the Extinction Rebellion symbol near the police perimeter at Oxford Circus. She said she had come by train with a big group from Southend. She planned to return over the weekend and persuade more of her friends to join. “There is no excuse now it is a holiday,” she said. “Climate change is such a huge issue and governments all over the world are doing almost nothing about it.”

The actor Emma Thompson also joined the Oxford Circus camp on Friday morning as activists read “poems to the Earth”. Later she gave a speech from the Berta Cáceres boat.

Thompson said her generation had failed young people: “We have seriously failed them and our planet is in serious trouble, we have much, much less time than we thought. I have seen the evidence for myself and I really care about my children and grandchildren enough to want to be here today to stand with the next generation.”

Organisers say the protests will continue for another week, bolstered by Thunberg, who will arrive in the UK on Sunday as part of a European tour that has included a meeting with Pope Francis and an excoriating address at the European parliament.

Thunberg, whose strike sparked a global movement of more than a million students in less than a year, was also one of the signatories of the declaration that launched Extinction Rebellion in October. She had previously arranged to be in London after Easter to speak in parliament to party leaders and other MPs, meet fellow student activists and talk at a public event co-hosted by the Guardian.

“I would love to participate in their protests while in London if there is time and if they are still protesting,” Thunberg said. “I think it’s one of the most important and hopeful movements of our time. Civil disobedience is necessary to create attention to the ongoing climate and ecological crisis.”

Activists and politicians say she, and other young campaigners, had a key role to play. “She is abso-bloody-lutely important. I thank her from my heart,” said Ronan McNern, a spokesman for the group. “It’s not Extinction Rebellion that people should watch out for. It’s the school strike for climate, it’s the youth. This is their moment.”

The climate campaigners have also been boosted by a host of prominent supporters from the science and academic communities as well as the entertainment world. In an open letter on Friday, the former Nasa scientist James Hansen spelled out the growing dangers of climate change and noted that he too has conducted “highly respectful acts of nonviolent civil disobedience – on occasion leading even to my arrest”.

Linguist and activist Noam Chomsky is among those who have sent a statement of support. “It is impossible to exaggerate the awesome nature of the challenge we face: to determine, within the next few years, whether organised human society can survive in anything like its present form,” he said. “The activists of Extinction Rebellion are leading the way in confronting this immense challenge, with courage and integrity, an achievement of historic significance that must be amplified with urgency.”

Subject Civil disobedience; Activists; Circuses; Demonstrations & protests; Parliaments; Climate change

Location Wales; United Kingdom--UK

People Francis (Pope); Thompson, Emma; Chomsky, Noam

Title Climate group reports influx of support as protests continue

Author Watts, Jonathan

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 1

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 19, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2211489145

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2211489145? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-20

Database European Newsstream document 17 of 31 Battle of Waterloo Bridge: a week of Extinction Rebellion protests

Taylor, Matthew; Gayle, Damien.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]20 Apr 2019: 12.

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Group’s ongoing peaceful disruption in London is gaining it global attention and new members

On Monday morning a strange sight appeared, edging its way through the buses, taxis and shoppers on Oxford Street in London.

A bright pink boat, named Berta Cáceres after the murdered Honduran environmental activist, was being pulled carefully through the traffic, eventually coming to a halt in the middle of one of London’s busiest thoroughfares.

Bemused onlookers watched as activists secured “Berta” to the road, while others glued themselves to its garish hull. And with this act of flamboyant defiance, Extinction Rebellion’s climate protests had begun.

In the five days that followed, thousand of people, from pensioners to young parents with toddlers, scientists to city workers, teenagers to teachers, have occupied four landmarks in the capital, defying repeated police attempts to remove them and causing widespread disruption. Smaller disruptive events have taken place across the UK and in 33 other countries.

By late Friday evening police were saying that 682 people had been arrested in London. Three supporters who glued themselves to a train on Wednesday have been imprisoned. That same day four more attached themselves to the fence outside Jeremy Corbyn’s house, declaring the Labour leader “the best hope this country has got” to meet the challenges of the unfolding climate crisis.

And on Friday about 20 young protesters, all born after 1990, unfurled a banner on a road outside Heathrow airport, asking: “Are we the the last generation?”

But perhaps the protesters’ biggest achievement is that millions of people have heard their message that the world is in a spiralling climate emergency that demands transformative change to avoid catastrophe.

Through hundreds of articles, editorials, and radio and TV interviews, including some hostile critiques of its tactics, Extinction Rebellion’s message has gone mainstream.

“It’s been a resounding success,” said one of the group’s organisers, Howard Rees, surveying the scene on Waterloo Bridge on Thursday afternoon. “What are we on? Day four? We are holding all the sites, we are attracting loads of new members, everybody’s having a great time, there’s a party atmosphere everywhere … the police are generally positive and friendly towards us and agree with what we’re doing. And we are getting our message out there. It couldn’t be going better, really.”

The four occupied sites, Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge and Parliament Square, were all blockaded in quick succession on Monday morning, bringing widespread disruption to central London.

And although activists gathering in the sunshine on Waterloo Bridge had no idea how long they would be there – or what the police reaction would be – there was a jubilant atmosphere as they swarmed on to the road.

“I am so worried about what’s happening to the planet,” said Laura Sorensen, a retired teacher from Somerset. “We are on a knife-edge now and I felt strongly that I needed to get out and show myself, rather than just talk about it in the pub.”

A little further along Waterloo Bridge was Josiah Finegan, a 22-year-old who had never been on a protest before.

“I am freaking out about the climate, to be honest,” he said. “There have been so many warnings from scientists about what we are facing, it is quite shocking.”

Before going to join the protest, Finegan added: “I have no idea what to expect or what might happen … I just heard about it and felt I had to come.”

Police mingled with protesters, chatting and watching as flowers, trees in large tubs, a mini skate ramp and even a lorry were dragged into place on the normally traffic-choked bridge.

Looking on, one senior officer said the police response would be proportionate.

“These people are explicitly peaceful, they have liaised closely with us over their plans and have a legitimate cause. We all have a limit on what we think is the right level of action to take but I think everyone is worried about climate change.”

Over the ensuing days, the success, tactics and sheer determination of the demonstrations took many by surprise, even though they had been more than a year in the planning.

The strategy of peaceful mass disruption was tested in a much smaller series of protests over air pollution last year, with activists blocking busy junctions for 10 to 20 minutes at a time. The group hopes such protests act in two ways: they put economic pressure on the government by disrupting the infrastructure, and they force people to confront the reality of the climate emergency by interrupting their daily lives.

Once they had honed the process, organisers spent months holding public meetings around the country. Thousands of people gathered in libraries and meeting halls, cafes and universities, pubs and churches to hear dire warnings about the consequences of the climate emergency and what they could do about it, with hundreds signing up to take part in larger-scale rebellions and be arrested. Speaking to the Guardian after a meeting last summer, Roger Hallam, one of the key figures behind this week’s protests, said: “It feels like we are tapping into something very powerful in terms of the frustration and urgency many people are feeling as the evidence mounts of the scale of the climate emergency we are facing.”

Ten months later, it seems he was right.

The group’s success this week has not come without internal tensions, exacerbated by the non-hierarchical structure of the group. The decision to block trains, and potentially tubes, was hotly debated long into the night on Tuesday. A similar discussion took place over the plan to hit Heathrow.

And as the week has gone on, and the attention of the world’s media has slowly turned to the protests, the pressure on the volunteers trying to organise and control it has only increased.

“The phones never stop ringing, we have press inquiries round the clock from media around the world … it wasn’t like this at my old job,” said one of Extinction Rebellion’s young media team, who took a break from her career to volunteer a few months ago. “But this has been one of the most exhausting, exhilarating weeks of my life.”

Extinction Rebellion says thousands of people are signing up every day. The group’s rise to prominence has come amid mounting evidence of climate breakdown, from floods to heatwaves, melting ice sheets to poor harvests.

Its message about the scale of the climate crisis has resonated because it is backed up with science. On Thursday night David Attenborough presented a primetime documentary on the BBC, Climate Change: The Facts, supporting Extinction Rebellion’s central claim that the world is in a climate emergency. Earlier in the week, Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said the global financial system faces an existential threat from climate change and must take urgent steps to reform.

As the sun goes down on Waterloo Bridge on Thursday night, Finegan is dancing and laughing with a group of 20 or so people of all ages and backgrounds, accompanied by a collection of drummers and other musicians.

“It’s been insane, amazing,” he says. “I have been worrying about this stuff so much but the last few days, well, I feel like this has changed everything.”

Subject Success; Activists; Demonstrations & protests; Climate change; Economic summit conferences

Location United Kingdom--UK

People Carney, Mark

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940;

Name: Bank of England NAICS: 521110

Title Battle of Waterloo Bridge: a week of Extinction Rebellion protests

Author Taylor, Matthew; Gayle, Damien

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 12

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 20, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2211690878

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2211690878? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-21

Database European Newsstream document 18 of 31 Climate activists and police tussle for control of Oxford Circus

Watts, Jonathan; Gayle, Damien.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]20 Apr 2019: 1.

