Addressing his new band of American activists for the first time, British climate crusader Roger Hallam unveiled plans in mid-August for a massive “campaign of civil disobedience” of blocked highways and massive disruptions.
Instead, the summer of chaos Hallam promised has failed and flopped – a lackluster follow-up to his Extinction Rebellion (XR) rallies that brought tens of thousands of protesters onto the streets of London, effectively shutting down the British capital.
This week, the American franchise, Declare Emergency, which Hallam co-founded in 2022, struggled to get even a handful of activists to don crazy dinosaur outfits and organize an “extinction protest” in the Washington DC subway.
Members of the US Climate Group have said privately that it’s hard to recruit on this side of the pond, where people are less interested in green issues and don’t want to travel to rallies.
“We are understaffed and funded, so we have not been able to fully follow the plan,” one of the organizers of Declare Emergency told DailyMail.com.
Washington DC commuters showed little interest in speaking with the cosplay activists this week
Roger Hallam, 56, raised $1 million but struggled to get his US climate organization off the ground
We’ve decided not to name the member, in case he gets backlash from the group.
“When it comes to organizing movements, it’s hard to compare the US to any European country,” he added.
“We’re too spread out here geographically.”
Other climate activists spoke of the difficulty of maintaining cohesion.
Too often, they say, activists get bogged down in tests of “ideological purity” and petty quarrels rather than take their message to the streets.
For 56-year-old Hallam, the so-called ‘Week of Action’, which officially started on August 21, can only have been a disappointment.
On Monday, about ten activists sat at a crosswalk at a busy intersection in downtown Washington DC.
They caused traffic jams during rush hour, while motorists honked their horns in frustration.
Three female activists refused police requests to leave and were handcuffed and led away.
On Tuesday, about five activists donned gaudy dinosaur costumes and staged a “die-in” in the Washington DC subway and L’Enfant Plaza, a shopping mall.
An adult female activist in a T-Rex costume attempted to engage workers during their lunch breaks.
“Do you know what happened to the dinosaurs?” she asked a reluctant woman at a snack bar.
“We are afraid that we, like the dinosaurs, will become extinct as a result of climate change.”
The woman said nothing, nodded and looked away.
The protests have not yet reached New York, which the other city organizers were aiming for.
The week of action isn’t over yet, but what has been stepped up so far falls short of what Hallam announced during his June online planning session, which DailyMail.com was able to attend.
‘We’re afraid we’re going to go extinct, just like the dinosaurs,’ said the ‘T-Rex’ protester
Declare Emergency members also closed a busy intersection in downtown Washington DC this week
Three female activists refused police requests to leave and were handcuffed and led away
At the time, he spoke of launching a “massive civil disobedience campaign against climate catastrophe in the United States.”
The farmer-turned-activist told members he had raised $1 million in just a week to boost the American movement.
That money could fund weekly recruiting and training sessions and grow the group to 1,000 members, he said.
That would include an elite hardcore willing to go to jail for the cause.
It would, Hallam said, replicate XR’s week-long demonstrations in London, where coordinated units of activists closed roads and bridges, sealing off much of the city center and causing millions of dollars in losses.
There, activists have planted trees in Parliament Square, glued themselves to the gates of Buckingham Palace and other monuments, vandalized artwork in grand galleries and closed off runways used by private jets.
Hallam said such massive disruption was possible in the US, citing the decades of civil rights protests that changed attitudes towards gay rights and led to the massive racial justice protests over the 2020 killing of George Floyd.
Speaking from Britain, the veteran activist said his organizational tactics “weren’t that complicated, have worked in a lot of countries, and we see no reason why they shouldn’t work in the US.”
US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib gave Declare Emergency members a pep talk in June and told them to be “more aggressive”
Roger Hallam (above left) told Declare Emergency members in June how to raise their profile and attract members across the US
At an online meeting the following week, US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib gave members a pep talk and told them to be “much more aggressive” as they prepared for the impending week of disruption.
Two months later, and it’s clear that despite the money, political backing and a recruiting campaign, Declare Emergency has struggled to get off the ground.
The member who spoke privately to DailyMail.com complained that the US market was saturated with competing campaign groups.
“There are more environmental and social movements than cereal in the aisle of a supermarket,” he told DailyMail.com.
“Protesters are spread thin,” he added. “Maybe next season.”
Another group, the youth-led Climate Defiance, is also small but has made more headlines by disrupting events involving such luminaries as Vice President Kamala Harris and Senator Amy Klobuchar.
For some, the lack of enthusiasm for Hallam’s group in the US is baffling, given the alarming number of extreme weather events.
But the US Hallam protests are nowhere near the scale of Extinction Rebellion rallies in London, such as this one in April 2022.
July saw some of the hottest days on record, wildfires swept across Canada, engulfing cities as far as New York, and Storm Hilary unleashed record-breaking rainfall across Southern California.
But Americans are less concerned about climate change than their European counterparts.
While 31 percent in the US want to move quickly to renewable energy sources, another two-thirds want to continue using oil, coal, natural gas and cleaner alternatives, according to polls by the Pew Research Center.
Declare Emergency wants President Joe Biden to declare a national climate crisis and use his executive powers to sharply cut emissions of planet-warming gases.
UN experts say pollution is making Earth dangerously hot, but the US, China and other governments have set ambitious targets to mitigate the risk by switching to clean energy sources in the coming years.
While many people support efforts to tackle global warming, others eschew the tactics of XR and other hard-line outfits, which have closed roads, highways, airports, offices and other public locations.