The following is reposted from Daniel Pinchbeck’s newsletter.

Daniel Pinchbeck: I want to let you know about a new activist movement I am supporting, Extinction Rebellion. Our movement is using large-scale direct actions to pressure governments to move faster on climate change.

We have three immediate demands. One is that governments tell the truth about the ecological emergency we are facing as a species. The second is we move to carbon neutral by 2025. This is, obviously, an extreme position but it accords with what the hundreds of scientists who compiled the UN’s 2018 IPCC Report have told us: Without rapid collective action, global civilization will collapse in the next decades. We may in fact face our extinction as a species. The third demand is for a global citizen’s council, a participatory and democratic process that oversees governments in fulfilling the first two goals. 

Extinction Rebellion (XR) also has a set of principles. One of these is that the movement is decentralized and autonomous. This means anyone can start their own local offshoot if they support XR’s demands and abide by the principles. XR recently shut down a number of bridges in London. A few months later, the City of London declared a climate emergency and accelerated its timeframe for going carbon neutral significantly. Sustained public pressure can have a powerful impact, if people are willing to risk themselves for a greater cause. Governments need us to act. 

We have our first XR Mass Meeting in New York this Saturday afternoon. All the information is here. If you live locally, please come. If you don’t live locally, please start your own group and start mobilizing. 

We are out of time and we must act forcefully and quickly, or there will be no Earth for our children to inhabit. Please message me with questions or offers of support for the movement.