Extinction Rebellion

[Brian Peacock]

Vive la Rebellione!

[Brian Peacock]

Boris called protesters 'nose-ringed crusties in hemp-smelling bivouacs', but his father has been photographed wearing an XR badge - oops! There may be the odd whiff of hemp in the air, but no more than usual for a UK city centre, and everybody understands the importance of the no-alcohol no-drug rule at the camp sites. The most notable odour in the air this morning is the righteous wind of last night's chickpea and spinach curry from the Refugee Kitchen, who I'm told raised £6000 in donations yesterday! A little bird told me that XR UK has received £40,000 in online donations since Monday.

[JimC]

Boris has no idea that short-haired cardigan wearing old codgers can rebel with the best of 'em!

[pErvinalia]

Another day, another rebellion...

Went in today, and joined with young uni students to swarm through the CBD in small groups, with one member in each group knowing the next move, arriving at intersections unpredictably, blocking them for 10 minutes then independently swarming to the next target. No arrests, the police had no idea where we were going next...

[JimC]

Not going in anymore this week, instead I'm working on the poster/placards for the XR stall at a council festival on Sunday week. The festival has a STEM theme, so I'm including graphs and science info...

[Svartalf]

enjoy the work and enjoy the festival

[Scot Dutchy]

Who needs enemies?

Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers

Firm’s public calls for climate action contrast with backing for conservative thinktanks

Google has made “substantial” contributions to some of the most notorious climate deniers in Washington despite its insistence that it supports political action on the climate crisis.

Among hundreds of groups the company has listed on its website as beneficiaries of its political giving are more than a dozen organisations that have campaigned against climate legislation, questioned the need for action, or actively sought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections.

The list includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative policy group that was instrumental in convincing the Trump administration to abandon the Paris agreement and has criticised the White House for not dismantling more environmental rules.

Big money cares FA for the environment so why should we bother?

[Scot Dutchy]

Another view: Big tech cares FA for the environment:

In its insatiable pursuit of power, Silicon Valley is fuelling the climate crisis

Big tech isn’t interested in a better world, just a more profitable one. To beat it, we need to break its stranglehold on us

The climate crimes of big tech are legion. This summer the Amazon burned. Why? In part because of the policies of the new anti-environmental, anti-human-rights president, Jair Bolsonaro.

How did Bolsonaro rise to prominence and then the presidency? YouTube, and certain of its algorithms that push people toward more extreme content, played a large part. As the New York Times reported in August, not long ago Bolsonaro was “a marginal figure in national politics – but a star in YouTube’s far-right community in Brazil, where the platform has become more widely watched than all but one TV channel”. Members of the nation’s newly empowered far right – from grassroots organisers to federal lawmakers – say their movement would not have risen so far, so fast, without YouTube’s recommendation engine.

YouTube’s search and recommendation system appears to have systematically diverted users to far right and conspiracy channels in Brazil. Some of YouTube’s algorithms have been connected to the rise of racism, white supremacism and mass shootings. It appears its prime agenda is profit – and extremist content keeps viewers hooked, and hooked viewers bring in revenue.

Google, the owner of YouTube, also appears to help push some users toward more extreme content, and it then collects all our data and sells it. Some of that data is used to target you and me for shopping, but politics is now a kind of shopping in which the targeting and manipulation of voters via personal data is like the manipulation of potential customers, as we learned from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica’s role in Brexit and the climate catastrophe that was the election of Donald Trump. (It’s worth noting that everything that the Putin regime is charged with doing in the 2016 US election amounts to exploiting new vulnerabilities created by new technologies.)

Just ban social media.

[Brian Peacock]

This is a 'business-as-usual' irrelevance. What's the big news here? Global corporate entity with skin in the game acts like a global corporate entity with no skin in the game?

There's no quarterly reports to shareholders on a dead planet.

[Brian Peacock]

[Scot Dutchy]

Going nowhere of course. Any great changes. Has the war stopped in Syria? The Chinese have stopped driving cars? I really have to laugh. It keeps the attention away from the important things of life.

Lets have a demo! The 1960's all over again.

[Brian Peacock]

Oh of course - how did we not realise? There can never be any good things while there is at least one bad thing in the world.

You get your cynical fatalism from your religious upbringing Scot - it told you that are unworthy and that you can never change the way things are. It's time to throw off those kinds of stories and the lingering resentments they breed and to understand that power and authority rests with the people, not with the government.

You'll like this one - it'll make you feel entirely justified.

[Brian Peacock]

[Scot Dutchy]

I never had any religious upbringing Brian. In corrupt societies power lies with those in power. Orwell was right. Johnson will not lose the next election. The Polish elections are another a good example. The people are given the illusion of power. Trump does that in America.
The establishment just love movements like the Extinction Rebellion. It keeps the peoples' minds off the important things. The UK is this obvious to see and it is one of the few countries in Europe where there are regular demonstrations. Here people demonstrate against the imposition of regulations. Some sectors feel they are being targeted while others can carry on regardless. Reduction of traffic speed would be more effective than cutting back on live stock but any reduction achieved is nothing when compared to what happens in China, Russia, USA and SE Asia. How about stopping the de-forestation in Brazil and Java? No way ho-say. Or stopping Australia and the USA digging up million of tons of coal. It has no effect on the total picture that's why.

[pErvinalia]

The establishment just love movements like the Extinction Rebellion. It keeps the peoples' minds off the important things.

Umm, climate change is the most important thing facing us now.