Protest on Planet X

60,000+ people including Judy Dench, Emma Thompson and thousands of young people dressed as dragonflies and other colourful creatures hit the streets of London in June.

What would unite A listers with representatives of the National Trust, the WWF and the RSPB with direct action group such as Just Stop Oil and BBC legend Chris Packham? Has carnival arrived early to London? Sadly not. This was a march to call on politicians to get behind action for nature but it was no ordinary demonstration.

The Restore Nature Now march through central London to Parliament Square on Saturday 22 June 2024 was possibly the largest climate action protest anywhere, ever. Why is this the first you are hearing of this? Simple. It received practically zero media coverage. There was one article in the UK guardian. Nothing on the BBC or any of the other mainstream media outlets. Unless you are subscribed to demonstrators’ various social media feeds you would have no idea it happened.

The media not only plays a central role in informing the public about what is happening in the world it also shapes the topics for public debate. The power to set agendas and to focus public interest on particular subjects both sets the topics that are discussed and also serves to limit the range of arguments and perspectives that inform that public debate. It is hard to imagine that the Restore Nature Now march, both in the fact of it happening and in the subject matter the protesters wished to raise, was of no interest to the media. Celebrities, existential crisis and tens of thousands of people with many dressed as animals on the streets of London should have been a winning combination. So why was it not covered.?

The first point to note is that activism is only necessary where there is resistance to change. If change was both desirable and unopposed, it would simply happen. So if we then ask where the resistance comes from, well it’s folks who likes things as they are and attempting to control the discourse is a well-trodden path. Billionaires and large corporates want business as usual because business as usual is what got them there in the first place.

Anyone with a basic understanding of climate science would have recoiled in horror at the recent conversation between Elon Musk and Donald Trump on X. This rather remarkable discursive and often fact free conversation about global heating stated that there was no urgent need to cut carbon emissions. Anyone with a basic understanding of grade school geometry would also raise an eyebrow at former President Trump’s assertion here that rising sea levels would create “more oceanfront property”. This phenomenon is not restricted to the platform formerly called Twitter, just four families control over 90% of the national newspaper market in the UK. If you are reading this from the global North, the chances are you are living on ‘Planet X’ now, where the status quo takes priority over the health of our planet and the welfare of future generations. ??

Buying media platforms is one path towards influencing the public discourse but this is one of many. In February 2013, The Guardian revealed an anti-renewables media campaign was funded by trusts linked to wealthy US and UK business people (Goldenberg, 2013). These trusts have financed 102 organisations which either dismiss climate science or downplay the need to take action. They have invested millions of dollars over the past decade in contrarian think tanks and activists to spread skepticism, and increasingly a part of this is the anti-renewables rhetoric.

With this background, what does it take to get attention when you are concerned that we are close to losing large parts of our only planet’s life support systems? If marching doesn’t make a ripple do we need to throw soup at paintings or cornflower around Stonehenge? Do we need to hit the streets and disrupt traffic to get the headline, and therefore the conversation going?

There is an argument to be made here, as Ben Tolhurst of Business Declares mentioned in our recent conversation ‘activist are often demonized at the time and eulogized later’. It is undeniable that many individuals down the years have made themselves deeply unpopular to try and bring change. From the Salt Marches to the Suffragettes and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, history is littered with examples of peaceful protest having a powerful, lasting impact and playing key roles in forming fairer, freeer and more peaceful world.

Sometimes an individual meets a moment and forges a narrative that us so compelling it can not be ignored. In 2018, a 15-year-old Swedish school student sparked a global movement by deciding to sit outside the Swedish parliament for three weeks holding a sign reading “school Strikes for Climate”. Greta Thunberg’s actions show how it is possible for individuals to make an enormous impact and inspire change.

This isn’t to say that protest and civil disobedience are our only tools. Techniques such as boycotts and strikes may be equally effective ways of bringing change. We should not underestimate the key role that economic disinvestment and boycotts of South African goods played in helping to end apartheid however protest is an essential tool within the toolbox of non billionaires who wish to bring about social change. Non violent civil movements can offer anyone the opportunity to have a voice.

Democracy relies on, amongst other things, the right to peaceful protest and a free press. However, while the impact and influence of protests and demonstrations continue to grow, this is being met with a wave pf aggressive legislative restrictions and responses designed to limit their effectiveness. The UK is no exception and the imbalances are becoming increasingly stark.

We recently saw five-year prison sentence given to a Just Stop Oil protester for his role in conspiring to cause gridlock on the M25. Whatever you think of that protest it is instructive to compare it to other acts of civil disobedience.

Let’s start with the fuel protests in 2000 where campaigners blockaded oil refineries and fuel depots as well as motorways with convoys of slow moving trucks. The actions of a coalition of lorry drivers and farmers resulted in three quarters of filling stations running dry, rationing of food by supermarkets, the shutting of schools, the suspensions of bus and train services and the NHS being placed on high alert. The result? Not a single activist or protester was prosecuted and the Government cut fuel duty and vehicle tax.

The difference? Legislation? Only partially, the law has become more extreme but there were plenty of laws in place to prosecute the actions the fuel protesters took. The real difference was national support driven by favourable media coverage with even the Tory leader William Hague calling the protesters “fine, upstanding citizens”.

Another disturbing example comes from the recent riots in the UK. On one incident, fifty eight police officers, three police dogs and a police horse were injured in Rotherham as rioters broke into a hotel which housed 240 asylum seekers and tried to set it on fire. The Government has sprung into action and perpetrators have received “severe” sentences for riot and affray, arson and even assaulting police officers. The longest sentence I have seen so far is 38 months.

In another incident, a 27 year old man named Matthew Putson, named by prosecutors as one of the main instigators of the violence in Middlesborough pled guilty to making racial slurs, assaulting a police officer and to throwing bottles, bricks and stones at police officers.

And then we have Roger Hallam, the individual who received that five year sentence. His crime? Taking part in a zoom call to talk about Just Stop Oil’s plan to block the M25. Four others received four-year sentences for their roles in the same protest. Whether you agree with Just Stop Oil’s tactics or not, it is impossible to credibly argue that their nonviolent protest was anything other than a far less serious crime than the violence on the streets this month.

The riots did not merely inconvenience people, they terrorised and deliberately inflicted massive indiscriminate criminal damage. When civil disobedience is punished more severely than racist rioting something has gone badly wrong. The fact that peaceful protesters who’s aim was to protect us all from harm are being treated far more severely than the brainless bigots rioting for fun should be a cause for concern for us all. The new Labour Government must rescind the last Government’s regressive, anti-democratic legislation that allowed for this injustice to occur immediately.

Will that happen? A new Government needs to set priorities, which brings us back to the role of the media. The information that the public is given shapes public opinion, which in turn feeds legislation and through this process the short-term interests of a few individuals are being prioritised over the long term health of our planet and of the collective action that history suggests is required to improve all of our lives.

This isn’t to say things are hopeless. We ‘just’ need to reclaim the narrative. Change happens when individuals take action against the odds. Raising discussions and winning arguments again and again until a tipping point is reached, and legislation follows.

As Covid has shown if our Governments stand firm and say ‘this is the behaviour we expect for the greater good’, we listen. We saw this even more dramatically during wartime when the message was ‘this is your duty, here is what we need you to do. We will get through this together.’?What is needed is for the policy makers to hear our voices demanding change today, for a better tomorrow.