Climate Change Protests - will they make a difference?

I understand you are proud of your grandson Gonegirl, but you have taken all criticism of XR far too personally. If your grandson was a member of any other group would you feel the same? I have a son in the Police service, should I be disgusted and angry at every criticism of the police? No, I'm intelligent enough to realise that as with any large collective of people there are good and bad. My son is an excellent, honest, hardworking detective, but he would acknowledge that there are bad apples in the barrel. Not every protestor is as pure as the driven snow.

And having caught up with a few posts I'd missed I'd hope gonegirl amongst others will be praising our police or else I will feel personally insulted and aggrieved on behalf of my son and his colleagues. This is exactly how misguided this whole argument is...............

Gonegirl No one is against you, why should we be? We simply do not agree with your views.

GN would be irrelevant and terminally boring if everybody agreed with each other. The purpose of the forums like GN is for people to discuss issues and people from all sides of an argument to express views and see them come under public scrutiny and examination.

Unlike many political threads this has been a reasonable and thoughtful thread with different people putting forward different views and defending them in a civilised way.

It is a shame to now see it descending to name calling and insults of the kind usually found in school playgrounds.

A family were interviewed yesterday, they said the protest was not being organised , yet emails are going to the protesters from ‘ the organisers ‘

I agree Anja.

Like the rest of us, the protesters are imperfect. That, however, does not invalidate their message. Some may not like how they are delivering it, but I really think we need to listen.

Greta Thunberg is a hero of our time.

Too many old grans are objecting to Extinction Rebellion because those spreading the important message are imperfect. To blame the messengers is a way to try to avoid personal responsibility. It's a hollow excuse. If you grans who can reasonably walk, camp, and travel to your nearest demo could do so you ought to do so :no excuse. The EARTH NEEDS YOU!

There are better and more effective ways of changing attitudes to climate change. Not least of these is economically. ie specifically boycotting products and services that are environmentally damaging. Not buying cheaply produced items from heavily polluting countries. would help too.
Hit environmentally damaging countries in their pockets rather than inconveniencing the British public and inadvertently causing much more pollution.
Environmentalists need to develop far smarter tactics.

We were very lucky in our area to have free school bus services for middle and senior schools. Saved so many car journeys and road jams. I think that should he funded and rolled out around the country.

For the first school we had a walking bus which worked really well. Brilliant to see the lines of kids walking to school and chatting rather than sat in a car looking at life.

That would do help the obesity issues in children too. It’s little personal changes that can really help.

jane10

I so agree I remember the boycotting of South African goods during the apartheid era.

Ummm, I think my point of view is we are the one thing the earth does not need.

Not in such quantities anyway.

And not agreeing with a disruptive demonstration doesn’t mean avoiding personal responsibility. Over this weekend I have lived a more personally responsible life in terms of earth friendliness than anyone who has travelled to the demonstration.

The demonstration has caused pollution. Will any good it does offset the damage? Who knows.

If you grans who can reasonably walk, camp, and travel to your nearest demo could do so you ought to do so
Perhaps I should have hopped on a plane like Emma.

There are others ways, there are thousands of people quietly working away, scientists finding new ecological solutions, others lobbying governments.

Join Greenpeace - if you can do no more then your support will help.

I certainly hope that they make a difference but I bet they don't. I just hope that they cleared up after themselves and took away the tents etc. and recycled the waste properly. Its such a shame as man alone is going to damage this planet. I do my best to recycle everything but I know my neighbour just couldnt give a damn.

No, I will not be attending any demos, while the demonstrators are demanding we go emission free by 2025 unless they first produce a peer reviewed report explaining how this can be done. Currently they are high on rhetoric and very low on specifics and while they are training in one supporter, who could have been there without any travel and welcoming as a supporter a celebrity who has flown in from California, as far as I know a journey she would not have made were it not for the demonstration. Their own credentials must be in doubt.

