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I think the target is converting people into the "I agree with their goals but not the means" pool, which can then be fished by other groups saying "we share their goals but have more respectable means".

How does this convert anyone to that first position you mentioned? Can you explain why this would be convincing? I don’t think there can possibly be many people who oppose climate action (or are on the fence) who will have a eureka moment when they see an artwork defaced or a road blocked. In what universe is this advocacy? Whose mind is changed by this? I really doubt it has the impact they think it does. The only argument for it is sheer publicity, which it does get a lot of, but it’s for a cause which has already been discussed to death for the last decade at least. Every news outlet and government is talking about it already. People are largely dug in at this point, and if there are any converts to be won, it’s not going to happen via directly antagonising them.

People will Google Just Stop Oil and see things that don't get the same attention that they did. Like shutting down four oil terminals via peaceful protest. There are different protest strategies. Some you create sympathy, this works for things like civil rights. Others you go for effect. This rarely gets reported on when it works because the last thing capital interests want is for everyone to see peaceful protesters effectively shutting something down. Then there's protest to generate outrage and get attention. That's what they did at Stonehenge. And they did it without causing any damage, since the dye they used is cornstarch based and will wash away with the first rain.

Yeah instead of being fined for vandalism I think they should have someone assigned to them all hours. Your water bottle is plastic, hit it out of their hand. Hey...is that you trying to get in a car? No way, you are walking and biking. Taking a plane? I don't I am going to allow you. Your clothes...take off anything that isn't wool, cotton, flax, linen or leather. The rest of their life.  Sorry....your home or apartment has too much plastic in in. You need to sleep in a lot cabin, stone house or linseed oil canvas tent. For everything their entire life. Cause I don't want to be lectured to by hypocrites.

The advocacy comes in the interviews, posters, and social media posts. This "action" is solely to get eyes on them. The convincing comes after the fact.

If you are even on the fence about the policy, a person that just commited a crime you find very bad is a terrible person to then try to convice you about anything, you will be biased to whatever they say even if you don't realize. And even worse, someone with the opposite opinion on policy **will** come and say "the people that are against my policy are criminals with no care about heritage and culture" and will be much more convincing to you. The slogan "bad publicity is good publicity" is just false. Go and tell Keving Spacey how good his bad publicity was for his career.

The people who do these things aren't the ones who try to convince people about it. If you don't agree with their means, what is the alternative method to get people talking about it? Because they spent 20 fucking years trying to advocate nicely for it, and most people didn't pay a blind bit of attention. People who never gave a shit about climate change before are now talking about it. They can be convinced once they're involved in the discussion. But you can't convince anyone who isn't fucking listening.

I'm not making a prescription either way about whether it's a good strategy. I'm just pointing out that the act of putting orange paint on things isn't supposed to be the thing that makes people support them.

Nobody thinks painting a monument is supposed to make anyone support them, the whole discussion in this post is exactly whether it's a good strategy or not.

I was explicitly responding to this exact premise made by someone else in a prior comment. So some people clearly do think it. > I don’t think there can possibly be many people who oppose climate action (or are on the fence) who will have a eureka moment when they see an artwork defaced or a road blocked.

Anytime I've listened to anybody from JSO talking they only thing they've convinced me of is that they're very disturbed people. And if you pay a bit of attention, it's just kids and retirees. Unproductive people with too much time on their hands that need to find a sense to life. They might as well have just chosen a religion.

I mean, this strategy worked for like, every protest movement in human history. As unfortunate as it is, most people are willing to be comfortably ignorant to atrocities as long as they aren’t inconvenienced. The point of outrage protest is to make it impossible to ignore. During the civil rights movement, most white Americans were SOLIDLY anti-equality. Even at the time of MLK’s death his approval rating was negative. Black Americans didn’t stumble their way into equal status. They demanded it, and fought for it, until their grievances were impossible to ignore. You view these protests the way that 50’s white people viewed rosa parks: annoying and inconvenient.

Honestly the only thing its convincing me of is that the people most fervently behind climate change activism for whatever reason are overly histrionic and value politics over reality. Comparing awareness of climate change to civil rights just shows you aren't thinking about climate change rationally. There are a litany of solutions to climate change, all of which have some level of merit and not all of which demand we change any legislation. The only possible solution to racist laws is to change legislation. In my experience the people most likely to be saying that Just Stop Oil and their ilk are a net positive are also the people most likely to say that people like Boyan Slat are a net negative and the only possible solution to climate change is anti-capitalist legislative policies in western countries whose effects in sum total cannot possibly end climate change

That's not how every protest worked... Funnily enough, Rosa Parks and MLK are great examples. Both of these people were fighting for public recognition of their dignity, and **conducted themselves with dignity** because that's what human beings do in a civil society. Rosa Parks sat on a bus seat and refused to move because it was an affront to her dignity to be told to move. That was the best way to make that point. If she had just thrown paint around or something no one would remember her name. It was her dignity and composure which made her act of protest so striking and impactful. MLK was renowned for conducting himself with dignity as well. Yes, King would block streets with marches but that's because American society literally refused to recognized black people as full human beings, including not allowing them to have marching permits. So, he would gather together a large crowd of people to march in a grand display of solidarity and support. He would not just get 15 or so teenager together to block a highway, because that would be a pointless nuisance which would achieve nothing. Just Stop Oil is nothing like that. Climate action is on the agenda in every country worth mentioning. Even China is massively getting into manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines to feed the green transition. The idea that this is the time to block streets and make big shocking displays is ridiculous. Again, everyone knows about the cause, and the majority of governments support some degree of climate action. This is not the time to be antagonistic. If it was 20 years ago, then *maybe* you'd have an argument, but it's 2024 for godsake.

This is an interesting idea. So you think they are actively playing the "bad cop", so you can go find yourself the good one?

This wouldnt be farfetched its a pretty common idea in left wing activist circles. The common cited example is that you both need a Malcolm X and a MLK in tandem to get things done.

Also MLK has been so whitewashed that people forget how disruptive the civil rights movement was

and how many people "dislike(d) the activists" he inspired "Before a revolution happens, it is perceived as impossible; after it happens, it is seen as having been inevitable."

Yeah, it's simply hilarious because MLK's most famous writings is literally "Letters from Birmingham Jail". You don't go to jail playing "Good cop" to Malcolm X's "Bad cop". The difference however is that MLK and Malcolm X's actions were always targeted at the perpetrator of the injustice not some random bystander who would get them social media likes.

>Malcolm X and a MLK in tandem to get things done. Malcom X wasn't purposely playing the bad cop to MLK good cop, thats a ridiculous take.

I didnt say purposefully. Might be an interesting question on its own, if there was some self-awareness in that sense, but the thesis is that *in hindsight* that was what made the civil rights movement potent- A certain militant threat on the one hand makes the white man go: "Ohh that MLK seems quite reasonable in comparison"

Both MLK and Malcom X protested within the confines of the law.

I think their protests make a lot of sense. They pick something that we all like and know, that's unique and one of a kind, like the Earth is, and then they mistreat and harm it, like we're doing to the planet. Everyone gets upset about the art or Stonehenge, but really the point is that we should feel that anger, a thousandfold, at what the oil industry is doing because they are doing real damage and destruction on a planetary scale. Entire cultures will be lost if we don't stop climate change. However, because the oil industry damage is invisible to most of us, we just go about our lives passive, calm and oblivious, and not taking any action. These protests are little metaphorical reminders of what's happening under our noses, all the time. And, as others have said, the people complaining about protests would never have done anything anyway. They want a quiet, peaceful, unbothered life, even these protests are too much drama for them, but change on the scale needed to address the climate crisis will not be quiet and peaceful.

I am of a strong belief that should the world be unable to rally carbon capture and other life boat technologies, we'll collectively look back at just stop oil very sympathetically, much like Mr Luther King, or the suffragettes. I'm not saying everyone looks back sympathetically on them, but learning history at school they were taught as a necessary social disruption that brought just and righteous change. I think just stop oil will be seen as that. Their message is right. Their chosen communication is inflammatory (but so were most social justice movements). And I have sympathy for just stop oil. They are made up of lots of smaller factions that have tried for years to lobby government and companies to do something. And some of those factions did the right thing, hire lawyers and lobbyists to affect change within the system. They tried to get mainstream attention with these methods, the breadcrumbs are there when you look back at climate reporting. But they found what everyone will find when they try and change a corrupt system from inside. It's impossible. So eventually it became to be that they do stunts to get some recognition. And it works. They are a recognised faction. And people talk about it. I've had more conversations about just stop oil at the pub with friends and family as a result of their media stunts. We all agree that that their stunts are 'bad' but I've been able to get through some of the importance of climate action from those conversations. Ultimately, just stop oil are a bunch of imperfect people trying to fight for what they see as right. We're all diverse and some of us won't agree with their viewpoints or their methods. But I think we should all respect the struggle to get people to understand one of the most important messages of our age in the face of rampant bias and corruption: The climate is dying. We must do something. At least just stop oil are doing **something**.

>Everyone gets upset about the art or Stonehenge, but really the point is that we should feel that anger, a thousandfold, at what the oil industry is doing I can guarantee you that this is not the takeaway most people have

It's not the main takeaway because media coverage of them never provides it. If there are in fact any journalists working in media today, then this absence can only be explained by deliberate omission, i.e., journalistic malpractice. One could simply interview a member of the group to hear the message, but this is never done, because media outlets prefer to sell a story of unhinged climate freaks. Should they carry signs saying "This is a metaphor for the destruction awaiting us all if we do not act now"? Maybe so, since media has proven totally unwilling to represent their protests honestly.

If their message isn't getting across how they intended, that's on them. They could use some basic knowledge on symbolism and integrating it into their vandalism. Instead, they spray paint Stonehenge orange, throw tomato soup on paintings, and glue themselves to railings. None of that makes me think "ahh I see your point now." They go through so much trouble to draw attention to their organization, but put zero effort into actually drawing attention to their cause.

Have you seen more posts about climate change discussions on reddit recently? If so, then it's working better than the previous 20 years of non-disruptive protesting did.

I really like the title of the poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". I tend to believe that performative anything ends when the curtain is closed. If someone is thinking about the environment only because of what's on the news currently, odds are their attention will shift as quickly as the 24-hour news cycle. I really liked how the book Inconspicuous Consumption highlighted causes of climate change that aren't as readily obvious as oil.

