Fighting the climate crisis:civil disobedience last way?

I declare, I was irritated by the gesture of a person who throws a tomato on a shrine or defaces monuments, even if not irreparably.Then I decided to delve deeper into the reasons and try to understand.I spoke at length with my twenty-year-old daughter, climate activist, Carlotta Sarina aka Struggle  who, introducing me to his activist friends from Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future, Ultima Generazione, made me reflect. I talked to them, I went to the their meetings, I tried to take off the weight of the presumption of truth, of the judgmental approach and I was literally left speechless by the depth of their ideas, their ability to network, their openness to discussion and their incredible ability to communicate and inform oneself.

My initial approach was that of a person who professionally deals with communications and therefore I imagined I could help them communicate by making my experience available.A somewhat paternalistic approach that I gradually toned down until it completely shut down because not only did I step down from the teacher's desk, but I also understood that they were the ones teaching me a lot.I began to realize that, in most cases, the media's narrative of these actions was completely misleading.I started to wonder if it was guilt or malice.

I don't want to go into the merits of this distinction because I should have sources that I don't have at the moment. What I would like to do is give them a voice. I really need the world of right-thinking people like me, accustomed to climbing into the classroom with the red-blue pencil in hand, to stop for a moment and come down from the pedestal, to simply listen, to pay deep attention to their voice.So, while with the Mirandola Comunicazione team we started sending them articles Blue suitcase, The Paperback and other newspapers, from them I received in-depth links to the communication strategies of Extinction Rebellion UK which was organizing the Big One in London, articles, posts and many videos.I went to their meetings and joined their press group update chats.Among the various materials received, perhaps due to generational proximity, I felt the need to transcribe word for word a video by BarbaSofia from the title “Painting defacers:vandals, idiots or prophets?” because I didn't feel like I could express what I felt better than he had done.To my great pleasure Arianna Ciccone asked me to publish it on Blue suitcase. 

The activism that paints to raise awareness of the climate emergency:vandals, idiots or prophets?

From that exchange was born the idea of ​​organizing a moment of discussion on how journalism is dealing with the climate crisis at the Perugia International Journalism Festival.This was discussed in several meetings, here I'll tell you about the one that took place on April 21st entitled "Fighting the climate crisis:civil disobedience, last resort?”

A profound unity of purpose emerged with approaches that were deliberately very different from each other. For the first time in history we are facing a problem that puts the existence of all humanity at risk. Different tactics for each country and movement, but a single goal.For the first time in history the cause concerns all of humanity and for the first time it has an expiry date.According to scientists, in fact, the point of no return is calculated by the so-called "climate clock" which shows the speed with which the planet is approaching the 1.5°C  increase in global warming, at current emissions trends.If emissions continue to increase, the date when we reach 1.5°C will get closer;if emissions decrease, the 1.5°C date will move away.As of April 25, 2023, the Climate Clock marks that there are 6 years and 87 days left.

Never before has a fight to save all of humanity been fought with an expiration date and with constant monitoring indicating the time until the point of no return.For this reason, perhaps, the strategy that emerged from this comparison is to try several, simultaneously, all the ones you can imagine.Whichever strategy prevails, it will be for the good of all.If one fails, it doesn't matter because there are others to continue the journey.If they all fail, it will be the end of life on the planet.A sort of planetary prisoner's dilemma.Because the only certainty is that there is no Planet B.Ours is the one and only.Trying every path at the same time to diversify the risk and hoping that one of these can win is the only possible strategy.This in brief is what emerged from this beautiful panel.

It was a hybrid event connecting Perugia - London moderated by two journalists Valentina Petrini And Gabriele Zagni. The objective was, precisely, to give voice to the activists represented by Esther Barel, spokesperson for Fridays For Future Italia, Simone Ficicchia, the Last Generation activist for whom the prosecutor had requested "special surveillance", which was then rejected by the judge who defined him as "not dangerous" and Gianluca Esposito, activist of Extinction Rebellion Italia who carries out training activities on non-violent strategies and civil resistance.

There also had to be a connection Vanessa Nakate, the first Ugandan climate activist and founder of the Rise Up Movement who unfortunately was not well and therefore sent a written message which was read by Gabriele Zagni.Lotta, my daughter, was also on the connection from London, but this is another beautiful story that I will tell on another occasion.

