7 October 2019 marked the beginning of the Global Rebellion against extinction and a call for urgent action on the climate and biodiversity emergency.
Extinction Rebellion Victoria is disrupting Melbourne as part of the International Rebellion – a rebellion is being called in 60 large cities worldwide including London, New York, Berlin, Paris, Los Angeles, and in Australia: Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, and Brisbane.
This is a critical act of non-violent civil disobedience to disrupt business as usual and to draw attention to the climate and ecological emergency we are facing and that the government is ignoring – endangering the lives of all of us, and all future generations of life.
Extinction Rebellion wrote in their newsletter: “The plan was to march through the city creating swarms in key intersections as a taste of actions that will follow for the entire week. The police had a strong presence, including mounted officers. 11 rebels were arrested, sacrificing their liberty to draw attention to the climate emergency and the need to act.”
“Are we are just going to lie down and let the Big End of Town and fossil donated politicians drive the ecosystem that sustains us into the ground, until it breaks, and most of us will face extinction?
Or are we going to sit down, stand up, lock arms and peacefully rebel?
It’s time to tell the brutal truth about the climate crisis, demand emergency action and a restored democracy where people can decide for themselves to choose life, not death.”
Sally Newell – sharing a photo album on Facebook
In Melbourne? Meet at Bowen at Lane, 3pm Wednesday to swarm for survival. Other states, more info here: ausrebellion.earth
→ Find out more, connect or join the Australian Rebellion on:
www.instagram.com/xrebellionaus
www.twitter.com/xrebellionaus
www.facebook.com/xraustralia
→ Join Extinction Rebellion Victoria here: www.actionnetwork.org
→ Global: www.rebellion.earth
7 October at 21:45
“Today I walked the streets of the CBD with maybe 1600 courageous people from Extinction Rebellion for the Global Spring Rebellion. The feeling and the collective good intentions of the group were like nothing I have experienced. A woman named Michelle and I walked together and we both cried because we were incredibly grateful to see so many environmentally motivated people, come together. We were mostly taken by the support, clapping and waving from the people on the footpaths. The people we were MEANT TO BE DISRUPTING!
Later, myself and about 12 other people were arrested. It was my decision entirely, I refused to move off the tram track/road. The police were considerate and very gentle and thoughtful. They actually helped to stage the show and asked if we wanted to be carried or did we want to be led away. I’m sure they are also sympathetic.
I honestly feel like our Government leaders have left the room, locked the door and are leaving us to sort out this mess ourselves.
There were many action groups present including Inverlock, Gippsland, Castlemaine.. It would have been great to have had an Apollo Bay contingent and flying our massive banner “APOLLO BAY CALLS FOR URGENT LEADERSHIP ON CLIMATE CHANGE”
Highest respect for XR Melbourne Organizers. Most of them are so young and working hard to do the best job possible.
“Courage is the desire to do well without the reassurance of success”
Please join the fight, don’t stand back and hope, expect others to do it for you.”
~ Lisa
“We’re all in this together, its now or never.”
Remember how women got the right to vote?
“I would like to address those who believe the climate change protests are “annoying” or “unnecessary” or that there are “better ways to go about it”.
The article linked below details the suffragette’s deeds and actions in the UK, leading up to women gaining the right to vote in 1918 (amended in 1928 to include ALL women regardless of social standing). Women’s groups had been engaging in peaceful protest for decades, with no progress.
Then in 1903 the WSPU decided enough was enough. The next 10 years saw violence and aggression which we today would label “terrorism”.
Window smashing, catapults and missiles, physically injuring members of the public, even attacking Winston Churchill with a horse whip. Women hurled hatchets, set fire to canisters of gun powder, and cut down telegraph wires.
But when we think back on those times, we don’t remember these events. We just remember the cause they fought for. We are thankful that women are no longer silenced politically in these countries. We are thankful for the sacrifices they made for the women of today.
I can never condone violence.
But if you think that “protesting properly” means protest that in no way inconveniences anyone, then you have no idea how political change works.
People are GOING to be inconvenienced.
People are GOING to get annoyed.
Change is GOING to happen.”
~ Gabbi Hodge
→ British Library – 6 February 2018:
Suffragettes, violence and militancy
“Some suffragettes believed that deeds, not words, would convince the government to give women the vote. Fern Riddell assesses the scale of violent direct action used by militant suffragettes, with a focus on events from 1912 to 1914.”
COMMENTARY
#TellTheTruth: Time for a journalist rebellion
By Mik Aidt
The deception and climate denial of our government is a direct threat to my children, and it is only possible because of the media industry’s failure to hold them accountable and tell us the truth.
The truth is that last year, in 2018, global emissions of greenhouse gases rose by 1.7 per cent. Australia’s emissions rose even more. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere jumped by 3.5 parts per million – the largest ever observed increase.
