A letter to real power: a letter to us
By Rupert Read, Resilience.org
I started to re-assess my assumption about who this letter would be directed to. When I looked up the dictionary definition - “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events” – and I recalled the way the world has changed since 2018, it became clearer where the power really is. With us, the people.
Extinction Rebellion: Insights from the Inside
By Rupert Read, Samuel Alexander, Resilience.org
If there is one thing a virus cannot kill, it is a rebellion. Nevertheless, there is no way to begin this collection of essays on Extinction Rebellion, at this time, other than by acknowledging the remarkable, mind-bending moment at which these words are written.
Why I Say that this Civilisation is Finished
By Rupert Read, Extinction Rebellion
The stakes of course are very, very high, here, because the climate crisis and the broader ecological emergency of which it is only the most urgent part puts the whole of what we know as civilisation at risk. By ‘this civilisation’ I mean the hegemonic civilisation of globalised industrial growth capitalism— sometimes called ‘Empire’—which today governs the vast majority of human life on Earth.
How a Movement of Movements can Win: Taking XR to the Next Level
By Rupert Read, Medium
We have a plan: a movement of movements. We want contingents of new rebels from movements ‘allied’ to XR. The peace movement. The animals movement. The social justice movement. And several more. Call it the rebel alliance…
This Civilisation is Finished: Excerpt
By Samuel Alexander, Rupert Read, The Simplicity Collective
When I look at the world today, I see the vast majority of academics, scientists, activists, and politicians ‘self-censoring’ their own work and ideas, in order to share views that are socially, politically, or even personally palatable.
School Climate Strikes: Why Adults no Longer Have the Right to Object to their Children Taking Radical Action
By Rupert Read, The Conversation
A worldwide wave of school climate strikes, begun by the remarkable Greta Thunberg, has reached the UK. Some critics claim these activist-pupils are simply playing truant, but I disagree. Speaking as both a climate campaigner and an academic philosopher, I believe school walkouts are morally and politically justifiable.
Apollo-Earth: A Wake Up Call In Our Race against Time
By Rupert Read, Deepak Rughani, The Ecologist
There is a mission brewing and building, a mission that needs all hands that are ready: To bring the 'un-named movement' - the 'for-life' story of our time - to a tipping point. This needs to happen faster than the rate at which our planet is approaching fatal climatic tipping points
After Brexit and Trump: don’t Demonise; Localise!
By Helena Norberg-Hodge, Rupert Read, The Ecologist
Both Trump and Brexit can be explained by the failure of mainstream political elites to address the pain inflicted on ordinary citizens in the neoliberal era.