Habitat destruction

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_destruction 

Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or die, thereby reducing biodiversity and species abundance.

Habitat destruction through human activity is mainly for the purpose of harvesting natural resources for industrial production and urbanization. Clearing habitats for agriculture is the principal cause of habitat destruction. Other important causes of habitat destruction include mining, logging, trawling, and urban sprawl. Habitat destruction is currently ranked as the primary cause of species extinction worldwide.

The destructive environmental changes include more indirect factors like geological processes, and climate change, introduction of invasive species, ecosystem nutrient depletion, water and noise pollution and others. Loss of habitat can be preceded by an initial habitat fragmentation.

Impacts on organisms

When a habitat is destroyed, the carrying capacity for indigenous plants, animals, and other organisms is reduced so that populations decline, sometimes up to the level of extinction.

Habitat loss is perhaps the greatest threat to organisms and biodiversity. Temple (1986) found that 82% of endangered bird species were significantly threatened by habitat loss. Most amphibian species are also threatened by native habitat loss, and some species are now only breeding in modified habitat. Endemic organisms with limited ranges are most affected by habitat destruction, mainly because these organisms are not found anywhere else within the world, and thus have less chance of recovering. Many endemic organisms have very specific requirements for their survival that can only be found within a certain ecosystem, resulting in their extinction. Extinction may also take place very long after the destruction of habitat, a phenomenon known as extinction debt. Habitat destruction can also decrease the range of certain organism populations. This can result in the reduction of genetic diversity and perhaps the production of infertile youths, as these organisms would have a higher possibility of mating with related organisms within their population, or different species. One of the most famous examples is the impact upon China's giant panda, once found in many areas of Sichuan. Now it is only found in fragmented and isolated regions in the southwest of the country, as a result of widespread deforestation in the 20th century.

Geography

Satellite photograph of deforestation in Bolivia. Originally dry tropical forest, the land is being cleared for soybean cultivation.

Biodiversity hotspots are chiefly tropical regions that feature high concentrations of endemic species and, when all hotspots are combined, may contain over half of the world's terrestrial species. These hotspots are suffering from habitat loss and destruction. Most of the natural habitat on islands and in areas of high human population density has already been destroyed (WRI, 2003). Islands suffering extreme habitat destruction include New Zealand, Madagascar, the Philippines, and Japan. South and East Asia — especially China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Japan — and many areas in West Africa have extremely dense human populations that allow little room for natural habitat. Marine areas close to highly populated coastal cities also face degradation of their coral reefs or other marine habitat. These areas include the eastern coasts of Asia and Africa, northern coasts of South America, and the Caribbean Sea and its associated islands.

Regions of unsustainable agriculture or unstable governments, which may go hand-in-hand, typically experience high rates of habitat destruction. Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Amazonian tropical rainforest areas of South America are the main regions with unsustainable agricultural practices and/or government mismanagement.

Areas of high agricultural output tend to have the highest extent of habitat destruction. In the U.S., less than 25% of native vegetation remains in many parts of the East and Midwest. Only 15% of land area remains unmodified by human activities in all of Europe.

Ecosystems

Jungle burned for agriculture in southern Mexico

Tropical rainforests have received most of the attention concerning the destruction of habitat. From the approximately 16 million square kilometers of tropical rainforest habitat that originally existed worldwide, less than 9 million square kilometers remain today. The current rate of deforestation is 160,000 square kilometers per year, which equates to a loss of approximately 1% of original forest habitat each year.

Other forest ecosystems have suffered as much or more destruction as tropical rainforests. Deforestation for farming and logging have severely disturbed at least 94% of temperate broadleaf forests; many old growth forest stands have lost more than 98% of their previous area because of human activities. Tropical deciduous dry forests are easier to clear and burn and are more suitable for agriculture and cattle ranching than tropical rainforests; consequently, less than 0.1% of dry forests in Central America's Pacific Coast and less than 8% in Madagascar remain from their original extents.

Farmers near newly cleared land within Taman Nasional Kerinci Seblat (Kerinci Seblat National Park), Sumatra.

Plains and desert areas have been degraded to a lesser extent. Only 10-20% of the world's drylands, which include temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands, scrub, and deciduous forests, have been somewhat degraded. But included in that 10-20% of land is the approximately 9 million square kilometers of seasonally dry-lands that humans have converted to deserts through the process of desertification. The tallgrass prairies of North America, on the other hand, have less than 3% of natural habitat remaining that has not been converted to farmland.

Wetlands and marine areas have endured high levels of habitat destruction. More than 50% of wetlands in the U.S. have been destroyed in just the last 200 years. Between 60% and 70% of European wetlands have been completely destroyed. In the United Kingdom, there has been an increase in demand for coastal housing and tourism which has caused a decline in marine habitats over the last 60 years. The rising sea levels and temperatures have caused soil erosion, coastal flooding, and loss of quality in the UK marine ecosystem. About one-fifth (20%) of marine coastal areas have been highly modified by humans. One-fifth of coral reefs have also been destroyed, and another fifth has been severely degraded by overfishing, pollution, and invasive species; 90% of the Philippines’ coral reefs alone have been destroyed. Finally, over 35% of the mangrove ecosystems worldwide have been destroyed.

Natural causes

Habitat destruction through natural processes such as volcanism, fire, and climate change is well documented in the fossil record. One study shows that habitat fragmentation of tropical rainforests in Euramerica 300 million years ago led to a great loss of amphibian diversity, but simultaneously the drier climate spurred on a burst of diversity among reptiles.