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Pink boat becomes focus of attention on fifth day of Extinction Rebellion protests

The siege of the Berta Cáceres started started shortly after noon when police in high-vis jackets surrounded the bright pink boat in Oxford Circus, central London, with two cordons and then steadily peeled off the Extinction Rebellion activists stuck to it.

Officers with angle grinders cut through the bars below the hull of the vessel, named after the murdered Honduran environmental activist, which protesters had chained and glued themselves to.

Five hours later, however, the tables had turned as hundreds of activist reinforcements swarmed into side roads and blocked the end of Regent Street. The police were surrounded. As officers attached the Berta Cáceres to a lorry, the crowd chanted: “We have more boats.”

By 7pm police had managed to move the boat just two streets away, only to find themselves pinned in by more rows of demonstrators singing the Beatles’ All You Need Is Love. After much obstruction the vessel was eventually driven away up Regent Street followed by jogging uniformed officers.

Welcome to the fifth day of the Extinction Rebellion, the escalating but still methodically polite campaign of disruption that has turned several of central London’s best-known locations into a giant game of territorial to-and-fro.

The activists reported an influx of supporters as the Easter holiday, balmy weather and gestures of support from school strike leader Greta Thunberg and the actor Emma Thompson injected new momentum into the weeklong climate protest.

As on previous days, the mood was largely respectful on both sides, but video later emerged of activists being dragged roughly across the concrete near Regent Street.

Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist and founder of the school strikes for climate movement, will visit parliament on Monday and Tuesday and said she was also keen to join the campaigners on the streets.

The Metropolitan police has admitted that it is overstretched and officers said additional forces were called in from Wales and other regions to prevent Heathrow from becoming a target, but fears proved exaggerated. A group of 15 youth activists staged a two-hour peaceful protest at a road junction close to the airport.

At the biggest of the camps at Marble Arch, organisers said they had had about 300 signups in the afternoon alone, with dozens of people volunteering to work as brochure distributors. Wolfgang Wopperer-Beholz, who manned the sign-up desk, said there had been a marked increase compared with the previous day. “Earlier, the people who put their names on the list were already knowledgeable. Now we are seeing more people who don’t know so much, but are pretty enthusiastic.” He said many had mentioned the David Attenborough documentary on climate change that had aired on the BBC on Thursday night.

“I’ve campaigned on this for 30 years with very little effect. It’s only with Extinction Rebellion that I have a sense that we are getting somewhere,” said Bing Jones, a retired doctor from Sheffield, who was arrested and placed in a police cell in Belgravia on Thursday night. “When I was released, there was a volunteer waiting for me outside with a Mars bar and big smile. He had signed up that day, been trained, and then sat outside the police station for four hours until I came out. This is a wonderful, strange movement and new people continue to come along.”

Thompson also joined the Oxford Circus camp on Friday morning as activists read “poems to the Earth”. Later the actor gave a speech from the Berta Cáceres.

Thompson said her generation had failed young people: “We have seriously failed them and our planet is in serious trouble. We have much, much less time than we thought. I have seen the evidence for myself and I really care about my children and grandchildren enough to want to be here today to stand with the next generation.”

Thunberg, whose strike sparked a global movement of more than a million students in less than a year, was also one of the signatories to the declaration that launched Extinction Rebellion in October. She had previously arranged to be in London after Easter to speak in parliament to party leaders and other MPs, meet fellow student activists and talk at a public event co-hosted by the Guardian.

Activists and politicians say she and other young campaigners had a key role to play. “She is abso-bloody-lutely important. I thank her from my heart,” said Ronan McNern, a spokesman for the group. “It’s not Extinction Rebellion that people should watch out for. It’s the school strike for climate, it’s the youth. This is their moment.”

The climate campaigners have also been boosted by a host of prominent supporters from the science and academic communities and the entertainment world. In an open letter on Friday, the former Nasa scientist James Hansen spelled out the growing dangers of climate change and noted that he too has conducted “highly respectful acts of nonviolent civil disobedience – on occasion leading even to my arrest”.

Subject Civil disobedience; Activists; Circuses; Demonstrations & protests; Parliaments; Climate change

Location Wales; United Kingdom--UK

People Francis (Pope); Thompson, Emma; Chomsky, Noam

Company / organization Name: Beatles NAICS: 711130;

Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Climate activists and police tussle for control of Oxford Circus

Author Watts, Jonathan; Gayle, Damien

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 1

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 20, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2211691002

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2211691002? accountid=15753 Copyright Copyright Guardian News & Media Limited Apr 20, 2019

Last updated 2019-04-21

Database European Newsstream document 19 of 31 Extinction Rebellion is leading a new, youthful politics that will change Britain

Matthew d’Ancona.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]22 Apr 2019: 4.

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A generation of networked rebels will bring down an old order whose failings have been laid bare

I am a fan of generation gaps. Though academics and the media love to identify new demographic cohorts – Generation X, Generation Z, Net Gen, Gen Wii – such distinctions often confuse mere fashion with decisive transformations in behaviour, social priority and worldview. But we need such transformations, the inter-generational arguments that they spawn, and the changes that, sooner or later, they compel upon us all.

The last authentic generation gap – a period in which the old order was categorically at odds with the new – ended with punk in the late 70s. The next such period of deep change has taken its time to arrive.

I’ll risk a definition of sorts. Those under the age of 35 tend (obviously, with many exceptions) to think differently from those who are older. As digital natives, their instinct is to form networks rather than to colonise institutions; they perceive the world in terms of identity and power structures rather than the categories of classical individualism; and they are more interested in transnational challenges (climate change, the pathologies of inequality, automation) than their elders, who still, for all their claims to the contrary, exist primarily within the silo of the nation state (see Brexit for details).

As you would expect, the insurgence is not homogeneous, or ideologically fixed. It represents a radical change in values and outlook, expressed in all sorts of ways, rather than simply a new form of social regimentation (where would the fun be in that?). Some of the most energetic change-makers are content to work, at least some of the time, within existing political structures. To take a current example: the youth wing of the People’s Vote movement – the Our Future Our Choice and For our Future’s Sake campaigns – has taken a (wise) strategic decision not to approach the European elections as a second referendum in all but name, but to concentrate instead on voter registration among 18- to 34-year-olds.

Outside of the confines of traditional institutions, meanwhile, one can detect the seeds of a new and exhilarating approach to politics. Look all around at a new landscape of activism: not just Momentum, but the surging power of Black Lives Matter, digital feminism, social media campaigns against unethical commercial practices, and calls for citizens’ assemblies on all manner of issues.

Above all, there has been the phenomenon of Extinction Rebellion (XR). The campaign, it is true, was founded by people of my age or thereabouts: Gail Bradbrook and Roger Hallam have studied the science of social protest and developed what they call the “ algorithms of rebellion ”. But it is the young – and those that care about the future of the young – who have given these algorithms such dynamic human expression in the past week. The nonviolent, peaceful, carnival spirit of XR has roots in the philosophy of Gandhi, the flower power of the 1960s, and the determination of the Occupy movement. But the synthesis is arrestingly new.

I keep hearing politicians and news anchors assert that the public is furious about the disruption. But, working in central London, I have been struck by how generally amicable the protesters and commuters have been in their exchanges. The police, too, have not exuded the nervous expectation of trouble that is often a feature of such gatherings. All that may change, of course, if their masters so decide. But there is no intrinsic reason why this protest should descend into violent confrontation.

More striking has been the media’s general inability to understand the XR uprising. Yes, it has caused inconvenience, for which the organisers have repeatedly apologised. Yes, some of the celebrities involved travel a lot by air. And yes, many of the protesters are middle class.

But so what? The inconvenience of commuters and delivery vans is regrettable – but not when set against the survival of the planet. And no, it isn’t ideal that Emma Thompson has taken private planes; but, really, if individual hypocrisy is going to be a barrier to action on climate change then we may as well give up now. Who, in this respect, can truly cast the first stone?

As for the social background of the demonstrators, who cares? Is there a means test now on morality? If the XR protests have nudged the needle on public consciousness – and, therefore, the priorities of the political class – they will have been a success.

Notice, too, that the movement’s demands focus with such clarity upon truth and the form that politics takes. Traditionally, rebellions have sought to supplant one regime with another. But this movement is more nuanced.

It has grasped that the battle for the future will be, as much as anything, an information war: a struggle against post-truth, evasion and lies. It also insists that the present system of politics is not working. After three years of Brexit, only a fool would take issue with that contention. The party system is polarised, fragmenting, dysfunctional, to an extent that has become deeply alarming: Westminster is quite incapable of responding to what Martin Luther King called the “fierce urgency of now”.

Please understand: I am not sanguine about any of this. As remarkable as it is to feel the political plates shifting beneath us, it is a mistake to think that all the consequences will be benign. Even as you celebrate the commitment of young people to the EU and to action on climate change, keep an eye on groups such as Generation Identity and the tech- literate far right: by all means applaud the spiritual descendents of Gandhi, but beware the children of Steve Bannon.

