Extinction Rebellion: Civil Disobedience To Challenge Climate Change

94 signatories, including prominent scientists and intellectuals, have declared their support for Extinction Rebellion, launching on 31 October 2018. The group aims to protest against the continually dismal prospect of human society surviving climate change. Their method is civil disobedience.

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Although their message is on point, that our chance of making it out of climate change alive is increasingly bleak, the method of 'civil disobedience' is more of the same shit that activists have been doing for about four decades.

Their letter to the Guardian states that the social contract of society is now broken due to the inability of the ruling class to divert capital's metabolism to a degree that curbs climate change. This is something I've said for awhile now. Mainly, that democracy is rendered impossible in the context of global ecological collapse. The politics and strategy/tactics of a movement attempted to stop this from happening need to be far more radical then getting arrested.

Their letter is reproduced below.

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We the undersigned represent diverse academic disciplines, and the views expressed here are those of the signatories and not their organisations. While our academic perspectives and expertise may differ, we are united on one point: we will not tolerate the failure of this or any other government to take robust and emergency action in respect of the worsening ecological crisis. The science is clear, the facts are incontrovertible, and it is unconscionable to us that our children and grandchildren should have to bear the terrifying brunt of an unprecedented disaster of our own making.

We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, with about 200 species becoming extinct each day. Humans cannot continue to violate the fundamental laws of nature or of science with impunity. If we continue on our current path, the future for our species is bleak.

Our government is complicit in ignoring the precautionary principle, and in failing to acknowledge that infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources is non-viable. Instead, the government irresponsibly promotes rampant consumerism and free-market fundamentalism, and allows greenhouse gas emissions to rise. Earth Overshoot Day (the date when humans have used up more resources from nature than the planet can renew in the entire year) falls ever earlier each year (1 August in 2018).

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.

We therefore declare our support for Extinction Rebellion, launching on 31 October 2018. We fully stand behind the demands for the government to tell the hard truth to its citizens. We call for a Citizens’ Assembly to work with scientists on the basis of the extant evidence and in accordance with the precautionary principle, to urgently develop a credible plan for rapid total decarbonisation of the economy.