Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Extinction Rebellion’s Sarah Lunnon, representative democracy, at least on climate policy and economic management, should be subordinated to citizens assemblies composed of people who are already running citizens assemblies, and people nominated by organisations invited to participate.
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Farage: Do you understand the argument, if I was a London taxi driver, right, I would say there are people being paid to sit in the street to stop me earning a living. Do you understand how upset some people in central London are about your behaviour?
Sarah: Yes of course, and the whole philosophy of Extinction Rebellion is to disrupt, that is what we set out to do. There is no easy way of saying that, and every time I say that I am sitting in studios and I say to somebody, I am setting out to disrupt your every day life. I feel very, very uncomfortable about it. And it’s accepting that it has been the lack of action for over 30 years from our governments that has meant we have had to take this action to raise this action to raise these issues. If we stand on the streets and hand out leaflets, nobody takes any notice of us, the politicians don’t take any notice of us, and interestingly Nigel, the only reason I am on this programme today is because we’ve camped out on the streets of London for the last week.
Farage: To some extent that is true. But if you really want to move this on, I am somebody who 26-7 years ago, I took the view that our relationship with the European Union was heading in the wrong direction, I wanted to do something about it, I found at the time there were no more than a couple of dozen people in Westminster who were even interest frankly in the issue, and so I had a point of view that was very, very very polar opposite to where political debate in Britain was, and so what did I do, I went out and campaigned around the country, helped formed political parties, gained elected representation, and managed to succeed. I don’t think I’ve ever broken the law in doing what I am doing, so isn’t the real argument here that we are a peaceful democratic society, and that what you have brought to London is frankly anarchy in the last week.
Sarah: So, that’s a really good question. And you, and the idea that we can address the ecological emergency via our democratic system has been one that has been taken forward over the last 30 years. We’ve tried very very hard, like through the green party, through motions, through campaigning, through marching, we’ve tried very very hard to do that, to raise it up the agenda, and to be honest, we haven’t done it as well as you raised the issue of our relationship with Europe,
Farage. Maybe your problem Sarah, maybe your problem is you are making claims which are frankly hysterical. Your website says that there is the possibility of billions dying. That is just not credible, is it?
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Farage: … What is it you actually want the government to do? Would people be able to go to Marbeya on their holidays? Would they be able to to own a 4×4 motor car? What is it you actually think government needs to do? Government here has actually already made a commitment which is impossible to keep, by saying that by 2050 we shall be zero net neutral on carbon, but you want this to happen by 2025. To do that we would effectively have to close down the whole of British industry, wouldn’t we?
Sarah: We should have to totally refocus British industry, it would be a mobilisation like we did in 1939…
Farage: Hang on, hang on, it’s the opposite, isn’t it, in 1939 we built factories to produce munitions for war…
Sarah: Actually we refocussed our factories, Nigel is what we did. We took the infrastructure that was in place, and refocussed it towards the war effort, and also what we also did was we rationed what was available, and brought the country together, we unified the country and we mobilised to fight a common enemy. Unfortunately the enemy that we’re looking at at the moment, we can’t see it. But it is there, and that is why we are calling for zero carbon by 2025, to defend and protect.
Farage.: So steel would go, chemical production would go, refining would go, what would we have left?
Sarah: So the choices that we’re looking at are really, really grim. And that’s why Extinction Rebellion is asking for a citizens assembly, so the people come together to decide how and what the change that is required looks like. Rather than politicians sitting in Westminster and saying you have to do this, and need to do that, we bring together a…
Farage: How?
Sarah: Well we do it in various ways, we already do it for juries for example, and in the past juries decided life or death of people, we bring it together using um…
Farage: Who? Who brings them together?
Sarah: Well there are a number of people who are already running citizen’s assemblies, there are external bodies, you ask a body of people to set up the citizens assembly, you bring together people from across the united kingdom so it represents people in terms of their age, in terms of their social status, in terms of their wealth, you get a cross section of people, you explain to them, you educate, and then you ask their opinion of how to move forward. Its what the Irish did in terms of their abortion question, which was very controversial…
Farage: And then what do you do, do you put this to a referendum?