Valentina Petrini opened the proceedings by underlining that from Calenda to Cacciari "these activists are not tolerated much and, at best, are defined as eco-vandals".

To facilitate the understanding of their depth and their different unity, I report their thoughts by transcribing their words not in the form of a dialogue, but as if they were short single speeches.

Vanessa Nakate

Vanessa Nakate is one of the most well-known climate activists in the world, she is the first Ugandan activist to fight against the climate crisis in her country, she joined the Fridays for Future protest at the age of twenty-six and on 20 April 2023 (the day prior to this meeting) received one of the magazine's highest activism honors Time The 2023 Earth Award.Here is the transcription (translated into Italian) of the message sent to the Festival:

“I am very sorry that I cannot join you this evening.Unfortunately I don't feel well, but I am with you in spirit.Vulnerable communities in the Global South are on the front lines of the climate crisis, but rarely make the front pages.We need people who work in the media to tell the stories of those who have no responsibility  for this climate crisis, but who are already suffering from its devastating impact.Please share their stories.Please share them far and wide, everywhere. Make it impossible for our leaders to ignore injustice.Make it impossible for our leaders to turn their backs on those who desperately seek safety. Make it impossible for our leaders to deny or delay. Once we can share enough of these stories, people will fill the streets and force our leaders to act.I believe it deep in my heart. So I beg you, go and listen to those who are suffering and tell their stories. I wish you the best for the conversation you are about to have at the Perugia International Journalism Festival.It's the most important conversation you can have.Thank you all.
Vanessa”

Gianluca Esposito (Extinction Rebellion Italy)

“Just today a long mobilization session opened in London which will end on Monday 24 April, today we exceeded fifty thousand people, I had confirmation of the numbers.Many more people are expected this weekend.[As of April 25th, the data shows that they took to the streets in London over 60 thousand people according to XR  mobilized by over 200 organizations].

Today there were sixteen pickets in front of all the ministries, so sixteen areas saw groups of thousands of people participate and spread their message in front of the ministry of health, the ministry of ecology, of agriculture.There was a picket in every area.

XR in each state is pursuing different strategies because the movement is in different stages. In England they decided to move the disruption, directing it directly against the government and polluting industries, multinationals and banks that invest in fossil fuels. It was a strategic change due to the fact that they collected so many feedback over the years.In the early years, XR UK aimed to get up-standers onto the streets, who were simply waiting for a call, so the actions they took had target the government, but the target communicative were the people already prepared to take the field.Then over time they tried to change their strategy to speak to all those groups of people who are more neutral on the issue or perhaps even passive.They changed the approach and moved the disruption only in the seats of power. And in fact today we found ourselves, despite the rain this morning, fifty thousand people.Over two hundred other associations participated, this is a beginning of what is called the 'movement of movements'.

As regards the media, according to thePavia Observatory [analyzing the last quarter, editor's note]  of 2022, taking the 5 most important newspapers and the 3 most important Italian television broadcasters as a sample, it emerged that only 96 reports out of 14,000 (yes!) talk about the climate crisis and only 2 articles out of 600 talk about fossil fuel companies as responsible for the climate crisis. Nobody is talking about the climate crisis which is the biggest crisis of our century and nobody is declaring who the culprits are. Activists are forced to engage in civil disobedience to bring the emergency we are in to the center of public debate.If you don't create a problem, no one will listen to you.In XR UK's strategic document we read that to get to the global climate strike that is taking place in London they had to do everything they did before, they had to block the entire capital.It's not that they have changed strategy, this is just a different evolutionary step.In Italy we are not at this point yet. Each of us is pursuing different strategies that do not conflict. What Ultima Generazione brings as a type of disruption does not conflict with the work that XR does.I choose the XR method, but this does not mean that others are wrong and I am right.Governments have always applied the divide and conquer. The media does nothing but play their game, pitting one movement against another, dividing people because the more divided we are, the easier it is to control people.The strength here in England is given by the fact that people of all ages are taking action.I would like it to be like this in Italy too to avoid sometimes seeing on TV that paternalistic attitude of some journalists and politicians who take us for kids as if the problem were only ours.The problem is not ours, it concerns everyone.Heterogeneity strengthens movements.When faced with non-violent protests, on average four times as many people become active.Every time 3.5% of the population was reached, statistically the objectives were achieved.This is our target.