This may not sound or look like much. Numbers and graphs in themselves don’t give the impression as being an emergency. But that’s only when you don’t understand what is happening. Maybe the most critical and urgent emergency in this relation is the media silence on the matter.
The climate and biosphere emergency should be headline news on a daily basis. We should be learning about it in our tv news and newspapers every day. We should be getting involved and engaged in building the solutions. We should know what to do.
Instead, you just keep on pretending the climate crisis isn’t even something anyone should worry about.
“We are knee-deep in dead canaries.”
Sign at Extinction Rebellion rally
Expose the climate crime
I’m a dad to three young children, and I am a journalist. On Monday 7 October 2019, I travelled to Melbourne to speak up for them and also to use my communication skills to spread the word about what is taking place in Melbourne this week.
Over the last six years, I’ve been asking the media people numerous times: why are you failing us? Why are you not questioning our politicians when they lie to us? Why are you not reporting on the emergency, and telling us how serious the situation is? Why do you keep giving a voice who deliberately spead confusion and misinformation about the science?
Media is into the business of selling news, and consequently loves to report on crime and corruption. So why are you silent about this crime that is taking place right in front of your eyes? – when you see our emissions keep rising, while new coal mines and gas projects are not only being allowed, but being subsidised with taxpayers money to the tune of 10 billion dollars every year? When forests are being cut down? Where are your front page stories, where are your questions?
As long as you are not asking the right questions and showing us the right solutions, you enable the carbon trolls to control the story in our society – that story of people like Peter Dutton who believes that we, the rebels in the streets this week, are nothing but “a scourge” who should be put in jail.
How is it you let ScoMo get away with saying that Australia is doing fine and on track to keep its commitments – its weak commitments – to the Paris Agreement, when his own Department of Environment is telling us that this is a lie: that we are far from being able to keep that commitment.
Shouldn’t it be the media’s job to dig up and explain to us what is really going on here behind the scenes?
Australia is seen by the rest of the world as a rogue bunch of carbon-criminals. If we continue like this, we will be responsible for 13 per cent of global emissions by 2030.
This will be your responsibility. Media executives will one day be held accountable for their complicity in this mess. Editors and directors stand first in line, but the reporters with the microphones out have a responsibility as well.
“This is the time to act. Our voices and actions will be amplified by the simultaneous actions throughout the world over this period of international rebellion. This is not to be missed out on. This is how we will save our future.“
PS: Australians can also join Extinction Rebellion groups in the ACT, Bairnsdale, Bass Coast, Blue Mountains, Bondi Beach, Brisbane West, Byron Bay, Central Coast, Central Queensland, Central West NSW, Far North Queensland, Freemantle, Gold Coast, Lismore, Mandurah, Mid Coast, Mullumbimby, Newcastle, Hornsby Shire, Northern Tasmania, SA Down South, SA Up North, South East Queensland, Southwest Sydney, Sunshine Coast, Sydney, Sydney Inner West, Tasmania, and Wollongong.
→ SBS News – 8 October 2019:
Dozens arrested as Australians join global wave of ‘disruptive’ eco protests
“Extinction Rebellion is planning to ‘shut down’ cities around the world over the next two weeks.”
“This is our darkest hour. Humanity finds itself embroiled in an event unprecedented in its history, one which, unless immediately addressed, will catapult us further into the destruction of all we hold dear […] The wilful complicity displayed by our government has shattered meaningful democracy and cast aside the common interest in favour of short-term gain and private profit […] We hereby declare the bonds of the social contract to be null and void.”
~ Extinction Rebellion declaration
. . .
Words have not cut through. Is rebellion the only option?
“How should Australia’s parents deal with those who labour so joyously to create a world in which a large portion of humanity will perish? As I have become ever more furious at the polluters and denialists, I have come to understand they are threatening my children’s wellbeing as much as anyone who might seek to harm a child.”
“Us older generation should be painfully aware that our efforts have not been enough to protect our children. Should we continue to use words to try to win the debate? Or should we become climate rebels? Changing the language around climate denialism will, I hope, sharpen our focus as we ponder what comes next.”
~ Tim Flannery – a professorial fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne
“We are ordinary people who can’t sleep at night…”
“Indeed, it is this ordinariness that is perhaps the most compelling aspect of Extinction Rebellion.
We are 80-year-old grandparents, and 40-year-old parents and 20-year-old tradies.
We are psychologists and truck drivers and electricians.
We are ordinary people who can’t sleep at night worrying about the climate emergency.
We are grown men who cry when asked about the future.
We are stepping way out of our comfort zones because we feel we must.
We are the powerless, just like you, trying to find our voice in a world that defers always to the powerful.
As Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl who triggered mass global school strikes told the UN last week, “the world is waking up”.
And I believe, with that waking up comes personal responsibility.”
~ Chloe Adams, journalist.
→ The Guardian – 7 October 2019:
Extinction Rebellion arrestables photo essay