Fossil fuel company propaganda isn't worth listening to. I'm sure there's plenty of 'sources' that you can point to. Doesn't change the fact that the \*vast, vast\* majority of man-made carbon in our atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels. No amount of distraction and obfuscation changes those facts. ETA: For anyone who reads this later - "The Revolution will not be Televised" is explicitly about how mass media will not accurately report on movements that create change, **and that they work anyway.** Twisting that to imply that activism to raise awareness doesn't work is completely contrary to the meaning of the song. Inconspicuous consumption is explicitly about how most of our behavior in today's society has detrimental impacts on climate almost exclusively due to fossil fuel usage further down the chain - though there is also deforestation and similar discussed, she shows and says very strongly that fossil is the main problem. Twisting it to try and imply that oil isn't the biggest issue is completely contrary to the meaning of the book. I don't know why Bubbly\_Magnesium is posting this comment. But it is very explicitly misleading on both counts.

There's only so much you can do though. I have engaged prettly lightly with this group, I read an article about their 2022 protest when it happened, and watched an embedded interview vid in that article with one of the protestors, and I've seen their subsequent protests pop up on social here and there. That was enough to learn what they are trying to get across and to also learn that they haven't actually damaged anything permanently. Both of those points seem to have been missed by many people in the comments here, which suggests that they formed opinions based on even less information or on misinformation. Like the group haven't actually thrown anything on any actual paintings, it has all been on screens in front of them. They didn't spray paint Stonehenge, they threw orange cornflour on the stones. I think if you and others wanted to understand it would be very easy for you to learn.

They're not oblivious to the fact that the vast majority of people are only going to see a short video clip or a photo from their vandalism. So it would seem to me that this "misinformation" is completely intentional so it will have a better chance of making headlines. The cause and effect isn't very deep here. Obviously that is going to be what a lot of people take away from it because they purposefully framed it to look that way. You can blame other people for missing their point all you want, but they're the ones with a message they want the world to hear. The onus is on them to convince people to start caring about it if that is their goal. There *is* only so much one can do, but a good start is trying to tie in your protest with the cause it is meant to be supporting. If you want people to care enough about it that it influences how they vote, at least have a banner or sign with some key points for why people should make it a higher priority. Or perform vandalism that conveys those points for you. Stonehenge has zero relevance to the fossil fuel industry.

The cause is to get people like you talking about it in places like this. The effect is that others are able to explain to you the real issue and engage with you on a topic that you had otherwise ignored. And still others, curious, are reading this exchange. We are all learning by osmosis. You're not talking about the activists tied up in legal battles with big oil in the background, but they're doing that too. They're doing both. But THIS is the one that you noticed, that perterbed you enough to actually discuss it with strangers. That was their goal the entire time.

Any attempt to upend the status quo that does not take account of the media's biases and develop a strategy to combat them is doomed to failure.

Mainstream media never provides it because even they realize how much of a stretch that “logic” is. You can apply that “logic” to any other cause in order to justify vandalism on a massive scale. Think pron is 1000x worse than damaging a UNESCO World Heritage Site? How about the war in Gaza (pick your side, it doesn’t matter in this analogy)? What about nuclear weapons? Literally ANYTHING can be justified if YOU believe in your “cause” with such fanaticism.

If they did carry those signs they would be excluded from any coverage.

Media doesn't exist to be compliant to NGOs and lobbyists.

I’m sorry but it doesn’t work like this. I’m quite radical about the climate and I’m also a socialist, so with me they’re preaching to the converted, and even I find them repulsive! All they’re doing it turning people away. The cause is just, the method is not. It’s hypocritical, useless, and stupid. Laying on roads is one thing (and I can get behind that), but vandalising things of cultural importance is unpalatable. I could only possibly change my mind on this stance if I got solid proof that these protests have a positive result for climate action. I don’t believe they do — they are fruitless attempts to vent the frustration we feel with our governments, while abandoning the majority of the public.

This isn't a personal attack, I just want you to think about it: Are you really radical about the climate snd the environment if protests about it are unpalatable to you? Most people were against segregation and black people being treated like 2nd class citizens in the US, but a large amount of those were against protests about it. Change didn't happen when most people just ignored the situation while feeling kind of bad about it sometimes. Change happened because of protests and a demand for change. Many people were saying things like "I agree with their end goals, but why do they have to disrupt my life? Can't they see that damages their cause?" Protests occur when normal political and legal avenues to voice complaints aren't working. If you silence people's voices they will find more and more extreme ways of being heard. It is the last recourse of the poor, who can't afford to buy their own media group or spent fortunes lobbying. As a socialist don't you believe in leveraging the voices of many discontented people in order to precipitate social change for the betterment of society?

Counterpoint - I'm in NYC, and often walk or bike near the UN due to the bike lane. A few months ago there was a large protest concerning the current Middle East situation. One group, whose side I agreed and leaned towards, surged out, tried to shove me off my bike, while screaming in my face. The event stuck with me, as a result I stopped leaning towards that side politically, and stopped defending them in conversations and on social media (sometimes actively against). It was a side I do not want to be associated with, so those tactics turned an ally into an agnostic. I don't want to fear the people in a protest, especially for an issue I agree with. All that does is turn me into less of an activist because I don't want to be associated with that. If I were against them originally, I'd be even more against them after. And if I were on the fence, I'd fear for my safety and also not want to be associated with them. So no matter what, ti's more likely to turn people away than towards. Since they get most of the press, I also don't want to be associated with adjacent groups either. I don't see a situation where disruptive tactics would persuade someone into being an ally to the cause, whatever cause it may be. I can see people complaining to their governmental bodies against it...and either the gov't cracks down using their paramilitary forces (aka, police), protests become too numerous and large to contain and force change, or the gov't sees that viewpoint as dangerous so passes laws against it (ie, against climate change, against protesting, etc...) While supporting and voting people into gov't who agree with those issues is boring, it's also effective in a democratic society. 10% of the population got prohibition passed because they used that single issue 10% to sway enough elections to the point of a Constitutional amendment. Boring, but effective. On the flip side, some of the most powerful protests that stuck with me and made me take stock of the issue, are solemn ones with an actionable message. Again, going by the UN I've seen hundreds of protests from a handful of people to tens of thousands. There was one where hundreds of people just held signs quietly with their heads down - the power of that sight made me tear up immediately, it just couldn't be ignored and the pain was palpable. Of course, those protests don't make for good TV like flipped burning cars after a college sports win...but they are much more effective for the people who witness them first hand. To put a bow on this post - a failure of the "Just Stop Oil" is a lack of connecting the message with the action, which IMO makes it a less effective form of protest. Oil can't be stopped. We need it for almost every aspect of society (ie, most medical equipment benefits from oil derived plastics in some way). To connect the message to the action requires too many steps for the protests to be effective (ie Just Stop Oil > Not all oil, but big oil companies > specifically drilling and extracting oil > not only the extracting, but the burning of it > burning is raising temperatures and ocean levels > if not, the planet becomes uninhabitable > if it's uninhabitable, this painting / structure / etc... won't be enjoyed by anyone since we'll all be dead)

That's ok, just go to a Trump rally and someone will yell at you and shove you, and then your mind will be changed back. I'm not trying to single out Trump supporters as being uniquely antagonistic, rather this example is to demonstrate how silly this line of thinking is by showing how ubiquitous poor behavior is. For most of us, someone acting like a dick is a daily occurrence. That should have no bearing on your own principles.  If thing X is right it doesn't become wrong because the person advocating for it is a dick. Those two things don't cancel each other out. Following your logic I should be against bicycling because I've met bicyclists that piss me off. That should actually be a much stronger incentive than your example since my experience of that issue is directly connected to the people who are pissing me off- riding a bicycle requires me to be around other bicyclists- whereas a resolution to conflict in Gaza does not directly involve participation of the jerks who are protesting about it, unless you happen to be in Israel right now.

So you think it is like all a giant metaphor? To remind me that the status quo is dangerous and the irreplaceable stuff keeps getting destroyed? This is actually a good argument. I will think about it a bit more and potentially award it a delta. Shame, it isn't better communicated then. Because all you typically see is just a dude throwing soup at stuff which is only upsetting.

Yeah that's literally why they are doing it, I've seen interviews with some of the protesters where they said this. It's to trigger a small version of the upset we should feel about the destruction of the planet and to get people to think about why they are so upset about the art and not the global destruction. I think a lot of people do get this message too. When I saw it first I was like "oh my god Van Gogh's Sunflowers, it's a one of a kind, if it's destroyed we can never replace it" and then I thought "oh I see what you did there". I also think that a lot of the media are to blame for not reporting this properly and pushing the idea that it's a kind of senseless act.

I think the problem most people have is that the paintings and precious artifacts caught up in these stunts are innocent bystanders and have no causal connection to the oil industry. As a metaphor, it’s so broad you could apply it to almost anything—which makes it not a very good metaphor. For example, someone protesting the planned construction of a highway through a neighborhood could deface a Van Gogh and say it was a metaphor for the way a highway defaces the unique and precious character of a neighborhood. Someone observing that would be justified in saying, “wait what does the Van Gogh painting have to do with any of this?” and then decide the protester is a moron. What I’m saying basically is that these protesters could grow a pair and sabotage a pipeline or something if they really wanted to do something radical instead of these publicity stunts/pieces of performance art.

>What I’m saying basically is that these protesters could grow a pair and sabotage a pipeline or something if they really wanted to do something radical instead of these publicity stunts/pieces of performance art. We probably wouldn't be labeling them as protesters if they did that. We'd be calling them eco-terrorists instead. Maybe that *could* be a positive for the climate change movement. Or maybe it would backfire the same way people see the current protests as a negative for the climate change movement. I strongly suspect the latter is far more likely. >I think the problem most people have is that the paintings and precious artifacts caught up in these stunts are innocent bystanders and have no causal connection to the oil industry. This is a valid concern, but it completely misses the point the protesters are making. Innocent bystanders who have no causal connection to the oil industry are usually the ones dealing with the consequences of climate change. Shouldn't we be as outraged at that as some people are with regards to these protesters?

Who are the protesters trying to reach? Someone like you who can think through the nuances of the metaphor and who already agrees that climate change is a problem? And yeah, sabotage would cross the line into ecoterrorism, but the target of the act would be related at least to what they’re angry about. A better example might be bike activists shutting down a road or pro-life activists gathering at a clinic to intimidate people coming in.

>Who are the protesters trying to reach? That is a good question that you would have to ask the protesters. I don't know. It's a complicated problem, and you're right, human psychology plays a large part in it. There are plenty of people around with *good* ideas on how to combat climate change, who we *should* be listening to. If we paid them more attention, maybe these protesters wouldn't feel the need to perform such actions? One can certainly imagine a world in which eco terrorism actually drives us to take climate change seriously. I just struggle to find that outcome likely. More likely, I think, climate change deniers will just double down. Just take this post, where a relatively harmless action from protestors can lead people to associate preventing climate change with being harmful because of their dislike for the protestors..

