Extinction Rebellion

[eldanielfire]

It appears the Extinction Rebellioniodits has blocked multiple Newspapers being sold by blocking their printing plant. Seems they are all against people having a right to read right wing papers, ironically this includes The Sun who have an article that says we should be doing more on Climate Change:

"Jim Waterson@jimwaterson
Today's editions of The Sun, The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, and FT have print editions substantially disrupted by Extinction Rebellion. At 6am today lorries still hadn't left the main newspaper printing plant for southern England."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... rint-sites

The weird thing is, the UK right wing papers are pretty pro-climate change action. For example The Daily Mail actually ran a 10 year campaign against plastic bags to clean up the environment, even The Telegraph has pro-environment articles. You can only assume they have jumped on the assumption right leaning papers are anti-environment (like say the US or Oz) or it's a political move. It feels like they protest for being loonie left wing rather than any actual cause these days. Sadly they seem intent on pushing people away from supporting Environmental causes rather than saving the earth.

[Steve]

A bunch of soap and tax dodgers.

[Plato’sCave]

They’re a cult, ignore them.

[Hugo]

Just read the wiki bio of Roger Hallam, one of the co-founders. Apparently he was an organic farmer but some "extreme weather" destroyed his business.

With regards to the thread stuff like this annoys me because climate change advocacy organisations should be recruiting from across the political spectrum. It's so frustrating when entire groups of people are written off as "right wing = bad". Labelling like this is unhelpful.

[Line6 HXFX]

What the fuck is wrong with rebelling against our imminent extinction?

Shouldn't we all be doing it?

The sun newspaper is a force for extreme nonsense and negativity in the UK, and I would be surprised if anyone writing for it gave a shit about anything apart from sucking Murdochs cock.

[Lobby]

What the fuck is wrong with rebelling against our imminent extinction?

Shouldn't we all be doing it?

The sun newspaper is a force for extreme nonsense and negativity in the UK, and I would be surprised if anyone writing for it gave a shit about anything apart from sucking Murdochs cock.

The edition of the Sun that was disrupted by these idiots included a piece on climate change by David Attenborough. Presumably we should now disregard his views on anything and everything on the basis that he doesn't give a shit about anything apart from sucking Rupert's cock,

[eldanielfire]

What the fuck is wrong with rebelling against our imminent extinction?

Shouldn't we all be doing it?

The sun newspaper is a force for extreme nonsense and negativity in the UK, and I would be surprised if anyone writing for it gave a shit about anything apart from sucking Murdochs cock.

If you are going to protest about Climate change actually protest against Climate change. Whether you like the Sun or not it's not been an anti-Climate change media outlet and was actually publishing a pro-climate change article that day. Also regardless of climate change we are not going to go extinct.

The fact is Extinction Rebellion isn't really a good force for it's causes. It's basically full of western, vaguely looney lefty liberal elite bunch of dickheads seeking attention and their politics,even some contradictory to preventing more climate change, being imposed upon everyone else while not engaging in the political pathways available.

[ASMO]

[JM2K6]

There's a person with grey hair and another one who looks at least 35 in that image. Great joke!

[Big Nipper]

What the fuck is wrong with rebelling against our imminent extinction?

Shouldn't we all be doing it?

The sun newspaper is a force for extreme nonsense and negativity in the UK, and I would be surprised if anyone writing for it gave a shit about anything apart from sucking Murdochs cock.

If you are going to protest about Climate change actually protest against Climate change. Whether you like the Sun or not it's not been an anti-Climate change media outlet and was actually publishing a pro-climate change article that day. Also regardless of climate change we are not going to go extinct.

The fact is Extinction Rebellion isn't really a good force for it's causes. It's basically full of western, vaguely looney lefty liberal elite bunch of dickheads seeking attention and their politics,even some contradictory to preventing more climate change, being imposed upon everyone else while not engaging in the political pathways available.

Are you a full time contrarian?

[Hugo]

What the fuck is wrong with rebelling against our imminent extinction?

Shouldn't we all be doing it?

The sun newspaper is a force for extreme nonsense and negativity in the UK, and I would be surprised if anyone writing for it gave a shit about anything apart from sucking Murdochs cock.

If you are going to protest about Climate change actually protest against Climate change. Whether you like the Sun or not it's not been an anti-Climate change media outlet and was actually publishing a pro-climate change article that day. Also regardless of climate change we are not going to go extinct.

The fact is Extinction Rebellion isn't really a good force for it's causes. It's basically full of western, vaguely looney lefty liberal elite bunch of dickheads seeking attention and their politics,even some contradictory to preventing more climate change, being imposed upon everyone else while not engaging in the political pathways available.

