More than half of all post-industrialization carbon emissions have occurred since 1988, when the harms of greenhouse gases started to trickle into public consciousness. And, according to Roger Hallam, there is no question that the ensuing response—incremental reductions favored by companies, governments and advocacy groups—has failed.

Extinction Rebellion’s radical new age of climate activism advocates for disruptive and peaceful civil disobedience. Its theory of change, drawing on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, is to confront the fossil fuel industry and its financiers with disruption and personal sacrifice. As a Ph.D. candidate at King’s College in London, Hallam went on a hunger strike in 2017 to press the college to divest from fossil fuels. After eight weeks of student protests, the college relented. “In order to change a nation, you probably need several thousand people to go on hunger strike,” Hallam says.   

Is radical, nonviolent activism the best way of achieving the bold results needed? Join us for a conversation on maximizing political change with Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and author of Common Sense for the 21st Century: Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown and Social Collapse.