061. Between high profile civic disobedience and building broad public support: A youth activist

Summary

How does a climate change activist movement such as Extinction Rebellion (XR) chose among strategies and tactics on the spectrum between more 'radical' actions such as civic agitation, (nonviolent) disobedience, high-profile stunts that may lead to arrests and more 'mainstream' actions that may (or may not?) help them build a more broad public base?

How does Extinction Rebellion (XR) see the distinction between insider and outsider strategies in climate change activism?

Is it necessarily the case that 'radical 'activism by nature is cyclical, i.e. that it cannot be maintained on a long-term basis because of the intensity of this activism model?

And how does Extinction Rebellion deal with internal as well as external equity dimensions of the fact that low-income people and/or those who face discrimination tend to get hit harder by the impacts of climate change? 

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview a youth activist in the Netherlands (my original home country), on how she sees Extinction Rebellion tackle all these choices and trade-offs. 

Bio of the youth activist X:

• Student at Erasmus University College, Rotterdam, the Netherlands 
• Involved for the last year, 4-5 hours/week

 
We discuss: 

• How climate change fights and climate justice issues need to be interlinked to both benefit from sustained civic action
• The nature of the three global XR  demands: 1/ Tell the Truth; /2. Act Now; 3/ Decide together
• How environmental activism in the global south has a history of white elite-level advantage, how it rightfully has been critiqued for suffering from white elitism and how it is now trying to overcome this by focusing on embracing everybody’s contribution and being expressly inclusive
• Climate change requires both civil disobedience and broad public support. Collaboration between social movements such as Extinction Rebellion (XR) and formally registered NGOs is therefore important
• Groups like Greenpeace are better than XR at drawing in the media, examples such as the Netherlands NGO Milieu Defensie (Environmental Defense) are good in online petitioning, while movements like XR are good in mass mobilization. They need to complement each other
• The sustainability of engagement in XR-type activism, with its typical peak-type activities, fairly time-intensive forms of self-organization and democratic decision making styles may be challenged; XR expressly tries to compensate for this through encouraging collective self-care

 
Here you can find all the podcasts:
https://5oaksconsulting.org/podcast/

Click the link below to subscribe to be alerted when new podcast episodes come out or when Tosca produces other thought leadership pieces.
https://5oaksconsulting.org/email/

Or email Tosca attosca@5oaksconsulting.org if you want to talk about your social sector organizational needs, challenges, and opportunities.

You can find Tosca's content by following her on her social media channels: 

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Tosca5Oaks
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/toscabrunovanvijfeijken/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tosca5Oaks
Teachable: https://5oaks.teachable.com/