Sarah: You implement it through government. You have to keep the structures of the state in place…
Farage: An appointed citizen’s assembly would tell government what to do?
Sarah: They would lead and advise government, and it then becomes very difficult for government to say we are not going to do this, because it has been requested by the people, by representatives of the people.
Farage: I have to say I am very skeptical about that.
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British politician Nigel Farage, a friend and supporter of President Trump, is living proof that the democratic process works if your cause is legitimate.
Over 30 years Farage has overcome every obstacle, and built what is hopefully irresistible public support for Britain to leave the European Union.
By contrast Extinction Rebellion’s Sarah Lunnon has experienced 30 years of utter frustration. People simply don’t care about her cause. She is so fed up with people not listening to her she wants to change the rules of the game, to force people to listen.
Sarah demands elected government representatives subordinate their decision making to self appointed citizens assemblies, at least when it comes to climate change and economic policy.
If I have understood correctly, Sarah intends that Citizen’s Assembly members would be composed of people who already call their group a citizens’ assembly, and representatives nominated by organizations invited to participate.
Citizens assemblies would advise on the “grim” task of imposing wartime levels of rationing, and would decide what economic activity would be allowed to continue, to fulfil their paramount goal of drastically cutting Britain’s carbon footprint to address the climate crisis by 2025.
Sarah compares citizens assemblies to court jurors, who once decided on whether people could live or die, before Britain abolished the death penalty.
Extinction Rebellion’s intention is that “advice” provided by the assemblies would be very difficult for elected politicians to refuse.
Breaking news: the British Conservative Government has just agreed Extinction Rebellion’s demand to form a climate change citizen’s assembly. 30,000 invitations will be sent at random, then 110 of the respondents will be chosen to sit on the assembly. The budget allocated for the assembly is £520,000. £120,000 will be provided by the government, the rest will provided by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the European Climate Foundation.
It’s all about marxist sh*t. Climate scare is just used as vehicle. All these people would give a sh*t about climate change if they couldn’t scare people towards their goal of a collectivist tyranny.
So they’re going to write to 30,000 random households and choose 110 from whoever responds.
Who chooses and based on what criteria?
The parting shot from a rotten Parliament
Any hope that a ‘climate skeptic’ might get a hearing at this citizens assembly is forlorn.
Just like the IPCC, the terms of reference include the assumption that CO2 is the magic climate control knob and that we must reduce our output to ‘save the climate’ . The discussion is to be limited to how to achieve that.
See here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50264797
We will have to fight this from the outside, as they are not going to let us do it from within.
The probability that any climate realist ends up with a seat at this circus is close to zero.
If some do get in, they’ll be told quite clearly what the scope of discussion is limited to.
As to our December 12 election, I’ll probably have to vote Labour to keep the SNP/Green/Lib-Dem (Illiberal Anti-Dem in reality) twerps out. The so-called Conservative party , miracles excepted, probably haven’t a chance where I live.
It’s a very much a case of choose your poison, all of them smell bad.
Not fun at all.
“Any hope that a ‘climate skeptic’ might get a hearing at this citizens assembly is forlorn.
Just like the IPCC, the terms of reference include the assumption that CO2 is the magic climate control knob and that we must reduce our output to ‘save the climate’ . The discussion is to be limited to how to achieve that.
See here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50264797”
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There’s nothing in that link saying that “discussion is to be limited to” how to “save the climate.” That’s just what the CA’s proponents HOPE will occur, imagining that the populace shares their views, and only the politicians are in the way.
“The probability that any climate realist ends up with a seat at this circus is close to zero.”
At least a dozen will get in as members—there will not and cannot be a views-test prior tombs being seated, if the CA’s report is to have the legitimacy its proponents desire.
Negotiating with climate terrorists? What could go wrong with that?
What is most troubling is that Sarah Lunnon – having spent 30 years looking at this issue – is only interested in listening to the alarmist claims of many scientists. However, she ignores a group of reputable but skeptical scientists – the size does not matter. This indicates she has no idea of how science really works and yet she is pontificating on the climate.
The elderly Irish broadcaster, George Hook, loves the word “horse manure.” I would not use this word to describe Lunnon’s comments. Horse manure has value in agriculture but her comments are not only worthless but actually harmful and poisonous.