Are you a full time contrarian?

What's contrarian about any of that? ER alienate as many people as they recruit to their cause. Their cause is worthwhile, their tactics hurt their cause.

[Big Nipper]

I am just alluding to EF's posting style. He is some sort of edge lord contrarian

[murdoch]

What the fuck is wrong with rebelling against our imminent extinction?

Shouldn't we all be doing it?

The sun newspaper is a force for extreme nonsense and negativity in the UK, and I would be surprised if anyone writing for it gave a shit about anything apart from sucking Murdochs cock.

If you are going to protest about Climate change actually protest against Climate change. Whether you like the Sun or not it's not been an anti-Climate change media outlet and was actually publishing a pro-climate change article that day. Also regardless of climate change we are not going to go extinct.

The fact is Extinction Rebellion isn't really a good force for it's causes. It's basically full of western, vaguely looney lefty liberal elite bunch of dickheads seeking attention and their politics,even some contradictory to preventing more climate change, being imposed upon everyone else while not engaging in the political pathways available.

I don't read the Sun, but based on other Murdoch owned media this seems highly unlikely.
You aren't simply seeing the occasional article that is there to provide "balance" and to placate the "greenies" and thinking that that amounts to being pro climate action are you? Really?
That would be incredibly naive.

Here's noted climate change denier James Delingpole from just a couple of years ago:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4503006/g ... e-opinion/

[eldanielfire]

What the fuck is wrong with rebelling against our imminent extinction?

Shouldn't we all be doing it?

The sun newspaper is a force for extreme nonsense and negativity in the UK, and I would be surprised if anyone writing for it gave a shit about anything apart from sucking Murdochs cock.

If you are going to protest about Climate change actually protest against Climate change. Whether you like the Sun or not it's not been an anti-Climate change media outlet and was actually publishing a pro-climate change article that day. Also regardless of climate change we are not going to go extinct.

The fact is Extinction Rebellion isn't really a good force for it's causes. It's basically full of western, vaguely looney lefty liberal elite bunch of dickheads seeking attention and their politics,even some contradictory to preventing more climate change, being imposed upon everyone else while not engaging in the political pathways available.

I don't read the Sun, but based on other Murdoch owned media this seems highly unlikely.
You aren't simply seeing the occasional article that is there to provide "balance" and to placate the "greenies" and thinking that that amounts to being pro climate action are you? Really?
That would be incredibly naive.

Here's noted climate change denier James Delingpole from just a couple of years ago:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4503006/g ... e-opinion/

Until recent cuts both The Sun had climate change correspondents who reported on global climate change. Largely because the UK arm of Murdoch's empire was overseen by James Murdoch who actually believes in climate change, unlike his father (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... es-Murdoch). That's not to say right wing papers won't allow their columnists to express their own thoughts on the issue, but just about all the UK papers have even increased their climate change coverage in recent years (in a pro-climate change is happening and more action is needed) as noted by the Guardian when reflecting on the coverage of last summers heat wave.

Perhaps you shouldn't jump to calling others naive while also claiming you haven't actually read or researched the issue. Especially when the best you can do is pull an article from years ago on the matter and jump to some big assumptions.

[eldanielfire]

The Extinction Rebellion representative who was utterly schooled by Andrew Neil last year:



It appears she has had a turn around, due to the Neil dissection her her flawed views, has left Extinction Rebellion and become a pro-Nuclear advocate. Good on her, I've often said Nuclear Power is the best way forward in preventing further grown of Carbon Emissions.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/polit ... ear-power/

I’ve been an environmental activist for almost as long as I remember. As a student in the early Noughties, I helped establish the first green group Reading University ever had; I was involved in the (now disbanded) Camp for Climate Action in my early 20s, protesting against investment in the tar sands industry (which is used to make petroleum products). I lived and breathed a eco-aware lifestyle, and still do: based in Devon with my two young daughters, I don’t drive or fly or eat meat; our carbon footprint is relatively low.

But no group or movement I joined seemed to be making any difference. Carbon emissions were still rising and nothing was changing. Instead, climate change was only getting worse. I was scared we were running out of time to act.

Then, about two years ago, Extinction Rebellion (XR) - the group that last weekend blocked the printworks of several British newspapers including The Daily Telegraph - burst into being. It had been some years since I’d been involved with any green group, but what appealed to me about this one was that they were saying “don’t listen to us, listen to the scientists.” It seemed like this movement was going to be fact-driven and evidence-based, which was badly needed. Yet after almost two years of XR membership, I have quit to campaign for nuclear energy.

