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I used to be quite sympathetic but after seeing them blocking ambulances and trying to fuck up the day of people who otherwise agree, I hate them and hope they’re all arrested. And I’m not alone. Support for the climate movement has halved in two years in Germany because of these absolute morons.
JSO in the UK have a very clear blue-light policy - ie get out of the way and let them pass - so this does not happen.
Beyond that, the point of protest is that it's disruptive.
Oh no, how will we ever cope without the support of spiteful dickheads who weren't doing a single fucking thing to help in the first place.
Peoe like you don't understand the point of these protests. It's not about winning you lot over, because nothing was ever going to do that. We have been protesting "the right way" for decades and people like you just stuck your head in the sand and ignored the problem to focus on your own convenience. And now we're royally fucked. So all we can do now is get in pepples way, disrupt their lives so they are forced to pay some kind of attention.
When people like you say you disaprove of these protests, what you really mean is you want to be able to go back to ignoring the problem.
If you don't realise why killing political support for your cause is bad, by all means, keep doing what you're doing. If you want to affect real change, be nice to the people from whom you want votes. Democracy requires discussion and compromise. Pissing on your allies does the opposite of what you want.
Okay, but we have DECADES of proof that shoenthat way hadn't worked.
You can keep talking about "bring nice" all you like and take the high road, but it just does not work.
That democracy doesn’t work that way? Okay, if convincing people to vote for your cause doesn’t work in a democracy, how does it work?
After decades of protesting "the right way" how many seats do the greens have? How many votes? How many people care enough about the environment that they would actually change who they vote for based off their climate policy?
Do you think the people getting red in the face over a 5 minute delay in their car would have changed their vote if we had just aked them nicely?
For me the biggest problem with the Greens is that they don't talk about a realistic lifestyle that achieves their climate aims. As far as I can tell they just want us to sit around in forests banging rocks together and going "ug". It's all no to this, no to that, and no positive suggestions about anything.
Edit: oh and another thing it's because of those wankers that fuel taxes and taxes on taxes are so fucking high.
The greens in my country are too busy infighting with each other, and have all but collapsed after internal strife mostly regarding things completely disconnected from the environment.
Tell me you've never read the green party manifesto without telling me.
Cry me a fucking river.
Just because you don’t feel one strategy has been effective doesn’t mean the opposite will be. That’s five year old logic. I would also argue that peaceful protest has been incredibly successful. In one generation we’ve gone from “climate change doesn’t exist” to an EV being close to the most popular vehicle sold in the world. You might feel it’s not fast enough, but you certainly can’t argue it’s ineffective. I can tell you what’s not working: pissing on supporters and potential supporters. As per the data, it’s making people care less.
I ask again: if you don’t believe convincing people to vote for your cause is the best way forward in a democracy, what is?
We have missed literally every climate goal we've set, even the most mild ones imaginable, every single one.
We have had undeniable proof of human made climate change for over half a century now and arr still only making token changes. You electric car example perfectly illustrates this. Electric cars are just greenwashing, to make people feel like we're doing better, but in reality our oil consumption has only ever gone up, and our carbon emissions too. So unless you set the bar for progress so incredibly low that "not increasing as fast as we could be if you were explicitly trying to make things worse, then no, they were not "incredibly successful"
And it's not the opposite of an ignorance protest per se. Its just a different option, because you can either keep trying the same shit that hasn't worked for half a century expecting different results like an insane person, or you can try new angles. And historically protests that people cannot ignore are more successful, and people only give a shit about things that affect them personally right at the moment. So making a problem that effects them in the moment is the best way to get through to them. And there is evidence it's working. Climate protests now get far more coverage and the issue is talked about a lot more.
How will these protests lead to meaningful change? Do you think this form of protest will result in any more success than aforementioned 'right way'?
I can't tell you if they will result in meaningful change, but I can tell you that historically, protests that are easy to ignore work a hell of a lot less that protests that get in people's faces and disrupt their lives.
And anyone that actually gives enough of a shit to do something about isn't going to put off by being made 10 minutes late to work by a protest or having their precious bideo game convention distrusted for 30 seconds. The only people that are getting pissed off by this are the self-absorbed man-children of the world.
Ok and what's the plan exactly? "Just stop oil" will kill millions if not billions, the entire worlds economy relies on fossil fuels.
What exactly does the protest accomplish? Awareness is worth about as much as thoughts and prayers, so what will this help exactly?
A protest with no plan is just making noise.
This is why we need to teach kids to read.
JSO isn't about halting all oil consumption right the fuck now. There goal is to stop new licences being given out to drill for more oil. The idea being that we should at the very least try to not actively make the problem worse. And start the long process of actually decoupling our system from oil, so one day the entire world's economy DOESNT rely on oil.
Yeah they do a great job at getting that message across by... throwing paint on things and annoying people?
But by all means, make personal attacks against me, because as we are saying to you pissing people off and alienating them is great for the cause, great work!
If you don't want me to make fun of you for being dumb then just don't be dumb. You have the collective knowledge of the entire human race at your fingertips, which included JSOs cause and reasoning. Use it.