Human causes

Deforestation and roads in Amazonia, the Amazon Rainforest.

Habitat destruction caused by humans includes land conversion from forests, etc. to arable land, urban sprawl, infrastructure development, and other anthropogenic changes to the characteristics of land. Habitat degradation, fragmentation, and pollution are aspects of habitat destruction caused by humans that do not necessarily involve over destruction of habitat, yet result in habitat collapse. Desertification, deforestation, and coral reef degradation are specific types of habitat destruction for those areas (deserts, forests, coral reefs).

Geist and Lambin (2002) assessed 152 case studies of net losses of tropical forest cover to determine any patterns in the proximate and underlying causes of tropical deforestation. Their results, yielded as percentages of the case studies in which each parameter was a significant factor, provide a quantitative prioritization of which proximate and underlying causes were the most significant. The proximate causes were clustered into broad categories of agricultural expansion (96%), infrastructure expansion (72%), and wood extraction (67%). Therefore, according to this study, forest conversion to agriculture is the main land use change responsible for tropical deforestation. The specific categories reveal further insight into the specific causes of tropical deforestation: transport extension (64%), commercial wood extraction (52%), permanent cultivation (48%), cattle ranching (46%), shifting (slash and burn) cultivation (41%), subsistence agriculture (40%), and fuel wood extraction for domestic use (28%). One result is that shifting cultivation is not the primary cause of deforestation in all world regions, while transport extension (including the construction of new roads) is the largest single proximate factor responsible for deforestation.

Global warming

Rising global temperatures, caused by the greenhouse effect, contribute to habitat destruction, endangering various species, such as the polar bear. Melting ice caps promote rising sea levels and floods which threaten natural habitats and species globally.

Drivers

Nanjing Road in Shanghai

While the above-mentioned activities are the proximal or direct causes of habitat destruction in that they actually destroy habitat, this still does not identify why humans destroy habitat. The forces that cause humans to destroy habitat are known as drivers of habitat destruction. Demographic, economic, sociopolitical, scientific and technological, and cultural drivers all contribute to habitat destruction.

Demographic drivers include the expanding human population; rate of population increase over time; spatial distribution of people in a given area (urban versus rural), ecosystem type, and country; and the combined effects of poverty, age, family planning, gender, and education status of people in certain areas. Most of the exponential human population growth worldwide is occurring in or close to biodiversity hotspots. This may explain why human population density accounts for 87.9% of the variation in numbers of threatened species across 114 countries, providing indisputable evidence that people play the largest role in decreasing biodiversity. The boom in human population and migration of people into such species-rich regions are making conservation efforts not only more urgent but also more likely to conflict with local human interests. The high local population density in such areas is directly correlated to the poverty status of the local people, most of whom lacking an education and family planning.

According to the Geist and Lambin (2002) study, the underlying driving forces were prioritized as follows (with the percent of the 152 cases the factor played a significant role in): economic factors (81%), institutional or policy factors (78%), technological factors (70%), cultural or socio-political factors (66%), and demographic factors (61%). The main economic factors included commercialization and growth of timber markets (68%), which are driven by national and international demands; urban industrial growth (38%); low domestic costs for land, labor, fuel, and timber (32%); and increases in product prices mainly for cash crops (25%). Institutional and policy factors included formal pro-deforestation policies on land development (40%), economic growth including colonization and infrastructure improvement (34%), and subsidies for land-based activities (26%); property rights and land-tenure insecurity (44%); and policy failures such as corruption, lawlessness, or mismanagement (42%). The main technological factor was the poor application of technology in the wood industry (45%), which leads to wasteful logging practices. Within the broad category of cultural and sociopolitical factors are public attitudes and values (63%), individual/household behavior (53%), public unconcern toward forest environments (43%), missing basic values (36%), and unconcern by individuals (32%). Demographic factors were the in-migration of colonizing settlers into sparsely populated forest areas (38%) and growing population density—a result of the first factor—in those areas (25%).

There are also feedbacks and interactions among the proximate and underlying causes of deforestation that can amplify the process. Road construction has the largest feedback effect, because it interacts with—and leads to—the establishment of new settlements and more people, which causes a growth in wood (logging) and food markets. Growth in these markets, in turn, progresses the commercialization of agriculture and logging industries. When these industries become commercialized, they must become more efficient by utilizing larger or more modern machinery that often has a worse effect on the habitat than traditional farming and logging methods. Either way, more land is cleared more rapidly for commercial markets. This common feedback example manifests just how closely related the proximate and underlying causes are to each other.

Impact on human population

The draining and development of coastal wetlands that previously protected the Gulf Coast contributed to severe flooding in New Orleans, Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Habitat destruction vastly increases an area's vulnerability to natural disasters like flood and drought, crop failure, spread of disease, and water contamination. On the other hand, a healthy ecosystem with good management practices will reduce the chance of these events happening, or will at least mitigate adverse impacts.

Agricultural land can actually suffer from the destruction of the surrounding landscape. Over the past 50 years, the destruction of habitat surrounding agricultural land has degraded approximately 40% of agricultural land worldwide via erosion, salinization, compaction, nutrient depletion, pollution, and urbanization. Humans also lose direct uses of natural habitat when habitat is destroyed. Aesthetic uses such as birdwatching, recreational uses like hunting and fishing, and ecotourism usually rely upon virtually undisturbed habitat. Many people value the complexity of the natural world and are disturbed by the loss of natural habitats and animal or plant species worldwide.

