These really are extraordinary times. Not only because we have just seen the biggest civil disobedience event in recent British history, with Extinction Rebellion arrests now passing 1,000, but also because photos of a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist are splashed across this morning’s front pages, after she met with applause in the House of Commons, earlier having told MPs: "You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to", before asking them "Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?" Read her full speech, or watch a short clip of it below:
The messages from the Extinction Rebellion protests and from Greta Thunberg are beginning to resonate with more and more people; here are two who used to work for the Police:
Attending the protests on Monday, was Philip Kedge, a retired chief inspector with Hampshire constabulary. "I have a seed of doubt that’s been growing in terms of what’s been happening to our environment and I decided that I could do two things. I can go sit on Bournemouth beach and enjoy the sunshine with ice cream or I can come here and find out more. My respect to all the service officers here. I’ve seen nothing but the utmost professionalism and respect. And the same goes to the protesters who have treated the police with dignity and respect."
Another former police officer, Richard Ecclestone, who attended the protests separately from Kedge, said he had policed protests against the A30 road in Devon in the 90s, but that Extinction Rebellion felt different. "This is very different because it is not just a bunch of very well meaning and committed activists. This is all of us".
I am really quite terrified of the prospects for our society and civilisation if we don't take action on climate change. The sense of emergency of it is just so important that we need to get a hold of this. We are in the situation where we need to turn this catastrophe that we are sleepwalking into around.
Read about some of the others. As one protester put it:
We are coming into Parliament Square because we have captured the media’s attention and a lot of attention around the globe, and now it’s time for the politicians to come and talk to us.
But as far as one of our politicians is concerned:
Surely this is the time for the protesters to take their pink boat to Tiananmen Square, and lecture them in the way they have been lecturing us.
Five years ago, we posted Climate change – we should all be doing our bit ... We said:
There are many notable projects around the country attempting to bring down our carbon footprint. There’s one in Lyme Regis - a hydro-electric system in the Town Mill. By generating electricity from the River Lim, it hopes to save 13 tonnes CO2 annually.
But benefits from schemes like this are dwarfed by unsustainable proposals from corporations, selfishly focusing on nothing but profit. Whatever happens with Straitgate, the idea of processing material 7.5 miles away must be a non-starter. With climate change, everybody must pull their weight.
Things have changed since then. The scale of our climate emergency, and what needs to be done, has come into sharper focus. What has also changed is that Aggregate Industries now wants to process Straitgate material some 23 miles away, not 7.5. Plainly this is a company that fails to recognise the climate emergency. This is a company that neglected to report around 600,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2016. This is a company owned by LafargeHolcim – named second worst company for increasing CO2 emissions. As we posted:
AI has talked about reducing its CO2 emissions for more than 15 years, and has achieved exactly the reverse. It is plainly in denial: denial about having to do anything to change the way it operates, denial about having to do anything to reduce its contribution to an impending climate catastrophe.
AI is now emitting nearly 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 each year, more than 5x the amount in 1999.
As Greta Thunberg says:
... the basic problem is that basically nothing is being done to halt – or even slow – climate and ecological breakdown, despite all the beautiful words and promises.
Now we probably don’t even have a future any more. Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money.
They're people like 16-year-old @GretaThunberg, whose protests at Swedish parliament sparked a movement. Inspired by Greta's action, Fridays for Future brought together more than a million strikers on every continent last month to demand action on climate. https://t.co/un7nBhEF8i— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 22, 2019
Some of the other climate-related posts we've made this year and last can be found here:
Resource extraction responsible for half world’s carbon emissions; Concrete: “the most destructive material on Earth”; UK experiences hottest winter day ever; DCC declares ‘climate emergency’ but rejects 2030 target; Schoolchildren across the world call for climate action; DCC declares “climate emergency”; Our future, and our children’s future, in numbers; AI’s digital presence on climate change; We’re killing our planet; There must be two Aggregate Industries; If AI’s record is an example of corporate action on climate change, we’re all screwed; IPCC: “The next few years are probably the most important in our history”; ‘If the cement industry were a country, it would be third largest emitter in the world’; Whilst Europe burns, what’s the UK minerals industry doing about climate change?; The terrible human cost of LafargeHolcim’s operations; ‘Cement companies must double emission cuts to deliver Paris Agreement’; Legacy; “We are committed to tackling climate change”.
