And a rally is not an action.

And if it's only about numbers and growing the movement we're in trouble. Coz we ain't got time.

In any case, I wonder how many go home after, despairing that nothing actually changed. And they won't come back. Managing expectations is important. Calling it "The Big One" creates all sorts of expectations that will obviously not be realised and will only lead to disillusionment and frustration.

Reminds me of the ridiculous Germaine Greer who went on that huge anti Iraq War march, discovered it didn't stop that war and proceeded to criticise the march in the media. Maybe she had some other suggestions. (I doubt if civil disobedience would have been one of them).

Counting the numbers who were there is pointless. We already knew many/most people are concerned about man made climate change. Now we know that if demos are peaceful and legal and, presumably, not too frequent, people will attend. We already knew that.

Remember those huge anti nuclear demos. And the various Climate Camps. Great fun. And empowering. But what did they really achieve? We need to look at movements/fights/struggles from the past and see what successes they had, if any.

And we need to stop kidding ourselves. We need ongoing public disruption.

Stop worrying about who you're going to alienate. The people you alienate outside the movement are never going to suport the movement anyway.

And many in the movement who would support a large legal mass gathering are never themselves going to take part in actions that can lead to arrest. But they might support financially.

And, while disruptive small actions don't need much financial investment, money is needed to pay fines and provide ongoing support to people who get locked up.

Huge gatherings, like The Big One, use up a lot of energy and resources that are best used elsewhere.

That's just a quick reaction to your subject line and a quick scan of the content from a few days ago (hope I haven't just repeated all the stuff that's in there) and the loads of self-congratulatory emails I got from XR about the Big One before the event (that have been bugging me).