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July 16, 2019

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Extinction Rebellion protests continue

Climate activists Extinction Rebellion continued their global “summer rebellion” in London and Munich today.

In London, the target was London Concrete, the British capital’s biggest supplier of ready-mixed concrete which supplies a major road tunnel project under the River Thames.

Dozens of activists holding a banner saying “The air that we grieve” blocked entrances to the site in east London, near the Olympic park. The group said it would disrupt the site for the day in an attempt to halt the expansion of the works.

“Concrete has a huge environmental impact and building another tunnel will only make air pollution across East London worse,” said Eleanor McAree, 25, from Extinction Rebellion.

“Air pollution is already at dangerous levels and is affecting the health of children and adults in the area.”

London Concrete is a unit of Franco-Swiss group LafargeHolcim. Local groups are expected to target LafargeHolcim facilities all across Europe and beyond. The Silvertown Tunnel under the Thames will link the Greenwich Peninsula and Silvertown.

Extinction Rebellion wants non-violent civil disobedience to force governments to cut carbon emissions and avert a climate crisis it says will bring starvation and social collapse.

On Monday it sought to sow chaos in five British cities as part of what it says is a “summer uprising”.The group blocked streets in London, Glasgow, Cardiff, Bristol and Leeds on Monday.

Activists towed boats into carriageways to stop traffic, as members gave talks or performed music for those gathered.

The activists are pushing for local Government in each area to “act now” on climate change issues which they have highlighted, with details of further action expected later today.

Extinction Rebellion activists disrupted London with 11 days of protests in April that it cast as the biggest act of civil disobedience in recent British history. Iconic locations were blocked, the Shell building defaced, trains stopped and Goldman Sachs targeted.

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Community

Visiting Outback Prepper + Budget Prepping links

With one phone call, I’ve accidentally ended up in a survival caravan fit out for a nuclear holocaust. But within days, I’m converted, and perhaps you should be too.

It’s pitch dark in a way you only get in the bush as I arrive at the property of a man I met an hour ago.

“This is my base”, he says. “I have everything you need.”

Peering through the darkness, I realise he means it. There’s chickens, a veggie garden that’d put WholeFoods Market to shame, solar panels and septic tanks. And then, “what’s in the basement?”

“Six months of fuel and some basic weapons.”

“Weapons?!”

“Just basic ones.”

Suddenly, I realise what this charming bush cottage actually is.

It’s a “bug out” — a well-equipped base that survivalists keep ready for when “TSHTF” (the shit hits the fan).

And this man? He’s a “prepper” — someone who’s turned “prepping” for disaster into a way of life.

He had needed someone to drive his second car from Perth to the desert, where he lived, deep in a national park, for half of each year — a friend asked could I help him?

I couldn’t resist the lure of a new escapade — my flight (and shower) would have to wait a little longer.

Now, I’m faced with the vehicle we’ll drive 17 hours into the outback tomorrow: a floral-patterned 1970s caravan, full of supplies for a nuclear holocaust.

And I’ll be living out of this caravan-cross-bunker for the next 10 days.

I lift the bed to stash my bags underneath. There’s two months of tinned food and an axe.

I open a cupboard beside the bed. An avalanche of toothbrushes and dental floss rains down on me.

Crouched on the caravan floor, gathering up the toothbrushes like an apocalyptic “pick-up sticks”, I stare up at the prepper, waiting for an explanation.

“Gum health and heart disease are linked,” he says. “No-one ever thinks about dental floss. You’re holding apocalypse gold there.”

In my Gollum-crouch, I grab the floss and try to imagine a world where that could be “my precious”.

I’m not convinced it’s a world I want to live in. But in a few days, that all changes.

Aussies are getting ‘prepped’

“Doomsday prepping”, or “survivalism”, is on the rise.

This is despite “preppers” being widely met with ridicule or fear (as the , prepping reality TV shows “are full of people lovingly cradling their weaponry, which in many cases is frighteningly extensive”).

Preppers make themselves easy targets, between the YouTube tutorials on how to make a crossbow from a ski, and the graded sequence of Mary-Poppins-meets-Bear-Grylls survival bags.

If you’re a minimalist prepper who’s just read Marie Kondo, you might get by with just the BOB (“) and the INCH (“). And yes, preppers have more acronyms than the public service.

As we dragged our catastrophe-caravan to the …

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