Extinction Rebellion’s Third Demand, for a Citizens’ Assembly on Climate and Ecological Justice, is our most important demand. For it gives people from different walks of life a seat at the table, and places the power to transform our world in their hands.
We must move beyond traditional attritional debate, so loved by business-as-usual – where somebody has to win (and therefore someone loses) – into a world where everyone prospers.
We must move beyond ideology, to unity; beyond division to collaboration. The challenges we face and the decisions that need to be made are simply too big for our broken parliamentary politics.
If we are to build a resilient world where vested interests are in everybody’s interest, we must think and act beyond the scope of power as it stands. In our rebellion we use deliberative decision making through people’s assemblies. In our communities there is much work going on to encourage the growth in localised participatory democracy through the Future Democracy Hub and the Trust the People project.