What is certain is that the shift is real. For many of my generation, all this will be a rude awakening. But, like previous generations, we invited it in our failures, omissions and inaction. What can I say? A change is gonna come.

• Matthew d’Ancona is a Guardian columnist

Copyright Guardian News & Media Limited Apr 22, 2019 Subject Generations; Rebellions; Algorithms; Demonstrations & protests; Politics; Climate change

Location United Kingdom--UK

People Thompson, Emma; Bannon, Stephen K

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940;

Name: Black Lives Matter NAICS: 813319

Title Extinction Rebellion is leading a new, youthful politics that will change Britain

Author Matthew d’Ancona

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 4

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 22, 2019

Section Opinion

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Commentary

ProQuest document ID 2212329875

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2212329875? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-23

Database European Newsstream document 20 of 31 Extinction Rebellion arrests pass 1,000 on eighth day of protests

Perraudin, Frances.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]22 Apr 2019: 2.

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Abstract

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‘Die-in’ staged at Natural History Museum as protesters gather at legal site in Marble Arch

More than 1,000 people have been arrested at Extinction Rebellion climate protests in London, police have said, in what organisers described as “the biggest civil disobedience event in modern British history”.

The Metropolitan police said that as of 10am on Monday, 1,065 arrests had been made and 53 people charged in relation to the protests.

Police cleared the last of the activists from Waterloo Bridge late on Sunday after protest sites at Oxford Street and Parliament Square had been vacated earlier in the day. Demonstrators from those sites moved to the main camp at Marble Arch, where they have been given permission to gather.

On Monday, as people at the camp enjoyed musical performances in the sunshine, scores of environmental activists staged a protest at the Natural History Museum in south Kensington. The group lay on the floor in a “die in” to raise awareness of the mass extinction of species.

The demonstrators – some wearing white facepaint with red veils and robes – gathered underneath the museum’s blue whale skeleton and remained to listen to an impromptu classical music performance.

Extinction Rebellion, which aims to use non-violent civil disobedience to avert a climate breakdown, held a public meeting on Monday afternoon to decide its next course of action.

After hearing from a range of speakers on the options available to them, the crowd of hundreds split into groups before representatives took to the stage one at a time to feed their views back. Suggestions ranged from pausing direct action and vacating Marble Arch “leaving it better than we found it” and taking the action outside of the capital to staging protests in the City of London and outside parliament.

The group started its protest on 15 April, stopping traffic at Oxford Circus, Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge and the area around Parliament Square.

Roger Hallam, a founder and organiser behind the Extinction Rebellion movement, said on Monday that it had been the the biggest civil disobedience event in recent British history. He said the number of arrests surpassed that at the anti-nuclear protests at Upper Heyford in 1982 (752) and at the poll tax riots in 1990 (339).

He said that they had had confirmation from the police that none of their officers had been hurt in the past week’s protests. Hallam said the protests would continue for at least another week. “We’re hoping that the political class wake up, because if they don’t the next thing that will happen will be much more dramatic,” he said.

The group is planning to stage a demonstration this week in Parliament Square as MPs return to Westminster following recess and attend prime minister’s questions.

Today I have written to @michaelgove to encourage him to be open to @extinctionrebellion and the call for a citizens assembly on climate change and to help build x-party support for it. My letter and reasons here?? pic.twitter.com/As0my2QgVE — stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) April 22, 2019?The past eight days has seen a variety of protests from the group across the capital. Last Wednesday two activists climbed on to the roof of a Docklands Light Railway train at Canary Wharf station, while another was glued to the side, causing temporary disruption to rail services.

Also on Wednesday a group glued themselves to the fence outside Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s home, while, on Friday, a group of young activists, all born after 1990, gathered on a roundabout outside Heathrow airport with a banner reading: “Are we the last generation?” Police prevented them from blocking the road.

The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has described the disruption as “counterproductive” to the cause of climate change, saying it was stretching police resources. The head of the Met, Cressida Dick, has urged activists to restrict their action to the officially designated site at Marble Arch.

The teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke to crowds at the site on Sunday, saying that nothing was being done to stop an ecological crisis “despite all the beautiful words and promises”.

Shane Collins, a Green party district councillor in Mendip, a volunteer organiser, said that the fact that the Marble Arch camp was a strictly no drugs and alcohol zone had contributed to a positive atmosphere.

The band Massive Attack played a surprise gig at the camp on Sunday evening and publicity for the event described them as “the Stroud Village Green Band” in order to avoid attracting unmanageable crowds. “We had Greta Thurnberg speaking and then Massive Attack playing and nobody was pissed,” said Collins. “It was a dream.”

“One of the most beautiful things for me was in my tent about five nights ago, I heard bird song,” he said. “Nobody has heard bird song in Marble Arch for decades because of the traffic the birds can’t communicate. The traffic has gone, air pollution has dropped, the sound levels have dropped, the birds are back.”

The protests have attracted support from a number of high-profile figures. After the actor Emma Thompson’s appearance at Oxford Circus on Friday, the Olympic gold medal- winning British canoeist Etienne Stott attended the protests at the weekend. He was arrested on Waterloo Bridge on Sunday evening.

Attending the protests on Monday, was Philip Kedge, a retired chief inspector with Hampshire constabulary. “I have a seed of doubt that’s been growing in terms of what’s been happening to our environment and I decided that I could do two things,” he said. “I can go sit on Bournemouth beach and enjoy the sunshine with ice cream or I can come here and find out more.” “My respect to all the service officers here,” Kedge added. “I’ve seen nothing but the utmost professionalism and respect. And the same goes to the protesters who have treated the police with dignity and respect.”

Another former police officer, Richard Ecclestone, who attended the protests separately from Kedge, said he had policed protests against the A30 road in Devon in the 90s, but that Extinction Rebellion felt different. “This is very different because it is not just a bunch of very well meaning and committed activists. This is all of us,” he said.

Subject Civil disobedience; Arrests; Activists; Demonstrations & protests; Marble; Parliaments; Museums; Climate change

People Khan, Sadiq; Thompson, Emma

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Extinction Rebellion arrests pass 1,000 on eighth day of protests

Author Perraudin, Frances

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 2

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 22, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2212329899

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2212329899? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-23

Database European Newsstream document 21 of 31 Activism laid bare: a quick history of naked protests

Williams, Zoe.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]02 Apr 2019: 2.

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When scantily clad Extinction Rebellion protestors took to parliament on Monday, they joined a long line of semi-naked activists

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any messier in the House of Commons, protesters from Extinction Rebellion fetched up in the public gallery on Monday, took off their clothes and superglued themselves to the glass panels. Rumours abounded that they had done so by the buttocks, but in fact it was just their hands. Still, it sounds a bit like that description of resentment: it’s like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Whoever it was that ended up getting sprayed with WD40 and taken away by the police, it wasn’t Michael Gove. This manner of nude protest has a fine pedigree, on the following issues.

Climate justice

The naked bike ride is a worldwide movement, in which clothing is optional. If you have seen it, you will remember it from the double-take: “Wait, was that person naked?” that happens when naked people are fast-moving. Its mission statement had the original aim to “protest oil dependency and celebrate the power and individuality of our bodies” – a slightly woolly purpose that makes me think that some people just really like being naked on a bike.

Feminism

The Ukrainian protest group Femen made history – and international front pages – protesting against sex tourism, marriage agencies, sexism generally and – by 2012 at Davos – capitalism. I always smelled a rat because they looked so great; true protest would be stripping naked when you look like a mattress stuffed with socks. But maybe that’s a really sexist thing to say. Am I part of the problem?

Brexit

The economist Victoria Bateman started on a different wicket, trying to “punch feminism into economics” by stripping down to her gloves in the middle of a conference. She then shifted on to Brexit and Rachel Johnson followed suit. “I thought it would make a cheeky nib in the Sun,” Johnson tells me. “‘Boris’s sister flashes baps’. I wasn’t even naked! I was wearing a flesh-coloured basque. It was horrific. Overnight, I turned into La Cicciolina The whole world thinks I got my tits out against Brexit. And I would, if I thought it would help, but I didn’t.”

Land rights

Not the classic nude protest, but an early example of the anarchic spirit: the Freedomites were Russian emigres who arrived in Canada at the turn of the 19th century hoping to escape religious persecution and soon had a beef with the Canadian government. They also used arson to protest against materialism, which is arguably the most succinct protest of all.

Subject Religious persecution; EU membership; Demonstrations & protests

Location Canada

Company / organization Name: Femen NAICS: 813319

Title Activism laid bare: a quick history of naked protests

Author Williams, Zoe

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 2

Publication year 2019 Publication date Apr 2, 2019

Section World news

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2201956766

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2201956766? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-03

Database European Newsstream document 22 of 31 Semi-naked climate protesters disrupt Brexit debate

Elgot, Jessica.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]02 Apr 2019: 9.