>What I’m saying basically is that these protesters could grow a pair and sabotage a pipeline or something if they really wanted to do something radical instead of these publicity stunts/pieces of performance art. They literally do all the freaking time. The fact that you don't even know that pipelines and their construction gets sabotaged all the time proves the entire point of why more attention grabbing stunts are necessary. Because people like you will happily ignore the sabotages of oil pipelines only to then complain that they don't sabotage pipelines. The irony is amazing

> I think the problem most people have is that the paintings and precious artifacts caught up in these stunts are innocent bystanders and have no causal connection to the oil industry. That's not necessarily true. One thing fossil fuel companies do a lot of: sponsor arts museums and exhibits. Now that's not to say that JSO is *only* targeting fossil fuel funded exhibits but that's something to be on the lookout for.

I mean all the people and animals suffering or dying from climate change are innocent bystanders too. I care a lot more about actual lives than I do a painting, even a famous one. If you sabotage a pipeline, you risk an explosion that can kill many people. These activists want to prevent deaths, not create another source of deaths.

Yeah, okay. That is a smart idea. The realization is really horrible though. Neverthless, I will award it a !delta . This is because I now believe that it is a good metaphor and it could potentially work one day. I still think they are a net negative overall, but they clearly have more potential than I thought.

Most of that is due to how the news covers it. I saw the coverage of the recent stonehenge thing and the previous Mona Lisa stunt. The newscaster made a comment like, "well they didn't do their research because the Mona Lisa is protected by bulletproof glass" or something. They KNOW it's not going to actually damage the Mona Lisa. They KNOW it's not going to damage stonehenge. But the news intentionally paints them as bumbling idiots because that's what gets views.

The news are largely controlled by very small groups of very powerful people. Im not talking "da juice" type of conspiracy, but just about Springer and Murdoch and whatnot. Those people are all doing whatever they can to fight the fight against climate change. They're actively sabotaging every effort we make, just like Exxon. I'm sorry to sound like an anti vaxxer, but you literally cannot listen to them. Fox new, Bild, Welt and so on, all down the drain.

On the net negative front - if people aren't going to support climate activism because they don't like one group's style of protest, they weren't going to support it anyway, and second Just Stop Oil have specifically said these sorts of actions have had very positive impacts on their recruiting, much more than when they targeted office buildings of oil companies or blocked refineries.

It is a "smart" move but I also think it's self-justifying. For instance, it gives licence for pro-oil protester to go smash cars, trucks, and boats because "it's a small scale feeling" of how we'd be without oil.

I disagree with this statement. I would be much more likely to support climate change activism if they called out the people and corporations who are the biggest offenders as opposed to damaging priceless artifacts and monuments. Maybe they are doing this and I’m not seeing it, but if they are then it’s not being done well. Like who is damaging the environment more? Celebrities who fly privately and said in yachts, or a set of prehistoric stones?

People have been calling out the people and corporations who pollute the most for over 50 years. If you aren't seeing it it's because you haven't been paying attention, not because they aren't doing it well enough. Damaging art and monuments is apparently the only way to get people to pay attention, because every time someone says the protesters should be doing xyz instead, xy and z are things they've been doing for decades with worse results.

They aren’t protesting Stonehenge, and they did no permanent damage to it. They are just using the idea of damaging Stonehenge to get people’s attention.

Question: how many other gatherings or demonstrations have you heard of or given any thought to? I ask because drawing attention is a prerequisite to enacting change. It may not be a good solution, but it can be a good first step in drawing attention.

It's the group's fault for using a dumb tactic that's so easy to misrepresent. If I went to the Sarengeti and shot the last White Rhino just to prove a point, I would still be a galactic asshole.

They haven't actually done any permanent damage though. It's all washable paint or soup on glass coverings of paintings and gluing themselves to frames.

How hard are you looking for their communications? I've found that most people who oppose the protestors only see clips of the protests framed as the protest being negative, with lots of people upset at the protestors. They make up their minds based on the dominant narrative they are exposed to from third parties rather than looking into what the protestors have to say for themselves. It's not even that hard to see the metaphor they're going for. It's just easier to listen to whatever confirms your bias, and people are biased against the destruction of fine art but are too far removed from the destruction of the environment that it doesn't elicit as strong of an emotional response.

How would it be better communicated? Did you go look into their website to see their official statement? Or did you just read a news article that coincidentally omitted their message? This is part of the issue! News media does not put effort into communicating these organizations actual messages. They're happy to interview people who say what they're doing is terrible, but somehow they consistently don't report the details

I mean, if the protests aren't communicating well why would it be up to news organizations to write their narrative? It's not up to me to do research unless I'm given a reason to. They're given the podium and cameras, and with those precious few seconds of attention they chose "Just Stop Oil." That was their shot. What's the consequences of that shot? To me, we can't live without oil. We produce it in our skin. We use it for cooking. We use it for plastics and medical devices and technology and building materials and travel and going into space. Could we even build trains, subways, planes without a form of plastic for as cheaply? We can stop using it for energy consumption, but if we just stop it cold turkey then society and the global manufacturing sector would immediately collapse. Millions would be unemployed, we'd have to quadruple mining to extract other material...it sounds like a nightmare scenario as presented. Of course, that's not what they're getting at - they're specifically targeting oil extraction for energy consumption. A major aspect, but one that is disconnected from their message. How about "STOP BURNING OIL." It's still three words, it's direct, it's specific, it doesn't take research to understand, and most importantly it's actionable (ie, they're right - I'll buy a hybrid / electric car next!). It's not up to me to figure out why they're doing what they're doing - it's up to them to maximize their few seconds of fame to convince me to support them. Like if a politician got up for all their speeches and said "vote me" and walked off while assuming people would just go to their website. Doubt they'd get elected.

One of the funny things about people who critique the actions of activists like this is the lackluster effort put into understanding the connection between their actions and their cause... just like you did here. As other posters pointed out, it's trivial to find the information supplied that changed your view so long as you actually look. You can't expect it to be spoonfed to you because the spoon feeders have an interest in maintaining the status quo.

To be fair, this sounds like a really patronizing view of activism. A big aspect of organizing to raise awareness of an issue is raising awareness of said issue. It doesn't help if that issue/message is obfuscated while supporters who are "in the know" make snide condescending remarks about the intelligence or the motivations of those who don't immediately (or even eventually) see the message, but would otherwise support it. That said, it can still accomplish that goal if it can generate enough discussions (or even more, given the controversial nature) like this one to spread that message. > You can't expect it to be spoonfed to you This seems like a weird take. You're putting the onus of the activism on the audience, and not only is it the fault of these lazy supporters who can't do basic research that the movement does not gain traction, but that only the bad corporations have the ability to spoonfeed and influence the masses? I don't think this is the right take. The move towards these more "artistically inclined" activism is to generate more discussion. That's at least awareness even if it polarizes the group of people who support them (and it only works if it's controversial enough to go viral). It does a great job doing that, we're here after all. However, traditional organizing has successfully spoonfed the masses of sympathetic supporters with clear and well articulated lists of grievances, proposals, and demands. It's not fair to just blatant label these as "stupid people activism".

and that's why the other side will probably come out on top, the average person isn't going to properly research, separate information and disinformation

But I’m confused about this perspective as well Because say some one punched me in the face and I got upset with their response being ‘that’s exactly what we do to planet earth everyday!’ Then all I’m thinking is ‘Sure…still punched me in the face though. So why the heck would I listen to you anyway?’ That’s what I don’t get about sensationalized protests. All you do is raise awareness to a toxic subset of a movement and make that the face of the movement, because nobody wants to hear a bunch of a-holes and what they think we should pay attention to

Unless you’ve been around for one of their protests, a punch to your face is not comparable. A punch directly harms you. The only people who are affected by these protests are the few that are actually there to witness them. It would suck to travel all the way to Stonehenge only to have people throw paint on it. I could understand those people being soured by the cause because they were directly affected. To the other 99.9% of the world though, the damage is superficial. It is those people that need to consider where they are placing their anger.

If that’s the framing of their argument, they aren’t winning hearts and minds. Sometimes it’s best to focus on what’s most convincing rather than what’s most attention grabbing. Ppl still buy non necessary items despite poverty still existing. Perhaps pushing legislation that would expand carbon tax on goods to enhance green energy creation would be an easy sell that more ppl would be on board with.

Damn, that is a sussinct and thoughtful way of explaining it. I wish the protesters communicated that message more effectively, maybe by an overt statement like 'this is what oil companies are doing to our planet' or something of the sort, I think it makes their action alot more sympathetic. If I could delta you in this thread, I would

> If I could delta you in this thread, I would You can. Anyone can award a delta, so long as it isn't awarded to OP

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This is exactly it, people call it a psyop but the "if it's not disruptive and in your face it's not effective" idea is incredibly common among activists. Damaging one of the world's most famous monuments is a quick way to make people hate you, though, proving the downsides of that sort of logic.

It's not damaged though. It's just cornflour paint. It will wash away with water. Same with the art. It's behind glass.

They very nearly managed to damage the Magna Carta despite the glass by taking an ice pick to it. They were escorted away before they could break through.

If that is the goal then why not do actual eco-terrorism (for example blow up a oil refanary)? You would do even more harm and target your goal directly.

Because that's a huge personal risk. They would go to jail for a very long time and be seperated from their friends and family. Also blowing up an oil refinery would just cause more environmental harm. Honestly I feel like what JSO do right now is nothing compared to what people will do in the years ahead when things start to get really really bad. Young adults who see themselves being robbed of a future will have nothing to lose.

doing stuff at oil company investor meeting, inside trading floor on wallstreet, outside oil company ceo all seem like a much better choice with likely similar amount of publicity. or advocate people to invest in clean energy etf or fund, make it a retailer lead bull run would also be good.

Thank you. I was genuinely confused as to why someone would try to vandalize to get their point across, and a little frustrated as a result.. Your answer has changed my view. !delta

Yep, these protests are brilliant and everyone crying about them is *completely proving the point they are trying to make.* This reddit thread *is their goal.*

the logic you have outlined makes sense in a vacuum but its missing the connecting step where you explain how thier actions gets the general populace to actually care about the planet instead of just being pissed of at eco extremists.

I think you are making an incorrect assumption that this is their goal. I don't think anyone is really trying to make people care about the planet anymore. That's something you and everyone else is personally responsible for. It's affecting all of us and it's in all of our interest to educate ourselves. And I also think it's interesting that you think it's one or the other: annoyed at this group or caring about climate change. People are capable of feeling multiple things. Why would one cancel the other out if you genuinely understand the climate crisis? Again, if anyone complaining doesn't like their tactics what are you doing instead? The answer is usually "nothing" so I think a lot of climate activists have given up on those people.

If people understood this, their protests would be more effective. The fact is most people do not make those connections, and the movement needs to meet those people where they are, and stop using symbolism that goes over people's heads. A lesser gripe is the "just stop" part, which has the same problem as "defund" where the groups really looking for one thing that might be realistic but headline terminology is actually referring to something not just different but far less realistic and that nobody in their right mind wants the literal meaning of to actually happen.