Correct. Everything XR pushes is predicated on the ridiculous belief that all scientists know that our behavior is causing bad weather now and even worse weather in the future. All challenges to these cultist beliefs are to be rejected out of hand.
4:11 “I am watching pictures of houses being washed away in Japan, because they’ve just had the worst typhoon in 60 years”.
#Natural60Years The clue is in the 60 year gap. The natural climate cycle is 60 years.
When did we morph from a representative republic into a representative democracy? This may be more fact than fiction considering all the lobbyists ans special interests prowling around Washington DC.
we (meaning the US) haven’t “morph from a representative republic into a representative democracy”. At least not yet (give the left time though…..).
That’s neither here not there, however, as XR & Farage (the subjects of this article) are in the UK (IE not anywhere near Washington DC).
Following on from my previous, the UK cannot feed itself, 70 million
needs to be about 30 million to do that. So they must export to earn sufficient money to feed the extra 40 million, then they need to export even more to enjoy a reasonable standard of living.
The idea of a political party running the country which is intent on closing down most of its industry will soon lea to a Civil War.
MJE VK5ELL
XR doesn’t want a Citizens Assembly comprised of random people. It wants people that think like they do.
The government is already doing what the majority of people want – if the majority wanted to destroy their economy to fight climate change then it would happen, but they don’t. Only the extremists of XR want that to happen.
I am curious, but if so many people don’t care about climate change in the UK, then why aren’t there any UK political parties and/or politicians that are openly skeptical of the climate change hysteria?
The don’t listen to the people who put them there.
Kyle in Upstate NY:
You ask,
“I am curious, but if so many people don’t care about climate change in the UK, then why aren’t there any UK political parties and/or politicians that are openly skeptical of the climate change hysteria?”
That is a good question with an interesting answer.
Firstly, it is simply a reality that many (probably most) “people don’t care about climate change in the UK”. But that ‘cuts both ways’ because individual politicians have nothing to gain by opposing an issue that electors don’t care about.
Secondly, the UK has two main political parties; viz. the Conservative Party (aka the Tories) who are anti-socialists, and the Labour Party who are socialists.
Global warming had been an obscure scientific hypothesis for a century before Margaret Thatcher came to power as a Tory Prime Minister of the UK and (for reasons of personal political advantage) she converted the hypothesis into the global warming scare.
Thatcher’s political party were willing to go along with this because the scare could be used to support closing the UK coal industry and the Tories blamed the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) for the failures and collapse of the Tory government of PM ‘Ted’ Heath. Hence, the Tories became ‘locked’ into supporting the global warming scare which they had started.
(I predicted the scare would exist before Thatcher had created it, and my analysis which induced that prediction can be read here,
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/richard-courtney-the-history-of-the-global-warming-scare/ )
The Tories lost office to Labour a decade later, and ‘Tony’ Blair then became PM. He had even less experience in government than Thatcher had possessed when she became PM, but by then the global warming scare had become a significant international issue and the Kyoto climate summit was planned.
So, Blair adopted support for the scare. Simply, Thatcher had obtained credibility by making the UK the major promoter of global warming alarmism, and Blair inherited that credibility by maintaining the UK as the major promoter of global warming alarmism.
Thus, both the two main UK political parties became promoters of the global warming scare decades ago.
They could not obtain credibility for support of the scare without throwing money at it. Thatcher started this by ensuring that funding for research was targeted towards climate research and by establishing the Hadley Centre for climate research (which to this day remains as the operating agency for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC). Both Tories and Labour established laws and systems that are related to the global warming scare, and they promoted ‘renewables’ notably wind powered and solar powered subsidy farms. See the Section 1 on Page 3 of this item
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/courtney_2006_lecture.pdf
Over the last four decades these laws, systems and promotions have established significant industries operating climate-related activities throughout the UK.
Thus, in the UK many jobs have been created which depend on the global warming scare.
