0:20 clip
Roger Hallam said:Well, I think the reason is really straightforward. Millions of people around the world have realized that we have come to the point where something drastic has to happen and nothing is happening and that means we have to start breaking the law in order to make change happen.
1:24 clip
Roger Hallam said:You know, we can do whatever we like in our society. It's a matter of whether we're prepared to undertake the costs of it. The fact of the matter is, and this is the major point Extinction Rebellion is trying to say, is that it is over for this civilization. The reason it's over is because of the hard physics. We're not making a political point or an ideological point or trying to be awkward or all the rest of it. We're simply saying that the science is real, the science is real, it means we're facing social collapse the reason we're facing social collapse is because of mass starvation and the reason we are going to have mass starvation is because of the collapse in the weather systems around the world.
1:30 clip
Roger Hallam said:When you go to the doctor, the doctors got a responsibility to tell you whether you've got cancer or not and whether it's terminal or not. Hope doesn't come into it. It's a matter of scientific analysis. He shows you like a x-ray of your lungs or whatever. It's a scientific reality, the Arctic is melting it's ice it's warm is melting it's going to go. Whether you're fearful of it or you're hopeful about it or you've got a political problem with it, it's gone, it's going. That's the way the world is, it's a harsh thing, science doesn't have any sentimentality about it it's not a political thing, it's not a sort of give or take sort of thing.
Full transcript said:Stephen Sackur:
Welcome to Hard Talk, I'm Stephen Sackur.
Back in 2015, the nations of the world
made a formal commitment to act
to keep global warming well below two degrees centigrade.
So much for fine words.
Global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising.
The data suggests the planet is warming at an alarming rate!
What to do about it ?
Well my guest today is Roger Hallam
co-founder of Extinction Rebellion
a movement dedicated to mass resistance and civil disobedience.
How far are the climate rebels prepared to go?
Roger Hallam, welcome to Hard Talk.
There is and has been for years no shortage of activist groups
committed to fighting for the cause of fighting climate change.
Why the need now for Extinction Rebellion?
Roger Hallam:
Well, I think the reason is really straightforward.
Millions of people around the world have realized
that we have come to the point where something drastic has to happen
and nothing is happening
and that means we have to start breaking the law in order to make change happen.
Stephen Sackur:
When you say nothing is happening, that seems to defy the truth that we see around us:
Not only are there heaps of different activist organizations working to
further the ideas behind mitigating climate change,
but governments around the world, as I mentioned in the introduction,
have signed up to the Paris agreement, they are committed to doing what it takes.
Roger Hallam:
Well, there is a massive lie going on which is: things are happening, but they're not
and billions of people have realized that the governments have been lying
for the last 30 years
and the elites have been lying
and the experts have being lying
and the reason they've been lying
is because they've said that carbon emissions will go down
and they're going to act to make sure they go down
but they haven't, they've gone up 60 percent since 1990
and they're still going up.
As you, said they went up 1.6 percent two years ago and 2.7 last year
so this was the decade when it was all supposed to start happening, wasn't it?
But it's not, so people are very angry,
people are in a rage, people don't want their kids to die.
There's no words to describe how serious it is.
Stephen Sackur:
But I guess what I'm getting to is this point, what's different about you?
I mean we've had, for example, the leader of Greenpeace in this studio
he's talked in very similar terms about the alarming rate of the warming of the planet
he's talked about the rise in emissions
he talked about the concentration of co2 in the atmosphere getting worse
all of that stuff. So, on the science there's no disagreement,
but are you saying that groups like Greenpeace and many many others
have fundamentally failed in their mission to convince the world
that things need to change?
Roger Hallam:
Yes, we've fundamentally failed. I mean, I've failed other activists have failed
campaigners have failed, we've all failed!
The fact of the matter is, we're facing mass starvation in the next ten years,
social collapse and the possible extinction of the human race.
It couldn't be worse.
So, that situation has come about over 30 years of failure,
failure by the Elites, failure by the governments and failure by campaigners.