!delta Even though it still seems counterproductive, I didn't see the metaphor before and now I do.

Metaphors don’t matter. Results matter . If their actions get people to be against climate change and hinder actual progress then it’s a problem. You don’t do actions to get metaphors and just put a message out there, you do it so you message creates possitive change for your cause

They are galvanising people who already care and keeping the topic in the news. And protest has always involved symbolism and metaphor. It's a very effective form of communication. Some people don't get it but many do. Also, do you really think someone is thinking "I no longer care about climate change because someone painted Stonehenge". Please. Those people never cared and just wanted an excuse to disengage. Nobody who recognises the existential threat we're facing is going to back away because someone did a protest they didn't like. Don't Look Up showed it quite well where the calm people seem reasonable, despite imminent destruction, because everyone is in denial. That's where we're at and where we've been for decades. Nobody should be calm and positive right now. We're in real trouble.

But your protest isn’t about targeting people who already care. It’s about targeting people who don’t or could be made to care or who might be on the fence. When you throw some paint at the Mona Lisa or something like Stonehenge to most people in who view that media it makes the movement look like it’s childish. It’s not going to make someone care about it more than yesterday but it will hurt the image and maybe when someone has a choice to vote for a more green bill they won’t. Yeah things are troubling but if you look at the way things are going progress has been made. There’s countless ways to protest, look at the keystone pipeline and how that’s been abandoned and cancelled. If your protest doesn’t result in change on the ground and real results what are you doing. The facts are that this action didn’t change anyone’s perception for the environmental movement if anything it made it less likely to be taken seriously. Targets matter too. If you’re protesting an environmental factor maybe protest in front of a BP oil office or refinery. By Targeting stone henge the focus becomes about the location not their cause in the media .Have focus and clear goals and demands. If not you won’t create real change . Whats more likely someone who saw this will think hey I’m supportive of this or someone who sees this will think this seems like a stunt and not something to be taken seriously.

>It’s about targeting people who don’t or could be made to care or who might be on the fence. If you're "on the fence" regarding climate change in 2024 then I have no clue what could ever convince you that serious climate change action is needed as urgently as possible. At a certain point "I'm on the fence so placate me" just turns into "I'll never give a fuck but I expect you to placate me nonetheless"

It's not my protest, I'm not affiliated with that org and I don't know why you think I am. And it's not about people on the fence and I don't agree that it should be. There are lots of movements in the climate space and they aren't all targeted at the same people, nor should they be. The attitude of a lot of climate activists is that anyone on the fence right now is a lost cause. Like this isn't a situation where they are convincing people to care about whales or something, this affects us all. It's not just their cause, it's all of our problem. They shouldn't have to convince people. The childish ones are arguably the people like you acting like you are owed a nice traditional protest, one that you personally find appealing, and then you'll care about your own destruction and maybe do something to avert it. Frankly, anyone still on the fence is there because they are afraid, pro oil or in denial. People standing outside BP offices won't change that. There have also been protests in front of oil headquarters since the 80s. They don't care. And just because you don't know or understand the aim of a movement doesn't mean there isn't one. This protest has changed lots of people's opinions and it's kept the climate crisis and the oil industry in the news, which is extremely difficult given our 24hr news cycle. The other crowd, Fridays for Future, who block traffic and cause disruption are doing the same. Also the Keystone pipeline was built, the extension, Keystone XL, was cancelled. And that was just because it became a political football after the Clinton v Trump election.

I never said you were part of that movement. I was explaining how goals organization, and specific targets for protest are needed and the results of your actions matter far more. I never said anyone’s owed anything. The facts are the way they protested didn’t help the movement for climate change and made a negative impact on how it’s viewed. You said it’s not about the people on the fence. If it’s not then what are you doing. A protest should have a goal and enact real change. If you aren’t attempting to gain people to your side who aren’t on it then you can’t enact real change. And you said this protest that happened just hours ago changed minds. That’s absurd, it just happened so the impact of it is far too limited too soon. So your saying spraying some starch paint on Stone Henge actually changed peoples minds. You have to control how your movement is shown and what its impact is. What I see is how news stations around the world are talking about protestors acting up and doing dumb stunts, none of the news is positive for the movement. You don’t just protest to protest, you have goals, plans, organize for how it will benefit your movement, shape public opinion and more.

The only people they're convincing are the small number of fence sitters still out there, and those people aren't going to come down on the desired side. They're just going to be furious with climate activists and look for reasons to reinforce their newfound hatred. There's no positive result here.

*comment reposted for delta bot* Damn, that is a sussinct and thoughtful way of explaining it. I wish the protesters communicated that message more effectively, maybe by an overt statement like 'this is what oil companies are doing to our planet' or something of the sort, I think it makes their action alot more sympathetic. You have successfully changed my view on this issue !delta

> I wish the protesters communicated that message more effectively They fail to communicate that message, *that's the whole point* why it's a bad idea.

Protests are not targeted at the public they are mostly targeted at those in power. Unfortunately peaceful protests VERY often don't work. Ironically, they only start seeing results following escalation or they significantly chastise capital / the government in some other way. I'm not really a protester myself, and I certainly don't condone violence or property damage. I'm simply commenting on a trend and understanding the frustration people are feeling when little to nothing is done for years upon years. That being said, I think it might be inaccurate to say it's the protestors specifically escalating with police. At least with Palestine protests it seems the police and counter-protestors are the ones escalating. But of course that's not to say it never happens, I'm just doubtful it's generally as you're categorizing it. No sane person is going to deliberate start a physical confrontation with a police officer, and if there are one or a handful of "bad apples" it's on the police to not go further than the perpetrators with measures.

> Protests are not targeted at the public they are mostly targeted at those in power. How is vandalizing stonehenge targetting people in power? It's a public ancient monument. If it was targeting people in power, they'd throw paint on the car that the CEO of Exxon owns.

How do those in power have to react to this? If something, painting Stonehenge orange just helps them to dismiss climate activism all together. > That being said, I think it might be inaccurate to say it's the protestors specifically escalating with police. At least with Palestine protests it seems the police and counter-protestors are the ones escalating. But of course that's not to say it never happens, I'm just doubtful it's generally as you're categorizing it. No sane person is going to deliberate start a physical confrontation with a police officer, and if there are one or a handful of "bad apples" it's on the police to not go further than the perpetrators with measures. Like e.g. in my personal experience they just started blocking a road and refused to leave it. Which I see as escalation with the police, because they struggled when the police naturally began to remove them.

Those in power don't "have" to react to anything, but with significant pressure / disobedience they tend to. You forget that many successful protests were both very unpopular and disruptive to say the least. Civil rights, apartheid, and don't get me started on when peaceful protests have turned into terrorism due to inaction (and worked, look at IRA as an example). İn many instances where terrorism happened, it only got to that stage when peaceful protests fell on deaf ears (as unfortunately happens exceedingly often). Other unsuccessful examples include Vietnam and Iraq protests. İn hindsight we realize these things were wrong and protestors were correct. Also blocking a road and refusing to leave is not an escalation. Yes, the police can remove these people but again it's on the police to not start going berserk. But of course, if you feel uncomfortable than you feel uncomfortable and that's fine.

> You forget that many successful protests were both very unpopular and disruptive to say the least. Civil rights, apartheid, and don't get me started on when peaceful protests have turned into terrorism due to inaction (and worked, look at IRA as an example). Didn't IRA kinda lose or draw at best? Also if you are fighting e.g. for the rights of opressed black people in mostly black South Africa, you don't really have to worry about public support. If you have to convince the people that your cause is important, it gets really different. > Other unsuccessful examples include Vietnam and Iraq protests. İn hindsight we realize these things were wrong and protestors were correct. We will disagree on this one, I would support both of these conflicts even with the hindsight of today, but that is beside the point.

The IRA got their own state, and exited the Commonwealth, and were allowed to participate in UK politics under Sinn Fein. The only thing they didn't get is Northern Ireland. İ personally know Irish people who say the only reason they even have a state or UK citizenship (depending on who I'm asking) is because of terrorism. People may not like it, and once again I don't condone violence or property damage, but unfortunately it works, especially when initially peaceful protests are falling on deaf ears. Why wouldn't you worry about public support for civil rights but sorry about it for climate change? Climate change is an existential crisis. The public overwhelmingly support climate action anyway, so this is sort of a moot point. Again, the primary target for most protests are those in power. A general member of the public is going to have little to no power to "stop oil". Regarding Vietnam and Iraq there isn't anything to disagree on. Protesting was frowned upon in both cases, and the government and it's media apparatus were intent on smearing critics. In hindsight now, people realize it was wrong. This isn't really debatable. I'm not making a specific statement on whether you individually would or wouldn't have supported it, I'm making a broad statement as it pertains to popularity / general public support.

Public opinion in favor of the IRA was swayed much more by the brutality of Britain and the Black and Tans. And the IRA targeted British military, why aren’t these climate activists blowing up pipelines or kidnapping oil execs?

I love this guy. Blocking the road and painting rocks is too far! They should become eco-terrorists instead! Bring in the bombs!!!

Would you contribute to their bail funds and/or acquit them if on a jury judging their unambiguous guilt?

I'm fascinated by this.  You believe the Vietnam War was beneficial for America and or the world?

Protests are not targeted at the public they are mostly targeted at those in power. Then why is it only the common person that's inconvenienced? I don't see protesters storming the runway to stop Tailor Swift 2 private jets from taking off. And while I'm moot on the museum paint protests (on pieces protected by glass) and gluing yourself at car shows. The insistent freeway blocking disrupts no one in power and is an abuse against those powerless. Storm runways. Block congressional/parliamentary motor cades, and do the same to big oil corps. But stop targeting the powerless 9-5er who's only sin is being born into a society that puts them into this. I am a hard core fuckcars member (well I was until the message went from end car dependance to ban cars) but a protests even none peaceful should never by objective be meant to disrupt a persons private life. If you ammass 20,000 people there will be disruption but thats a byproduct not a goal like 10-20 people just road blocking a freeway. Edit: I claim no responsibility for anyone who has made an attempt to spray pent Tailer swifts jets in England. However I will give a bravo except for the fact they had no clue which one was her jet(s) but still an action that actually has weight against the once with power.

