Members of Extinction Rebellion Lambeth visited Lambeth council headquarters in Brixton to mark a birthday – with “love and rage”.
As well as a card and doughnuts, they presented a hand-written letter and a gift-wrapped copy of the book Doughnut Economics by economist Kaeth Raworth.
The letter said that on 23 January 2019, the council passed a motion to declare a climate emergency, “recognising that individual actions were not sufficient to tackle the climate and ecological crisis”.
It said XR recognises that the pandemic and cuts to local councils’ budgets have had a significant impact on the borough’s operations, but adds: “we ask that Lambeth council take bolder and quicker actions” commensurate with the urgency of the situation.
“The science is clear,” the letter says. “We are on course to smash the so-called “safe” limit of a 1.5 degrees warming set by the 2015 Paris agreement, with consequences ‘so severe they go beyond the limits of what nations cam adapt to’.
“In passing the motion, the council highlighted how Lambeth residents will be affected by the consequences of climate breakdown:
- Increased risk of flooding
- Health problems, especially for vulnerable people,
- High energy and food costs
- Increase in social injustice and inequality.
“Now is not the time to dither or set unambitious or misleading goals.
“The borough needs to not only urgently implement their Citizens’ Assembly’s recommendations – through what we expect to be the upcoming Climate Action Plan, but also to go beyond the targets set if it genuinely wonts to protect and improve the lives of its citizens.
“We refuse to bequeath a dying planes to future generations by failing to act now.”
XR signs the letter “with love and rage”.
More do as i say not as I do by the white middle class telling the rest of us how to live. While they live in warm houses go on holidays fly on planes, have children.
Gentrifaction via XR