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Extinction Rebellion protesters dig up a lawn of Trinity College. (Reuters photo)

On Monday, members of an environmental activist group dug up a part of the lawn of Trinity College Cambridge while sparing an apple tree that descended from the one that inspired Sir Isaac Newton. According to news reports, the digging was to protest the colleges alleged role in the destruction of nature, but the protesters symbolically protected the famous apple tree to highlight the colleges collusion in the destruction of farmland.

The group calls itself Extinction Rebellion (XR) and claims to follow the principles of non-violent civil disobedience movements. It was launched in the UK on October 31, 2018, as a response to a report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that implied we only have 12 years to stop catastrophic climate change and our understanding that we have entered the 6th mass extinction event, XR says on its website.

Critics have referred to the groups supporters as environmental fanatics. In its FAQ section, the website raises the question whether the group comprises law breaking anarchists or economic terrorists or eco-fascists; the answer posted is that the members are strictly non-violent and reluctant law breakers.

Before the Trinity College vandalism, another widely reported instance of law-breaking happened in April 2019. The group held a large demonstration in London over a course of 11 days that led to more than 1,100 arrests. Activists caused damage of an estimated over 6,000 at the Shell headquarters and glued themselves and sat on top of trains on the citys light railways.

For the UK, the group lists three demands to tell the truth, which means that the government must declare a climate and ecological emergency; that it must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by the year 2025; that the government must create and be led by a Citizens Assembly on Climate and Ecological Justice to meet big, wide-ranging and complex challenges. Such a Citizen Assembly would bring together ordinary people to discuss, investigate and make recommendations on ways to respond to climate change emergencies.

The group says it does not want to rely on traditional systems like petitions or writing to MPs and is more likely to take risks, which includes getting arrested. It claims its movement is to demand adequate action for the unprecedented global emergency, for which polite lobbying, marching, voting etc havent yielded the desired results from decision-makers.

On Wednesday, The Guardian reported that a man and two women have been charged with criminal damage after the digging of the Trinity College lawn. Three others have been charged with criminal damage over another protest that took place the following day. All six people have been released on bail to appear at Cambridge magistrates court on March, The Guardian said quoting police.

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To write this book, Marantz spent time with alt-right groups and propagandists who are experts in using social media to their advantage, and he learnt how to make content go viral. Everyone knows the most basic rule of the internet: Dont feed the trolls, and dont take tricksters at their word. The trolls, of the alt-right called themselves provocateurs, or shitposters, or edgelords. And what could be edgier than joking about Hitler? Marantz writes in the book.

Marantz has written extensively about technology, social media, the alt-right, the press, comedy and pop culture.

Pulitzer-prize winning author Elizabeth Kolbert has praised Mrantzs latest book, writing: Antisocial is at once funny and scary, antic and illuminating. Its a must-read for anyone still struggling to understand the last election or hoping to make sense of the next one.

In its review, The Guardian calls it an absorbing and disturbing book that raises two awkward questions. One is whether digital technology now constitutes an existential threat to liberal democracy. Second, was the old media ecosystem, with its elitist gatekeepers, editorial control, political bias and other flaws, really worse than what we have acquired? Or, pace Winston Churchill on democracy, was it just the worst system apart from all the others?

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This Word Means: Extinction Rebellion - Yahoo India News