Stephen Sackur:
So your message is entirely about failure,
it's about negativity, it is in a way, I suppose, a howl of rage and despair.
Roger Hallam:
That's right, it is.
Stephen Sackur:
And you think that is a message that the people of the world
and the political leaders of the world are going to respond to?
Roger Hallam:
Yes, and the reason why is, because when people go through depression and rage
they come out and decide to do things.
Extinction Rebellion is the most successful climate change movement in the UK,
only set up a year ago, it's got a hundred thousand people signed up to it.
It's a mass civil disobedience, it's changed the conversation in this country
and the reason why it's done that is
because it's dedicated to telling the truth.
And the truth is that we are in this beyond terrible situation
and it is being brought about by the Elites and governments lying to people
and misleading people over thirty years.
Stephen Sackur:
But aren't you lying and misleading people too?
Because you are suggesting it is possible, for example, in the United Kingdom where the group was founded,
that we could in the UK move to net zero carbon emissions by 2025 and that really isn't possible.
Roger Hallam:
Of course it's possible, anything's possible.
It's matter of whether there's political will.
Stephen Sackur:
Okay, let me rephrase the question:
It's not possible within the framework of our capitalist economy
without causing unimaginable damage to people's lives.
Roger Hallam:
Well, the damage is imaginable, it's proportionate and it's necessary, because the alternative is social collapse.
That's the fundamental realization people have come to.
There's not a third option here of carrying on business as usual.
Stephen Sackur:
The problem isn't that... The reason I began by discussing where you sit within the climate change
and environmental movement is that you are an outlier among so many people
who agree like you that there is now a climate emergency.
The energy and climate intelligence unit which sympathizes with much of the message that you deliver
does not sympathize at all with some of the objectives and targets you lay out,
because they say that, for example, the net zero emissions by 2025
is technically, economically and politically impossible.
It has absolutely no chance of being fulfilled.
Roger Hallam:
Well they're wrong! You know, we can do whatever we like in our society.
It's a matter of whether we're prepared to undertake the costs of it.
The fact of the matter is, and this is the major point Extinction Rebellion is trying to say,
is that it is over for this civilization.
The reason it's over is because of the hard physics. We're not making a political point
or an ideological point or trying to be awkward or all the rest of it.
We're simply saying that the science is real, the science is real,
it means we're facing social collapse the reason we're facing social collapse
is because of mass starvation and the reason we are going to have mass starvation is
because of the collapse in the weather systems around the world.
Stephen Sackur:
I'm talking about the degree to which you say, action, the most radical form of action
has to be completed within the next six years, which is what you are saying.
You're suggesting you're setting a target which would mean that people
couldn't use combustion engine vehicles anymore they couldn't fly anymore,
they couldn't use gas to heat their homes anymore and I put it to you that
suggesting that is possible makes you a fantasist.
Roger Hallam:
It's like going to the doctor and a doctor says you've got cancer
and if you carry on as normal you definitely gonna die
or you can try and change but you might still die. Those are the options for the human race now
if we are to believe for science so...
Stephen Sackur:
With respect I don't think the science is saying that we're all gonna die within six years
Roger Hallam:
No no no, what we are saying, what the science is saying is, if there's not fundamental
major change in the structure of the global economy in the next ten years
then we're heading for catastrophe and what that means is we're going to be heading
for mass socia collapse and mass starvation
Stephen Sackur:
Do you acknowledge that the message you are peddling, and it is full of past failure,
deep negativity, the most urgent of alarms and emergencies for right now,
do you accept that it can't be successful as a sort of movement
without taking the public with you?
Roger Hallam:
The public is starting to get round to the idea that we're facing social collapse.
Before April, before there were 1200 arrests in the streets of London,
in the biggest civil disobedience protest in British history
the British public didn't have any opinion on the climate emergency.
Afterwards 67% of the British public agree there is one.
Stephen Sackur:
Do you want to bring down the capitalist system as we know it?
Roger Hallam:
The capitalist system is going to be brought down by itself, the capitalist system's eating itself.
