Climate change activists shooting themselves in the foot?

[2beesornot2beesthatisthehoney]

I had sympathy with the both the cause and actions (though not the vandalism) until today. They are now paralysing the public transport system. Isn’t the main thrust of encouraging better habits for climate change , getting people out of their cars and onto public transport.
Fact 1: people need to work
Fact 2 : most need to commute , short journeys or long.
Fact 3: protests are to promote awareness and get the people on your side.

THIS WON’T !

A link to a useful article about why not eating meat isn't environmentally friendly link

Fine so long as you pay for that. Cheap shit meat raised on all sorts of supplements is what most people throw money at. No matter whether fully grass fed or supplementary fed, they'll still be knocking out methane.

I get climate change. I get that we need to sort it out and that means radical changes. I get that people want to raise awareness. What I don't get is how disrupting public transport does any of this. Disrupt cars and politicians - I'd buy that. But stopping buses and doing it when no politician is in London ?????

I don't think politicians need to be in London to know what's going on. I mean, I'm not in London and I do.

So you're not affected then and has made no difference to your life. It's bloody ruined mine this week as instead of planning lessons for next week I've spent hours in taxis getting my 'unable to walk and join in the 'fun' mother to various hospitals. Usually we'd get the bus but no chance. But hey, that's ok as the weed smoking, not working oilks blocking the bridge are doing such a wonderful job. And I see we now have Hollywood stars popping in from LA - I assume they have used a non polluting plane ? I believe they are going for Heathrow tomorrow so that should stop too many 'stars' arriving.

OK pots what's the environmental effect of consuming vegan food, given that so many posters up thread think it gives you eco brownie points? How much is flown in, or produced in heated polytunnels?
Why not protest outside the Chinese embassy against the fact that they are the major polluters in the world?

I think the private limited company partly behind this, Compassionate Revolution,^^ sounds rather sinister. It can't be a coincidence that the protests seem to be timed to coincide with 420 Day in Hyde Park, how much pollution will be caused by that? It seems that drug taking is quite a significant part of the whole thing. Co-founder Gail Bradbrook "decided to become an activist as a direct result of taking huge doses of two powerful psychedelic drugs."

Targeting Heathrow, if that is indeed the plan, may make the government act. And as for Emma Thompson jetting in to man the barricades 🙄

People are starting to take more extreme action because they are EXASPERATED and FRIGHTENED by lack of action (or action which is far too slow) by the world’s governments on climate change. It is THE most important issue of our generation – of all generations. A few marches and placards that affect nobody would not even be covered by the media. Brexit pales into insignificance in impact on our lives and our children’s lives in comparison to climate change yet it gets miniscule media attention.

Our electoral system is USELESS when it comes to change via the ballot box on environmental issues because we don’t have proportional representation so getting anything but Labour or Tory has not happened for decades and is not likely to. In the 2015 General election the Green Party won its highest-ever share of the vote with 3.8% - they got just 1 out of the 650 MPs. 3.8 % would have been 25MPs! Conservatives won 330 seats with their 36.9% of the vote, but 36.9% of MPs equates to 240 MPs – ie 90 fewer MPs! We don’t have real democracy in the UK and people who want change are starting to resort to more disruptive measures. What else can they do??? If you think climate change this isn’t important – you are very ill informed and have your head in the sand. The scientific evidence that is now overwhelming. www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/beao0k/

Disruption /civil disobediance = media attention and publicity. Its very simple.

Nobody would know about it if they just stood on Parliament Square and sang a few songs with banners.

If they want people to listen & agree they need to stop looking like massive hypocrites. The boat at Oxford Circus must have come in a lorry, the woman outside Corbyn’s house with her single use plastic bottle, Emma Thompson jetting in, how many of them wearing cheap clothes made in diabolical conditions, how many did a gap year to Thailand via cheap flights?
It’s a massively important issue but instead of annoying people they need to set out their arguments clearly & we all need clear instructions on what we can do to improve the situation (I’m guessing street yoga isn’t actually going to reverse any climate damage)

Nancy 75 - how do you suggest they get media attention (hence public attention) by " setting out their arguments clearly" ? I've been working in the environmental sector for 30 years watching credible scientists spell out factual evidence based information on what is happening VERY clearly but mainstream media rarely cover it and most of the population don't know/ don't want to know. If you want 'clear instructions on what we can do to improve the situation' I suggest you look at the internet where you will find plenty of guidance about how each citizen can reduce their carbon footprint.

It's OK, they don't want people to listen and agree.

They want government and big businesses to change their policies. For that to happen they need full on disruption.

