Source: All Out Politics, Sky News
URL: N/A
Date: 17/04/2019
Event: Boardman-Pattinson: "We would only use air travel in emergencies"
Credit: Sky News, also many thanks indeed to Vinny Burgoo
People:
Adam Boulton: Here with me now is one of the campaign coordinators for Extinction Rebellion, the people doing the demonstrations. Robin Boardman, welcome to you. What's the point?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Good morning, Adam. The point of the rebellion today is mass civil disobedience. It's to wake the public up to the severity of the crisis that we face. And when I say severity I mean the potential extinction of the human race.
Adam Boulton: Right, it's mass civil disobedience. It's not actually that, is it? It's a few thousand people coming up from the provinces for a day out in London. In London's case and in other places, this is not massive disobedience, it's mass inconvenience for millions of people. Half a million people, it was estimated yesterday, have been inconvenienced.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Thousands of people are out on the streets -
Adam Boulton: How many?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: - to tell the truth -
Adam Boulton: How many?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: - to tell the truth -
Adam Boulton: How many people?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: - about what's happening. Thousands of people are out on the streets -
Adam Boulton: Thousands. How many?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: - too tell the truth. Thousands of people. I don't have an exact figure. Thousands of people are out on the streets to tell the truth that we are in a climate and ecological emergency and that millions of people are going to die.
Adam Boulton: But you think we don't know that?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Sorry. Didn't you hear what I just said? Millions of people...
Adam Boulton: And I said, 'You think we don't know that?' I mean, children are taught in schools about problems with the environment and climate change. It's on the television on a daily basis -
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Children are not taught in schools.
Adam Boulton: - but you've decided -
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: I was not -
Adam Boulton: - you've decided -
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: - taught in school.
Adam Boulton: Well, you're not at school any more.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: I'm 21 years old -
Adam Boulton: I don't know how old you are -
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: - I've just left school. OK?
Adam Boulton: But, it is taught in schools.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: And I was not taught in school about the severity...
Adam Boulton: Yeah, we've got 'Climate Change – The Truth' [sic], a television programme on BBC One this week. You've suddenly decided that other people don't know about these issues. They do.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: The severity of the issue is not being talked about.
Adam Boulton: But you think it's justified to inconvenience millions of people -
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Absolutely.
Adam Boulton: - because they don't know something which actually they do know.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Absolutely. We're severely going to - we deeply apologise to the people that are disrupted. We don't want to disrupt Londoners' lives but when there is an emergency, when there is a fire in a theatre, someone has to disrupt that theatre and tell the people that there is an emergency – and that is what's happening.
Adam Boulton: If you are worried about climate change, why are you causing traffic jams and targeting public transport today?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Mass disruption is the way to get people's attention. People need to be aware of the issue they are facing.
Adam Boulton: So is public transport a good thing or a bad thing?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Public transport is part of the future that we need. Of course...
Adam Boulton: So why are you disrupting it, then?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: It's part of the disruption that needs to happen. Millions of Londoners use the transport system every day and that needs to be disrupted, needs to be highlighted that we are facing the deaths of millions of people.
Adam Boulton: Is it good news or bad news that West End traders are saying that they've lost this week as a result of your actions some twelve million pounds?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Economic disruption is key to how the change is going to happen. Government -
Adam Boulton: All right.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: - and the financial district in particular -
Adam Boulton: It is, is it?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: - is not going to listen to people. We've seen this over and over...
Adam Boulton: Yeah, so economic disruption's a good thing, so who's going to pay to put the world to right, then?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: This country has a responsibility to people all across the world and to the people in this country to tell the truth about the severity of the issue that we're facing and to help others.
Adam Boulton: I feel very patronised by you because I feel that I am well aware of what the situation is and I don't see why millions of my fellow citizens should be inconvenienced.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: If you understand the severity -
Adam Boulton: Let's just talk about this, yeah? You want us to be carbon-zero by 2025. In your view, what does that mean?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: It means rapidly decarbonising the society. If we understand the severity of the issue we would do everything -
Adam Boulton: Well, all right, give us some examples.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: We would rapidly decarbonise -
Adam Boulton: What happens to air travel? What happens to foreign holidays?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: We would only use air travel in emergencies.
Adam Boulton: Only use air travel in emergencies, right?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: We can create mass city farms, solar panels. These things that can be done but are not being done because people don't understand the severity of the issue.
Adam Boulton: Right, OK, so no holidays, no foreign travel, no foreign business?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: The issue is about life and death...
Adam Boulton: I know. I'm just asking you if that's what you're saying.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: I understand and I'm thinking about my brother. I'm thinking about the fact that me and him might not be able to have food in the future because we're facing starvation...
Adam Boulton: All right. Speaking of food, no meat consumption by 2025, is that right?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: I'm talking about mass starvation. I'm talking about my future -
Adam Boulton: No, I'm asking you a question. You're here to answer questions. Does that mean no meat consumption by 2025?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: I'm here to tell the people what's happening -
Adam Boulton: Does that mean no meat consumption by 2025 according to your rules?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: It means a changed diet and it means -
Adam Boulton: It does!
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: - a whole different view -
Adam Boulton: So it means no meat consumption?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: It means a whole new way of how we look at life and it means a whole new way for my future and for your childrens' future too. This is a serious -
Adam Boulton: You see, I'm talking to you and you sound to me like a right-wing fascist. You sound like someone who wants to dictate to people how they live their lives.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: We have three reasonable demands. That the government declares a climate and ecological emergency, as the government in Ireland has done -
Adam Boulton: You have demands?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Yes. There are three demands. The second is, as you've mentioned, to halt biodiversity or animals lost across the world, who are dying out in the sixth mass extinction. We haven't seen for millions of years. Animals are dying out faster than when an asteroid hit our planet. And the third is to create a citizens' assembly, a new democratic body of ordinary people that can vote -
Adam Boulton: I mean we've actually got a democratic system. You want an alternative democratic system.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: A new democratic system to give ordinary people the vote -
Adam Boulton: I mean, you're not really democratic at all, are you? You're not giving people a choice about having their lives disrupted. You're not giving people a choice about what they think, because you know that it's right. I mean, there's absolutely no democracy in this at all. This is -
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Would you give an alcoholic a drink if you knew it was going to kill him?
Adam Boulton: Well I don't think the great British public are alcoholics and I think that's an offensive analogy.
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: I'm saying that people are going to die and if we do not disrupt that possibility then we are failing as a species. We're failing people. I care so deeply, so deeply about the people and this world and all the life on it and I will not see it die. I will not see it go this way.
Adam Boulton: So half-term week, when parliament isn't even here, you come here and you cause disruption in Westminster. You're not even getting your message across. You're just a - you know, you're a load of incompetent, middle-class, self-indulgent people who want to tell us how to live our lives. That's what you are, isn't it?
Robin Boardman-Pattinson: Millions of people are going to starve, starting with those in Africa. We're seeing the effect it's having right now. If we face another hot summer this summer, another El Nino Effect, we're going to see the effects right here in the UK. People are not going to be able to put food on their plates and I won't stand for that. And I won't stand for people who won't stand up for what it means to live on this planet. And I won't stand for anything else.
[Robin Boardman-Pattinson pushes his chair back and stands, then storms out of the studio.]
Adam Boulton: Jolly good. Thank you.