It was August 2018, a pleasant enough time in Sweden’s capital Stockholm, when 15-year-old Greta Thunberg first chose to break the law. She decided that she would skip school in order to protest against government inaction about climate change, ‘skolstrejk för klimatet’ her cardboard poster read. At the time the young girl’s actions appeared to be insignificant against the large beige walls of the Riksdag, her voice was sure to ring hollow in the halls of power elsewhere. 3 years on we know this not to be entirely true, yet the question still begs to be addressed, have all of these demonstrations against climate change actually translated into palpable action by leaders around the world? I would argue they did, particularly through the case of extinction rebellion in the UK and non-violent civil disobedience. Non-violent civil disobedience sounds like an odd catchphrase but it has proved to be an effective strategy when it comes to raising climate awareness and enacting change. This method of protest can be traced back to one of the greatest resistance in history, Gandhi’s ‘Satyagraha’ or devotion to truth.
He read Thoreau’s 19th-century essay on civil disobedience whilst in prison in South Africa and went on to successfully overturn discriminatory laws there, whilst also using the approach to fight British colonialism in India (Hendrick, 1956). Today it is being utilised by groups such as Extension Rebellion (XR) in the United Kingdom. The name is often met with groans and a poll by Public First does show that XR is one of the few protest groups which finds more opposition than support. Yet despite their staggering unpopularity they appear to be reaching their aim because as Hallam- one of the brains behind the project- said, the group is combatting “societal collapse” and therefore likeability is simply irrelevant. Over a period ranging 8 years, climate protests inspired no significant response from the British government (Barasi, 2014) and yet in a short time, XR has managed to score two separate parliamentary debates about climate change.
More recently school strikes for the fight against climate change, largely inspired by Ms Thunberg, did result in parliament raising the issue again, however, it was notable that only 10 MPs were in attendance in contrast to the attention the commons lavished on XR, even if a lot of it came in the form of criticism. Its impact doesn’t taper off there, the group was easily recognisable by nearly 60 percent of adults in the UK (Public first, 2021) a threshold that is impressive for a protest group. It is understood that the group’s actions in April 2019, when they shut down major London roads played a large role in the spike in Google searches about climate change, overpassing the height it reached in 2015 when Paris COP was held, whereas mentions in the UK media also reached a 5-year high. This development is imperative in enacting social change as MPs in the UK cite climate change as an ‘outside’ issue and state that they hesitate to voice their concerns due to a lack of interest from their constituents (Wills, 2018). Of course, it isn’t merely about piquing interest into the catastrophic rises in global temperature, after less than a year of their founding, they got the UK to declare a climate emergency in the April of 2019, making it the first country in the world to do so. This was the first of their 3 demands that also include a commitment to zero emissions by 2025 along with a citizens’ committee that would replace the government, consist of randomly selected civilians and - they argue- would do a better job than the current electoral system. Admittedly the latter aims are more politically and economically contentious therefore more difficult to realise yet based upon the group’s impressive impact so far, it stands to reason that they will continue their triumphant momentum to enact more meaningful social change.
In France and the UK, a more muted version of the citizen’s assembly has already been organised, consisting of 150 and 110 randomly selected citizens respectively and given the power to act on cutting carbon emissions. XR’s success can be pinned down to their unorthodox approach that is similar to not only Satyagraha but also the American civil rights movement. They’ve taped themselves against the London stock exchange, blocked parliament, brought grand cities like New York to a standstill and more, all of which are attention-seeking actions. Arrests in particular are cited by its founders as effective in garnering media attention, that rise in google searches was premediated by over 1000 arrests in London, people referred to as ‘arrestables’ join the movement with the pure intention of getting into legal trouble. The aim of course is to increase media coverage and ultimately exhaust the courts, allegedly to get governments onto the bargaining table. The movement is based around research done by political scientists that argue for peaceful disobedience. 3.5 percent is the golden number often adduced as imperative to achieving systemic change. If 3.5 percent of a country’s population rises up no government could resist (Chenoweth, 2013), thus XR has identified expanding their footfall as key to achieving further change. In that they have been even more effective, largely in thanks to the apex climate warrior Greta Thunberg herself. The young activist backed XR in its early days, helping expand beyond its grassroots in the UK.
The true takeaway from this group’s strategy is in not only understanding why their ideas work but also simultaneously appreciating the urgency of the issue they protest. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing us in the 21st century and will require a Herculean effort to combat. But recognising the change that XR has made is only the first step in applying their ideas to other movements. Protest, if done successfully, could ensure that generations down the line find their world not only environmentally hospitable but also free of prejudice and injustices, a world worth protesting for.
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