Climate protesters are taking action against Big Oil. UK courts are handing them prison terms akin to rapists and thieves
Climate protesters are taking action against Big Oil. UK courts are handing them prison terms akin to rapists and thieves
The sentences are believed to be the longest in the UK’s history for non-violent protest and were delivered under two new controversial laws that supercharged policing powers.
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/13315099
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I would be more likely to sympathize with JSO if they engaged in direct action against the oil industry instead of the general public. Stopping ambulances and electric cars in traffic does not get the world to abandon oil.
If you're going to commit a criminal offense regardless, at least target something that actively supports or benefits from the oil industry. They could go full Robin Hood, robbing businesses that support the oil industry and anonymously donating the proceeds to environmental causes. They could threaten car dealerships that sell ICE vehicles. While it is certainly illegal to burn down a gas station, at least that would be an attack on the object of their protests rather than the general public.
Nothing wrong with their stated cause, but their actions don't support that cause.
Evidence suggests that disruptive protests actually help, rather than hinder organisations like JSO:
It's all about raising awareness and facilitating discussions.
It would be in the oil industries interest to fund agent provocateurs to become lightning rods for both willing protestors and public anger.
Sure, it's not a great look I concur
however we're talking about 2% of their overall funding in 2023:
https://time.com/6334072/just-stop-oil-climate-change-activist-group/
I'd argue that money from a climate fund that was cofounded by the daughter of a oil baron (who appears to be something of a environmental activist), whilst not ideal is a fair way removed from the idea that they are funded by the petrol companies as agent provocateurs.
Also, as I linked the evidence suggest they work, so if the likes of Esso are funding them it's not their greatest work. Who knows. I believe they get a bad wrap. If anything I imagine it's more likely the petrol companies are the ones pushing the negative narratives around groups like JSO to try and mute their effectiveness and turn the public against them.
The oil companies could fund individual agent provocateurs of JSO directly. Whoever decided to attack the general public is doing big oil a big favor.
Maybe, maybe not. Without clear evidence it's all supposition. All we know is that, whilst people may not believe it, their actions are effective.
Their actions are effective at getting legislative action against protests and impeding travel. Their effects on stopping oil, however, have been somewhere between "completely ineffective" and "counterproductive".
The reason people have a hard time believing their actions are effective is because their actions are not at all effective.
They would raise more awareness and facilitate more productive discussion and alienate fewer people and have a tangible, measurable effect by taking direct action against car dealership and gas stations.
The kind of "discussion" they have most "facilitated" is how to increase the penalties for impeding traffic. Their only "success" has been winning enough support for legislators to increase penalties and enforcement for "impeding traffic"
I mean, sure, but again the evidence suggest otherwise: https://www.apollosurveys.org/social-change-and-protests/
And as the articles I originally linked above shows the general public may think otherwise, which is understandable.
then why not embody the change you'd like to see. if it's truly a better way, go nuts bro.
because from here it just looks like "why don't they quit protesting and start blowing up oil facilities lol"
When black people fought for civil rights, they went where their civil rights were being infringed upon, they exercised their rights anyway, and showed the world the infringement. They didn't go into black communities and hassle black people just going about their days to "bring awareness" to the problem of civil rights infringement. Because that would be stupid. You don't harass the victims of infringement. You go after the perpetrators.
Now, the oil industry is victimizing the general public, and JSO... Is also victimizing the general public.
Fuck. That. Shit.
Target the oil industry, and get the fuck out of the street.
Nope. Targeting the industry alone isn't going to change people's way of thinking. Consumers who face no consequences for using a fuel that's rapidly warming and destroying the ecosystem need waking up too.
Sounds like this upsets you, boo fuckin' hoo.
And keep the black struggle for civil rights out of your fucking mouth, their work deserves better than you using them to shill for oil comfort.
Switching to an electric car doesn't get them out of a JSO-sponsored traffic jam. Nothing about the JSO actions provides any incentive for the consumer to actually do anything about oil.
You take out the gas stations, you'll actually be inconveniencing the consumers who still use them. And only those consumers. Everyone else is untouched. You're also promoting the remaining shops that don't offer fossil fuels, by removing their competition. You won't be interfering with the ambulances and electric cars either.
Consumers will get the hint that oil is under indictment, and factor that into their next car buying decision. That doesn't happen when an electric car doesn't get them past a JSO traffic jam.
You approach the whole issue as if it were just up to consumers to stop oil by changing their habits. It isn't. Switching to an EV isn't a solution when you're still paying taxes that go into subsidizing fossil fuels. (Switching to an EV for getting around in a city isn't a solution anyways, use public transit or get a bicycle). Consumers won't stop consuming oil until the full cost (including all externalities) of it is shown in the price tag. Action is needed at the political level, and that won't happen unless enough noise is made regarding the issue. That's what JSO is doing.
That's what JSO
is doing.thinks they are doing, despite all evidence to the contrary.FTFY.
I'll note that nobody in this thread has yet made a single comment promoting a specific political action against oil. Your last comment comes the closest, but even that doesn't even qualify as a "concept of a plan".
JSO isn't inspiring people to talk about oil. They are inspiring people to talk about the limits of free speech, and the preservation of the right to travel. They've inspired legislators to act, just not in any way that would actually affect the oil industry. JSO has certainly accomplished something with their antics, just not anything that they've set out to do.
