“The money funding Putin’s invasion of Ukraine comes from the same source as climate change: fossil fuels."
This is what Dr. Svitlana Krakovska, Ukrainian meteorologist, told her colleagues over Zoom on Sunday, defying IPCC rules of not “discussing politics”. As the panel was giving final approval to its terrifying new report on climate impact and adaptation, Svitlana was sitting with her children in her home in Kyiv. Under the bombs.
The report she helped write is itself nothing short of a bombshell. For the first time, the IPCC puts numbers on the death and destruction climate collapse will cause. They defy imagination: unless we end emissions now, the lives of 3.5 billion of us will be directly threatened by climate breakdown. This, friends, is scientific consensus.
The media and political silence surrounding this has been… unreal. As well as understandable. Wars and humanitarian disasters will be intensifying the world over. They will consume an ever increasing share of our resources and attention, as we frantically try to mitigate one nightmare after another. Root causes must be addressed now. As XR Ukraine puts it in their call to action to people worldwide: “We need to make it clear to all people in Europe who worry about Ukraine’s fate, global peace and climate justice, that each responsible person can and should inflict sanctions on fossil fuel majors”.
We must be the end of fossil fuels in the next 3 to 4 years, or fossil fuels will be the end of us.
Engaging in civil resistance is scary. But at a time where the world is precariously balanced on the verge of nuclear war and climate disasters liable to annihilate half of humanity, we ask you the question: how much, really, does each of us have to lose?
This newsletter contains what you need to commit to this fight of our lives. Join a welcoming call if you’re new. Support the April campaign of Scientist Rebellion. Join the high-level resistance of newly launched Renovate Switzerland. Or learn how to design your own campaigns, to win.
With burning love and fury,
Sanja, Marie, Marcus, Frank & Anaïs, for the newsletter team
Get involved
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👋 Take your first step - join the Welcoming Call
You want to join nonviolent civil resistance but don’t know how to get involved, and how much time you can dedicate to the rebellion against extinction? Rebels from the onboarding team welcome you online on Wednesday 9th of March, 7 pm to give you tips, ideas and contact - a great help to make your first steps into what will (thanks to you!) become the biggest civil resistance movement in Switzerland.
➡️ Register now to the welcoming call
🤼♂️ Engage in the Renovate Switzerland campaign
Climate breakdown, war… are you shitting yourself? Are you in a mad rage? You’re not alone. And we will not be by-standers.
Multiple crises are becoming reality. As citizens, parents, grandparents and descendants, we have a responsibility to defend what we hold dear. Civil resistance is the only option we have left, after 30 years of abject failure by our governments to tackle the climate crisis and prevent wars present and future.
Renovate Switzerland is a civil resistance campaign that will start in spring 2022. Its aim is to put out a demand to the Swiss government which is a complete no-brainer: to launch a Marshall Plan to insulate Swiss homes, in order to cut energy bills, severe our dependence to psychopathic petrostates, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heating (33% of the country’s internal emissions!). This campaign is part of an international civil resistance movement to WIN.
➡️ Express your interest by getting in touch at: renovate-switzerland@riseup.net
Public presentations will be given throughout Switzerland during the spring. Help us to organise them by contacting the address above!
👩🔬Engage in the Scientist rebellion campaign
Are you a scientist, engineer or do you know scientists? “Consider this - two people are sat at home, when one turns to the other and says: ‘Our house is on fire and without emergency action, the roof will collapse and we will both die.‘ If the person making the warning then calmly returns to their morning newspaper, how can we expect the other to truly understand the claim of imminent disaster?”
This little story is written by Scientist Rebellion, and this is pretty much exactly how scientists have acted for decades. But no more!
On 4-9 April, Scientist Rebellion will organise a global civil resistance campaign against our governments’ criminal complicity in climate destruction. Swiss scientists and researchers will be involved – and more people from all the fields are urgently needed to organise and join the campaign! Scientists are the best trained to understand the planetary emergency facing us. With knowledge comes a duty to act.
➡️ To learn details of the global campaign, and to watch all the campaign talks, visit: https://scientistrebellion.com/
➡️ To directly join the Swiss branch of action, email: scientistrebellion_ch@protonmail.ch
🪧The Rebellion continues in the court - help the legal team!
When rebels get arrested during actions, the protest usually continues in the justice system. It is illegal to disturb the lives of normal people as part of civil resistance actions — but should it be, when the future of the planet is at stake, and this is what it takes to raise the alarm? This winter, the question has been raised in the court of Lausanne, where 200 rebels are currently in trial for actions in 2019.