I had joined in April 2018 aged 34 and became founding editor of its newspaper, The Hourglass, and soon was one of the group’s spokespeople. In the years since my activism days, and after having my first child, I had gone back to university to do a Master’s in Science Communication and was ready to put what I’d learned into action. Joining XR gave me that opportunity: as a spokesperson I found myself front and centre of the media spotlight, speaking to millions of people about the ongoing climate emergency.

But when I was invited onto The Andrew Neil Show last October, I found myself forced to defend statements by one of XR’s founders that “billions” of deaths would happen soon because of climate change.

I couldn’t defend those numbers because they didn’t have a basis in science. So I was faced with an awful choice on live TV: either I could stand up for science or I could defend XR. I had to choose the former, because for me, sticking with the evidence is the most important thing of all.

As a result, I looked bad, and was also then criticised by XR. I felt like I had been thrown under the bus and stopped being a spokeswoman for the group; in May, I edited my final issue of The Hourglass, and left the following month. Some members were supportive but other members reacted negatively - at that point, though, I felt I had no other choice.

It all seemed so unnecessary. Members of XR don’t need to make up numbers - the truth is frightening enough. We are facing a climate emergency: food production will not be able to keep pace with climate heating, and large parts of the globe will be rendered uninhabitable to humans if we allow the temperature to keep on rising.

But the hyperbole of some key XR people wasn’t the group’s only problem. It had grown quickly and was making organisational errors, which is understandable given the pace of events, but did affect the movement’s reputation. When activists targeted the London transport network on October 17, angry commuters were prevented from travelling to work by protesters who’d climbed on to the roof of a train at Canning Town station. At Shadwell, other activists blocked the Docklands Light Railway. This was the work of a separate climate group protesting under the broad XR banner.

Targeting electricity-powered public transport was of course seen as a terrible idea for a green movement, and the backlash it provoked was inevitable. Many of us inside XR knew it was unwise, but there’d been little time to discuss it before the action went ahead, and no real process for dealing with the fall-out.

The recent action aimed at the press has proved equally controversial. I have a lot of sympathy with those concerned about protecting freedom of speech and of the press: those are my values too.

XR gets heavily criticised for not appealing to more people. But they would argue they’ve achieved their aims because everyone’s been talking about it.

I understand this ambition to force a conversation, but from my perspective it won’t change anything unless you can bring about concrete solutions. And that is the single biggest problem with most environmental groups: they don’t offer realistic solutions to the very real climate change threat. What they offer, if you follow their arguments to their logical conclusion, is eco-austerity: that we should all use less energy, stop going on holiday, live in colder homes, and so on.

We simply don’t have time to go on having pointless ideological debates. And even if we agree to permanent eco-austerity in Western countries, what about the developing world? There are some members of environmental groups who truly believe we should live extremely constrained lifestyles, much like people in the Punjab village my parents are from. I have spent time there and it was heartbreaking. In many villages in the region they have no electricity and no infrastructure. Children die from health problems we in the West can easily cure.

Some of those who promote an eco-austerity agenda will tell you, “They live simpler lives so they’re happy.” Believe me: they are not. My parents never once looked back after leaving for the UK. They, like everyone, wanted the vaccines and hospitals and technology we have in the West. People who argue we need to all live with less - as I once did - should think hard about what this actually means. I am personally happy to live with less, but decades of behavioural science study has not convinced most people to take the same path. We need to accept it’s not going to happen, and look to solutions instead.

Many within XR argue in favour of replacing fossil fuels entirely with renewables. I favour a pragmatic approach, rather than peer-group tribal pressure to stick to an outdated mainstream green line. Once you demand that all our power must come from wind and solar, you seriously constrain our options to achieve net zero carbon emissions in the timescale required. To make a serious contribution to decarbonising the UK economy, solar parks would need to cover whole counties, and wind farms dominate most of our coastline and uplands. With less or even no nuclear energy, we would need to devote even more of our land to industrial scale renewables, leaving much less for farming and nature.

There won’t be any space for rewilding in this scenario. This is not a trade-off that can be avoided by bluster and belief. This needs to be an evidence-based and numbers-focused debate, not an ideological one.

Unfortunately much of the green movement, including a fair proportion of those in XR, is steeped in an anti-nuclear mindset, when any rational, evidence-based approach shows that a strategy including nuclear energy is the only realistic solution to driving down emissions at the scale and speed required.

My values haven’t changed. I care deeply about the same issues I’ve always cared about. So it’s not a U-turn, but a logical next step to devote myself to looking more at solutions than shouting ever more loudly about the problem.

Stunts and protests are a popular campaigning tool. But the environmental message needs to be followed up with real solutions.

As told to Rosa Silverman

[Thommo]

I think they're great.

[mat the expat]

Same.