Again, direct action against the oil industry. Exploit it's soft targets, raise the cost of oil, make alternatives relatively cheaper, and watch the problem disappear.
You do realize that you replied to a comment just now that raised the issue of fossil fuel subsidies, and the effect those have on the price and thus consumption of oil? Just ending those subsidies would already have a dramatic effect.
It's true that the discussion is currently centered on freedom of speech, most notably because of the most recent developments, but the issue that is being protested is constantly present in the background. I'm betting that after the criminalization of protests stops being news, that issue gets back into the limelight.
Direct action against fossil fuel infrastructure would be less in the public due to a less central location. Sitting on a street works because it's a nuisance to many, thus generating a lot of interest among the press and that way the message gets amplified. Gaining publicity via industrial sabotage would be difficult unless they did somehting very drastic, which would only turn them from a mere "nuicanse" into actual villains in the press. Especially so if some such drastic measure leads to the unintended death or injury of a worker at a refinery etc. This would also turn the fossil fuel companies from crooks into victims and I'm betting that they'd also try to frame it as sabotage hurting the blue collar workers they employ. All this while affecting the actual price of oil in a miniscule way at most and alienating the majority of their members who don't accept these acts. Nonviolence is held in high regard.
The electric cars are powered by gas and coal in the uk. We are a long way from pure renewable electricity and between mining and shipping metals, steel, and tyres they're not quite the perfect green vehicles they're presented as.
how about you do you and fuck off.
Sorry. Can't. Stuck in traffic.
I can't imagine their prison sentences if they were actually thieves. Look at what they're getting for doing peaceful protests. People freak out when property is disturbed.
People freak out when travel is disturbed. They freak out quite a bit less when a big corporation that everyone hates happens to get targeted by environmental activists.
. . . that everyone hates so hard they give them loads of money.
I wish they all hated me like that.
I'll DM you my ex wife's info. She can teach you how to accomplish your goal.
"do something, anything as long as it doesn't affect me"
"do something, anything as long as it
doesn't affect meactually targets the oil industry.FTFY.
Disruptions cause outrage
Outrage sparks discusson
Discussion leads to political pressure
Political pressure leads to action that targets the oil industry
So close, yet so far away...
Political pressure leads to action that targets
the oil industrythe protesters.FTFY.
The only thing they have actually achieved is enhanced enforcement and penalties for impeding traffic.
In the Netherlands, since 2023, there have been quite a lot of road blockades by XR (with hundreds to thousands of demonstrators) with no such penalties at all. From what I've read the activists in the UK were (rightfully so) determined to have their say in the court room while the judge sounded like a climate crisis denial person and got impatient. If I were a lawyer I would have made an attempt to get this judge dismissed on the case for not being objective and before they were ready for their verdict.
The process I described unfortunately does take longer than the initial lashing outs of the establisment. A couple of "martyrs" may not be the worst thing either.
YungOnions already provided you with some good articles about why and how nonviolent disruption works. I suggest you read them.
JSO "martyrs" are for the cause of free speech, not against oil. JSO is distracting people from oil. JSO is diverting legislative attention away from oil.
I suggest you stop reading articles, and start looking at reality. The reality is that JSO has demonstrated they are as effective at "disrupting" the oil industry as the Westboro Baptist Church has been at "disrupting" homosexuality: not the fuck at all.
I'm not sure how you managed to misunderstand, but by disruptions I was referring to precisely the kind of disruptions of the lives of ordinary people that - and I'm sure we can at least agree on this - they have quite successfully caused.
Our two parallel discussions are about the methods of protesting against the use of fossil fuels. Our discussions here exists because of JSO. It got you thinking about what should be done to get rid of the use of fossil fuels, even if this was just for the purposes of making counterarguments.
I'm not sure how you managed to misunderstand, but by disruptions I was referring to precisely the kind of disruptions of the lives of ordinary people that - and I'm sure we can at least agree on this - they have quite successfully caused.
I agree, they've done a bangup job bringing attention to the ongoing fight against jaywalking.
Against oil, not so much.
There have been direct actions recently - they get subjected to media blackout. If you want to shift public sentiment, you need eyeballs - they get eyeballs, and while responses are obviously mixed, they lean positive over time.
Personally, I believe that criticising the efforts of activists with whom you share a cause is one of the lowest things you can do.
If I think there’s a better way, then I go do it, or at the very least I would participate in that group and try to bring them around to my way of thinking.
I definitely would not publicly criticise them because that doesn’t actually help the cause, it just damages it.
But of course, I can’t hold people to the same high expectations I hold of myself.
Their actions are damaging the cause. They are making it harder for environmental activism to be taken seriously. Now, actual activism has to fight not just the oil industry, but also everyone that JSO has pissed off.
They literally DID. The fact you don't know about it shows why they also do their publicity stunts.
I heard about a car dealership and gas stations being lit on fire by protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. When did JSO protesters do something similar?
It's not hard to look up.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-61347944
Took 2 seconds.
What part of that is remotely comparable to the car dealership and gas station in Kenosha?
The part where it's action targeting the oil companies? You know, like you were suggesting they do?
Ah. Thanks for clarifying.
I must confess, I see no noteworthy comparison. I question their commitment and resolve.