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Full Text

Activists spent almost 20 minutes with their hands glued to the public gallery and buttocks facing the chamberHow did each MP vote in the indicative votes?

Semi-naked climate change protesters interrupted a House of Commons Brexit debate and glued their hands to the glass of the public gallery, spending almost 20 minutes with their buttocks facing the chamber.

MPs attempted to continue the debate during the peaceful protest by 11 activists from Extinction Rebellion, though several made coded mentions to the protest in their speeches.

Protesters had slogans daubed on their chests, including “for all life” and “SOS” and two more wore grey body paint and elephant masks, which the group said referred to climate change as “the elephant in the room”.

Police cleared the public gallery in the House of Commons and then removed the protesters individually, some of whom were carried out by officers.

The police later said 12 people had been arrested “for outraging public decency”.

The protest began during a speech by the Labour MP Peter Kyle, who was arguing in favour of his motion to add a confirmatory Brexit referendum.

The Tory MP Justine Greening congratulated Kyle for “fleshing out his arguments very well indeed” and Kyle in turn thanked the Conservative MP Steve Brine for a “cheeky intervention”.

The Conservative Nick Boles congratulated Kyle for delivering his speech “with a certain amount of distraction” and quipped that many of his Tory colleagues appeared to be missing from the benches around him including “a noted naturist”.

Boles was referring to the Brexiter MP Bernard Jenkin – who enjoys nudism as a private hobby.

In a point of order, the Conservative MP Nigel Evans said the House of Commons had dealt well with “a distraction, not a disruption to our proceedings” and thanked thanked police and Commons officials.

The Speaker, John Bercow, also thanked officials after the protesters were removed. “We just press on with the debate, that is what we are here to do,” he said, to cheers in the chamber.

In a statement after the protest, one of the activists, Mark Ovland, said climate change was being “flagrantly and recklessly ignored by our government and media” and the group wanted to draw attention to the crisis during the debate on Brexit.

“By undressing in parliament, we are putting ourselves in an incredibly vulnerable position, highlighting the vulnerability that all of us share in the face of environmental and societal breakdown,” he said.

Another of the activists, Iggy Fox, said: “I’m tired of the time and resources our government wastes rearranging the deckchairs on the Brexitanic. It’s high time politicians stop beating around the bush and tackle the environmental crisis head on, like they should have done years ago. I won’t stop causing disruption until the government does its duty to protect the people from disaster.”

Subject Activists; EU membership; Climate change; Demonstrations & protests

People Evans, Nigel; Bercow, John; Greening, Justine; Boles, Nick

Title Semi-naked climate protesters disrupt Brexit debate

Author Elgot, Jessica

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 9 Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 2, 2019

Section World news

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2201957887

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2201957887? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-06-10

Database European Newsstream document 23 of 31 Extinction Rebellion calls on protesters to block London streets

Gayle, Damien.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]13 Apr 2019: 18.

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About 2,300 climate activists have already signed up to help obstruct busy roads next week

Environmental campaigners are hoping to mobilise thousands of people to block the streets of central London around the clock next week, in their latest attempt to raise public awareness and provoke action over the destruction of the biosphere.

About 2,300 volunteers have signed up with Extinction Rebellion to obstruct some of the capital’s busiest roads for at least three days.

The disruption is to be the UK element of what organisers hope will be an international movement to protest against environmental and ecological destruction.

XR, which cites the civil rights movement and suffragettes as inspirations and is backed by senior scientists and academics, including the former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, claims to have 331 groups in 49 countries, with 222 activists arrested worldwide for acts of non-violent civil disobedience since last autumn.

Eighty-five people were arrested in London in November when thousands of protesters, including families and pensioners, occupied five bridges.

The group is demanding immediate action over environmental destruction, after dire predictions that humans face an existential threat if climate change and the loss of biodiversity continues.

It is calling on the government to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2025 and establish a citizens’ assembly to devise an emergency plan of action similar to that seen during the second world war.

“We don’t want to disrupt people, but our government’s failure over the last 30 years leaves us no choice,” an XR spokesperson said.

“Governments prioritise the short-term interests of the economic elites so, to get their attention, we have to disrupt the economy.”

On Monday at 11am, protesters in London plan to block traffic at Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and Piccadilly Circus. Roadblocks will continue night and day at each site, reminiscent of the Occupy London protest camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral in 2011-12.

Participants are being warned they will be invited to take part in non-violent civil disobedience, and might be arrested. Organisers have circulated legal advice to anyone planning to attend, requested they refrain from using drugs and alcohol during the protest, and asked that they treat passersby and the environment with respect.

A Metropolitan police spokesperson declined to comment other than to say an appropriate policing plan will be in place.

Tiana Jacout, an XR coordinator, said the protest’s success relied on recruiting enough people. “It’s literally a numbers game at the moment,” she said. “The more people we have, the easier it is to hold the space.”

Organisers have promised a “full-scale festival of collective action and creative resistance”, including talks, workshops, musical and theatrical performances, and a roaming people’s assembly, hosted at each of the locations.

“What I have been saying to people is that [the climate crisis] is not an unknown thing any more,” Jacout said. “Polls have shown 70-80% of people want it dealt with. If in the past 10 years you have been sitting at home, thinking this is not right, something needs to happen: come, this is it.”

Almost 100 academics declared their support for XR in a letter published in the Guardian in October, which said: “When a government wilfully abrogates its responsibility to protect its citizens from harm and to secure the future for generations to come, it has failed in its most essential duty of stewardship.

“The ‘social contract’ has been broken, and it is therefore not only our right, but our moral duty to bypass the government’s inaction and flagrant dereliction of duty, and to rebel to defend life itself.”

Subject Civil disobedience; Nonviolence; Climate change; Demonstrations & protests

Location United Kingdom--UK

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940 Title Extinction Rebellion calls on protesters to block London streets

Author Gayle, Damien

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 18

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 13, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2209104074

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2209104074? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-06-10

Database European Newsstream document 24 of 31 Mrs Noah ﬁghts back: 'It's about extinction. There is no bigger story'

Arifa Akbar.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]14 Apr 2019: 11.

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Among the protesters heading for parliament are Noah’s family and Ade Adepitan as God in a suit. April De Angelis talks about turning the biblical flood into riotous drama

On Monday, a day of civil disobedience kicks off around the world. It will be led by climate change activists aiming to bring maximum non-violent disruption to civic life. And among those converging on Parliament Square, London, will be a playwright and a troupe of actors dressed as biblical figures: Noah, a parade of animals (going in two by two, of course), and even God himself.

They might, on the face of it, look out of place and maybe even a little comical among the protesters and their placards: Noah’s wife’s dress has a touch of Wag about it, while God will be rocking a sharp white suit with his halo. There will be a crew of townspeople there, all readying themselves for a contemporary enactment of a medieval mystery play.

Mrs Noah is April De Angelis ’s riotous retelling of the biblical flood story, starring Ade Adepitan as God and Naomi Paxton as Mrs Noah. But, far from being out of keeping with the day, this Christian tale of rising waves, endangered animals and near extinction of the human race could be the original “climate disaster” warning.

“It is about extinction,” she says. “There is no bigger story.”

De Angelis is a force of nature, as voluble, witty and rebellious as her work. A seasoned playwright and librettist, her dramas overlap with her activism, from her 80s entry point into theatre when she joined a women-only resistance group called Re-Sister (she chortles at the pun now) to her 1993 drama, Playhouse Creatures, set in the 17th century and exploring the moment when women were allowed to perform on stage.

A desire to place women’s lives at the heart of her stories runs through her work, and Mrs Noah is no exception. In De Angelis’s rebooted mystery play, Noah’s wife is a rebel and upstart, refusing to leave her group of female friends for her place on the ark.

De Angelis did not need to invent Mrs Noah’s rebellion: “I had read the Chester Mystery Plays many decades ago and remembered that she refused to get on the ark in that version. It surprised me to reread it and realise that the writer, rather than being in service to the dogma of the church, was really getting inside Mrs Noah’s head.”

Paxton feels that her character’s refusal is based as much on her political idealism as her loyalty to her friends. “It won’t solve the problem for Mrs Noah to save herself and her family in the ark. The problem remains, and she would only be moving away from it. She feels it’s an issue for everyone and that she can’t escape it.”

It was last autumn that De Angelis had the idea to stage the biblical flood while she was at a meeting with members of Extinction Rebellion, the UK-based climate movement that counts Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Philip Pullman, Naomi Klein, and George Monbiot among its supporters.

At one point God says: Don’t you read page six of the Guardian? The end of the world is coming

She joined the group after coming across a Facebook post. “I was in a low-level panic,” she says, “and when I read the post it went to high-level panic. I wanted to do something. I was numb and shocked and frightened. I felt ineffectual and without power. Writing this play changed that.”

Now that politics appears so broken, she says it may be the case that the arts are becoming “the new politics” for younger generations. It’s certainly a great meeting place for the young to collaborate with other generations: the demographic of Extinction Rebellion ranges from millennials to people of her age. (She is 58.)

