Local Faces
“WHAT CAN PEOPLE DO ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE? BE IN OPEN REBELLION AGAINST THE STATE.” Cara Cummings meets the Extinction Rebellion co-founder from Peckham Rye
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t’s no surprise Clare Farrell describes the last eighteen months as “a bit of a whirlwind”. Since Extinction Rebellion launched in October 2018, its activists have brought London to a standstill, twice; blocked roads, ports and runways across the UK; poured fake blood over Downing Street, gone on mass hunger strike and glued themselves to planes, trains, and even the House of Commons viewing gallery - naked to demand action on climate change. And that’s just in this country. The movement’s headline-grabbing, non-violent tactics have brought the climate crisis to national attention and ensured it stays there. Clare didn’t predict XR’s rapid rise - “Did I expect it take off to this extent? No, of course not!” - but its pacey expansion reflects the severity of the crisis at hand. “If we don’t do anything,” she explains, “we’re committed to a 3-4 degree warmer world by the end of the century at a minimum. It’s questionable whether human
beings can adapt to even two or three degrees, especially at the pace it’s going to come. Some think we’ll hit 1.5 this coming decade, which is supposed to be the limit. You can’t just press a button and go ‘oh s**t, we’re there now, turn it off’”. The straight-talking former fashion designer doesn’t mince her words on what a warmer world could entail. “Potentially big sea level rises - by 2050, loads of London underwater. Loads of where I grew up in the north east underwater. A Welsh coastal village, Fairbourne,
is being decommissioned already. The World Bank said that 140 million people could be displaced by mid-century. People are going to lose their homes in Brighton, in Hull, in Plymouth. Where the f*** are they going to go? “There’ll be no business continuity, no predictable weather. Roger [Hallam, XR co-founder] has been criticised for saying that six billion people will die this century. That’s an atrocity worse than anything in human history. The lowest estimate I’ve heard from scientists is about 4 billion. Look at South Africa right now: the drought that’s there [the worst in 100 years] is destroying people’s homes, livelihoods, crops. I saw a message that said people are drinking out of animal troughs and shooting each other over access to water. That’s now. “I think in ten years’ time, people are going to look back at this moment and think: why weren’t millions of us in the street demanding that something happens?” Continues overleaf
URBAN FOX 9
