Extinction Rebellion Brisbane/Meanjin’s ‘Cycle Against Social Collapse’ caused significant disruption to peak hour traffic yesterday in the Brisbane CBD.
The cycle, which started at Kurilpa point, wound its way slowly through the CBD for over an hour before ending in Kind George Square. Traffic banked up as around 50 people rode with colourful flags and music playing through the streets, disrupting the business as usual fuelling the climate crisis and imminent social collapse. People who recently locked on to Newscorp’s printing press encouraged others to take action and shared poetry about the climate crisis.
XR spokesperson Hannah Doole said that governments and policymakers have utterly failed to do what needs to be done to protect us from the looming threat of social and ecological collapse.
‘Politicians are doing everything in their power to prop up destructive industries and taking no steps to prevent runaway climate change. Their track record shows that they cannot be trusted to act in the public interest.’
Response to government climate policies
Extinction Rebellion’s Cycle Against Social Collapse is in response to government climate policies which put us on track for over 4 degrees of warming, which scientists say will make the world inhabitable for only a billion people.
‘Our governments are knowingly participating in the killing of billions of people by ignoring the climate crisis,’ said Ms Doole. ‘We know that the collapse of ecosystems, food and water shortages and disasters like floods, cyclones and fires increasing in frequency – will ultimately lead to the break down of our societies and communities.
‘It means war, famine and billions of people being displaced by disasters and uninhabitable land.’
XR say the cycle is part of a growing global movement that uses civil disobedience tactics to push for urgent action on climate crisis. Extinction Rebellion rose to prominence in 2019 in response to the global failure of Governments to address the threat of ecological collapse.
‘XR’s keystone demand is that the government hand over control of climate policy to a “Binding Citizens Assembly” on the Climate and Ecological crisis,’ said Ms Doole. ‘A Citizens Assemblies is a jury-like institution that would effectively put the government on trial while giving everyday people the power to determine what changes need to be made to reach net zero emissions and halt biodiversity loss by 2025.’
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