Extinction Rebellion - This Is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Hanbook

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First published 2019

Copyright Extinction Rebellion, 2019

The moral right of the authors has been asserted

Edited by Clare Farrell, Alison Green, Sam Knights and William Skeaping

ISBN: 978-0-141-99145-0

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We hold the following to be true:

This is our darkest hour.

Humanity finds itself embroiled in an event unprecedented in its history, one which, unless immediately addressed, will catapult us further into the destruction of all we hold dear: this nation, its peoples, our ecosystems and the future of generations to come.

The science is clear: we are in the sixth mass extinction event and we will face catastrophe if we do not act swiftly and robustly.

Biodiversity is being annihilated around the world. Our seas are poisoned, acidic and rising. Flooding and desertification will render vast tracts of land uninhabitable and lead to mass migration.

Our air is so toxic the United Kingdom is breaking the law. It harms the unborn while causing tens of thousands to die. The breakdown of our climate has begun. There will be more wildfires, unpredictable super-storms, increasing famine and untold drought as food supplies and fresh water disappear.

The ecological crises that are impacting upon this nation and on this planet and its wildlife can no longer be ignored, denied or go unanswered by any beings of sound rational mind, ethical conscience, moral concern or spiritual belief.

In accordance with these values, the virtues of truth and the weight of scientific evidence, we declare it our duty to act on behalf of the security and well-being of our children, our communities and the future of the planet itself.

We, in alignment with our consciences and our reasoning, declare ourselves in rebellion against our government and the corrupted, inept institutions that threaten our future.

The wilful complicity displayed by our government has shattered meaningful democracy and cast aside the common interest in favour of short-term gain and private profit.

When government and the law fail to provide any assurance of adequate protection of and security for its peoples well-being and the nations future, it becomes the right of citizens to seek redress in order to restore dutiful democracy and to secure the solutions needed to avert catastrophe and protect the future. It becomes not only our right but our sacred duty to rebel.

We hereby declare the bonds of the social contract to be null and void; the government has rendered them invalid by its continuing failure to act appropriately. We call upon every principled and peaceful citizen to rise with us.

We demand to be heard, to apply informed solutions to these ecological crises and to create a national assembly by which to initiate those solutions needed to change our present cataclysmic course.

We refuse to bequeath a dying planet to future generations by failing to act now.

We act in peace, with ferocious love of these lands in our hearts.

We act on behalf of life.

VANDANA SHIVA

Academic

The signs are loud and clear. From the Earth. From science. From women. From children. From indigenous communities. From our daily lives.

The life on this planet, and our own future, is under severe threat.

We are living through the sixth mass extinction, driven by the limitless greed of the 1 per cent, their blindness to the ecological limits the Earth sets and the limits set by social justice and human rights. We forget that we are one humanity on one planet. There is no planet B. This is where we will live, or go extinct as a species, with the millions that have been driven to extinction by the violence and carelessness of the brute force misleadingly called the economy.

Economy, like ecology, is derived from oikos our home, the Earth. An economy that destroys our home is no longer an economy. It is a war against the planet, the people and our future.

The Hopi people of North America describe the phenomenon of destroying everything that sustains a society as Powaqqatsi an entity, a way of life, that consumes the life forces of beings in order to further its own life.

The Powaqqatsi phenomenon of the Hopi is clearly in evidence today. We are dealing with a destructive force that is taking out life forces wherever it can. If the corporations have their way, our fragile web of life will be poisoned and broken, species will be driven to extinction, people will lose all their freedoms to their seed, to their food, to their knowledge and decisions, and all social relations will be ruptured and broken.

Life, society and democracy are under threat. We refuse to allow this future to unfold. We love the Earth; we embrace humanity. We celebrate our biological and cultural diversity and we will defend the rights of the Earth, and the rights of all its citizens, including the last child, with our fearless love and compassionate courage.

To make peace among people we need to make peace with the Earth. To defend the human rights of people we need to recognize the rights of Mother Earth. We need to live through our creativity and her generosity to reduce our ecological footprint while expanding our planetary consciousness of being an Earth family, with one common home.

The extermination of biological diversity and of indigenous cultures that know how to live in peace with Mother Earth is part of one extinction, one interconnected war against life. Ecocide and genocide are one indivisible process, and they began with the idea of the colonization of the Earth as the civilizing mission of a superior race.

In his fifth annual message to Congress on 3 December 1833, US President Andrew Jackson said:

That those tribes cannot exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.