NO BILLIONAIRES ON A DEAD PLANET
April 22, 2025
xrnyc_press@unitedrebellion.com
EXTINCTION REBELLION DECLARES NOW IS THE TIME TO: "JOIN, OR DIE!"
New York, NY - Against a backdrop of breakdown and destruction, members of Extinction Rebellion interrupted the "bread and circuses" spectacle throughout the city to declare that there are "no billionaries on a dead planet", and that everyday people need to "join, or die." The phrase comes from our nation's founders, who knew if we do not stand together, the tyrants will take us down. They knew we had to unify. They had the courage to rebel, instead of letting their freedom die. Protestors today highlighted the need for communities representing every movement and struggle to resist a government of chaos and cruelty, and to build alternative structures to supplant the damage being done to the country. Two individuals were arrested.
As democratic rights get eroded, the time for niceties is long since past. Mass marches will not save us. Trump knows this. Trump counts on this. We have been unable to stop him from tearing our institutions apart, just as we have been helpless to avoid the climate breakdown, as the world dies around us.
The social contract between the government and its citizens is broken. We refuse to be bystanders like the Democrats, we refuse to wait for this emergency to proceed beyond the point of no return.
Extinction Rebellion has been saying for a long time that the institutions we have are entirely ill-equipped to deal with looming climate catastrophe. Recently, it has become more evident than ever that this is the case. The hope for reform is now gone.
Earlier in the day, another group of activists took action at the Charging Bull to call out Wall Street's bullshit! See the X (Twitter) post here.
WHY “NO BILLIONAIRES ON A DEAD PLANET”?
This is it. We’re not “almost” out of time. This is it. The latest models project 3 degrees of warming by 2060. Another new study predicts up to 4 billion deaths and a 50% loss of global GDP this century. These are endgame numbers.
Climate disaster will destroy everything in our society, including billionaries.
There is no future on a planet ruled by billionaires, where profit outweighs life and the earth burns. This truth can no longer be whispered. It cannot be contained within the messages of our petitions and posters. It must be shouted. From the rooftops. From every corner of our dying world.
The UN will never save us. No government or head of state will ever save us. They do not have that power, only we the people do.
DEMANDS
Tell the truth now!
Act now!
Establish Citizens' Assemblies to deal with climate breakdown!
ABOUT EXTINCTION REBELLION
Extinction Rebellion is an international movement that uses nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action on the climate and nature emergency.
Extinction Rebellion exists because the conventional approaches: voting, writing to politicians and signing petitions, have clearly failed. Powerful political and economic interests prevent change, as does our outdated political system. Our strategy is therefore one of nonviolent, disruptive civil disobedience – in short, it is a strategy of rebellion.
Climate boiling is here and now. It’s happening all around us, hitting some harder than others. Extinction Rebellion demands that all of us, especially major institutions and governments, tell the truth about the ongoing Sixth Mass Extinction. Extinction Rebellion believes that, faced with the government’s criminal inaction, it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, through peaceful civil disobedience .
Internationally, Extinction Rebellion has been demanding that those with power act now to halt the worst outcomes of the climate catastrophe currently unfolding. Unlike other climate advocacy groups, Extinction Rebellion understands that we must go beyond politics and establish Citizens’ Assemblies, where ordinary citizens can meet in a depoliticized setting to discuss, learn from experts, and make policy recommendations. Only in this way can we achieve the fair and just transition we need.
Leading by example, Extinction Rebellion is fighting for a more stable, sustainable world.