Probably the most profound impact that habitat destruction has on people is the loss of many valuable ecosystem services. Habitat destruction has altered nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and carbon cycles, which has increased the frequency and severity of acid rain, algal blooms, and fish kills in rivers and oceans and contributed tremendously to global climate change. One ecosystem service whose significance is becoming better understood is climate regulation. On a local scale, trees provide windbreaks and shade; on a regional scale, plant transpiration recycles rainwater and maintains constant annual rainfall; on a global scale, plants (especially trees from tropical rainforests) from around the world counter the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by sequestering carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. Other ecosystem services that are diminished or lost altogether as a result of habitat destruction include watershed management, nitrogen fixation, oxygen production, pollination (see pollinator decline), waste treatment (i.e., the breaking down and immobilization of toxic pollutants), and nutrient recycling of sewage or agricultural runoff.

The loss of trees from the tropical rainforests alone represents a substantial diminishing of the earth's ability to produce oxygen and use up carbon dioxide. These services are becoming even more important as increasing carbon dioxide levels is one of the main contributors to global climate change.

The loss of biodiversity may not directly affect humans, but the indirect effects of losing many species as well as the diversity of ecosystems in general are enormous. When biodiversity is lost, the environment loses many species that perform valuable and unique roles in the ecosystem. The environment and all its inhabitants rely on biodiversity to recover from extreme environmental conditions. When too much biodiversity is lost, a catastrophic event such as an earthquake, flood, or volcanic eruption could cause an ecosystem to crash, and humans would obviously suffer from that. Loss of biodiversity also means that humans are losing animals that could have served as biological control agents and plants that could potentially provide higher-yielding crop varieties, pharmaceutical drugs to cure existing or future diseases or cancer, and new resistant crop varieties for agricultural species susceptible to pesticide-resistant insects or virulent strains of fungi, viruses, and bacteria.

The negative effects of habitat destruction usually impact rural populations more directly than urban populations. Across the globe, poor people suffer the most when natural habitat is destroyed, because less natural habitat means fewer natural resources per capita, yet wealthier people and countries simply have to pay more to continue to receive more than their per capita share of natural resources.

Another way to view the negative effects of habitat destruction is to look at the opportunity cost of destroying a given habitat. In other words, what are people losing out on by taking away a given habitat? A country may increase its food supply by converting forest land to row-crop agriculture, but the value of the same land may be much larger when it can supply natural resources or services such as clean water, timber, ecotourism, or flood regulation and drought control.

Outlook

The rapid expansion of the global human population is increasing the world's food requirement substantially. Simple logic dictates that more people will require more food. In fact, as the world's population increases dramatically, agricultural output will need to increase by at least 50%, over the next 30 years. In the past, continually moving to new land and soils provided a boost in food production to meet the global food demand. That easy fix will no longer be available, however, as more than 98% of all land suitable for agriculture is already in use or degraded beyond repair.

The impending global food crisis will be a major source of habitat destruction. Commercial farmers are going to become desperate to produce more food from the same amount of land, so they will use more fertilizers and show less concern for the environment to meet the market demand. Others will seek out new land or will convert other land-uses to agriculture. Agricultural intensification will become widespread at the cost of the environment and its inhabitants. Species will be pushed out of their habitat either directly by habitat destruction or indirectly by fragmentation, degradation, or pollution. Any efforts to protect the world's remaining natural habitat and biodiversity will compete directly with humans’ growing demand for natural resources, especially new agricultural lands.

Solutions

Chelonia mydas on a Hawaiian coral reef. Although the endangered species is protected, habitat loss from human development is a major reason for the loss of green turtle nesting beaches.

In most cases of tropical deforestation, three to four underlying causes are driving two to three proximate causes. This means that a universal policy for controlling tropical deforestation would not be able to address the unique combination of proximate and underlying causes of deforestation in each country. Before any local, national, or international deforestation policies are written and enforced, governmental leaders must acquire a detailed understanding of the complex combination of proximate causes and underlying driving forces of deforestation in a given area or country. This concept, along with many other results of tropical deforestation from the Geist and Lambin study, can easily be applied to habitat destruction in general. Governmental leaders need to take action by addressing the underlying driving forces, rather than merely regulating the proximate causes. In a broader sense, governmental bodies at a local, national, and international scale need to emphasize:

1. Considering the irreplaceable ecosystem services provided by natural habitats.
2. Protecting remaining intact sections of natural habitat.
3. Educating the public about the importance of natural habitat and biodiversity.
4. Developing family planning programs in areas of rapid population growth.
5. Finding ecological ways to increase agricultural output without increasing the total land in production.
6. Preserving habitat corridors to minimize prior damage from fragmented habitats.
7. Reducing human population and expansion. Apart from improving access to contraception globally, furthering gender equality also has a great benefit. When women have the same education (decision-making power), this generally leads to smaller families.

Extinction Rebellion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_Rebellion 

 

Named after	Anthropocene extinction
Formation	May 2018; 2 years ago
Founder	Roger Hallam Gail Bradbrook
Type	Advocacy group
Purpose	Climate change mitigation Nature conservation Environmental protection
Region	International
Fields	Conservation movement Environmental movement
Affiliations	Rising Up! The Climate Mobilization Animal Rebellion
Website	rebellion.global

Extinction Rebellion (abbreviated as XR) is a global environmental movement with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse.

