Personas & types of responses to the crisis

I felt like this until seeing XR actually start to shift public opinion. 100 years ago women couldn’t vote and “right thinking” people thought that was a good thing. There’s still a huge range of possible futures, and it’s worth fighting now to avoid the worst case scenarios. We can slow the speed at which the ship sinksis sinking and buy future generations time to act.
If you don’t like what humans are doing, hopefully we can agree that it’s still not good for billions to have their lives cut short by war or food or water shortages.

We're all sorts of people - including scruffy anarchists. but we're also:<BR> XR GrandparentsGrandparents: https://www.facebook.com/XRGrandparents<BR> XR YouthYouth: https://www.facebook.com/XRYouth/<BR> XR DoctorsDoctors: https://www.doctorsforxr.com/<BR> XR LawyersLawyers: https://www.lawyersforxr.com/<BR> XR FarmersFarmers: https://twitter.com/XRFarmers<BR> XR JewsJews: https://www.xrjews.org.uk/<BR> XR BuddhistsBuddhists: http://xrbuddhists.com/

Some of us dress smart, some dress “scruffy”, some turn up in scrubs, some in costumes. Some work flexible hours, some are unemployed, some use their annual leave to be able to come.

We’re a real mixed bag!

We really do have plenty of alternative looking people which isn't always good optics, but they are the most visible and keen.

Don’t judge a book by its cover

You want people to ignore the demand for a future in which people and other life on Earth can survive because you don’t like the outfits of some of the people in a protest?

Sure, there’s a few hippy types, but there’s also a surprising number of scientists and doctors.

Can you tell which of those hippies is the surgeon, ex-policeman, head-teacher, re, psychologist, mother, designer, musician, nurse, engineer, lorry driver, scientist?

There isn’t a clear binary between people who are concerned about the climate emergency and those who are not so it might be best to try and shift the debate from ‘majority’ vs ‘minority’ framings. (Polls show that a majority of people in the UK believe that we are in a climate emergency AND that a majority believe the government is not doing enough about it (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/18/climate-crisis-seen-as-most-important-issue-by-public-poll-shows). So you could technically claim that we are representing the majority! But it is unlikely most people are as far along in their journey of accepting the climate emergency as XR members.)

This isn’t ideological. This isn’t about religion or beliefs or preference. It’s about self survival. We need to acknowledge the crisis we’re in and work together to make solutions. That will take everybody.

It's OK to shout fire in a crowded theatre if you notice the theatre is currently on fire!

We’re trying to get the government to understand how serious the situation is, and trying to propose ways for the citizens to have more influence over the political class rather than less.

Many influential thinkers are “on the spectrum”, people with aspergers react differently to information. Sometimes our world can overload them because they find it harder to filter, but it’s not an illness, it’s more like a different computer operating system that has strengths and weaknesses.

Her message is simple “Listen to the overwhelming and urgent scientific consensus before it’s too late”? Which sounds more sane that most politicians.

XR isn't an anarchist movement, but they do aim to disrupt our way of life. To change our system of politics with the introduction of Citizens Assemblies and to change our economy by investing in technology of the future, not the past.

Breaking the law isn’t always amoral - unless perhaps it is our own government not adhering to their own laws, such as being accused by the High Court of failing to implement its own commitments of their own Climate Change Act and have systematically broken laws on air pollution limits.

So were the suffragettes/Rosa Parks/Gandhi, whom history now exhaults as heroes and role models of civil disobedience movements

• All initiated successful non violent protests
• However, be careful as from some people’s perspective they were fighting for their own rights which is slightly different.
• If appropriate, it may be worth pointing out that we are fighting for our rights of survival with the weight of science behind us.
  

Sadly, breaking the rules is sometimes the only way to get people to pay attention.

Many XR campaigners have tried legal methods such as writing to MPs, ‘awareness raising’, changing our own consumer behaviour, demonstrating, etc. Traditional approaches haven't worked.

The climate is already changing rapidly. Radical action, including peacefully breaking the law, is a proportionate response to the climate emergency. Civil disobedience forces lawmakers to into a difficult dilemma of choosing crackdown, or addressing the issues most of us are concerned about. This is what we are trying to achieve.

This is true, but the costs of not preparing and mitigating for climate change will be staggering, so it’s an investment that will pay off.

Do you know we already have climate refugees in the UK? Fairbourne in Wales are the first 1,000 whose village is now decommissioned. This story is set to be repeated.

