Madam,

In the last week there have been quite a lot of disparaging comment in the national press, and in some letters to you, on the Extinction Rebellion demonstrators in London, even referring to them as a ‘rabble’.

May I say that anyone who thinks carefully about what is going on, really should not use such language. These protesters represent some of the noblest-hearted people in the country, who are willing, often with heavy hearts, to stay out on the streets in foul weather and to give up their time and their freedom for a cause which should engage us all.

Not for nothing do they tell the police ‘We are doing this for your children’. We are all in it together, and unless notice is taken of the general message borne by Extinction Rebellion, as by the climate strikers last month, then everybody’s children are in for a very grim future.

This is not doom-mongering; it is rational and careful deduction from the known facts about the effects humans are having on the climate. It is deep arrogance to dismiss these facts as if the scientists were in a conspiracy. What is in it for them? Many scientists are as desperate as the XR demonstrators that their children should have a future. It is wilful blindness to ignore the science.

Similarly, many demonstrators are elderly and have nothing personal to gain if world governments do take action, because their remaining time on earth is unlikely to be long enough to see the terrible changes which present-day children are sure to witness, unless we all go on to a war footing and take this issue seriously.

Certainly the actions taken in London and elsewhere are annoying to the everyday lives of others; great efforts are made, not always successfully, to mitigate these, and at least to explain to the inconvenienced how serious the matter is, but the disruption is basically a deliberate tactic - a present pain for a future gain for us all.

Without such disruption it has been seen that authorities do not take strong enough action. But when the sea roars in at your front door, there is no compromising with the water. When the cost of food reaches astronomical levels because of harvest failures, there is no compromise with starvation. When storms blow away all the structures in an island village, there is no compromise with the lion’s roar of the wind.

It is the failure of a whole generation of leaders to grasp this nettle which has made the protesters take disruptive action. They are tired of bland reassurances that ‘we will keep climate warming below 2 degrees’, etc. None of the actions necessary to achieve even that mediocre goal have been taken. Leaders are scared of telling people the truth. They take actions which seem to be addressing the problem, but which are inadequate and too late.

Yours etc, Carol Nixon, Penuwch, Tregaron.

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