Whether individuals agree or not isn't really relevant.

Crackerjackerknacker even on this thread there is disagreement about what we should be doing, people think they are doing the right thing are apparently just tinkering & making no difference.
The current protests might have got column inches but they haven’t got support, most of the public are calling them out as hypocrites.

Nancy - Unless the people 'calling them out' know about the private lives of thousands of individual protestors and how they live their lives in great detail (which they obviosly don't) , I don't see how they can call a whole bunch of people hypocrtites? Its nonesense. They know virtually nothing about them?

If somebody uses transport to get to London it makes them a hypocrite?
They might be sourcing their clothes, their household energy, their food, their household goods etc etc all in a very sustainable way but because they use fossil fuled transport to do a long journey they are a hypocrite? What utter bollocks.

Using a lorry to bring a totally unnecessary boat to Oxford Circus is a bit hypocritical, as is glueing yourself to a fence with a single use plastic bottle in your free hand or flying from America to London to attend a climate change protest.

Assume you mean Emma Thompson? I don't know her personal circumstances but assume she was coming to London because she lives there anyway and had been working in USA? I've got no idea of her itinerary, work shedule etc. You must know her well to be able to judge how sustainable her lifestyle is. Not really that relevant though is is to the scale of the crisis facing us ? A protestor photographed with a plastic bottle and a lorry journey?

You are missing the point.
To the average person being affected by these protests it looks like a load of people causing disruption whilst advocating do as I say not as I do. That doesn’t encourage people to change it annoys people & turns them against a very important cause.
The picture of the woman with the plastic bottle was all over the internet yesterday, people weren’t talking about why she was protesting they were talking about the plastic bottle.

I think it's much easier to be sympathetic if you are watching it on television than if you are personally affected by the disruption.

The way they’re doing it makes it seems like they’re a load of over privileged twits who enjoy sticking it to the plebs.

Yes we need to deal with climate change, but we also need to do it in a way which doesn’t impoverish people especially poorer countries.

I think that’s basically the problem with this movements image, there ideas aren’t centred on people and the human cost.

I’m not in London and so not personally disrupted but as a bystander it seems that this could’ve been done better so that it had more of an impact to it’s true cause and less to everyday people.
A protest like this would take some degree of planning so holding it when there is no government around seems foolish.
There has been a lot of media attention in the capital surrounding brexit. If they had timed this differently and staged it next to parliament they likely would have got lots of free media and interviews whilst reporters waited. MPs or other government figures may have been forced to respond.
Despite what a lot of people are saying about how the public aren’t the target, the government is, it is important that the protesters ‘endear’ themselves to the public. The government will only make changes if they truly believe the majority of the electorate will support it and it will win them votes in the future. I’m a cynic, don’t really believe anyone in government gives a toss about climate change. Everything is a business unfortunately. If the protesters can show them that they will lose an electoral vote without making a change, that’s how they will win this fight in my view. Good luck to them.

There is very little private individuals can do except protest, and protests tend to be ignored if they are peaceful and lawful.

(The only other really effective things you can do for the climate as individual are to eat a plant based diet and stop flying)

I fully support Extinction Rebellion and think they are doing a good job in highlighting the emergency that is upon us.

In response to some posters, there have been protests around the world, including India. This country did start the industrial revolution so it would be good if we were to become world leaders in green energy and eliminating the use of fossil fuels.

I think the organisers of the protests have been pretty shrewd in choosing a time when parliament is in recess, so that the latest Brexit twist of the day isn’t the main item that the news outlets focus on.

Hypocrisy is a charge that is always levelled at environmentalists. It is really difficult to make big changes without system change, for example I would really like to fit solar panels and external insulation to my house, but without some sort of government initiative the cost is prohibitive. Lots of my neighbours would use public transport more readily if the buses were more frequent and more reliable. There has to be system change, we cannot rely on individuals making the right choices; we have to make the right choice for the environment the easiest choice for the individual.

George Monbiot wrote back in 2008 about hypocrisy “Hypocrisy is the gap between your aspirations and your actions. Greens have high aspirations – they want to live more ethically – and they will always fall short. But the alternative to hypocrisy isn't moral purity (no one manages that), but cynicism. Give me hypocrisy any day“.

@mumsneedwine I really hope that your mum did get to see the specialist the other day and is getting the treatment she needs.

Tiny point in the grand scheme but .... irritated/amused me to see coverage of the protestors on the bridge sitting eating their suppers using plastic cutlery, a couple of them wearing fleeces.
Put me in mind of the fracking protestors nearby who drive to the site in their clapped out, black smog producing 2CV and warm their hands over parafin heaters.