Introduction
Covid-19 showed that big, difficult and technical change can happen fast, so fast in fact that we have a Covid-19 exit strategy, against expectation based on mass vaccination. Over the last few years, we have also seen awareness of climate change increase dramatically. The pressure of the pandemic also highlighted pre-exiting inequalities and accelerated some trends that could take us in entirely the wrong direction, this isn’t helped by the ripple effect of the Ukraine war and the cost-of-living crisis. Taken together we have an opportunity like never before accompanied by a real risk that we go backwards; we need to act in a smarter way.
This link goes to the XR about page, scroll down to Our Principles and Values, each one can be expanded.
This Guardian article goes into great detail and has assembled data based on actual investment plans assembled from many sources
These links are from scribd, Time magazine itself requires a subscription. The online content at Time.com does always not match the magazine content. I read the magazine articles using Libby.
https://www.scribd.com/article/570182424/Climate-Goes-Private
https://www.scribd.com/article/570182735/Cracking-The-Corporate-Code
Time has some informative climate coverage, but I say this because in the Time magazine 23-30 May 2022 edition there is an article about the investment opportunities that climate change will bring to the Alaskan port of Nome, it will be able to profit from the opening up of the sea routes across the arctic and have easier access to raw materials as ice retreats
“Nome may yet be able to surf the looming disruption with minimal loss if it gets ahead of the change”.
In many respects the article covers climate issues well, but the relentless corporate optimism that sees everything, even 'looming disruption', as an opportunity for making money and calling it adaption, rings a false note for me
“seeking opportunities in in a rapidly changing region, whether its better access to mineral resources, more efficient shipping routes, or new fishing grounds, is simply the newest – and, some would say, the most practical- form of adaption”
The article goes on to say this is to be welcomed, provided it won’t make things worse for the people who live there, which might be as useful as the second pat of the Balfour Declaration. Given the influx of people, money and things on the scale that these developments would likely entail, it is difficult to see how it could actually make things better. It would be more unsustainable developments at worst, and more materialism with less quality of life at best, and if this is happening in the Arctic just imagine whats going on for people living nearer the equator and in Oceana, perhaps they can build build submarines and do dive based tourism.
BTW on the aside - the second part of the Balfour Declaration says; "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine"
This is the abbreviation for a US financial report. A 10-K listing is an annual report published by US traded companies as a requirement of the Securities and Exchange Commission, it is more comprehensive than published annual reports and is intended as a guide for investors.
Of course there are parallels with Greenpeace here – suppose Greenpeace and XR both have part of the truth – the combination of tactics would be more powerful.
Public awareness of climate change has increased
In public opinion, polling undertaken by the UN Development Programme reported in The Guardian
A Hope not Hate poll reported in The Guardian 1 year ago
This quote is from Scientists for XR
https://www.scientistsforxr.earth/faq
XR is something of an exemplar in term of its stated aims and objectives, its clarity of purpose and its values have undoubtedly been a major factor in its success – and although it has criticism on race and inclusion, it cannot be dismissed as the usual subjects nor branded as terrorist (even though some in the security services issue alarmist warnings).
Its three demands are simple; tell the truth, act now and go beyond politics. On politics I think it should mean go beyond party politics. My case is that XR's current approach is necessary but not sufficient - to catalyse the paradigm shift it will take NVDA, policy and political action backed up with mass action.
For me it is its set of values that sets it apart, see Note; XR Values, above
Quote “Labour MPs in particular should be cautious in endorsing what seems to be an elitist plan to bypass democracy”
This piece completely misses the point that randomly selected citizens faced with all the evidence will come to a sensible and balances approach free from vested interests.
Of course, displacing workers is unacceptable which is exactly why a transition is needed to secure people’s livelihoods – we know what the invisible hand will do to their jobs and pension funds. The caution is misplaced and kills the radical thinking about change that is needed.
