Sandwiched somewhere amongst the headlines this week was the scientist’s final warning on climate change to the leaders of the world: act now or it’s too late. For decades they have been saying “before it’s too late” and now we are almost at the moment when there is no before..it’s just too late. Was this information greeted with alarm or urgency? Did they drop everything and leap into action? Ehh, not so much.
Most people barely noticed it. It got lost in the noise like everything else. And politicians certainly didn’t flag it up. And so there it is..facing a threat to our very existence the human race simply ignored it and went about their business. And we so limp towards this calamitous destiny ..not with a bang or even a whimper..just with a collective shrug of indifference…and possibly with just the vaguest hope in the back of our minds that some sort of miracle will somehow save the day..although none of us exactly know what that might be..a superhero possibly? Godzilla? The climate fairy? Who’s going to be our knight in shining armour? It certainly ain’t gonna be anyone in power cos they would’ve stepped up by now. So who? Actually the messiah is apparently due for a return so maybe we’ll be ok after all…let’s go with that..
People going about their business this week. And from this moment forth that is pretty much all I am going to be showing to you. Why? Because future generations will want to see what we were doing when we should have been all hands on deck fixing the climate crisis. They will be asking..why didn’t they stop it? Why did they ignore it? Why did they carry on as normal when they knew it would spell catastrophe for the rest of humanity to come? It will be as unfathomable to them as it is indeed to me. I am living through this era and I keep asking myself the same question..why?
Why can’t we act on it? Why can’t we take it on board? Why are we so utterly paralysed when we know what is ahead? Why do we continue to shunt it? It’s clearly only going to get worse so why delay? Why not deal with it? We know the window of opportunity is rapidly closing and still we act as if it isn’t happening. But why?
i thought that when the climate deniers were proven 100% wrong we would surge into action. We didn’t
I thought when we started to see extreme weather on a regular basis we would do everything we could to prevent the situation worsening. We didn’t
I thought when we saw that every year was the hottest on record we would realise we had to prioritise the environment above and beyond everything else. We didn’t.
I thought that when they declared a climate emergency they would then act like there was one. They didn’t.
And so I keep just asking why? What’s wrong with them? What’s wrong with us? I have been asking these same questions for years but I never find a good enough answer. We have the information. We have the solutions. We know the consequences if we don’t. And so does everyone in charge. So what the friggin fuck?
The only conclusion I have come to is that we have collective ADHD which prevents us from being able to focus on the matter in hand. Dumbphones and the never ending scroll have reduced our attentions to absolute zero. We just can’t stick with anything long enough to solve it before we just wanna flick onto the next thing. And so when anything comes along which demands our attention (eg global pandemic, WW III) we leap on it cos it means we don’t have to think about climate armageddon for a bit . The other problem is that there is just too much noise. It can’t penetrate through all the other shit . There are just too many other things hovering around our brains to distract us. We are being utterly overfed by the feed and it has rendered us useless. Here is a diagram to illustrate the point.
And it the same on the news. Irreversible climate breakdown is just one of a load of different stories all vying for your attention. Last week I saw two articles sandwiched in amongst everything else. Just a couple of little squares in a sea of squares, and some much larger with titles with infinitely bigger fonts. The two stories were that the Antartica was around 70 degrees hotter than it should be for this time of year (!) and the other was that the Amazon is at the tipping point of transforming from an oxygen producer (the biggest in the world) to an emitter of Carbon dioxide (!!) These are both catastrophic developments that should have dominated the headlines and caused widespread alarm but they barely registered.
And ultimately the problem is all these other things need to be dealt with as well and it’s just one of them. As people and as a society, both domestic and global, we are already up to our ear balls in problems and this particular problem must go to the top of the pile but it never quite gets there. Because it never has a chance to. Something always gets in the way.
Like real life. And as we can all agree, that is hard enough to get through as it is and so it looks like we are gonna wait until things become so catastrophic we won’t have a choice but to deal with it. When it is right up in our faces our survival instinct will finally kick in but by that point we will be well and truly fucked.
We are the lobster in the pot.
