The three biggest climate change stories this year are the tens of thousands of Amazon rainforest fires, the extreme heat wave in Europe, and the international Extinction Rebellion.
Named for the threat of human extinction due to rapid climate change, the rebellion is a non-violent movement started in London last November when 60,000 people marched in the streets and occupied public places.
This summer the rebellion flamed across western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and Canada.
In Germany, activists chained themselves to the fence outside of Angela Merkel's Chancellery in Berlin and demanded Merkel declare a "climate emergency."
In North America, 40 climate change protesters were arrested in front of the New York Times at a “die-in” demanding that the newspaper use the words “climate emergency” instead of “climate change." The expression “die-in” is borrowed from the “sit-in” and “teach-in” protests against the Vietnam war a half century ago.
In Toronto, three dozen Extinction Rebellion protesters met weekly throughout the summer at the downtown intersection of Yonge and Dundas streets and "swarmed” traffic – blocking it for a few minutes, then letting cars pass, and then blocking traffic again.
Their protest sign messages included “How do we heal Mother Earth?” and “Which side are you on?”
One climate rebel, Ann (her last name has not been disclosed), started walking from Calgary to Ottawa on April 20 as an act of protest. She was in Toronto on the Labour Day weekend.
Worldwide strikes are planned for the week of Sept. 20-27. The Extinction Rebellion has had a year to grow and the strikes will be the first test of its power and influence.
It is reassuring that the protesters are not wearing masks. If masked thugs start to appear, it will mean that the rebellion is worth hijacking.
It is also reassuring to the credibility of the rebels that they are not, nor do they want to be, associated with Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and other professional anti-carbon organizations.
The Extinction Rebellion is a civil disobedience movement organized on social media, mainly Facebook, inviting people to “join us in the streets.”
The Extinction Rebellion has three demands.
First, governments must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency and work with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
Second, governments must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
Third, governments must create and be led by the decisions of citizens’ assemblies on climate and ecological justice.
Is the Extinction Rebellion taking Western democracies to a crossroads on climate change action?
For sure, carbon taxes to reduce carbon footprint are not working fast enough to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to meet the 2025 deadline for net zero emissions.
The Extinction Rebellion, like all climate change activism, is ahead of the science, but that doesn’t mean it is wrong.
– Frank Dabbs is a veteran political and business journalist and author.