But the point about... No, let me make this point clear. The capitalist system, the global system that
we're in is in the process of destroying itself, and it will destroy itself in the next ten years.
The reason for that is because it's destroying the climate.
The climate is what's necessary to grow food. If you can't grow food
there'll be starvation and social collapse. Now the problem is people in the Elites
and people in the BBC and people in the governmental sector
cannot get their heads round what's actually happening.
The fact of the matter is if you go out and talk to ordinary people in the street,
they're aware of this and that's why hundreds of thousands of people around the world
have started to take action. Because they have lost faith.
Stephen Sackur:
You're perspective on the climate is that the emergency is here, it's now and we have to respond.
Roger Hallam:
No, I don't think you have, you see...
Stephen Sackur:
I want to ask you about the degree to which you see yourself as a revolutionary.
Is that how you would characterize your...
Roger Hallam:
There's a revolution coming anyway, it's irrelevant.
I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to say that there's these radical people...
Everything's ok and they're trying to change stuff
and if they weren't there being annoying, things could carry on.
But the fact of the matter is, if we don't change things they're going to be ten times worse.
And those are the two options. That's why I'm telling you about the analogy of the doctor.
When you go and see a doctor you don't blame the doctor,
you don't accuse the doctor of being revolutionary, because the doctor is simply telling you
what the science is, and the science is we're going to have social collapse or
we're going to try and do something about it.
Stephen Sackur:
But science is different from politics. You're taking science and then you're putting a
political interpretation on what it means, how it's going to impact.
Roger Hallam:
No, there's no there's no political interpretation here.
Stephen Sackur:
Let me put to you the words of a former head of the Metropolitan Police counter-terror Command
who has studied your movement.
He says Extinction Rebellion is seeking the breakdown of democracy and the state.
He regards you as akin to a dangerous terrorist organization.
Well you're telling me that you're going to take the public with you when a former police chief is suggesting
that you actually are anarchists who want to bring down the state and
our democratic system. Do you think the public is ready for that?
Roger Hallam:
The public is now aware that the Elites are taking them to their death,
because that's what the science is saying. The people that are betraying
this country and this nation are the people in the Elites,
like the guy you've just mentioned, because they're refusing to accept the reality
And that's why they're will be mass social disturbances over the next year or two.
Stephen Sackur:
You stood in the European parliamentary elections as an independent
with this message in London, more than 2 million voters.
You managed to garner 924 and you're telling me the public is marching alongside you.
Roger Hallam:
67 percent of the public know there's a climate emergency.
If you know there's a climate emergency
it means that we're facing a situation more serious than we've ever had to deal with in the whole British history.
Stephen Sackur:
Politicians are now talking of climate emergencies,
making the leap from talking of a climate emergency to the mass civil disturbances,
disruption, the bringing down of the state as we know it,
that's something quite different. How far are you prepared to go?
We've seen let's say hundreds sometimes maybe even a thousand or two of your
Extinction Rebellion colleagues and activists on the streets of London gluing themselves
to buildings, gluing themselves to roads, disrupting traffic, once even disrupting public transport
which to many seemed a bit odd. But how far are you prepared to take this mass civil disobedience?
Roger Hallam:
This October thousands of people will come to the streets of London
and they'll stay on the streets of London. How long I don't know,
because it'd be up to them but you'll see mass disturbances.
They'll be nonviolent, they will be respectful and it'll be disruptive
and that's the methodology that we're using, that's the method that we're using.
Stephen Sackur:
Carefully, you say nonviolent. In previous comments you've said of your protests,
demonstrations, civil disobedience, that quote "some people may die".
I wondered what you meant by that?
Roger Hallam:
Because in civil disobedience struggles over the last 150 years,
when you challenge the Elites, as Gandhi says:
first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, and then they fight you.
When they fight you, then they tend to kill people, and that's historically what happens.
I'm just stating that as a fact, a sociological fact you know.
When Martin Luther King used to do civil rights campaigns in the 1960s
people got killed and that's part of the process of political change.
Stephen Sackur:
You're carefully manipulating this aren't you? You said people will see in the evening news
10 year olds and grannies getting dragged off by the police.
