A very polite rebellion
They’ve been playing nice till now. But these climate activists have had enough, writes Andrea Vance.
In a suit and tie, retired fund manager Charles Drace is not your typical rebel. California-born, he was once a theatre and film actor, with bit parts in the spaghetti Western Once Upon A Time in the West and war movie Patton. Now, from his neat townhouse in central Christchurch, the 74-year-old is plotting how to get arrested.
‘‘For years and years now, we’ve been playing nice. And I think one of the things that has been recognised in the last year or so is that it’s not working.’’
Drace is a climate activist, a member of global movement Extinction Rebellion, or XR. It began in November, when thousands of protesters paralysed London by disrupting traffic. Since then, it’s caught fire across the globe, with around a million members in 35 countries.
They’ve glued themselves to buildings and spray-painted ‘‘frack off’’ graffiti, closed five major London bridges, and gone on hunger strike outside Westminster Palace.
In New Zealand, ‘‘zombies’’ have paraded through Wellington airport, held a funeral for the planet in Nelson, and shut off the water supply to Environment Canterbury’s headquarters. Last week, 35 activists banged on the windows of BP’s Auckland office, chanting ‘‘liar, liar, pants on fire’’.
Next month, they’ll join groups across the world in a week of civil disobedience and attention-grabbing stunts.
Extinction Rebellion’s goal is to trigger an enormous political and cultural shift, big enough to save the planet from certain doom. They say they need 3.5 per cent of the population on board to make radical change. Numbers in New Zealand total about 2000, so about 165,000 short.
‘‘We are declaring rebellion against the Government for criminal inaction and what Extinction Rebellion sees as a climate and ecological emergency,’’ Rowan Brooks, 29, says. ‘‘One of the core things which XR is saying is we need to tell truth and start acting like it. We need to stop pretending that we will sort some things out, and that we’ve got 50 years.’’
Athlete and small business owner Gene Beveridge, 26, joined the BP protest, the first time he’s ever got involved with a political movement. ‘‘Personally, I’m not really that interested in marching around but if that is what we need, then I’ll do it ... I want policies to be a better reflection of science and public opinion. Over the past three or four years, with the Trump phenomenon and Brexit, I’ve just realised that the discourse is quite heated. That’s what woke me up.
‘‘I couldn’t rely on other people, there isn’t enough goodness in the world for things just to work out. I had to get involved myself.’’
Extinction Rebellion goes much further than traditional climate activism, warning of the collapse of civilisation, famine and the extinction of mankind.
‘‘We have to be dramatic, we have to make the point so strongly that the Government is forced to listen, instead of listening gently and coming back with platitudes,’’ Drace says.
You won’t find more polite subversives. They are nonviolent, against damage to property and use graffiti paint that washes away. Brooks, a community garden co-ordinator, frequently interrupts himself to make sure others in the group get a fair say.
Drace likes formal dress for protests, because environmentalists are often stereotyped as ‘‘hippies’’. ‘‘I guess I would be described by most people as being in a fat cat type of occupation. But there are an awful lot of professional people who really care.’’
The Christchurch branch, with around 150 members, is planning its first ‘‘swarming’’ road blocks in the city. They’ll last 10 minutes each, and volunteers will hand out water, snacks and explanatory pamphlets.
‘‘We are going to be doing really short stints just around the place, to practice and to start little moments of disruption,’’ Brooks says. ‘‘It’s not about the motorists. It is about saying maybe we need to stop what we are doing for a second and look at the gravity of the situation.
‘‘Once traffic isn’t moving through a city, then that has a flow-on effect which is economic. People aren’t managing to do their things as well. And then people start saying [to] council, government: ‘What are you going to do about these people who say there is a climate emergency?’ ’’
Brooks says Kiwi cities won’t suddenly grind to a halt, largely because the movement is in its infancy. ‘‘In New Zealand, with the two degrees of separation, once you have people who are willing to put their bodies on the line, then everyone who knows them, trusts them, maybe starts to believe that action is actually legitimate.’’
He was one of five protesters arrested after they turned off the taps at ECan. They were all released with a warning. ‘‘We opened the thing on the street and turned the tap off,’’ Brooks says. ‘‘Some people sat on the cover ... a plumber came and turned on another tap. We went and borrowed some tools from some workers down the road, turned that off and sat on top of that one.
‘‘We are deliberately doing things which we are not supposed to do, because we are saying the Government is not doing what it is supposed to do.’’ He and Drace are fully prepared to go to prison for their actions. ‘‘We are talking about a dying planet ... we face mass extinction, including human extinction. If, tactically, me being in prison is going to help [prevent] that, then lock me up.’’
In England, members have described meditating and performing yoga in holding cells after protests. Cofounder Roger Hallam said: ‘‘The action itself is not as important as going to prison, which has cultural resonance, you might say.’’
Not everyone in the movement feels that way. Marine scientist Sea Rotmann runs a consultancy and her work involves international travel.
‘‘It would be career-limiting if I was ... arrested or convicted because all of my work is with international governments ... for the work I do – which I think has a lot of benefit in terms of finding solutions – I need to be able to travel.’’
New Zealand police say there is no ‘‘national operation order’’ for Extinction Rebellion. But a spokeswoman added: ‘‘Our role is to ensure the lawful right to protest while allowing members of the public to go about their daily business safely, and we will respond appropriately to any issues regarding disorder or public safety that may arise. We urge anyone planning or undertaking protest activity to keep the safety of themselves and others at the forefront of their minds.’’
Rotmann says joining Extinction Rebellion’s Wellington branch has been empowering. But it’s unusual for a scientist to join a direct action campaign. ‘‘Science is a profession which forces us to be