I have probably said all this before and it is probably nothing you don’t know. I follow the climate scientist Peter Kalmus on Twitter who has been trying to get the message across, along with the rest of the scientific community for decades and he recently exclaimed in defeat “I just don’t know how else to say this”.
The film ‘Don’t look up’ shows the frustration of the scientists who cannot convince the world of their findings so matter what evidence they put in front of them and the film perfectly captured the insanity of these times as a giant metaphor in the shape of a giant meteor hurtles towards them . It also accurately demonstrates the division in our society driven by the polarisation of opinion and shows that our inability to act is also due to the fact that the days of consensus are over. We need unified collective action which in a post truth world is virtually and depressingly impossible.
The other main problem with ‘telling it like it is’ is that you are accused of being a doom monger. No-one wants to hear bad news. I always think back to hunter gatherer societies and they would be traipsing around looking for food and water and there would be a guy up front leading the way, being all confident like and inspiring hope in the community which, in trun, spurs them onwards even when things are desperate because they believe he knows what he’s doing. And then you got some guy at the back saying..”there’s nothing this way. We’re all going to die”. No-one ever wants to hear from that guy. Not until it’s too late.
And our inability to receive this information and act upon it will ultimately be humanity’s greatest failure.
So now what? What to do in the meantime? We just carry on as normal? I am finding that increasingly difficult these days. I just can’t pretend anymore that our nonsense jobs and our nonsense concerns matter. We fret about the small shit and ignore the colossal catastrophe we are sleep walking towards. I know it’s too much to take on board everyday and we would literally sink if we did but pretending everything is fine when it just isn’t doesn’t make sense anymore. I know we need hope to function but if it blinds us to the reality of the situation and leaves us with an utterly hopeless situation then it’s pretty fucking useless. So what to do?
We certainly can’t look to our leaders to lead us out of this. They need to usher in an entire new way of living but they either can’t or they won’t . Are they short-sighted, dumb as a brush or just plain corrupt? It doesn’t really matter. Based on an entire era of inaction it is pretty clear they are just gonna let the clock run down. That much is clear. But why?
Well, largely because they are essentially dicatated to by the fossil fuel industry who have a sociopathic pursuit of profit. They are diseased by greed and so for decades, to protect their interests, they have blocked any attempt to move to a more sustainable and renewable future. In that time they have acquired so much wealth they used it to ‘buy’ everyone who is actually in power which makes them the defacto rulers of Earth and they are now seemingly too powerful to be overthrown.
And we have, in turn, become too passive, too stupid, too distracted and too selfish to stop them.
And so it looks like despite all of this we are all just going to attempt to maintain business as usual. Even though it isn’t. Even though it spells disaster. Even though it’s utter insanity. And so, in turn, I will carry on and continue to document this blinkered approach to living and post them here so there is evidence of what was actually happening during this period or rather not happening. So from now on when you look at my shots of Londoners doing their thing, please know that all of this is locked away in a bubble of denial hovering around their brains but if you look closely you can see it lingering just on the other side of their eyeballs trying to emerge…
And yes, you guessed it..I am that guy at the back of the group. And yes, no-one probably does want to hear from me…I’ve said me bit..pictures only from this point onwards..
Sorry Greta, still not panicking. Actually people are panicking, just not about that. They’re panicking about things that aren’t happening rather than things that are..
Panicking about Bill Gates chipping them with nanobots, not happening.
Panicking about a Satanic Cabal of Paedophiles taking over the world, not happening.
NOT panicking about catastrophic climate change, actually happening.
NOT panicking about the 6th mass extinction on planet Earth, actually happening.
On 13th November 15,000 scientists sent an open letter stating that we desperately need to address the societal collapse that will come from environmental disaster which will definitely happen if we carry on as we are. This slipped through the news net for most as it was drowned amidst a mountain of ‘virus/trump/whatever the outrage of the day was’ headlines but correct me if I am jumping to conclusions but I think they’re trying to tell us something…
( If you want the overview you can read via this article via link here)
We don’t need to panic. We need to pay attention. We need to be able to recognise hysteria from genuine concern. We need to recognise that we are continually and (albeit sub-consciously) wilfully being distracted from the mother of all problems which is looming over our species and all those we haven’t already made extinct..if we do not drastically and immediately alter our trajectory we will be on course to a shitstorm that will make this current one seem like a 2 week holiday in the Seychelles.
