Eco-anarchist plot to shut down HEATHROW airport tomorrow

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Here is a link to an article in Reuters:
Climate-change protesters say they will target London's Heathrow Airport

The Extinction Rebellion group of climate change campaigners said it planned to hold a protest at London’s Heathrow Airport on Friday, opening a new front in its demonstrations that have caused transport snarl-ups in the British capital.

Extinction Rebellion has blocked several locations in central London in recent days after it staged a semi-nude protest in parliament earlier this month.

More than 500 people have been arrested this week and 10 charged so far, police said.

London’s police force said it had canceled some officers’ leave and was calling in assistance from other forces to deal with protesters who were causing “unacceptable” disruption.

Extinction Rebellion sent a message to media titled “Statement on the Extinction Rebellion Heathrow Action Tomorrow” but the body of the message did not give further protest details.

Here is a link to an article in ABC News:

London climate-change protesters to disrupt Heathrow Airport

Environmental protesters who have blocked London roads and bridges for more than three days said Thursday they plan to take their civil disobedience campaign to Heathrow, Europes busiest airport, at the start of the Easter holiday weekend.

The Extinction Rebellion group said it would mount a protest at the airport on Friday. The group vowed to escalate its campaign of disruption if the British government doesnt step up action against climate change.

Londons Metropolitan Police force urged the group to reconsider, saying the airport action could cause further disruption and misery to thousands of travelers, many of them families, over Easter.

That doesn't sound like a good way for climate change alarmists to keep from seeming loony.

Plans to wreak havoc at Heathrow Airport have been abandoned by Extinction Rebellion activists after police issued sharp warnings about the consequences.

The protest is part of wider demonstrations around London organised by the campaign group Extinction Rebellion (XR), which has blocked routes around Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Parliament Square and Waterloo Bridge since Monday.

A leaked message had stated that the protesters planned to "raise the bar" by swarming the airport and shutting it down in what was dubbed an "escalation strategy".

A spokesman for Extinction Rebellion said the group had no further plans to disrupt Heathrow but it was unclear what was behind the apparent change of tack.

Nick Ephgrave, assistant commisioner of the Metropolitan Police, had warned the protesters to expect a "robust police response," adding: "We are determined to keep the airport operating."

[As a result] Instead, around 15 teenagers stood holding banners outside the transport hub on Friday morning reading "Are we the last generation?"

[So it all looks like one massive publicity stunt, especially since] Dame Emma Thompson, the actress, flew back to London from LA to take part in the "Day of Love" at Oxford Circus, addressing the crowds from the protesters' large pink boat, declaring that the planet was "in serious trouble".

Source: Heathrow protest abandoned by activists after threats to close down airport replaced with handful of teenagers causing 'emotional disruption'

I wonder how much carbon dioxide she released in the atmosphere flying back to England to participate in the love fest?

It's a non-event.

Nothing more to see.

Move along. Move along.

As the Great Bard of Avon once said, "Much Ado About Nothing".

Well... as the UK politicians have all gone on holiday for two weeks the newspapers and tv have a bit of a "brexit crisis" vacuum to fill. The beeb news this morning had an important story about this bone in the back of the knee... it was thought to have disappeared but has now made a reappearance. Coming to a knee near you... soon. The bone is called the fabella (I think) if anyone is desperate to know more.

Fabella crisis!

Among those supporting the protesters was Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson, who flew from Los Angeles to London to join in on the demonstrations last week.

Speaking to a crowd in Oxford Circus, Thompson, according to the Associated Press, remarked that “it makes me so happy to be able to join you all and to add my voice to the young people here who have inspired a whole new movement."

Then, while in conversation with reporters, she admitted that “unfortunately sometimes I have to fly but I don't fly nearly as much as I did, because of my carbon footprint and I plant a lot of trees."

Source: Climate activists glue themselves to London Stock Exchange on ‘last day’ of protests

REALY??? I wonder how many actual trees Emma Thompson actually planted herself. I have planted over a thousand actual trees. It is not just digging a hole in the ground and dropping in a small tree. You have to keep the weeds from overpowering them when they are small, watering them when there is no rain, keeping the deer and other criters from eating their leaves when they are young. Otherwise you end up with a whole lot of dead trees. It is a lot of hard painstaking work.

