Examples include Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion here in the UK.
Personally, I think some charities are groups are genuine in their outburst wanting large firms to stop strangling the natural beauty for profit, however for me there is a red line that can be crossed.
Blocking roads preventing medical care, people going to work, interview and possibly a nice vacation away. This doesn’t really help but make the public look at your group in a bad light.
The same can also be said when attempting to destroy priceless art for a cheap publicity stunt knowing it’ll get clicks on social media.
TLDR - I think some groups are genuinely good whilst others are just shouting in a speakerphone, pissing everyone else off.
What do YOU think?
Anyone doing anything to protest the climate or damage the profits of fossil fuel companies is fine by me. I can’t call everyones methods “efficient” but it honestly doesn’t matter to me, an extreme response to climate change is reasonable at this point.
This, I don’t live then e.g. throwing paint on painting because it seems kind of pointless, but at least it gets attention.
Unless the protest in a location directly impeding the destructive act, I don’t see it as being effective.
It ends up being a feel good measure instead of becoming a vehicle for change.
I glued myself to the streets to protest, I thought it was a good idea to shake things up a bit, get people to join us and confront the governement with their inaction. Instead I was cursed and spit at, got beaten and payed a lot of money. Some people might want change, but hardly anyone wants to change themselves. That hit me the hardest. It’s still too cosy, until it is too late.
The planet is being destroyed and the politicians are not doing enough. So activists protest. That’s good! I can’t imagine being angry at climate activists for inconveniencing my day; after all, the real culprits are the politicians who don’t do enough!
When extreme climate collapse really kicks in, the average person will wish it were some protesters disrupting their commute for a few hours on a weekday vs literal breakdown of infrastructure and society indefinitely.
They’re too peaceful and nonconfrontational.
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous.
Both Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion are great, and protests should be disruptive, otherwise they’re just ignored. Maybe they’re not doing enough disruption and damage to force governments to listen. Or, maybe someone should go after energy/oil companies directly via sabotage or other means and cause enough economic damage that the cost of polluting and resource extraction becomes too high for them to profit from.
I don’t think they’ve ever tried to destroy art. If you’re talking about the sunflowers, they knew it was behind glass. Their whole MO is doing shocking things to get attention to the cause and to point out that these things will be gone if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels.
tl;dr: things are bad, things will get worse, be angry at the criminals, not those sounding the alarm
We’ve known what we’re in for for half a century, meanwhile governments have kept catering to fossil industries. What’s being destroyed by governmental inaction dwarfs that what you accuse these groups of (art has not been destroyed) and at this point I’m not surprised that people are looking to more disruptive and direct action.
We’ve had scientists do the researching and informing, public interest groups do litigation, NGOs trying what they can themselves, etc, yet we’re still headed to a degree of climate destabilization where large ecosystem tipping points may well launch us into uncharted territory - and even if not, we’re already past the point of ‘dangerous’ climate change and that’s something we’ll have to bear the human, societal and economic costs for.
Climate change will cause more droughts, fires, and heat waves. Millions of people will die and be displaced.
There’s a handful of people who want to do something to prevent this, but, given our system, there’s basically nothing they can do to change the outcome. So they’re resorting to civil disobedience.
I think it’s fine. From what I’ve heard, these are mostly minor inconveniences. Given the scale of suffering they’re warning us about, the inconveniences don’t seem minor. Disrupting medical care isn’t acceptable, etc.
They’ve successfully gotten people talking about climate change, so it’s working.
they’re not violent enough I think
…who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
I think you’re MLK’s “white moderate”: our greatest stumbling block in our stride towards freedom.
I think ones that block roads are counter productive and just hurt their own causes. They should go bother the actual companies or politicians. Disrupting road ways is just stupid. You have no idea who you are impacting when you do that. Nobody would find it acceptable if my version of protesting was running around spraying a machine gun in the air. Do you think blocking roads can’t get people killed?
When you block roads, it won’t kill people unless if you’re driving in on the protestors.
Protestors also typically do give leeway to ambulances and firetrucks.
When? After they’ve already backed up the road for miles? That’s not how traffic works.
How about an on-call doctor driving to an emergency case at the hospital? They going to magically see him coming and teleport everything out of his way?
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
I think they often go after the wrong targets, usually the working class. To their credit XR has shut down airports used by the private jets of the bourgeoisie before, which seem like the kinda thing they should be doing more of.
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By and large I support them, including the ones doing more “direct” action. However, not every group calling themselves “environmental” are automatically getting my support. Some are choosing the wrong targets (e.g. Nuclear power, GMOs), others the wrong means (pouring sauces over art is just weird and not related to the environment). Greenpeace in particular is often quite misguided in their positions and actions IMO.