Do you want to hear all this right now whilst you are worrying about the virus and how its going to affect your xmas plans? I highly doubt it and sure you have already filed it under ‘things I can’t deal with right now’ but it should be labelled as ‘things we definitely and desperately need to deal with immediately’.
We live in an era of protest. An age defined by dissent. The world is filled with frustrated angry people rallying against their establishments for a multitude of outrages that bear little in common other than they are serious enough to get people to take to the streets. It appeared that Corona would kill off protests but in the end it just became another thing to protest about. There are currently so many groups fighting for so many different causes it is difficult to keep up and yet the one thing all these disparate cries of injustice are all united in, is that they are mostly defined by what they are against not what they are for.
Having a common enemy has bonded together many different groups of people at a time when there is mostly ever-increasing fragmentation and division. The internet has united people all over the world in a single cause but it has also ensured that we will never be able to get the majority to agree on anything ever again as the says of singular & factual source information are well and truly behind us.
Last week saw the return of the Extinction Rebellion and it is sadly apparent that their momentum has waned, their support diminished and the world has kinda moved on. And yet as it clearly slides from the forefront of people’s consciousness climate change is accelerating rapidly and its effects are ravaging the planet, hurtling us towards a future where life will not be sustainable for humans.
And just because we have stopped thinking about it doesn’t mean it has stopped happening. It is all there to see, we are just choosing to look in the other direction. And am not in any way undermining the validity or necessity of any of the protest movements in action around the globe at this moment in time but it has occurred to me that all these other protests around the world are maybe an intended distraction because we can’t face the reality of the environmental collapse we are facing.
The U.K government has now branded the XR as a criminal organisation who are threatening our way of life whilst the media and much of the population view them as troublemakers, privileged middle class or crusty hippies. These labels have been designed to deliberately undermine the movement and reduce their support but it still does not change the fact that their message is true and correct. It is happening and nothing is being done about it.
And the consequences of our inaction will have catastrophic results for all living creatures on this planet. Today I read that animal populations have decreased by 68% since 1970. At what point do we try to stop this mass extinction which we are responsible for and we will ultimately be a part of? at 80%? 90%? 100%? Oops too late.
And so endeth MYLSBN – which ,for the record, has nothing to do with lesbians contrary to what some might think (yes Tennyson crew, I am talking about you!). The shots over the last few weeks were designed to give you a virtual trip to Lisbon during this lockdown. A way to travel without moving. This pandemic has given our species a golden opportunity to show how we can live differently to how we lived before.
And now that we have been brought to a standstill we can hopefully see we are at a junction in the road. The path we were on was a dead end and we knew it but we couldn’t envisage an alternative. But now we have been given a glimpse of what life would be like if all unnecessary travel and excessive consumerism and relentless pollution stopped. And as restrictive as it it is, life carries on.
We can now see a different path because we are effectively on it. Already emissions have dropped all over the globe and it has been proven we can completely change the way we live almost overnight. Those that opposed change convinced us it wasn’t possible but the response to Corona across the globe has proven otherwise. Let’s use this devastating and destructive virus to save mankind by halting the rise in global temperatures and preserving the goldilocks zone on this planet that allows us and most other species to live upon it.
I know it maybe seemed strange that I was showing you photographs of a former visit to Lisbon as the world went into meltdown but it was designed to serve as a form of escapism from the relentless feed of horror. I realised very early on that it was crucial for us to have breaks from this thing to preserve our sanity. I enjoyed being elsewhere whilst I worked on the pictures and yet, inevitably, they always brought me back to the current situation and all my articles have revolved around the virus rather than the trip they came from.
The bulk of the pictures from my documentation of Lisbon came from a single procession on the last day I was there and pretty much every shot was taken within a single hour. Sometimes a slice will encapsulate the whole and felt that this event which pretty much the whole town turned out for, gave me an insight into the city and showed what was most important to the good folk of Lisbon, namely community & tradition. The procession was of a religious nature but for me, it was more to do with the people coming together as it was to celebrate their beliefs. It also felt like going back in time to an era where there was more solidarity amongst citizens and from a time when you could be in large crowds en masse together (remember those days?) and maybe that was why I was so keen to stay in this little virtual travel time capsule bubble.
