We, the rebels

London, October 2019. Scotland Yard police arrested over 1.400 people. Climate activists who took part in non violent protests organized by the radical socio-political movement of Extinction Rebellion (XR) founded by Roger Hallam. “Rebels” “Crusties who live in hemp-smelling bivouacs” as the Prime Minister of United Kingdom Boris Johnson called them.

In December 2019 the city of Madrid hosts the COP25. As every year is organized fort he occasion the “Global Climate March”. This time, however, the proportions of the procession assume the dimension of a river in flood. More than 500 thousand people parade from Paseo del Prado to Nuevos Ministerios.

In 1992, the United Nations, gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a conference on the environment, produced a treaty aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “Climate change” seemed such a distant topic from reality. Few really knew how to asses the significance and the impact it would have on the whole world over the years. Since then, the climate situation has deteriorated dramatically and none has ever taken a serious interest in it.

In 2018 a young Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg, sat in front of the Swedish Parliament every day with a slogan: “Skolstrejk för klimatet” (School Climate Strike) as a form of protest. After the General Elections on 9 September, she continued to demonstrate every Friday, launching so the international student movement: “Fridays For Future”. On many public occasions she was brutally offended because of her direct and with no discounts speeches and her determination.

Climate activists are asking politicians to tell the truth about the ecological emergency in general, to reach the zero carbon emissions by the 2025 and to set up a national assembly of citizens to oversee these changes and continue their actions against a policy that is hostile and interested in nothing more than monetary profit based on the fable of the eternal economic growth.