Forget Brexit and focus on climate change, Greta Thunberg tells EU. “If our house was falling apart our leaders wouldn’t go on like we do today,” she said. “If our house was falling apart, you wouldn’t hold three emergency Brexit summits and no emergency summit regarding the breakdown of the climate and the environment.”
Guardian 16th April 2019 read more »
European politicians should “panic” over climate change, according to a teenage environment activist and founder of the school strike movement. “I am 16 years old, I come from Sweden and I want you to panic,” Greta Thunberg told MEPs at the European Parliament. “I want you to act as if the house was on fire. I have said those words before and a lot of people have explained why that is a bad idea.” She added: “A great number of politicians have told me that panic never leads to anything good and I agree. To panic, unless you have to, is a terrible idea. But when your house is on fire and you want to keep your house from burning to the ground then that does require some level of panic.” Parliamentarians gave the teenager a standing ovation. Ms Thunberg became emotional as she warned about species extinction, deforestation and ocean pollution in her remarks. Referring to the international fundraising effort to rebuild Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, she told politicians to use “cathedral thinking” to fight climate change. The schoolgirl who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize last month for her work fighting against climate change, started to skip school to protest against climate change outside the Swedish Parliament last August.
Independent 16th April 2019 read more »
Extinction Rebellion’s attempts to clog the heart of London and other cities across the UK have undoubtedly driven the issue of climate change up the news agenda. But amid the die-ins – where protestors pretend to be dead – bridge swarmings and arrests, there hasn’t been too much consideration of the group’s actual plans to tackle rising temperatures. As a solution to the “climate breakdown and ecological collapse that threaten our existence”, Extinction Rebellion is proposing three key steps. The government must, in their words, “tell the truth” about the scale of the crisis the world now faces. Secondly, the UK must enact legally binding policies to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025. The third step is the formation of a Citizens’ Assembly to “oversee the changes” that will be needed to achieve this goal. Is zero emissions by 2025 realistic? Getting to net zero carbon emissions in the UK by 2025 would be an extremely difficult target, given that, right now, the government is mulling a plan to commit to net zero by 2050. Consider the changes that would be needed to get to net zero in just six years. Gas boilers across the UK would have to be replaced with electricity, and you’d need to massively ramp up renewable energy, on a scale not yet seen, to meet this extra demand. Researchers at Zero Carbon Britain suggested that if the UK wanted to get to net zero by 2030, Britain would need about 130,000 extra wind turbines mostly off shore. This would take up an area twice the size of Wales. There would also have to be significant dietary changes, with people cutting back on meat and dairy. Flying would have to be restricted. Severely.
BBC 17th April 2019 read more »
Nearly 300 climate change activists have been arrested after roads were blocked in central London, amid protests aimed at shutting the capital. A second day of disruption took place after Extinction Rebellion campaigners camped overnight at Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and Oxford Circus. Up to 500,000 people were affected by the diversion of 55 bus routes. The Met said 290 people had been arrested. During protests in Edinburgh, 29 arrests were made.
BBC 17th April 2019 read more »
Extinction Rebellion: Climate protesters dodge arrest after police run out of cells.
Telegraph 16th April 2019 read more »
Police made 29 arrests as about 300 climate change protesters blocked one of the main roads into Edinburgh’s city centre.
BBC 17th April 2019 read more »
Times 17th April 2019 read more »
Scotsman 17th April 2019 read more »
Herald 16th April 2019 read more »
Herald 16th April 2019 read more »
Sadiq Khan has condemned plans to severely disrupt the London Underground today as part of protests that have caused 500,000 bus passengers’ journeys to be cancelled. During two days of climate change demonstrations by Extinction Rebellion nearly 300 protesters have been arrested, with activists blocking five locations in central London and gluing themselves to buildings and vehicles. Mr Khan, the mayor of London, said he shared the protesters’ “passion” and their sense of urgency in needing to tackle climate change but that targeting the Tube would only damage their cause.
Times 17th April 2019 read more »
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.
Guardian 16th April 2019
For their part, idealistic protesters should acknowledge that enterprise and a market economy are friends of the environment. The greatest polluters are command economies with rigid industrial targets. Economic openness and free trade encourage the spread of clean technologies, such as solar power and electric cars. The environment is not a self-correcting problem. It is a vital cause in which business, governments and the weight of public opinion all have an essential role. No one knows the future pace of global warming, or indeed its precise causes, but it is sensible that the globe buys an insurance policy and moves swiftly to limit carbon emissions and all other forms of pollution damaging our planet.
Times 17th April 2019 read more »
The Extinction Rebellion climate campaign is fighting a worthy cause, but its protests risk leaving the public unstirred, writes Martyn McLaughlin. If the promise and potential of Extinction Rebellion is imbued with a revolutionary zeal, it is hard not to be disappointed by how such a potent, contagious force has manifested itself over the course of the movement’s short history. In the six months since its inception, the burgeoning worldwide protest group has strived to communicate the urgency of the threat posed by climate change, framing it as an unprecedented global emergency which will bring about a mass extinction of mankind’s own making. There is a feverish fatalism underpinning its core messages, and rightly so. If sober arguments rooted in incontrovertible scientific facts have failed to make their mark, perhaps it is time for something more bracing. Perhaps that time has already passed. Either way, it is refreshing to see such vigour in the new, virulent strain of climate protesters. Extinction Rebellion is the result of indignation and desperation, the only real legacies of a debate that has raged on and off for the best part of three decades. As the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has pointed out, time is now running out to save ourselves from the worst effects of a looming catastrophe. The planet needs champions like never before, and some of those behind Extinction Rebellion make an articulate, impassioned case. Take Dr Gail Bradbrook, one of the co-founders of the rapidly growing movement. For all the urgency of its language, its goals seem to be lacking in focus. It has no discernible political strategy, and no defined roadmap to move towards its aims. Compare that if you will with the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led political action group in the US, which together with congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has captured the public imagination with its plan for a Green New Deal.
Scotsman 17th April 2019 read more »
