It can be easy to feel disillusioned and powerless as a young person today. (I’m 23.) A casual swipe through social media, and the barrage of damning statistics, petition pages and lukewarm infographics that awaits leaves me overwhelmed and riddled with fear for what my future — and woe betide that of any offspring I could eventually have — holds. In my lifetime, CO 2 emissions from fossil fuels have increased catastrophically. Even if we, by some miraculous feat, do manage to curtail global emissions by 2050, temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise throughout this century. But, as the planet hurtles towards doom, we have two choices: sit back and worry or get up and do something.
Many already are. You’ll doubtless be familiar with Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion (XR), The Climate Coalition and their stunts. Those and others have blockaded Oxford Circus in a pink party boat (Extinction Rebellion), poured milk on Harrods’ floor (Animal Rebellion) and brought the M25 to a standstill (Just Stop Oil). Last weekend, demonstrators from Animal Rising delayed the start of the Grand National when they breached the tracks. Their argument has long been that such havoc breeds headlines, which in turn raises awareness. But when, for example, those actions prevent pensioners from getting to urgent hospital appointments, it can prove hard to keep the public on side. Last year, activists from Just Stop Oil hurled tins of tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. A move that — to say the least — divided opinion.
But is a change in tack afoot for activism? This year, XR released a global statement announcing ‘we quit’, and a move towards peaceful protesting, citizen’s assemblies, and forming and building alliances. When XR first came on to the scene few would have anticipated such a pivotal move away from disruptive campaigns, but this weekend they will gather outside the Houses of Parliament — along with 200 more organisations including Greenpeace, Cafod and Friends of the Earth — for The Big One, a four-day, non-violent demonstration against the Government’s negligence towards the ongoing ‘too impossible to ignore’ environmental, economic and social crisis.
People understand the power in knitting our causes and our struggles together
Clare Farrell, co-founder of XR, recognises that her movement is by no means ‘perfect’. But she hopes that it can spark a fairer democracy and compassionate approach to politics. After all, XR’s concern is not why to fight — fighting for the future is a given — it is how to fight in order to achieve the best outcome for our planet. ‘People are welcomed into a space where they understand the power in knitting our causes and our struggles together, understanding the connections between each other and how we can work together,’ she says.
Farrell seems aware that there is a bit of an image problem. Critics of XR argue that its actions are counterproductive, that in the disruption it isolates people from the cause. There is also, says Farrell, a misunderstanding that XR campaigners are ‘middle-class grannies or crusties that are really dangerous’. Yet amid all the woke-warrior stereotypes percolating in the media, XR is determined to go against the grain in order to spark systemic change. Surely an ‘annoying’ conversation or delayed commute is preferable to the alternative, right?
And we are living in an age of renewed vigour in taking to the streets. Over the past year, there have been multiple public demonstrations, with industrial action reaching a scale not seen since the 1970s. The success of many notable uprisings in history lies in the art of ‘being unpopular’, which collectively leads to revolution, or as Farrell puts it, ‘making an already shit situation slightly less shit’. Take the suffragettes, whose direct, radical action gained women the right to vote, or Martin Luther King Jr’s disobedience, which was critical in the progress of the civil rights movement. Surely, decades later, nobody would challenge the means to achieve their ends.
If they can get this across, and get people on their side, climate activism groups could alter the trajectory of history. In years to come (if we are graced with the good fortune to witness it) we might be grateful for their civil disobedience. ‘The public needs more help to understand what they can achieve in troubled times,’ says Farrell. ‘People should be pulling together in the name of demanding a politics that actually tackles the problems that we face rather than what we see taking place in Westminster, which is a piss-take.’
Construction leads to change. In order to construct something you have to destroy what was there before
Orsola de Castro, co-founder of Fashion Revolution, the global movement of networkers fighting to end human and environmental exploitation in the global fashion industry, mirrors her sentiment. ‘Construction leads to change,’ says De Castro. ‘In order to construct something you have to destroy what was there before.’ She adds that ‘social media armchair activism’ has been effective in ‘waking people up’ and advises ‘not to lose sight of the collective effort it takes to change the world.’ But how much do online initiatives amount to meaningful activism?
Teenagers lip-syncing speeches on TikTok and reposting stories is undoubtedly less radical than in-person protesting, however, De Castro believes the benefits of social media shouldn’t be overlooked because of their subtlety. ‘You can think of anything that’s happening on social media as not valid because it is performative, but activism is about communication; not always going down on to the streets complaining to achieve something, but starting again and doing something more.’
As long as people feel disenfranchised there will always be social resistance, whatever form that may take. ‘Unfortunately, a big game changer is always fear,’ says De Castro. ‘[The impact of] personal activism is zero compared to actual political intervention.’ She adds: ‘Let’s hope that there continues to be opposition, whether you want to call it activism or not, or opposition to the status quo.’
As the consequences of climate change worsen with each passing year, there is much work to be done. Farrell suggests we must first restore and repair rifts across social divides, ‘working together to try to save and protect life on a collective level’ in order to herald a fairer future. ‘We are going to live in a world that’s destabilised. We really need to pull together to be able to survive, and there’s a lot of difficulty and challenge in that because we live in a fractured world,” says Farrell. For XR, “every day is Earth Day. That’s the thing.’
