The Scientists Have Had Enough

We have understood the science of the climate crisis for over 30 years. The first IPCC report, where the world’s scientific community set out the scale of the problem, came out in 1990. But our governments chose not to act then, and still fail us today.

It is from that failure that protest movements like XR have sprung, and scientists have played a generous role in supporting our rebellion and offering us expertise. But, though integrated with our movement, they have tended to stay away from direct action.

Between November 2020 and February 2021, 30 local residents, selected by a process called sortition to give a group that was representative for the district, met to learn about the climate crisis from experts. After the 10 sessions, the participants decided which actions should be a priority in Warwick District and presented these as a recommendation to the District Council (which declared a climate emergency in 2019).

The UK Rebellion Of One team has taken the difficult decision to move our action date to 1st May.

While this may be disappointing and frustrating news to some, we are hearing many rebel voices across the UK who think a delay could make the action more powerful.

You Are an Animal

Back in the summer of 2019, a small group of UK rebels felt something was missing from the exciting wave of climate activism that XR had ushered into the world.  Our first International Rebellion had pushed the climate emergency into popular culture, and we were busy linking the climate crisis with other systems of human oppression - the crises of Capitalism, and Colonialism, and the Patriarchy.  But one oppressive ideology was not being mentioned. Speciesism - the belief that one species of animal can be morally superior to and so dominate another.

Familiarise yourself in the company of other XRWD rebels

XR UK now has its own communications setup called The Hub bringing together all sorts of resources including Rebellion Academy, Rebel Toolkit, Forums and Mattermost.

Mattermost is XR's own chat platform with groups/channels at local, regional and national level. We have set up our own XRWD channel.

XRWD is taking part in the UK-wide campaign on Friday 26th March to raise the profile of the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill amongst MPs. This is the date when the Bill was due to have its second reading, however Friday sittings in Parliament have been cancelled until after Easter due to the pandemic so we need to keep it in the public eye.

We had another lively meeting where we discussed a banner drop on March 26^th in support of the CEE bill and heard from our external coordinator about all the training that’s available while we’re unable to protest as a group on the streets. The training includes an introduction to Money Rebellion (every Tuesday at 6.00) which is an action we can all be involved in even in these times of restricted social contact.

Have you got evidence for our Judicial Review?

Taken from a newsletter from the Stop HS2 Campaign

After an eight-month wait, we finally have a date for the permissions hearing of our Judicial Review, a legal challenge against the decision by Government to issue HS2 with Notice to Proceed. Besides the fact that the criteria for issuing Notice to Proceed seem to have been completely ignored, the case is being brought on two main grounds: Fraud and Environment.

Joe has recorded a video message which you can view here

After 500 people recently participated in an international XR open zoom session, many have expressed a desire for more opportunities to connect. XR World is an opportunity to bring us as a movement together with like-minded friends to listen and learn from one another.

An alliance of dedicated XR members in different countries are proposing creating an event so rebels can come together to celebrate the vital work they are doing, to enjoy great talks and testimonies, and discover to concrete tactics that work in a range of workshops. Suggestions include;

Maybe you remember seeing videos last year of XR groups at climate demos around the UK (and the world) performing an amazing and joyful discobedience routine to 'Stayin' Alive'...

here's an example in Australia: https://twitter.com/xrebellionaus/status/1182514123071840257

...and one outside Buckingham Palace: https://www.facebook.com/XRSouthEastUK/videos/discobedience/305722164064631/).