For the future trials, the Legal Team needs help, including with basic administrative or secretary support! Anyone can join to support brave rebels and help give them the recognition they deserve for their commitment.NO SKILLS REQUIRED. Just time and love.
➡️ Contact: xr-ch-legal@protonmail.com
Act
📣 Get out there and make good trouble!
Because it’s good for your sanity, because you draw attention to the climate crisis and mass extinction, because you get to talk to people who haven’t given it much thought yet, and also because it can be fun.
Paralysing a whole city, turning a river green, blocking a bridge or road, or occupying a government agency or company…. all great stuff, but it does not happen overnight. You can also get out now and make a big difference on your own or with one/two other people in a simple and direct way. With little effort, you can distribute flyers, organise a talk, place mysterious objects with messages in a visible place (like the white baby carriages that mushroomed in Zurich in 2020).
Or the latest IPCC report can be plastered on community centres or government buildings, for all decision makers to read it!
Here’s how to do it:
- Print out the report (one-sided).
- Mix lukewarm water and white flour 1:1 (e.g. one cup each), this makes a harmless paste for concrete, bricks and glass (better not to stick it on historic sandstone walls).
- take a large paintbrush, the report and the paste and glue the report to the community centre page by page.
How many of the summary’s 35 pages can you paste before the authorities or the police arrive?
📣 News from local and affinity groups
The Rebellion exists as several interconnected groups of rebels, some of them big and some of them small, all working under the same ten principles and values and the three main demands. Even in periods that seem quieter, there are meetings, trainings and actions happening, all the time. Right now, different rebel groups all around Switzerland are discussing future plans: in Bern, Winterthur, the Jura, Zurich… Many local groups will greet spring with new kinds of actions, maybe also with an artistic touch.
For example, rebels in Neuchâtel are setting up cairns for lost species, and planning some theater actions.
In Geneva, the Special Climate Crisis crew is resuming its activities, and you may find them on Thursday March 10, travelling through Geneva’s public transport to give safety instructions in case of general collapse due to the climate and ecological crises.
Christian climate action organises events in different churches, and will soon produce new videos focusing on climate and faith.
In Lausanne, XR Familles is organising a Kidical mass demonstration on Saturday 19th of March. The climate change and ecological emergencies will increasingly affect the lives of all children of the world, a concern that drives more and more families to climate action. XR Familles aims to connect the families of Romandie in civil resistance, with joy and respect for the living world. Join their demonstration with bikes, scooters and carnival spirit!
Is your group planning an action, or do you want to compare notes about a recent event? Get the word out - we’re here so your fellow rebels hear about the full range of actions happening all around the country!
➡️Write to the newsletter team: newsletter@xrebellion.ch
Organise
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🎭 Design actions that work
Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Otpor! What can we learn from these figures and movements to design effective actions and campaigns? What principles and means of nonviolent actions can lead to victory? At the end of this one-day training, you will have the most important keys to understand civil resistance and put the principles of nonviolent action into practice.
➡️ Register now for the training in Lausanne on April 9th (in French)
➡️ Register now for the training in Zurich on April 23rd (in German)
🎭 Learn more about self organising system
No one’s anyone’s boss in a rebellion against extinction. Instead, the rebellion grows from within, from interactions between all its autonomous parts. This doesn’t mean everything is a chaos! Master the tried-and-true tools this shared governance needs for meetings, decision making, management, and everything: the SOS team is proud to introduce a newly minted Organisation Manual for Extinction Rebellion – at the moment in French, and soon in German too, thanks to the brave team of rebel translators!
➡️ Download it online, or order a physical copy delivered directly to your home!
The national support structure of the rebellion is right here to help. Its purpose is to support initiatives born within the extinction rebellion, by making resources available to carry out civil resistance campaigns and actions.
➡️ Need any help? Here’s how to contact the national working groups
➡️ Learn more about the mandate of the national support structure of the extinction rebellion
Support
Not enough time to engage or act? No worries, you can still support the rebels. Here’s how.
💜Support rebels with their legal costs
With your generous help, you will enable rebels to continue acting! It is extremely important for the sustainability of the rebellion.
➡️ Please donate here (you can mention in the comment your donation is for legal support)
For the most up-to-date news about the rebellion in Switzerland, make sure to follow us on your favourite social media channels – and ask your friends for a follow too!
➡️ Twitter (mostly) in German
➡️ Instagram in German, French and Italian
➡️ Facebook in German, French and Italian
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XR Switzerland.