It's great to welcome to the program today, Roger Hallam, who's a British environmental
activist and cofounder of extinction rebellion, a movement that uses nonviolent civil disobedience
to compel government action on climate change.
Roger, it's so great to have you on.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
Great.
Thanks.
So this is a topic I'm very interested in because I've long argued that, uh, here in
the United States, for example, calling your elected official and signing a petition online
is a very rarely going to really achieve the kind of systemic change that we need in order
to deal with some of the major issues that are facing us.
Climate change and environmental issues certainly included.
And I know that for me, violent civil disobedience feels like it is over the line, but finding
exactly where the line is, uh, is maybe more complicated than, than, than some might think.
So.
Can you talk a little bit about your perspective and some of the protests you've organized?
Well, the first thing to say is, as I'm sure people know, and the climate change crisis
has been going on now for 30 years, since 1990 when scientists first told people that
we're heading for this massive catastrophe.
If something isn't, doesn't happen.
So as you rightly say, people been sending emails and lobbying and doing all the conventional
stuff for 30 years and carbon emissions have gone up by 60% which is beyond bad as everyone
knows.
So you know, extinction rebellion came along where you with a blank sheet of paper a bit
like what you've said and said, okay so that's not working.
So what needs to work and the fact of the matter is is civil disobedience does work
as long as it's constructed in a particular way.
And just to sort of expand on that, civil disobedience is a way of peacefully breaking
the law.
They involves respect towards your opponent.
So it's really a little bit complicated to get your head around it cause obviously it
disrupting people's lives and the government.
But at the same time you're saying, look, we want to talk and we want to sort this problem
out.
And that's really why extinction rebellion is about and what civil disobedience is about.
Can you talk a little bit about some of the tactics and techniques that you use?
Yeah, the main, the main way of disrupting governments I guess is to sit in the road.
Some people paint buildings, some people go on hunger strike and none of this is what
people want to do or hasten to white, right?
It's not the sort of thing you'd do lightly upon thousands of people around the world
and now made that decision because the pennies dropped that nothing else is working.
And that's the thing that gets the disruption.
So there's two things going on.
You're disrupting people, but also people are impressed by your sacrifice.
People work, you know, getting arrested, going to prison and what have you.
And obviously no one does that lightly.
So people tend, tend to think even if they disagree with you, I think at least I go,
well you know the guy is actually standing by way believes.
And so maybe there's something to what he's saying.
So that's really how it works.
Do we have data as to what the public perception is of some of these actions?
Because, for example, in the United States, we've had a number of different protests that
involve shutting down a bridge, which is a key commuting artery into or out of a city.
And at least anecdotally, a lot of the reaction seems to be I need to go to work.
And if I'm not there, I get fired.
I can no longer feed my kids.
And it's, it's in a sense of violent act against my ability to put food on my family's table.
So I wonder, uh, what the reaction, do we have anything empirical about how people do
react when they hear about such a protest that is if, for example, a blocking the road
protest?
Well, the first thing to say is, you know, it's a bit of a no brainer.
Obviously.
It's totally maddening if someone's stopping you getting to work.
So no one's trying to dispute that.
The point of civil disobedience is you're taking responsibility.
You're not trying to run away from your actions.
It's not like you're blocking the road and then running off.
You're basically saying to people, I'm blocking road.
I know I'm acting illegally and I'm more than prepared to go to court and you know, suffer
for what I've done.
I'm prepared to get fined, I'm prepared to go to prison if needs be.
So that changes things a little bit.
But in terms of how it affects the public, like what we need to look at is like the public
as a whole.
And I can give you an interesting stat.
For instance, what happened last year, if you want some specific data on it.
Like most people in Britain aren't really heard of the climate emergency.
A bit like in America, everyone thought it was a little bit of a small problem, but actually
it's a massive problem.
And 1,200 people were arrested last April.
It was the biggest civil disobedience in British history.
And after that the episode 67% of the British population agreed there was a climate emergency.
In other words.
So it was like tens of millions of conversations in parts, you know, around kitchen tables
where people are going, hang on a minute, there's thousands of people getting arrested.
This is a big issue.
We sort of knew it was a big issue and now we know it's a big issue and that's how attitude
change works.
So in other words, even if at the micro level someone is prevented from getting to work
as an example, if the social consciousness rises to the point where you have critical
mass towards action, you you consider it a net benefit.
