Extinction Rebellion should be classified as an organized crime group, according to the British prime minister and home secretary. Bad joke. It is a non-violent grassroots movement of people seriously concerned about the burning of fossil fuels that is threatening to make our planet intolerable for humans and many other beings.
Today we joined our first Extinction Rebellion protest. It was in the Jubilee Garden, a pleasantly curvilinear small park between the Thames bank and a towering plain-faced concrete building, the headquarters of Shell.
The large and friendly crowd was sprinkled with yellow: the yellow jackets of the police and the yellow banners with the Extinction Rebellion symbol. Half a dozen police paddy wagons, ready to carry off criminals, waited like a defensive wall in front of Shell.
The organization was a little amateur, as is perhaps fitting. The criminals are not as hardened as criminals should be. The speeches were clear, earnest, and sometimes poetic. But it is not enough to say we must cut our own use of oil and plastic. A little nearer to the solution was “We’re going to sue Shell, bankrupt them!” But Shell and other such corporations are by nature unable to do otherwise than maximize profit, and use their financial power to defend themselves. They enrich a relative few (executives and shareholders) at the expense of a majority that will eventually include themselves. They fit some reasonable definitions of an organized crime group. (It was good that their murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa was remembered.)
What we need to do is not just call on government to act but create governments that act: vote into power those who will have the guts to triple fuel taxes, stop subsidizing airline fuel, invest massively in renewable energy, ban import of the products of tropical deforestation, and more.
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Nice ferris wheel.
I think that renewable energy will eventually evolve enough to make fossil fuels unnecessary for small business and home energy needs. Fossil fuel will still be needed for jets and rockets for several years since they both need adequate fuel reserves to stay aloft. At least jet flight is the least polluting option when comparing modes of transportation. (CO 2 emissions per person per mile)
Yes, flying from Chicago to Paris, or from New York to Seattle, uses less fuel than driving. But nobody drives from Chicago to Paris, and, even when there aren’t any oceans in the way, these days many more people fly long distances than drive. The more meaningful comparison is between flying or staying home.
For trips of hundreds to thousands of kilometers, high speed rail would be much more energy efficient than air travel.
Excellent post, Guy.
Agree! There was a clever book about 12 years ago something like, “Ten Dollars A Gallon”, describing all the benefits when fuel prices rise.
I went to my first XR protest last autumn before the pandemic. I was disappointed by how many of the speeches focussed on better rights for indigenous people and the need to restructure the capitalist system. Whatever you think about either issue, linking them to climate change just makes it harder to solve climate change. There is a straightforward solution to climate change which harnesses the current system: impose a high carbon tax, look at the level of CO2 emissions and increase the carbon tax, repeat until CO2 emissions are declining. Deal with the social inequities of this policy by rebating essentially all of the revenue on a per capita basis. Deal with offshoring concerns by imposing a carbon tariff based on imputed emission levels.
John, until the world comes to its senses and inaugurates you as Climate Change Solution Czar, the movement to address climate change will be a coalition of people with different life experiences, different problems, different needs, and different priorities. I believe we should amplify the voices and follow the lead of the people who are experiencing the most harm from climate change: indigenous peoples, poor people, and people of color, and young people in general. If a simple technical fix were possible within the existing system, smart people like you would already have effected it. It will take a political revolution (at least in my country, the USA) to seriously address climate change.