When is it appropriate for climate protests to turn into climate violence? When is it appropriate for a victim to fight back? Or must we allow billionaires and conservatives to kill us all?
Stopping personal traffic by blocking cars and being “annoying” in places that often are lit for no reason through entire nights are both protests very close to the issue.
This requires choosing better targets for the protests.
People in this thread are arguing that any kind of violence or inconvenience automatically helps the cause. But no. We’re just inconveniencing each other and distracting each other from… environmental issues.
The only reason to take part in protests that don’t target polluters is to look cool for your friends.
The victims of climate change are the normal people who are prevented from doing anything to stop it.
Conservatives have worked hard for decades to make sure normal people are not able to curtail climate change in any way. There is a clear villain in the story of how we are being killed. It is conservatives.
I’m annoyed by over critical analysis of nonviolent protest tactics, rather than substantive conversation about why they’re protesting in the first place.
Not at all, we are getting desperate out here. Our margins for actions to lessen, stop and revert climate change are getting smaller by the minute. So we need to be very annoying.
For anyone annoyed by climate activists: wake the hell up. LISTEN to the message.
We are on course for an UNLIVABLE FUTURE. A BILLION climate refugees, mass crop failures, cities under water, temperatures too hot for human survival. Economic and societal collapse.
These disruptions damage nothing and inconvenience a small amount of people for 5-30 minutes. It’s not a big deal. In a world of reactionary social media and news, these are the tactics that get attention. It is not the activist’s fault for how the media reports it.
This is not “their cause”. This is the fight for everything we know and love.
If you don’t like what they’re doing, start doing what you think works.
You won’t get anyone not already convinced to listen to your message if the people are hung up on hating what you’re doing and thinking you’re a moron.
It just seems like a bad way to reach or convince anyone.
I would be interested in this evidence. I don’t think there’s been a whole lot of time to study these more ideotic hand glue and ruining paintings stunts but at least short term effects should be something that can be studied.
You’ll get your fucking tennis when we start killing each other for food. Human brains are incapable of comprehending what we are continuing to do to our future. Its so fucking frustrating seeing this society being completely oblivious to the tortures we could’ve avoided by relatively small changes 60 years ago and which we still can lessen by doing something now.
They should be less annoying to the common people. They should target people in power, glue themselves on the road to the house of parlement for example, not prevent common people from going to work or vandalize art work.
This is too simple of a view. There are few, if any, effective ways to strike at people in power without hitting common folk at the same time. Maybe you can mildly inconvenience them, but that’s it. Their power isn’t isolated, it often derives from the complicity of common folk. Protests are disruptive for a reason, and it’s not because “everybody involved is stupid.”
For example, by blocking streets you inhibit commerce, and therefore inhibit anybody whose power derives from that commerce. But at the same time, you’re blocking the average person from going to work. How great must the threat be, how dire the circumstances, before you view that as an acceptable trade-off? Because if we are not at that point now, I find it hard to believe you’d ever find it acceptable, yet I’ve never been given an actionable and effective alternative from the people who are squeamish over these kinds of protests. So I have to ask; if not this, then what? If not now, then when?
I’ve never been given an actionable and effective alternative from the people who are squeamish over these kinds of protests. So I have to ask; if not this, then what? If not now, then when?
Infiltrate the political parties, especially the conservative right-wing ones that right now have disastrous environmental policies. These organisations are currently echo chambers driving a narrative that environmental policies are the enemy. They need to be reformed from within to get the message across that capitalism won’t work if there isn’t anyone around for the wealthy to sell their shit to. As long as political change is confined to what is seen as the “radical left”, it is easy to marginalize the moment.
I think the idea is to wake up normal people. If protesters only annoy the rich then nothing changes because it’s easy for the rich to ignore a couple of protesters.
If you annoy regular people then hopefully more people wake up. It’s a lot harder to ignore regular people especially if a lot wake up.
We need everyone in this world to be pissed off, not just a few activists. The sooner everyone is pissed the less leverage rich people have to ignore it all.
