Extinction Rebellion stage one-person roadblocks to urge government to address climate crisis
By Jacob Paul
Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters in despair took to the streets to stage one-person roadblocks in an attempt to get the government to address the climate crisis.
XR Lambeth blocked roads across Brixton and Clapham, while XR Wandsworth members took to Sloane Square in Chelsea and other parts of Central London on May 1.
The protesters wore sandwich board signs with heartfelt messages like ‘I’m terrified how my nieces will die because of the climate crisis’, and sat cross-legged in front of traffic as a part of their Rebellion of One campaign.
Hannah, who sat in Abbeville Road, Clapham said: ‘I am sitting in the road as an act of peaceful civil disobedience, which you might see as crazy, disruptive and annoying. To be honest it fills me with terror to sit in this road.
“What if a car runs me over, what if an angry driver hits me or drags me out of the road? I am a wife and a mother-of-three, so I don’t undertake this action lightly.
“But I need to ask everyone to stand up and act against climate and ecological breakdown because I’m terrified that our leaders have no plan.”
Jason, who sat in Brixton Water Lane, said: “‘I’m terrified of what children being born today will have to live through – global food and water shortages, the persecution of people fleeing unhabitable countries.
“But most of all, I’m terrified that our government is so short-sighted and power-hungry that they are doing nothing about it.”
66-year-old retired postman/West End doorman/rave organiser Peter Harrison from Battersea, sat at the Coalbrookdale Gates of Kensington Gardens, whose sign read: “I am terrified about what happens to us disabled, elderly, vulnerable pensioners when society collapses because of climate change.”
He said: “I sat in solidarity with all solo protestors who brought about radical change, from Luther to Gandhi to Thunberg. A small lever can move mountains.”
72-year-old artist Fio Adamson from Furzedown stopped traffic in Sloane Square for 20 minutes, wearing a sign that read: “I’m terrified for millions of people who have to flee their homes because of the climate crisis.”
She said: ““Ahmed is 19-years-old, the apple of his mother’s eye and her eldest son.
“The village stream has dried up and food is scarce, so his young brothers and sisters are constantly hungry and thirsty.
“Everyone is heartbroken but he has to leave so one member of the family has a chance of survival.
“After a few weeks they never hear from him again. He may have lost his phone, died in a lorry or drowned in the English Channel. They will never know.
“I’m sitting here for that family and for millions of others suffering losses, drought, fires and floods.”
XR’s Rebellion of One campaign involved a wave of lone road blocking being carried out by thousands of rebels across the country, and the world, to raise the alarm that government and businesses have failed to match their promises to cut CO2 emissions with radical and urgent plans to do so.
The nationwide actions were staged to mark the second anniversary of Parliament’s Declaration of a Climate Emergency,
Boris Johnson recently announced that the UK would ‘toughen’ its climate targets, pledging to cut emissions by 78 per cent by 2035, compared to 1990 levels.
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The extinction rebellion movement was born the UK as a response to the climate change crisis and has since spread all over the World. These people are warriors and this is something we Brits can be proud of. The government need to act to halt fossil fuels forthwith. Where there is a will there’s a way and Britain can be part of the green revolution in renewable energy and in doing so create new jobs and a much better World.
I’m so grateful for brave people like this who make themselves vulnerable in order to inconvenience traffic for a relatively short while to make us pause and think deeply about a far far bigger inconvenience. In the words of Arundhuti Roy “the Covid crisis will feel like a cuddly toy compared to the growing climate crisis”. I say this with absolute respect to those lost and suffering in the pandemic but we do have something locked in and looming very large that needs urgent attention.
That made my heart stop, thinking of how much courage and love it took for one woman to stand in traffic, out of love for her family and other people’s families. Real heroes at a time when rapid climate change is accelerating beyond the abilities of current science. It’s sad they had to put their own lives and wellbeing on the line to make those in power think of our children’s lives – every newspaper should be reporting on how we’re losing the battle to hand over a planet that is not a raging inferno to our children. Such tragically short sighted thinking – some politicians are so used to being protected from life’s difficulties by their wealth or power they struggle to see that the other 99% don’t experience such luxuries