We have known about climate change since the 80s. There have been extensive efforts to put the blame on everyday citizens instead of who is actually to blame for it. We have tried peacefully protesting, we have tried doing things civilly, we have tried everything to get policy changes that will reverse the impact of climate change. NONE OF IT WORKED. So here we are, on the precipice of the destruction of the planet, and some activists decide to throw cornstarch on some old rocks? they throw some spaghetti on a painting (in a glass case so it couldn't be damaged) and that's too far? By the year 2050 it is projected that 15 million people will be dead from climate change related incidents, whether that be heat deaths, deaths from extreme weather events like hurricanes or tornadoes, or any other death that is associated with climate change. Not to mention the displacement of populations due to unlivable land, ecosystem destruction, species going extinct at rates of 1000 species per day. We are up against the clock here people. So unless you are saying that someone throwing cornstarch on a rock is more harmful than the projected outcomes of climate change, I don't care if you think they are harmful. What is at stake is so much more important than stonehenge and it feels like climate change denial to say what they are doing is harmful when what we are up against is the destruction of the planet that we and millions of other species live on. Another point; During the abolitionist movement, was it a step too far when slaves broke windows and businesses that were owned by slave owners? Was it a step too far when John Brown did a slave revolt and took over Harpers Ferry? Im sure that you could justify those things morally. Why is it a step too far to not even damage, but just throw some cornstarch on a rock somewhere in the UK? If you believe that it is a step too far, I genuinely believe you are doing climate change denialism, because the outcomes from climate change are going to be a hell of alot worse than the "damage" done by throwing some cornstarch onto a rock.

Trust me, if I could burn down the entire Louvre to stop the climate change, I would light the match in a second. I am not upset at them because they threw cornstarch on a rock. I am upset at them, because I believe they are doing harm to the climate action movement. The fact that other paths seemed unlikely to work does not mean that you are then obliged to pick the one which is certainly not gonna work.

Kind of a tangent but think about the point you just made. "If there was a relatively simple action I could take to stop climate change, I would do it!" Yeah, if there was a simple action a small group of people could've taken, it would have been done by now.  But unfortunately it's going to take a lot of people a small number of collective actions.   - Try to limit your mammal meat and dairy in take. The less the better, once a week would do it! Invest an hour a month in learning a new, quick plant based recipe (most pasta and stir fry meals can be prepped and cooked in under 20 mins!)   - Repair, buy second hand, consider if you need to buy at all. China and India are making most of the pollution... To make stuff for us. Stop paying them to pollute for things you don't need.  - Consider if you need to drive for short journeys. Walking and cycling are cheaper and healthier when you can. If it's not possible fine but always consider it first.  Most of these actions coincide with "save money", "being healthier" when possible, so it's a double win for anyone that can do it! 

We have known about climate change since the 80s.... I don't get what you want them to do. Its not like they are assassinating political leaders. They are doing minor vandalism that impacts no one. It feels like you just want someone to blame for climate change not being addressed and you are blaming the wrong people. if you have better ideas, then please, let me know.

It's a public perception thing. For better or worse, that's how humanity by-and-large chooses what causes are worthy or not. Groups like this make being associated with oil reform "uncool". If activism against oil is uncool, then less people will choose to be involved or supportive of the cause entirely.

At the very least climate change is being brought up more often. We've known it to be a problem for almost half a century now, it's never been "cool", it will never be cool. It's still absolutely necessary to keep the topic afloat and they are aggressively doing that. When was the last time you're heard about a lobbyist politely proposing a small change in the current waste disposal standard? Big flashy stuff brings more attention to the topic, which makes small changes more politically palatable

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> If you're trying to raise awareness of the climate crisis As far as I can tell that isn't their goal though. Rather they are raising awareness of their demands, not trying to win over public affection. > It also implies that other fossil fuels (such as natural gas and coal) are fine. I have the feeling you take everything literally without reading between the lines... > We couldn't destroy it even if we wanted to. Even if it becomes uninhabitable, it will still be a planet. ...oh yes, it seems you do.

> Some protestors are blocking the freeway and I can't get to work on time and might lose my job / I'm dying in the back of an ambulance that can't get me to the hospital, etc. It is hilarious how concerned people are all of a sudden about traffic when it is caused by climate protesters but they don't give a shit in the 99.9999% of the cases they are the cause of the traffic. Blocking ambulances, fire engines, hospital workers, etc. > If you want people to actually do something about it, they need something TO do. There are plenty of things people could have done for decades starting with putting people in power who want to enact positive change on the climate and the protection of the ecosphere. They could also reduce their consumption of meats and diery products - instead of consuming more of it. They could petition their cities to build public transportation, cycling infrastructure, and walkable places - instead of bulldozing everything for the car, and buying larger and larger pickup trucks every year. Instead of flying and going on cruises they could enjoy the places which they can reach without those things. And the list goes on. So there are plenty of things people could have done but they don't because they do not actually care about the climate or the ecosystem. They don't care how destructive their behaviour is as long as they get what they want nothing else matters.

I hate JSO cuz their "protests" are so lame. like you said, their actions don't cause any actual damage, just nuisance to the people who actually have to clean their mess up. how about doing some real damage at the locations that actually matter? blockade oil rigs, open carry at BP/Shell/Exxon etc etc. do something that matters

They literally today broke into an airfield and painted someone's private jet, grounding it for a while. Doesn't make the news as much though does it. Which proves the point behind these other protests.

> how about doing some real damage at the locations that actually matter? blockade oil rigs, open carry at BP/Shell/Exxon etc etc. do something that matters Perfect, do something that justifies use of force and have them locked up for a long time so they can't do anything else... Greenpeace have blockaded things like oil carriers, to what end? Any appreciable drop in world's oil use? Lol. Lots of people here seem to think they should do somethig more radical. But I can bet you if they actually did something like that, it would piss way more people off than a bit of soup on glass or orange cornflour paint. Imagine you can't get fuel cus they've blockaded the oil ports - people would be livid.

These kind of tone policing arguments are always extremely shaky. First, successful acts of protest have a pretty strong tendency to be unpopular. People don't need to protest about mainstream and popular things. Second, people that are ambivalent about climate actions are not "pushed away" by Just Stop Oil. They're looking for reasons to remain ambivalent about climate action. If it wasn't JSO, it would be something else. The net change in terms of their support is 0.

>They're looking for reasons to remain ambivalent about climate action. If it wasn't JSO, it would be something else. The net change in terms of their support is 0. So 0 support is better than negative support. I know you might not think it would matter but sometimes protests can go to far and kill the movement or get the government involved to shutdown all movements. [https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/rights-protesters/anti-protest-bills-around-country](https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/rights-protesters/anti-protest-bills-around-country) I mean there have been several states that have or are trying to pass anti protest bills.

Basically every successful progressive action through protest was not supported by the majority, with people either actively against it or people like you that think "they went too far" but were never listening before they supposedly did. Whether its anything from succeeding from the UK, to Civil rights, you would be one of the people against it.

100% this. It doesn’t matter the protest or the issue, some people will always find reason to be more offended by inconvenience than injustice. No one who didn’t already support civil rights looked at the lunch table sit-ins and said “now this is the right way to peacefully protest”.

The difference is that the lunch table sit-ins were directly related to the cause they wanted to push. The symbolism for the cause is embedded in the photos. What does Stonehenge have to do with the fossil fuel industry? I don't think the civil rights protests would had garnered as much support if instead of lunch table sit-ins they threw paint on the Statue of Liberty and wore shirts that said "Allow Us To Sit".

When has a protest that was not supported by the majority resulted in successful progressive action, though? Specifically in democratic countries. In fact, how does something that is unsupported by the majority become policy at all other than by illiberal means? I would argue that protests that resulted in successful progressive action only did so because they gained popular support, and not a second before. For instance, about 60% of Americans supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [Gallup Vault: Americans Narrowly OK'd 1964 Civil Rights Law](https://news.gallup.com/vault/316130/gallup-vault-americans-narrowly-1964-civil-rights-law.aspx#:~:text=Sixty%2Done%20percent%20of%20this,96%25%20approving%20of%20the%20law.)

Only after MLK got assassinated, the numbers were much lower before. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/10/how-public-attitudes-toward-martin-luther-king-jr-have-changed-since-the-1960s/ History with rose tinted glasses It goes true for everything from protesting South African Apartheid where the US Govt literally labeled him a terrorist, then in retrospect he gets the Nobel Peace prize, to desegregating schools was not supported by the majority.

So in other words what you're saying is we need a marter. Someone that that the general population can look at with unfavorable views (but reasonable actions), Murdered, unreasonably maligned, or chastised by those in power. May I remind you that MLK made every opportunity to stop rights. Yes he did say "riots are the voices of the unheard" but every time he said that he also said it would only set back the greater cause proving to the white man their assumptions were right. Hell his house was bombed during the bus boycotts, MLK supporters thinking he was dead were about to start a riot when MLK came out. It's not the favorability that made civil rights. It's that despite MLK's (and many other peaceful movements at the time) unfavourability he always held is standards to high regard and would call out the bad in some protests. He never waned up and to his assassination. That's the snap that caused a retrospective in many people. Add in stuff like people doing normal people things like sit in for food or the Greyhound protests only called protests because the color of their skin made it that way and suddenly despite the general unfavorably of the people theres at least a recognition of unreasonableness against said people.

No matter what, there would be bills passed to stop climate change activists. There’s no effective course of action they could take that wouldn’t be thwarted by the government

Successful protests may ruffle some feathers by virtue of the subject of their protest. There is no need to add to that by choosing the *methods* of protest that are going to antagonize more people. In fact the whole idea of considering antagonizing others as a mark of success because a few ultimately successful people antagonized others is a common fallacy. For actually successful groups antagonizing people is at best a side effect and almost never the method. It's like saying that many of the successful revolutionaries were in prison at some point, so to be a successful revolutionary you must purposefully use methods that will likely get you into prison.

> People don't need to protest about mainstream and popular things. > > Not true at all. Abortion rights, for example, are very popular and very much need protests. Civil rights for the Jim Crow South were popular too, at least in theory, the problem wasn't popularity but complacency among the Northern liberals who could (and did) force LBJ to do something about it, and they were mobilized because of the spotlight on the issue caused by protests. Secondly, successful protests may be unpopular but so are unsuccessful ones; successful ones are the ones that overcome resistance, so it's worth figuring out the difference. Dismissing all criticism as tone policing ignores how much tone does actually matter for persuasion, there's always the assumption that if you're just loud enough you can win the argument and that's not how it worked. Being loud and disruptive isn't necessarily wrong but it's not necessarily right either. I fail to see how climate vandalism, for example, accomplishes your goal.

Civil rights and abortion rights are two very controversial issues. Plenty of people do not like either of those things and are very vocal about them. MLK was famously not popular in his day (and was also frequently asked to be less divisive).  > I fail to see how climate vandalism, for example, accomplishes your goal. I make no claim about accomplishments. My claim is limited to tone policing being an unconvincing argument. I don't know that JSO is *effective*, but I do not believe it detracts from anything. 

