Boycott Climate Privilege!

We don’t want to fly on airplanes while desertification leaves children without enough water to drink.

We don’t want to chill in air conditioned homes while wildfires on-the-rise around the globe destroy the living landscapes of nations.

We don’t want to buy one more thing that we don’t need when farmers struggle to bring in crops through droughts and floods.

We don’t want our children and our children’s children to suffer in a harsh over-heated world without enough food or water so that the wealthy can live in luxury today.

Climate Privilege – We Don’t Want It

Not For Ourselves and Not For the 1%

Because the suffering brought by the climate crisis falls more heavily on people in the Global South and on poor people in the North, we who have enough privilege to cushion the worst of the suffering for now say – “We don’t want it!”

Because the wealthiest 15% of the people produce 77% of the carbon emissions and because, according to Oxfam, the super-rich avoid as much as 30% of their tax liability, and because governments under the control of mega-wealthy special interests have utterly failed to even begin to adequately address the unfolding climate catastrophe – we demand that our governments set up Citizens’ Assemblies with the authority to solve the climate and environmental emergencies independent of the influence of vested interests.

Unless we make big changes soon, billions of people are likely to die before the end of this century as a result of the climate and environmental crises. We pledge to do our fair share, and we demand that the 1% do the same.

The Boycott Climate Privilege Campaign is reaching out to people all over the planet – from hood to holler* – across all of the lines that have been used to divide us. We all want to live. We all want a livable planet for coming generations.

Sign the Pledge!

I pledge to stop spending on privileged consumption that harms the planet and to donate any money saved to groups that are working to end the rapidly escalating climate and ecological emergencies and to help the people being most affected by them.

I pledge to support the demand that governments set up Citizens’ Assemblies with the authority to solve the climate and environmental emergencies justly and independent of the influence of vested interests.

Ideas for ways to boycott our own privileged consumption include: stopping all recreational air travel; stopping or significantly decreasing air conditioner use; stopping any unneeded material consumption; line drying cloths. More ideas for new lifeways that not only lean things in a more positive direction for the planet, but can actually make life more fun and satisfying will be offered in this space in the coming weeks. – Stay tuned!

Sign the pledge.

Join the Campaign!

Spread the Word

Use your social networks to encourage others to sign the Boycott Climate Privilege Pledge. If the numbers of signers get big enough, we will use those numbers to send a message through the media that lots of us are willing to sacrifice to do our part to stop millions of people from dying due to climate and environmental disasters over the coming decades and that we demand that the rich do the same.

Decorate Your Town

Follow this link to find assorted media resources so that you can make flyers, posters, templates for chalk spraying and any other art projects we can come up with to promote ‘Boycott Climate Privilege’ in public spaces. Make the walls of buildings, sidewalks, telephone poles in your town more beautiful and informative. (Please note: an internet search will take you to recipe options for making wheat paste.)

Make Good Trouble

Taking ‘Boycott Climate Privilege’ as the theme, let’s see how many ideas we can come up with for street actions that create: fun, friendly, covid-considerate and well-targeted disruptions of business-as-usual for those who contribute to the climate/ environmental crises. We will post ideas and photos of actions on this page.

This campaign is offered with the hope that others will jump in and make it your own! Send us your ideas and plans for Boycott Climate Privilege actions. Let us hear about your personal privilege boycott experiences – what you have let go of – how you have used the money saved – how you felt about taking these steps. Updates on actions taken by independent Rebels to develop the Boycott will be provided here along with news about responses to the campaign. Contact us at: <contact.xrdurham@protonmail.com>.

The Life Over Profits Affinity Group of XR Durham NC

*With thanks to Charles Booker and the Hood to the Holler people of Kentucky for the New Southern Strategy, to Bhante Sujato for teachings on the importance of ‘We Don’t Want It!’ and to John Lewis for encouraging us to ‘Make good trouble.’

contact.xrdurham@protonmail.com

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