I give you the example of a journalist George Monbiot of Guardian who in 2019 chose to sit on the street and get arrested.

You should never not do something for fear of being hated.Our goal is not to please, but to do the right thing.If we are in an emergency, we must act as if “the truth were real”.A paradox in this quote from XR because the truth is real, the reality is true, but if this is the reality we must act. Today it is not perceived, so people act as if there was no emergency.The style of XR is to be ruthlessly strategic, that is, to overturn clichés.For example, here in England, sometimes, women between the ages of 40 and 80 do things like deface shop windows because it is important to amaze, but it is also important that the public recognizes itself in the people who carry out those acts.It is important to be fair.The important thing is that people see that those people are like them and recognize themselves in it."

Gianluca Esposito is an activist who has been part of Extinction Rebellion since 2018.He studies facilitation, organizes authentic relationship experiences in "nature" with groups of people, carries out training activities on nonviolent strategies and civil resistance. After the meeting he sent me a voicemail from London to conclude his thoughts that had remained pending.

“It is very risky that, sometimes, the media themselves criminalize activists, playing the game of those who want to divide and polarize instead of portraying us as people concerned about the survival of the human species.This is very dangerous, it needs to be considered and it is something we really need to pay attention to.In England they have tried twice over the years to put XR inside terrorist groups.The Government tried to make this move, only that the work of mobilizing all civil society done before, ordinary people, grandparents, mothers, people of all ages, made it possible to induce the Guardian to publicly denounce the Government's attempt to criminalize activists.As a result, XR was no longer considered a “terrorist movement”. In Italy we have not done this preparatory work, we are experiencing exactly the opposite:XR started, then there was Covid which severely slowed down all the momentum, some people left our movement to found Ultima Generazione, significantly raising the legal risk without however having done mass mobilization work before.Without this preparation it is a danger because now the media is using the negative narrative and the government is tightening the laws.Without having carried out a mass mobilization, this risks leading activists to criminalization and reinserting them on the terrorist list and therefore disintegrating any possibility of mobilizing other people.I find it risky.I would like to make an appeal to all journalists to invite them to create common narratives that do not paint us as super heroes or criminals, but as normal people (potentially of all ages) worried because we are in an emergency and politics is not doing any of that which would be urgent to do.Humanize the people who choose to act and invite people to take a stand, because otherwise it's the end.Repression is one thing in a context where injustice is widely perceived by the population, but unfortunately the climate emergency, at least in Italy, is not yet perceived as unjust. In Martin Luther King's time, people took to the streets precisely because of the profound sense of injustice they felt following the arrest of their leaders.You have to be strategic.It is not enough to be willing to go to prison because we are all animated by a sincere passion and a willingness to sacrifice but it is important to ask ourselves if these actions of ours are strategic and lead to achieving the expected objective.This is the only important thing.Whether we reach him or the other groups, it doesn't matter."

Simone Ficicchia (Last Generation)

“We are not here to give legitimacy to the tactics that other movements use, because we leave that to journalism in Italy.So what XR does is fine, what Fridays does is fine, the important thing is to move forward united in this fight because the enemy are the governments that are not acting, they are the governments that are throwing billions of citizens' taxes into the industry fossil.Let's say that the reasoning behind this is based on many elements, one of which is that Italy is three or four years behind all this.So the XR talk comes after years of roadblocks.They started earlier, they experienced much more than us and therefore they are in a different phase that cannot be compared to ours.It ended up blocking London, but still having hundreds of thousands of people on the streets taking high legal risks.A very high sacrifice for concrete requests as Ultima Generazione is doing in Italy at the moment.And we do it simply for the fact that we must look for all possible methods to save what can be saved:the situation is critical, we have known it for years, we have been talking about climate change for thirty, forty years, now we are finally talking about the climate crisis, because climate change is a very wrong term, which gives us an idea of ​​the neutrality of the thing, it is not a gradual change, not at all, it is a crisis, it is a collapse.This giving awareness to people, raising awareness and perhaps even bringing many people to the streets has not worked on government policies, which continue not to move an inch.Since we have been holding conferences since the 1990s, global emissions have continued to rise and therefore we must always look for new ways, it will never be something definitive.Ultima Generazione is not the solution on its own, it is bringing something that wasn't there in Italy, that seemed to be missing, it won't be perfect, but we have to try every possible way.We make mistakes, but we cannot afford to stop, precisely because we must do everything in our power to save our future, that of our children, but also that of our parents as far as I am concerned, because these are things that we are already seeing.We are faced with disasters that we are already experiencing today, already in Italy, already in these days, so we cannot only talk about the future, but also about the present.