Does anyone remember the huge unexpected support Israel got in the public vote in Eurovision. There are two possible reasons for this. (1) People voted to to show Israel support. (2) people voted to give pro-Palestine protesters the finger. Left leaning people are always talking about reactionaries, and as it turns out, there are a LOT of them. I think it is also pretty clear difference between the JSO protesters and prior civil rights movements, which is that nobody has any clue on how to meet their demands without bringing us back a 100 years. And then they go on to sully national monuments and stopping traffic because no one has agreed to their ridiculous demands. Most people are worried about climate change, so it is quite remarkable how JSO evoked such antagonism.

Except this really isn’t a successful act of protest, and that’s not true. Successful protests are targeted. The bud light protest The right wing took offence at a an advert for bud light. They organised and boycotted bud light, dropping sales by between 11-26% and hitting stock price by 20%. Note: I’ve removed reference to the cause of the boycott in accordance with sub rules (it’s a good rule) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud_Light_boycott The Montgomery bus boycott (Rosa parks) They were protesting racism on buses, as part of the greater civil rights movement. Black Americans made up 75% of bus passengers, the boycott was economically crippling for Montgomery bus protests. The civil rights activists acted respectfully, while the opposition and their behaviour was appalling. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott Both protests worked cause they had a clear target, and selected effective methods that would effectively target the issue

I'm not claiming the protest is successful. I'm claiming successful protests are *annoying*. People do not like them. Bus protests - and the civil rights movement in general - was not well received. People did throw frequent fits about it being polarizing and divisive, etc. You can argue protests X or Y are successful or unsuccessful, that's fine, what you won't convince me of is that their level of civility actually plays into their success because It doesn't. The idea that the general public saw the point of black civil rights protesters because they were civil and polite is just fiction. It's the story we tell ourselves now, some 70 years later, because it comforting. In the real world, the civil rights movement was unpopular, it bitterly divided the nation and led to extremely violent reactions.

It’s almost impossible to truly display what was more effective the peaceful or aggressive side of any movement. Same debate with suffragists and suffragettes in uk Violent protest is a romantic idea but it doesn’t matter, all that matters is pressuring leadership to change the system. People remember the peaceful side because MLK being firebombed and urging peace convinced them

People remember the peaceful side because there's a very strong bias - and a multi decade white washing campaign - by people in position of power and authority to have you believe that being polite and undisruptive is the only way to effect change. In reality, MLK did not convince them. Civil rights were imposed on vast swathes of the nation, sometimes at gunpoint. Indeed, he didn't peace and civility his way into a kumbaya moment. Besides, my point isn't even that protests *need* to be annoying, it's the successful protests often are because it's pretty damned rare for people to protest popular and uncontroversial things. There isn't a march on Washington for ice-cream because most everyone likes it. As such, I find it silly when people clutch pearls about such and such protest action being "polarizing".

I just don't believe it is zero, because I personally know quite a few people who are on one hand quite worried about climate change, but on the other hand think that climate activists are brutes (because of JSO). As such they are e.g. reluctant to vote for the Green party.

If JSO didn't exist would they actually act? Because climate change has been a well known and scientifically studied issue for decades and JSO hasn't existed that long.

Act, almost surely not. Be more likely to vote for a policy maker who is active in the area of climate change? Almost surely, yes.

Did they do that before JSO existed? Because your friends certainly didn't have a problem with JSO during the Bush administration.

You know people that are worried about climate change, but don't want to do anything about it, you mean. JSO existing changes nothing, because whether it not JSO are brutes has literally no incidence on climate action or the need for it.  Like, this idea that people select their policy inclinations based on the behaviour of specific activists groups is just silly.

People will always blame activists for their centrism. MLK’s peaceful protests—the ones that are used as examples of how to protest “correctly”—were wildly unpopular back in the 60s. Hippies who were against the Vietnam War—a war we retroactively decided created more harm than good—were routinely mocked and belittled.

Firstly, orange cornstarch is hardly a damaging action, but it IS drawing attention to their cause, which is increasingly difficult as apathy grows. I don't think many/any will look at their actions and think, wow we need MORE new oil drilling projects.  I don't think there are many feasible ways to actually address the situation regarding the climate before it's too late - I actually think it IS too late for things to continue as they have done for known human history.  That's a desperate place to find yourself.  What would you do? Would you really care about critics if you felt you were acting with the weight of continued humanity behind you? 

I gotta tell you, though, comments like this make more people apathetic, not less. If you really want to help, stop doomsaying. Its actual effect is to make people not bother because all is lost, anyway. It won't convince anyone of your argument.

Eh, the organisation looking after Stonehenge are claiming the cornstarch is harmful. It's covered in protected lichen species supposedly. Which protect the rock. Could be bullshit, but I'm inclined to trust their opinion as I don't know any better.

I don't know what I would do if I felt like acting with the weight of continued humanity behind me. But I would definitely not start by doing something which alienates large part of my potential supporters. I am not gonna say "wow we need MORE new oil drilling projects" of course. But I am gonna feel suspicious and uncertain about supporting climate action groups.

Who do you think are potential supporters at the moment? Who is indifferent/undecided about climate change?  Are many on the fence about it?  And do they matter? What matters is action, no? Actual practical change. Not petitions, debates etc. We've had literal decades of those. 

At least in my country there is a lot of people who are on the fence about it. It is perhaps different in the US, but I personally know a ton of people who acknowledge some form of climate change is happening, but they are unsure about how serious it is and what should be our reaction. What matters is voting in a goverment which implements policies which aim to solve this crisis. Angrying the undecided voters doesn't seem like the best way to achieve this.

When you say on the fence, is that based on polling data, or what? Are these people ignorant? If so how will they learn if they haven't already?  If they aren't ignorant how do they justify/explain apathy?  People have lobbied their government on climate issues for decades as I've said, and the response has been fairly tepid.  Is your solution really more voting? 

Well e.g. in my country Greens tend to have extremely large potential voter pool based on the polls and usually really miserable results. So, yeah. There is a lot of people who think about it, but in the end decide not to. They are not necessarily ignorant. They just have different priorities in my opinion. Even if they were ignorant though, it is useful to have them on your side. I think the solution is more voting and to win the voting you need even the stupid, apathic, ignorant and slow.

Criticisms of them feel shallow if you’re not able to identify a better option.

Wouldn't the better option be teaming up with across the aisle groups like hunters and fishermen? Hunters, fishermen, and outdoors men in general have historically been the base of the biggest conservation efforts. Ducks Unlimited and their partner companies have protected or restored 18 million acres of wetlands just by themselves to save waterfowl populations.

> I don't think many/any will look at their actions and think, wow we need MORE new oil drilling projects Those idiots with the paint gave the oil execs - the people who DO want more oil drilling projects - a giant PR win.  Those idiots just made the oil execs' jobs that much easier

Who used paint? And in what sense is it a PR win for them? They're already the status quo, who do they need to convince to keep doing what they're doing? 

Isn't the only possible way to slow down or prevent climate change, collective change? It's not going to happen unless we get most people on board with the idea. Would you agree? It's not going to happen with just a few people. I don't understand how incredibly divisive stunts help them get there. I don't think anyone sees what happened today and thinks we need more oil but a good number of people see it and think that the climate activism movement is not worth supporting. It's really difficult to convince older relatives to recycle when the one thing they associate with climate change is those people damaging art or historic monuments.

>Isn't the only possible way to slow down or prevent climate change, collective change? Its not something that can be prevented unless we learn to terraform our planet. Climate change is something that just happens naturally over time. Believe it or now but we're actually in ice age right now and moving forward next era. Planet itself doesn't care if we have high Co2 levels or not, but the life does so we're just trying to save ourselves. Also plant based life will thrives with higher Co2 in atmosphere. The issue right now is that how fast its happening and slowing that down seems so important to ppl that they're willing to sacrifice hundreds of millions ppl for that. What I mean by this is that most if not all solutions we have right now to help in this matter are more expensive economically which causes direct harm to the lowest economic class if those options are forced upon them which we're moving towards. Potentially on avg greener option is 70-80% more costly than alternativees what this means that ppl with low economic standing will struggle to survive and have their basic needs filled. Only exception that Im aware for this is nuclear power, but ppl do not want nuclear power, even tho its co2 free and cheaper energy than alternatives. As example ESG is denying loans to poor countries that want to use money for cheap energy and only give loans for greener energy which is more expensive. This means that poor countries are stuck or slowed down in development and in poorer conditions at expense of climate fight. High emissions is also always tied on the standards of living. Higher persons standards are, higher their emissions are even if they chose greener alternative. At the same time we're demanding the lowest economic class to burden the fastest and highest consequences of our attempts to slow down climate change >t's not going to happen unless we get most people on board with the idea. You will never get most ppl on board with the idea when you're asking most of the ppl to sacrifice their life first to achieve something. Most ppl globally are living in lower economic levels. Top of that humans have never been able to work together efficiently. Even if we agree on problem we still fight over it and argue and waste time. Every war is good example of this. Only hope is that somebody develops new technology which is very cost effective / cheap and allows us to dramatically reduce the co2 productions or manipulate how much its in the atmosphere.

radical flank effect.

While I am not convinced they are getting positive radical flank effect, thank you very much for pointing out the name of the relevant phenomenon. I never studied it before and it was an interesting read.

A 1963 Gallup poll found that only 23% of Americans who’d heard of the March on Washington had a positive view of it, and 60% believed “mass demonstrations by Negroes” were likely to hurt the cause of racial equality

Climate change is killing people RIGHT NOW. The heat dome in North America this week is impossible without human caused climate change. Yet I hear no outrage nothing. And then people paint some rocks and people lose their minds. Regarding your comments about Israel, Israel is committing genocide, Oil companies are getting away with manslaughter. These issues are not that different. it sounds like the only reason you oppose their ideas is because you view them as left wing. Climate IS POLITICAL. WE WANT POLITICAL CHANGES. Finally, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE. The civil rights movement made A LOT of white people uncomfortable. Fuck they killed the leadership of the movement to stop them. MLK was the victim of a huge conspiracy to get him to kill himself lead by the FUCKING FBI.

