I had my reservations about Extinction Rebellion. They claimed to be about peaceful protest, but the word ‘rebellion’ didn’t sound very peaceful. And even if they were peaceful themselves, wouldn’t they attract the usual crowd of trouble-makers who would just see it all as a chance for violent disruption?

But my biggest concern was that they themselves, not the policies they were campaigning for, would become the message, as so often happens. It’s too easy for the right-wing media to pick on a few trouble-makers, or some other irrelevant characteristics of the protesters and to make that the story.

But, credit where it is due, they thought of all that. They co-operated with the police — and even cheered them at their closing ceremony, they cleaned the place up after them, they clearly explained what they were about, and they were, even as some of them were arrested, peaceful.

Yes, they did become, partly, the message, but in a good way. They showed that something is more important even than ensuring easy access to Oxford Street shops; they showed that protest in a good cause doesn’t have to be an excuse for confrontation; and most importantly of all they pushed climate change firmly up the agenda.

We owe it to them, ourselves, our children, future generations, and to the world we live in, to keep it there.