• On the backdrop of a worsening climate, increasing poverty and the elite getting richer, the phrase “flowers are blooming in Antarctica” is popping up on social media.
• The phrase, while based in actual science, is also being used to inspire a revolution and rebellion against the rich.
• The phrase has been gaining traction in recent months and a group calling itself Guardian Rebellion has adopted it to inspire others to action.

For the last few weeks the phrase “Flowers are blooming in Antarctica” has run across our feeds on TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook and while the statement is factual – more on that in a bit – it’s more of a code than anything else.

As it turns out, flowers are blooming in Antarctica but this isn’t all that surprising. Despite being a desolate tundra, Antarctica is home to two native flowering plants namely Antarctic Pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis) and the Antarctic Hair Grass (Deschampsia antarctica). These flowers bloom regularly but as climate change reshapes our planet – the growth rates of these plants has skyrocketed.

“Between the 1960s and 2009, researchers observed the slow but steady growth of the Antarctic Hair Grass and Antarctic Pearlwort on Signy Island. However, the most significant changes occurred between 2009 and 2019 when the growth rates of these plants accelerated dramatically. The Antarctic Hair Grass exhibited a tenfold increase in growth, while the Antarctic Pearlwort grew five times faster than in the previous decades,” Earth.org wrote in October last year.

So plants native to Antarctica are thriving, that’s not a big deal is it? It seems that it is.

One of the biggest fears scientists have is that non-native plants could make Antarctica their home disrupting the delicate ecosystem at the Southern Pole. More so their are utterances that this signifies a tipping point.

As described by the European Space Agency, “climate tipping points are elements of the Earth system in which small changes can kick off reinforcing loops that ‘tip’ a system from one stable state into a profoundly different state.”

We recommend watching the video below from Simon Clark about tipping points for a longer explanation.

With the Earth warming rapidly, we are reaching and passing tipping points faster than we should and coming back from those points is tough, if not impossible.

However, building awareness of climate change isn’t the reason “flowers are blooming in Antarctica” is all over our socials.

Eat the rich 2.0

The world is currently in disarray. The War between Ukraine and Russia wages on, Israel is fighting Hamas but civilian casualties in Gaza have reached disturbing levels and economies around the world are in a deep recession leading to job cuts, increased levels of poverty and more.

People are upset and it doesn’t help that the gap between the super-wealthy and the average person are getting wider. As Oxfam reported this week, the five richest men have doubled their fortunes since 2020 while almost five billion people around the world have become poorer in the same time.

“At current rates, it will take 230 years to end poverty, but we could have our first trillionaire in 10 years. A huge concentration of global corporate and monopoly power is exacerbating inequality economy-wide. Seven out of ten of the world’s biggest corporates have either a billionaire CEO or a billionaire as their principal shareholder. Through squeezing workers, dodging tax, privatizing the state and spurring climate breakdown, corporations are driving inequality and acting in the service of delivering ever-greater wealth to their rich owners. To end extreme inequality, governments must radically redistribute the power of billionaires and corporations back to ordinary people,” wrote Oxfam.

And this is what “flowers are blooming in Antarctica” is about.

The phrase appears to have been adopted by an organisation calling itself Guardian Rebellion.

“Guardian Rebellion is a direct response to increasing government authoritarianism, greed, and ecocide towards humans and other species across the globe. We are dedicated to waking up the public, through direct, non-violent, civil disobedience actions as a global rebellion. While building a network of people ready to do what is necessary. We cannot rely on existing power structures to operate morally,” writes the unnamed co-founder of the movement.

The organisation posts content under the moniker of feed_us_billionaires on TikTok and seems to be trying to rally folks into standing up against the elite class of the world.

The account began posting content in December and has already amassed 125 000 followers and has drawn in some 4.3 million views. The phrase “flowers are blooming in Antarctica” is also everywhere and acts as a sort of code word to let others know they support a revolution.

As 2024 is the year where the world votes and tensions are reaching pressure cooker levels, the next 11 months are going to be interesting for sure and perhaps those who are fed up, downtrodden and oppressed will rise up and say no more.

It’s clear though that flowers are indeed blooming in Antarctica and we need to take action before the red spider lilies arrive.