Did any of them comment on the reason for the protest, or just the act itself? I don't want to see things like stonehenge or priceless art getting fucked up, but I am OK with more things being fucked up if that is what it takes... I'm fully expecting environmental extremism to become a thing in the next few years, as the situation will get worse and these sort of protests haven't achieved anything.
Did any of them comment on the reason for the protest, or just the act itself?
Pro-tip: if you have questions raised by an article's headlines, read the article.
"Just Stop Oil said the motivation behind the incident was to demand the next UK government end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030."
Wait wait wait, hold your horses. Do you mean to tell me, that the oil industry doesn't care for this protest, or any protest for that matter? I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you. It's almost as if this protest wasn't meant to impress the oil exec-types...
"They are sensitive and they are completely covered in prehistoric markings which remain to be fully studied and any surface damage to the stones is hugely concerning.
“A rich garden of life has grow on the megaliths, an exceptional lichen garden has grown. So it’s potentially quite concerning.”
This is important - they aren't just a bunch of old rocks, they develop a "varnish" and an ecosystem that can protect them.
They say it's just cornflour and will wash off in the rain but people tend not to coat ancient monuments in cornflour, so we don't really know what the effect might be.
"They are sensitive and they are completely covered in prehistoric markings which remain to be fully studied and any surface damage to the stones is hugely concerning.
Bullshit. There is next to no other historic site that has been studied in greater detail. If no scientist up until now has created a detailed map of what is to find on those stones, then frankly, it's their own fault.
If anything, they should be concerned about acidic rain caused by air pollution. But you don't hear much about that, now do you?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it come out a while back that Just Stop Oil is actually bankrolled by some oil company and is essentially meant to create a false narrative against actual climate protestors? Am I misremembering?
Some rich person who doesn't like her family getting their money from oil and is trying to do something good instead is one if the people funding them afaik
Hard disagree. As far as I'm aware, everything they've done so far is attention-grabbing and harmless. All the paintings were behind glass, and the stuff here is water soluble.
I disagree with their evaluation of the magnitude of climate change catastrophe affecting our lives. There isn't going to be a Day After Tomorrow "extinction event". Instead climate change is more insidious and will initially affect people who do not live in the West (as it is already doing). We are going to have global crises due to climate change but it's not going to be on the same level as, say, a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario with nuclear weapons.
They have also failed to convince the majority of the rest of the public that it will be an 'extinction event'. Since democracy has not got the result they want they are pursuing anti-democratic means of forcing their agenda onto news segments with stunts that poison the well for other - less extreme - climate change activists.
Extinction Rebellion would be the famous example of a group that has publically distanced themselves from JSO's methods. They believe in protest but simultaneously are wary of alienating people by taking their stunts too far.
Actually I had a friend from uni who was in XR and he helped organise a protest at Canning Town tube station where they clambered ontop of the train in rush hour to try to stop it. He was saying later that he thought they probably made a bad call picking that specific part of the city.
False choice. Those aren't the only options. We're in a election season. Get out there and help convince the public to vote for people who will actually make a difference.
Making noise and demanding things is what children do.
Were I the "protest type", I'd be getting awfully creative with what can be done to the infrastructure of the things I was protesting. Big Oil? Would be a shame if the refineries were to suffer malfunctions... or the trucks/ships to suffer constant breakdowns...
But yeah, instead let's go fuck with something that has no relation and only serves to piss people off - but not in the way you want them pissed off.
I'm generally supportive of any and all forms of non-violent protest (by which I mean not harming human life), including these, but let's not pretend the choice is between "standing around with placards" and "vandalise random artwork & monuments". Blockading ports exporting coal is an excellent direct protest, or vandalising actual fossil fuel companies' property in such a way that disrupts their ability to do business. Heck, even the classic "block roads in peak hour" is better than this (just for the love of the gods, don't disrupt passenger trains or busways).
Don't get me wrong, this is still ok, and it's better than nothing at all, but there are more effective ways to protest.
Any publicity is good publicity, it's paint, it can be cleaned up. But drilling for fossil fuels, burning shit to get energy, etc. That will leave a mark on the planet for generations, it might even kill us in the long enough run.