In November 2018, thousands of activists shut down five of London’s main bridges, and suddenly “Extinction Rebellion” (ER) exploded in the news. ER describes itself as a decentralized, nonviolent civil disobedience network in revolt against the British state for its failure to address the climate crisis: “The ‘social contract’ has been broken, and it is therefore not only our right, but our moral duty to bypass the government’s inaction and flagrant dereliction of duty, and to rebel to defend life itself.”

Extinction Rebellion demands that the government “tell the truth about the climate and ecological emergency”; “reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by 2025 and . . . halt biodiversity loss”; and submit to a “Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice, to decide which policies to push forward.” Over the past year, the organization has grown rapidly, now claiming more than six hundred chapters worldwide.

Recently, ER cofounder Roger Hallam published a short book detailing the revolutionary thinking behind Extinction Rebellion, titled Common Sense for the 21st Century, inspired by Thomas Paine’s 1775 pamphlet “Common Sense.” Hallam is fifty-three years old, a former organic farmer who says he left his fields when extreme weather destroyed his business. He turned instead to pursue a PhD at King’s College, “studying how to bring about radical political change” in order to staunch the climate emergency. Since then, Hallam has been arrested ten times, gone on hunger strike, and is currently in jail for trying to ground flights at Heathrow Airport using drones.