Hope you enjoyed too. I will back on the streets of London as of next week, well as much as the lockdown will allow me. Stay safe people!
Carnaby St. (where all shots this week were taken) recently erected a giant whale & other sea life made out of recycled parts to show they’re really concerned with the environmental impact of the fashion industry, These assorted creatures hovered directly above the outlets of the companies that are directly responsible for the problem in first place. And not at any point did anyone who worked on this project think that maybe this was a conflicting message to the consumers below: Be aware of the destruction caused by fast fashion, but still continue to buy it from our shops.
By tomorrow I would have completed one year without buying any new clothes. I signed up to the ‘no new for 52’ XR boycott fashion pledge and have stuck to it. Not looking for pat on back as it really wasn’t that hard as mostly buy previously owned anyway and rarely have spondoolies to spare so did not find it too much of a hardship. Did my consumerist abstinence make a shit of a difference to anything? Of course not but I wanted to see first hand if it was possible to live a life without unnecessary consumerism.
My conclusion is, not only is it possible, it is actually more enjoyable. The longer it went on the easier it got. And then I extended it to everything else that I didn’t really need and in the last 12 months have only bought consumables, work related items or replaced something that was broke. And that’s about it.
I now think I can maybe get to death without buying any new clothes (bar mebbe some undies n socks) so now I just mooch about looking at things and not buying them. This is, in fact, quite joyful and better than actual shopping as you no longer have to suffer the dilemma of whether you should purchase something or not. You also then don’t feel flat and unsatisfied when that very fleeting sensation of pleasure from retail therapy subsides and you are left with a hole that still hasn’t been filled.
I have also saved a ton fuck of money as you can imagine. So it’s a proper win win and that’s before you even take into account that if, as a unified species, not just as isolated individuals, we drastically reduced our consumption and production of crap we don’t actually need we might just be able to get ourselves out of this dire situation we have created.
I recommend trying it as you will soon see there is a life to be had that doesn’t involve just buying stuff, despite what they tell us. Just don’t think of it as denying yourself, think of it as liberation.
Ok, just wanted to say that, now I’m going back under my rock. Goodbye…
This week’s shots feature graffiti and street art plastered across the walls of this city highlighting the importance of the climate crisis in this upcoming election in the U.K. The environment should be at the forefront of the political debate, which it appears to be for every party but the Tories. The following passage is from Naomi Klein’s book on the environment ‘This Changes Everything’ which I am reading at the mo and it explains exactly why Boris did not attend the climate debate on Channel 4.
“it has become increasingly difficult to discern where the oil and gas industry ends and the British government begins…At least 50 employees of companies including EDF energy, npower and Centrica have been placed within government to work on energy issues in the past four years..the staff are provided free of charge..”
Clearly no conflict of interest there. No, not at all, not one jot. So we basically live in an ‘Oiltocracy’. Like Trump, Boris is just a fossil fuel flunky (F.F.F) He works for them. A vote for the Tories is a vote to ensure ‘business as usual’ for the oil n gas industries so they carry on as they have been, which is to relentlessly plunder our ecosystem for shareholder profit with zero concern for the collateral damage to humans and all other species.
And not only will no-one currently in power get in their way but they are actively supporting them, pumping billions in subsidies, paid for with your tax money, which will allow the continuation of planetary devastation. Their actions, if not stopped, will ultimately destroy our ability to live on our spinning spherical host. Doesn’t feel like a good move from what I can see. ..
The next five years might just be the most crucial time ever for the human race in the entire history of our species as it will determine what path we take, which, for survival, requires putting ourselves on an entirely different path, because this one has revealed itself to be a dead end. The need to radically change our way of life and to confront head on the effects of climate change will require us to have strong forward thinking leaders that will take us in a new direction. Boris has none of these attributes.
Like Trump & Bolsanaro, Boris is not strong, despite him trying to play the ‘churchill’ card. These FFF’ are weak spineless men because, despite knowing (they’re cunts not idiots) of the consequences they continue to cower to their masters and help them to destroy the resources of this planet which are vital for life to continue. They are not the future, they are the past. They are the weights of yesterday that will drag us down into the depths from which we will not be able to return.
