I’m relieved Extinction Rebellion have quietened down. The upside to what they are doing is they are attracting attention to the fact that everyone could do more for climate change and the environment.
The downside is, in my opinion, they are only attracting traction from people who might already care a bit about the environment. I don’t think Joe Soap on the street who uses sandwich bags every day instead of beeswax coated cloth or buys a disposable coffee every time he goes out really cares.
The people Extinction Rebellion should be targeting are the big corporations and China and the USA, who, lets face it, are the biggest culprits when it comes to environment and could be the biggest influencers for good.
I resent that Extinction Rebellion seems to expect the government should do more to nanny people into subjecting to a better world. Whether this be through eliminating plastic in supermarkets or by mandating we should be eating less meat. Sure, government could do more, they could go after big corporates and tax them into greener policies, they could enforce a system by which only people with justifiable reasoning could travel long haul and in cattle class so that each ecofoot print is lower.
But what of the implications therein? More taxation and enforcement just means corporations driven by money would make their services more expensive, impacting on the poorest of the poor first and, when left to choice, given them inadvertently, less disposable income to make intelligent green shopping choices. Enforcing what people can do creates a nanny state and a loss of freedom. It also implies instead of educating a community how to be better people, you are just telling them, so instead of breaking a cycle of pollution at grassroots you are just bullying behaviour and encouraging lawbreaking.
There is no connected holistic thinking from a lot of these protesters. No practice of what they are preaching. Many of them are safely middle class, in a comfortable position to complain. Do many of them, in fact, wear only second hand charity shop clothing, purchased only when necessary to save landfill? And in biodegradable fabrics instead of synthetics (And don’t tell me ‘vegan’ leather is better for animals when much of it is created using plastics and oils that will pollute the world for years after the leather is disposed of)? Do they forego their regular holiday sprees to exotic far off destinations or regular visits to their short hop holiday homes in Europe (taken by plane)? Do they turn down their thermostats in the winter by a couple of degrees, not to save money but to save the draw on energy?
They are backed by celebrities who make a big deal about climate but who then board planes to fly first class or private charter, with the excuse ‘I offset carbon emissions by paying for a wind turbine’. Which doesn’t really negate the fossil fuels burned to get you somewhere quickly and in comfort without the commoners.
BBC showed a picture of a thank you bouquet sent by a XR supporter to Brixton police station for their peaceful support. It was made up of oriental lilies which, at this time of year, I doubt were grown outdoors in a garden. No, they clocked airmiles or greenhouse energy requirements at the very least. More appropriate would have been a hand picked bouquet out of a local garden.
Of course there are some exceptions to the rule when it comes to green protesters. Like a German in a forest in his homeland who has sacrificed his job as a maths teacher to quietly protest against the destruction of that forest. But most of those people camping in London? Besides being a huge inconvenience and problem a dream for intelligent homeless people who could have begged free refreshment by pretending to be one of the crowd, what value are they really adding?
libraschild 