Health for XR join Scientists on Survival to support JSO action at Parliament Square
Healthcare workers joined a group of scientists from Scientists On Survival (SOS) on Wednesday 2nd September in support of the return of JSO to the streets in Parliament Square. This was the same day the UN has reported that the globe is on track for at least 2°C warming in our lifetime (1).
The reason for the action was to urge the government to stick to their previous policy of “No new oil and gas” and to disallow any new applications for further exploration and extraction of oil and gas from Rosebank Oil and Jackdaw gas field (2). So far, there has been no such reassurance from Prime Minister Burnham. If allowed to go ahead, these decisions would send a strong signal to the rest of the world that the UK did not take tackling man made climate change seriously, and would make compliance with our legally binding target to be net zero by 2050 impossible. Many millions, if not billions, of people would die as a result of failure to take sufficient action. Additionally, the Government is requested to sign a Fossil Fuel Treaty to confirm its commitment to ending new fossil fuel speculation.
As Big Ben struck 12 mid-day, and Prime Ministers Questions was about to start, a group of about 60 high viz wearing JSO activists entered the road in front of the Palace of Westminster and sat down to form a road block. About half of them glued onto one side of the road, and the other half sat in the other lane, so that they could have moved had this been necessary for an emergency.
The Met Police appeared unprepared and had to wait for reinforcements before they could start attempting to move people. In total all activists were arrested one by one and removed to waiting vans. Most were passively floppy and had to be carried. Many of the early arrestees were turned onto their stomachs and handcuffed behind their backs, then carried off face down in what looked like extreme discomfort and this also looked to be an unsafe practice if they had been dropped. Protestors from the sidelines including health workers queried the necessity for this repeatedly, pointing out the peaceful and non violent nature of all JSO protests, and the fact that the JSO sitters were quiet and calm. Later on it was noted that this practice had ceased. On questioning officers we were told that the manner of arrest was down to individual officer discretion.
Meanwhile, we held large placards stating “JSO are annoying but they are trying to save your life” and “We tried to tell you but they locked us up”. Other JSO supporters held smaller placards with a variety of messages. Placard holders walked around the area displaying the placards at height and numerous conversations were held with passers by who were generally very supportive and curious, and asked a lot of questions. Two buses, one a tourist bus, were held up for the duration (possibly kept in place as a police strategy?) but otherwise traffic was soon underway again as there are many options for diversions in the area. The road block lasted for approximately 4 hours in total.
Baroness Jenny Jones (Green Party) came out to support and chat to people sitting in the road. The eldest arrestee, Rev Sue Parfitt (84) asked the police to attend a screening of the National Emergency Briefing (3).
We have just experienced the hottest year on record, and possibly the coolest year for the rest of our lives, with consequences for food security, wildfire risk and health (4) (5) (6).
2) https://www.upliftuk.org/post/rosebank-oil-field-the-complete-guide
3) https://www.nebriefing.org/
5) https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/uk-harvest-even-worse-than-previously-thought-new-data