on the need for truth-telling and its possible needful consequences

[*This blog post is based on the pamphlet: Truth and its consequences: a memo to fellow rebels on smart strategy written by Rupert Read. If you like this blog, then do read the whole pamphlet!]

Telling the truth

Extinction Rebellion’s (XR’s) first demand is for the Government to tell the whole truth about the gravity of the climate and ecological emergency. The time is now because everything is not going to magically sort itself out, everything is not going to be ok. What we are currently witnessing is climate spiralling out of our reach while ecosystems are already thoroughly degraded with the sixth extinction crisis under way. Climate disasters are coming, inevitably, and the climate situation will worsen for at least a generation, probably far longer, whatever we do. This is because of the time-lags built into the system: CO2 stays in the atmosphere for decades/centuries, and for every litre of petrol that gets burnt, the heat generated (ie. trapped) over time by the green house effect from burning that litre adds up to about 60000 times the heat you get directly from the petrol in your engine. This is why we are on the verge of destroying ourselves. …

Why they are significantly worse than the EU [i]

We have written this article not out of any love for the EU but because we feel duty-bound to explain to a still largely-unsuspecting public what ‘No-Deal’ would really mean, just how disastrous it would be — and what might stil be done to stop it.

By Rupert Read and Adam Woods.

For the first time in 40 years, the UK has to re-consider its trading policy. At the moment, there is plenty of talk about “falling back” onto World Trading Organisation (WTO) rules in the event of a no-deal Brexit, an outcome which Theresa May’s giant game of ‘chicken’ makes dangerously likely. And indeed, if this is what happens, the UK will find itself solely under the minimalist rules-based trading system of the WTO. As this remains the legal default position, in the event of a no-deal Brexit we will find ourselves in a position in which tariff-free trade between the UK and the EU ceases and the agreements held in place over the last four decades to boost revenue on imported goods and protect specific sectors of the economy will be rendered null and void. …

Reflections upon the defeat of the Trade Bill

By Dr. Rupert Read and Baroness Jenny Jones

Last week, the upper House inflicted a historic defeat on the Government’s Trade Bill. This article explains the reasons for and the significance of the defeat, in the context of the struggle over Brexit and in defence of a precautionary approach to environmental- and public-health- protection.

In a time of rising anxiety with the possibility of a no deal Brexit looming, there must be assurances made in law that our future trading arrangements are not going to expose us to gross potential damage to our ecology. This is one of the key reasons why the House of Lords last week inflicted a remarkable defeat upon the Government’s Trade Bill. This short article focuses upon this event, draws upon the contribution to the debate especially by the Green Party (in the person of the one Green peer, Baroness Jenny Jones) and reflects on on where go from…

While writing my new book on how some films are shared dreams which can help us to awaken, I had a dream: a dream which I think reflects the reality through which we are sleepwalking to collective self-destruciton…:

I’ve just published a book, called ‘A film-philosophy of ecology and enlightenment’. (You can read the early part of it for free here: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=iNNyDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&ots=neRvyifi24&sig=EpCGrmDAUXwvxmWqXcT844CeCZE#v=onepage&q&f=false

…Don’t attempt to buy it unless you are independently wealthy — it’s madly expensive. Wait for the paperback next year — or, much better idea, order it for/through your library, now.)

I argue in my book that a number of the films I investigate in the book are about daring to dream again. (Especially the film that I argue is the most significant popular film of recent times: Avatar.) …

A friendly critique of Bendell’s ‘Deep adaptation’ paper

Climate-nemesis is near-certain. But “near-certain” is not yet “inevitable”. On the contrary, it is still uncertain. By making it sound inevitable, we run the risk of fomenting inaction at the worst possible time. We need to prepare for what is near-certain. But if we give up trying to stop it then it will become inevitable. We need to try to stop it: roll on the eXtinction Rebellion.

The (exciting, but mainly terrifying) 1.5degrees report from the IPCC made (some of) the headlines; and now the media have mostly moved on. The mega-story of potential #climatebreakdown, the long emergency that threatens to take us, the news-story that should be on our screens every night, has been overtaken by dramas in Brussels and Westminster (not to mention on Strictly Come Dancing). …