De Angelis has also written a short duologue – an encounter between two scientists from opposing ideological camps that features bird songs – that will be acted out on street corners as a piece of guerrilla theatre with an eco-message. And, having been commissioned to write a play for the Royal Exchange, Manchester, she is thinking of ways to tell another climate story.

The biggest challenge, for her, lies in turning the story of our planet’s destruction into compelling drama. Environmental disaster does not lack the dramatic elements, nor heart- wrenching personal stories. It’s just a case of rendering them in drama effectively. She recalls the divided critical opinions over 2071, a 75-minute talk by the scientist Chris Rapley (co-written with Duncan Macmillan) at the Royal Court, London, in 2014, which some said just wasn’t theatre. “I think he did a good job. There should not be one type of theatre – as long as it engages the audience and as long as it’s not preaching, because people don’t like to be preached to.”

Adepitan agrees: “I travel all over the world as part of my job, and I’ve seen the devastating impact climate change is having on communities in Africa whose homes are becoming deserts as a result of global warming. We have to make sure as many people as possible understand how urgent an issue this is, and drama is a powerful and effective way to get to get this message across.”

What is striking about Mrs Noah is the humour, song, rhyme and music that has been added to the climate message. God, frustrated by the town’s blindness to ecological danger, says at one point: “Don’t you read page six of the Guardian? The end of the world is coming.”

There are plenty of other such moments. De Angelis wanted to insert enough laughs and winking contemporary references to catch the attention of the crowd in Parliament Square. This is essentially street theatre, she says. It must reach out and grab its viewer.

• Mrs Noah will be staged at 6pm on 15 April in Parliament Square, London, as part of Extinction Rebellion.

Copyright Guardian News & Media Limited Apr 14, 2019 Subject Drama; Cycle plays; Theater; Parliaments; Climate change; Extinction; Dramatists

Location Africa; United Kingdom--UK

People Fry, Stephen; Pullman, Philip; Thompson, Emma

Company / organization Name: Facebook Inc NAICS: 518210, 519130;

Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Mrs Noah fights back: 'It's about extinction. There is no bigger story'

Author Arifa Akbar

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 11

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 14, 2019

Section Stage

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Commentary

ProQuest document ID 2209404445

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2209404445? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-05-09

Database European Newsstream document 25 of 31 The Guardian view on Extinction Rebellion: one small step

The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]14 Apr 2019: 2.

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Disrupting traffic is not enough – we must disrupt our progress towards climate catastrophe

The planned choking of traffic in central London on Monday by climate activists of Extinction Rebellion falls somewhere between street theatre and direct action. If it is successful it will be costly for the demonstrators, some of whom plan to be arrested, burdensome for bus passengers who can’t get to work, and vexing for car drivers who (unlike those in emergency vehicles) will be held up. And yet, should it fail, the long-term costs of climate change will be immense for almost everybody now alive and for all our descendents, too.

In the short term, the rage of the frustrated motorist remains one of the most powerful political forces in countries like ours. The gilets jaunes movement in France started off in part as a protest against price rises on petrol; the Blair government sustained its first big defeat at the hands of lorry drivers in the fuel protests of 2000, which destroyed a sensible and ecologically necessary plan to raise fuel taxes steadily over time to discourage the use of fossil fuels.

Any movement towards ecological sanity will have to confront this anger. The drivers’ blockades were effective direct action in support of the destruction of the planet. The challenge today is to find means of direct action that work towards its preservation while winning the same kind of social acceptance and political force.

The idea that we can change the whole basis of our planetary economy without pain and inconvenience for the global middle classes is simply false. The enormous political challenge is to ensure that the pain of adjustment towards a carbon-neutral economy is fairly distributed. At the moment the pain is concentrated on those least able to bear it. This is true between countries, in as much as it is sub-Saharan Africa where the destabilising effects of climate change are most visible and painful. It is also true within the rich countries which consume more than they sustainably can. In the west it is the poor who will be hit worst by rising prices for food and fuel. Yet a future of less consumption and less convenience is inevitable. We can choose to some extent how and when to face it, but it cannot be indefinitely postponed.

The purpose of climate activism is to make that choice consciously and deliberately, with planning and forethought, rather than have it forced upon us in a series of improvisations between catastrophes. The activists of Extinction Rebellion use the metaphor of war, and this is not entirely exaggerated. Although one of the purposes of groups like Extinction Rebellion is to avert wars over resources, this may – paradoxically – require the kind of social and political mobilisation only otherwise seen in wartime. The sense of a common purpose, and of suffering borne in common, which has so often and so fraudulently been invoked in the rhetoric of the political right since the financial crisis must now be appropriated and given real meaning.

Yet it is not enough for climate change to remain solely a cause of the left. This is a cause that must ultimately transcend left-right distinctions. To achieve such an escape from traditional politics will not be easy. It will be fiercely resisted, because there are many powerful forces that benefit, in the short term, from smugness and inaction. But the movement needs to isolate and expose them.

The protests are intended as the start of a global movement, as they must be. By themselves, they will accomplish little. Yet the longest journey begins with the first step – even if this is the step taken by a driver who climbs out of their gridlocked car and tries to find some other way of continuing their journey.

Subject Political activism; Demonstrations & protests; Climate change; Editorials

Location Africa; France

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title The Guardian view on Extinction Rebellion: one small step

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 2

Publication year 2019 Publication date Apr 14, 2019

Section Opinion

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Opinions, Editorial

ProQuest document ID 2209410208

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2209410208? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-05-16

Database European Newsstream document 26 of 31 Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse

Monbiot, George.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]15 Apr 2019: 3.

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No one is coming to save us. Mass civil disobedience is essential to force a political response

Had we put as much effort into preventing environmental catastrophe as we’ve spent on making excuses for inaction, we would have solved it by now. Everywhere I look, I see people engaged in furious attempts to fend off the moral challenge it presents.

The commonest current excuse is this: “I bet those protesters have phones/go on holiday/wear leather shoes.” In other words, we won’t listen to anyone who is not living naked in a barrel, subsisting only on murky water. Of course, if you are living naked in a barrel we will dismiss you too, because you’re a hippie weirdo. Every messenger, and every message they bear, is disqualified on the grounds of either impurity or purity.

As the environmental crisis accelerates, and as protest movements like YouthStrike4Climate and Extinction Rebellion make it harder not to see what we face, people discover more inventive means of shutting their eyes and shedding responsibility. Underlying these excuses is a deep-rooted belief that if we really are in trouble, someone somewhere will come to our rescue: “they” won’t let it happen. But there is no they, just us.

The political class, as anyone who has followed its progress over the past three years can surely now see, is chaotic, unwilling and, in isolation, strategically incapable of addressing even short-term crises, let alone a vast existential predicament. Yet a widespread and wilful naivety prevails: the belief that voting is the only political action required to change a system. Unless it is accompanied by the concentrated power of protest – articulating precise demands and creating space in which new political factions can grow – voting, while essential, remains a blunt and feeble instrument.

The media, with a few exceptions, is actively hostile. Even when broadcasters cover these issues, they carefully avoid any mention of power, talking about environmental collapse as if it is driven by mysterious, passive forces, and proposing microscopic fixes for vast structural problems. The BBC’s Blue Planet Live series exemplified this tendency.

Those who govern the nation and shape of public discourse cannot be trusted with the preservation of life on Earth. There is no benign authority preserving us from harm. No one is coming to save us. None of us can justifiably avoid the call to come together to save ourselves.

I see despair as another variety of disavowal. By throwing up our hands about the calamities that could one day afflict us, we disguise and distance them, converting concrete choices into indecipherable dread. We might relieve ourselves of moral agency by claiming that it’s already too late to act, but in doing so we condemn others to destitution or death. Catastrophe afflicts people now and, unlike those in the rich world who can still afford to wallow in despair, they are forced to respond in practical ways. In Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, devastated by Cyclone Idai, in Syria, Libya and Yemen, where climate chaos has contributed to civil war, in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador,, where crop failure, drought and the collapse of fisheries have driven people from their homes, despair is not an option. Our inaction has forced them into action, as they respond to terrifying circumstances caused primarily by the rich world’s consumption. The Christians are right: despair is a sin.

As the author Jeremy Lent points out in a recent essay, it is almost certainly too late to save some of the world’s great living wonders, such as coral reefs and monarch butterflies. It might also be too late to prevent many of the world’s most vulnerable people from losing their homes. But, he argues, with every increment of global heating, with every rise in material resource consumption, we will have to accept still greater losses, many of which can still be prevented through radical transformation.

Every nonlinear transformation in history has taken people by surprise. As Alexei Yurchak explains in his book about the collapse of the Soviet Union – Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More – systems look immutable until they suddenly disintegrate. As soon as they do, the disintegration retrospectively looks inevitable. Our system – characterised by perpetual economic growth on a planet that is not growing – will inevitably implode. The only question is whether the transformation is planned or unplanned. Our task is to ensure it is planned, and fast. We need to conceive and build a new system based on the principle that every generation, everywhere has an equal right to enjoy natural wealth.

