No more Protest

Mass scale? you'll have to define that, a few 1000 at the very most, out of 70m people.

Anyone cheering a 5 year jail sentence for someone peacefully protesting is imho, quite sick.

These people lives and those around them will now be utterly ruined, the terrorism charges alone will ensure they'll never work again, families torn apart and financial ruin..... and people cheer for this!!!
Meanwhile, a thug can stick a broken glass in someones face and get 18months but thats all ok because he didn't challenge the establishment.

Not at all, a good blast of cold water would discourage them from their anti-social behaviour.

I expect to see OP start a thread decrying his trial and sentence as an assault on democracy in due course then.

Yes, especially where they have a history of doing it and show the full intention to keep doing it and doing it.

Fear not! Protests are allowed and those type of marches are legal and still happen.

JSO, it’s concerning people are cheering jail sentences for protests
But they are not. They are cheering jail sentences for harmful civil disruption on a mass scale..

Only those who are unable to distinguish between peaceful protest and mass and harmful disruption need to have any fear.

it is really dishonest for people to characterize those actions as ‘peaceful’. In a very narrow definition of ‘not punching anyone in the face’ I guess they were.

But they were certainly not harmless protests. A delay if two months for an appt related to cancer is certainly not harmless. It can potentially mean the difference between terminal and survivable cancer. It’s not harmless to be forced to miss the funeral of a loved one. There will be many, many people who suffered many harms as a result of these actions.

These protests caused harms. Many harms. It’s right for our legal system to recognize this and give deterrent punishments.

What are your views on the farmers who blocked roads, motorways and ports during protests over brexit tariffs or the governments SFS proposal? 5 years jail time for them too?

I think what surprises me most is that people are supportive of extremely privileged people directly impact less privileged people with the argument ‘well people are already dying as a result of climate change’.

Stopping people who need to work, getting to work to get paid, isn’t helping the people dying as results of climate change?

How many of the people who can’t get to work or to medical appointments are some of the least privileged in our society?

The vast majority of JSO protestors are privileged. They clearly don’t need to worry about not being employable. or they are so young they don’t really understand the consequences of their actions. Or sometimes both.

But it’s ok, for them to immediately damage less privileged people and their income and stability, to achieve nothing at all. But let’s feel sorry for these extremely privileged people because they had to face consequences for the huge amount of disruption they cause, damage they have caused and money they have cost the country. Yeah, sound like real hero’s.

Who is batting it away?

It would be extremely difficult to prove if someone died as a direct result of the protests. How would you know if they would have died anyway? How do you know if they would survive if they got to hospital sooner.

I mean Google will tell you that plenty of people feel there’s been deaths as a result of these protests. If a just stop oil causes a diversion and someone dies travelling on that diversion, would you believe Just stop oil played a part in their death?

I agree the language isn't the clearest but if you read the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is the legally binding treaty they refer to, it's clear they are talking about banning the use of fossil fuels as an energy source.

Although not always explicitly stated almost all of these movements, campaigns, demands, treaties, etc, are about stopping the burning of fossil fuels for energy, as that is the primary cause of CO2e emissions and that is what's driving climate change.

Fossil fuels used in plastic don't impact climate as the CO2e is embodied in the product (obviously there's other environmental concerns).

5 and a half years is fairly soon now, but it was 9 years away when governments agreed to the Glasgow pact, 15 years away when the signed the Paris Agreement, 21 years away when they acknowledged the
Copenhagen Accord and 33 years away when they first created the Kyoto Protocol and agreed to take action to reduce emissions.

I also agree that groups like JSO tend to just increase there demands but that doesn't excuse over 3 decades of in action from goverments and business.

I don’t want there to be an equivalent of an environmental life tax where the highest marginal rate is paid by those who are poorer

Climate change is already disproportionately impacting the poorest people on the planet. It just so happens that they're being killed by it in foreign lands so it's out of sight, out of mind for those of us fortunate enough to live in places like the UK.

But given what you know about our capitialist systems, what do you think is going to happen when climate change starts to properly impact global food supply chains?

The cracks are already starting to show, theres expected to be a c17% reduction in wheat, barley and oats this year in the UK, India saw a significant decrease in rice yeilds in 2022 due to heatwaves, despite a 5% increase in farmed areas tomato yeilds are down 6% in Italy, and globally corn yeilds are predicted to decline by up to 24% by 2030. Who's going to be most impacted by the reduction in availability?

It's the role of the government to ensure mitigations and adaptations are equitable and so far they've failed miserably and continue to do so.

