Join Extinction Rebellion
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What is the extinction crisis？
We all know something is terribly
wrong in our culture, in our economy and above all in our environment. Increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, combined with the destruction of the
natural environment, is
causing a catastrophic transformation of the Earth that will render it uninhabitable for most, perhaps for all. Already,
weather gets hotter every year and we face droughts punctuated by destructive
storms. Yet around us we see only silence, denial and inaction.
The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report in October
2018 based
on scientific research, as opposed to the self-interested speeches of
politicians or the delusions of a corporate-funded media. The report detailed
how, within our lifetimes (certainly within our children’s lifetimes) agriculture will fail and
the oceans will warm,
acidify and rise to flood
our coasts while fish go extinct. The land that is not flooded by rising seas on the
coast will become deserts. Scientists have studied the transformation of other
planets and the predictions that they have made so far have proven to be all
too true.
We
are looking at the distinct possibility of a rise in temperature of 4 degrees
Celsius by 2100, probably
earlier, and
much of the world will
uninhabitable within the next 30-50 years. The temperature will
rise much more than 4 degrees for most of the world.
Climate change is a polite term.
It is a climate catastrophe. It is the greatest extinction in the history of
the Earth, and it is getting worse. We need to transform radically how we live
and how we conceive of value in our society. We need a new civilization and we
need to embrace the values of modesty and frugality that we have been taught to
discard because of the worship of consumption, growth and production. We must
find value in things that do not consume energy.
Yet the newspapers,
the government, our friends and family, refuse to discuss the largest crisis in
human history. The warning signs of climate catastrophe were there from the
1990s but we have done worse than nothing.
What is the cause?
The emissions of carbon dioxide,
and other dangerous gases from factories, automobiles and industrial farms is
rapidly altering the composition of the thin and brittle atmosphere that
protects us from space. The destruction of jungles and forests whose trees and
other plants help to produce oxygen is triggering mass extinctions that alter the
atmosphere further. We have all the tools
we need to respond to turn things around, but we are incapable of changing our thinking,
or altering our habits.
We live in a sick culture that
holds up consumption and waste as ideals, that makes short-term growth the
measure of success and that ignores the devastating impact on the environment of
driving automobiles, living in large homes that gobble up energy, and importing
products from around the world in petroleum-powered container ships. We make
policies with the assumption that wasting food, destroying forests, consuming
petroleum and coal that poisons the ecosystem, is a positive for growth.
Every time we eat a hamburger, we
are poisoning our mother the Earth. Every time we throw away a plastic cup, it
is like pouring crude oil into the ocean. We are sleepwalking our way towards
our destruction and most refuse to awaken, to open our eyes.
As a result of our actions animals
and plants around us are going extinct on a massive scale and if we let them
go, we will not survive as a species either. We are happy to use cheap products
made in polluting factories far away in India or in Thailand. We don’t want to
hear the scientific truth that the pollution there destroys our climate just as
much as it would if produced at home. We were
blessed with
an Earth powered by vibrant ecosystems
and abundant natural resources. But our greed and our lack of foresight has led us to
destroy those ecosystems, leaving a dying Earth for future generations.
Everything must change! From our
relationship to nature, to the standards by which we calculate success, to the manner
in which we get information.
What is XR (Extinction Rebellion)?
Extinction
Rebellion (XR)
is an international organization dedicated to
saving the Earth for future generations by stopping the exploitation of natural resources
and the burning of fossil fuels right now—not in five years, not after the next
election. We have built
a non-violent, decentralized, movement across the Earth and we are using proven tactics to disrupt the dangerous financial, manufacturing,
agricultural and transportation systems that
threaten life.
We call for all citizens of the Earth to be aware of the danger and for all
governments to take the bold steps to save our Earth for our children and for the
other species facing extinction.
We
demand that governments,
schools, research institutes and the media tell
the truth about climate catastrophe
and that citizens take revolutionary steps to create a fossil-fuel free economy
immediately.
Our global movement is localized,
and is participatory in nature. The demands we make for a fundamental change in
our civilization cannot be made by corporate-funded think tanks, NGOs and
research institutes, or politicians accustomed to seeking out corporate funding.
XR uses protests to bring this
corrupt system to a standstill. We must on occasion break the laws in that
process (blocking traffic or staging die-ins). But we do so only because the policies
in place are so fundamentally immoral and criminal and because the policy
formulation process is blocked off from participation by citizens. Mass mobilization is the only way to spur fundamental
change.
The Earth-wide XR community offers
mutual support, provides spiritual power, and gives you a chance to make a
commitment to moral action through these protests. We are building a FFF
(fossil-fuel free) economy of which everyone can all be a part.
If you are disgusted by extremes
of this consumption economy, wherein there is no future beyond the next
quarterly earnings for corporations, we offer you a place in our movement, and
a sense of purpose in life. You are as important as anyone else in our global
struggle to save humanity, and the other species of our precious Earth from the
threat of extinction. Join us
today!
How to join your local XR
community
If you, or your friends, want to
save our Earth, we invite you to join the local XR group and get involved. XR is decentralized
and participatory. We welcome your contribution as long as you operate within the parameters of the XR’s
goals, its
statements and its principles
(available online in English
https://xrebellion.org/).
If you are interested, just
contact Emanuel Pastreich 이만열 (임마누엘 페스트라이쉬) (epastreich@asia-institute.org 010 3444 1598), or
join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/400532967452231/
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