The UK public attitude to climate breakdown has changed substantially in the last month. The schools strikes and Extinction Rebellion have shifted the conversation, along with a series of reports from climate scientists that remind us that the problem is getting worse. An Oxford Research Group report published earlier this week analysed both developments and reminded readers of the historic significance of nonviolent action, so often forgotten but effective in some of the most significant movements of the last century.
The women’s suffrage movement, the Gandhian movement in India and the start of decolonisation, the US civil rights movement and the many citizen movements in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s all had major nonviolent elements. It is true that in all cases there were other factors at work as well, but it is unlikely that any of them would, by themselves, have led to change at the rate it actually happened.
The ORG report also reminds us of the climate science developments. 2019 is already on track to be one of the three hottest years since accurate records were first kept in the late 1800s, joining 2016 and 2017 in that trio. And at least as significant is the news that ocean heat content has set a new record as the warmest since records began in 1940.
