Extinction Rebellion activists prompted fury this Armistice Day by co-opting the Remembrance display at the Cenotaph with demonstrations and placing an unlicensed wreath above those dedicated to fallen soldiers reading CLIMATE CHANGE: ACT NOW. A banner, reading HONOUR THEIR SACRIFICE: CLIMATE CHANGE MEANS WAR was also carried and attached to the gate, blocking the view of the memorial. They were removed by Met Police two hours later.

Why they remained on display for so long is anyone's guess.

Former private Donald Bell spearheaded the stunt, in uniform, and stepped through poppy wreaths laid at the memorial to place his, paramount, above the rest.

XRs latest stunt might be their most staggering show of climate-fuelled anti-natalism and anti-humanism yet.

XR co-founder Stuart Basden wrote the movement isnt about the climate, but instead dismantling the cruelty and violence of 600 years of colonialism conducted by European civilisation, and its institutions of patriarchy, white supremacy, and heteronormativity.

Fellow XR co-founder, Roger Hallam, has said that forcing governments to act or bringing them down in order to implement XRs preferred climate policies will require some to die in the process.

A sticker campaign calling Humans the disease and Corona the cure landed an East Midlands XR chapter in hot water in March (another chapter claiming to be the main XR group did distance themselves from the claim but the structure is so murky it is very difficult for the public to know who to believe.)

In the States, Green New Deal supporter and 2020 Presidential primary candidate Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed expanding abortion access in third-world nations, to reduce carbon emissions through population control.

Previous prophecies havent panned out. From the Population Bomb, to Al Gores Inconvenient Truth, and even Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortezs recent inflated claim that the IPCC report says the world is to end in 12 years, these crazy predictions never come true.

When the climate narrative is controlled by out-of-touch radicals like this who continually demonstrate their disregard for working people and a disdain for the West, is it any surprise so many are opposed to the activism currently characterised as representative of the environmental movement? The 44 percent of Brits driven to apathy about climate issues by proclamations of an impending ecological apocalypse are excoriated as anti-science and deniers.

In a time of economic downturn and supply-line interruption, working families are rightly concerned about what their family requires, and the security and reliability of obtaining that.

Further disruptions to our way of life after a tumultuous year will inevitably be opposed, and all the more fervently when advocated by a group demonstrating such little respect as Extinction Rebellion often do.

But optimism may be derived from this flagrant display of disrespect. National lockdowns have served as an incidental repudiation of eco-socialists position that ending capitalism will stop the oncoming eco-pocalypse.

The halting of travel and production in nations worldwide for months was found to have a negligible impact, compared to predicted proactive responses invigorated by green stimulus and reductions in fossil fuel investments.

For all their theatrics and rhetoric, these cultish Luddites dont have any actual answers.

Our solutions will instead come from the experts and entrepreneurs developing tech to transport us into a clean, capitalist future.

If empowered by less government intervention, the private sector will fulfil the UK Institute of Directors business purpose clause of allowing the free market to profit from providing solutions toinstead of creatingproblems for our planet and its people.

The pathway to post-COVID economic and environmental recovery is through responsible free-market action. And nothing refutes radicalism better than results.

Quite simply, XR represents no one.

They do not represent British young people. They do not represent rational, sensible environmentalists. And they certainly do not represent groups like the British Conservation Alliance.

It is inexcusable to obfuscate this century-long tradition of solemnly honouring and expressing gratitude for lives lost in armed conflict with a ghoulish hijacking to platform an ideological obsession.

As the Royal British Legion rightly objected, Armistice Day is not for political protest.

No sacred cow of our contemporary zeitgeist entitles you to make a memorial service your soapbox.

The sacrifices made by Britain and her allies armed forces should not be made of subordinate concern to some zealots fixation with contemporary events.

Former Royal Green Jackets captain and current Conservative party MP, Tobias Ellwood, reiterated how alienating this stunt will prove to be, particularly if copycat theatrics are attempted at other events. Those with sense and decorum hope that the righteous objections to this stunt dissuade radicals from further attempts at distasteful thefts of the limelight, and encourage principled and pragmatic approaches to contemporary climate issues going forward.

Connor Tomlinson is Policy Director at the British Conservation Alliance a Conservative young persons organisation with student representation at 30 British universities.

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Cenotaph shame: When Extinction Rebellion is so hateful how can anyone respect its cause? - Express