Time to take a U-Turn on the Westernlink road 'Summer Uprising' 15th July 2019

Today across five cities in the UK, people have risen up and the Summer Uprising has begun. 
We stand in solidarity with these actions and today held a peaceful protest outside Norfolk County Council in opposition to the Westernlink road. 

For two weeks last April, Extinction Rebellion took over central London to demand the government acknowledge the climate crisis and do what is necessary to tackle the emergency. 
Extinction Rebellion had 3 demands :
1) DECLARE A CLIMATE EMERGENCY - Tell the truth and acknowledge the crisis 
2) GO CARBON NEUTRAL BY 2025 - Act Now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gases
3) CITIZENS ASSEMBLY - Go beyond Politics to bring about climate and ecological justice. 

In response to the Rebellion the government declared a climate emergency but since doing so have failed TO ACT like it really is an emergency. Our government continue to go about business as usual with worryingly insufficient responses. Time is running out!

Ice is melting, fires are raging, sea levels are rising, and hundreds of thousands of people are suffering because of climate breakdown. We are facing the sixth mass extinction and the collapse of civilisation will be a stark reality of this. 

Nationally and locally we continue to see companies drilling for oil, fracking, expanding airports and investing time and money into more highly polluting infrastructures. Just where is the urgency?  Where is the respect, care and protection of our world and our children's future? 

Norfolk County Council have today announced their chosen route for the Western link road. If the threat this poses to local wildlife, peoples health and the beautiful landscape wasn't bad enough, the decision also shows their desperately disappointing vision to tackling climate change. Our house is on fire!

As a young local protester so bravely put it to the council today.......'I am Amelia, I'm 9 years old and you're taking away my future!'

A member of Norwich XR made this speech at the protest today- 

'We stand in solidarity with movements around the world, seeking climate and social justice just like we are here calling for today. We are here today calling for justice locally, and yet our vision and message is also international, as we acknowledge that communities all around the world are facing the effects of climate change and environmental degradation, standing up for their rights and against the powerful and corrupt, and facing the dangers of repercussions against their campaigning and activism.
I wanted to talk briefly today to remind us all that the first reality we must face is that the effects of climate change are not shared equally. While it is people in the Global South and marginalised communities here in the Western world who are the first to feel the impacts of extreme weather events, food crop failure, and air pollution, their voices are rarely heard.
I recently heard an inspiring talk about the huge social injustice that underpins the crisis we all currently face. In it, I was introduced to the idea of the climate change Titanic. The idea is that we are all on the climate ‘titanic’ together, and we are all about to hit the proverbial iceberg - the tipping point, the point of no return, the ‘too late’.
Yes that might be true, but aren’t some of us on the deck, drinking cocktails and listening to the orchestra, thinking that there is going to be some miraculous answer that will save us, and while that’s happening we can keep building roads… And in the hold, isn’t that all the people facing extremes of marginalisation, poverty, injustices on the front-lines of environmental conflicts, in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin america ….and right here in the UK in some of our most deprived communities. And aren’t they drowning, and aren’t they trying to escape, and as they try aren’t they realising that YOU have welded the hold shut. And isn’t THAT the real story of climate change?
So Norfolk county council - take our planet off your development business plan because it is NOT for sale. The fight we bring here today is the fight of our lives and we refuse to sacrifice those of our oppressed brothers and sisters for your profit.' - Tina 

To find out more about our actions to stop the Westernlink road and what you can do to help, please see the bottom of the homepage 

​For more pictures from the days protest visit our gallery here. 

News articles below.

ITV News coverage

EDP article

Summer Uprising - ACT NOW