This has been running for some time, and of course we will need concrete and steel in any future but it is simply not the case that this is need to avoid imports, a large amount of the coal extracted will be exported ‘for use in the UK and European steel industry’
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/coal-mine-cumbria-fossil-fuel-averley-b1787555.html
The politicians who act as the enforcers for extreme liberal capitalism, by mobilising 'dog whistle' agendas and maintaining divide and rule tactics, are already moving on from Brexit to Climate change
The European Research Group is followed by the Net Zero Scrutiny Group with a lot of the same members and we can expect the same disruptive tactics
The rate of progress has slowed – probably down to the COVID19 pandemic
On disruption and the wrong tactics
A round up in Time
https://time.com/5864702/extinction-rebellion-climate-activism/
On being naïve about the police, forgetting the McPherson report and the subsequent debate
'Sorry Cressida Dick, but as a black former detective I know just how racist the Met still is. In my decade of service, I saw entrenched prejudice…'
However polite the police are at demonstrations they and others in the security services will give ammunition to politicians looking for ways to discredit XR 'Counter-terrorism police placed the non-violent group Extinction Rebellion(XR) on a list of extremist ideologies that should be reported to the authorities running the Prevent programme, which aims to catch those at risk of committing atrocities'
It looks as if a much tougher line is going to be taken by the police in future.
Race in the UK
Race in a US context
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/extinction-rebellion-climate-race/
As an ongoing concern consider this event at the Lees Festival of Ideas (2022) 'How do we platform marginalised communities to alter the mainstream narrative of climate talks? Without equality, can we ever achieve climate justice?'
https://leedsinternationalfestival.com/panel-discussions/whats-wrong-with-climate-activism/
Time.com website article at
https://time.com/5864702/extinction-rebellion-climate-activism/
45° Change, Transforming Society from Below and Above, Neal Lawson
https://www.compassonline.org.uk/publications/45o-change-transforming-society-from-below-and-above/
'these emerging forces and organisations are going to have to adapt and develop too. However hard, these new formations will have to form broader alliances, both across civil society and with the state, nationally and locally…The intersection between this emerging horizontal bottom-up change and the more vertical state is the diagonal fault line through which a new society can and must be born. This is 45° Change.'
An approving view dating 2002 and reflecting the triumphalism that accompanied the end of the cold war considers the emergence of the outsourced market state as distinct from its parliamentary, fascist and communist predecessors – its author was a US Presidential Adviser under both Democratic and Republican presidencies;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shield_of_Achilles:_War,_Peace,_and_the_Course_of_History
Views of causation can be debated but the facts are easy - compare the GDP of large multinationals to many small, medium sized countries
A podcast that covers "How some of the world's most powerful interests made us doubt the connection between smoking and cancer, and then how the same tactics were used to make us doubt climate change” is
How They Made Us Doubt Everything, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000l7q1
Democracy for Sale, Peter Geoghegan
We need to see limits of demonstrations, moves to introduce voter identification and attacks on the inclusion of human rights in UK legislation as part of this process.
The Guardian; Revealed the 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions
See also the article in Note; Big Oil Plans (above) we see that these companies are making deliberate destructive investment decisions in the face of mounting evidence – they have to be stopped.
Some already fear that there is a backlash coming and think it should be headed off
- which is why there is a site like Pitchfork Economics https://pitchforkeconomics.com
- and a group called patriotic millionaires https://patrioticmillionaires.org
The approach is straight out of the Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod, first published 1984 and still going strong. Essentially it boils down to – don’t let a wrong go unpunished, be proportionate, don’t bear grudges or keep score, always go back to and signal willingness to cooperate – I prefer to call this reciprocity because of the unfortunate baggage that Tit-for-Tat has (vendettas, revenge, biblical eyes for eyes) which really do get in the way of this clear pragmatic (an in my personal experience) successful approach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation
I think it provides some additional thinking that can make Erica Cheowath’s insights more effective, seehttps://www.ericachenoweth.com/research/wcrw
Without the ideas and an appreciation of how things will work in practical terms, worked out in advance, the history of revolutions suggests they will only open the way for different people who will still be oppressive power seekers, think Robespierre or Stalin.
The quote in full is this 'There is enormous inertia—a tyranny of the status quo—in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.'
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 1982, Preface. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman
Unlike the right, the left doesn't seem to be very good at this.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete"
"There’s a built-in resistance to letting humanity be a success. Each one claims that their system is the best one for coping with inadequacy. We have to make them all obsolete. We need to find within technology that there is something we can do which is capable of taking care of everybody, and to demonstrate that this is so...Don't fight forces, use them."