In mid-August, British climate activist Roger Hallam, first addressing his new group of US activists, unveiled plans for a huge “civil disobedience campaign” with blocked highways and mass disruption.
Instead, Hallam’s promised summer of chaos has fizzled and failed – a lame continuation of his Extinction Rebellion (XR) rallies, which took tens of thousands of protesters to the streets of London and virtually paralyzed the British capital.
This week, US franchise Declare Emergency, which Hallam co-founded in 2022, struggled to get even a handful of activists to don silly dinosaur outfits and stage an “extinction” protest on the Washington DC subway .
Members of the US climate group have privately stated that recruiting new members is difficult this side of the pond as people are less interested in green issues and unwilling to travel to rallies.
“We were understaffed in terms of human and financial resources, so we were unable to fully implement the plan,” one of the Declare Emergency organizers told .
Commuters in Washington DC this week showed little interest in speaking to the cosplay activists
Roger Hallam, 56, raised $1 million but struggled to get his US climate team off the ground
We have decided not to reveal the member’s name in case the group rejects him.
“When it comes to organizing movements, it’s difficult to compare the US to any other European country,” he added.
“We’re too spread out geographically here.”
Other climate activists spoke of the difficulty of sticking together.
Too often, they say, activists get bogged down in tests of “ideological purity” and petty bickering instead of getting their message out on the streets.
For Hallam, 56, the so-called ‘week of action’, which officially began on August 21, can only have been a disappointment.
About ten activists took to a crosswalk at a busy intersection in downtown Washington DC on Monday.
They caused traffic jams during rush hour because drivers honked their horns in frustration.
Three activists refused the police request to leave the building, were handcuffed and taken away.
On Tuesday, about five activists donned garish dinosaur costumes and held a “die-in” on the Washington DC subway and L’Enfant Plaza mall.
A mature activist in a T-Rex costume attempted to engage workers on their lunch breaks.
“Do you know what happened to the dinosaurs?” she asked a hesitant woman at a food counter.
“We’re afraid we’re going extinct because of climate change, just like the dinosaurs.”
The woman said nothing, nodded and looked away.
The protests have yet to reach New York, which organizers from the other city were aiming for.
The week of action isn’t over yet, but what has been staged so far falls short of what Hallam announced in his June online planning session, which was able to attend.
“We’re afraid we’re going extinct, just like the dinosaurs,” said the “T-Rex” protester
Members of Declare Emergency also closed a busy intersection in downtown Washington DC this week
Three activists refused the police request to leave the building, were handcuffed and taken away
At the time, he spoke of launching a “large-scale civil disobedience campaign against the climate catastrophe in the United States.”
The farmer-turned-activist told his members that in just one week he had raised $1 million to jump-start the American movement.
That money would fund weekly recruitment and training sessions, and the group would grow to 1,000 members, he said.
That included an elite hardcore willing to go to jail for the cause.
It would, Hallam said, mimic XR’s week-long rallies in London, during which coordinated squads of activists closed roads and bridges, paralyzing large parts of the city center and causing millions of dollars in casualties.
There, activists have planted trees in Parliament Square, superglued themselves to the gates of Buckingham Palace and other landmarks, destroyed artwork in major galleries and closed runways used by private jets.
Hallam said such massive disruption was possible in the US, citing decades of civil rights protests that changed attitudes about gay rights and led to mass racial justice protests over the 2020 killing of George Floyd.
The veteran activist from the UK said his organizing tactics are “not that complicated, have worked in many countries and we see no reason why they shouldn’t work in the US”.
US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib gave a pep talk to Declare Emergency members in June, urging them to be “more aggressive.”
Roger Hallam (above left) told Declare Emergency members in June how to raise their profile and attract members in the US
At an online meeting the following week, US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib gave a pep talk to members, urging them to be “much more aggressive” as they prepare for the upcoming week of unrest.
Two months later, it’s clear that Declare Emergency was struggling to get off the ground, despite the money, political support, and a recruitment drive.
The member, who spoke privately to , lamented that the US market was saturated with competing campaign groups.
“There are more environmental and social movements than cereal options on a supermarket shelf,” he told .
“The protesters are few and far between,” he added. “Maybe next season.”
Another organization, youth-led Climate Defiance, is also small but has made more headlines by disrupting events with the likes of Vice President Kamala Harris and Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Given the alarming number of extreme weather events, some are baffled by the lack of enthusiasm for Hallam’s group in the US.
But Hallam’s US protests have not come anywhere near the scale of Extinction Rebellion rallies in London, like this rally in April 2022
July saw some of the hottest days on record, wildfires ravaged Canada and blanketed cities as far away as New York in smoke, and Storm Hilary unleashed record-breaking rainfall across Southern California.
But Americans are less concerned about climate change than their European counterparts.
While 31 percent in the US want to quickly switch to renewable energy sources, another two-thirds want to continue using oil, coal and natural gas and the cleaner alternatives, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.
Declare Emergency wants President Joe Biden to declare a national climate crisis and use his executive powers to drastically reduce emissions of gases that are heating the planet.
UN experts say pollution is making the world dangerously hot, but the US, China and other governments have set ambitious targets to limit the risk from switching to clean energy sources in the coming years.
Although many people support efforts to combat global warming, others balk at the tactics used by XR and other hard-line groups who have closed roads, highways, airports, offices and other public facilities.