Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

‘It’s not a crime to understand science’: Behind the scenes at Extinction Rebellion

An Extinction Rebellion protester in Westminster (Getty images)

There was plastic aplenty at today’s Extinction Rebellion rally in Parliament Square. Plastic shoes, plastic badges, plastic sunglasses, plastic phone covers. A woman offered me a sticker peeled from a strip.

‘Are they plastic?’

‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘Someone gave them to me.’

XR is starting a week of demos and civil disobedience. I arrived just as a sit-down protest opposite Parliament was being cleared by police liaison officers. ‘If you occupy the road you’ll be arrested under Section 14 of the Public Order Act, 1986,’ they said politely.

An XR steward went around quietly advising the tarmac-squatters: ‘Don’t acknowledge what they’ve said. Then they can’t say you knew you’d broken the law.’

But the cops won that one. An hour later the street was clear.

Dozens of rebels were waving tree-saplings in full leaf. They were from beeches, I was told.

‘Did you rip that off the tree yourself,’ I asked one protestor.

‘No. I was given it.’

A neat cut at the thick-end of the branch suggested that a tool had been used. Someone told me the branches had been specially harvested at a farm in Kent.

The mood was festive and relaxed, despite the constant screech of whistles and drums. Families let their children caper around in the sunshine. Helpful rebels handed out sun-block. Groups of meditators sat on the grass in the lotus position and slowed their breathing. Above them fluttered an Earth Vigil banner. ‘United in love and grief for our SACRED EARTH’. It was a great day for home-made placards. Most of them seemed to have been written by angry depressives.

‘Fuck Business As Usual.’ ‘Delay = Death.’

A lot of the placards sounded like excerpts from domestic tiffs.

‘If I give a crap, why can’t you?’ ‘It’s not a crime to understand science.’ ‘I’ll be less rebellious when you take more notice of the FACTS’.

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