Our civil disobedience comes from the very strength of people who feel the need to do something in the face of profound injustice.The climate crisis, first of all, is a great injustice.It arises from the impossibility of standing still.Making all the areas where we already see injustices at work and in the economy worse. There would be no need for civil disobedience, we would gladly avoid doing what we do, waking up one morning and blocking the streets or defacing the monuments, if the politicians had done their job in the past decades or if the media had done their job in the past decades.”

Born in 2002, Simone Ficicchia is a Last Generation activist who has participated in numerous campaigns (including "Let's not pay for fossil fuels") and demonstrations of nonviolent civil disobedience.Following actions such as having glued himself to the glass of Botticelli's Primavera at the Uffizi or having thrown washable paint at La Scala in Milan, Ficicchia received a request for Special Public Security Surveillance, then rejected by the Court of Milan.

“We realize that it is not their fault, but the system in which they are forced to work.And yes, I'm ready to go to prison.Each and every one of us should be ready to go to prison if we are faced with a future in which lakes and rivers are disappearing.These are not natural events, but there are political responsibilities of governments that act criminally or of the media that have the duty to inform and do not do so.The frame is this, criminals are not the people who decide to act, but they are the people who are not acting for the right things.

Therefore, civil disobedience as a method is connected to those moments of the past, in which the population reacted in a non-violent way, carrying out very simple, repeatable actions.We are not talking about something organized by terrorist groups or which involves a particular difficulty:we are talking about something very simple, making our bodies available, blocking everyday life, stopping this thought that leads us to give priority to those twenty minutes late to work rather than the fact that this job might no longer exist in ten years.

What we are finding is that changes are being felt.There is more conversation on the topic, an increase in donations to pay legal costs and the organization of actions.

There's a reason we don't clean the fountain instead of fouling it. It is ordinary people who must start from indignation, it is this feeling that moves action, not the scientific data on climate change because nothing will ever matter to us until we see the effect.It is the indignation of seeing something that scares us, because indignation is followed by curiosity to understand the reasons:it's a purely emotional reaction that makes you take the field.This is a fundamental part and is the reason why with these actions, however unpleasant, we manage to speak to everyone. We don't like each other but this is not the goal of civil disobedience.Martin Luther King is dead, being the most hated man in America.The suffragettes were hated and now we take for granted that women's votes are normal."

The policy that criminalizes nonviolent civil disobedience by climate activists

Ester Barel (Fridays for Future)

Ester Barel, 20 years old, studies law in Milan.It has been part of Fridays For Future since the first marches in 2019.In 2023 she became one of the national spokespersons of FFF Italia.

“We discuss a lot with each other and we always do it using the plural because there is no solution to the climate crisis and since there is no answer there can only be many ways to arrive at multiple answers, multiple solutions.Fridays for Future has made the choice to connect to the word community, to always think that anyone can make a contribution to this fight and therefore chooses forms that allow anyone to make their own contribution.We have given ourselves the role of connecting the struggles linked to that of the climate crisis.Let's think about how much in Italy we hear about the climate crisis and the energy transition as a risk, a serious danger for those who work.This blackmail whereby you either have a future or choose to work under today's conditions, we cannot accept and through the practice of filling the squares on Fridays, we actually work all year round through the involvement of other parts of civil society.We took to the streets with the GKN factory collective, a factory that was a leader in the automotive sector and which had to be completely relocated, was occupied and developed a reconversion plan.So we no longer want and can no longer afford to think about the world of work in a way that is not sustainable and we choose to provide an alternative ourselves, given that it doesn't come from above.We have approached this fight, we have taken to the streets with these people and this is possible because we use certain methods.This does not mean that there are no other objectives or other methods, equally valid, equally necessary.