This is less daunting than we might imagine. As Erica Chenoweth’s historical research reveals, for a peaceful mass movement to succeed, a maximum of 3.5% of the population needs to mobilise. Humans are ultra-social mammals, constantly if subliminally aware of shifting social currents. Once we perceive that the status quo has changed, we flip suddenly from support for one state of being to support for another. When a committed and vocal 3.5% unites behind the demand for a new system, the social avalanche that follows becomes irresistible. Giving up before we have reached this threshold is worse than despair: it is defeatism.

Today, Extinction Rebellion takes to streets around the world in defence of our life-support systems. Through daring, disruptive, nonviolent action, it forces our environmental predicament on to the political agenda. Who are these people? Another “they”, who might rescue us from our follies? The success of this mobilisation depends on us. It will reach the critical threshold only if enough of us cast aside denial and despair, and join this exuberant, proliferating movement. The time for excuses is over. The struggle to overthrow our life-denying system has begun.

• George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Subject Political activism; Environmental stewardship; Global warming Location Mozambique; Malawi; Yemen; Honduras; Zimbabwe; Syria; Libya; Guatemala; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics--USSR; El Salvador

Company / organization Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse

Author Monbiot, George

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 3

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 15, 2019

Section Opinion

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Commentary

ProQuest document ID 2209782912

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2209782912? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-05-09

Database European Newsstream document 27 of 31 Thousands block roads in Extinction Rebellion protests across London

Taylor, Matthew; Gayle, Damien.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]15 Apr 2019: 7.

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Abstract

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Full Text

Climate group occupies major landmarks in campaign that could last several daysTell us if you are taking part

Thousands of people have blocked well-known landmarks including Waterloo Bridge in central London, bringing widespread disruption to the capital in a “climate rebellion” that organisers say could last several days.

Parents and their children joined scientists, teachers, long-term environmentalists and other protesters both young and old to occupy major junctions and demand urgent action over the escalating ecological crisis.

The protests are part of a global campaign organised by the British climate group Extinction Rebellion, with demonstrations planned in 80 cities across 33 countries in the coming days.

The group is calling on the UK government to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2025 and establish a citizens’ assembly to devise an emergency plan of action to tackle climate breakdown and biodiversity loss.

By mid-afternoon five London landmarks – Waterloo Bridge, Marble Arch, Parliament Square, Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus – had been blocked by thousands of protesters.

Organisers said they hoped to hold the first four of those venues round the clock over the coming days with a temporary camp established at Marble Arch, causing widespread disruption in the capital.

However, as darkness fell on Waterloo Bridge on Monday night, police moved in and began to arrest protesters still blocking the crossing. A spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion said there were several hundred people still occupying the bridge, adding that “morale was high” and a cheer went up every time someone was taken away by the police.

The arrests came after the Metropolitan police issued an order under section 14 of the Public Order Act, which allows conditions to be imposed on “public processions” and “public assemblies” . A police officer on the bridge said that the Met could impose limits on assembly if they felt there was a serious risk of disruption or to public order. “Obviously, sitting down on Waterloo Bridge is a serious disruption to the community,” he said.

Police mingled more or less freely with the crowd and around several gazebos, potted plants and trees, and a mobile stage that was hosting a choir. “They are taking people incredibly slowly,” said one protest organiser. “It could take all night.”

At about 10pm police became anxious when several dozen more people arrived to reinforce the numbers on the bridge. Ronan McNern, a spokesman for Extinction Rebellion, said at least 20 people had been arrested but was hopeful the demonstration could continue through the night.

Earlier Roger Hallam, one of the movement’s leaders, said nothing like this had been seen on the streets of London for decades. “What’s amazing about this is for 30 years you have just had that closing up of public space – ‘you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you’ve got to finish then’.

“Suddenly what Extinction Rebellion has done is actually say: ‘we are doing this.’ And the state is so weak through austerity that they can’t stop us.”

The campaign cites the civil rights and suffragette movements as inspiration and is backed by hundreds of scientists and academics, including the former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Williams, who part in Monday’s protest, said at a meditation the night before that humans had declared war on nature: “We are here tonight to declare that we do not wish to be at war. We wish to make peace with ourselves by making peace with our neighbour Earth and with our God,” he said.

The group wrote to the prime minister, Theresa May, on Monday outlining their demands and asking for talks. In the letter they warned they would escalate their disruptive actions over the coming days and weeks unless the government acts.

“Make no mistake, people are already dying,” the letter said. “In the majority world, indigenous communities are now on the brink of extinction. This crisis is only going to get worse … prime minister, you cannot ignore this crisis any longer. We must act now.”

At Waterloo Bridge before the arrests, protesters blocked the roads and turned the crossing into an impromptu garden bridge, with people bringing trees, flowers and setting up a miniature skate park and stage.

At Oxford Circus thousands of protesters danced to live music at the normally busy junction. A lifesized model of a boat was parked in the middle of the crossing with the slogan Tell the Truth emblazoned on the side. At nearby Piccadilly Circus the youth section of Extinction Rebellion held a sit-down protest, writing messages in chalk on the pavement.

Organisers hope the rebellion will last for several days and say its success depends on the number of people willing to occupy the sites in the days and nights ahead.

Laura Sorensen, a retired teacher who travelled from Somerset to join the protests, was one of thousands who gathered on Waterloo Bridge in the sunshine.

She said: “I am so worried about what’s happening to the planet. We are on a knife-edge now and I felt strongly that I needed to get out and show myself, rather than just talk about it in the pub.” Sorensen said she had not previously been active in the environment movement but that as a child she had been given a love of nature by her parents. “I see this disaster unfolding all around me … it is terrifying and the government have done nothing despite all the warnings, so we have to act now.”

Trey Taylor, 19, was with two friends in Piccadilly Circus. He said he felt compelled to act when he realised the scale of the emergency.

“We are facing environmental breakdown and nothing remotely proportionate is being done about it … when you look at the facts this is happening now and the government response is utterly woeful.”

In Parliament Square about 2,000 people gathered under a sea of flags, placards and banners. From an octagonal stage erected on the green for speakers, Jamie Kelsey Fry, the contributing editor for New Internationalist magazine, said: “This is not a political movement, this is a movement of humanity. We are all backgrounds, all ages, all races, bound together in one wish, one dream, which is that we will have a good, decent, loving future, for generations to come.”

Five protesters were arrested for suspected criminal damage when they staged a demonstration at Shell’s headquarters. A glass revolving door was shattered and hundreds of passersby watched as two activists climbed above the entrance, writing “Shell knew” and “Shell knows” on the building.

At Marble Arch hundreds of people sat in the sun, listening to bands playing from an open-sided truck.

Simon Bramwell, who was glued to a revolving door at @Shell, said: "Shell has known about the impact the fossil fuel industry is having on our planet for decades. They've done nothing but deceive, lie and undermine any efforts at transition to renewables." #extinctionrebellionpic.twitter.com/efAb6QO7C0 — Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) April 15, 2019

Police walked among protesters, many of whom had come with their children, while groups of activists at the periphery blocked the various roads feeding into what is usually one of London’s busiest junctions.

Alex Armitage, an NHS doctor, had been drafted in as a spokesperson for the Marble Arch group. He said he hoped the police could be brought on side. “Eventually if this is going to work, if we are going to have the massive change in the economy that we need to protect ourselves from climate change, we are going to need the police to be unwilling or unable to restore order, and then the government has no option but to negotiate,” he said. “It all seems really grandiose – but so is the scale of the problem facing us.”

A number of major roads in the capital were brought to a standstill with roads gridlocked in surrounding streets. The AA said the disruption had been significant.

Police on Waterloo Bridge said there were no plans to move protesters on for the time being. One officer said: “It’s been very peaceful so far. Everyone has been really pleasant. The only grief we’ve had is from passing motorists shouting at them to ‘get a job’ – that’s about as exciting as it’s got.”

The events in London were the biggest demonstrations but there were smaller protests in other cities around the world.

Subject Arrests; Circuses; Demonstrations & protests; Marble; Prime ministers; Climate change; Extinction

Location United Kingdom--UK

People May, Theresa

Company / organization Name: New Internationalist NAICS: 511120, 813311;

Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Thousands block roads in Extinction Rebellion protests across London

Author Taylor, Matthew; Gayle, Damien

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 7

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 15, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK) Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2209782992

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2209782992? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-19

Database European Newsstream document 28 of 31 How the symbol for extinction became this generation’s peace sign

Rose, Steve.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]16 Apr 2019: 2.

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Abstract

None available.

Full Text

The beautifully simple design is everywhere following the protests of Extinction Rebellion – but why are its origins still shrouded in mystery?

The 1960s counterculture had the peace symbol, 1980s rave culture had the smiley face, and now 2019 has its own ubiquitous logo: the extinction symbol, signifying the mass movement against climate breakdown and destruction of the natural world.

