With long flowing robes and matching head dresses, four activists from Extinction Rebellion have taken to the streets and fell tops to raise awareness of climate inaction.
The members of the Red Rebel Brigade — the striking and ethereal campaign figures symbolising common blood — unveiled a banner across the new crossing at Pooley Bridge and ascended Hallin Fell, where the movement’s hourglass flag was draped across the summit cairn high above Ullswater.
Pooley Bridge was chosen because the 250-year-old crossing over the River Eamont was swept away inside four-and-half hours as Storm Desmond struck in December, 2015. The new bridge represents the kind of adaptations needed to address climate change, the group said.
The demand for more urgency from the Government comes as extreme weather is rarely out of the news.
This summer has seen exceptional heatwaves in Cumbria, with temperatures hitting the mid-30s, while parts of the south west and south east suffered drought and new records were set.
They included the first time 40C (104F) has been recorded — on July 19 in Lincolnshire. On the same day, thermometers never dipped lower than 26.8C over a 24-hour period in Oxfordshire — which the Met Office declared as a new record for the highest ever minimum daily temperature for the UK.
August has seen killer floods hitting Pakistan and Afghanistan, while in Europe this week a one-year-old girl was killed in Catalan during a brutal shower of four-inch hailstones.
The Eden Extinction Rebellion group are stressing the need for urgent action to tackle climate change and drawing attention to the cost of living scandal in the UK as energy companies take massive profits while utility companies “get rich” as water is polluted.
Last Thursday’s protest came ahead of three days of resistance in central London planned for this month.
The Cumbrian group of Extinction Rebellion draws members from Penrith, Eden, Keswick, Matterdale and Carlisle, among others. On Facebook, more than 250 people now follow its updates.
A spokesman said: “Nationally, Extinction Rebellion has recruited thousands of new people over the last few months through talks in local communities.
“Several of these talks have been in Penrith and Keswick and we’ve doubled the size of the group here.”
Ali Ross, an Eden District Council Green Party councillor and climate activist, added: “The advice is crystal clear and utterly compelling, from the head of the UN and climate scientists all over the world — we have to change how modern society functions to have any hope of the survival of humanity and the living world as we know it.”
The group meets twice a month on Tuesdays from 6.45pm — one meeting on Zoom and the other in person.
The next meeting takes place on Tuesday, September 6, at the Rawnsley Centre, Main Street, Keswick, at 6.45pm.
Its national bus tour will be stopping in Penrith and Carlisle on September 26 and 28. There will also be an environmental film screening at the Alhambra Cinema, Penrith, on September 28.
