Marco Té
Marco Té
Nov 3 · 3 min read

Sam, I applaud your passion and commitment to this cause and also your honest assessment of the XR movement’s shortcomings and inability to address core issues such as racism and environmental justice. I think Extinction Rebellion’s real problem is its inability to see the world as interconnected.

I have not joined XR and do not plan to be anytime soon, which doesn’t mean I am not in accord with your core beliefs. Anthropogenic climate change is a reality we have yet to fully understand and address in its entirety. I have focused my energy instead on being an ally to the Indigenous peoples of this world, the ones who only received two mentions in your long letter. Thank you for reminding us they have been at the front line of resistance fighting environmental destruction. They only represent 5% of the world population, inhabiting 25% of earth land surface where 80% of terrestrial biodiversity is found. Studies have shown repeatedly that where Indigenous Peoples have land rights, nature thrives. But when they are on the front-line to defend their land against the invasion of extractive industries, where are you? There are hundreds of these movements, it shouldn’t be that difficult to provide support. Today, Kwahu Tenetehar died for protecting his territory against illegal loggers. His friend Tainaky Tenetehar is seriously wounded. They were part of the Amazon Guardians. It happened in Brazil today. How does XR reconcile its lack of support for Indigenous movements and its demands? How about demonstrating in front of the Brazilian embassy in London?

The UK along the US, Canada, Australia and the EU is a major destructive actor, destabilizing countries to secure their natural resources. It is not something we can deny any longer, we have now a US president who “says things like they are”, his former advisor Bolton too. The occupation of oil fields in Syria are just an example of this constant assault on countries that do not oblige with Neo-liberal policies. In addition to the millions killed and displaced, the cost of wars for the environment and the climate is enormous. How does XR reconcile its lack of assessment of the industrial military complex and its demand?

“Tell the truth”, “listen to the scientists” are both invigorating and utterly shortsighted. There are 100s of millions of people who are joining the middle class, many more among the working class with enough purchasing power to contribute to the global economy and therefor climate change. Telling the truth is also about undergoing a critical assessment of what a Green New Deal, Invest in Nature, Natural Capital (and the collection of groups out there pushing to monetize our natural world) would really mean down the road. And this is probably where my biggest beef with Extinction Rebellion is. Your movement functions in a vacuum, and is being co-opted by the very people pushing for a new form of capitalism, called “green”. The cost to change our energy infrastructure cannot and should never be assessed in monetary terms, that we agree, but how about the cost to nature and climate change? To curb GHG emissions and achieve a net-zero emission target by 2030 would mean a 10 fold increase of our mining activities (not including the fossil fuel needed to extract, transform and ship these). There has not been any serious investigation into what happen to all these “sustainable renewable technologies” when they come at the end of their life cycle. Recycling has been quite absent of the conversation, I am not just talking about aluminum, plastics and so on, but electronics. It is a serious concern to the people of the South, where most of these minerals are being mined from (population displacement, pollution, environmental destruction). The race for access to natural resources has never been so violent on the poor and Indigenous Peoples.

Sincerely

Marco