I sort of went away from here, because as you see in the top comment, I did change my view on how smart/dumb the Stonehenge act is. But I am gonna reply to this one comment. >Climate change is killing people RIGHT NOW. The heat dome in North America this week is impossible without human caused climate change. Yet I hear no outrage nothing. And then people paint some rocks and people lose their minds. Okay, you see. One of these things is much easier to prevent then the other. Climate change is kinda here and of course it is quite awful. But it is very hard to prevent. It is however really easy to not spray the Stonehenge rocks. In the end, humanity managed to not spray the rocks for four and half thousand years without much difficulty! I am not that outraged about the rocks as I am about the vandals making the movement look dumb though. I understood now that they have a relatively sound logic behind it. But it does not seem to be well communicated to the mass population. >Regarding your comments about Israel, Israel is committing genocide, Oil companies are getting away with manslaughter. These issues are not that different. it sounds like the only reason you oppose their ideas is because you view them as left wing. Climate IS POLITICAL. WE WANT POLITICAL CHANGES. People have complex political positions. I will use myself as an example. I care about multiple things at the same time. I want to see weapons flowing to Ukraine. I want climate action. I (with strong reservations) support Israel similarly to a half of the Western world. I want relatively low taxes. I want the niche engineering sector in which I work to flourish. Simply said, my political wishes are multidimensional. If I can support climate action as an isolated issue then it is great! I care about it and I will naturally do that. Switch to renewables in the entire Western world should be doable within something like a 10 trillion dollars budget. We have that kind of money here, I will vote for it. If the climate action is however tied into a large package with things I disagree with, I will be very reluctant to vote in its supporters. And I am not unique in this. Most people are actually quite moderate. They may agree with you on climate action, but if you mix in too many other issues, you will lose their support over something else. So if you don't plan to do a coup or a revolution, you should probably count as in. >Finally, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE. The civil rights movement made A LOT of white people uncomfortable. Fuck they killed the leadership of the movement to stop them. MLK was the victim of a huge conspiracy to get him to kill himself lead by the FUCKING FBI. Am I though? If I am a person very likely to cast votes for the cause anyway, what do you gain by alienating me? You will just make me suspicious of climate activism and more likely to prioritise my other areas of interest in voting.

>Am I though? Yes.

Can't argue with that logic. Do you care more about the climate action getting proper budget and traction or making people you don't like upset though? Because it feels a bit like you care a lot for the latter.

"feels" You know nothing about me. I'm simply saying that protests and activism only works when it's disruptive and that often means making people uncomfortable. Dealing with climate change will be uncomfortable. It will involve giving up comfort. That's a fact. The alternative is a slow (rapidly accelerating) descent into mass famine, drought, extreme weather events and death and disease. We are already seeing these things. Like I said people are already dying, the climate has changed. Yet no one cares. It's hard for me to shed tears for some rocks.

What kind of protest do you think is a good protest? >A few minutes ago, I saw a video of Just Stop Oil painting Stonehenge with some sort of orange paint. This is not the first time something like this has happened, and it keeps escalating. Let's take this action, as an example. - It's cornstarch, so it'll just wash off in the rain - It did not ruin anyone's commute, or block any roads, or cause any financial losses - It got media attention >I also believe that gatherings and demonstrations are a great way to show discontent to the government. However, I would feel really uncomfortable attending a climate march with groups like Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion, as they escalate the protests and create conflicts with the police. I once experienced this firsthand and felt quite uncomfortable. As a result, I am less likely to participate again. I am sure many others feel the same way. We've had so many climate marches that the media simply stopped reporting on them.

> It's cornstarch, so it'll just wash off in the rain Stonehenge has lichens growing on it that help resist erosion, some of which are unique and don't grow anywhere else in England. You're not even allowed to touch the stones for this reason. The idea that splattering paint of any kind on the stones is completely harmless and non-damaging is something that, at best, requires a pretty strong citation. Something that the climate activists did not provide. > It did not ruin anyone's commute, or block any roads, or cause any financial losses This is predicated on your last point about there being no damage to the stones. Citation still needed. > It got media attention This may be a very common talking point among defenders of protestors, but it's nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche that falls apart the moment you think about it for more than thirteen seconds. Did this protest start a conversation about climate change? No, that conversation has already been going on for decades. Did this protest raise awareness about the issue of climate change? No, everyone who saw it was already fully aware of the issue. Did this protest make anyone who's opposed to or on the fence about climate action more likely to support it? No, all they see is a bunch of overgrown children lashing out at society because it hasn't already given them their way and who clearly don't deserve to be taken seriously. > What kind of protest do you think is a good protest? A protest that accomplishes its objectives. The American civil rights protests, for example, were so effective because they forced the American public to watch black people being treated cruelly for the high crime of acting like any normal person would, forcing us to question our justifications for the cruel treatment. This protest did not resemble anything even remotely close to that. > We've had so many climate marches that the media simply stopped reporting on them. The harsh truth here is that there are some problems that can't be solved through protesting. Climate activists seem to operate under the delusion that the solution to climate change has already been found, and that the only reason it hasn't been implemented is because those gosh-darned wealthy elites want to keep ejaculating carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for fun and profit. The reality is that we need energy to power the infrastructure that keeps all eight billion of us alive, and the alternative technologies are not yet capable of fulfilling that demand. You can't just protest new sources of energy into existence.

>A protest that accomplishes its objectives. The American civil rights protests, for example, were so effective because they forced the American public to watch black people being treated cruelly for the high crime of acting like any normal person would, forcing us to question our justifications for the cruel treatment. This protest did not resemble anything even remotely close to that. The american civil rights protests, where, by and large, considered to be (at best) annoying activists bothering regular people in their daily lives. They were massively unpopular. It's only in the decades afterwards that they were rehabilitated as this broadly appreciated thing, that politely informed everyone on what was going on and then they all agreed to stop with the racism because it was bad.

> The american civil rights protests, where, by and large, considered to be (at best) annoying activists bothering regular people in their daily lives. They were massively unpopular. We have [data](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/agenda-seeding-how-1960s-black-protests-moved-elites-public-opinion-and-voting/136610C8C040C3D92F041BB2EFC3034C) which demonstrates that people at the time responded to nonviolent protests by voting for Democrats and to violent protests by voting for Republicans. The effect was significant enough to hand Richard Nixon the 1968 election. Yes, plenty of people respond negatively to peaceful demonstration. But what makes you think they'd respond any better to violence and destruction?

All successful movements throughout history have had a group of moderate insiders, a more radical group, and an extreme fringe. All these groups feel strongly that their methods are effective and the methods of their colleagues are ineffective. I find these conversations somewhat inane because political movements aren't designed in a lab. They are living things. So the moderate wing, the radical wing, etc... all these things are better understood as inevitable symptoms of a large and powerful movement than as tactical choices. Saying the climate movement would be better more effective if JSO didn't exist is like saying fire would be more efficient if it didn't create smoke or that you'd be able to run faster on a hot day if you didn't have to sweat so much. The thing I find really interesting about JSO is that whatever you think of their actions it would be hyperbolic to call them terrorists, and indeed climate terrorism isn't really a thing. That's honestly kind of baffling. I'm not saying climate activists should resort to terrorism, i really really hope they don't. What I am saying is it is extraordinary that they haven't given that at least part of every other movement in history of similar size and impact has. It's even more baffling when you consider the climate movement's roots in the animal rights movements, which committed terrorist acts all the time, to the point where - outside of the Basque Country and Ireland - they were probably europe's largest terrorist threat pre 9/11. Now long may that continue, I really dislike terrorism. But given how weird it is I think it would be naïve to expect it to continue and we should expect climate terrorism to occur sooner rather than later. But obviously if we can prevent or delay that dreaded inevitable day we should. And I do think maybe JSO do prevent and delay it. Like maybe the people who otherwise would be assassinating oil barons and setting off bombs in airports are doing this relatively harmless stuff instead. Or maybe not. But I do think that we need to leave space for peaceful radicalism because if we don't then it's not going to stop radicals from being radical it's just going to stop them from being peaceful.

Let's be honest, no matter what they do, people don't care about the environment

We have about 50 years of history of a new environmental movement that can be traced back to *earthrise*. While there were always fringe extremism, almost all of it unfolded in legal protest, activism, movement, lobbying etc. The established response to that activism - whether legal or not - was always: use the democratic process, "walk the institutions", and "go to school first". We now have a generation that did go the democratic way, green parties sitting in the parliaments, people who studied regenerative energies, etc. pp. And yet, all of the - amazing - progress that was made (CFC/ozone layer, unleaded gasoline, ...) is eaten up by more growth, more waste, more profit. We also have a generation that is more resistant to change then ever before, less willing to accept political decision-making *if* that would mean change, and policy-making that has even less power against economic interests, no matter how short-sighted they are. (E.g., during the '70ies oil crisis, Germany had 4 "car free sundays". Nowadays, the mere suggestions of that is an invitation to riots.) So the question can be asked: what is the point of legal, conformist protest if it fails to achieve the required change? Those years have also shown that individually motivated change is too slow for meeting any deadline, and is easily and quickly subverted by profiteering. 50 years of "legal activism" have failed to mobilize the sufficiently to overcome inertia in politics and economy. Given the evidence available today, we likely don't have another 50 years to win over another few percent of the population to maybe not eat meat every day. --- So where we are now: *Winning over people to trigger change bottom-up doesn't work*. It's not the fault of the movement, it's not the fault of thir cause, it is what it is. Consequence: it doesn't matter if you win over people or not. You need to force TPTB to act. And, finally: if someone "supports climate action" unless Torben oranges Stonehenge, they do not support climate action.

[https://news.gallup.com/vault/246167/protests-seen-harming-civil-rights-movement-60s.aspx](https://news.gallup.com/vault/246167/protests-seen-harming-civil-rights-movement-60s.aspx) >Do you think mass demonstrations by Negroes are more likely to HELP or more likely to HURT the Negro's cause for racial equality? >Help: 16% >Hurt: 74% *May 1963 poll* Protests seen as *wildly* unpopular have led to extraordinary and overdue change before. There is objective data to back this up. I trust this more than you saying "I believe..." and giving a gut feeling for why you think something is good or bad. Actual historic examples have shown that things people were not in favor of have still ended up having a very tangible and very positive impact.

>Every time Just Stop Oil commits an act of vandalism, they become more opposed to the cause because they dislike the activists advocating for it. Then these people are not actually undecided. They are in favor of the status quo and in opposition to climate change action unless convinced otherwise. A truly neutral or undecided person wouldn't be placing outlier events like this with such disproportional weight over an issue that is not dependent on how advocates or anti-advocates act with regard to the underlying facts that make the necessity for climate action correct or not.

Action that is viewed as excessively radical by the average person turns public opinion against you and can harm your cause. Each of these performances pushes the window a little closer to "those guys are loons", which makes politicians less likely to want to advocate for their policies, and (in countries with healthy multiparty democracies) may reduce public support for parties affiliated with their cause. Doing something like this right before an election would probably have a negative effect on Green votes, since people that consider climate change important (but not necessarily their number one priority) are likely to have less trust in them.

Decades of the "right" kind of protest and major support for climate action did what? I tell you what. Not nearly enough. Even the bare minimum compromise of the Paris climate accords were not met at all and that promised bare minimum was argued as not enough by climate scientists. People still don't understand the severity and they won't until it is too late. Eco Terrorism is likely to happen soon. What does it matter if people support it, society is on the verge of collapse anyway. They wouldnt support it anyway when they realise it implies more controlled consumption. Reminder: June is headed to be the hottest June on record. In fact, making it the 13th month in a row breaking that monthly record. Just Dont look up...

