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      extinction rebellion

      Scientist Emma Smart is arrested during a protest against climate inaction at the U.K. government's Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy in London on April 13, 2022.

      UK Lawyers Sign 'Declaration of Conscience' Not to Prosecute Peaceful Climate Protesters

      "It's the ordinary people of this country, taking a stand against this greed and destruction that the British legal system prosecutes and imprisons, jailing them just for talking about the climate crisis and fuel poverty."

      Jessica Corbett
      Mar 24, 2023

      More than 120 mostly English lawyers on Friday published a "declaration of conscience" pledging to withhold their services from "supporting new fossil fuel projects" and "action against climate protesters exercising their democratic right of peaceful protest."

      The United Kingdom has in recent years faced protests from numerous climate groups, including those with more pronounced direct actions like Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain, and Extinction Rebellion. As part of those protests, participants have filled the streets, blocked fossil fuel facilities, glued scientific papers and themselves to a government building, called out major law firms for "defending climate criminals," and even, controversially, tossed tomato soup on one of Vincent van Gogh's glass-protected paintings.

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      lawyers are responsible
      Activists from Extinction Rebellion and HS2 Rebellion disrupted the offices of law firm Eversheds Sutherland in Cardiff, Wales on February 28, 2023.​

      Extinction Rebellion Protesters Target Law Firm for 'Defending Climate Criminals'

      "We are taking this action against injunctions put in place by law firms like Eversheds which prevent peaceful protest," said a 70-year-old who joined the protest in London.

      Jessica Corbett
      Feb 28, 2023

      Dozens of protesters on Tuesday gathered at Eversheds Sutherland offices in four U.K. cities—Birmingham, Cardiff, London, and Nottingham—to call out the corporate law firm's work for major polluters fueling the climate emergency.

      The activists "are protesting against the law firm's complicity in the destruction of the planet by facilitating injunctions for companies like Esso (ExxonMobil) and High Speed 2 (HS2)," Extinction Rebellion (XR) and HS2 Rebellion explained in a statement.

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      extinction rebellion
      A policeman with a dog stands on the edge of a lignite mine in the village of Luetzerath, western Germany

      Reaching 1.5°C of Global Heating by 2024 Isn't Even the Whole Story

      Does anyone out there still believe that our current system of growth at all costs is symbiotic with our existence?

      Simon Whalley
      Jan 26, 2023

      With the warmer El Niño climate pattern about to replace the colder La Niña in the Pacific Ocean at the end of the year, we are about to get a real glimpse into our collective future. While our governments have been pretending to focus on a distant 2050 target to limit warming to 2.7°F (1.5°C), there is a 50:50 chance that we will reach the landmark temporarily by next year. Sadly, this isn’t the extent of our problems. In 2009, scientists from the Stockholm Resilience Center identified nine planetary boundaries: including climate change - whose thresholds we could not cross if we wished to continue with human civilization. Spoiler alert: humanity is not listening.

      In 2009, when the boundaries were first established, we had already passed three of the nine boundaries—climate change, biodiversity loss, and excess nitrogen and phosphorus. With our current policies, we are on course to increase the global average temperature by as much as 6.5°F (3.6°C) by the end of the century. This doesn’t take into account the potential feedback loops and tipping points that many scientists predict will considerably worsen at 3.6°F (2°C) and potentially lock us in to a hothouse Earth scenario. Without urgent action to reduce emissions, we are forecast to pass 2.7°F (1.5°C) by 2032 and then 3.6°F (2°C) by 2043. This increased temperature has already led to heatwaves like the one that killed 53,000 people in Europe last summer. It’s leading to more severe storms, increased flooding like we saw in Nigeria and Pakistan last year, and longer and more frequent droughts like those in the U.S. Midwest and large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. It’s also leading to the rapid melting of Greenland and Antarctica, and it has been forecast that we could see several meters of sea-level rise as soon as 2066. This will affect all food production, with wheat harvests expected to decrease by 37% at 3.6°F (2°C) of warming, corn harvests projected to decrease by up to 18%, and soybean harvests projected to decrease by 12%. These are the most common crops grown on our planet. Some prominent climate scientists predict that at 7.2°F (4°C) of warming, the planet will be able to support less than 1 billion people. Our human population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 at the same time that our food production is decreasing.

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