What price our planet
The Tablet
Climate change protests
Politicians and the mass media
are often several steps behind public opinion. There is plenty of
evidence that this is true regarding climate change, and the real threat
it poses not just to rare species of animal and plant life but to the
whole animal kingdom, homo sapiens included. The public is beginning to
realise that there is a real emergency on hand. Yet the political
establishment drags its feet.
It is this that prompted some school children – who had taken to heart what they learnt in their lessons about global warming – to go on strike earlier this year. But it will take more than schoolchildren picketing at the school gates to bring about the radical changes needed. That is the logic behind the direct action campaign which brought thousands of protesters to London this week, creating a traffic gridlock in the capital by the mere act of sitting down in the road. Those taking part were briefed beforehand that they risked being arrested. Indeed, it is not far from the truth to say they wanted to be, for the sake of the planet.
The organisers, a group called Extinction Rebellion, required participants to agree to an exemplary set of rules. They were to show respect to everyone, including the police, to avoid any kind of violence, not to take drugs or drink alcohol, and not to hide from the consequences of breaking the law. The most distinguished climate change demonstrator was probably Dr Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury. Very much in the spirit of Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ on humanity’s duty to care for the environment, he said: “Christians are called by God to show to the world .… the image of a divine creator who brought the world to birth, called it good, and summoned human beings to reflect this divine care and delight …”
Direct action and civil disobedience have proved themselves time and again to be effective ways of forcing a change of gear in public policy. When in 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white person, as required by law, she triggered an avalanche that brought the civil rights movement into being. But as a tactic it is not without its critics. In a democratic society the law exists to protect people, and breaking it in one respect tears at the fabric of the whole. How can those who do so claim the law’s protection next time they need it?
In Robert Bolt’s famous play A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More rebukes his son-in-law, William Roper, who proposed having More’s persecutor, Richard Rich, arrested though he had committed no crime: “Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ... And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?” There is a tension between these two ethical positions. Both come at a cost; Thomas More and Rosa Parks are both admirable. The Extinction Rebellion movement seems to be fully aware of the dilemma, and everyone has to resolve it in his or her own way.
It is this that prompted some school children – who had taken to heart what they learnt in their lessons about global warming – to go on strike earlier this year. But it will take more than schoolchildren picketing at the school gates to bring about the radical changes needed. That is the logic behind the direct action campaign which brought thousands of protesters to London this week, creating a traffic gridlock in the capital by the mere act of sitting down in the road. Those taking part were briefed beforehand that they risked being arrested. Indeed, it is not far from the truth to say they wanted to be, for the sake of the planet.
The organisers, a group called Extinction Rebellion, required participants to agree to an exemplary set of rules. They were to show respect to everyone, including the police, to avoid any kind of violence, not to take drugs or drink alcohol, and not to hide from the consequences of breaking the law. The most distinguished climate change demonstrator was probably Dr Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury. Very much in the spirit of Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ on humanity’s duty to care for the environment, he said: “Christians are called by God to show to the world .… the image of a divine creator who brought the world to birth, called it good, and summoned human beings to reflect this divine care and delight …”
Direct action and civil disobedience have proved themselves time and again to be effective ways of forcing a change of gear in public policy. When in 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white person, as required by law, she triggered an avalanche that brought the civil rights movement into being. But as a tactic it is not without its critics. In a democratic society the law exists to protect people, and breaking it in one respect tears at the fabric of the whole. How can those who do so claim the law’s protection next time they need it?
In Robert Bolt’s famous play A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More rebukes his son-in-law, William Roper, who proposed having More’s persecutor, Richard Rich, arrested though he had committed no crime: “Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ... And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?” There is a tension between these two ethical positions. Both come at a cost; Thomas More and Rosa Parks are both admirable. The Extinction Rebellion movement seems to be fully aware of the dilemma, and everyone has to resolve it in his or her own way.
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