It's shaping up to be a hot strike summer with multiple trade unions looking to ballot their members on strikes in the coming months. Thousands of people will be out on the street with their trade unions or with or social movements raising their voices against the litany of stupidity that is the UK government. When it comes to getting out on the streets it's important to measure the effectiveness of actions and how they push the fight against climate breakdown forward.
This week on the show we are joined by Dr Oscar Berglund (@berglund_oscar) from Bristol University. Oscar's research focuses on social movements and explores climate change activism particularly Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the use of civil disobedience. Oscar studies the strategies and discourses of civil disobedience in contemporary climate change activism.
We discuss where XR is now as a movement, how actions by the Tyre Extinguishers and Insulate Britain affect wider climate activism discourse, whether the media is pushing climate into the culture war, how car ownership has developed as an identify and the curious case of F1 driver Sebastian Vettel.
Links
Seeing like an activist by Erin Pineda
Matthew Patersons piece on Cars from I Peel
a piece Oscar wrote on protest for Bristol 247 back in 2021
Shout out
Gunilla Berglund (Oscars Mum!) who on retiring became a full time climate activist and his daughter at the age of 9 has been to several climate protests already.
Conrad bower from the Meteor
Kai Heron and Jodie Dean and their piece on "Climate Leninism" in Spectre