For the past couple of months Rebellion Extinction, which is a protest against climate change, has been a popular topic in all media.

The protesters in London have been blocking trains and even planes and going on protest marches. A man dressed up as Boris Johnson and climbed Big Ben with a Rebellion extinction banner. A group of breastfeeding mothers with infants protested outside the Google headquarters, since they believe that social media aren’t doing enough about climate change. Protestors actions surely attracted the attention they were seeking for and hopefully will grab the attention of many of the world’s powerful people.

However, some of their actions could have had quite an opposite media effect as many protestors were not as much about the environment once they were outside their marches.  Some protestors who were next to the slogans about eating less meat were later seen in McDonalds eating meat burgers. The protestors trying to stop trains, buses and planes must have caused significantly more emission by disrupting the established transport routines. There is a house covered in Rebellion extinction banners in my area; but that family owns two cars and a motorbike, the motorbike alone is very polluting.  Such biased actions often set people against these protests and the ideas behind them.  Surely, more needs to be done towards fighting climate change, however it must be more organised and with less controversies which may have quite an opposite effect.

Katerina Harhun