Extinction Rebellion was officially established in the United Kingdom in May 2018, with about one hundred academics signing a call to action in support in October 2018. At the end of that month, XR was launched by Roger Hallam and Gail Bradbrook, along with other activists from the campaign group Rising Up! In November 2018, five bridges across the River Thames in London were blockaded as a protest. In April 2019, Extinction Rebellion occupied five prominent sites in central London: Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge, and the area around Parliament Square.

Citing inspiration from grassroots movements such as Occupy, the suffragettes, and the civil rights movement, Extinction Rebellion wants to rally support worldwide around a common sense of urgency to tackle climate breakdown and the ongoing sixth mass extinction. A number of activists in the movement accept arrest and imprisonment, similar to the mass arrest tactics of the Committee of 100 in 1961.

The movement uses a stylised, circled hourglass, known as the extinction symbol, to serve as a warning that time is rapidly running out for many species.

Extinction Rebellion placard containing its logotype with the extinction symbol

Stated aims and principles

Aims

Extinction Rebellion's website, at the time of the group's inception in the UK, stated the following aims:

1. Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
2. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025.
3. Government must create, and be led by the decisions of, a citizens' assembly on climate and ecological justice.

When the movement expanded to the United States, a further demand was added to that group's list: "We demand a just transition that prioritizes the most vulnerable people and indigenous sovereignty; establishes reparations and remediation led by and for Black people, Indigenous people, people of colour and poor communities for years of environmental injustice, establishes legal rights for ecosystems to thrive and regenerate in perpetuity, and repairs the effects of ongoing ecocide to prevent extinction of human and all species, in order to maintain a livable, just planet for all."

Principles

XR states the following on its website and explains the following in its declaration:

1. "We have a shared vision of change—creating a world that is fit for generations to come.
2. We set our mission on what is necessary—mobilising 3.5% of the population to achieve system change by using ideas such as "momentum-driven organising" to achieve this.
3. We need a regenerative culture—creating a culture that is healthy, resilient, and adaptable.
4. We openly challenge ourselves and this toxic system, leaving our comfort zones to take action for change.
5. We value reflecting and learning, following a cycle of action, reflection, learning, and planning for more action (learning from other movements and contexts as well as our own experiences).
6. We welcome everyone and every part of everyone—working actively to create safer and more accessible spaces.
7. We actively mitigate for power—breaking down hierarchies of power for more equitable participation.
8. We avoid blaming and shaming—we live in a toxic system, but no one individual is to blame.
9. We are a non-violent network using non-violent strategy and tactics as the most effective way to bring about change.
10. We are based on autonomy and decentralisation—we collectively create the structures we need to challenge power. Anyone who follows these core principles and values can take action in the name of Extinction Rebellion."

Organisation

Structure

A volunteer for 'police liaison' during an Extinction Rebellion action.

Extinction Rebellion is a loosely networked, decentralised, grassroots movement. Anyone who takes action in pursuit of "XR's three goals and adheres to its ten principles, which includes non-violence, can claim to do it in the name of XR."

The Economist identified the group as using the tenets of holacracy to operate more effectively given strong state opposition.

Organisation and roles

Extinction Rebellion has a decentralised structure. Providing that they respect the 'principles and values', every local group can organise events and actions independently. To organise the movement, local groups are structured with various 'working groups' taking care of strategy, outreach, well-being, etc.

XR Youth

A youth wing—XR Youth—of Extinction Rebellion had formed by July 2019. In contrast to the main XR, it is centred around consideration of the Global South and indigenous peoples, and more concerned with climate justice. By October 2019 there were 55 XR Youth groups in the UK and another 25 elsewhere. All XR Youth comprise people born after 1990, with an average age of 16, and some aged 10.

History

"Declaration of Rebellion" at the Parliament Square, 31 October 2018

Extinction Rebellion was established in the United Kingdom in May 2018 with about one hundred academics signing a call to action in support in October 2018, and launched at the end of October by Roger Hallam, Gail Bradbrook, Simon Bramwell, and other activists from the campaign group Rising Up!

Grassroots movements such as those of Occupy, Gandhi's Satyagraha, the suffragettes, Gene Sharp, Martin Luther King Jr. and others in the civil rights movement have been cited as sources of inspiration In seeking to rally support worldwide around a common sense of urgency to tackle climate breakdown, reference is also made to Saul Alinsky. His "Pragmatic Primer," Rules for Radicals (1972), is seen as offering insights as to "how we mobilise to cope with emergency", and "strike a balance between disruption and creativity". Roger Hallam has been clear that the strategy of public disruption is "heavily influenced" by the community-organizing tactician: "The essential element here is disruption. Without disruption, no one is going to give you their eyeballs”.

A number of activists in the movement accept arrest and imprisonment, similar to the mass arrest tactics of the Committee of 100 in 1961.

On 9 December 2018, a second open letter of support signed by another hundred academics was published.

"Rebellion Day" on Blackfriars Bridge, 17 November 2018

Extinction Rebellion has taken a variety of actions since 2018 in the UK, USA, Australia and elsewhere.