I believe you've made a particular point at Extinction Rebellion of teaching
civil disobedience methods to young people, including schoolchildren. If you want them on the front lines...
Roger Hallam:
Well why do you think school children and grannies are getting involved in putting themselves
in harm's way to get arrested? Why do you think that's happening?
Stephen Sackur:
Well I'm asking you why you're encouraging them to put themselves in harm's way?
Roger Hallam:
I'm not encouraging anyone, okay?
What I'm involved in doing...
Stephen Sackur:
You are actually encouraging children to...
Roger Hallam:
If grannies turn up to a meeting and are in tears about what's happening to their grandchildren
it's not it's not what I'm doing that makes them sit down in the road.
It's the same with teenagers. Teenagers are shitting themselves about what's
happening for the future. They've got another 50, 60, 70 years to live on this planet.
By that time there could be only a billion people left!
I mean that's six billion people that have died from starvation or being slaughtered in war.
I mean the scale of it is beyond the imagination isn't it?
And this is the biggest problem. It's that the Elites and the BBC and the conventional
media has simply not grasped the enormity of what's happening.
Stephen Sackur:
Well never mind the Elites, it seems that many people even who were involved
in the early days of Extinction Rebellion, like yourself, think you are going far too far
Roger Hallam:
You haven't heard what I've said and this is the fundamental problem.
Stephen Sackur:
I'm listening very carefully.
Roger Hallam:
no I don't think you are, you're listening but you're not emotionally connecting
and this is the problem, I've just spent a year doing interviews like this with journalists
and journalists are not emotionally connecting with what's happening.
I am talking about the slaughter, death and starvation of six billion people this century.
That's what the science predicts
that's the trajectory we're on and that requires absolutely desperate measures to stop it
and it's going to be painful,
Stephen Sackur:
believe me I am engaging in the sense that I'm a citizen just as you are,
I am going to be just as much prey to everything that's happening with our planet as you are...
Roger Hallam:
Well, you're not are you ?
Stephen Sackur:
I have childen and...
Roger Hallam:
Certainly yeah, I don't know what age you are
but you're not going to be on this planet for that much longer neither am I.
If you're a teenager you can see this happening over the next 50, 60 years.
Stephen Sackur:
Why do you think, and I am engaging with you but I'm not sure you're engaging with me,
why do you think so many people, even inside Extinction Rebellion, think that you have gone too far?
when you recently said you wanted to put drones up around Heathrow, to ensure that Heathrow Airport was closed down
There were people inside your own organization who said hang on a minute that is not what we are about.
you have to consider strategy in a way that you're not doing.
Roger Hallam:
The fact of the matter is with the aviation industry and the whole carbon economy
all this activity is bringing us to destruction
and there's people in Extinction Rebellion, and in many other networks,
who as an act of conscience are going to be taking action against it.
And thats the same as happened in the past.
Stephen Sackur:
I'll give you a quote from somebody, I don't know if you know him personally
but Simon McKibben a lecturer at Cambridge University
who joined Extinction Rebellion and has now left
specifically because he was horrified and upset by your plan to shut down Heathrow with drones.
He said "threatening to fly drones into a busy airspace is a departure from the ethics of non-violence it threatens people, puts people at risk"
he said "I believe if this is permitted to go ahead we'll lose the good will of the public"
why do you persist with this?
Roger Hallam:
Because we're facing mass starvation and because people generally in a society and
particularly people in the Elites, are not capable of, and are not, empathizing with that reality.
Stephen Sackur:
Will you put those drones up?
Roger Hallam:
Myself? I haven't decided what I am personally doing...
Those of your movement who believe, like you, it's justified
this is what's coming down the road and if the Elites
don't respond to non-violent action then you know what's going to come next
people other than Extinction Rebellion will use violence, that's what's coming down the road
I'm speaking as a sociologist here, I'm not saying it's good or bad
what I'm saying is if you put a society under a massive amount of stress
if you've proposed, you just leave me, just let me finish this.