We are already seeing millions displaced around the world, most recently in Pakistan. The UK is contributing to global funds in an attempt to help the global south mitigate impacts, because the Government knows climate migrants will come here, costing taxpayers more in the long run.

XR have a huge mixture of people from kids to people in their 80s and even older. More importantly, many are engineers, doctors and scientists, social workers, lawyers, even ex-police officers. There’s also a lot of parents who believe what the science suggests is likely to happen if we don’t change how we do things. If you are talking about our methods, that’s something else…

You're right. It's really tough. Personally I've been trying to shift to one or two animal-product-free days a week. That way I don't need to worry about it so much. I'm trying to think about red meat as a treat not a basic. Individual actions don't matter BUT it's valuable to act like you take it seriously.

Trying to use the phrase "animal-free diet" or similar as I find many people (me included) have had very negative experiences in the past with aggressively evangelical vegans.

It says a lot about the day and age that we live in, that we feel like we cannot go without cars - this is partially because our public transport is not good enough to support the population, and partly because a lot of adults living now, do not remember what it was like before cars became commonly affordable and we are lazy. Overall though, it’s about balance and reducing as much as possible. The benefits of getting a bike and using it are phenomenal. Walking the kids to school may take longer but it's healthier both for the adults and the children.

None of us are perfect, but I don’t know anyone in XR who isn’t trying to do better. Sadly, the society we live in forces impossible choices, which is why we need things to shift on a bigger scale. We can only do so much as individuals…

Most people have already made the individual changes they're able to - within their financial and social means. We've been making individual change for 30 years, but the government and big business haven't been pulling their weight. It's too easy for a government to set far off targets for another government to actually deal with, and that's all they've been doing.

First empathise rather than trivialise: I’m sorry to hear that. None of us take the disruption we cause lightly.

Our choice of methods is based on academic research showing how effective non-violent direct action has been in the past. The US civil rights movement, Gandhi’s non violence, suffragettes…

• Why Civil Resistance Works
• The Future of Nonviolent Resistance 
  

XR has come about after decades of scientists and campaigners raising concerns about the effects of human activity on the climate. The legal, not-disruptive methods haven’t worked so it is time for more radical activism (this is also a good time to point out if you’ve personally taken part in legal environmental activism).

XR is staunchly drug and alcohol free at their protests. That doesn't mean none of us drink or smoke, but it's strongly discouraged during actions. That also doesn't mean that people (Whether involved in XR or not) don't disregard that view. But for the most part, it's a pretty sober place.

When planning road blockades, making sure emergency services can get through is always part of the process; this is our “blue light” process.

It might seem surprising but we liaise with the police and other emergency services, both before and during actions, to try to make them as safe as possible.

A lot of planning and careful thought generally goes into choosing appropriate sites and making the whole action as safe as possible for ourselves and the public.

We are fully committed to being a non-violent movement. The aim is to be disruptive, not to cause anyone to get hurt.

XR is committed to non-violent actions. Engaging in violence will simply alienate the general public and undermine the cause and the message. That tactic has been proven in research to be less successful than nonviolent direct action movements.

We are an inclusive organisation. We have people who are young, old and disabled. Violent action is off-putting to more vulnerable groups.

A core principle is to work with the police to ensure everyone’s safety, whilst recognising that they are employed to maintain the status quo., and that not all people get the same treatment by police. The police do not need a reason to not follow procedure and giving them an excuse to be heavy handed helps none of us.

There are many other examples in history of non-violent protest being successful (suffragettes, etc). The key to this is having the numbers to support the movement. Small protest groups can be dealt with harshly, and with few repercussions. Large groups of protesters, drawn from all aspects of society, protesting non-violently makes it harder for that to happen as there is far more accountability.

By communicating clearly and non-violently, our message is easier to hear and respect, and is consequently spread further. We aim to build a mass movement, not to alienate unnecessarily. This is how movements become successful, by demonstrating we have the moral high ground. The government’s own Office of National Statistics says two thirds of adults in the UK already are concerned about climate change; we need them to become activists too to change the system.

XR is constituted from people of all different backgrounds and beliefs, including doctors, scientists, lawyers, and a variety of religious groups. What we have in common is our desire to try to focus the Government on taking the climate crisis seriously and setting up a Citizen’s Assembly. There are many things that we’d all disagree on amongst ourselves, but that’s the point of the Citizen’s Assembly, a truer form of Democracy that allows us to discuss, learn and decide on actions and policies. Everyone is free to express their opinions as long as it’s done with respect.