UK actions

An assembly of more than 1000 people took place at Parliament Square, London on 31 October 2018, to hear the "Declaration of Rebellion" and occupy the road in front of the Houses of Parliament. In November 2018, activists blockaded the UK's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; unveiled a banner over Westminster Bridge; glued themselves to the gates of Downing Street; and closed an access road to Trafalgar Square. On "Rebellion Day" about 6,000 people blocked the five main bridges over the River Thames in London for several hours—The Guardian described it as "one of the biggest acts of peaceful civil disobedience in the UK in decades". On "Rebellion Day 2", the roads around Parliament Square were blocked and a mock funeral march travelled to Downing Street and Buckingham Palace; there were also actions in Manchester, Sheffield, Machynlleth and Edinburgh.

Organisers say they hope the campaign of 'respectful disruption' will change the debate around climate breakdown and signal to those in power that the present course of action will lead to disaster.

— Damien Gayle, The Guardian

In January 2019, XR staged an occupation of the Scottish Parliament's debating chamber in Holyrood, Edinburgh. In February council chambers were also occupied by XR groups in Norwich and Gloucestershire. A week later neighbouring Somerset County Council declared a climate emergency, citing school strikers and XR as having some input into the decision. In late February, following an XR petition, Reading Borough Council also declared a climate emergency, aiming to cut carbon emissions by 2030, a week after discussions with the XR Reading group and a day after the warmest winter day on record in the UK.

In February, 'Swarming' roadblocks were held outside London Fashion Week venues and XR called on the British Fashion Council to declare a 'climate emergency', and for the industry to take a leading role in tackling climate change. In March, around 400 protesters poured buckets of fake blood on the road outside Downing Street to represent the threatened lives of children. On 1 April, protesters undressed and glued themselves to the glass in the House of Commons viewing gallery during a debate on Brexit.

Extinction Rebellion, Oxford Circus, London, 19 April 2019

Starting Monday 15 April, Extinction Rebellion organised demonstrations in London, focusing on Oxford Circus, Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge and the area around Parliament Square. The intersection of Oxford Street and Regent Street (Oxford Circus) was blocked with a boat, to which activists glued themselves, as well as gazebos, potted plants and trees, a mobile stage and a skate ramp. Sites at Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge and the area around Parliament Square were also occupied and Shell Oil Company's headquarters was targeted. On 16 April on Waterloo Bridge, police stopped making arrests after running out of holding cells. By the end of that day an estimated 500,000 people had been affected by the disruptions and 290 activists had been arrested in London. In Scotland, more than 1,000 protesters occupied the North Bridge in Edinburgh for seven hours. On 17 April activists including 83-year-old Phil Kingston climbed onto the roof of a Docklands Light Railway train at Canary Wharf station whilst another glued himself to the side. On 18 April, the fourth day of continuous occupations at the four locations, the arrest figure had risen to 428. Also on 18 April activists held a series of swarming (short duration) roadblocks on Vauxhall Bridge. On 19 April, around a dozen teenagers approached the access road to Heathrow Airport holding a banner. Police partially cleared the Oxford Circus site, including removing the boat, whilst activists still occupied the road. The police said 682 people had thus far been arrested in London. On 25 April protesters glued themselves across the entrances to the London Stock Exchange, whilst others climbed on to a Docklands Light Railway train at Canary Wharf holding banners. Activists gathered at Hyde Park to end the 11-day demonstrations in London, during which 1,130 people had been arrested.

In July in East London there was a series of seven-minute Dalston traffic blockades, a mass bike ride through the A10, Olympic park traffic blocks, and a people's assembly outside Hackney Town Hall. Also in July, protests in Bristol, Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow and London focused on different threats for each city, with a boat in each location.

Extinction Rebellion targeted London Fashion Week (LFW) in September 2019 with three days of actions in order to raise awareness about the environmental impact of the fashion industry and fast fashion—"the United Nations has said it uses more energy than the aviation and shipping industry combined".

On 3 October Extinction Rebellion activists used an out of commission fire engine to spray the front of the Treasury in London with 1800 litres of fake blood, holding banners at the front of the building that read “STOP FUNDING CLIMATE DEATH”. The protest was held to highlight the “inconsistency between the UK Government’s insistence that the UK is a world leader in tackling climate breakdown, while pouring vast sums of money into fossil exploration and carbon-intensive projects.” The protesters sprayed the building for several seconds until they lost control of the hose. Eight people were arrested.

"International Rebellion" – October 2019

Red Brigade protesters near New York Stock Exchange

As part of a two-week series of XR actions which they called "International Rebellion", to take place in more than 60 cities worldwide, events were planned around London from 7 to 19 October to demand the UK government take urgent action to tackle the climate crisis. It was reported to have drawn 30,000 activists to London. Alongside the protest, talks and performances were held in Trafalgar Square featuring public figures such as UK comedians Simon Amstell and Nish Kumar, electro-pop band Disclosure and author Stanley Johnson.

On 7 October, several thousand people shut down parts of Westminster in central London, blocking Whitehall, the Mall, Westminster Bridge, Lambeth Bridge, Trafalgar Square, Downing Street and Victoria Embankment. On 8 October, an Extinction Rebellion group organised for 1,000 trees to appear outside the UK parliament. Over 400 MPs collected trees, and some publicly committed to accelerate reforesting in the UK.

On 10 October at London City Airport, a sit-in was held at the exit of its DLR railway station, with activists supergluing themselves to the floor. Other activists climbed onto the terminal roof while former paralympian cyclist James Brown climbed atop a British Airways aircraft. On 11 October, XR activists obstructed access to the BBC's Broadcasting House main doors.

