NEWS

NEWS Extinction Rebellion unveils plan to shut down the airport

by Charlie Smith

Aspokesperson for Extinction Rebellion Vancouver says his group is planning on replicating the tactics of a British group that has repeatedly blocked the major road surrounding London.

At an October 9 news conference in Dunbar, Zain Haq said local activists will hold nonviolent protests for 14 consecutive days from October 16 to 29, halting tra c on Vancouver’s busiest arterials. In addition, Extinction Rebellion Vancouver is going to try to prevent people from travelling to Vancouver International Airport on October 25.

“ e press is going to say ‘You’re disrupting the great Canadian public.’ And what we’re going to say is that this airport is resulting in the destruction of this country,” Haq declared.

He revealed that Extinction Rebellion Vancouver members have been inspired by Insulate Britain. Its founder, former organic farmer Roger Hallam, also cofounded Extinction Rebellion before breaking away in a dispute over the shutdown of Heathrow Airport.

According to the Guardian, Hallam favoured using drones to shut down air traf c, but this was opposed by others. e Straight asked Haq if Extinction Rebellion Vancouver would use drones to shut down air tra c.

“Potentially, but we haven’t made up our mind,” Haq replied. “Uhm, if that happens, I might be the one doing it. Certainly, we’ll be blocking the road that goes to the airport.”

He maintained that the Canadian government is “acting in a treasonous way” by pursuing climate policies that will lead to “mass starvation”. Another speaker at the news conference, a man who identi ed himself as Badger, said that the world is on track for an average global temperature increase of 4° C this century above pre-industrial times.

“When carbon goes into the atmosphere, it still takes a little time to start heating the planet—around 20 to 30 years,” Badger stated. “So even if we turn the pipes o magically right now, we have 20 to 30 years of the last emissions—which have been the greatest ever in the history of our planet—coming down the pipes warming things.”

According to Badger, temperature will rise twice as quickly in the middle of continents, where a great deal of food production takes place.

“What happens at four degrees [higher]?” Badger asked. “Grain farming becomes unsustainable. It isn’t possible to farm grain at those temperatures that are sustained over a long period of time.”

A third speaker at the Extinction Rebellion Vancouver news conference, Lauren Emberson, said that the group has only one demand: an end to government subsidies to the oil, gas, and coal industries.

“We are not asking the government to shut down these industries,” Emberson said. “We’re not even asking them to keep their international agreements for the level of carbon in our society. We are simply asking them not to use our own money to pay for our own extinction.” g

Extinction Rebellion activists Lauren Emberson and Badger want an end to fossil-fuel subsidies.

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