I wonder how much the Extinction Rebellion has actually accomplished ...

... besides attracting attention to themselves, of course.

isn't attracting attention pretty much the sole aim of their recent behaviour?

Well ... yeah ... but ... what else did they actually accomplich?

I mean, they didn't shut down Heathrow OR Universal Studios' theme park, and they seem to have only succeeded in making themselves look like fools.

admittedly I haven't followed it all that closely but I thought their aim was simply cause as much disruption as possible, looking like fools or not, simply to get a subject talked about. It's been on the front pages of the papers, on the news on tv, on radio talkshows etc. I think they accomplished all they set out to tbh

Not much disruption ... only a few minutes on the nightly newscasts, and only for one night.

If I hadn't seen this thread again, I would have completely forgotten about them, and not even remembered their name.

They have been busy on a daily basis for the last 10 days or so I think. Saw a report this morning that a bunch of them have glued their hands to some finance building in London and another group have shut down some major roads.

Fair play to 'em I say. I may not agree with them but they they are passionate about something and don't want to leave it in the hands of useless politicians.

I think I am passionate about certain things, then I see people actually getting off their backsides to do something and I realise, in comparison, I am not.

Was beginning to think I was the only one here who isn't against protesting, I mean people in this thread go as far to say 'eco terrorists' these protestors have not committed any acts of terrorism for one and even if some people don't care/dont believe it climate change is a real issue that we face right now...and governments around the world are not doing enough to help combat it let alone make preparations for the damage we've already done, instead they still just pander to Big Fossil Fuel. Can't really blame people taking to the streets to protest about their government refusing to address an issue.

I don't care if a some 'tourists' are inconvenienced, climate change is a bigger issue than a tourist being upset over a longer wait. IDK maybe governments should serve the people rather than big polluters.

I can agree with that. It is just that I would rather the world focus on real threats instead of imaginary ones.

Extinction Rebellion, which formed in the United Kingdom in 2018, is a group dedicated to fighting against (what they incorrectly perceive to be) humanity's imminent risk of extinction. And, according to CNN, they believe the best way to accomplish that is through "non-violent" acts of civil disobedience, such as by preventing people from going to work, spraying graffiti, smashing glass doors, protesting naked, and gluing themselves to street furniture. If that doesn't save the world, what will?

The group's Facebook page declares the "bonds of the social contract to be null and void," and therefore they stand in righteous rebellion against the government. Lucky for them, they made this bold declaration in 2019 when the Queen isn't inclined to chop off their heads.

The Rebellion has a website, too, complete with vague demands:

It's worth discussing these demands in more detail.

1) We demand governments tell the truth about the ecological crisis. It's extremely easy to find information about the environment. (Whether that information is reliable is another question entirely.) But assuming that Extinction Rebellion only wants to read data that is aligned with their hysterical, hair-on-fire approach to policy, they can find it just about anywhere -- scientific journals, think tanks, government websites. Nobody is hiding anything.

Besides, the fact that just about every country on Earth signed the Paris Agreement undermines their claim that governments are guilty of "criminal inaction." It's also worth noting that Germany already tried to implement a major green overhaul of its energy infrastructure called Energiewende. Spoiler alert: It failed spectacularly, and Germany is nowhere close to meeting its carbon emissions target.

2) We demand zero emissions and drawdown by 2025. Good luck with that. The only realistic way to put a major dent in carbon emissions is to embrace nuclear power, but environmentalists (like those in Germany) are almost unanimously opposed to it. Apparently, the best idea they have to offer is the Green New Deal, the brainchild of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which reads like a 4th grader's wish-list to Santa Claus. And though Ocasio-Cortez tried to deny it, an accompanying memo from her office really did propose to ban airplanes and cows:

"We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast..."

3) We demand participatory democracy. It's interesting how environmental activists of all stripes seem to share this feature in common: They demand democracy, by which they mean, "Vote for our policies, or we'll break your stuff." That's not democracy; that's tyrannical mob rule.

As is so often the case, Extinction Rebellion consists of anarchists and other rebels-without-a-cause incapable of expressing a coherent thought, let alone sensible policy proposals. Like the Occupy movement that preceded it, Extinction Rebellion will make some noise then rightly fade into irrelevance.

Source: On April 15, 'Extinction Rebellion' Broke Windows To Save Earth