MoCo county exec Marc Elrich agrees to climate demands after home demo

Video-protesters show up at Erlich's house in drenching rains 1 min 38 sec

Audio: Marc Elrich concedes "I will give you a list" of specific proposals after being confronted at his car by the stay-behind team 1 min 17 sec

On the 24th of March, student climate activists showed up at Montgomery County executive Marc Elrich's house, demanding the County replace a verbose but useless climate "action" plan with on-the-ground, real policy changes. A stay-behind team from XR-MoCo confronted him after the protest as he tried to enter his car-and he agreed to present a list of specific proposals to the Council before March 31.

It may well have been Extinction Rebellion Montgomery County (XR-MoCo) that convinced Elrich that this issue and these activists simply were not going to go away, and that until it is dealt with there will be disruptions. Having protesters at your house and watching them leave, only to be confronted again as you try to enter your car must be quite convincing!

Two days before the protest, County climate “czar” Adriana Hochberg blew off these demands, promising very little in a meeting with 27 community groups over the climate mess. Now, we see once again that protest (and especially residential protest) works. During the Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) anti-vivisection campaign, it was very common for a corporation to dump puppy-killing HLS after one of their executives had received two or three home visits from activists. Now climate-killing politicians are being brought to heel by similar tactics, in some cases (such as on March 24) going over their heads to their own bosses.