On 12 October, XR held a "funeral procession" along Oxford Street which it claimed had 20,000 participants. The same day, animal rights activists affiliated with XR (Animal Rebellion) said 28 of their supporters were arrested while attempting to block access to Billingsgate Fish Market.

On Monday 14 October, hundreds of XR activists occupied Bank junction, outside the Bank of England in the City of London, London's financial district, focussing on the financial institutions "funding environmental destruction". That night police, controversially, banned all the Extinction Rebellion protests from the whole of London, starting at 9 pm, under section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986.

XR continued with a protest at the Department for Transport on 15 October. XR applied for urgent judicial review of the ban. On 6 November the high court ruled that the Met's section 14 order was unlawful because it went beyond the powers granted to police by the Act.

On 16 October, mothers of infants held a sit-in outside Google's London headquarters, in protest at the company's funding of climate deniers. At the same building, XR Youth climbed on top of the entrance to YouTube, with a banner reading "YouTube, stop climate denial", relating to its hosting of climate change denial videos. George Monbiot and Jonathan Bartley were arrested on Whitehall.

On 17 October, XR activists targeted rail and underground services near to the Canary Wharf financial district by climbing onto or gluing themselves to trains at Shadwell, Stratford and Canning Town stations. At Canning Town, a largely working-class neighbourhood, an activist was dragged from the top of a tube train and beaten by angry commuters.

On 18 October, Oxford Circus was blocked. Later, a protester free solo climbed halfway up Big Ben using scaffolding that surrounded it, and unfurled banners.

On 20 October, a protest performance piece was made in the National Portrait Gallery against its sponsorship by BP, who XR claims is "funding extinction".

September 2020

On 1 September 2020, Extinction Rebellion began 10 days of action called Autumn Rebellion, with activities in Cardiff, Manchester and London. Protesters successfully blocked Parliament Square on the first day and demanded that Parliament support the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill, a private member's bill tabled by Caroline Lucas.

On 2 September, activists in Cardiff held a socially distanced beach party outside the Welsh Parliament, to highlight the impact of rising sea levels. Others glued themselves to the BBC Wales building.

On 5 September 2020, XR blocked access to several printing presses owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, disrupting the distribution of the company's newspapers The Sun, The Times and The Daily Telegraph. Distribution of The Daily Mail and London Evening Standard, which are printed by News Corp, was also affected. In a statement, XR said the action was designed to disrupt and expose what it called a failure to adequately report on the climate emergency: "Our free press, society and democracy is under attack – from a failing government that lies to us consistently … Our leaders have allowed the majority of our media to be amassed in the hands of five people with powerful vested interests and deep connections to fossil fuel industries. We need a free press but we do not have it." 72 arrests were made. In a statement on Twitter, Home Secretary Priti Patel called the actions "an attack on our free press, society and democracy". After government officials considered reclassifying XR as an organised crime group, a number of public figures such as Stephen Fry and Mark Rylance criticised the government's move in an open letter, describing XR as "a group of people who hold the government to account".

Also on 5 September, Police seized the "Lightship Greta", a mock lightvessel bearing the slogan "sound the alarm, climate emergency", in Kennington, South London. It had been pushed for six days from Brighton and was headed to Stratford, East London.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed that they had made over 600 arrests over the period.

New York City actions

Die-in protest at New York City Hall (United States), 17 April 2019

On 26 January 2019, Extinction Rebellion NYC activists formed the extinction symbol with their bodies on the ice at the Rockefeller Center ice skating rink. An activist climbed and hung a banner on the large gold Prometheus statue. On 17 April 2019, over 60 activists were arrested at a die-in in the streets around New York City Hall. On 22 June 2019, 70 activists were arrested for blocking traffic outside of The New York Times headquarters in midtown Manhattan. On 10 August 2019, over 100 people were arrested at a joint-protest shutting down the West Side Highway, in protest at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency's alleged human rights abuses at the US-Mexico border and its role in mass deportations. On 5 September 2019, traffic was blocked at multiple intersections in midtown Manhattan to bring attention to the fires in Amazonia. On 6 September 2019, an XR activist climbed the Unisphere in Queens, New York. On 7 October 2019, Extinction Rebellion activists splashed fake blood on Wall Street's Charging Bull sculpture, blocked an entrance to the New York Stock Exchange, and laid down across Broadway, stopping traffic for more than an hour. About 90 protesters were arrested. On 10 October 2019, XR activists dropped a sailboat in a Times Square intersection, with some protesters gluing their hands to the boat, snarling traffic in the process.

Pacific Northwest

On 28 April 2019, non-violent activists blocked a railroad track bringing Canadian tar sands oil to Portland, Oregon, where Zenith Energy, Ltd., a Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based multinational operates a marine export terminal. Eleven protesters were arrested for planting a garden atop the tracks. Five, including Ken Ward, were tried February 2020 in the Multnomah County, Oregon courthouse, for their civil disobedience. Their jury hung on the verdict with five of the six jurors voted for acquittal but the majority were unable to convince the sixth juror to dispose of the case.

Actions elsewhere

"Declaration Day" at the Victorian State Government (Australia), 22 March 2019.

 

XR activists at symbolic Gallows. Munich, Germany 20 September 2019

Extinction Rebellion Australia held a "Declaration Day" on 22 March 2019 in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, and Brisbane.

In the week beginning 15 April 2019, XR activists occupied the Parliament of South Australia's House of Representatives and part of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, forming human chains. Similar actions took place in Berlin, Heidelberg, Brussels, Lausanne, Madrid, Denver and Melbourne. Also, a railway line in Brisbane, Australia was disrupted.

