Day by day, hour by hour, it becomes more apparent that the solution to climate change or global warming, call it what you like, is not going to come from politicians or the international establishment, but from grassroots activities. The hope is with mass protests in the streets, and especially from young people. With the recent worldwide Extinction Rebellion protests, Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future school strike movement and many other civil society activities, the struggle to stop the manmade cataclysm of a warming planet has moved to the streets, to social media and to individuals to take personal responsibility to stop climate change from spiraling completely out of control. As the renowned naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough told us all last week as he supported popular outrage over inaction on climate change and called for genuinely effective measures to combat it: “We have no option, if we want to survive. We have a (moral) obligation on our shoulders and it would be to our deep eternal shame if we fail to acknowledge that.” There is no issue more crucial to the survival of our planet than climate change. There is hardly any other issue on which the scientific community worldwide is so united than the fact that there is not only correlation, but causality, between human behavior and threats to the long-term survival of our planet and all the species that live on it. And there is hardly any other issue where only genuine, close and proactive cooperation between all nations, especially the most powerful, will produce a positive result. Yet, what we have witnessed thus far has exposed the political classes as incompetent, incapable of thinking beyond the very short term, lacking vision and imagination, and serving mainly vested economic interests rather than the wellbeing of all. Where urgent action is required, governments have been slow to implement policies that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and where radical change is necessary in our approach to consumerism, transportation or any other behavior that affects climate change, the response has been incremental and unimaginative.Hence, what the world witnessed last week — be it on the streets of London with the Extinction Rebellion protests or Thunberg’s brave speech to the UK Parliament, in which she described the government’s support for fossil fuels and airport expansion as “beyond absurd” — has instilled some hope for a gathering momentum of bottom-up pressure to address the massive challenge of climate change. Thunberg’s scathing criticism of the politicians, when she told them that “you don"t listen to the science because you are only interested in the answers that will allow you to carry on as if nothing has happened,” was spot-on. It is possible to argue with the claim by the Extinction Rebellion leaders that their activities during the 10 days of protest that came to an end last Thursday were non-violent, especially considering that they caused thousands of pounds worth of damage at the Shell headquarters. However, most of the marches and sit-ins were peaceful and very colorful, expressing the concerns of the thousands of participants at the lack of transparency on the part of governments and corporations, as well as their inadequate moves to tackle climate change. The Extinction Rebellion movement is new, and it was only last October that 1,500 of their supporters assembled in London’s Parliament Square to announce a “Declaration of Rebellion” against the UK government. This was followed a few weeks later by 6,000 people converging on London to block major bridges across the Thames, as well as plant trees in the middle of Parliament Square, where they also buried a coffin representing humanity’s future. The movement’s declared strategy represents people’s sheer frustration and despair, and their conviction that the only way to contain and reverse the impact of climate change is to draw attention to it through mass nonviolent civil disobedience. Similar to Fridays for Future, the first challenge is to raise awareness of the menace of anthropogenic global warming to a level where people accept responsibility for it and abandon their apathy, which currently typifies consumerist-capitalist societies. Between being unprepared to give up the convenience that comes with the profligacy of fossil fuel burning, and a general lack of belief in the political system itself and the possibility of change generated by mass movements, the climate change deniers and opportunists are getting their way. In many ways, Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future complement each other in terms of who they actively mobilize for the cause, how they operate and who they might influence most. Extinction Rebellion has a more coherent strategy and clear demands, but no clear leadership. Greta Thunberg, on the other hand, has become the face of fighting the establishment when it comes to climate change. Her fearlessness in initially conducting a lone protestation and subsequently inspiring school strikes and mass protests on the streets, along with the panache of her very effective symbolic acts, are making her campaign impossible to ignore. Extinction Rebellion has positioned itself to work within the confines of the system, but at the same time to also change it radically. Its objective of mobilizing 3.5 percent of the population as a vanguard to promote their aims is both ambitious and realistic at the same time. They are not anarchists by nature, but still see civil disobedience as a core means to ensure our future and the breakdown of hierarchies of power for more equitable participation, but without concentrating on blaming and shaming. The protesters’ main demand — that governments tell the truth about climate change and what they are doing about it, and act with a sense of urgency — should be universally supported, and so should their suggestion of a citizens’ assembly on climate and ecological justice. However, their call to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025 might be more aspirational than attainable. Nevertheless, this might be a good start to changing the global discourse on climate change; of shifting it so we focus on what is good for the planet and the vast majority of its inhabitants for generations to come, and not for the few that are profiting from the current unsustainable state of affairs.