Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg and the UK Climate Debate

It's been an interesting couple of weeks here in Britain where the climate change debate is concerned.

Just as things had quietened down in the media about the school children striking about climate change than we had the Extinction Rebellion phenomenon, the sudden appearance of Greta Thunberg (who'd started of the strikes amongst school kids) in Britain to talk in Parliament, and a high impact documentary from David Attenborough called 'Climate Change: The Facts'.

All in the space of a week.

Extinction Rebellion (aka XR), are a group of climate protestors who decided to take 'direct action' in London. This meant such things as super-gluing themselves to trains and entrances to major financial institutions, blocking major roads and bridges, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They had been planning this for months and the idea was to put climate change at the top of the political agenda in the UK. They knew that there'd be arrests, they were prepared for it, and indeed, they were counting on it. They were arrested in their hundreds, and yet, each day, more would join the protests, inspired by their actions.

Whatever you think of their methods, when governments fail to respond to strong public feeling, then all there's left is direct action. This happened with women's fight for the right to vote, and the civil rights movement in the States.

The XR protests were peaceful, good natured, and they made their point well. The arrival of Greta in Britain, to speak to XR and then to party leaders in Parliament upped the ante. To see this young woman confronting our politicians with her quiet dignity and direct, no nonsense language was, frankly, inspirational. She speaks for a generation whose future is being thrown away while governments do nothing. Those party leaders must have known they'd met their match and, for once, I think they actually listened.

And then, whilst this was all going on, there was David Attenborough's 'Climate Change: The Facts' film. If this documentary isn't a call to arms, I don't know what is.

I think the coming together of these three elements galvanised many people in this country. So the XR protests grew, and the emails/letters/calls to MPs went through the roof, dwarfing those from Brexit.

Suddenly Climate Change was back on the agenda and, not only that, at the very top.

I was sceptical that anything would actually come from this. After all, our politicians are past masters at saying the right things (to placate the voters) but doing nothing. However, the opposition in Parliament, bless 'em, forced a debate yesterday about whether there was a climate emergency. I watched a fair bit of this debate live and I've got to say I was impressed about how many MPs, on both sides of the House, actually got it. Oh, there were a few Tory MPs who got up to defend the government's record on bringing down carbon emissions, but it was pretty much unanimous - Their IS an emergency, Britain (and the World) isn't doing enough, there was plenty more we could do, and we needed up our ambition and our sense of urgency.

Bottom line: Parliament declared a national climate emergency.

Wow.

Of course, it remains to be seen if all these fine words will be turned into action, but the signs are looking good. An emergency has been declared, the government HAVE to respond.

Is this history in the making or just another false dawn?