Extinction Rebellion Oxford

“The Met's own statement shows that they were aware that the meeting was for training in nonviolent direct action, so this raid and the indiscriminate arrest of everyone present is shocking overreach."

Quaker Meeting House suffers second Met Police raid For the second time in less than a year, Metropolitan Police officers have raided Westminster Quaker Meeting House, arresting young activists.

“Met Police may want to intimidate us into contributing to gov’s closing off of the right to protest”

“But Quakers have been accustomed to oppression by the state for over 350y. We will continue to hire space to explicitly nonviolent groups, with appropriate checks in place, just as we always have”

Rising #SeaLevels due to #ClimateChange threatens tens of millions more people than previously thought. New research found about 90% of 385 scientific studies underestimated baseline coastal water height by average of 30cm with some discrepancies up to 550-760cm
www.independent.co.uk/climate-chan...

17 March Prince Charles Cinema.
London premiere of documentary film on the environmental impact of US military. Exempt from international #climate agreements the Pentagon is the world’s single largest institutional polluter—spewing carbon, poisoning water, and scarring landscapes across the globe.

🎶🎶 🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
Oxford Climate Choir will perform in Oxford city centre on Saturday, March 7 in collaboration with youth-led banking campaign SWITCHED!

🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶

11.45- 1pm outside city centre banks

"It is a grim reality that many of our banks continue to invest in fossil fuels, while the planet overheats”

Are you interested in climate & environmental action?

Come to our next meeting!

💚All Rebels Meeting💚

Thursday 19 March

7-9pm

New Rd Baptist Church
Bonn Square
OXFORD

#ReformUK is funded by huge donations from rich backers in the fossil fuels, finance, crypto & property industries, who'd profit massively from Reform being elected & implementing their plans to deregulate & strip away numerous legal rights that protect people & planet.
bsky.app/profile/bear...

Heat extremes caused an estimated 546,000 deaths every year between 2012 - 2021, a 63% rise on rates in the 1990s, reports @thelancet.com. “That's the equivalent of a fully loaded jumbo jet full of people going down once every 7hrs throughout the year,” Prof Ollie Jay, Heat & Health Research Centre

Write to your MP Ask your MP to act on the Nature Security Assessment’s findings and press for a meaningful response.

🌿 The Government must respond to the national security assessment on ecosystem collapse with urgency.

🚨 This is not a distant issue. It's a direct threat to the UK’s security, stability, and prosperity.

📝 Write to your MP—ask them to demand a response from the Government.

👉 action.zerohour.uk/nsa

7/ This isn’t just another meeting.

It’s the start of a coalition of the willing — countries ready to move beyond empty promises and take real action toward a just transition. ⚖️🌱

🧵1/ MAJOR CAMPAIGN WIN 🚨🌍

At COP30, the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands announced the *first ever* conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels. AND they confirmed corporate courts will be discussed.

This is historic. And it takes us one BIG step closer to a #FossilFuelTreaty. 🔥✊

In the dark we have heart 🤍🌎

The FBI is investigating #ExtinctionRebellion

A former member of #XRNYC was visited by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force outside of New York City. This is not an isolated situation.
The administration has escalated to a new focus:
the climate movement.
1/2

‘We’re distracted by the headlines, but behind the scenes, there’s a full-scale war being planned against our environment.’

Story via Nik Mitchell @getwild1.bsky.social (@mitchellsnik on X)

Ruling against Palestine Action ban is embarrassing defeat for the government Proscription of British direct action group has been fiercely controversial from moment it was proposed last June

Ruling against Palestine Action ban is embarrassing defeat for the government

While “serious property damage” is a criterion for a ban under the Terrorism Act, the legislation had previously only been used on groups intent on violence to the person…

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Defend Our Juries Co-Founder Tim Crosland explains what the High Court ruling showing over the Palestine Action ban means in real terms.

He adds a renewed call for a meeting with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to discuss the harm that has been done since this ban was introduced.

Put an end to Arms Fairs & Arms Trade!!!

All weapons on sale at NEC are used to kill & injure innocent civilians & children

Instead our taxes should be funding health care, social care & education…..to provide real security, not the false security offered by defence industry

Protests Outside the SDSC Arms Fair YouTube video by Zoe Broughton

The NEC Birmingham hosted the 2026 Arms Fair alongside an Ice Cream Fair & a Spring Fair

The protest featured the Red Rebels, drummers, a die in & a washing line carrying baby- grows in memory of all children killed in wars

Campaigners are calling on the NEC to refuse to host the next SDSC-UK.

Government blocks ‘Sunshine Bill’ for mandatory solar panels The Government has blocked the 'Sunshine Bill', which would have mandated solar panels on all new builds from 2026

UK Labour government blocks Sunshine Bill 🌞😒
www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/energy-...
6/

Climate Outreach Climate Outreach works with people and organisations to help create new climate stories. Every year, we work with hundreds of partners - from charities to governments to business - to help them naviga...