If Boris can’t even be arsed to turn up to a friggin tv studio to discuss it what do you think he’s actually going to do for the environment? Sweet FFF..A! So vote Tory, vote for humanity’s death warrant. That might sound overly dramatic but contrary to the utter inaction of this current government this actually is a fucking emergency. And saying it is one, isn’t actually part of the solution.
If they aren’t going to act like ‘our house is on fire’ we need to. And that means getting rid of them. We need to get these blocks in the road out of the way for good so we do not consign ourselves to a footnote in history. Many species have been and gone since this Earth formed but none have been dumb enough to wipe themselves out. And we’re supposed to be the most evolved so far. Not really looking that way right now because we are destroying the host that keeps us alive and as I have previously stated, even bacteria know to keep their host alive which means, right now, we are dumber than bacteria…
I feel like I have said these things many times but now as we get ready to choose our elected representatives it is a chance to remove those dragging us towards the precipice and enlist those who want to initiate a greener future, which means having one.
When I was a kid I wanted nothing more than to travel into the future and with 2020 looming I realise I actually achieved my dream, I just did it the long way round, in real time. The future doesn’t look quite as shiny and as optimistic as we maybe imagined back then but it is definitely here, as am I.
What we do now will dictate what kind of actual future we will have but we must act now… doing nothing will not maintain the status quo. Doing nothing will propel us forwards towards a future none of us want to be in…
IÂ shot and cut the original video (link) for the 7 inch release of Luxury Kills by DA7 feat. Annie Bea using photos compiled from the Rich kids of Instagram which were then projected onto Annie and Fjokra as they performed track. It seemed like the ideal content for this anti-consumerism anthem. These digitally displayed lifestyles of excessively wealthy people had been uploaded to make people envious of their existence but just showed what a pointless and shallow pursuit conspicuous consumerism was. It was like watching the shopping channel for status symbols. Cars, planes, watches, clothes and all things bling on an endless revolving loop. It just demonstrated how repetitive and restrictive their way of life was and wanted to show it was not something to be jealous of, quite the opposite.Â
When discussing ideas for the video of Jem Stone’s remix (above) I had just come off the Extinction Rebellion’s shutdown of London and realised the footage would be perfect to splice into the original video as it was the ultimate juxtaposition to the hollowness of buying shit you don’t need to impress people you don’t know.Â
The lyrics of the song are about someone who can’t find any satisfaction or happiness from spending no matter how much retail therapy they indulge in. In the video she is bombarded with images of luxury (as indeed we all our every day of our lives) yet she is essentially alone and unfulfilled.Â
In contrast, we have the rebellion, who are united together, a created community bound by a shared goal, acting for the collective good rather than just themselves and yet who are still having fun doing it. It showed how if we can just free ourselves of the consumerist drive of our society we can move onto another path, a more sustainable & more satisfactory path and most importantly, one that is less destructive to the environment. The damaging effects of the relentless production of unnecessary things is devastating nature everywhere. The carbon footprint of fast fashion for example is gi-normous and we must curb our consumption for the benefit of all living things on this planet, including ourselves.
The path our society is currently on is a dead end. If we continue along this route at some point the human race will stop. We must get off it and sooner rather than later. We must stop focussing our energies on how well we are doing in society and start concentrating on how well our society is doing. We must stop looking to the acquisition of things to bring us happiness which they clearly don’t. Luxury Kills, Community lives.Â
Concerned looking old ladies this week. The world has changed drastically since I have been alive and I often wonder what it would be like to be the generation above who have lived long enough to see everything that they were conditioned to believe was good and aspirational has become mostly evil and destructive. Increased technology, relentless economic growth and the incessant act of consumerism were sold as things that would lead to happiness and fulfilment but actually turned out on a long enough time line to be the causes of almost all the ills in the world. These goals have been pursued to such a degree they have destabilised the spherical organism we live upon and we must now attempt to steer the human race onto a new path.