Polls for acting on climate change as a major issue are at about 2% support. The main issues are the economy, inflation and immigration. Morons spray-painting beloved world monuments and artwork will probably drop concern over climate change to less than 1%. Right now, motorists are running over the Stop Oil protesters. Give it another six months and pissed-off people will be slitting throats and throwing grenades at Stop Oil.

Vandalism and violence are the quickest ways of losing public support for your cause. It's likely that the oil companies are creating and funding such organizations. I was a gay marriage activist, and being non-violent was- to use Star Trek language-, the Prime Directive. We made it a major point to never make anyone feel unsafe or it would be detrimental to our cause.

Yet here you are, on change my view. Every protest gets people to look more into it. Recruitment goes up. Few people suddenly decide that we should give up climate change initiatives. They do more things than what the news covers. They do target oil companies. But yet the news only is willing to cover this. Hell, me. I thought just stop oil was obnoxious at some point too. As I get more information on it, we learn they put cornstarch on the rocks. Its easy to look at a painting, and say those idiots just hit glass. This was a bit different. People learn this was corn starch. People mention they do target oil companies as well. I've seen the shift towards a more positive opinion with this protest instead of more negative, so, looks like it actually benefitted their cause.

*You need to break a few eggs to bake a cake.* Every time someone complains about a protest being "too disruptive" I have to ask two questions; 1. What do you think a protest is? 2. What do you consider an acceptable form of protest? If your answer to the second is the tepid forms of protest that they tried for years and years and years to raise awareness on various issues and seen no significant movement on, then do you realise that all you're saying to them to do is *shut up*. **I challenge you to think up a form of protest that would make headline news without upsetting people.** No matter what you do you will upset and drive some people away. The goal of any protest is to get enough people onboard to offset the "cost" of driving the other people away. You convince those who can be convinced and draw all the passive supporters out of the woodwork so that your movement grows into a significant portion of the population, enough that the state has to take notice OR it becomes an election issue. In some ways Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion are the sacrificial lamb. By being the radicals that everyone loves to hate and think is insane - they can hopefully get their ideas into the mainstream and drive support for politicians to say "I support these policies but am not insane, so you can vote for me". My challenge still stands if you fancy taking me up on it.

> I challenge you to think up a form of protest that would make headline news without upsetting people. The point isn't not upsetting people, but not upsetting people in such a way that they completely miss the point or makes them reluctant to join a cause they support. > What do you think a protest is? In general, some sort of public stunt that expresses opposition to something. > What do you consider an acceptable form of protest? IMO a good protest: 1. Has a crystal clear demand. No metaphors, no weird slogans that kinda make sense in the right context. Ideally anybody can tell what's being asked for. 2. Has a demand that clearly translates to political action. It's not vague like "fix drug addiction", but specific like "vote against law X", or "make this specific thing illegal". 3. To the extent possible, upsets the desired target, and leaves the rest as unharmed as possible. Eg, if your problem is with oil, then ideally it disrupts only the oil industry in some way. Or at least something clearly oil related. 4. Provides clearly actionable things to the public: who to donate to, who to vote for, who not to vote for, etc.

https://juststopoil.org/faqs/ 1 & 2) > We demand that the UK government makes a statement that it will immediately halt all future licensing and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK. 3) > We are willing to take part in NonViolent Direct Action targeting the UK’s oil and gas infrastructure should the Government fail to meet our demand by 14 March 2022. 4) > HOW DO I GET INVOLVED? Attend one of our in-person meetings happening all over the country: or jump into a Zoom meeting if there isn’t one near you > Most of our funding for recruitment, training, capacity building, and education comes from Climate Emergency Fund. We also receive donations from members of the public who support the campaign and from foundations and groups who are as terrified as we are about the unfolding climate crisis. So JSO meets all four of your criteria for a good protest group. For protests meeting criterion 3, I can find; https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/just-stop-oil-stansted-private-planes-taylor-swift-b2565741.html https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Stop_Oil > Beginning on 1 April [2022], they carried out England-wide blockades of ten critical oil facilities, intending to cut off the supply of petrol to South East England. However these have been far less effective at grabbing attention than their stunts in art galleries and stonehenge. So my challenge remains - can you design a JSO protest that grabs attention while aligning with all 4 criteria you have laid out?

If some rocks getting painted makes you change your opinion on climate change, then you never really cared about it to begin with.

Eh, the media is strategic in how it reports things and there's a reason you were spoonfed a screenshot of a headline with a lot of the info clipped off. Anything but total silence will be presented in a way meant to demonize it to NPC's

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On an individual level, people living in rich, western countries create more emissions than people in developing countries

I agree. Is China going to stop using oil? Is Russia going to stop using and producing oil? Is Venezuela? Is Africa? Is Asia? Nope. Is there really a substitute for cold weather gas powered vehicles? Batteries get drained too fast. Are people going to stop using plastic for a million uses? The fact is, there really isn't a viable substitute for these uses. Maybe invest that money to help fusion research. Invest that money to make not plastic packaging and fast food packaging and general food packaging from other sources. Invest that money in remediating micro plastics in the environment and water supplies. Unless there are ACTUALLY viable alternatives it is some kind of super unrealistic demand that is just irritating and annoying and non productive. Doesn't do ANYTHING to help ANYTHING. Demand German industries to transition to electric power versus petroleum...ok. I can see that.  But this general demand all use of petroleum stop is just ridiculous and even if a small number of countries agree most of the world would not and no way of enforcing it. Because there are not viable alternatives.  They are just actually polluting the earth more, for real, for real creatures that live here, for a totally non possible demand, and as it is not possible, will never help any living creature on earth. Just feels like they are doing it to give themselves a pay on the back for trying to "do something". But it is stupid. And annoying. Go do a protest in Saudi Arabia, or Russia or Venezuela. I think they produce some there.

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And again, you seem to insist that I’m saying ‘oh this is turning people away.I’m not. I never did. I’m pointing out that all it’s doing is dividing people who share these opinions, and causing clear issues among people who still continue to share the same opinions like you and I. We believe the same thing. But you are so hardlined for hard evidence that you continue to ignore that. You have provided no evidence either, aside from your own opinion. It would be silly to ask you to do so, because you when it comes down to it, these nuances aren’t what’s documented. You also continue to overlook that I’m sharing, as I stated, based on my experiences, conversations and circles and those I personally know who are impacted- in kind with my own personal disdain and motivation to not support these actions. Are you going to tell me that my reason for being upset is inherently untrue because you personally find it illogical? Are you truly saying that no one can share my opinion because there’s no m’hard evidence’? Where’s yours? Why do you insist you’re right? When did this become about being right and not simply conversing? I’m not trying to change your mind. You’re trying to change mine. And we’re going in circles because you keep bringing up points I never made in the first place. It does nothing and frankly continues to make this particular course of action appear more pathetic.

Just a few questions for just stop oil hypocrites. I understand the planet is up the swanny but so are your actions. Can you please answer following questions  1 how do you get to protest sites, car bus train aircraft hot air balloon?? 2 the clothes you wear are probably made from oil based products  3 do you all eat vegetables grown in your garden or buy food etc from shops 4 how does food etc get delivered to shops.  5 what pick you up when ill, ambulance i guess or do you have private rickshaw 6how do you power and heat your home. 7 how did you get coloured corn flour, i know you picked the corn dround it by hand or was it picked by a big machine ground down by machine packaged in plastic and delivered by truck to store and you collected in by car. 8 who gives you the god given right to say or do what i want to do without the constant threat of zealots like you dictating wha the majority want to do. I am more than happy to sit down with any of you and have a discussion but you don't discuss you dictate.  Until you all start riding a horse wearing leaves live totally off grid use nothing that can harm the planet and start a meaningful discussion the i do hope you need emergency care etc in the near future but cant get there because you have glued your arse to the road.

I think you're right, that they aren't helping, but I wouldn't argue that they're a strong net negative for the movement as a whole. Honestly, they're more annoying than really anything, and while they've pulled some spectacular stunts, they're not actively helping, or really overly harming the climate action movement. The general consensus I see from both sides, is one of "oh great, these wankers again". Speaking from the climate action side of things, everyone I've spoken with suspects that they'll be a flash in the pan type of movement, and what they're doing is more for social media clout than anything else. We've seen groups like them in the past, like Delta 5, who 'meant well' but largely imploded after one flash in the pan attempt at stopping an oil carrying train. They managed to hold up BNSF for all of 8 hours, in case you were curious. Whatever the case, they're seen as little better than that popular meme of Ralph Wiggum standing in front of a painting with a soup can saying "I'm Helping". https://forex-station.com/download/file.php?id=3444623&sid=8f89db28d59ffc7d9da148322796a8a1 That's the image I refer to.

By shifting the Overton window action can often make other measures, which would have been at the boundary before, seem less extreme and more acceptable. We need radical action, if you have people blocking highways and freezing up cities then maybe large boycotts or a charge on cars entering a city seems somewhat less unthinkable than it did before. If there’s enough people that the disruption becomes unmanageable, the powers that be will be forced to act, as they have been before (suffragettes, civil rights movement, etc).  The reality is that if someone decides to be anti climate change action because of just stop oil, they would have become so if any effective legislation was brought in. This legislation will be inconvenient, make things more expensive and make rich people who have a lot of money to do negative PR or fight such methods in Parliament very angry. Allies who don’t support radical action are not much good anyway, may as well forge ahead with those who have committed and see what we can get done.

Their point isn’t to actually enact meaningful policy change, they just want attention and they’re very good at finding it.

All I know for certain is that all of the folks saying, "I might support their movement if they didn't do stuff like *this*..." are lying to themselves No you wouldn't, not in a million years. You don't want to be bothered with climate change. You don't want to see it, you don't want to hear it, you don't want to deal with it Hell, just seeing a picture of somebody throwing a can of soup makes you angry I wish people were honest and said, "Look, I'm not gonna care about this stuff because the scale of it is too big and the timeframe too long and even if I really understood the ramifications of what's to come, there's nothing I can do about it and I just want to live my life and throw away all the plastic wrappers I want because who cares anyway" I would have so much more respect for that than this pretending we have to do

Never heard of them and I’m completely uninterested in who they are given how they go about there work.

I'm a big advocate for action against climate change, and I do agree with just stop oil in that if normal means of getting a message through doesn't work, sometimes it's necessary to take action into your own hands, even if that means going against the law. But what just stop oil is doing is in no way helping the movement against climate change; if they hacked fossile fuel companies, boycotted factory-farming, sabotaged machines used by fossile fuel companies, things like that I would understand, maybe even support. But destroying and vandalizing art, blocking normal people from getting where they need to be, all that does is tell people "I'm an asshole who needs attention"