“The era of global boiling has arrived,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres has declared. And the world’s media? Missing in action — most of them, anyway — refusing to fulfil journalism’s promise: to put the facts together in a way that should power the world to respond with the urgency the moment demands,” wrote Christopher Warren in Crikey: “As the planet burns, the world’s media wilfully ignores the big picture.”
The X-formerly-Twitter platform appears to be boiling just as well – with a steady stream of tweets promoting and supporting protesters who angrily note that while record temperatures are causing record levels of destruction around the planet, fossil fuel companies continue to shovel in record profits, while, in spite of various political promises, those taxpayer-funded subsidies the fossil fuel companies are receiving from governments are also rising to record levels. There is an escalation on all fronts. Even carbon emissions are rising year after year, though they should be falling.
The protesters are facing higher and higher punishments and imprisonments for the disruptions they cause in public, and as a way to escalate the level of their protesting, they have started targeting private homes of politicians and chief executives who are responsible for major fossil fuel enterprises. On X/Twitter, they talk of uprising, resistance, rebellion and system change.
If you scroll down on this page, you will get an impression of how the global temperature of anger and frustration among climate activists is rising. At least it appears to be rising on X (formerly Twitter).
“Good people of conscience must peacefully revolt against politicians and media that value money over life itself.”
~ Matthew Todd, on X/Twitter
“We need system change. Now.”
“ “Imagine a Fire broke out in the Corner of the Studio”. @OwenJones84 brilliantly confronts @GMB on its reporting of the world’s hottest ever week and @JustStop_Oil. It’s time for the Corporate Media to step up and Tell the Truth. We need system change. Now.”
~ Robin Boardman
“We know that we cannot save the world by playing by the rules because the laws have to be changed.”
~ Greta Thunberg, Swedish climate activist
“In the future they will be regarded as heroes who did their best to try and turn around a very slow ship that is heading into extremely challenging times.”
Professor Andrea Gaynor, an environmental historian at the University of Western Australia, on protestors who use direct action and civil disobedience tactics such as blockades in response to the climate crisis
“When we look back on a generation tap-dancing at the brink of cataclysm, we’ll no doubt fete the people who put their bodies, their reputations and their freedom on the line to urge the vital measures their leaders refused to take.”
Dr Charlie Gardner
→ The Leader – 1 August 2023:
Cops laid in wait for activists at Woodside boss’s home
“West Australian counter-terrorism police were waiting for “extremist” climate activists when they arrived to protest at the Woodside Energy boss’s family home.”
“It’s not the “green cause” or the “environmentalist cause” or “Just Stop Oil’s cause”. It’s everyone’s cause. Just not everyone realises it yet.”
XR Cambridge tweet
“They laughed. Laughed. At people dying.”
Brian McHugh, commenting on X on a tv clip showing Andrew Pierce and Beverley Turner laughing at Just Stop Oil spokesperson Alex De Koning
If world was serious about climate action they would
Ban all new oil gas coal drilling
Ban all fossil fuel subsidies
Ban all deforestation
Ban draining wetlands
Ban private Jets
Ban new airports and roads expansions
Ration air travel
They will not do any of this
→ Reuters – 15 November 2007: (NB: that’s 16 years ago)
Greenpeace shuts down Australia power station