As Callistemon says There are others ways, there are thousands of people quietly working away, scientists finding new ecological solutions, others lobbying governments. If I can be vulgar enough to boast, two members of my immediate family are making just such contributions. DH, in his mid-late 70s, is still working and advising on and enabling the installation of wind turbines offshore in this country and overseas. He has made a major contribution to the installation of hundreds of wind turbines and hopes to be doing this for some years to come. DD works for an engineering research centre and is involved in developing nascent technologies for energy conservation and efficient renewable production.

I am curious, where are they finding food, not supermarkets or take away’s surely

I’m not sure if you will all be able to see this but I thought it may be pertinent to the discussion.
it’s in the Times today.
I know that I would like my DD to live in the U.K. but not this way.
I’m off to get the bedroom ready for her and my Sinl!
I know I sound a bit flippant but I’m not really.
A slightly higher world temperature may be nice for us in the U.K. but will course cause havoc for so manyother countries.
If we thought the migrants we are dealing with now are a problem they are as nothing compared to what we may be faced with. Even DD’s
I think that the protesters have made their point. It is up to the rest of us to take up the baton.
Unfortunately how we do that I don’t know.

God! You lot are boring.

I will say one one final thing and then I'm off.

This is not about Extinction Rebellion. It's certainly not about Gonegirl. It's not even about Gonegirl's Gorgeous Grandson.

IT'S ABOUT THE PLANET OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, AND THEIR CHILDREN, AD INFINITUM, WILL INHERIT.

It could be such a marvellous place if governments ACT NOW.

My post certainly wasn't aimed at you Pamela. (I realise it could seem like that. Sorry)

Yes but governments have to act now and take the people with them.

Just not sure demos like this take the vast majority with them. I think this alienates people rather than galvanises them.

Time will tell

Gonegirl I just don't understand your antagonistic attitude - everyone posting has agreed something needs to be done about climate change, there are just disagreements about whether the protest by ER is the right way to effect change.

They've already made a difference. They've got people talking.

MOnica excellent post, as was your earlier one. We need their plan of how this demand can be met. But as soon as anyone mentions this they accused of being "anti" or uncaring about the planet. A properly costed plan because everything has a carbon cost, from electric cars, to wind turbines, to solar panels. Do we even have the manufacturing capacity to build the amounts needed in the timescale? Scrapping all the non compliant cars, boilers etc will have a carbon cost. Your DH and DD are addressing the problem in practical ways, actions that really can help towards the goal we'd all want to achieve.
I'm afraid Extinction Rebellion have made this more about them by the methods they've employed. Governments and big business are the ones with power to change things and government haven't been the least bit inconvenienced by the protest.

*they're accused

Pamela yes, I have been fully aware of the drought in parts of Australia, followed by devastating floods where cattle have drowned in water and mud.
Droughts have always been part of the Australian climate - but cows and sheep, rabbits and camels have not always been there and the population then knew how the land and climate worked and lived according to Earth's rules.

IT'S ABOUT THE PLANET OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, AND THEIR CHILDREN, AD INFINITUM, WILL INHERIT.

Exactly, and what will there be for our children and grandchidren if we ruin the economy, become a 5th world country, where children are starving in the streets, hospitals do not have the power to conduct operations or money to buy drugs and and their is a mass migration of people from this country to other countries, in the way that, over time, Iraqis, Syrians and Afghanis have fled here, because their economies have become basket cases?

Gonegirl, how do you fancy your children and gorgeous grandson living in a camp like they do at Calais, trying to jump a lorry that will take them to somewhere in Russia or the Middle East that might give them assylum. Remember by then we will no longer be part of the EU.

What gets things done is not demonstrators in the streets but family members like mine and no doubt the efforts of the family members of other GN members, but first and foremost by us in our homes and in our lives.

^ unless they first produce a peer reviewed report explaining how this can be done.^

Richard Murphy has some ideas. I can't see them being popular as they are tax related but they do act to make everyone responsible, not just people who want to do their bit.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/