XR Boston Disrupts the Status Quo in Davis Square!

On Friday July 25, climate activists from Extinction Rebellion Boston (XR Boston) staged a symbolic mock funeral, symbolizing the demise of our planet's stable climate. In the lead up to the funeral, XR members, dressed in black, marched down Elm Street chanting, “When planet Earth is under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back!” and “We are unstoppable, another world is possible!” Once they reached their final location, a group nearing 90 participants lay down on the ground for a "Die-In" to draw the public's attention to the massive wave of human and non-human deaths from the climate crisis. Several activists delivered rousing speeches at the funeral, encouraging members of the public to join their cause. BABAM, (Boston Area Brigade of Activist Musicians), accompanied Extinction Rebellion with a tuba, horns, and drums, playing both sorrowful and uplifting songs.  

Once the “mourners” rose from the Die-In, trained volunteers invited participants to join them in the street of Davis Square behind safety marshals. Together, they blocked evening traffic in an act of non-violent peaceful civil disobedience. Five XR rebels faced the cars holding a large banner reading, "Stop The Fossil Fuel Industry Now!".

XR Boston demands that the Massachusetts state government immediately ban new fossil fuel infrastructure and do its part to create an economy powered by renewable energy. When asked about the importance of the Die-In and traffic block, activist-organizer Mark Robson, a schoolteacher from Arlington, said, “While the funeral ceremony emphasizes our environmental losses, it also serves as a call to action. The general public has remained largely passive while the billionaire class has trashed the planet in the name of private profit. Extinction Rebellion’s event in Davis Square is an invitation to everyday working people to come together, organize, and fight for a livable future. Our lives depend on it."

XR Boston has made international news for civil disobedience protests since we formed in spring 2019. These protests have made measurable changes in Massachusetts state policy. For example, in April 2024, XR Boston members engaged in a disruption of private jets at Hanscom Field to protest the proposed expansion, which resulted in MEPA rejecting the developers' Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) and requiring them to submit a new one if they hope to continue the project. In September 2024, XR Boston members locked themselves to the State House gates for a series of days, protesting the legislature dropping the Climate Bill over that summer. Shortly afterwards, the Climate Bill was resurrected, and it was signed into law early in 2025. Peaceful civil disobedience works - XR Boston is living proof.

“The Earth is in a death spiral. It will take radical action to save us.”
George Monbiot, journalist and author

Love and Community Create a Better World

During the Die-In, organizer Mark Robson took the microphone. He looked out over the sea of his colleagues' bodies and his voice strengthened as he began to speak. Here is an excerpt of Mark's words:

"Our future is either fascism or freedom. The fascist future will strip us of the liberties that some of us still enjoy, while ensuring ecological destruction and mass death on a planetary scale. But we could, instead, have a future of freedom. Where society is made of strong nurturing communities and human connection is more important than profit. But this future is only possible if enough of us choose to be guided by love for our fellow humans. There’s a deep and expansive love that every one of us has in us. But it’s a love that is constantly suppressed by the corporate billionaire class that runs our society. Because they know that if masses of people act on that love for their fellow humans, that we would never accept the cruelty of our current system. Politicians are not going to save us. WE are going to save us. You, your neighbors, your friends, your family, your fellow union members, everyday working people, that’s who’s going to save us.  

Some people think the halls of power are on Wall Street and in Washington, but the truth is that the halls of power are right here in the street. Nothing will change until we have sustained mass protest and civil disobedience in this country. In fact, things are going to get worse and worse, until we discover how powerful we are when we act together. Today, take your next step toward reclaiming your power. Join us.

There’s so much fear in America today. Fear of the current US government. Fear of the future. Fear of the dark places our society could go. Trade that fear for love. Love for yourself, your family, your community, and our Earth, our home. When you immerse yourself in love, action becomes possible and life becomes simple. Not easy, but simple. That love makes it clear that there is no choice other than to organize to protect each other and to create a livable future on our planet. Join us.

We must challenge the fossil fuel capitalists with a movement of the people. We must show unwavering courage, discipline, and faith. We must be ready and willing to withstand their assaults on us. We might fail. But by far, the riskiest thing of all would be to not even try.

We are all bombarded by the cruelty of the system we live in. The brutal ICE raids in our neighborhoods, the genocide in Gaza, the growing authoritarianism in Washington, and of course the reality of a rapidly changing climate that threatens human civilization itself. The only thing to do in the face of these crises is to face them head on, together. Join us.

Stop and listen to your conscience. It’s not telling you to scroll social media or to go shopping. For a great many of you, your conscience is telling you to help create a new culture that respects life on Earth and will never accept cruelty in the name of profit.

If you know in your heart, that better world can’t be born soon enough, then come join Extinction Rebellion.

Protecting Future Generations of All Species

As the Die-In participants lay down on the pavement, a longtime XR Boston rebel named Julia Hansen stood up to speak. Here is an excerpt of her powerful words:

"We are lying on the ground to symbolize and mourn the preventable deaths of people, animals, ecosystems, the disappearance of places, due to climate change. The deaths that have happened up until now, like the little girls in summer camp in Texas washed away in flash floods, and the deaths that are to come because of our collective inaction to stop fossil fuel emissions. We are dying in to say that we see what’s happening, and we object. We refuse to go about our day, acting like what’s happening to our planet is normal.

I suspect that many folks walking by are as concerned as we are about the warming climate, the flash floods, the devastating heat waves, forests that go up in uncontrollable wildfires and send smoke to skies thousands of miles away. We invite you to join us, even for a couple of minutes, to say out loud and with your entire being, “I object”.

Do you have a particular memory of when you first realized that climate change was getting serious? For me, it was reading about the mega fires in Australia in 2020 and how sixty thousand koalas were burnt alive in their eucalyptus trees. As an animal lover, this particular disaster pierced my heart, and made me realize I needed to take action to stop the destruction of the things I love.

When I lie on the ground during a die-in, I mourn the people and animals that have burnt alive or lost their homes in wildfires turned uncontrollable by global warming. I mourn the hundreds of people in Hawaii in the summer of 2023 who faced a fireball that wiped out Lahaina. I mourn the people lost in the LA firestorms, and thousands who still can’t return home. I mourn the little girls in a Texas summer camp who couldn’t get out of the way of a flash flood in time.

And I think about what I’m willing to do to prevent even worse destruction for my daughter’s generation.

By the time she turns 25, in 2050, koalas are currently predicted to be extinct. Climate change has made it 40% more likely for flash floods to happen in Texas, but they are 52% more likely now in the Northeast. And last year there were more than 200 wildfires in Massachusetts, the most ever on record. I wonder, will my daughter be safe when she’s old enough to go to summer camp? Will she grow up in a world that only remembers magnificent species through old photos?

When I lie on the ground during a die-in, in these moments of quiet reflection, I realize that I am willing to do almost anything, peacefully of course, to give her and her generation the future they deserve.

These moments of quiet reflection gave me the courage to participate in a nonviolent protest at Hanscom Field, a private airport where the super rich fly in super-polluting private jets. We stopped air traffic for several hours. 21 of us were arrested. We faced potential jail time because we dared to put ourselves in the way of the status quo, because the millionaires and billionaires who take those flights in private jets face no consequence for their super-polluting ways.

How many species have to be lost forever, before we put a stop to the destruction of our planet? How many little girls have to die in flash floods in summer camp before the majority of us decide to meaningfully object?

You don’t have to get arrested in order to take action. But taking action for the sake of everything you love turns grief into courage and hope."