Extinction Rebellion Brisbane/Meanjin’s ‘Cycle Against Social Collapse’ caused significant disruption to peak hour traffic yesterday in the Brisbane CBD.
The cycle, which started at Kurilpa point, wound its way slowly through the CBD for over an hour before ending in Kind George Square. Traffic banked up as around 50 people rode with colourful flags and music playing through the streets, disrupting the business as usual fuelling the climate crisis and imminent social collapse. People who recently locked on to Newscorp’s printing press encouraged others to take action and shared poetry about the climate crisis.
XR spokesperson Hannah Doole said that governments and policymakers have utterly failed to do what needs to be done to protect us from the looming threat of social and ecological collapse.
‘Politicians are doing everything in their power to prop up destructive industries and taking no steps to prevent runaway climate change. Their track record shows that they cannot be trusted to act in the public interest.’
Response to government climate policies
Extinction Rebellion’s Cycle Against Social Collapse is in response to government climate policies which put us on track for over 4 degrees of warming, which scientists say will make the world inhabitable for only a billion people.
‘Our governments are knowingly participating in the killing of billions of people by ignoring the climate crisis,’ said Ms Doole. ‘We know that the collapse of ecosystems, food and water shortages and disasters like floods, cyclones and fires increasing in frequency – will ultimately lead to the break down of our societies and communities.
‘It means war, famine and billions of people being displaced by disasters and uninhabitable land.’
XR say the cycle is part of a growing global movement that uses civil disobedience tactics to push for urgent action on climate crisis. Extinction Rebellion rose to prominence in 2019 in response to the global failure of Governments to address the threat of ecological collapse.
‘XR’s keystone demand is that the government hand over control of climate policy to a “Binding Citizens Assembly” on the Climate and Ecological crisis,’ said Ms Doole. ‘A Citizens Assemblies is a jury-like institution that would effectively put the government on trial while giving everyday people the power to determine what changes need to be made to reach net zero emissions and halt biodiversity loss by 2025.’
I’ve a novel idea, how about instead of disrupting every day people working in businesses, and causing people like me who’ve had to commit to over an hour commute just to get a job after years of looking an ever longer trip, how about you piss off to where the local pollies actually hang out (cause it ain’t in King George Square) and go and disrupt their day?
Go down South and ride around ScoMo’s block, or go ride around the office for your local MPs, or something that might actually affect literally anyone who actually influences policy change….What’s holding up average people going to do, apart from get them real sick of your cause real quick and alienate them? Especially when half of THEM already try to do what they can to pressure their representatives into real policy change in approach to climate.
But I’m sure that’s all been said before, and they’re still outside my workplace instead of any Politician’s – maybe they’re too scared of the pollies to actually approach them, and instead substitute it with harassing and holding up every day people?
I feel your pain Maddy.
However, these people are frustrated and can see the death of the planet approaching terrifyingly fast. They know the imperative that ‘something’ must be done, but our entire political and military/industrial complex has been carefully designed in order to prevent any target for citizens to protest against, or hold accountable in any meaningful way. The most that can be expected is a reshuffle of pollies to the backbench or some of the worst offenders ‘may’ lose their bonuses, but nothing will change until you and I and every sentient member of our community understands that nothing else matters if we don’t save the planet.
I support XR…..
CATCH 22 Stefanie Bennett
Deliverance: the day
the sun rises
in the West.
How about standing for political office?
oh, phooey, its just easier to jump on your bike, disrupt traffic and make a heap of noise than actually doing the hard yards of changing the system via political action.
Rascal, so what party do you suggest is most likely to [A] listen
& understand the problem – and [B], step up to the size needed
to take on the LNP and Labor? Bikes, cars, & feet are an okay
but how do we make the public ‘responsible’ for the stupidity of
voting the same users / abusers in? A large percentage think
they want ‘to be a billionaire / that it’s their right.’ Monkey See,
monkey do. In this case they ‘don’t & won’t.
Yes the climate is definitely changing, Austria is having to open it ski season early due the early onset of cold weather, but you won’t read about that in the MSM narrative.
Also the Scottish Highland village of Altnaharra, Sutherland has just recorded Britain’s coldest September temperature in 23 years of minus 5, didn’t Tasmania also record its coldest temp ever recorded a month ago?