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?
I think blocking roads and publicity stunts are ineffective, but there’s plenty of actually effective stuff you can do, like tree spiking or sabotaging oil infrastructure. I don’t really care if people want to block roads or throw soup at paintings but I don’t think it’ll achieve much. I guess better than doing nothing. But with the draconian punishments people are getting in various countries for this sort of protest, it really doesn’t seem worth it when you could do something that’s also criminalised but actually directly does something to prevent climate change.
Personally I don’t like how a lot of the XR-related groups are so ideologically wedded to nonviolence, to the point where they condemn and actively oppose others on the left they deem “violent” (which is usually just racialised people who acted in self-defence at a protest). I see that as a bigger problem than ineffective protests, because they’re actively withholding solidarity from those who should be aligned with them.
You’re right, blocking traffic and other publicity stunts are not effective.
In the pursuit of self defense, any and all actions are legitimate. This includes deadly force.
They are effective, but in the other direction. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re funded by fossil fuel companies.
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.
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.
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.
Painting was behind glass, the point is that in a climate change hellscape all this precious art is in danger. If all the people who read about a painting they’ve never heard of before get angry about “paint being thrown at it” they’ll really hate what’ll happen with extreme weather in a climate disaster.
That makes a lot of sense actually _ if not seen the justification posted anywhere. thanks
I think the causes are right. The execution is just very poor. I don’t understand what blocking traffic has to do with it, I don’t understand what throwing paint around has to do with it.
Honestly, I think protests should be a matter of information vs information and using the right information to combat the lies and deceit projected by those they’re against.
You lose traction of your cause if all that you’re doing is trying to be the biggest intolerant prick.
I didn’t like the Black Lives Matter movement, because their ranks contained people that destroyed streets and they seemed to just budge right in on everything.
I didn’t like the Stop Oil movement, because all that they did were examples of what I brought up about blocking traffic and throwing paint.
they’re not violent enough I think
I’ve never been inconvenienced by an environmental group, personally, so I think it’s really neat they have that much time in their day for those sorts of things.
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.
When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will crackers realize that one cannot eat money.
That’s the spite I’m embracing at this point. When the world is boiling, and they lament to the skies? I’ll be one of the last few, using their last moisturized breaths to laugh in those settler’s faces. If we can’t have justice, if we can’t be properly recompensed for history? I’ll accept spite and revenge at this point.
I used to agree but now I do not anymore. Politicians want to get elected, so they say and impement stuff people like. If people wanted real change, then we would have politicians in power who would implement these changes. But (most) people don’t want that, they’d rather be lied to, everything is fine, we’ve got it under control, you don’t have to change, trust us, keep shopping.
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.
You’ll never be able to address climate change under capitalism- you have to push for socialism and then environmental protections. See: the percentage of renewable energy and battery storage that is being produced in China as they transition out of a mixed economy toward more worker control.
Depends on their actions. Those that just vandalize random art or monuments that have nothing to do with climate change can fuck right off.
Nobody did that, you are one ignorant parrot
Those links don’t say what you think they say.
So they didn’t vandalize art, they bedraggled the glas protecting the art, didn’t they? As if they didn’t really wanted to destroy the Mona Lisa and Warhols Soup Cans.
People have literally been convicted for it. You should try moving your goal posts back to reality.
The gallery previously said the gold-coloured frame of the glass-covered painting was damaged in the October 2022 attack.
Apparently the painting was protected by glass. I don’t know the cultural significance of the frame.
Either way, I don’t approve of vandalism against random objects as a form of protest. How much damage was caused is is relevant for sentencing, not the principle.
The protestors stuck around to be arrested and sentenced, that makes it way easier for me to excuse.
IMO minor damage is acceptable, given the cause.
And that is a good thing?
See my initial comment.
But you just learned no art was vandalized. That might change your opinion.
Based. Politicians only listen when people crash the economy. Direct action has the most impact by far.
…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 like a lot of these takes and explanations on behalf of the protestors, like that they throw paint to signify “What will be lost in the climate crisis” for instance. It’s clever.
But also, asymmetrical warfare is very much about winning “hearts and minds.” If all you do is petty vandalism to annoy and or sabotage other working class people, you just succeed in pissing them off while the actual culprits are still laughing their way to the bank.
Worse, it makes it much easier for them to get public support in crushing your movement by turning your own class against you. You’ve then raised awareness that “People dressed like this are a public nuisance that will get in your way” more than climate change.
Most average people don’t know what they can do to actively sabotage the oil industry. Myself included, I feel pretty damn hand-bound when a lot of issues are systemic, like unwalkable cities and forced commutes for instance.
What’s the call to action for everyone stuck on a blocked road?
You gotta educate your potential allies instead of merely resorting to performative shock for clout, then you gotta give them the tools to join your plight.
Many groups just shout “awareness! Be aware btw!”, and stop there to collect their nonprofit money.
Awareness is made. Cool. Now what? That’s what we want to see them answer.
