Photo: XR Italia
Dear Rebel,
If the news feels like a constant onslaught that you’re trying to duck and run from, it might be time to take a pause. It might be time to ask, how did we get here?
The Climate Crisis is an immediate threat. It plays out in our daily lives through extreme weather and social unrest, and it threatens our future with the worsening of those problems. But as this newsletter issue will tell you, our current catastrophe does not exist in a vacuum. The way earth’s resources have been used and exploited have long and complicated histories, and by learning a bit about them, we can feel a little less bewildered by current events, and perhaps a little more empowered to take action.
That empowerment is what will let us look toward our future with optimism and the confidence to demand better for ourselves, which is exactly what rebels from across the world have done this month. From Italy to Peru, XR groups are standing up for a livable world, and young rebels in Peru are planting the seeds of their own futures.
So take a step back with us. Consider how we got here. Then use that knowledge to march forward into the world we deserve.
This newsletter is brought to you by XR Global Support, a worldwide network of rebels who help our movement grow and need money to continue this crucial work.
Action Highlight
Planting a Future: XR Peru’s School Orchards Initiative
Photo: XR Peru – School Orchards initiative organised by XR Peru
Extinction Rebellion (XR) Peru recently led an inspiring action under the theme, "Planting a Future, Cultivating Consciousness," focusing on environmental education and sustainable living through their School Orchards initiative.
The project involved 40 students who took part in practical, hands-on activities aimed at cultivating awareness and responsibility. Together, they built a composter and raised planting plots for growing vegetables such as lettuce, tomatoes, and aromatic herbs. These practical tasks were supported by a series of environmental education workshops, which offered vital learning on sustainability, ecological stewardship, and the pressing realities of climate change.
Photo: XR Peru – Students building composters as part of XR Peru’s School Orchards initiative
The initiative continues to thrive, with students now feeding the composter daily, monitoring the growth of the plants, and recording data. They are also preparing for the next seasonal planting, continuing the cycle of learning and care.
This agroecological action not only teaches sustainable agricultural practices but also has wider benefits. It helps reduce the carbon footprint, strengthens local food security, connects students with nature, and raises awareness of climate change, especially significant in a context where the Peruvian Amazon faces deforestation.
As XR Peru beautifully expressed, "Each seed planted is an act of resistance and hope. Every student learning about agroecology becomes an agent of change" (XR Peru, 2025). Follow XR Peru on Instagram.
Dispatch from Italy
Photo: XR Italia
Carnival of Collapse: XR Italia Disrupts Bezos Wedding in Venice
In Venice, rising sea levels have become a fact of daily life. Tourists, lured by the city’s beauty but oblivious to its fragility, often scramble to buy flimsy plastic booties to wade through floodwaters—cheap, disposable symbols of denial in a city drowning under climate chaos. Each day, these booties parade through crumbling streets, only to end up in piles on waste barges. A bleak metaphor for the spectacle of collapse.
So when Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and his entourage of the global elite arrived by superyacht and private jet for his extravagant wedding in late June, they were met with fierce resistance. A broad coalition of Venetians—residents, scientists, eco-defenders, artists, trade unionists, NGOs, and students—came together for the No Space for Bezos campaign.
At the start of the wedding week, activists unfurled a massive banner in Piazza San Marco: “If you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax.” XR Italia rebels held signs reminding the world that the wealthiest 1% are responsible for 25% of global emissions, demanding climate justice under the slogan, “Tax the rich to restore the planet.”
The protests drew global media attention. In a scramble to save face, Bezos upped his donation to the city from €1 million to €3 million and changed the reception venue—gestures as hollow as the plastic boots floating through the lagoon.
Throughout the week, rebels kept up the pressure with banner drops from iconic monuments, art installations, public performances, and bold street actions that invited new supporters and drew a sharp contrast between Venice’s cultural richness and the elite’s corrosive greed.
The convergence of the 1% on a sinking city laid bare the grotesque inequities driving climate and ecological breakdown. Despite bans, arrests, and political condemnation, rebels stood firm. Signs reading “We are the 99%” and “For the cost of this wedding, you could have rebuilt Gaza” underscored global solidarity and the urgent need to fight back against systems of extraction and harm.
The 1% are trashing the planet and view Venice as a disposable playground. They are not welcome. Venice is not for sale.
