As part of the global climate strike about 25 thousand students marched through the center of Dublin city. This was one of many demonstrations that took place around Ireland, even the small dormitory towns around Dublin like Maynooth had their own demonstrations. So the actual numbers protesting in Ireland was probably in the region of 40,000. In this piece Andrew looks at how collective action can halt Climate Breakdown using the example of the need for transport to illustrate why individual consumer choices cannot fix things.
If you happened to be using bad science to impose a strategy that turned out to be inefficient, and if as a result of this inefficiency billions of people died... who would be the most violent person in the room? This is the question Roger Hallam (a founder of XR) and George Monbiot (a Guardian journalist and prominent supporter of XR) would do well to ponder as the collapse of the earth's biosphere and the system fueling that collapse are claiming more lives every day.
Both of these men have been arguing in favor of non-violent civil disobedience as the only acceptable tactic to avert catastrophic climate change. This stance is usually justified by referencing a study entitled “Why Civil Resistance Works” authored by Erica Chenoweth.
Around a thousand people took part in the second Dublin Transgender Pride Parade last Saturday, July 6. This is almost double the number that marched last year. Upon assembling at Parnell Square the colourful procession made it's way down O' Connell Street, through Eden Quay, Customs House Quay and Lombard Street, before arriving at it's destination of Merrion Square. It was watched by crowds of onlookers who offered encouragement and support in the form of cheering and applause.[video]
The presence of uniformed cops marching as a bloc on Dublin Pride meant that for the first time Pride Alternative was organised. Many participants may not have been aware that just across the street 3 van loads of riot police were lurking down a laneway, presumably there so that if there was any attempt to block the cop bloc they would have charged in. Thats so, so far from the roots of Pride in the riots that followed police raids on the Stonewall Inn.
Donald Trump's visit to Ireland is defined, as you might expect, by cynicism. He seems to be here mostly in order to promote his hotel in Doonbeg. This is the hotel that rather famously, despite him being a major climate change denier, perhaps the leading climate change denier, that he has applied for planning permission to build a seawall to protect the hotel against rising sea levels!
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