Some minor UK political parties (e.g. the Green Party) are enthusiastic supporters of the global warming scare. Others ‘go along with it’ because opposition to the scare can gain nothing but would lose the possibility of votes from people whose employment only exists because of the scare: this includes the ‘Lib-Dems’ who support the scare and the Nigel Farage party (its present version is the Brexit Party) which does not support the scare.
Meanwhile, the BBC is the most trusted information provider in the UK and the BBC has an official policy of promoting the global warming scare which it does both continuously and enthusiastically. And any opposition to the global warming scare gets ignored or misrepresented by the BBC.
I hope this brief answer is sufficient.
Richard
If that’s the brief answer, I’d hate to see the long one. 😉
Seriously, though, thanks for the post, interesting stuff.
I thought that was what Parliament was supposed to accomplish?
Will the 110 now replace parliament?
Sarah Lunnon failed to accomplish anything over thirty years; including proving CO₂’s atmospheric effects; ot to convince a majority of voters; or to find and produce renewable energy sources that fully replace fossil fuels without requiring subsidies.
Sarah’s utter failures mean that Sarah gets to rework government with a traditional unelected despotic communist politburo forcing their choices on the rest of the population.
Sarah is truly rubber room material.
Polls, whether parochial, regional, statewide, national or international clearly put climate worries at the bottom. And that is when pollsters use vague questions where they can increase the votes for a climate crisis.
Just as every citizen, business and government must adhere to laws and regulations; so to does Sarah’s fantasy groups.
That is; they must prove viability, effectiveness, costs control, environmental impacts and actual benefits for every squirrelly idea.
Sarah’s groups must also be required to follow a job for job standard.
Where Sarah’s group eliminates employment for a group of people; they must identify equivalent, in salary, benefits and labor positions before they can eliminate the jobs.
Agreed. It’s time we fought back with hard facts and alarmist talk of our own, instead of just being nice and polite about it all. Accuse them of mass murder and causing death and starvation with their insane demands- how many have died already because these fools force through bans on pesticides and GMOs for example? How many are in abject poverty because they are not allowed to earn their way out of it and will never be allowed to do so? How many will freeze to death because there will not be enough power to keep them warm? This is all down to these lunatics who seem to have some romantic notion of peasant life from hundreds of years ago.
Eric Worral and ATheoK:
The UK has very recently entered a General Election campaign. All government reviews and decisions are not Crown investigations and, therefore, they cease when a General Election Result is declared.
Simply, the announcement by Savid Javid of a “review” will be discontinued when the election result is declared in six weeks from now. In other words, Javid’s announcement of a “climate change citizen’s assembly” is ‘vote fishing’ and it means nothing unless it is included in the Tory Manifesto which has not yet been published.
Those interested in this matter need to check the Tory Manifesto when it is published, and many XR supporters probably lack both the knowledge and the intellect to do that. Similar ‘vote fishing’ by political parties can also be expected on other subjects; e.g. the NHS.
Richard
I didn’t realize the horror film “Midsommar” was in fact a documentary about Extinction Rebellion. (sarc) The May Queen was quite clearly based on Greta Thunberg and and or the founder of XR, her May Queen dress even had the mirror image of the Extinction Rebellion abbreviation XR embroidered on it: (this is an analytical video by Truthstreammedia that features scenes from the film:) at 14:09 or 44:33 you can see the runes (meaning a journey through Extinction with a goal in sight leading to consciousness and rebirth) embroidered on her dress as the mirror image of XR or Extinction Rebellion’s abbreviated name; (sarc)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gt-DsWO4ks&list=PLE3G97oHTbUbT52fAibG5qVkTTe7XV7Z_&index=7&t=2673s
And just for fun (for anyone who’s seen the film): https://imgur.com/07Pmthv
“Sarah: They would lead and advise government, and it then becomes very difficult for government to say we are not going to do this, because it has been requested by the people, by representatives of the people.”
You know, like the elected representatives in government… a lot like that, but different because the current representatives suck so we need better representatives that aren’t elected by people.
Nigel Farage:
“So steel would go, chemical production would go, refining would go, what would we have left”.
Nigel Frage left for Sarah Lunnon the extensions
“So steel would go to South Corea , chemical production would go to Taiwan or Japan, refining would go without UK, what we would have LEFT was good vibrations.”