Image: The Lightscaper
Actor Mark Rylance formed part of the main roadblock on The Mall. “I’m here because I am a part of the human race and a part of all living beings on this planet,” he said; “And I believe we are facing an enormous change, an initiation from a way of life where we are separate and dominating of nature and each other into a new way where we exist together, interconnected, striving in friendship. For me, Extinction Rebellion is a great example of how things could be better.’
This morning, XR convened a parliamentary discussion about the country’s constitutional crisis and the future of democracy. In the six months since Parliament declared that we are in a Climate and Ecological Emergency, the group asked the government – specifically, the Home Office and the Departments for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Transport, and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – for how it plans to respond.
Zuhura Plummer, a 36-year-old charity worker from Oxford, said: “I don’t want to be doing this, I just want the government to listen to the science and act. This emergency is beyond traditional politics – we want to know what Government Departments are doing to face this climate and ecological emergency. The moment to act is now, not 2050.”