That’s not how I read it. JSO’s website says on the first page (in big shouty letters; the bold is theirs too):

We have a new Government and they have committed to enacting Just Stop Oil’s original demand for no new oil, gas or coal projects. This is a welcome step in the right direction, but the science is abundantly clear that this is not enough to protect our families and communities from the worst effects of climate breakdown. That’s why Just Stop Oil will be acting with other groups internationally, taking action at sites of key importance to the fossil fuel economy, in order to demand our governments commit to an international, legally binding treaty to end the extraction and burning of oil gas and coal by 2030.

The end of fossil fuel energy generation in five-and-a-half years is pretty immediate. And “extraction” must mean all extraction - the statement makes no sense otherwise.

And it looks like every demand by these groups just ratchets up anyway.

Point here is that as far as i know, no one has died as a result of protests, yet the "They have delayed ambulances" is trotted out repeatedly, as an excuse to give a 4/5 year sentence.

Whilst at the same time, '000s dying per year as a result of poor funding etc is batted away without a murmur.

What is the argument you are making here @Alexandra2001 ? Surely most people would want to avoid any unnecessary deaths, whether caused by underfunding of the NHS or by individuals deciding to block traffic including emergency vehicles?

The fact that you keep trying to push the narrative that this is is simply because they want to protest suggests you are either wilfully ignoring the facts or lack critical thinking skills

Immediately stopping fossil fuel energy generation, and all the products and side-products from fossil fuels, would bring about a catastrophe.

No one's calling for that though. JSO's main demand is for governments to stop new licenses for the exploration, development, and production of fossil fuels by 2030 and to transition away from burning oil, gas, and coal for power/transport. They're not, AFAIK, explicitly opposed to the use of fossil fuels in non-combustion applications e.g., the production of plastics, pharmaceuticals, and other industrial uses.

It's a goal that was entirely achievable, in fact most governments acknowledged this was not only achievable but necessary when they signed the Paris Agreement in 2015. It may still be achievable but the fact they've spent a decade refusing to take action means that the needed for incremental change is fast running out.

Given people die waiting in Ambulances outside AE dept's, i'm not sure this is the issue you want it to be.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimate 250 people die each week due to poor or not available treatments.

How many health ministers have been jailed due to poor funding/management of NHS resources???

Not true. There is plenty of video evidence from reputable news sources (not just the right wing press) that shows ambulances and fire engines on blue lights being held up unnecessarily.

And how do ambulances get past the gridlock to the front of the queue?

They don't block ambulances. They are always let through.
Just another tabloid accusation that's stuck.
I think as a form of protest, it's flawed because it's so divisive.
On the other hand parading with placards, even if a million people do it, doesn't move the dial.
Either way the sentence is ridiculously disproportionate
A serious assault in our town that left lasting damage to the girl got a 2 month prison term.

Given you've started this thread, and you know people that get arrested on suspicion of protesting royal weddings, I'm assuming you're part of this bonkers activist 'scene' and I'm going to take a wild guess that they were actually planning to protest the royal wedding.

Be honest, is that the case?

The fact they adopted approaches that impacted most on normal people is an issue for me. Climate change is going to impact the poor the most but mitigation measures that are put in place unless we are very careful will also be most restrictive on the poorer in society. If you don’t have a car that is ULEZ compliant but can afford to buy one then life goes on as before after the zone is introduced. If you can’ afford to adapt your house then energy bills increasing have less impact on you. We need to make sure change is made in a way that doesn’t leave one sector of society colder, poorer and more restricted than the other. It’s baked to the structure of society as it is but if people see this and aren’t happy with the impact on them and can see that isn’t happening to others in the same way then there will be problems down the line.

I don’t want to see JSO (say) disrupting the single holiday a family takes with their children that year. I don’t care if they disrupt my friend’s DP’s trips to the States that he takes every other week and I know much of what he does could be discussed remotely but he likes his lifestyle.

I don’t want there to be an equivalent of an environmental life tax where the highest marginal rate is paid by those who are poorer.

The difficulty with this subject isn’t so much ‘denial’ as whether the solutions are actually any better than the problems.

I have no doubt the scientists are right. What I question is whether the sorts of restrictions and changes that are being urged on us by people like JSO would promote poverty, hunger and social breakdown just as much as climate change would.

My guess is that most people think incremental change is fine and are willing to adjust sensibly. Immediately stopping fossil fuel energy generation, and all the products and side-products from fossil fuels, would bring about a catastrophe.