Following the recent, successful actions of Extinction Rebellion (XR) in London, across the UK and globally, the extinction symbol has been everywhere: on coloured flags and banners, on clothes, spraypainted on to buildings (such as Shell’s London headquarters). People even lay down and arranged their bodies in its shape. It has appeared as far afield as Ghana, New Zealand and Hong Kong. It has featured in artworks and tattoos. It has arrived.

Like all successful logos, the extinction symbol is beautifully simple and thus eminently reproducible. The circle, signifying the planet, draws on that peace-symbol heritage (and makes it badge-friendly); the “X” could be read as signifying “extinction”; while the horizontal lines suggest a stylised hourglass, and distinguish it from similar logos, such as that of the X-Men, saying that time is running out.

Where the symbol has come from is something of a mystery. Its origins predate Extinction Rebellion, explains Charlie Waterhouse, a graphic designer whose firm, This Ain’t Rock’n’Roll, assists with XR’s art group. “It was done by somebody that we know only as ‘Symbol Man’. I don’t think he wants anybody to know who he is.” We know he is an artist based in east London. He has a Twitter presence and a website. Approached by email, he signs off as “Goldfrog ESP”. He declines an interview, but, on the symbol’s global presence, he comments: “It’s interesting to see all of the various creative ways in which people are using it. I’m just pleased that it can be of help to highlight the severity of the extinction crisis.”

In a recent interview for the website Eco Hustler, ESP spoke of prior involvement with the UK anti-roads movement and a background in sculpture and printmaking. “I was making protest art about the declines of various individual species for a while,” he said. “But it felt quite inconsequential in relation to the scale of the problem. I gradually realised that the issue was so big that I couldn’t do this alone, and therefore it needed something simple that anybody could easily replicate. At the start of 2011 I was just randomly sketching designs and as soon as I drew the symbol I knew what it was.”

Having offered the use of the symbol to major environmental groups and received little response, ESP began putting posters and tiles of the symbol on walls around east London himself. XR contacted ESP last year. On his website, ESP makes the extinction symbol freely available to those who wish to use it, but makes it clear that it has always been an anti-consumerist project. “No extinction-symbol merchandise exists, and it never will do.” True to that spirit, this week’s XR protests included “art stations” where people could print the logo on to their own items, rather than buying a new ones. Of course, there is the danger that the extinction symbol’s meaning is co-opted and distorted by others, much as the peace symbol mutated from anti-nuclear activism to a general code for flower power, ultimately ending up on haute couture fashion items. But if it plays a part in saving the planet, that will be the least of anyone’s worries.

Subject Design; Art; Logos; Extinction

Location New Zealand; Hong Kong; Ghana; United Kingdom--UK

Company / organization Name: Twitter Inc NAICS: 519130;

Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title How the symbol for extinction became this generation’s peace sign

Author Rose, Steve

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK) First page 2

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 16, 2019

Section Art and design

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2210241066

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2210241066? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-04-19

Database European Newsstream document 29 of 31 Extinction Rebellion set to disrupt London rail and tube lines

Taylor, Matthew; Gayle, Damien; Brooks, Libby.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]16 Apr 2019: 16.

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Climate protesters warn they will escalate action after blockading capital’s landmarks

Climate change protesters, who police say have caused “serious disruption” affecting half a million people in London over the past two days, have said they are planning to escalate their protests to disrupt rail and tube lines.

Thousands of people have taken part in the civil disobedience protests, blockading four landmarks in the capital in an attempt to force the government to take action on the escalating climate crisis.

Now the activist group Extinction Rebellion says it is planning to step up its action to disrupt rail and tube lines in London.

A spokesman said: “People really don’t want to do this but the inaction of the government in the face of this emergency leaves us little choice.”

On Tuesday, four sites – Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and Oxford Circus – remained under the control of protesters, causing delays and diversions in the surrounding areas.

Police said they had made 209 arrests related to the demonstration – five for criminal damage at the Shell building and a further 204 at Waterloo Bridge – though that number is expected to increase significantly.

The events in London were part of an international “climate rebellion” organised by Extinction Rebellion. Organisers said demonstrations had taken place or were planned in 80 cities across 33 countries – from India to Australia, and around Europe and the US.

In The Hague on Tuesday activists occupied the international criminal court building. In Scotland more than 1,000 protesters blockaded the North Bridge in Edinburgh, bringing one of the main routes into the city centre to a standstill.

The blockade began at 3pm, when groups of people on bikes converged from both sides of the bridge, before a human chain formed across the road.

At about 5.30pm, protesters crossed Princes Street, the Scottish capital’s busiest shopping thoroughfare, and unfurled banners. Most were immediately carried off the road by police and six people were arrested.

Attending her first protest, Christine Patel, 69, said: “Usually I sit at home thinking: ‘What can one person do?’ But gathering together with other people changes that. We have to start thinking that we are a family.”

The biggest protests have been in London, with thousands of parents and their children joining scientists, teachers and environmentalists to demand urgent action in the face of “possible human extinction”.

Among the protesters was the prominent UN environment lawyer Farhana Yamin, who helped negotiate the Paris climate agreement. Just after 2pm she glued her hands to the pavement outside Shell’s headquarters near the Thames.

Nearby, police moved on to Waterloo Bridge to begin a second wave of arrests as hundreds of protesters continued their blockade.

One of those facing arrest was Angie Zealter, 67, from Knighton in Wales. “It will take the police some time to clear all these people and more will come here to support us,” she said. “But this is a very important moment in history – it should have happened 50 years ago.”

Some of those on the bridge had been locked or glued to a lorry parked across the carriageway since Monday night. One of those glued to the underside of the van, Ben Moss, 42, a company director from Bristol, said he had been there since midnight on Monday.

“It’s drastic times and drastic times need drastic measures. I am taking personal action and personal responsibility for the ecological and climate crisis,” he said.

By about 5pm, the atmosphere at Waterloo Bridge had calmed after police stopped arresting people. A singer sang blues music from a stage.

"Art reminds us to be children"

Maxwell the Bubbleologist, second left, who is on Waterloo Bridge with his friends to perform for #ExtinctionRebellion protesters pic.twitter.com/KdJ0Epbb6j — Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) April 16, 2019

On Tuesday evening police turned their attention away from Waterloo Bridge to Oxford Circus, where hundreds of people were dancing.

Officers circulated around the crowd in groups, informing people that if they stayed in that location they were at risk of arrest. The Guardian witnessed at least one person being carried away, while others left the crowd themselves after speaking to police.

“We are peaceful, what about you?” protesters chanted as police made an arrest. About two dozen people sat beside the stage, a pink boat, next to signs warning that they were glued on and could not be moved. Extinction Rebellion was formed in the UK last year and held its first civil disobedience protests in London in November. It is calling on the UK government to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2025 and establish a citizens’ assembly to devise an emergency plan of action to tackle climate breakdown and biodiversity loss.

The group wrote to Theresa May on Monday outlining their demands and asking for talks. In the letter they said they would escalate their disruptive actions during the coming days and weeks unless the government acted.

On Tuesday, Supt Colin Wingrove of the Metropolitan police confirmed a section 14 order was in place and called on the protesters to leave Waterloo Bridge, Oxford Circus and Parliament Square and continue their demonstration at Marble Arch.

“In order to impose this condition, the Met required evidence that serious disruption was being caused to communities in London. We so far have 55 bus routes closed and 500,000 people affected as a result.

“Based on the information and intelligence available at the time, we are satisfied that this threshold has been met and this course of action is necessary in order to prevent ongoing serious disruptions to communities.”

Subject Arrests; Circuses; Demonstrations & protests; Climate change

Location Wales; Australia; United States--US; India; Scotland; United Kingdom--UK; Europe

People May, Theresa

Company / organization Name: Guardian (newspaper) NAICS: 511110;

Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Extinction Rebellion set to disrupt London rail and tube lines

Author Taylor, Matthew; Gayle, Damien; Brooks, Libby

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 16

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 16, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2210241351

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2210241351? accountid=15753 Copyright Copyright Guardian News & Media Limited Apr 16, 2019

Last updated 2019-04-19

Database European Newsstream document 30 of 31 Protesters target Jeremy Corbyn on day three of Extinction Rebellion

Taylor, Matthew; Gayle, Damien.The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]17 Apr 2019: 2.

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Abstract

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West End traders say protests have already cost them tens of millions of pounds

The climate protests that have caused major disruption in central London were stepped up on Wednesday when activists targeted the capital’s transport network and the home of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Traders in the West End warned that the protests, which have seen demonstrators block four London landmarks for the past three days, had already cost them tens of millions of pounds.

The first estimate of the financial impact of the so-called climate rebellion came as activists targeted London’s rail network. Just after 11am, three people glued themselves to a train at Canary Wharf station, causing delays on the Docklands Light Railway.

A few hours later, four protesters glued their hands together and chained themselves to a fence outside Corbyn’s house, saying he was “the best hope this country has got” to meet the challenges of the climate crisis, adding that they were there to “support him” to go further.

Thousands of people, including parents and young children, pensioners, scientists and environmentalists, have taken part in Extinction Rebellion protests.

