I have little sympathy for climate change protesters because they fundamentally don't understand the very real challenges associated with addressing climate change and why it differs from similar protest movements in the past (against various forms of discrimination, against Vietnam war, etc).
Protests against Vietnam war or Jim Crow in the US South worked because there was a clear and actionable plan to address the issue. Withdraw from Vietnam/end segregation. These were government implemented policies and reversing them was as much about STOPPING doing something as opposed to doing it.
The whole "Stop oil/fossil fuels" is completely different. Fossil fuels are the lifeblood of our whole economic system. Fertilisers created using fossil fuels deployed en mass are the only reason we don't have mass starvation in many parts of the world. It is a indispensable part of operating our extensive transportation networks as well as generating our power.
Even under the most optimistic projections by 2050 the global use of fossil fuels will be at 50% its current levels. And this is assuming full scale adoption of nuclear power/renewables (which I support 100%).
From the image in the article if we were to "stop oil" tomorrow we would be looking at catastrophic collapses in living standards. It can't be done, it won't be done, and there is no support for it. The only option we have available is slow plodding changes to the energy grid. We don't know if it will be enough or not but these protests will do absolutely nothing except harm.
These protesters are a waste of space but that would be forgivable if it weren't for the fact that their actions are leading to law changes like this which can be used to cripple protests that can actually work like the ones that helped end Vietnam and segregation.
I'm sure there will be responses to this with claims I'm a "climate change denier" when nothing could be further from the truth. Climate change and environmental degradation of varying types are serious and important issues facing us. But that doesn't mean any petulant and poorly thought-out action supposedly taken to address the problem is worthwhile or productive. These protests fall into that category and should be unequivocally condemned.
Not sure how it is in the UK, but in Germany, where there is also a lot of outcry and hate towarfs them, the protestors (once you dig through) actually have very few and most simple demands: partly even promises that have been given for years by politicians, it is borderline ridiculous. They would be quite easy to fulfill even. Still, nothing happens.
Given that the issue of climate change is so profound and long existant (I mean, against it any crisis like Vietnam or tofay's pandemic just pale) I can only sympathize with them - and imo it's hugely unfair to blame the state becoming more deep state on them, don't do that.
It is on our all's huge lethargic laziness I really feel more and more guilty for, both deep state and climate change nonaction.
> We don't know if it will be enough or not...
Strong disagree, the way you envision what we can only do we know definitely it will not be enough. Period. Sorry to agree to your last paragraph, but that is almost climate change denial ;)
Except many of these groups do have specific and actionable demands. For example, here are Insulate Britain's demands:
1) That the UK government immediately promises to fully fund and take responsibility for the insulation of all social housing in Britain by 2025.
2) That the UK government immediately promises to produce within four months a legally binding national plan to fully fund and take responsibility for the full low-energy and low-carbon whole-house retrofit , with no externalised costs, of all homes in Britain by 2030 as part of a just transition to full decarbonisation of all parts of society and the economy.
I think stopping fracking in the UK is manifestly achievable, and reasonable.
The other hot topic issue (installing insulation in people's homes) is another no-brainer, even more so now that gas prices have gone stratospheric.
You're not a climate change denier: you're just reacting in the way most people always react to disruptive protests. It's the same way people reacted to Martin Luther King. Everybody finds disruptive people annoying on an instinctual level. It's only later, with perspective, that we usually realize that disruption was necessary, or nothing would have changed.
Except OP is pretty much in agreement with climate change, as am I. But I don't believe one bit that disrupting traffic flow and tossing paint onto artworks is a good effort to fight climate change - on the contrary, such stupidity by people who have barely matured out of art school actually invites backlash from the rest of the populace.
Fight climate change by actually working towards it. How many of those hand gluing numpties have actually cleaned a beach or a woodland for once in their lives? I'll tell you, zero.
These guys should instead be protesting outside Blackrock and Vanguard, which try to sell me a Climate Change ETF with shares from Exxon, Chevron and Aramco.