Follow XR Italia on social media or at extinctionrebellion.it
Must Read
A portrait of Les Soulèvements de la Terre – Earth Uprisings
The alliance known as Les Soulèvements de la Terre – Earth Uprisings has been around since the 1960s in Western France in various forms and continues to be an incredible alliance of groups despite aggressive attempts by the government to destroy the movement. According to this article from degrowth, “the Earth Uprisings’ tactical strategies are threefold: blockades, disarmament of harmful infrastructure — a form of sabotage renamed ‘disarmament’ to more accurately convey their motives and aims; and land occupation.” Read the article here.
Book of the Month
Cobalt Red, by Siddharth Kara.
A book that all rebels should read. Travelling deep into the land of cobalt and lithium, Siddharth Kara gives us a disturbing account of the mining practices and working conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Cobalt is an essential component in the lithium-ion batteries many of us have come to rely on, and the popularity of electric vehicles is only driving demand for cobalt higher and higher. Global business interests are all scrambling for a piece of the pie. The Congolese mine workers, who have once again been sold out by their government to foreign business interests, suffer inhumane, exploitative conditions for only a few cents a day.
With great difficulty, Kara managed to gather harrowing testimonies from miners, including ‘artisanal’ miners, who describe grueling hours spent in hand-dug tunnels, meager pay for heavy sacks of cobalt, and the ever-present threat of injury, collapse, or death. His resulting account uncovers the dirty truth: that there is no such thing as an ‘ethical’ supply chain in the mining industry in the DRC.
This investigative report highlights the critical need to engage with developments in the DRC, as they bear direct relevance to global systems and shared responsibilities of us all.
Avoid Amazon. Support local bookshops in person when you can. Online buy your books at Bookshop or Hive (UK).
Quick Watch
If you’re reading this newsletter, you probably don’t need to watch the newest eight-minute video from Climate Science Breakthrough…but you probably have at least three friends who do need to see it. Maybe they just think someone else is dealing with the climate crisis. Or that we have lots of time. Or it just seems too complicated. This is the video for them, featuring comedian David Cross. Heads up – it’s NSFW*
David Cross Meets Prof Michael Oppenheimer
*not safe for work
Ancestors of XR
Henry David Thoreau’s birthday was July 12. He would have been 208. He was a writer, a teacher, a philosopher, a scientist, and a maker of pencils (really!). He is most famous for his experiment in simple living, described in his book, Walden, but there is a lot more to him than that.
Thoreau was a complex man whose legacy tends to get oversimplified. For example, he protested the Mexican-American War, but he wasn’t a pacifist. Rather, he believed that particular war to be wrong. Likewise, he was not exactly an anarchist, not exactly a transcendentalist…. He was exactly Thoreau.
The concept of principled civil disobedience comes directly from his essay, On Civil Disobedience. He discovered ecological succession, one of the foundational concepts of what later became ecology, and he advocated for the protection of animals and wild places. He took racial justice seriously, speaking out against slavery and the genocide of Native Americans and working with the Underground Railroad. His vocal support of John Brown’s anti-slavery raid was largely responsible for Brown becoming an inspiration to the American abolitionist movement.
In his concern for science, for environmental conservation, and for human rights, in his willingness to take personal risk and to defy his own government to do what he thought was right, in his support of both civil disobedience and active rebellion in a good cause, in his unending curiosity about and love for the world, he prefigured Extinction Rebellion. Indeed, we exist now largely because he lived.
Happy birthday, Henry!
Worth a Second Look
On the Extinction Rebellion Global Support website, under the News tab, in addition to our newsletters, you can also find signed, long form blog posts written by a large and diverse group of XR rebels and supporters over the years. We’ve been looking through this amazing writing and saw that a number of the pieces were as urgent as ever and also gave thoughtful perspectives on big questions we are still debating. So from the XR archive this month we’re recommending a second look at Is Climate Change Your Fault? Can individual lifestyle change help to tackle the climate and ecological emergency, or is it an unhelpful distraction?
Change the language using the globe icon in the top right corner of XR Global website. French, German, Hindi, Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Portuguese translations available.
Get involved in XR wherever you are! Check out our global website, learn more about our movement, and connect with rebels in your local area. Forward this newsletter to a friend. If this was forwarded to you, join us and subscribe to the XR Global Newsletter. If you have any questions or feedback, we want to hear from you. Get in touch at xr-newsletter@protonmail.com
P.S.This newsletter is brought to you by XR Global Support, a worldwide network of rebels who help our movement grow.This year our focus is on community-led action. We are empowering local groups to build capacity, identify critical targets, and devise strategies to maximise the impact of their actions. Become a recurring donor and help us fight against climate injustice – from Peru to the Congo and beyond! We need your donations for this crucial work.
Great Job Extinction Rebellion & the Team @ Ecological & Climate Change News | Extinction Rebellion Source link for sharing this story.