It can't result in less success.
Aaaaaaaaaaand this is how you nuke support from orbit.
This way isn't working either. It's time to go back to the drawing board and brainstorm some better ideas.
I'm all ears mate if you have better ideas. And don't just say something like. "Inconvenience the people that matter" or "go protest outside oil depots" because we do, and we get the exact same criticism from the exact same people about it and it just doesn't make the headlines.
I think this comment demonstrates pretty much everything that's wrong with the JSO approach. The arrogant supposition that you know anything about the people who are disrupted is breathtaking.
You have that right. But I suspect that "people like you" care very little about climate change and how to avoid it. But you really enjoy getting in people's way, disrupting theitr lives and getting attention... and that's the point.
I mean I have debilitating social anxiety and spend a lot of energy every day trying to keep put of people's way and not inconvenience them.
Literally the only reason I was able to force myself to go to protests like these is because of how much I care about the environment, like anyone with any sort of morals whatsoever should as well. Its also why I go to protests that do things "the right way" that don't get mentioned on the news at all, have no effect on anyone and are completely ignored by absolutely everyone and I also do as much as I can to reduce my own impact despite how small a drop in the ocean it is comparatively. I never drive even when I lived in the middle of nowhere and had a cycle 3 miles to a bus stop to get into the city to do my job, I eat almost no meat, invest my savings into green energy and worked to become the head of the ecological advisory committee at my work.
And yes, I know plenty about the people I'm disrupting from my copius interactions with them, like how even times where we shut down a minor road for 5 minutes at a time, and where you can easily detour around it, people will act like you've just nurdered their first born infront of them, and will stubbornly sit their in traffic and scream at you to move, even after telling them can go down another road if they are actually in a hurry.
And I know people will literally pull out infront of an ambulance to block it from going down the lane we cleared for emergency vehicles and them blame their actions on us. And I know a lot of those pepper genuinely think fighting someone or running them over is an appropriate response to being mildly inconvenienced for 5 minutes.
And I know none of the people that scream and shout, have ever done anything to help the cause. They will say "I used to support you until this" but when asked what they actually DID to support us, they always draw a blank or say some childish bullshit like "well I did recycle but now I'm going to stop just to spite you"
Like if you take a step back and look at the big picture and what you're arguing. That we should just take the impending climate crisis lying down if the alternate is some gamers having their convention disrupted for 2 minutes. You'll see how fucking absurd and narcissistic you sound.
The stance appears to be - "We're not trying to change the minds of the people whose lives we disrupt because they are all mindless morons who have never cared about the environment and deserve to made miserable. And of course we aren't really disrupting them anyway - any real disruption is caused by people out to discredit us. Everyone I meet is angry at me for some reason."
I just don't think it is very effective as a way of driving the change you want to see, as it tends to promote the belief 'ah environmentalists - they're arseholes'
The problem is those kinds of people think that no matter what we do. If we go protest oil depots its "they're just making it harder for workers trying to dontheir jobs" if we go to the HQ of Shell its the same or "its going to be the janitor that cleans up" or if we go to the houses of oil execs or politicians like Rishi Sunak it's "what if his kids were home, these people are dangerous" or for literally any scenario you have things like "but I bey they use electricity .hypocrites" or "bet zero means we'd have to stop breathing!! That's what they actually want" or a thousand other dumbass takes.
Keep telling yourself that. You set yourself to only preach to the fully converted.
I don't need to tell myself anything. Barry (62) who thinks climate change isn't real, has voted Tory consistently since he was 18 and would practically cum in his trousers at an excuse to be violent to any group of people the mail tells him are bad, tells me plenty.
Barry was never, ever going to do anything constructive no matter how we protest, so why waste effort trying to appease him?
And you’ve convinced yourself that everyone who disagrees with your approach is Barry apparently.
They aren’t.
Not literally that exact type of person. Like some people do believe in climate change and tell themselves they support the environmentalist cause, but have never gone to a protest, or written to their MP or voted around the issue and never will no matter how many protests that happen, or how many studies are published or videos putting it into layman's terms. They just want to mostly ignore the issue, drive to work, drive home, put on love island and switch their brain off. Because actually doing anything about it is effort and their top priority is their own convenience.
The people who actually give enough of a fuck to do something/anything about this catastrophic issue isn't going to throw a temper tantrum because their video games convention got interrupted for 30 seconds. Because if you ACTUALLY give a shit, the very idea of comparing complete ecological and societal collapse to 30 seconds of the most mild inconvenience imaginable is completely and utterly fucking ridiculous.
Sure, but it's not five minutes is it. It's fucking HOURS because (a) you've glued yourselves to the roads and (b) congestion.
I would completely support a five minute road blockage.
Well I've got good news for you. The vast vast majority of these protests are either "rolling" protests where they walk down the road, or ones where traffic is stopped for a short amount of time before moving aside. The ones where people glue themselves to the road are now very much in the minority, but are usually the ones that get the most coverage from rage baiting media.