If you tell the citizens of a country that the government is facilitating their death
then you can expect one thing
particularly in a country like Britain where people don't put up with such nonsense.
You can expect rebellion.
Stephen Sackur:
Will you, just answer the question, will you try to close down Heathrow Airport with drones?
Roger Hallam:
It hasn't been decided, it hasn't been decided and I don't want to talk about specific things
because that's not up to me, that's up to the people who are engaged in it.
What I can say to you is, this is what's coming down the line.
Stephen Sackur:
Doesn't it strike you that if you were serious about trying to Lobby, pressure, change policy, where it matters most
you'd be working in Washington DC, Beijing, maybe Moscow, maybe Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
it's very easy in democracies like Britain to get people out on the streets, to glue yourself to railings as it is ultimately a democracy
but in many parts the world, which matter most to this particular debate,
there is no possibility of Extinction Rebellion.
Roger Hallam:
Most of the civil disobedience campaigns over the last hundred years
have happened in poor authoritarian countries
And the fact of the matter is when people have had enough they'll undertake sacrifice
in order to bring change and that's the most effective way according
to the scholarship of bringing about rapid change in a society
mass participation in civil disobedience
Stephen Sackur:
and when it comes to this mass participation you've said thousands on the streets
do you really believe that with the methodology you've talked about in this interview
the mindset you bring to this you are going to win the hearts and minds of the public
not just in this country but publics around the world?
Roger Hallam:
I think it's inevitable, I think it's inevitable, yes.
I mean the major question now is, have we left it too late?
Stephen Sackur:
I'm just mindful of international examples.
Australia recently had an election the center-left went into that election
promising major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions over the next few years.
the center-right went into that election saying no, we're not because it will damage jobs,
it will damage industry, we're actually going to open up new coal fields across Queensland
one of the biggest states in Australia. The center-right won!
Roger Hallam:
Yes, so what's happening is the level of rage in countries is increasing exponentially
and it hasn't hit that critical mass in many countries yet
but it's going to hit that critical mass very quickly and it will shock the Elites
it's going to shock the governments with its intensity
because a critical mass of people are starting to realise what's going on
which is the Elites and the governments aren't actually going to do anything
they're not going to fulfill their primary responsibilities which is to look after the people.
it'll happen quickly, it'll happen quickly this isn't something that builds up gradually.
If you look historically it happens nothing's happening and then something happens, bang
and all the media think where did that come from
and what I am here today to tell you is, this is coming.
This is coming down the trail.
Stephen Sackur:
No, I hear your message and you accuse me of not emotionally engaging with you
and in the course of the conversation I've just been thinking to myself your message is
so unrelentingly bleak and negative
Roger Hallam:
it's not a message right when you go to the doctor
and he tells you you have cancer that's not a message it's the science, it's the science!
Stephen Sackur:
but you know began by agreeing that there are various people
across the environmental green and climate change movements who all agree
about the science but come to very different conclusions about the best
means of delivering change there are many scientists who actually
will not just focus on the negative the bleak and the dark
but will say, you know what we human beings are making some progress we are cutting emissions
for example, in the energy sector.
Roger Hallam:
I've just told you that's total nonsense
it's total nonsense, you shouldn't be saying that.
Stephen Sackur:
There's no room for positivity and hope, hope hope. You see no room for hope whatsoever?
Roger Hallam:
when you go to the doctor,
the doctors got a responsibility to tell you whether you've got cancer or not
and whether it's terminal or not.
Hope doesn't come into it.
It's a matter of scientific analysis. He shows you like a x-ray of your lungs or whatever.
it's a scientific reality, the Arctic is melting it's ice it's warm is melting it's going to go.
whether you're fearful of it or you're hopeful about it
or you've got a political problem with it, it's gone, it's going.
That's the way the world is, it's a harsh thing, science doesn't have any sentimentality about it
it's not a political thing, it's not a sort of give or take sort of thing.
Stephen Sackur:
Roger Hallam we have to end there but I thank you very much for being on Hard Talk.
Thanks.