In all honesty infinite growth in a finite space can’t have ever seemed like a great long term plan but I guess they just didn’t think we would ever fill the space  we live in but we have. Between ourselves, our constructions and the waste they  created there is now not much room left, a seemingly impossible idea back when the women featured this week were young.
I keep returning to WALL-E as the scarily and eerily accurate prediction of what was the vision of a future but has, in fact, now happened…but even with all the signs that are screaming “stop or suffer the consequences”, still it continues. We need to find a new version of living that doesn’t just revolve around buying and selling shit which then fucks up our habitat and our health in the process. We have to find another path, another way of living. And we need to convince those in charge of the same and get them to abandon this utterly broken model. Would that be so terrible? I don’t see current society making many people that happy. As the saying goes ‘modern life is rubbish’ or maybe more appropriately ‘modern life is full of rubbish’. We need to stop adding to the landfill or we will end up on it. We must devolve to evolve to survive…
I cannot think of anything in my lifetime that is comparable to the events that I have witnessed and been a part of last week and into this week with the Extinction Rebellion’s shutdown of London. I tried to return to normality this week both in my posts and in my everyday life but it has been hard because everything feels different and I now know we will have to keep up this fight to have a chance in hell of instigating genuine systematic change. We cannot carry on the way we have been and we cannot go backwards. The only path ahead that is not a dead end for our species is one where we alter everything we do and the only way we can do that is, not by individual choice, which will only get us so far, but by the Governments of this world acknowledging the climate emergency and telling the truth of the severity of the problem to its citizens before instigating a genuine assault on our collective carbon footprint.
In all honesty its pretty scary stuff but there is no longer time to switch off. In the words of Greta Thunberg: I want you to panic. But that is not to freak out and hide with our head in the sands. It is so we can act accordingly and join together to demand a different world that future gens will be able to live in. And I know it feels impossible when you consider how and what we consume and what resistance there will be but to do nothing seems more impossible to me. We must replace anxiety with action. We must tackle this head on.
As a species we are the most resourceful and adaptable and intelligent beings to ever walk this Earth, why now, when we have wrestled and conquered every adversity we have ever encountered along our way, are we now ready to just lay down and be defeated? It is out inability to give up that has got us this far, why not use it to go the distance?
Despite trying to show a return to everyday existence in my selected photographs this week (and give you a mini break from the rebellion) I ended up  choosing shots of concerned and troubled looking individuals. They are from all walks of life as wanted to highlight that this will affect everyone no matter what. The rebellion against a society driven by profit over people is a movement that goes beyond race, religion and politics. You might convince yourself that the XR aren’t your ‘sort of people’ or you don’t agree with their methods but that is not a reason not to join as long as you agree something must be done. And you don’t have to be arrested to be a part of this. There are many other ways to get involved…
On May 24th they are organising a general strike to show solidarity with the youth strike movement. That is something we can all do. As commendable as the pupil’s actions have been we all know that kids should not be having to deal with this at all. They should be at school and studying so they can have a good life ahead of them. But they aren’t because they know this is urgent and needs to be dealt with otherwise they won’t have one. Are we really going to stand back as adults and let them get on with it? We need to all join them and all strike together. Go to your colleagues and your employers and discuss how important this is and how you must all get involved. In this society, we try to protect kids from so many things which we think are detrimental to their lives yet for some inexplicable reason, not from the one thing that is a genuine threat to their existence and ours. Let’s change that now…strike on May 24th and let’s make this is a rebellion that includes everyone!
The XR youth, as the junior division of the Rebellion are known, took over Piccadilly Circus and made their presence and their feelings known. Out of all the different sections of the XR, seeing the youth galvanise and join the fight has been the most heartening, and in some ways, the most depressing aspect of the protest as they really shouldn’t have to. They are just kids but they can clearly see that the grown ups are not doing what is necessary to fix this ever-worsening situation. They now see they must take action themselves and have no alternative but to try everything they can to convince them otherwise. From the youth strikes started by Greta Thunberg to the kids in the U.S who begged Senators to sign the Green New Deal to the very determined kids of the XR, they must all be terrified for the future that potentially awaits them and probably can’t understand why nothing is being done to solve it. They are the future, the least we can do is give them one.
