We should laugh in the face of the ‘apocalyptic’ eco-puritans

There were decent citizens, concerned about the future of the planet, among the thousands of activists who took to the streets yesterday for Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) climate strike. Yet the organisation they represent has become increasingly irrational, uncompromising and extreme.

XR is frequently portrayed as a “new-age” hippy collective, a label that ostensibly fits with its vegan diets and impromptu yoga sessions. Yet its flashy audio equipment and polyester tents run in tandem with a weirdly medieval vibe. Druidic visionaries in red and green robes mingle with acrobats and circus performers. Even their dance moves are a strange fusion of old and new; eurythmy meets Morris dancing. Their trendy eco-radicalism likewise disguises antiquated ideas.

Reading its policy agenda, it becomes clear that XR is a fanatical group preaching imminent global destruction. It proposes to dismantle swathes of the economy and return to an agrarian, “prelapsarian”, pre-capitalist way of life. Its members share a moral certainty – bordering on arrogance – that justifies their extreme behaviour.

Their gospel is one of abstinence – at least for the little people. Like the 17th-century Puritans who believed the state should enforce moral standards by closing theatres and cutting down maypoles, the XR “Roundheads” tried to “occupy” Heathrow to stop people reaching their holiday destinations. In Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, based on the real charter fair held at Smithfield since the 12th century, he savagely satirises this “Killjoy for the sake of it” tendency.

Yesterday, the Puritans’ intellectual descendants tried to “occupy” the real Smithfield Market – a largely middle-class clique trying to destroy the businesses of market traders only guilty of trying to make an honest living from selling meat.

XR’S alignment with Birthstrike, a movement that encourages people not to have children in response to the coming “civilisation collapse”, rehashes another failed ideology, Malthusianism. Back in 1798, the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus published his influential Essay on Population, predicting famine unless wars and disease raised the death rate. He was proved wrong by the explosion in the global population and food supply that followed, thanks to agricultural innovation. The long-term trend has been for real food prices to decline and production to rise far more rapidly than population.

But no matter how often apocalyptic warnings fail to come true, another one soon arrives, and doom-mongers are often poor predictors of human ingenuity. In 1894, a newspaper columnist argued that by 1950 the capital would be buried under nine feet of manure – failing to anticipate the arrival of the combustion engine that would render horse-drawn transport a quaint novelty.

We should treat XR’S warnings of imminent catastrophe with similar scepticism. Yet whereas contemporary onlookers mocked the Puritans, today’s Establishment wouldn’t dream of critiquing their uncompromising activism. It doesn’t help that many politicians share their troubling preference for ambitious-yet-vague targets over real-world solutions. But don’t be fooled by these Millenarian Millennials. Beneath the kaftans lurk a touch of feudalism, a sprinkle of Malthusianism and a healthy dose of 17th-century Puritanism.