Green campaigners hold 'Don't Look Up' protest outside Shropshire Council meeting

Around 30 Extinction Rebellion protestors took part in the stunt outside Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury. Two of them dressed in suits and pretended to be councillors, oblivious the impending threat of a fiery comet hanging above them. The group, which included campaigners from Shrewsbury, Oswestry and Wenlock Edge, said it held the protest due to the council's "continued lack of urgency" around the climate crisis.

“Don’t Look Up was an unexpected hit over the festive period,” said Kate Griffith of Extinction Rebellion Wenlock Edge. “Its story, about how the media and politicians ignore a giant comet on course to destroy the Earth, hit a nerve with audiences who saw it as a timely satire of how those in power are responding to the climate crisis.

"We’re asking Shropshire councillors to realise that they’re the ones with the power to deal the climate crisis in the county, but only if they look up and act.”

Don’t Look Up, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as scientists whose warnings of impending doom are ignored, has become the third most watched film on Netflix ever. It has also prompted debate about the unfolding climate crisis.

“COP26 may be over, but the climate emergency certainly isn’t,” added Kate. “We need politicians to ‘look up’ and act as if the future of the world depends on them, because it does! Although Shropshire Council declared a climate emergency in 2019, it still isn’t meeting the scale of the crisis."

She said if the council "followed the science" it would cancel plans for the Shrewsbury North West Relief Road.

"Shropshire needs leaders who are willing to face the enormity of the challenge ahead of us," said Kate. "We’re begging them: please look up!"