In what way has extinction rebellion changed anything?

For one, UK parliament has declared a climate emergency [0]. So did NYC [1]. And many others. It doesn't mean much but still.

They've met with UK Sec. of State for Environment [2]. Exactly what the OP advocates.

Majority of Britons now believe that climate change is more pressing than Brexit [3]

And so on.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48126677

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPtAKjhT02s

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMGqP5rP8v8

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/26/climate-...

> Majority of Britons now believe that climate change is more pressing than Brexit

That just means we're not going to do very much about either of those! Although grid decarbonisation has been a great quiet success so far. It's just that nobody seems to want to take credit for it and push on further.

Nonviolence needs an influential audience / gallery to play to. If none such exists then it is not effective.

What influential audience did freedom riders play to? Or would you say they were ineffective?

Wouldnt that be non-racist white folks ?

Which laws have changed as a result of Extinction Rebellion actions?

We certainly seem to have different definitions of violence, yes.

If 'violence' has been re-defined to the extent that mis-gendering someone is an 'act of violence' (https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/01/misgendering-trans-peop...), then you could certainly argue that ER have acted violently.

EDIT I see I'm being downvoted. Are we not allowed to have a conversation about re-defining words and being intellectually consistent with the re-defined meaning?

If you want to make that argument, you have to spell it out and engage seriously with what people mean. At the moment it's not even clear whether you're in favour of or against mis-gendering trans people, let alone what argument you're making about violence.

OK, I'll try to be more coherent.

It seems these days that the word 'violence' has been re-defined such that it no longer requires there to be any abusive physical contact between the perpetrator and the victim. As such, merely using words that may cause an individual some emotional discomfort is considered an act of violence.

I don't agree with that definition, and for me abusive physical contact is the defining characteristic of violence. But if that's the general consensus now then that's what I'll use. We can't have a debate if we're all speaking a different language.

Given that 'violence' no longer requires any physical contact, one could make the argument that some of the activities that ER have engaged in could be considered violent. The many ER road-blocks have very real consequences for all the people who are unable to go about their daily lives without being disrupted. When ER blocks a bus full of people in traffic, it's distinctly possible that those people were on their way to job interviews, doctors appointments, meetings with long-lost relatives, charity fundrasiers or any number of other things. This kind of disruption might easily cause significant emotional distress, I would argue at least on par with the emotional distresss suffered by an individual being mis-gendered. So why should one be considered violence and the other not?

That's not even getting to the topic of Ambulances being caught up in ER road-blocks, which has been documented numerous times. ER even address that issue explicitly in their FAQ (https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/faqs/). They attempt to hand-wave this problem away by saying that ambulances can be re-directed away from the road-blocks. It hardly needs to be said that time is often a critical factor when an ambulance is transporting a patient to hospital. The additional time spent avoiding ER activists could easily be the difference between life and death. Is this not a form of violence?

> Is this not a form of violence?

By your own definition, the answer is clearly no.

Do you need to re-read my post? The entire point is that there are now multiple definitions of 'violence'. We mustn't pick and choose definitions to fit a particular narrative.

One definition of violence appears to be used when describing ER as 'non-violent'. But another, very different definition of violence appears to be used when declaring that mis-gendering someone is an act of violence.

Sorry for the very late reply. You're right, I must have skipped the rest of your comment.

My answer to this is to insist on the 'proper' definition - the one you yourself prefer - and to push back whenever the term is misused (I find this is generally done as a smearing tactic).

The alternative is to yield ground and to start saying 'physical violence' whenever one means 'violence'.

Accidentally mis-gendering someone is simply an error.

It is the intentional or willful mis-gendering that is being argued in that link as being an act of violence.

Thanks. I did edit my comment to remove the word accidently some time ago. I guess you hadn't refreshed your page for a while.

I often open a handful of news.yc tabs and go through them one-by-one, so it's quite possible that I had an older version of your comment.