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This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook Paperback – 13 Jun. 2019
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- Print length208 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin
- Publication date13 Jun. 2019
- Dimensions12.9 x 1.19 x 19.81 cm
- ISBN-100141991445
- ISBN-13978-0141991443
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Review
The authors of This Is Not a Drill rightly identify climate change as an emergency... it is aimed at a curious public and those who may be thinking about joining in... as former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan William says at the end "it might just work". ― New Scientist
Extinction Rebellion protests have WORKED! ― Express
In a remarkably short space of time, Extinction Rebellion have fundamentally altered the public discourse on climate change. ― Tank Magazine
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Product details
- Publisher : Penguin; 1st edition (13 Jun. 2019)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0141991445
- ISBN-13 : 978-0141991443
- Dimensions : 12.9 x 1.19 x 19.81 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 165,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 249 in Global Warming & Ecology
- 318 in Ecological Pollution
- 443 in Meteorology
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• Where do we go from here?
• What is the value of a civilization that devours itself?
• What thoughts were in the mind of the Easter Islander who cut down the last tree on the island? (a question posed by Jared Diamond in his fine book, “Collapse”.)
• What can I do?
• Am I powerless, meaningless, pointless?
• How do I sleep at night?
• There is no Planet B, so where can I go?
• How can I stop this madness, bring to a halt this sorry, pitiful spectacle of deranged human beings destroying the only home I have or will ever have?
Despair is no option. An old Russian proverb says hope is always the last thing to die and I will not let mine die. I will go down fighting. I will man the barricades if I have to. I will raise my voice and shout till my throat is sore and hoarse.
I’m not as young anymore as I used to be. But it doesn’t matter. The crisis is not about age. We’re all in this together, young and old and all those in between. One planet, one home, one humanity, living side by side with millions of other animals, plants and insects. It’s their home too. What’s not to get about this simple, glaring fact? Millions of other people, thankfully, are starting to get it. And for this we can thank Greta Thunberg and the youth of the world who have seen enough of our dithering, bad faith, hypocrisy, lies and corruption. They’re fed up, as they should be, because we in this baby boom generation are an abomination, a disgrace, the worst sort of examples to set for them.
Our economics are a disaster, our politics practically useless. Change can’t come from above. Above is the problem, not the solution. Why are there no royals in France, no monarchs? There used to be. France was like any other European nation. But something happened there. Something transformed the structure of that society. You know what it was. Every educated person does. They had a revolution. It was messy and turned violent. It wasn’t perfect but it worked. The toffs were jettisoned. A new liberty, equality and fraternity emerged.
So there are models or precedents. The best change is non-violent. Gandhi led the salt marches that turfed the British out of India. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the civil rights movement that made Americans face the shame and crime of slavery. Women can vote. They can even drive cars by themselves in Saudi Arabia now. Isn’t that something? Progress is possible. Sanity still exists. Collective suicide and ecocide is madness.
As for me, not a boast, just a simple statement of fact, I was at the rally, strike and march in Osaka, Japan on September 20, 2019. About 400 people assembled in a light drizzle of rain. The mood was festive, cheerful. The signs and placards were colourful. The eco chanting of phrases was loud and boisterous. We were ready. We would march and be heard.
Someone handed me a microphone at the rally before the march. I said this:
“I am not so young anymore as you can see. My generation is a failure. We have failed you. So I am here today to support the young people for their courage to strike and march on behalf of all of us.”
Would I have been there that day without having read this book sponsored by the Extinction Rebellion? Hard to say but probably not. The beauty of the book is its comprehensiveness. It arrives at protest from many different angles. Part manifesto, part handbook, it lays out all you need to know if you are serious about making your voice heard, your presence felt. It is the New Testament for our times. There are moments in it when you may not be able to read on with dry eyes. Passionate, sensitive, mournful, angry, defiant, and even humorous at times, it clearly lays out the predicament and what needs to be done to derail this runaway train that is carrying us all into the burning flames of hell.
So maybe it prompted, encouraged and empowered me. All I know is that I was there and glad to be there, happy to participate, to meet likes souls, to join the common cause for good.
