My Take On What’s Going On With Extinction Rebellion

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Note that this is a reader’s response to Scott Cooney’s article about Extinction Rebellion, where he postulated the organization could be a front group for fossil industries or at least manipulated by them. This letter to the editor comes to us from David Woodward, and we think it’s absolutely excellent.

I don’t they’re a front for the oil industry. There is a lot of black and white thinking; they are extremists who have taken up a cause, but are, IMO, getting in the way of solutions.

The Wikipedia “Criticism” section in the Extinction Rebellion (XR) article is worth a read. Some of the criticisms are that they are white and middle class. An example of this is point 2 of their citizen’s assembly process. “Establish a media budget large enough to ensure all people in the country are aware of and engaged with the CA — this puts pressure on the government to follow the CA’s final recommendations.” If somebody is working three jobs and commuting 4 hours a day, they don’t have the time or energy to be thoroughly aware and “engage.”

Looking at their 3 demands — and that language is illustrative, “demands;” not “core principles,” not “foundations,” not “aims” — this is the language of extremism. This is the language of Marxism, of autocracy, of hostage takers. “We know best,” any dissent is heresy.

Their first demand is “tell the truth.”

“Governments worldwide are failing to act, consistently refusing to acknowledge the serious and imminent threat posed by this twin crisis.” There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance going on here. On the same page of their website they cite the Inter*governmental* Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as an authority of what governments must come on board with.

From ClimateEmergencyDeclaration.org, “2,359 jurisdictions in 40 countries have declared a climate emergency. Populations covered by jurisdictions that have declared a climate emergency amount to over 1 billion citizens.”

XR demand 1) “Without leadership, citizens, corporations and institutions lack direction and purpose in the fight against this climatic and ecological nightmare that worsens with every passing day.”

It’s as if they don’t spend enough time reading CleanTechnica … 8)

There is plenty of leadership, active and informed citizens, and even some corporations.

Further down the same page, they have a critique of governments based on a 2020 report. This is the sole paragraph on the US: “The USA’s mitigation efforts are rated ‘critically insufficient’ as it is in the process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, scrapping the Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) that formed the basis of their promise to act.”

Hello, 2024? Biden? 19 Feb 2021, first day in office, back in the Paris agreement. They are 4 years out of date on this issue — ancient history.

Their demand #3 is for citizens assemblies. I like the idea of citizens assemblies, but they need resources and a budget. If they are going to be effective, they need to be long enough to work through the process. So, if they are going to be representative, they need to pay the members. Otherwise, they filter by people who can afford the time. They also need detailed personal information about everybody in the population they are selected from. Otherwise, they can’t select (by XR’s own process) for a representative membership.

Who is supposed to do this? CAs can only work under governments. They can’t arise spontaneously.

Boing Boing recently pointed me to a Gurwinder’s “The Prism” blog essay, “The Rise of Neotoddlerism: How society encourages activists to behave like infants.” He says there has been a rise of outrageous demonstrations with the rise of social media. He also points out that these protests can be *counterproductive*. I remember one XR protest in Australia, where they blocked traffic. This meant ICE cars idling and spewing CO2, and also would have turned people against the purported message. Worth a read, and a very good analysis. “The ease with which dramatic behavior gets attention online has convinced many political activists that a better world doesn’t require years of patient work, only a sufficient quantity of drama. Many activists on both the Left and Right now hope to bring about their ideal world the same way a spoiled brat acquires a toy they’ve been denied: by being as loud and hysterical as possible. This is neotoddlerism: the view that utopia can be achieved by acting like a three-year old.”

XR is a kind of tone policing. They are outraged, they demand we should all be outraged. I’d rather get on with the job.