Eco protesting

[Boomerwang]

Apparently there's a bill going forward to give police more powers to deal with protests and vigils that cause 'serious unease' or 'serious annoyance' and this bill has been blocked several times by Keir Starmer previously.

AIBU to think police should be granted more powers to stop protestors from blocking access points? I fully agree the right to protest must be protected, but what about when it affects others?

I'd argue to go even further and stop the waste of taxpayer's money by having to involve the police at all but then I know people would get seriously hurt this way and that's not okay.

At the same time, I wonder how effective these protests are by forcing us to confront what's going on and whether ultimately they are doing something good? Would they achieve results by sitting to the side of access points instead? Would anyone listen if daily life were uninterrupted? Does anyone stop to think of the cause just because they were physically stopped? Surely it's impossible to sympathise when you're angry?

Personally protesting is something I read about in the news but it doesn't prompt me to reflect on my contribution or research further.

Has anyone been affected by protests before and did it make you consider environment and ecology after the event?

@amicissimma

I agree with the right to protest.

But I firmly belief that it is essential that every citizen should have the right to go to work and support his/her family. And that protesters, no matter how certain they are that their particular cause is important, should be allowed to prevent people from doing, or getting to, their jobs.

I also believe that people should have the right to reach medical treatment and be reached by others who are trying to give necessary support, unimpeded by people's protests.

Oh come on, stop being so dramatic. Protestors will let emergency services through. People can easily get to work. Yes the odd person may be late one day but they are very easy to avoid, just take a slightly different route..you know like most commuters do when there is an accident or a traffic jam.

Fact is, there are protests outside of Westminster every day, every weekend but it doesn't make the news unless people do something disruptive or eye catching. Even the XR priest who sewed his lips together didn't draw much attention because it didn't disrupt anyone.

@Quincythequince

Sorry, I see it now, but also see that you provide a counter-argument to your original point.

So do you think protests should be allowed or not?

My view is of course peaceful protests, within the law, should be allowed.

These, not the road blockade ones, are within the law.

You have no right to prevent access to public highway like this, and there are other laws which are being broken re inhibiting lawful trade.

I think their actions harm their cause, although I agree with their premise.

But we have a public that is Ill-informed and/or doesn’t care, and a government who gives not one flying fuck about the environment.

Aren't there protests which don't interfere with the rights of others though? Those are fine. I think blocking a major transportation link or access to a workplace or hospital and stuff like that is NOT fine

@carefullycourageous

Personally protesting is something I read about in the news but it doesn't prompt me to reflect on my contribution or research further But you have started this thread, so you must have thought about the wider issues around protest a bit further

Protest has the potential to reach even a self-proclaimed ignoramus.

I suppose I'm considering protesting in general and the nuisance it's becoming but I'm not paying attention to the messages they're trying to relay. I'm sure it's something environmental.

Oh come on, stop being so dramatic. Protestors will let emergency services through. People can easily get to work. Yes the odd person may be late one day but they are very easy to avoid, just take a slightly different route..you know like most commuters do when there is an accident or a traffic jam

Did you miss the footage of people begging insulate Britain protesters to let ambulances through?
The strategic points that meant people trapped for hours? No other route available if you're trapped on a slip road or a dual carriageway?
Did you miss the footage of ordinary people crying and begging to be let through to be with an ill, elderly parent, to get to chemo, to get to jobs so they get paid?

"Protestors will let emergency services through. People can easily get to work. Yes the odd person may be late one day but they are very easy to avoid, just take a slightly different route..you know like most commuters do when there is an accident or a traffic jam. "

Except that, on occasion, they didn't. Again and again there were pictures of ambulances impeded, trains stopped, a lady who couldn't get to a sick relative being taken to hospital. And the 'slightly different routes' were all clogged up as a result of the protests and the knock-on from them.

So, no. I'm not being dramatic. Barring accidents, I want to live in a country where people can go about their business unimpeded by people who have a cause that they think is more important than the things that are important to other people.

@Stellaris22 @RagingRagingAndMoreRaging could you give some specific, achievable policies that you think would make a measurable difference and what that difference would be?

Well, the thing is that if we don't do something about it, then these disruptions will become part of our lives and not because of protestors. Have you seen what flooding has done to Australia? People have lost their homes and their livelihood and not just turned up to work a few minutes late.

Did you see the fires and the floods recently?

And there is a lot of deliberate anti protest trolling and exaggeration.

