Extinction Rebellion US

Demands

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From the editors:

In 2019, it seemed little news from the UK could get through the noise of Brexit on mainstream media—and then a pink boat showed up.

A pink boat appeared in Oxford Circus, central London, courtesy of Extinction Rebellion (XR).

The boat was one of XR’s many acts of civil disobedience, staged to bring international attention to the climate crisis threatening mass extinction. After hours of sitting in central London, the boat was eventually unmoored from the XR activists glued and chained to it and stolen, in the words of XR, by police turned pirates.

But the bridge-blocking die-ins, the red-costumed street performances, the literally naked naked truth protests continued…and in September 2020, the pink boat appeared once again in front of British Parliament.

XR works in the long traditions of street art and civil disobedience, but, uniquely in the world of social media, extends their local disruptions—rebellions, in their terms—to a global audience, and keeps the word extinction in the world’s media. Willing to face arrest to bring their rebellions a degree of attention they would not otherwise receive, their media presence globally amplifies and scales the message of urgency—the need to stop and rebel against the processes that have made it so urgent.

XR US is one of hundreds of groups around the world, and among the first to center the concerns of those who have the most at stake with our climate crisis.