Before we judge the protesters, ask what else they could have done

What would possess ordinary people – from a cement truck driver to a retired police chief – to think that blocking traffic with a pink fishing boat and nude marchers will stop climate change? It’s a question this week’s Extinction Rebellion protests are prompting many – from sympathetic supporters to salivating shock jocks – to ask.

A motorist is very unhappy at the Extinction Rebellion protesters in the city.

It’s a good question, but there are others we should ask ourselves first. Here’s one: how are existing approaches going? You know, assembling the facts, pleading the case with authorities, even marching on the streets. How is that tracking for solving a crisis that, based on the carefully collected evidence of thousands of scientists, poses a threat to civilisation as we know it?

It’s not just scientists saying we’re in grave danger either. It’s emergency responders, defence experts, doctors, agronomists: the very people whose job it is to protect us from disaster, war, pestilence and famine.

Read the opinion piece from The Age by Jono La Nauze - “Before we judge the protesters, ask what else they could have done.”