Also, publicity is a big factor. You pretty much guarantee some degree of media coverage when you do something like shut down a busy highway. I don’t think people consider often enough how important even negative press is in spreading the message.
Then you never liked them to begin with and you were never going to sympathize with them anyways. If doing a completely harmless form of civil disobedience causes you to lose your marbles then you’re not interested in fixing anything to begin with.
Colin Kaepernick literally just kneeled before games, that’s it, that’s literally all he did , and still people lost their marbles, but the people losing their marbles were Trump voters who never cared about BlackLivesMatter to begin with
This same thing happened during the Civil Rights Era and it’s happened in other countries too
we don't owe terrible people anything. we shouldn't care what they think and focus on defeating them and changing the world without their permission, which we don't need and shouldn't be worried about obtaining.
I get the point of the question, but frankly, I think climate protestors can do whatever they want as long as Big Oil can do whatever it wants. It’s way more annoying having my planet ruined.
even seemingly meaningless protests like the soup thing are somewhat effective. it gets people talking about the protests, which increases the number of people that will see it and protest in more effective ways.
The problem I have with groups doing things like the throwing soup in a painting thing or other annoying activities is how can we be sure these people weren’t paid to make the cause look bad? It wouldn’t be the first or last time something like that happens where someone will be paid to make a cause look bad.
Judging by the foolishness of unfocused anger I see on reddit, tumblr, twitter, etc... I think it's very likely they're just incredibly stupid but well meaning people.
See also: "vote 3rd party", "oh you eat meat you must like torturing animals", "we should literally ban all cars" etc
No, you shouldn’t vote third party in America, or any country with a first-past-the-post system captured by a duopoly, because it flies in the face of the reality of game theory. Tactical voting is real, no matter how upset the idea makes people. Yes, this even includes deep-red and deep-blue states, or whatever your country’s equivalent is.
Yes, choosing to eat meat when you have alternatives means you place your convenience and consumption above the death of sentient and pain-feeling creatures. I think it’s bad to cause harm when you have the option to not, even if it benefits you in some way.
Yes, we should literally ban all fossil fuels, and restructure all cities such that the public transportation is more than enough for everyone. That this is even a matter of question is ludicrous.
If and when protests turn violent because people are desperate and there’s nothing else left you’ll realise how innocuous these types of protests are. They hurt nobody, disrupt people for a very short time and get the message out there.
This idea that it’s funded by big oil is just ridiculous. I am in activism and I know people from JSO, they are some of the kindest and caring people you could meet. They understand the urgency of the crisis and are willing to their bodies and freedom on the line to get the message out. Being popular is not their goal, they get people talking and that is undeniable.
Good job that being popular isn't their primary goal because they won't be fairly treated by the popular press (where many folk get their opinions from)
No, but they should be coherent and meaningful. These fools (or possibly goons for oil companies) who attack paintings are only making environmentalism look utterly stupid. They are openly mocked by everybody because they’re lashing out incoherently.
They’re actively working against environmentalism. I really think they’re bad, selfish, narcissistic, and stupid people. They don’t care about the environment.
There is absolutely no reason to think their ridiculous behavior could possibly help the environment.
No, it gets people talking about people who glue themselves to paintings. And that’s as far as the conversation goes because it has no connection whatsoever to environmental issues. It’s pure uncut narcissism.
Well, if you want a suggestion: “Neither Vertical Nor Horizontal” by Rodrigo Nunes
You haven’t earned my trust enough to suggest a book. I consider these strategies to be worse than ineffectual. I consider them counterproductive. And you haven’t described how they could be productive.
I’m just tired of repeating the same stuff all over the web
I guess sharing your knowledge is just too much work. The environment just isn’t worth explaining things to people who are clearly making good faith conversation with you.
The environment just isn’t worth explaining things to people
Nah. It’s about a more effective use of the time to actually change the world. If you want answers, you got history and that book to read. There is no point in convincing you because, as I said, your anger works in favor of them.