That's, that's what happens on a social level.
Yeah.
But it has to be done in a respectful way.
And this is the thing that people often forget.
This isn't like just about rioting or about being sort of aggressive and what have you.
It's calm is ordered, it's respectful.
And then as I said, even if disagree with you, they certainly have a, you know, a third
respect for you putting yourself on the line.
And I think the other thing we need to understand is that civil disobedience works, but it only
works if you're doing something on an issue.
That's right.
You know, if I sit in a road and block, you're getting to work and I want you to wear red
hat for me at something, you're going to say, I don't care that you're saying in the road,
you know, no way am I going to do that for you.
It only really works when everyone knows it's actually real.
You know, this is objectively real, what's happening with the climate crisis and this
is the biggest problem is communicating that we're absolutely in this dire situation and
that's why people are taking this, you know, dramatic step
one of the tactics that seems to be more of a gray area for different activists depending
on where they draw the line is the destruction of, for example, imagine that you're protesting
logging going in the middle of the night so nobody gets hurt and disabling or damaging
bulldozers as an example.
It's destruction of property, certainly it's certainly a crime, but no one is being physically
hurt.
Where is something like that in your sort of paradigm?
Well, to be honest with you, like the old sort of way of doing direct action as far
as I'm concerned, and I've done five years of research at King's college in London on
it, the main way to change societies through mass participation in civil disobedience,
which means like tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people breaking the law in
a small way in urban centers where everyone can see them, where that's where the government
is, what's the media and what happier.
In other words, you go to the capital city and this sort of thing has been happening
in, in many countries of the world for the last 50 years, particularly in the global
South where you know, you've probably seen a psychic Algeria or Sudan or many other countries.
People go to the capital city and say, we don't want to live under a dictatorship on
the corruption anymore, and we're sitting down until we get some semblance of democracy.
So we're really, we're borrowing that methodology from those people and applying it to Western
democracies where we have this corrupt situation of governments listening to fossil fuel companies
a lot more to ordinary citizens who are concerned about their children's future.
So that's really what we're aiming for, rather than, you know, 10 people doing something
in the middle of the night as it were.
So in other words, it's less about figuring out whether destruction of property is on
this side or that side of the line, but recognizing that that's too small and action compared
to the mass rally at an urban center to really achieve the, the sort of, uh, attention that
you believe is necessary to get change to happen.
Yeah.
And it's not, to be honest with you, primarily about the physical disruption.
It's more about the emotional communication.
You know, when you see someone who's 84 or a kid who's 14 getting dragged off by the
police, they're not, no.
It immediately has a emotional reaction, you know, whether you are opposed to it or not,
you're thinking, what's going on here?
You know?
And when normal people come out in the streets, and this is what it's all about.
It's not about activists or other, you know, I'm just, I'm a farmer.
I've been doing growing food for people for 30 years now and it's normal people that are
starting to take the initiative here rather than what you might call the old activist
communities.
And that's the difference with extinction rebellion is it's bringing up people from
lots of different politics and cultural backgrounds, you know, farmers, small business people,
you know, single mothers, uh, you know, people from all different backgrounds to saying,
hang on a minute, this is a universal issue, which affects everything that I believe in.
You know, whether you've got right wing values or left wing values, right.
No one wants to see the destruction of America.
Right.
Is that right?
I think so.
For the most part.
I think that's true.
Yeah.
And that's why I'm coming to America to do, you know, I'm promoting my book.
Um, common sense.
It's called common sense because it's related to, um, Thomas Payne.
I don't know if you know Thomas bang, but he came to America and the American revolution,
he said to Americans, you know, you're not going to get rid of the British unless you
just have a revolution inside.
No, we don't want the British crown anymore.
And what I'm saying to the American public is, you need to deal with this directly by
having thousands of people on the street saying, we don't actually want the destruction of
our families or communities on the American nation.
That's fundamentally what this is about.
No question.
And we've been talking about, uh, the importance of, of mass rallies that urban centers as
a tool for achieving change, uh, for, for years on the program.
Uh, Roger Hallam is a British environmental activist, cofounder of extinction, rebellion
office
there of common sense.
Roger's such a pleasure having you on and I appreciate you sharing your perspective.
Yeah.
Well thank you.
Good luck