Beyond XR: Could government failure at Cop26 fire the starting gun on a brave green future?
Harry Cockburn
3 hrs ago
"To stave off the most catastrophic impacts of living in an overheating world, we must slash greenhouse gas emissions down to practically nothing. We have known this for a long time. Yet emissions are still rising. Even as hundreds of people have drowned across Europe this summer in terrifying extreme weather events made “nine times” more likely by human-induced climate change, and as scores of wildfires ravaged the US and Canada following a heatdome made “150 times” more likely by human-induced climate change, projects to recover more oil, more coal and more gas are continuing. And the countries claiming to lead the response to the crisis, such as the UK and the US, are engaged in huge new fossil fuel enterprises. With thousands of the world’s best scientists from hundreds of institutions around the world united in their message that every year is vital in the race to cut emissions to zero, the gulf between the understanding of the perils, and the action required to deal with them, has never seemed bigger."
The Independent spoke to former XR strategist and spokesperson Rupert Read, who is also a professor of philosophy at the University of East Anglia, to find out what is going on. Crucially, he describes it as XR having “moved the Overton window – the window of what’s politically possible. XR has opened this huge space, but it may now be for others to enter this huge space and really use it – who don’t seem so polarising to the average person.” It is this new space that Read is now intensely focused on.
But while it is tempting to suggest a new, more moderate environmentally focused organisation or party could fill this power vacuum in a revolution which could supersede the likes of the Green Party, take power from the government and leave XR as a more radical flank of the environment movement, Read hesitantly rejects the notion of a sweeping revolutionary force.
“It would be great. I have no idea whether it’s possible,” he says. “I do think the Green Party needs to step up in relation to this crisis. I have co-created a new organisation loosely affiliated to the Green Party called ‘Greens CAN’ – Greens Climate Action Network. Basically the idea is that the Green Party, as well as contesting elections, should engage in non-violent civil-disobedience.” He says he hopes this will create a “radical flank to the Green Party, but it would be a moderate flank to Extinction Rebellion – a little more careful than Extinction Rebellion is sometimes being, so as not to alienate people”.
But asked how groups such as Greens Can, the Green Party, XR and other environment groups, can really take power from government on the timescale required to meet the demands of the IPCC report, Read does not offer a particular framework. Instead, his optimism lies in the fractured, piecemeal reaction of the public to the worsening environment crisis, which he believes will kick-start a more grass-roots revolution of public priorities. “I think it’s quite possible that we’re going to see a big upsurge in workplace-based activism. We may be starting to see that with the creation of Lawyers for Net Zero, for example.”
“It’s a useful thought experiment – if our children can’t go on symbolic strikes for an hour or a day, then why can’t the rest of us? That could be possible to get a significantly larger cohort of people involved in. We need to try something new again,” Read adds. What could be the trigger that could take the environment level to the next level? It’s on the imminent horizon – Cop26. “It’s going to be a huge wake-up call,” says Read. “After the terrible weather and the ‘code red’ IPCC report, the huge wake up call is going to be when the world realises that the world’s so-called leaders are definitively not coming to the rescue.”
“If they make any agreement at all at Glasgow, it is going to be so woefully inadequate. “Then there is going to be a huge mobilisation opportunity. What I’m seeking to do – along with many other people – is to prepare for that, really. We don’t know exactly what’s going to work, but it seems to me that what’s going to work is something which is very honest and direct about the situation, but has lower barriers to entry than existing movements such as XR are perceived, rightly or wrongly, to have. This could mobilise a much larger phalanx of the population to understand that our government, our so-called leaders, are not coming to rescue us and that we have to act in a much more direct and dramatic way, and in much larger numbers.
We are living in terrifying unprecedented times, but that also creates unprecedented possibilities. “We’re going to change history.” This sounds like revolution. But Read does not characterise it as such. “I don’t think there’s going to be a revolution. What I’m looking for is a really huge mobilisation which is going to put a lot more pressure on existing governments. The potential for some of that mobilisation to take place through politics – so that’s where something like Greens CAN could come in, and also a more direct building of resilience – of community action – given the extent to which the powers that be have failed us.”
“We are living in terrifying unprecedented times, but that also creates unprecedented possibilities,” he says. The concept that the environment crisis will have to be dealt with by existing governments and within the framework of capitalism remains highly alien to the wider environmental movement. This is what Read’s inclusive, non-polarising efforts are grappling with. But it also appears he is leaving some room for manoeuvre, almost saying, “if there is a revolution, bring it on.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/be ... d=msedgntp
Aside from the admission a philosopher professor is actively recruiting for a revolution, and all the crap I edited out about the rise and fall of XR's stock, so to speak - I do not agree that XR have moved the Overton window of what's politically possible. I think climate change has moved that window. When California is on fire end to end, throwing paint and blocking traffic is just gilding the lily. Governments and industry know; whether they admit it or not. XR role has been to make the public aware of what governments and industry already know. i.e. we know you know.
Professor Read draws the conclusion "our government, our so-called leaders, are not coming to rescue us and that we have to act in a much more direct and dramatic way, and in much larger numbers" ... but without saying what this green revolutionary government would do instead. It's very reminiscent of Communism. Cast off your chains - and hand them over to us! No thank you! It won't happen, but nonetheless, the green left are clearly concerned with power - before they are concerned with the climate.
My own concern has been with proving that a sustainable future is possible, and describing what is necessary to that future - on the basis of a scientific understanding of reality, and given todays technologies. It requires international cooperation to develop magma energy on a very large scale, for the purposes of addressing climate change. It would mean massive infrastructure, but the cost shared by the world; relative to continued and escalating climate catastrophes, is tiny. Basically, I suggest drilling through hot rock close to magma chambers and subduction zones, pumping water through to produce steam, to generate electricity - and I suggest this energy is used initially to sequester carbon, desalinate, irrigate and recycle - while building capacity, to transition from fossil fuels. I would then suggest a sectoral approach obviates many of the national and capitalist economic conflicts in transitioning to clean energy - so starting with energy intensive industries like concrete, steel and aluminium.
In this way, in contrast to Professor Read, I have sought to devise a strategy to solve climate change that falls within the Overton window of what's politically possible, and the fact/hope I'm able to - write something sensible within this pre-existing and socially acceptable Overton window, begs the question of why Professor Read and his ilk have not even tried. I don't think it's a matter of piety, per se - none can doubt they have genuine environmental concern. Rather, it's a product of the very structure of left wing thought - informing an environmental narrative since the 1960's that presumes Limits to Resources for the purposes of anti-capitalist politics, i.e. the left have no solutions because their only solution is themselves!