Backlash is good. MLK's whole strategy was about bringing the whole question of civil rights into a crisis, so the racists would have to actually stand up for their views, so the nation could have the kind of heated discussion the subject deserved.
That's how protest works: you make a whole bunch of people hate you, so they bang on about how awful you are all the time. If your cause is right, you can count on enough of the heated discussions you spawn to fall in your direction, and even though everybody will pay lip service to how awful you are, they'll recognize the basic sense of what you're campaigning for.
> Fight climate change by actually working towards it. How many of those hand gluing numpties have actually cleaned a beach or a woodland for once in their lives?
Cleaning a beach or a wwoodland is irrelevant to the climate change.
I’ve done more for climate change than that commenter above ever will and I’m in favor of any type of climate protest that they can do. Fuck up some art, who cares? We’ll all be fucked of we don’t change course soon, and some old fucker’s painting isn’t going to help us.
I mean, I've cleaned two beaches (my father 3) from oil tanker sinking close to my home. So at least 4?
And I also have cleaned woodland when I was youth camp counselor. Pretty sure some of the kids are now activists.
I agree that the government have less power than some Corp overall, but I mean, for some demands it's easy: homeowners should have government help to pay for their main house insulation , and pass a law that prevent rent hike in poorly insulated homes. Also create a insulation minimal requirement for new buildings.
True, true, i'm not. Still feel uncharitable. GP don't really know those people, and tbh i don't either, but i did go to "protests" (basically we marched through the city), and the weird activists often participated in weirder projects, and i would be surprised if most of them never cleaned a forest.
Also, those same weird activists type often made hundreds of kilometers to help clean Brittany's coasts. Not sure if those are the same as the people gluing their hand, but it wouldn't surprise me (non-violent, stupid actions are like their Motto).
At this point the climate change protestors are just one of many groups of discontents in the UK. For instance I am reading about railway workers on strike, health workers on strike, other groups of workers going on strike, etc.
Most of those workers on strike are ones where the government has a say in how much they are paid - and they have had under inflation pay rises for the last decade i.e. their pay has been cut, to the point some have to use food banks.
Where payrises have been offered they have not made up the difference, and hence the strikes.
Next month it will be teachers if nothing changes.
I find their “destroy art with soup” tactic to be incredibly tacky and if anything it’s turning people off their message.
I prefer the current discourse in USA which is leaning towards Electrify Everything! Energy independence! Made in USA! and conscious efforts to improve the electric tech to match the performance of the analog versions. USA has its own critics of reducing emissions so what did we try to win them over? Electric f150. The first generation seems good so 10 years from now, imagine how much more compelling it’d be.
Protests against Vietnam war or Jim Crow in the US South worked because there was a clear and actionable plan to address the issue. Withdraw from Vietnam/end segregation. These were government implemented policies and reversing them was as much about STOPPING doing something as opposed to doing it.
The whole "Stop oil/fossil fuels" is completely different. Fossil fuels are the lifeblood of our whole economic system. Fertilisers created using fossil fuels deployed en mass are the only reason we don't have mass starvation in many parts of the world. It is a indispensable part of operating our extensive transportation networks as well as generating our power.
Even under the most optimistic projections by 2050 the global use of fossil fuels will be at 50% its current levels. And this is assuming full scale adoption of nuclear power/renewables (which I support 100%).
From the image in the article if we were to "stop oil" tomorrow we would be looking at catastrophic collapses in living standards. It can't be done, it won't be done, and there is no support for it. The only option we have available is slow plodding changes to the energy grid. We don't know if it will be enough or not but these protests will do absolutely nothing except harm.
These protesters are a waste of space but that would be forgivable if it weren't for the fact that their actions are leading to law changes like this which can be used to cripple protests that can actually work like the ones that helped end Vietnam and segregation.
I'm sure there will be responses to this with claims I'm a "climate change denier" when nothing could be further from the truth. Climate change and environmental degradation of varying types are serious and important issues facing us. But that doesn't mean any petulant and poorly thought-out action supposedly taken to address the problem is worthwhile or productive. These protests fall into that category and should be unequivocally condemned.