Hello everybody! I’m a student living and studying in south Italy. As you might already know, there have been a few protests made by Ultima Generazione (Brutally translated: Last Generation) which have been object of debate and disputes (and mostly critiques)
I’m afraid that Italian politicians are now exploiting these protests to indoctrinate people into hating environmentalism. In my personal experience, I’ve seen plenty of people who used to support environmentalist protests starting to, I wouldn’t say hate, but at least distancing themselves from the environmentalist cause (regardless of the age)
Know here’s the question: Have there been similar protests in your country? What about the reaction of the media and the public?
EDIT: i put a random pic of Fridays for Future and Extintion Rebellion militants helping with the flood in Emilia Romagna
Although many people on the left in general don’t like to admit it, I do believe that some radical actions can be counterproductive to your cause, especially if your cause depends on convincing people from other sides of the political spectrum. This is valid for environmentalist or LGBT acceptance etc you need to get more people on board, not to repel the moderates.
That said, the difficulty is to find the right balance. And some radical action by fringe groups can help moderates to be more easily accepted by the mainstream. I would expect environmentalism to be now so ingrained in mainstream politics in Europe that some more radical actions wouldn’t jeopardize the main cause.
But, far-right politics is going up everywhere in the continent and they’re eager to profit from some small radical actions. We’re still very far from any form of “ecoterrorism” but we already see them echoing the word… European elections next year will be crucial, the risk of the EU giving a sharp turn right, with the EPP siding with the far-right is real. And that would be a catastrophe for our environment.