DeSmog

Extinction Rebellion: Direct Action to Save the Planet from Climate Change

About the Series

Extinction Rebellion is a campaign group demanding governments take urgent action on climate change. Known as ‘XR‘, the group has a direct action approach to protest. The movement calls for mass economic disruption using civil disobedience to halt the destruction of the planet and its wildlife and prevent catastrophic climate change. Unlike many other campaign groups, XR activists are often willing to go to jail as a symbolic act.

The group has become very popular, very fast. There are now XR groups in the US, Ghana, and New Zealand as well as Western Europe. DeSmog has been following XR‘s evolution from its inception in October 2018.

In This Series

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Four Extinction Rebellion activists were arrested on Wednesday night at the end of a demonstration in Westminster against the influence of “right-wing climate sceptic thinktanks” on the UK’s politi...
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Prominent writers and actors gathered outside the offices at 55 Tufton Street on Wednesday evening to highlight the role they say organisations based in and around the Westminster address play in s...
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Climate activists have very visibly taken over central London once again, climbing onto planes and spraying government ministries with red paint. But some are taking a quieter, more legal, approach...
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In less than a year, climate protest movement Extinction Rebellion has become a household name, with its distinctive hourglass logo plastered around as a symbol of the urgent need for action.  But...
Opinion
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Like in so much of public debate, the Prime Minister sets the tone. As a fortnight of peaceful protest started in London, Boris Johnson called the Extinction Rebellion protestors “importunate nose-...
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Extinction Rebellion protestors closed off sections of central London as the group launched two weeks of actions targeting the government's failure to sufficiently address the threat of climate cha...
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For two weeks in April, Extinction Rebellion grabbed the attention of the nation. Protestors blockaded large parts of central London, turned Waterloo Bridge into a community garden and camped out o...
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After weeks of mass demonstration, Extinction Rebellion’s demand that the government “tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency” has moved from the streets of London to the cor...
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For a sunny fortnight in Spring 2019, you couldn’t scroll through a newsfeed without seeing the words “Extinction Rebellion”. Thousands of protestors occupied five sites in London over the Easter ...
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High above Parliament Square, a small group of people swing from hammocks between the trees. They won't stay elevated for long. Police brought the members of campaign group Extinction Rebellion ba...
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The Extinction Rebellion protest movement has grown in scale and impact in recent weeks, bringing energy and chaos to the streets as people wake up to grim climate realities. Alongside the School S...
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Miles from the river Thames, a boat brought central London to a standstill on Monday as campaign group Extinction Rebellion launched an international protest demanding action on climate change. Th...
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Two climate change protestors have been found guilty of criminal damage after digging a hole outside the Houses of Parliament. Paul Enock and Stephen McDonald, both 62, pleaded not guilty during a...
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‘Blood’ was spilled outside Downing Street on Saturday as campaign group Extinction Rebellion kickstarted its spring action with a graphic sea of red. Protestors emptied buckets of artificial bloo...
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Wearing black to mourn for “the hundreds of species that daily go extinct,” protesters from campaign group Extinction Rebellion swarmed roads leading to London’s Fashion Week on Sunday, creating tr...
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Many newspapers this morning have speculated that the current chaos at Gatwick airport is down to an “eco-warrior”. Their basis for this claim? Almost nothing. The Telegraph’s frontpage reads “Env...
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Energy minister Claire Perry apologised to international observers after being repeatedly interrupted by four climate protesters during an event in which she announced the UK had formally requested...
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The UN climate talks are often portrayed as an exclusive and inaccessible place in which ordinary people's voices are rarely heard. As the clock to prevent catastrophic climate change ticks away, t...
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More than 100 people were arrested during a week of action across the UK as protesters demanded the government treat the threats posed by climate change as a crisis and take drastic steps to cut em...
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Hundreds of people staged a peaceful sit-in and blocked the road in front of the UK Parliament in a symbolic act of rebellion against the UK government, accusing it of inaction in the face of clima...