Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[mongers]

Interesting item about Extinction rebellion, concentrating on the organisation's finances:

'I gave up a six-figure salary to join Extinction Rebellion'
By Dan Ascher

Andrew Medhurst was a high-flyer. He earned a six-figure salary and had worked all over the world for the likes of Lloyds Bank and HSBC.
But he gave it all up to join Extinction Rebellion.

It was around Christmas last year when he suddenly snapped. He was designing pension plan policies aimed at encouraging young people to put money away for the future.
But after reading up on climate change, and as he reflected on the scorching summer of 2018, the 53-year-old came to the conclusion that pension schemes "looked almost fraudulent" because the effects of global warming threatened the future those young people were saving for.
He handed in his notice at Nest - the National Employment Savings Trust - and told colleagues he was leaving to campaign for the planet. His banking background made him an ideal person to look after the group's finances and donations.
.......
However, as a former businessman he also brings a certain gravitas to the matter. As leader of the organisation's finance team, he spends his time focusing as much on revenues as on revolution.

The press has pointed to the way it is "raking in" money from members to support its operations and Mr Medhurst says the group has raised more than £2.5m this year.

Between the beginning of March and the end of September, gifts from large donors - those giving £5,000 or more - totalled £1.2m. The list of benefactors includes the rock band Radiohead, which gave the organisation £300,000.
Meanwhile, an online fundraising page has attracted another £1m from smaller donors.

And the donations fund a sophisticated financial operation, with two limited companies in the UK and plans to set up an international branch in Europe, which will pay for the group's activism around the world.

But wherever the funds go its policy of "radical transparency" will be maintained, Mr Medhurst says.

Extinction Rebellion's site lists every single expense, from a £7,350 payment for coloured boats that were sent all over the country to a £1,313 insurance premium for a fire engine that was used in a bungled attempt to spray fake blood on the treasury.

But, perhaps surprisingly for an activist organisation, the group's biggest outgoing is its payroll.
Activists can claim so-called "volunteer living expenses" of up to £400 a week, which set the group back £130,000 for the months of June, July and August alone.
The aim is to make activism accessible to supporters with children to feed or mortgages to pay, Mr Medhurst says. It's a trust-based system, and supporters don't apply for expenses if, like him, they don't need them.

But protests are expensive in other ways too. October's events have cost the group around £1m, he says.
The expenses include £30,000 for hiring toilets, an electricity bill of around £30,000, sound equipment - like microphones and speakers - that cost another £25,000, while the bill to feed 20,000 activists three meals a day was about £50,000.

The group spent another £200,000 on things like leaflets and coaches to bus thousands of activists from as far afield as Scotland.

And then there's the hefty legal bill, following the 1,828 arrests of its activists (although only a fraction have been charged).

Another £120,000 went on "media and messaging" costs in October and it had put aside £70,000 to pay for so-called "regenerative culture", which includes providing "safe spaces" for activists that need to recover after being arrested.

But of course it's not just the movement itself that is incurring costs.
The Metropolitan Police say so far this year it has spent £37m policing Extinction Rebellion's activities - £21m on the October protests alone - more than twice the annual budget of the Violent Crime Taskforce, set up last year to deal with a rise in crime on the capital's streets.

.....

Professional protestors?

Full article here, worth a read:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50087022

[Tamas]

Wow, if you put those numbers and all the ecological footprint like driving people around from edges of the country to boost numbers, and compare it to actual results they have achieved, I think it is safe to say they are a colossal failure and do way mor harm than good. But at least a lot of money gets to exchange hands.

[Richard Hakluyt]

They will get replaced with automated robotic protestors soon though, hopefully powered with solar panels 

[Zoupa]

Wow, if you put those numbers and all the ecological footprint like driving people around from edges of the country to boost numbers, and compare it to actual results they have achieved, I think it is safe to say they are a colossal failure and do way mor harm than good. But at least a lot of money gets to exchange hands.

And what are you doing about all this?

[Tamas]

Wow, if you put those numbers and all the ecological footprint like driving people around from edges of the country to boost numbers, and compare it to actual results they have achieved, I think it is safe to say they are a colossal failure and do way mor harm than good. But at least a lot of money gets to exchange hands.

And what are you doing about all this?

And what are they?

[Zoupa]

Awareness and all that jazz. To be fair I mostly agree with you that their public actions so far have been pretty stupid. It's just that you direct a visceral anger at those dimwits but not at the big polluters.

[crazy canuck]

I was having lunch with some elder members of the profession as the XR marched by in what looked to be thousands.  The whole of the downtown core was closed down for a couple of hours as a result.  We felt free to extend our lunch....

The reaction of the others at the table was a lot less curmudgeonly than that demonstrated on Languish.  Comments were made about how it was good to see the youth energized about the issue and that these sorts of events will stay with them as they move through their lives.  Comments by people who were of that age in the 60s.

[garbon]

If only people who were that age in the 60s had proven more responsible in their adulthood.

[crazy canuck]

If only people who were that age in the 60s had proven more responsible in their adulthood.

Probably why they are not as negative as some here

[Malthus]

I worry that our societies simply lack the mechanisms to deal with long-term crises. Everyone is so short-sighted, focused on the next quarter's profits, the next election, the next issue to gain traction on social media. With the rise of nationalist populism, those international mechanisms that existed are being eroded when they need to be enhanced. 

Seeing big protests is somewhat encouraging, but unfortunately big protests are becoming too common and low-impact to matter much. They have become a socially acceptable aspect of our culture. They do not shock or change minds, and they do not change our society, which simply embraces them as letting off some steam, or are viewed as a minor annoyance, depending on who is asked. Remember the wall street protest?

Of course people whose attitudes were formed in the 60s look to the methods that worked in their era, to alleviate (obviously, not solve) the issues that mattered then. Other patterns spring to mind - like the Space Race, or WW2.

What is needed is an international mobilization of society against the menace, but our institutions, diplomatic, political and economic, including our informal institutions of protest, appear to not be up to the task.

[crazy canuck]

I agree

[Valmy]

I know we need the entire international community to rally but not even one of the major countries has rallied on their own yet.

Now progress is slowly being made and I think that is the only way we can really do it...but that is not good enough as you guys point out.

[crazy canuck]

I know we need the entire international community to rally but not even one of the major countries has rallied on their own yet.

Now progress is slowly being made and I think that is the only way we can really do it...but that is not good enough as you guys point out.

Too many people who know that change is required but find petty excuses for voting for parties that are full of deniers.  See the Canadian election thread for a good example of that.

[viper37]

Too many people who know that change is required but find petty excuses for voting for parties that are full of deniers.  See the Canadian election thread for a good example of that.

You mean like all those people who strategically voted for the Liberal Party of Canada at the last two elections?  Yeah, I agree, they're evil incarnate.

[crazy canuck]

Too many people who know that change is required but find petty excuses for voting for parties that are full of deniers.  See the Canadian election thread for a good example of that.

You mean like all those people who strategically voted for the Liberal Party of Canada at the last two elections?  Yeah, I agree, they're evil incarnate.

I think it is intellectually dishonest to include the last election since the Liberals promised to be a lot more active on climate change policy.  They also promised to bring in PR which would meant the Greens would have had a greater say in Parliament this time round.  They broke both those promises in dramatic fashion.

No, I was mostly thinking about the idiots who claim they understand the science but vote Conservative anyway.

If you put both groups together, those who voted Liberal this time and those who voted Conservative, you quickly realize we are pretty much screwed.