The other day a Guardian contributor from Australia wrote about his own experience marching there. A few lines from his report touched home with me. I want to quote him now because this is exactly the feeling, the precise thoughts and sensations I have had. He wrote this:
“The need for protests could not be more urgent, and at last they are happening. The global strike provides a perfect antidote to the despair so many of us have felt for so long. There’s a nightmare quality to the isolated experience of climate change, a sense of paralysis and horror at a world sleepwalking to disaster. By coming together on the streets we shake that off and grasp something of our collective strength.”
Correct in every respect. The isolated individual frets:
Do others feel as I do?
Do they understand?
Am I really so alone?
No, you are not alone, never alone. We are social. We need each other. Our strength comes from this, from the strength of others combined with our own.
It felt like waves, ripples of joy and passion flowing through us as we marched. Even some of the cops shepherding us through the busy streets were smiling because we looked more like a merry band of pranksters than anarchists with clubs, bricks and stones. We don’t want to destroy the world. We want to save it. Those who stopped to look at us understood this too. They looked on in wonder because they knew us, saw themselves in us. We were like one big mirror. Only the drivers, backed up in traffic and slaves to their hectic schedules, looked bothered, irritated. They’ll be the last to understand and march. But they are humanity too, members of the same vast human family. We don’t evolve psychologically at the same pace. Nothing is fixed and change is possible.
This book is reasonably priced. Why? Because profit is low on the Extinction Rebellion agenda, if it exists at all there. High on its agenda is the climate emergency. No, correction: it is the agenda. And for good reason. All else goes by the boards if we don’t have a healthy environment in which to live. What’s not to get about this? Even children can understand it. And it’s children who are leading the way, revolting and protesting by skipping school and classes, and why shouldn’t they? It’s honest and logical. Johnny Rotten was right in another context when he screamed “No future!”
Greta’s group is called Fridays for Future. You can probably find a local chapter in your town or city. The young people marching will welcome you. They will want you. You won’t be alone. The dream of liberty, equality and fraternity has not died yet. But the clock is ticking. The IPCC says we have less than a dozen years before crucial tipping points are reached. The time for dithering and procrastinating is gone. March right now for a better world while we still have one to protect.
Extinction Rebellion (or 'XR') are a prophetic, principled, disciplined and determined force, with no regard for "gradual reform and rotten compromise." They recognize, as Orwell put it, that "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act" and that polite requests to the powerful are a tried and trusted recipe for disaster.
Instead, the only recourse now is to disruption. "Without disruption there is no economic cost, and without economic cost the guys running this world really don't care." XR's open rebellion is "based on the force of truth", where the laws of men are irrelevant, and when even 3 percent of the population practise it, this is enough to bring down a regime!
The perspectives in this book are both local and universal, from the narrative of an Indian farming family facing destitution to sobering global statistics on the fragility of food production.
More than mere emissions reductions, more even than emissions elimination, XR's mission is to "rewild the world… But first we need to rewild the imagination. We must all learn how to dream again."
Brace yourself for mixed emotions: worry, outrage, despair, hope, and "climate sorrow". But not confusion, nor will you be overwhelmed. Rather, this book will fortify your heart to be one of the good guys in overthrowing humanity's systems of exploitation and enslavement.
Abdiel LeRoy
There have been other books claiming to represent the views of Extinction Rebellion but this, apparently is the first official publication (by Penguin). It consists of a series of eassys on subjects such as "The Heat is Melting the Mountain", "The Climate Emergency and the End of Diversity" and "A Green New Deal". The writers are eloquant and articulate and they share the view that humanity is embroiled in an event unprecidented in its history.
The book is presented in two parts; part one Tell the Truth and part two Act Now. The essays are intersperced with shock slogans in large letters and inspirational quotes and eye witnesses accounts of environmental disasters such as the Californian fires and cyclones in Mozambique.
The book concludes with a instruction to stop reading and a call to arms for non violent direct action. There is advice on how to close a road and how to shut a bridge and an instruction to rebel followed by a draft social contract between citizen and state.
This a powerful book and its call is urgent and will resonate with many people who are increasingly feeling that action is needed to prevent further harm to the Earth.









