They don’t have the right. That’s why they get arrested.They know they don’t have the right. They know they are breaking the law. They think it’s worth it.
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100% appreciate that, though I would add that I’d rather policing decisions were dictated by intelligence and people who know how to do this kind of thing that what the general public perceive should happen.
Of course things are done wrong, and can always be improved, but broadly speaking if I see 100 officers in a place I know that there is someone far more knowledgeable than me making that decision and I would prefer that over 10 officers being there to appease simply what it looks like.
But like you said, this is a distraction and the majority of ER protesters want us to be talking about climate rather than policing.
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I’m convinced that ER are in fact climate change deniers in disguise, intent on turning people away from the cause.
The idea that someone could fully understand the extent of the climate emergency and then be alienated from it because one small group of people blocked some roads in London is ludicrous to me.
If you are a climate change denier or someone who just CBA to do anything about it, say that but don’t try and blame it on one protest group.
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As someone that consistently looking for ways to be more environmentally friendly, I have to disagree with you. I may be in the minority on a forum like this, but I’m fairly sure the majority of working Londoners agree with me (a quick google and YouGov survey backs this up).
Backs what up? The idea that ER has somehow put people off acting on the climate crisis?
I don’t suppose you have a link to that survey do you?
Not YouGov (which simply showed a dislike for XR among public), but did find an article in the Guardian from 2019 which pretty much holds the same view that I do: The Extinction Rebels have got their tactics badly wrong. Here’s why | Andre Spicer | The Guardian. The linked research is interesting: Public division about climate change rooted in conflicting socio-political identities | Nature Climate Change
Okay, so there isn’t a survey or any research that shows that ER is putting people off climate action? I see.
You have found one fairly absurd Guardian article that suggests ‘instead of glueing themselves to DLR trains, they might hold tea parties at local fetes’.
I’d really like to know what large scale socio-political changes have been affected by attending tea parties. You might as well say the suffragettes would have been better off knitting some slogans onto tea cosies.
I still don’t believe for one second that ER put people off climate change action. I think that’s just an excuse for people who wouldn’t do anything about it anyway and will do anything they can to stand in the way of forward movement.
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Things have changed since 2019, care to provide more up to date relevance.
In those 2 small years it’s become apparent to everyone that the world’s on fire or under water in every corner (yeah I know globes don’t have corners)
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The research was linked, the theory still applies.
The fact that it took me 3 seconds to find an article with a very similar ‘ludicrous’ view as mine, suggests that you might be a little out of touch with the general public.
ER are seen as hypocritical, disruptive, middle-class lecturing eccentrics. You’re welcome to support them, but it is not fair to suggest that those who don’t, don’t care about the climate.
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The research was literally irrelevant to the point you were making though.
You’re welcome to support them, but it is not fair to suggest that those who don’t, don’t care about the climate.
Why would I think that?
I’m guessing you didn’t read it properly then.
Do you want to maybe point us to the part in the research that shows us that people are being put off climate action by Extinction Rebellion?
There must be more than that surely?
In this post you state:
I am a member of extinction rebellion. I’ve been carted off to police stations and cautioned so there’s that.
Later in that thread someone gives an example of the actions they are taking… and your response includes:
Eating less meat and flying less are probably the two most important things individuals can do (I do both but not to the extent you do)
I only remember this as I thought there was quite a bit of hypocrisy involved when I read it.
As it is, previous ER demonstrations effectively stopped ambulances entering one of the major teaching/A&E hospitals in London - and it’s not sufficient to say that ambulances can use other hospitals or that the demonstrators will let a ambulance through so it doesn’t matter. The protests are designed to maximise the amount of impact/inconvenience throughout central London.
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Well they do use “shock” tactics, like painting walls and ponds outside Buckingham palace! But all their doing is winding up joe public on his way to work to earn a living. Blocking up roads etc…Personally their doing nothing but alienating Brits…like scruffy wasps trying to land on your ice cream.
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I always insist that any wasps landing on my ice cream are wearing full morning dress. I become frightfully agitated otherwise.
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Most climate activists recognise that personal lifestyle changes aren’t really a solution, we aren’t trying to get individuals to change. It’s a campaign for wholesale government action - ie restrictive carbon pricing - not for people to never go on holiday again
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I have to say that sounds illogical to me.
Yes, you can campaign for government action but that in effect governs an individuals actions and decisions.
So arguing for carbon pricing, would raise prices of air travel (for instance) and discourage individuals from using that method of transport.
It’s much easier/quicker to persuade individuals and nudge them to make changes to their own behaviour - and achieves the same result.
The big things that need to change are industry and business, though. And it needs to change at pace.
Individual behaviour is hard to influence, cultural change takes far too long. And without government intervention it’s never likely to happen anyway - if the government wasn’t shutting off the sale of ICE cars in 2030 and supporting charging infrastructure for example, almost no one would be switching to EVs. And even if everyone did make those changes, unless the products they buy were also being manufactured in a far more carbon friendly way, we’d still be heading for environmental catastrophe.
This is why affecting individual change is no longer the main goal of climate activists and hasn’t been for some time. Climate scientists, political scientists and even politicians generally share the view that government action is where the focus is needed.
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I think the view at the moment about Climate Changeologists, is actually that “individual action” in fact has very little impact overall on climate change.
The majority of emissions created are as a result of Industry, and an individual can do very little to impact those changes. As a rough breakdown of Carbon Emissions by Sector, it looks something like this:
- Generating Electricity: 25%
- Food / Agriculture: 24%
- “Industry” (aka Factorys that make Things, from Cement, to Paper, to food factories): 20%
- (Cement alone accounts for 8% globally)
- Transportation: 15%
- Buildings (i.e. electricity, heat, cooling, etc): 5%
Those 5 sectors alone, account for ~90% of all Emissions - and small individual changes don’t stack up when 8% of all emissions is from just Cement, or if you city/country/state is powered by Coal - you can’t avoid that.
This is why there’s a huge huge push for change via goverment policy, because Individuals can’t make significant enough changes to make a dent against Industry, and Industry is not proactively doing enough about this on it’s own.
If you look at an individual (American’s) Carbon Footprint - that averages about 16 Tons per year. From a global 50B Tonnes per year. Or, 0.0000000003% per person.
Which is why, the routes forward need to be industries reducing and removing carbon from their supply chains, because that will have the biggest global impact.
In fact, there was a study recently that looked at the best things to do if you want to reduce your carbon footprint.
The number one thing to reduce your Carbon Footprint: Don’t have children.
Out of all the small actions one could take - not having Kids is possibly the best thing to reduce green house gas emissions across the board (link)
I’ll come back with sources in a bit for anyone who wants 'em
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