On 7 October 2019, XR held a global day of “civil disobedience” with disruptive actions causing chaos and outrage in major cities around the world. Protesters in Berlin gathered at the Victory Column near the Brandenburg Gate Monday morning. The action continued into the evening with Potsdamer Platz, which was at some point occupied by some 3,000 protesters, according to the local media. Protesters blocked roads across Australia and New Zealand, with police in Sydney arresting at least 30 people. Activists in Wellington, New Zealand, staged a "die-in" at an ANZ Bank branch, demanding that it “divest away from fossil fuels,” with some protesters gluing their hands to the windows. Others occupied the lobby of the Ministry of Business and Innovation. In Amsterdam more than 100 protesters were arrested after they erected a tent camp on the main road outside the national museum Rijksmuseum. In Paris, about 1,000 protesters backed by the yellow vests movement occupied a shopping centre. In Vienna, protesters also blocked traffic in the city.

On 21 October 2019 on the British island of Jersey, XR activists caused disruption during morning rush hour, blocking the road while cycling slowly into St Helier. They then staged a 'die-in' in the town centre.

On 6 December 2019, Extinction Rebellion activists blocked streets for 7 hours in Washington, D.C., calling for an end to World Bank funding of fossil fuels.

On 24 January 2020, 25 Extinction Rebellion activists chained themselves to handrails in the Kastrup airport in Denmark, in protest against plans for its future expansion. They played fake announcements for more than half an hour in the arrivals area of the airport announcing that the airport expansion needs to be cancelled immediately to reach climate neutrality by 2025.

Arrest as a tactic

Extinction Rebellion uses mass arrest as a tactic to try to achieve its goals. Extinction Rebellion's founders researched the histories of "the suffragettes, the Indian salt marchers, the civil rights movement and the Polish and East German democracy movements", who all used the tactic, and are applying their lessons to the climate crisis. Co-founder Roger Hallam has said "letters, emailing, marches don’t work. You need about 400 people to go to prison. About two to three thousand people to be arrested."

In June and July 2019 some of the Extinction Rebellion supporters arrested that April appeared in court in the UK. On 25 June a 68-year-old protester was convicted of breaching a section 14 order giving police the power to clear static protests from a specified area, and given a conditional discharge. On 12 April over 30 protesters appeared in court, each charged with being a public assembly participant failing to comply with a condition imposed by a senior police officer at various locations on various dates. Some pleaded guilty, and were mostly given conditional discharges. The trials of those who pleaded not guilty are to take place in September and October.

In London's April 2019 protests 1130 arrests were made, and during the two-week October 2019 actions in London as part of "International Rebellion", 1832 arrests were made. This included the Green Party Member of European Parliament for the West Midlands, Ellie Chowns, as well as Green Party co-leader and Leader of the opposition on Lambeth Council, Jonathan Bartley.

Support and funding

During the 'International Rebellion', which started on 15 April 2019, actions and messages of support arrived from various sources, including a speech by actress Emma Thompson, a planned visit by school strike leader Greta Thunberg, and statements from former NASA scientist James Hansen and linguist and activist Noam Chomsky.

A study conducted during the first two days of the mid-April London occupation found that 46% of respondents supported the rebellion; however, a larger opinion poll later found that support had declined and that 54% of respondents now strongly or somewhat opposed actions aiming to "shut down London" as the protests on 17 April blocked access to means of transport including buses, alienating travellers.

In May 2019, Roger Hallam and eight others stood as candidates in the European Parliament elections in the London and the South West England constituencies as Climate Emergency Independents. Between them, they won 7,416 out of the 3,917,854 total votes cast in the two constituencies.

In June 2019, 1,000 healthcare professionals in the UK and elsewhere, including professors, public health figures, and former presidents of royal colleges, called for widespread non-violent civil disobedience in response to "woefully inadequate" government policies on the unfolding ecological emergency. They called on politicians and the news media to face the facts of the unfolding ecological emergency and take action. They supported the school strike movement and Extinction Rebellion.

In July 2019 Trevor Neilson, Rory Kennedy and Aileen Getty launched the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF), inspired by Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion protesters in the UK in April. It donated almost half a million pounds to Extinction Rebellion groups in New York City and Los Angeles and school strike for climate groups in the US. In September 2019 Getty pledged $600,000 (£487,000) to the Fund.

Christopher Hohn gave £50,000 to the group and the charity he co-founded, The Children's Investment Fund Foundation, has donated more than £150,000.

Michael Stipe is a supporter; all profits from his debut solo single, "Your Capricious Soul", will go to Extinction Rebellion.

On 6 February 2020, the environmental organization Mobilize Earth debuted Guardians of Life, the first of twelve short films that highlight the most pressing issues facing humanity and the natural world. Funds raised by the project will go to Amazon Watch and Extinction Rebellion.

Criticism

Diversity

Ben Smoke, one of the Stansted 15, writing in The Guardian, criticised XR's tactic of mass arrest. He wrote for XR to casually speak of imprisonment undermines the negative experiences of incarceration on black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the UK. He also wrote that for XR to be supporting peoples' court cases risks drawing significant "resources, time, money and energy" from the environmental movement, from the individuals involved, and which could otherwise be directed towards people most affected by climate change. Smoke instead recommended tactics that are not only the preserve of those able to afford the expense and time of arrest. He also wrote that though mass arrests may be intended to cause government to focus more on tackling climate change, it might instead cause government to increase anti-protest legislation.