My generation and previous ones inherited a working planet with an atmosphere, temperature and weather system that meant we could breathe and eat food and drink water. The least we can do is pass these very basic but very essential requirements of existence onto them and ensure that life on earth can continue for future generations beyond them. If no action is taken they will not have this. It is not a given. A total lack of response will mean all these elements which are essential for living will disappear. But they are not taking it lying down (except when the flashmob above descended on H&M – see above). They are going to fight. And we must support them and encourage them so that there actions might sway the leaders of this world to take this seriously and stop cow tailing  to companies who do nothing but pollute the fuck out of this planet which will ultimately render it uninhabitable.
If you think they shouldn’t be involved in civil disobedience and it is irresponsible to let them, then maybe you can think of and propose an alternative…this shutdown of London and everything the XR are doing is to bring climate change to the forefront of conversation and to get the media to report the severity of the situation and to inform the public of the real threat. In this respect, the movement  has already succeeded incredibly in achieving that goal. People are now finally talking about it. This is not about disruption, this is about education and we need to let everyone know how bad it really is so at least with the knowledge they have a choice whether to join the fight or not…
This is now Day 5 and the rebellion it still going strong. The politicians and the media are clambering for the police to disband the bloackades and the protests so that this  can end but if the Government just listened and responded to their demands then all this would end immediately. All they are trying to do is create a conversation that will lead to the solutions that will hopefully save us…
ok, sentiment good, might need to work on your spelling..
It is quite incredible to walk down Waterloo Bridge in the middle of the day with no traffic. You can actually breathe the air and not feel like you are choking so the occupation of this major thoroughfare (same for oxford street) demonstrates perfectly how chronically bad the air pollution is in this city and how we urgently need to remove fossil fuel vehicle fumes from our lives. It is even more amazing to see this bridge adorned with trees and pot plants. The Green rebelution is truly under way…
The occupation of Waterloo Bridge by The Extinction Rebellion has survived another night despite a lot more arrests. Me and Mrs Romero were there last night and the police were swooping in on random individuals amongst the crowd and telling them they have to leave within 2 minutes or they will be taken away. We were approached by policemen and told exactly that. Under Article 14, we have the right to remove you…blah, blah, blah…we chose not to get arrested and had to leave the bridge. For me, I didn’t want to be taken away because it would mean I wouldn’t be able  to document anymore and I think I can make a much greater contribution to this cause doing that than by being in jail.
For those that refused to move, they were carted off and put in the waiting police vans as the crowd cheered and chanted “We love you! We love you!” to each and every person that was arrested and carried off. I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for every single individual that has and is willing to be arrested by the police for this cause. It is the most selfless act anyone could do.
You might have been reading about this in the news and you think you might not agree with these methods but this is all we are left with as all other alternatives have failed. These people do not want to be arrested. They are just willing to do what is necessary to try and illicit the change in our society that is needed for society to continue. If you live in London and have been affected but the disruption you must realise that not a single person involved wants to be doing this.  And as soon as the government starts to implement measures to combat the devastating consequences of climate change this all ends. The XR are not a thing in itself, they are just a means to an end.
The right wing press have brandished this a far left movement but it is way beyond politics. These are just humans screaming out for the establishment to  actually deal with the situation with the seriousness and severity required.  What I think this movement represents is a need for us no longer to think of our own personal concerns, desires and ambitions. To survive we have to kill the cult of the individual that has separated us all and made a lot of people miserable in the process. We are pitted against each other in an endless battle of status competition focussed on how well we are doing in society rather than how society is doing as a whole. To have a chance in hell we must now all work for the greater good, to go fowards as a community and change what needs to be changed, to fix what we have broken and to pave a path for future generations rather than taking them down an ecological dead end to disaster.
Waterloo bridge has been occupied under the banner “Act Now” and is probably the most pertinent statement of all. As I keep saying the time for ignoring this is over. We cannot carry on as we have been. Delay has cost us dearly already. We cannot shunt this anymore. We have to put everything else on the back burner. But this is not about individual acts of conservation. Our own personal choices will not make a difference. This has to be implemented from the top down. The leaders of the world must step up and do what is necessary and do what is right and we will comply. There is no other way.
