IF someone were to commission a manual on how to score a spectacular own goal then the first port of call should be Extinction Rebellion, or failing that Willie Donnachie.
That the planet is facing a crisis is only denied by the incredibly stupid, the clinically insane or Donald Trump who transcends both categories.
But there are ways of going about spreading the message and Extinction Rebellion have failed to get the public on board and instead have just collectively annoyed them.
READ MORE: We Stand Together: Thousands gather worldwide to demand climate change action
The sight of an exquisitely shod, middle class oik with a perfectly manicured beard standing on the roof of the Tube train you are about to board to go to work is more than enough to turn the crowd against you.
To then lash out with his perfectly polished ankle boots at the crowd below, who probably earn less in a week than his boots cost, makes it ten times worse. Especially as he was carrying a banner telling the commuters they were complicit in the climate crisis by working.
It is hard to argue against the message Extinction Rebellion are trying to get across, but they need to learn a bit of self-awareness to get the public on board.
XR’s official Twitter feed during the London protests claimed their fight was the same as Rosa Parks, the US civil rights campaigner who refused to give her up her seat on a bus to a white person. Crass and misinformed doesn’t even cover it.
Ordinary folk don’t like being lectured to by middle-class hipsters on anything, let alone from the roof of a delayed commuter train.
Teenage climate change activists are far better at getting their message across as they are less offensive and don’t appear to be hypocrites. People can stomach that.
But delaying law-abiding citizens going about their daily lives will never work, regardless of the protests’ ultimate aim.
During the London protests outside an oil giant’s HQ, a young woman said she ‘wept uncontrollably’ when she heard the Government-subsidised fossil fuel firms.
READ MORE: Letters: The destructive global cost of 'doing the right thing' when fighting climate change
Perhaps she ‘wept uncontrollably’ too when she heard the oil giants also contribute huge tax revenues which help pay for roads she can block, trains that she can stand on the roof of, and schools, which she should have attended far more often judging by her lack of basic knowledge.
Everyone needs to do their bit to beat climate change but that does not include gluing yourself to a building, standing on a train roof or lying down on a busy road.
All that does is make you look self-absorbed and that doesn’t help anything
at all.
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