And before someone adds the “but you are still answering” argument, well I’m answering when I have 2 minutes to write this stuff that is not as high effort as a clear explanation that would still open up to more and more and more questions :)
Of course it does. I’ve been thoughtful and engaged on every point. Solving the climate crisis is important, I’ve been breathing in our burning-down forests all summer. And it’s a difficult problem because the machinery of society is a very difficult thing to steer in new directions. I’m engaging critically with your bad ideas, and you choose to interpret that as bad faith because you care more about your ideas than you do about the climate crisis.
If you want answers, you got history and that book to read.
If this were true then you would already have explained the relevant points. And you still have the opportunity. Because I’m being good faith enough to ignore your bratty dismissals and to try again to get an actual response from you other than “There is no point in convincing you”
as we know, not enough people are agitated and so all the past “educate” made by scientists has been pretty much useless
we need to raise the tension then
to raise the tension in a system where power lies in the hands of those that don’t want the tension, you need to force it
to force it without power, you have very little range of options
these actions are discussed a lot also out of the conscious-about-climate-people bubble
so it’s basically stealing time and cognitive energy from the shit media to this shit actions
the models of the past that worked better are the one for the workers rights and the one for the black people civil rights
in both cases, there was a whole ecology of actions: violent protests, disobedience, non violent marches, super far left parties, more moderate parties and so on.
they are a functional part of our ecology that is forcing the media to ring some bells
Here in Italy, they recently received a meeting with the climate minister, for example. No association could have that.
An impactful and radical change requires a whole ecology of movements with different strategies and tactics. Unless you have power in the system you are trying to change, obv.
What I’m seeing is a minister met with Greta Thurnberg. She’s a celebrity who gives talks on actual environmental issues. This is effective because it’s explicitly about the environment.
I’m not aware of situations where people inconveniencing each other (but NOT inconveniencing power) led to meaningful change. Civil rights activists inconvenienced power, not each other.
Are you sure that black panthers or red brigades inconvenienced only those in power? Btw I was not talking about Greta Thunberg but Ultima Generazione, the Italian chapter of Just Stop Oil. Yes, the ones that put cleanable paint over stuff or block the roads
Throwing around the name of a mental disability as an insult is a slur. You don’t call people narcisstists because you don’t attack people for supposed mental disability.
I support most (maybe even all) climate protests, violent and nonviolent ones.
I still think that it might be good to shift or expand(edit) tactics, because at least to me most tactics do not feel to be actually achieving any substantial goals while putting folks at high risk of injury and repression. Like yeah there is discourse, polarization and mobilization, but those are not actually the things that will mitigate climate change, reducing carbon emissions etc. will. This is my perspective from Germany so of course elsewhere things might be different.
Are there any success stories from other countries (or Germany) that show that currently dominant climate protest tactics(non violence, blocking roads, public stunts, glue everywhere, social media all the time) leading to actual changes getting implemented from public institutions, legislation or the private sector or changes in the behaviors of large parts of the population?___
Well not about climate, but if you take at the Stop de Kindermoord movement, that happened in the 1970s in the Netherlands, you can find some similarities: ejatlas.org/…/stop-de-kindermoord-stop-the-child-…Blocking streets was one of their protest forms, too. And now take a look at the Dutch cities - it’s a pain to drive a car, while walking and cycling are far superior modes of transportation, while there is real life happening. And that’s not even only true for Amsterdam, but also for relatively small cities like Groningen
Blocking streets is directly connected to the issue. It’s a sensible protest.
Gluing yourself to paintings just makes environmentalists look like idiots. It’s doing a disservice to actual environmentalists who protest the companies causing the problems.
Well it’s not like cars (and especially the recent developments in terms of size and number) are not part of the climate issue… Afaik they dodged the paintings some time ago, haven’t they? Last things I heard from their protest forms were blocked airports, streets and gulf clubs - all are related to the climate
If they dodged the paintings then good. Blocking airports and roads is totally related to the climate crisis. When they block roads they’re making a coherent point.
I'd say climate destroyers should be less destructive.
Of course they're whiny; they're literally begging for their lives. What would people prefer instead, Ted Turner to run around in tight spandex, throwing people out of windows and screaming "Captain Planeeeet!?"
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