discrediting the cause that it is supposed to espouse.
I don't agree with this.
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and others have been doing their petitions and polite campaigns and so on for years and years with almost no effect. The media does not report peaceful protesters and politicians do not respond to them...
But as soon as Extinction Rebellion started shutting down streets and so on, the media started reporting much more, people starting talking about it more, and the government actually responded by meeting them and making concessions fairly quickly (they declared an emergency and set a zero carbon by 2050 target). The government has sent a clear message now that polite, respectful protests will be ignored while disruptive ones will get attention and results immediately. They could not have sent a clearer message.
Extinction Rebellion are doing annoying tactics because it is what works, sadly. If we lived in a world in which politician's took logical, ethical decisions and listened to scientists that would be ideal, but we don't.
If we look at the history it seems that other movements such as feminism, gay rights, ethnic minority rights etc, only made progress by provoking situations that led to arrests, altercations in the streets and so on. And probably all of these struggled to count on a majority support initially as well. (I don't know much about the history of this, but this is the impression I have.)
I don't think Extinction Rebellion is trying to get people to like them except to the extent that it's necessary to save the planet.
I thought about it for a while and, although I can see how Extinction Rebellion could be very annoying to a great many people, I think they are the greater good.
I support them for now and will probably give them money. But it's a fine balance. They do seem to lack professionalism at times, be basically a white movement in a multicultural UK/Europe and if they go too far in disruption I may change my mind.
It seems to be that Extinction Rebellion is now the leader of the environmental movement in the UK, almost overnight. Other environmental organizations may now move to copy their tactics: for example Greenpeace stopping Boris Johnson's car in the street recently.
With Boris Johnson, basically more or less a global warming denier you might say, in control now and making hard right major appointments for his key staff, things are going to get interesting.
I'd like to see more famous people and actual scientists joining Extinction Rebellion. I want to see the UK's top climate scientists walking out of their Universities, walking down to London, and joining in Extinction Rebellion type protests.