The critique of XR's middle class white privilege, that its mass arrest tactic does not consider that people of colour will not be treated as leniently by the system as white people, was also highlighted in an open letter from Wretched of the Earth, an environmental group that focuses on black, brown and indigenous voices, to XR. The group responded to this critique with a thank you, pointing out their solidarity and commitment to diversity of membership as well diversity in styles of engagement (for example, one does not need to volunteer for a prison term in order to be an active member of XR).

Some in Extinction Rebellion have also called attention to Martin Luther King Jr. (one of XR's guiding inspirations) in this regard, noting that his call for civil disobedience to end segregation was a call directed toward all who were willing and able, regardless of race or colour.

When the movement expanded to the US, a fourth demand was added to that group's list of demands: for a "just transition that prioritises the most vulnerable and indigenous sovereignty [and] establishes reparations and remediation led by and for black people, indigenous people, people of colour and poor communities for years of environmental injustice."

Class

Karen Bell, senior lecturer in human geography and environmental justice at the University of West of England, Bristol, wrote in The Guardian that environmental groups such as Extinction Rebellion are not strongly rooted in working-class organisations and communities, which she said is a problem because building the broad-based support necessary for a radical transition to sustainability requires contributions from all strands of environmentalism, especially working class. Labour Party shadow cabinet member Lisa Nandy criticised the organisation in The Guardian in October 2019, saying "calls for individual action can't just be modelled on the lifestyles of middle class city dwellers".

George Monbiot has also written in The Guardian that "Extinction Rebellion is too white, and too middle class." The Canning town protest (above) focused attention on class issues and led to an apology from an XR spokesman.

Timescale

According to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, which supports XR's course of strong action and demands, the time frame being urged by XR is "an ambition that technically, economically and politically has absolutely no chance of being fulfilled." It said that one way to go net zero by 2025 would include the scrapping of flying and 38 million petrol and diesel cars would need to be removed from the roads. Twenty-six million gas boilers would need to be disconnected in six years. The Rapid Transition Alliance and the Centre for Alternative Technology are more positive about the date specified.

Alleged extremism

A report called Extremism Rebellion by Policy Exchange, a UK-based centre-right think tank, said that Extinction Rebellion is an extremist organisation seeking the breakdown of liberal democracy and the rule of law. In 2019 the South East Counter Terrorism Unit police authority listed Extinction Rebellion, alongside neo-Nazi and Islamist terrorist groups, as a threat in a guide titled "Safeguarding young people and adults from ideological extremism", but recalled and disavowed this guide after media inquiries.

Politics and ideology

Extinction Rebellion's third demand ("Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice") has been summarised by its leadership as a demand to "go beyond politics". This demand has been criticised by socialists, including individuals who have participated in the movement's action. Writing for The Independent in April 2019, Natasha Josette, an anti-racist activist and member of Labour for a Green New Deal, critiqued Extinction Rebellion both for marginalising ethnic minorities, and for not recognising "that the climate crisis is the result of neoliberal capitalism, and a global system of extraction, dispossession and oppression". Also writing for The Independent, Amardeep Dhillon argued that XR's narrow focus on net zero carbon emissions meant that it ignored extractivism and the threat to the environment posed by companies in the extractive sector using greenwashing to defend and advance their economic interests, suggesting that XR's position "threatens to give carte blanche to governments and corporations who are happy to shift the burden of climate destruction onto poor and indigenous communities of colour in the global South".

In October 2019, Erica Eisen, an XR participant, wrote an article for Current Affairs in which she linked the movement's "beyond politics" slogan not only to the demand for a citizens' assembly but also to a refusal to take stances on issues beyond the environment, in order to gain as broad a base of support as possible, highlighting the movement's ban on organising community groups based on political identity. She argued that "...our current economic system is (not) compatible with continued life on this planet. It is unrealistic and irresponsible to pretend that a proposed climate solution which keeps capitalism intact is any kind of solution at all", and that failing to articulate an anti-capitalist position undermined the movement's credibility by "lend(ing) tacit support" to large companies responsible for environmentally destructive behaviour. She also suggested that failing to embrace leftist positions would give space for far right groups to piggyback and exploit environmentalist rhetoric, citing the examples of the Christchurch mosque shootings and 2019 El Paso shooting, both of whose perpetrators left manifestos which mentioned environmental concerns. Writing for i-D in December 2019, Nathalie Olah drew parallels between XR and earlier decentralised protest movements such as the events of May 68 in France and the Occupy movement, suggesting that a shared lack of clarity in concrete demands had stunted the political impact of the latter two movements and arguing that climate change and class politics were "inextricable" as "a small minority are responsible for a high proportion of emissions, and because the poorest stand to face the worst repercussions".

Media coverage

Analysis of the October 2019 "International Rebellion" indicates that "the movement was mentioned more than 70,000 times in online media reports. Of these, 43.5% of online coverage was in the UK followed by 15.2% from Germany, 14.6 % in Australia and 12.1% in the US."

Bibliography

• This Is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook. London: Penguin, 2019. ISBN 978-0-14-199144-3.
• Our Fight. By Juliana Muniz Westcott. 2019. ISBN 978-1-79325-836-6.

XR launched a free newspaper in the UK in September 2019, called The Hourglass. 110,000 copies were printed of its first edition.