Our Story

On 31st October 2018, Extinction Rebellion assembled on Parliament Square in London to announce a Declaration of Rebellion against the UK Government. We were expecting a couple of hundred people. Instead, 1500 came to participate in peaceful civil disobedience. The energy was contagious! The next few weeks were a whirlwind. Six thousand of us converged on London to peacefully block five major bridges across the Thames. We planted trees in the middle of Parliament Square, and dug a hole there to bury a coffin representing our future. We super-glued ourselves to the gates of Buckingham Palace as we read a letter to the Queen. Our actions generated huge national and international publicity and, as news spread, our ideas connected with tens of thousands of people around the world. The XR project was resonating with a deeply felt need for community and solidarity. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” we chanted! Dozens of countries now have groups springing up, from the Solomon Islands to Australia, from Spain to South Africa, the US to India.

Extinction Rebellion New York was born in December of 2018, we truly believe that XR is a chance for us to rise up and fight for our lives. We declared a rebellion by marching down 5th Avenue, disrupting business as usual in the busy Rockefeller Plaza by blocking the avenue, staging die ins along the plaza and on the ice and hanging a banner declaring climate change = mass murder. Since then we have taken action outside of City Hall, joined the youth marching for their future, created a huge disruption in front of the New York Times, and helped propel the first international rebellion in the fall 2019.

So what’s next? We’re working relentlessly, building our movement. Come and join us. Rebel for life. For the planet. For our children’s children’s futures. There is so much work to be done.

WATCH: Welcome to the Rebellion

Our Strategy

At the core of Extinction Rebellion’s philosophy is nonviolent civil disobedience. We promote civil disobedience and rebellion because we think it is necessary—we are asking people to find their courage and to collectively do what is necessary to bring about change.

We aren’t focussed on traditional systems like petitions or writing to our representatives, and are more likely to take risks (e.g. arrest/jail time). We don’t want or need everyone to get arrested—for some this is not a good idea—but we do want everyone involved to support civil disobedience as a tool.

We are promoting mass “above the ground”, or in other words—in full public view, civil disobedience. This means economic disruption—to shake the current political system and civil disruption to raise awareness. We are deeply sorry for any inconvenience that this causes.

We have made some decisions about security. We have made a strategic decision to publish a certain amount of information about what we are doing. Except for the case where a small group is trying to do a specific action that needs the element of surprise, we generally don’t try to be secure in our communications about plans. We expect that we have been infiltrated by those without our best interests at heart and suggest people bear this in mind.

We are about political change, not personal change (though we welcome the latter).

We are completely nonviolent, our actions are done in full public view and we take responsibility for them.

We have an Action Consensus which outlines how we work together on actions.

Read more about why protest works.

Our Structure

We organize in small groups. These groups are connected in a complex web that is constantly evolving as we grow and learn. We are working to build a movement that is participatory, decentralized, and inclusive.

The structure aims to empower anybody to act as part of XR, so long as they agree to follow our ten core principles. You can read our Self-Organizing System (or XR Constitution) for more information. We are seeking a balance between being able to act quickly in response to fast-changing situations and being able to integrate the collective wisdom of multiple perspectives when needed.