It's odd how people don't like protesters - but are perfectly happy to have holidays and sick leave, etc.

The horror!

[Big Nipper]

Yes I support their cause and their means too - fuck Rupert Murdoch

[Bimbowomxn]

Yes I support their cause and their means too - fuck Rupert Murdoch

They’re being used by political billionaires

[Glaston]

I think they're great.

We would be happy to transport them your way.

(Free of charge)


Target rich environment for them too.

[dantedelew]

Good on her, I've often said Nuclear Power is the best way forward in preventing further grown of Carbon Emissions.

She talks about a strategy including nuclear energy, rather than nuclear being the "best way forward". There's potentially a big difference between these two positions (depending on how you interpret them), in terms of the actual energy mix.

[Slick]

Poor woman, that interview was horrible and Neil was being nice.

[Thommo]

I think they're great.

We would be happy to transport them your way.

(Free of charge)


Target rich environment for them too.

Oh we have them here.

[eldanielfire]

Same.

It's odd how people don't like protesters - but are perfectly happy to have holidays and sick leave, etc.

The horror!

Some people have also protested for white supremacy. Just because someone protests, that doesn't mean their particular cause of path of action is any good.

Extinction Rebellion had a lot of initial positive response, until they revealed they were just total dickheads with a far wider agenda than the environment and basically an addiction to protesting that meant their moronic actions started preventing greener methods of travel, that is mostly used by poorer people, from being used for example.

[A6D6E6]

Same.

It's odd how people don't like protesters - but are perfectly happy to have holidays and sick leave, etc.

The horror!

So because I benefit from some previous protests, I have to support all protesters? That is beyond stupid.

[mat the expat]

Same.

It's odd how people don't like protesters - but are perfectly happy to have holidays and sick leave, etc.

The horror!

So because I benefit from some previous protests, I have to support all protesters? That is beyond stupid.

That is some tenuous extrapolation - but you be you

[eldanielfire]

Same.

It's odd how people don't like protesters - but are perfectly happy to have holidays and sick leave, etc.

The horror!

So because I benefit from some previous protests, I have to support all protesters? That is beyond stupid.

That is some tenuous extrapolation - but you be you

It was hardly tenuous, it was a pretty direct reading and conclusion made from your post, even if that isn't what you intended.

[mat the expat]

Step away from the keyboard mate....

[lilyw]

Same.

It's odd how people don't like protesters - but are perfectly happy to have holidays and sick leave, etc.

The horror!

Since that statement apparently doesn't mean what everybody else has read it to mean - what did you intend to say?

[Plim]

XR is going the way of many protest groups and movements. When it started it attracted lots of well-intentioned middle class types who believe in environmental activity but not violence, and gentle old ladies from the Home Counties who were happy to be led away by coppers for lying down in the road and then getting the train back home later after a stern talking to by the duty sergeant.

But, like with CND, the Anti-Nazi League, Stop the War and various others, the fellow travellers who have less benign aims and plans start coming out of the woodwork. XR will itself be extinct in a couple of years, or be a marginal group of aggressive crusties shunned by all but other extremists . All the more decent supporters will have gone back to properly run environmental charities.

[eldanielfire]

Step away from the keyboard mate....

Weird then multiple posters took it the way I explained and yet none appear to have taken it with your, as yet, "unexplained" meaning to it.

[notfatcat]

I haven't had a holiday in many years so I'm perfectly at liberty to call protesters cunts. Obviously if I had managed to go on the snowboarding holiday I booked last year, but had to pull out of because I fucked my passport situation up, then I would have to keep my mouth shut. Not that I'm sure what the link is between holidays and protesters.

[A6D6E6]

Same.

It's odd how people don't like protesters - but are perfectly happy to have holidays and sick leave, etc.

The horror!

So because I benefit from some previous protests, I have to support all protesters? That is beyond stupid.

That is some tenuous extrapolation - but you be you

I'm willing to apologise if you can mangle your previous statement into a vaguely coherent version which clearly doesn't mean what your original does.

[mat the expat]

So because I benefit from some previous protests, I have to support all protesters? That is beyond stupid.

That is some tenuous extrapolation - but you be you

I'm willing to apologise if you can mangle your previous statement into a vaguely coherent version which clearly doesn't mean what your original does.

It's unlikely you will, life is too short to go all

[A6D6E6]

That is some tenuous extrapolation - but you be you

I'm willing to apologise if you can mangle your previous statement into a vaguely coherent version which clearly doesn't mean what your original does.

It's unlikely you will, life is too short to go all

No, I'm being honest - if I have misunderstood, I will apologise. On the other hand, if you keep dancing around it, I can only surmise that my inference was correct and that you now realise how stupid it was.