"Governments have the most important role of all. In the UK, we want to see a national, resourced public engagement strategy on climate change"
climateoutreach.org
1/

We’ve had information campaigns on Brexit and Covid. What about the climate? - Climate Outreach In the runup to Cop26, public knowledge about the crisis is shallow, with few understanding the scale of the threat.

11/ Even more striking: @climateoutreach.bsky.social themselves (cited in McCarthy’s letter) explicitly argue for government-led public information campaigns on #climate, drawing lessons from Brexit and COVID.

"Public engagement is not window dressing; it is the essential foundation for all policy"

Planet Earth III: how cookie cutter nature programming could fail to educate and inform audiences https://theconversation.com/planet-earth-iii-how-cookie-cutter-nature-programming-could-fail-to-educate-and-inform-audiences-216466

Nature documentaries and saving nature: Reflections on the new Netflix series Our Planet https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pan3.10052

David Attenborough has betrayed the living world he loves https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/07/david-attenborough-world-environment-bbc-films

The BBC’s Planet Earth II did not help the natural world https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/01/bbc-planet-earth-not-help-natural-world

10/ For years, critics have pointed out serious limits in nature programming:

– crises softened or backgrounded
– humans erased from responsibility
– nature framed as pristine and distant

e.g.

9/ McCarthy praises “subtle” #climate messaging in BBC Natural History programming

But subtlety is the opposite of what’s needed given the risks

Climate breakdown should be central to news & current affairs, not tucked in wildlife docs

Failing to grasp this distinction is incomprehensible!

Analysis: UK newspaper editorial opposition to climate action overtakes support for first time - Carbon Brief Nearly 100 UK newspaper editorials opposed climate action in 2025, a record figure that reveals the backlash against net-zero in the right-leaning press

8/ At the same time, parts of the UK press have become openly hostile to #climate action.

For the first time, newspaper editorial opposition to climate policy now outweighs support.

This is the media environment government is choosing to defer to, rather than lead.

New Impress Report Into Climate Change News Highlights Need To Boost Independent Regulation - Impress A new report has highlighted the need for further policy work on how climate change information is reported and regulated.

7/ When climate is covered, it’s often:
– episodic, not sustained
– stripped of risk framing
– disconnected from lived impact

A new report finds only ~18 % of UK readers access independently regulated climate news, pointing to gaps in quality and oversight that risk misinformation.

Graph of Percentage of flagship news programmes (including BBC radio and TV shows; breakfast, lunchtime, and evening bulletins on Sky and ITV; and evening programmes on Channel 4 and Channel 5) mentioning COP-related search terms during the COP period (first day of COP to the last day of COP), from Climate News Tracker. COP key words: “COP28/29/30”, "climate summit", "conference of parties", "Dubai/Baku/Belem", "Climate Change Conference", "climate conference", "climate negotiation", "climate agreement", "Paris Agreement". "Audiences of the UK’s most-watched and most-listened-to news programmes saw significantly less coverage of COP30 than in previous years. Coverage of the UN climate summit fell by around half across major UK news programmes compared to last year’s conference, a Climate News Tracker analysis has found. Just 27% of flagship programmes on BBC, ITV, Sky, Channel 4 and Channel 5 mentioned the COP30 in Brazil, down from 55% during COP28 in Dubai in 2023."

6/ She also claims #climate is already “well reported” in the news.

The evidence simply does not support this.

UK news attention to climate has declined sharply, even as risks escalate, including around major moments like COP.

climatenewstracker.org/cop30-declin...

5/ McCarthy then argues fewer people watch TV, especially younger people, so national briefings wouldn’t land

But this is a false choice

A national briefing should be multi-platform: TV, online, social media clips, community screenings

You don’t abandon public information, you scale it!

National Emergency Briefing on climate & nature National Emergency Briefing | The UK’s leading climate and nature experts brief MP's on the risks, impacts and solutions to the climate emergency

3/ It misrepresents the proposal. The idea isn’t government spin, it’s about creating a shared factual baseline, in a style like @nebriefing.bsky.social, run by scientists & campaigners

Trivialising such briefings accepts a politics where govt reacts, not leads

Watch the full NEB briefings here:

4/ We have a recent precedent. During COVID, the UK Chief Scientist & the Chief Medical Officer led daily briefings with politicians.

These briefings didn’t just inform, they shaped public understanding. Essential for:
– explaining risk
– making sense of uncertainty
– building public trust

2/ McCarthy frames a televised briefing as ineffective “government messaging”, even invoking 1984!

That is already damning. It implies a Labour MP believes her own government has no authority or credibility with the public, even when conveying life-critical risks.

Alarm bells should ring!

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/glenn-vowles-a6b61a388_see-the-reply-from-my-mp-in-bristol-activity-7416987108285947904-_yYD/

A friend pointed me to a post on social media of a letter by Kerry McCarthy MP (Labour, Bristol East) about a request for a televised emergency briefing on the #ClimateEmergency

I was stunned by how casually the idea & its urgency were dismissed. Let’s unpack why this response is so wrong-headed 🧵