If you ever wanted to read about fake druids vs. environmental activists, now’s your chance.
Not paint, literally orange corn flour that’ll wash off with the first rain. Stop spreading disinformation for big oil pls. Idk why they went for this instead of classical art, but acting like this is some terrible evil crime is exactly what oil companies want you to think, they want you to root against people protesting climate change, no matter how tiny their vandalism is in the grand scheme of things
The article says it came out of a spray can. So how am I spreading misinformation?
Not misinformation, disinformation. You read the article, yet choose to act like this is comparable to spray paint or something else that won’t immediately wash off. This is like getting indignant bc somebody threw a couple eggs at a great pyramid. It’s stupid and irrelevant to climate change, but sharing articles where the title says they threw acid instead of eggs is just fucking wrong, and serves no purpose besides discrediting climate activism
Edit actually this article says nothing about corn flour, sorry for accusing you of ignoring that. That’s super shady and shitty on the Guardian’s part, a detail that majorly changes how actually harmful this act was
Double edit you’re still acting like they threw actual paint, so nvm my apology. Stop being such a blatant oil shill
They posted the article with the headline completely unchanged. If you wanna be mad at someone, be mad at The Guardian.
It’s stone. Stone is full of cracks. It will get into those cracks and not wash off.
Furthermore, environmentalists pissing people off in the middle of a religious ceremony does nothing to help with an environmental cause. That’s the way PETA goes about doing things. Do you think they’ve been remotely effective?
Just stop oil is funded by the oil industry to make environmentalists look like morons.
Those stones will be suuuper useful to us after we died because our global ecosystem collapsed.
Maybe we should set up our own stones for explaining to future generations why we didnt do anything about climate change until it was too late.
I’m not sure how this helps though. These people can say to future generations, “well, we didn’t get people to stop using fossil fuels, but we did damage a 5000-year-old monument that was made long before anyone had the idea of burning fossil fuels to make people aware of a problem they were already aware of but powerless to do anything about.”
This isn’t going to stop oil companies from drilling for oil.
It reminds me of a friend of mine I used to follow elsewhere on social media. Every day, she would post pictures of ‘death row dogs’ in nearby shelters that were going to be euthanized. There was fuck all I could do about it. I already have two dogs, from shelters. I don’t have room for more and I couldn’t afford more. So all it did was make me feel like shit. Then she started posting photos with “too late” messages and I stopped following her.
How does that help?
but we did damage a 5000-year-old monument
As far as I could find out, they used orange cornflour that will just wash off the next time it rains. The most amount of damage anyone could seriously bring up was that it could harm/displace the lichen on the henge.
That’s not to say that I specifically condone the action, but it’s a lot less bad than this article makes it sound. It’s the same with the soup attack on one of van Gogh’s painting, which had protective glass on it. So far all the JSO actions targeting cultural/historical things (at least the ones that made it to the big news) have been done in a way that makes them sound awful at first hearing, but intentionally did not actually damage the targeted cultural/historical thing.
I think the biases of the journalist/news outlet/etc. are somewhat exposed by which parts they focus on and which they downplay or omit entirely.
But we’re not talking about it. We’re not talking about political action, or technological solutions, or mitigation programs, or investments in adaptation, or natural resource management, or harm reduction, or food distribution, or drought management.
No, we’re talking about a bunch of first world children who decided to paint a bunch of ten-thousand year old rocks for attention.
As always, while I support their claimed ideals, I can only see them as petty vandals who care more about attention seeking than their cause. They certainly won’t get any of my time or attention. If you’re against Big Oil, protest Big Oil and half the population will agree. If you’re intentionally seeking my outrage with unrelated crap, you got it: rot in jail
They do it because the stuff you’re asking for doesn’t work that well, but this does (that said they do still engage in those actions as far as I’m aware). Activism is about making noise, there aren’t many tools beyond that and they’ve worked for all sorts of issues in the past.
The point is that JSO doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2023/12/the-method-behind-just-stop-oil-annoying-madness/
the stuff you’re asking for doesn’t work that well, but this does
I didn’t think that this works. The examples where people claim “is just like this” I don’t see as being like this.
The ones that work are ones that have some relation to their cause. Forcing everyone to really think about an issue Inherent to the act. For example, going about and doing this to parked private jets, which they did.
Just doing anything to get attention isn’t useful if there’s no Inherent message in the act itself. Especially with climate where everyone already has awareness, just not action.
Being merely loud is not going to sway hearts and minds in your favor.
Yeah I don’t know why they wouldn’t block the entrance to an oil refinery. Some people would be unhappy about this especially the people that work there. But the general public could understand, who knows it could possibly slow production for a few days.
They have. Compared to this, it got barely any news coverage.
That is why they do this. Their only goal is attention, and they do that quite well.
The way they seem to operate is quite smart, actually:
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Their stunts get a lot of press and bring climate change to the forefront of people’s minds, frequently.
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They’re not a political party, so pissing voters off isn’t a problem. They can afford to be unpopular to further the cause.
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Those who already care about the climate won’t change that based on a small group they dislike.
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Those who call them “terrorists” are people who call anything short of licking oil company boot “eco-terrorism”. They were never going to be convinced to care whatever the group does. Probably read the Daily Mail.
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Those who are apathetic about the climate are still going to be apathetic, with a bit of rage towards this group as with the others, but again, ultimately that doesn’t matter as they still won’t change anything based on a single group.
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A small handful of people will be inspired by them and their constant reminders of climate crisis, and be motivated to push for change.
The last bullet seems to be the target audience of the group. And they’re the ones who will actually do anything.
They silence a lot of people fighting for climate change by making it harder for everyone to discuss this. They make it much harder every time they pull one of these stunts. Its not smart unless you’re talking about the oil industry execs funding them
Their only goal is attention
This is not scammy advertising where “any attention is good attention”. This is an important cause where we need to build support
They can afford to be unpopular to further the cause.
Sure, no donations, no popular support, they can just be marginalized and ignored as a bunch of extremists. Everyone cheers when the cops cart them off to jail. Yay for attention though
Those who are apathetic about the climate are still going to be apathetic, with a bit of rage
This is where they’re wrong, and where I’m especially frustrated when it’s a cause I agree with. All those middle ground or non-active people who could be wooed as supporters, will now dismiss the cause as a bunch of annoying kooks. Nobody caused change by driving away potential supporters
Why not fund raise and set up a lobby group and fund politicians to pass laws. Why stand in traffic. Seems like the most ineffective backward steps
Why not fund raise and set up a lobby group and fund politicians to pass laws.
Do you think some kids are going to be able to buy the support of politicians by outbidding the oil companies?
One hopes the powder doesn’t cause any lasting damage to a priceless piece of human cultural heritage.
That is my worry. Even if it gets washed off by rain, it can get into cracks.
