On Insulate Britain: Civil Resistance Works, They Need Public Support

Insulate Britain’s activities

Insulate Britain is an environmental protest group. It is the offshoot of Extinction Rebellion that’s been winding up motorists across the UK and bringing attention to the climate crisis. Basically, to date they have been causing havoc on roads in an organized but peaceful way.

What they do is this. A group of people turn up to a busy road and sit down, sometimes gluing themselves to the spot, preventing traffic from moving. They block main roads and motorways alike, show no concern for their own life, and when dragged out of position by frustrated motorists, calmly return to their place in the road.

Doing time for their efforts

The movement watched nine of its activists given prison sentences very recently. I saw their photos. They didn’t look like criminals to me. I doubt very much the country is a safer place for them being locked up. One of the activists got a six month sentence instead of four for what he said in court. He declared that if the Judge didn’t put him away, he would be right back out on the motorways, blocking traffic.

Now that is dedication to the cause. That is tenacity I admire. I do not think blocking traffic and gluing oneself to roads are good ideas by the way. I am just glad that there is someone out there who is willing to put their life on the line for my future.

Whose future is it anyway?

This is why we should celebrate Insulate Britain. It can be a major inconvenience to one’s own day to be late for a meeting or miss an important appointment. I am a motorist myself. I imagine I would be angry to be held up for a few hours by obstinate individuals, especially if my wife and/or kids were in the car. Yet it should be increasingly obvious to anyone with an eye for reading between the lines that the Earth’s ecosystems are in peril.

The seas are rising. The biodiversity of every region is dwindling. Ferocious storms whip across the oceans becoming hurricanes with ever increasing severity. Heat domes happen, wildfires rage out of control with an almost evil intensity. Even if we are ourselves are not yet deeply affected, we are constantly witnessing the plight of others. I saw something on Twitter that was fairly dark. It said something like this: the next ten years is watching more and more life threatening catastrophe’s on your phone until eventually you are filming the one that ends your life.

Tick tock

The people in the know (the people with the access to the science and the skills to interpret the data) have a way of talking. Their talking shapes narratives. Now they talk in terms of climate emergency. And we should be listening.

 “Based on sober scientific analysis, we are deeply within a climate emergency state but people are not aware of it.” 

Professor Hans Schellnhuber, Founding Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

The climate is most likely already passed a number of crucial tipping points. Those doing something about it (these activists, Insulate Britain and the like) may not be popular due to their methods. Yet just like the suffragette movement, they are essential in moving us to a better place as a society and as a species as a whole.

Back to the scale of things

It’s big this. The scale of it is too big. We can’t comprehend the scale of badness that is the collapse of everything. However, we have to try. We have to work out how we can prevent the annihilation of all we hold dear. As George Monbiot has pointed out;

“History will vindicate the people putting their liberty on the line to try to stop the collapse of our life support systems.“

George Monbiot, Author and Columnist

According to the Insulate Britain website; the UK has some 29 million homes and they are the oldest and least energy efficient housing stock in Europe. I used to work in housing myself, in a Property Services Department for four years. I can confirm that every year vast amounts of energy are wasted in heating and cooling homes in the UK. 

The Insulate Britain aims are as follows – they demand;

• That the UK government immediately promises to fully fund and take responsibility for the insulation of all social housing in Britain by 2025

• That the UK government immediately promises to produce within four months a legally binding national plan to fully fund and take responsibility for the full low-energy and low-carbon whole-house retrofit, with no externalised costs, of all homes in Britain by 2030 as part of a just transition to full decarbonisation of all parts of society and the economy.

What can we do then?

David Attenborough’s impassioned speech at COP26 resonated with a powerful energy. Emphasizing that the time is now for action. The time is now for change. Civil resistance has worked in the past to encourage those in power to take action. It will work again.

My family responsibilities prevent me from extreme forms of activism. A lame excuse perhaps, but what can I do? How can I raise two young children if I’m frequently in a holding cell and often in court? Well, I can exercise the influence I have to encourage support for movements like Insulate Britain. I can point out that agreeing with their tactics is not necessary. Agreeing that something needs to be done is.