Why I was at an Extinction Rebellion protest this weekend.

Maybe you heard about it on the news. This Saturday, Extinction Rebellion blocked an important road in The Hague to demand the Dutch government stops throwing money at the fossil fuel industry. No less than 768 protesters were arrested. Fun times!

Actually, as crazy as this may sound, it was fun. If you’ve been reading my emails, you know I can’t shut up about climate change. Being around people who are equally concerned is great. Seeing hundreds of people who are willing to get arrested for this cause while a great many more sing and cheer for them… well, it gives me hope.

What’s weird, is to return home all happy and energised and then reading all the negative comments online about this protest. It reminded me that not too long ago, I probably could have said something like this too:

Now I can say: yes and yes. While it may seem that pissing people off is hurting the cause, it turns out, it won’t change people’s opinions.

So then how does it help? While it doesn’t change HOW people think, it does change WHAT they think about.

This awareness is important, because here’s some good news:

¹

.

The 20th century has shown that ALL non-violent civil rights movements who wanted political change succeeded when they had at least 3,5 percent of the population behind their cause.

²

So that’s why I was there; to help us get to that 3,5 percent.

I can imagine you still feel that civil disobedience goes too far and that’s fine! There are many ways to get involved if you want to make this world a better place. Most important thing is to remember, you don’t have to do it all by yourself.

As always, I love to hear from you, so feel free to comment or hit the reply button!

With love,

---

Do you like my emails? I’d love it if you:

1. Future Earth by Eric Holthaus.

2. According to Erica Chenoweth, American political scientist, professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.