There has certainly been a change within our movement as a result of internal reflections.We went from asking Governments:“How dare you?” i.e. “How dare you?” asking them to do something and affirming that “we are the solution”.We are the solution, we know the solution, we want it and we are creating it.We try to offer an alternative, since it doesn't come from above.Even at an Italian level, we have chosen to focus much more on building another possibility ourselves, a way to find a solution that starts from people.Many groups around the world are moving in the direction of putting people at the center of solutions.Greta doesn't coordinate.Greta does not position herself as a leader for Fridays.It was successful in the media due to the impact its story generated, but Fridays works through local groups thanks to the very strong relationship with the territories.Only those who live in a certain area will know the best way to address problems and develop solutions for their area.First of all, agriculture which is already affected today by the water crisis.

At Fridays for Future we have been filling the squares for four years. I know too that it's not enough, but saying that it's not enough doesn't mean it's wrong. We know that attention to the topic has increased.The fact that there is so much greenwashing it means that awareness on the topic has increased.It's not enough.We know it.The fact that governments have started talking about it is a result, but it is not enough.We are aware of this path.We asked ourselves how to take action and we chose to start from the territories, from everyone's daily life, from everyone's jobs.There are two big strikes a year, but there is activism all year round.It affects everyone. According to ISTAT These heat waves have killed 20% more people in Italy than last summer.They didn't talk about it much. It is not a question of the future because talking about the future is a privilege. In Uganda where Vanessa lives, the crisis is now, we are already starting to see the effects.Ecology was not born today.Our actions serve to activate the territories and we do it differently from Ultima Generazione and all possible methods are needed.We need to take action and get the population activated.We have experienced media attention.We know that it's a big risk to always have to wait for them to give it to you because you tend to always have to escalate the dose to make news, but what you do doesn't necessarily mean that what you do is useful in making the people you're talking to understand the situation.Our target is the people we want to be an active part of the solution.If we act just to make news, just to get on TV in prime time,  maybe we are not useful in passing our message to the people listening at home.It depends on the objectives.There are so many objectives that there is no single answer.We need all of them, because it is urgent, we need at least one of all these to function.

If you were to walk away with one thing and forget everything else I told you, walk away remembering to tell anyone who asks you what the most sustainable thing you can do is:“Don't think of yourself as an individual, don't think of yourself as alone:people, human beings were not born, they were not born, they did not arrive, they did not arrive here thinking by themselves and by themselves.Impotence arises from the fact that we grow up, thinking that we are self-sufficient on our own:this thing is not true, it is not true that a planet exists and we exist, an ecosystem exists;it is not true that there is an environmental crisis, there is a climate crisis which is a social crisis, which starts from a crisis of relationships, which are relationships with other living beings, including humans, and which includes natural resources. ”

Disclosure is no longer enough

The unity that can be felt from these differences in approach is incredible.There is a very strong harmony between them, despite the completely different strategies they choose to experiment and carry forward.All three activists seem to agree in stating that whoever wins, everyone wins, if one loses it doesn't matter but if everyone loses, it is the end of each of us, from the worker to the tycoon, from the politician to the journalist.A unity in diversity which is certainly a great lesson and which offers a glimpse of hope for the future.

We journalists and communicators have a great responsibility in reporting on this crisis.Let's not wait, let's not put it off, let's take the field.There's no more time.We welcome the appeal of the activists and we make it impossible for our leaders to ignore injustice.We make it impossible for our leaders to turn their backs on those who desperately seek safety. We make it impossible for our leaders to deny or delay. Let us go and listen to those who are suffering and tell their stories.

“Disclosure is no longer enough - writes Telmo Pievani in the preface of 'We are all Greta' by Sara Moraca and Elisa Palazzi - “We need to be involved and participate in the same adventure of knowledge and denunciation.A single language, that of numbers and models, is not enough.We need to mix science with the arts, with music, with theatre, with cinema, with literature.Writers must help us find the words, the metaphors, the poetic temperature to unite negative and positive emotions and make people understand that it is not just a question of undeniable facts, but of values."

Preview image:photo by Bartolomeo Rossi - International Journalism Festival 2023