😴 The UK National Emergency Briefing — Still Not Waking Up the World
If the liberal elite won’t take the risks their own warnings demand, the world will remain asleep — and the task of awakening it falls to the small minority willing to act.
Last week, Robert Hunziker wrote in CounterPunch how the “UK National Emergency Briefing Wakes Up World.” The piece reports on the National Emergency Briefing held in Westminster on 27 November, where leading UK scientists warned MPs, peers, business leaders and the media about the existential threat of climate breakdown and the need for a war-time mobilisation.
Robert Hunziker
On the surface, the event looks impressive: a gathering of the establishment, addressed by respected scientists, issuing yet another urgent warning. But underneath, it is simply the same information-led method we have seen for years, and it will clearly not wake the world up. It feels like a ritual rather than a rupture — a familiar performance of concern without any meaningful shift in strategy.
It is madness, defined as repeating the same action even after it is clear the approach fails. In other words, talking to the great and the good (i.e. the liberal elite, also taking us to mass death) about “the science” and the “facts” will not change anything. We have tried this for decades. The emissions curve still rises. The ecosystem still collapses. The political class still looks away.
Sanity requires a plurality of approaches when previous methods have failed. So why not have:
- A sociologist who will explain why elites never reform themselves after a certain point of degeneration, and so now revolutions are inevitable.
- A Freudian psychologist who will explain why people want to die due to the death wish, because they find life intolerable.
- A political scientist who will explain that everyone in the audience will be seen as complicit by the next generation, and it’s a no-brainer that they will be on trial for destroying UK society and the state. Inaction is treason.
These perspectives would at least acknowledge the social, psychological and political realities that actually determine whether mass action occurs. Without them, the briefing becomes yet another polite appeal to reason in a context where reason is no longer decisive.
In summary, in an absolute emergency, if you aim to persuade the entire audience, you will get no one to do what is necessary. If you want effective action, you have to apply the law of collective action, which means alienating the majority of the audience (with the truth of points 1–3) in order to get the minority to do what is necessary.
This is not a moral claim; it is a sociological one. Movements are not built on unanimity. They are built on minorities willing to act while the majority remains paralysed.
What is effective is nonviolent civil disobedience to the point of the carbon state putting you in prison, triggering a backfire response of public uprising. But none of the speakers are willing to do this either for virtue-ethical or utilitarian reasons, which, of course, sends the subliminal message that what they are saying is not a big deal, and so people don’t think it is a big deal.
The public takes its cues from the speaker’s behaviour, not their words. If the scientists speaking will not risk anything — their careers, their freedom, their comfort — why would anyone else believe we are in an emergency?
None of the speakers will go to prison to save our society and state – and that is why there will be revolutions. They have left it way too late for anything else. When the establishment refuses to act proportionately to reality, the only remaining path is rupture.
That is the idiocy of excessive cleverness.
For more of my take on the liberal class, you can grab my book, 50 Articles The Media Wouldn’t Publish, which brings together six years of blog posts, prison notebooks and essays from the founding of XR to the last year in prison. It's now available straight from the Rev21 Shop, so no Big Tech or Amazon involved in getting you your radical texts...!
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A Pathway to Action
If you’ve read this far, you already know the truth: information alone will not save us. Only organised people taking decisive, collective action can shift a collapsing system.
So here’s the pathway — simple, practical, and ready for you to step into.
1. Watch the Blueprint
Last week I spoke with Ash Sarkar at Novara Media about the real question: how do we actually change the system?
2. Join the Blueprint Talk — This Thursday
On Thursday night, join me and the Assemble team to hear the plans in motion and how you can take part. This is where you plug into a community committed to real action — not just commentary.
BLUEPRINT TALK — Thursday at 7pm (UK)
REGISTER: https://tinyurl.com/88njahms
3. Get Trained — Become Part of the Core Minority That Acts
These trainings are the backbone of the movement. This is how we build the disciplined, trusted, courageous groups that can actually force political change.
Assemble Training Programme (All in UK Time Zone)
Community Outreach & Mobilisation Training
Wednesday 10th Dec at 7pm
Register: https://tinyurl.com/yuxk43we
Facilitator / Small Group Guide Training
Tuesday 16th Dec at 7pm
Register: https://tinyurl.com/43wrks89
How To Run An Assembly Training
Wednesday 17th Dec at 7pm
Register: https://tinyurl.com/ywp2rzsr
This is the work.
If the so-called “leaders” won’t act, then we must. If the establishment won’t rise to the emergency, then ordinary people — organised, trained, disciplined — will. Revolutions are not abstract. They are built through small groups, week by week, person by person.
Join in. Bring others. Become part of the minority that makes the difference.
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- Free copies for paid subscribers: All paid subscribers to Roger's blog can receive a free ebook. Download links are at the bottom of this post or on Roger's books page. Thank you for being so supportive! (If you have any problems downloading, email us)
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