On Wednesday afternoon, the four sites that protesters had occupied in London since Monday – Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and Oxford Circus – remained under their control, causing ongoing delays and diversions in the surrounding areas. Police said a total of 340 people had been arrested by 5pm on Wednesday.

By early evening, large numbers of police officers had turned out in force at all sites bar Marble Arch. Police who arrived at Parliament Square announced they were imposing a section 14 order requiring protesters to leave the site. Similar orders were read out at Waterloo Bridge at about 7.30pm. Some protesters responded by lying down on the floor, forcing officers to carry them away. A witness at Oxford Circus said the same thing was happening there.

Earlier, many activists had noted the lack of a concerted police effort to end blockades. “We are all noticing that they [the police] are not well staffed,” said Sarah Pethybridge, 65, from Cornwall, who had been on the bridge since 8.30am.

“The police haven’t got the kind of numbers that we would expect. I don’t know, but [I think] the fact that we are spread out spreads their work, and we just get the feeling that they have to work very tactically because they don’t have enough people to come down hard.”

On Tuesday, organisers had warned that they were planning to disrupt London’s rail and tube network, and just after 11am three activists glued themselves to a DLR train at Canary Wharf, unfurling a banner reading, “Climate emergency – act now.” Two people then glued themselves to the top of the train. Another man, who gave his name as Mark, glued himself to the side of the train. The protesters were finally removed from the roof by police at 12.40pm.

Cathy Eastburn, 51, was one of those taking part in the transport disruption. She said she decided to make a stand for her teenage daughters. “I don’t want to be here today and I’m really sorry for the disruption, but I feel I have been forced to do this,” she said. “I have two daughters and I can’t sit by while their future is threatened … The government is doing nothing – we have to force them to act.”

Gail Bradbrook, one of the founders of Extinction Rebellion, who was at the scene, said: “This [Canary Wharf] is the heart of the system that is bringing us to our knees causing huge disruption and chaos around the world … so we want people to pause and reflect.”

One man, Peter, 30, who works in financial services in Canary Wharf and did not want to give his surname, was watching from the platform as police tried to remove the protesters. “I think it’s a great thing,” he said. “It’s raising awareness and it’s made me think about this issue and made me come out here away from my desk and engage with what is obviously a very serious issue.”

A few hours later another group of activists glued themselves together, then chained themselves to the fence of Corbyn’s house. The Labour leader left his home a few hours later saying he never gave interviews, or arranged meetings, outside his house. The activists left shortly after, saying Labour had offered to meet Extinction Rebellion next week.

David Lambert, 60, was one of those taking part. “We are here because we are supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and he is the best hope this country has got to get us out of this,” he said. “But we need system change and a transformation of our consumer economy and we know he is a person who has the authority and power to deliver that.”

The events in London are part of an international “climate rebellion” organised by the UK-based Extinction Rebellion. Protests had taken place or were planned in 80 cities across 33 countries, from India to Australia, and around Europe and the US. In The Hague, activists occupied the international criminal court building on Tuesday.

Twenty-nine arrests were made in Edinburgh on Tuesday night after police cleared remaining activists who who staged a sit-in on North Bridge. By 6am on Wednesday, they had all had been released and charged with breach of the peace, to appear in court at a later date.

In London, Extinction Rebellion protesters, activists and legal observers said some of those arrested were being taken to police stations outside of London, lending credence to persistent rumours the Metropolitan police’s holding cells were reaching capacity. Several people reported cases of people being taken to Luton, Brighton and Essex. The Met would not confirm or deny the claim.

On Wednesday, Jace Tyrrell, the chief executive of New West End Company which represents Oxford Street and central London retailers, told Sky News the protests were hitting business hard. “We have seen a 25% drop in spend – it was £12m yesterday and obviously we have had disruption today. The impact is customers thinking they are not going to come up over the bank holiday so this could go into the hundreds of millions of pounds if we do not grip this.”

At about 2pm, four protesters, including one Labour councillor, arrived outside Corbyn’s home in north London and chained and glued themselves to a fence.

Two hours later, the Labour leader left his home saying he never gave interviews, or arranged meetings, outside his house. The protesters had earlier offered some flowers to his wife, but she returned them. At about 4.30pm, the protesters left, saying Corbyn had offered to meet representatives of Extinction Rebellion next week.

Subject Activists; Demonstrations & protests

Location Australia; United States--US; India; United Kingdom--UK; Europe

People Corbyn, Jeremy

Company / organization Name: Sky News NAICS: 515120;

Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title Protesters target Jeremy Corbyn on day three of Extinction Rebellion

Author Taylor, Matthew; Gayle, Damien

Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 2

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 17, 2019

Section Environment

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type News

ProQuest document ID 2210790635

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2210790635? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-09-26

Database European Newsstream document 31 of 31 The Guardian view on climate change campaigners: suited or superglued, we need them all

The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]17 Apr 2019: 2.

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Abstract

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The cause is being taken up in the corridors of power. We still need activists outside on the streets

When Mark Carney sounded a klaxon on Wednesday, the blare was unmistakable; yet it was as polite and moderately voiced an alarm as you might expect from the leader of an institution at the heart of the establishment. The governor of the Bank of England and his French counterpart warned that the global financial system faces an existential threat from climate change. Writing in the Guardian, they told companies: “Fail to adjust … fail to exist.”.

There could hardly be a greater contrast than between Mr Carney’s intervention and the thousands of Extinction Rebellion activists disrupting central London and other cities worldwide. Earlier this month they grabbed attention by supergluing themselves to the public gallery in the House of Commons, semi-naked. Mr Carney is unlikely to shed his suit for the cause. But the activists’ peaceful campaign of civil disobedience is essentially a louder, brighter, less genteel version of the same essential message: “This is an emergency.”

Who is more likely to save us? Even supporters of Extinction Rebellion have voiced doubt about specific tactics, including the intention to use mass arrests as leverage for change. But a bigger debate underlies these. It has dogged the activism from which the movement explicitly draws inspiration, including the suffragettes and the civil rights movement in the US. The question is whether real change is achieved on the streets or in the corridors of power; whether moderates or militants prevail; and whether progress is made through careful negotiation and the pursuit of acceptable compromises, or radical demands which rupture the status quo. The truth is that both are needed.

Young people have led the way. The 1.4 million who took part in last month’s school strikes have grown up learning that climate change is a fact, not a theory; it is built into their worldview. They know that they will pay the price for our inaction. They bat away excuses. That sense of impatience always pushes social change, but is all the more critical in this case, when every delay increases the risk of disaster.

But their urgency is felt more broadly. Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, was an early backer of Extinction Rebellion. An 80-year-old woman locked herself to the bottom of a lorry because, she said, “I refuse to leave a barren and broken world for my beautiful grandchildren.” Even inconvenienced drivers have voiced support. The shift can be seen at an institutional level too. Businesses are waking up to the costs, financial and physical, of the changes. Whether for reasons of strategy, sympathy or both, the police approach to these largely white and middle-class protesters has been unusually light-touch: hundreds of arrests, but made gradually, and with plenty of amicable chat on the sidelines.

Yet most politicians remain shockingly timid. Labour’s declaration of a climate emergency and promise of a “green industrial revolution” is encouraging; on Wednesday protesters chained themselves to a fence outside Jeremy Corbyn’s house, saying they hoped to persuade him to go further. True, voters who voice alarm at rising temperatures can be equally vocal about rising fuel prices. But the public mood is shifting. Though the climate change deniers are entrenched, and have drawn encouragement from the election and actions of Donald Trump, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and others, the alarm about global warming is rising worldwide. According to Pew research, Britons now list it as the top threat to the UK. The evidence is mounting, and each grain of it is more alarming. The changes are felt, as well as read about, in the form of heatwaves, storms and other extreme weather.

There is nothing moderate about the approaching catastrophe. Adaptation to rising temperatures is inevitable; accommodation with the forces fuelling them will be disastrous. Social movements exert pressure on internal processes of change, which are inherently incremental and cautious. That parts of the establishment are now pressing for action on climate change is critical. That others are pushing from the outside is at least equally so.

Subject Activists; Climate change; Political activism; Editorials

Location Brazil; United States--US; United Kingdom--UK

People Carney, Mark; Trump, Donald J; Bolsonaro, Jair

Company / organization Name: Bank of England NAICS: 521110;

Name: Extinction Rebellion NAICS: 813212, 813940

Title The Guardian view on climate change campaigners: suited or superglued, we need them all Publication title The Guardian; London (UK)

First page 2

Publication year 2019

Publication date Apr 17, 2019

Section Opinion

Publisher Guardian News & Media Limited

Place of publication London (UK)

Country of publication United Kingdom, London (UK)

Publication subject Literary And Political Reviews, General Interest Periodicals--Great Britain

ISSN 02613077

Source type Newspapers

Language of publication English

Document type Opinions, Editorial

ProQuest document ID 2210797402

Document URL https://search.proquest.com/docview/2210797402? accountid=15753

Last updated 2019-05-16