After many direct action groups failed to sustain their climate activism, Emma Brown reflects on how the attempts by This is Rigged to bridge climate justice with food justice is becoming more urgent every day

This is Rigged were a youth led movement that worked to unite the struggles of the climate and cost of living crises through direct action. Over two years we targeted the fossil fuel industry driv ing climate breakdown and the supermarket CEO’s profiteering from the massive inflation caused by climate disruption and fossil fuelled wars.

During our actions we took a lot of risks: we climbed the Kelpies, shut down the INEOS fuel facilities in Grangemouth demanding a fair transition for workers, stole and redistributed overpriced baby formula, and covered Glasgow in cheeky posters that showed we are on people’s side. Climate activists are often characterised in op position to workers, dismissed as naive, idealistic or fatalistic, so we made our messaging immediate, direct and class conscious.

We focused our final wave of direct action on the cost of food — pushing for price caps and community food hubs for every neighbourhood to protect access to food now and for the years ahead. This was an important link to make at the time; by 2024, 1 in 4 Scots had experienced food insecurity in the past year and we’d all experienced the shock at the price of our food shop at the till. One third of the yearly increase in the cost of food was a direct result of extreme weather damaging food production back then.

This summer has been a perfect storm of droughts and extended heatwaves. The entire European continent is experiencing catastrophic harvests, especially of grains and staple vegetables, while historically low water levels in shipping channels and rivers have exacerbated bottlenecks in transporting those goods, making our just-in-time supply chains more precarious and expensive. Figures from Ireland expect a family’s annual food shop to go up at least another £500 this year.

It’s obvious it’s going to get worse. The UK relies on imports for 40% of our food, with those countries we import from also experiencing climate shocks. Meanwhile, the UK Government is refusing to confirm or deny whether it has not maintained strategic food re serves. In the face of the state abandonment which already leaves millions struggling, and with a real risk that the global food systems could collapse with no alternative in place, leading to mass starvation due to climate change, it’s imperative to build the resources — the social and material infrastructure we will need within our communities to support each other through the initial destabilising disruption to food and energy supplies.

As ‘This is Rigged’ we couldn’t sustain the movement long enough to have a real chance at succeeding in our demands but I do think that we found ways of campaigning for the climate from a bridging perspective to people’s lives. That was by first showing up for the struggles people face now (something tangible and easy to relate to their own life experiences) — and then talking about the future suffering that will be caused by climate breakdown. This shift ed our role as climate activists from the lonely position of a Cassandra to being a militant supporter of local campaigns — which felt much more connecting and empowering.

These are psychological barriers around facing the horrible problems that are caused by climate breakdown. The scale and in tensity is difficult to imagine and connect with before it becomes a reality, but there were other issues that we faced that made it difficult to continue the campaign. I share these so that other people, and emerging movements, can learn from our experiences — the insights, tensions and mistakes.

Although we did have networks of support and a strong community we didn’t really have the numbers to sustain the amount of actions that we did. This put an increasing strain on the small number of people who were willing to take arrestable action. And even though we were still breaking the law, there was a distinct lack of interest from media outlets to report on more sympathetic redistributive actions: many would only platform activists when they could vilify the disconnect between our action and our cause.

As we saw the scientific reports getting worse and the necessary revolutionary changes to get out of this mess becoming more and more unrealistic, there were also tensions on how to balance our work of movement building (holding weekly open meetings, building coalitions, sharing food and political education, visiting community pantries, food banks and policy makers etc) with the urgency of Climate Collapse. Some in the group wanted to instead channel trusted activists to go bigger, higher risk and more unaccountable. This tension created a pull in two very different directions.

It’s strange to watch TV and see the train tracks warping and dry straw covering England and Wales, instead of green grass, and to not see a climate activist climbing something. We are in a different position now. Just Stop Oil Scotland and later This is Rigged emerged from the surreal world changing lockdowns. Now it’s hard er to believe a swift revolutionary fever can sort out all the complex broken systems that are teetering on collapse. Some are putting energy into disaster preparedness in our neighbourhoods, which is more complex than a single demand. Many of my comrades are dispersed in different struggles and spheres of action.

If we give up entirely on the headline-grabbing tactics favoured by the recent climate movement we risk ceding the public narrative on scarcity to the right. But I hope that the next wave of climate action will be indistinguishable from the struggle for food, energy, shelter and justice – a collective struggle for survival