Today saw the UK's first court case for @InsulateLove campaigners, who have been repeatedly sitting in roads including motorways to demand the government insulate homes.
This is not an XR campaign but some XR rebels have been participating and were in court today.
In cold countries like the UK, decarbonisation is not possible without home insulation. It simply needs to happen. The longer it's delayed, the more vulnerable people die in fuel poverty and the more people are killed in climate breakdown thanks to emissions from gas heating.
Italy provides an example of how governments can provide home insulation, create jobs and cut emissions at the same time.
Sentences of four months in prison were handed down to eight of the #Highway9, while the ninth, Ben Taylor, received a six month sentence after telling the judge he would "go out and block the highway at the earliest opportunity" if not jailed.
"If you send me away to prison, 10 people will step forward in my place. If you send each of us away, 100 people will step forward and take our places. If you send 100 of us away, 1,000 people will step forward to take our place."
One of the #Highway9, Emma Smart, immediately announced that she was starting a hunger strike.
Yesterday Emma gave this inspirational explanation of why she is engaging in civil resistance.
The judge bizarrely accused the #Highway9 of breaking the social contract - but this is exactly what the UK government is doing by failing to take the action required to keep its people safe.
There has long been a tension between incrementalists in the environmental movement, and people like us who demand radical change.
You can see it in the reactions to COP26 - some say "It's a start" while others say "It's an atrocity".
It would be great if we could stop the breakdown of climate and nature through existing power structures and incremental changes. System change is scary and hard to bring about.
But we have to accept that incrementalism has failed for the past 30 years, and it's too late now.
“No more subsidies for [the] fossil fuel industry. No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period. Ends.”
It's not just the Gulf of Mexico. It's not just the refusal to #StopLine3. Biden's government are doubling down on oil and gas while trying to deflect blame for climate breakdown onto India and China.
China's annual emissions are huge and their plans for coal-fired power stations are incompatible with a habitable planet.
Are you a leader of a Global North country, wondering how you can persuade them to do better?
IDEAS... 💡🧵
First up, make sure your per capita emissions are lower than theirs - looking at you, USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan and many others.
Also remember the Global North's historic emissions are off the scale, and almost all that carbon you burnt in the last 200 years is still in the atmosphere.
Not much you can do about that now except decarbonise as quickly as possible to atone for past sins.