Act

For Starters

 

Join your local Extinction Rebellion group

Local XR groups need writers to develop their narratives, create engaging content and join actions near you. Find your local UK group here. Outside the UK? Click here.

 

Share Writers Rebel content 

Take a few minutes to read, watch, listen and share Writers Rebel.

Sharing our content is a simple and impactful way to raise awareness of the climate and ecological emergency. If you’ve read something on our site that moved you, please do mention it on social media or when speaking with family, friends and colleagues.

 

Support Writers Rebel Campaigns

We’ll shortly be launching an exciting new Writers Rebel campaign aimed at the publishing industry! Watch this space and our newsletter for how to get involved!

 

Help us to platform diverse voices

Writers Rebel is actively looking to platform marginalised voices, activists in the Global South, and those on the frontlines of environmental struggles. If this is you, or someone you know, and you have a story to share with our readers, contact us.

 

Volunteer for Extinction Rebellion

Various XR teams and groups all over the UK are looking for volunteers with a diversity of skills, for in-person and remote roles. Time commitment starts at 2 hours per week.  The current list of volunteer opportunities can be found here.

 

Write for Us

At Writers Rebel, we publish work by aspiring writers alongside pieces by more established authors. Find out more about what we’re looking for here.

 

Join the Writers Rebel team

We are looking for committed, skilled writers from a diversity of backgrounds to join the Writers Rebel team and assist with editorial support, administrative tasks, and a new campaign. A minimum commitment of 4 hours per week is required, plus a weekly 1-hour team meeting via Zoom. If you’d like to be involved, please email xrwritersrebel@gmail.com with a paragraph about your skills/experience and a paragraph about why you’d like to join the team.

 

Contact us with your ideas

You can email us directly.

Big Oil

Big Oil refers to BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total, the world’s six largest and richest publicly-traded oil and natural gas producers.

Existing pledges fall far short of what’s needed, putting the world on course for drastic food and water shortages, deadly weather disasters, and catastrophic ecosystem collapse. This is why the planet is set to warm by more than 2.7 degrees celsius by the end of the century. This is far above what world leaders have said is the acceptable upper limit of global warming. But even a lower increase would mean millions of people losing their homes to rising seas, vast sections of permafrost lost and extinction for scores of animal species.

For ideas on what you can do go to our Act on Big Oil page.

The Tufton 3 Campaign for Climate Truth

A Writers Rebel Initiative

Which is the bigger crime – spray painting 55 Tufton Street or using dark money to spread lies about a crisis that threatens to end human civilisation?

The Tufton 3 – Writers Rebel’s co-founder Jessica Townsend, Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell, and Professor Rupert Read – will go on trial for criminal damage to 55 Tufton Street on 28th October 2021. 

Their protest took place after a magnificent series of readings organised by Writers Rebel in which Caroline Lucas, George Monbiot, Zadie Smith and many wonderful writers spoke truth to power. The three then sprayed Lies Lies Lies on the pillars of the Georgian townhouse and poured fake blood down its steps. The whole event was designed to draw attention to the work of climate deniers such as the Global Warming Policy Foundation inside the building. ‘Our ultimate aim,’ said Professor Rupert Read ‘is to withdraw their social licence.’

The three believe in the months leading up to November’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the GWPF has been injected with new funds to step up its insidious propaganda work. And the three believe they detect a change in tactics.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation was started by the notorious denier of the climate science, Nigel Lawson, who was later banned from speaking on the subject by the BBC. At the beginning, the GWPF  focused on the kind of falsehood on which the internet thrives: that global warming is no threat to polar bears, or that trees actually flourish on increased carbon emissions.

But the ‘think tank’s new approach is termed by some ‘delay-ism’. They make false narratives and sow confusion. In particular one recent tactic is to by draw attention to the difficulty of the adaptation task ahead, particularly to the cost of it. They are not beneath implied threats:  for instance, they warn that if a Zero Carbon approach is adopted, it will generate a populist, Trump-style backlash. 

With groups like the GWPF wielding such dangerous power over the media and the political classes, never has Extinction Rebellion’s first demand to Tell The Truth been more important. At Writers Rebel, we believe it is incumbent on writers to tell that truth in fresh and compelling ways. For storytellers, the climate issue has always been a challenge. The danger is so grave that it’s easier for those who can’t bear to face that truth to label us as fantasists and doomers, rather than pay heed to the science.  Science says we still have a very narrow margin in which to act to stave off the worst effects. So we need to tell our stories urgently, to help others with the fears they might engender, and foster the good will and human connections that might make our joint future both possible and liveable. 

Join us in campaigning

for recycled paper in publishing

For every 25 books printed, a tree is felled. In the UK, where an estimated 393.5 million books are printed every year, more than 15.74 million trees could be saved annually if the industry switched to using 100% post-consumer waste (PCW) paper.

Writers Rebel is uniquely placed to campaign for this to happen, with your help.

If you’d like to join our Paper Trails campaign to get UK publishers to make the switch, and you can spare a minimum of four hours a week, we’re looking for people with any of the following skills:

– Investigative research
– Campaign planning and implementation
– Event organisation
– Project management

To be part of this important shift, please email us at xrwritersrebel@gmail.com