For example, better, affordable environmentally friendly public transport would really help with traffic and being able to get to work. And noone having to sit in traffic for hours. That could be one of the solutions. Why do so many people drive in this country when they are stuck in traffic, parking is hard to find etc? Because public transport is shit and expensive. It needed not be so.

I think the actions of these "protestors" are terrorism, have nothing to do with legitimate protest, and should not be conflated. I am completely opposed to the reform bill, but there should be other avenues open to prosecute and prevent the fuel depot blockades.

@amicissimma

"Protestors will let emergency services through. People can easily get to work. Yes the odd person may be late one day but they are very easy to avoid, just take a slightly different route..you know like most commuters do when there is an accident or a traffic jam. "

Except that, on occasion, they didn't. Again and again there were pictures of ambulances impeded, trains stopped, a lady who couldn't get to a sick relative being taken to hospital. And the 'slightly different routes' were all clogged up as a result of the protests and the knock-on from them.

So, no. I'm not being dramatic. Barring accidents, I want to live in a country where people can go about their business unimpeded by people who have a cause that they think is more important than the things that are important to other people.

What is more important than your future and your children's future?? What?

I have kids, a very busy job, have to pay my bills yet I am an activist, because I don't want me or my kids to live in a destroyed planet. Just so that some obscenely rich people can be slightly more obscenely rich for a few more years. Because that is what this is about.

I'm finding this thread fascinating. My (lovely) MIL told me recently that she 'thinks people should only be allowed to protest if it doesn't bother anyone', which I found mind-blowing, and I honestly thought that this misunderstanding of what a protest is was her own personal, idiosyncratic mistake. Turns out it's quite a widespread view!

@Momijin

Well, the thing is that if we don't do something about it, then these disruptions will become part of our lives and not because of protestors. Have you seen what flooding has done to Australia? People have lost their homes and their livelihood and not just turned up to work a few minutes late.

Did you see the fires and the floods recently?

And there is a lot of deliberate anti protest trolling and exaggeration.

For example, better, affordable environmentally friendly public transport would really help with traffic and being able to get to work. And noone having to sit in traffic for hours. That could be one of the solutions. Why do so many people drive in this country when they are stuck in traffic, parking is hard to find etc? Because public transport is shit and expensive. It needed not be so.

I don't disagree that public transport is shit almost everywhere except London (quelle surprise) but surely you can see it's not just "wave a wand" magic to achieve that? I wish people would vote to improve public transport but look what poison any fuel tax rises are - the country nearly ground to a halt in 2000 when (perhaps somewhat ironically) the fuel distribution system was disrupted by protests at the cost of fuel.
I am not doubting your sincerity or the wisdom of what you propose - but it will take a heck of a lot of cash (and mindshift) for the majority of us to go to the majority of places by bus and train - how will that work?

Just so that some obscenely rich people can be slightly more obscenely rich for a few more years. Because that is what this is about.

How will stopping an NHS nurse getting to Hospital on time to relieve a colleague make rich people change their ways?

I have really mixed feelings about these kinds of laws.

Protests IMO are not about making people's lives difficult so they "notice" your protest. Protest is not about pressuring people into agreeing with you. It doesn't work anyway, it is much more likely to lose public support, in which case you have to ask - what is it these people are really trying to achieve?

I don't like giving more powers to control protests to the authorities but the more protesters take up these pressurizing techniques rather than trying to convince people, the more likely it is they will get passes. It's a real own goal, instead of annoying people so they pressure the government into changing their approach to environmental issues, they pressure them to change the protest laws.

It's strategically idiotic and I can't help but think some of these groups are reaping what they've sowed, mainly because what they really want is total social breakdown. Unfortunately all the rest of us have to live with the consequences.

@MangyInseam

I have really mixed feelings about these kinds of laws.

Protests IMO are not about making people's lives difficult so they "notice" your protest. Protest is not about pressuring people into agreeing with you. It doesn't work anyway, it is much more likely to lose public support, in which case you have to ask - what is it these people are really trying to achieve?

I don't like giving more powers to control protests to the authorities but the more protesters take up these pressurizing techniques rather than trying to convince people, the more likely it is they will get passes. It's a real own goal, instead of annoying people so they pressure the government into changing their approach to environmental issues, they pressure them to change the protest laws.

It's strategically idiotic and I can't help but think some of these groups are reaping what they've sowed, mainly because what they really want is total social breakdown. Unfortunately all the rest of us have to live with the consequences.

I agree - I sometimes wonder if some of these groups are actually helped and encouraged by the "rich people" they hate. Their actions have no effect at all on the establishment and super-rich, they just annoy ordinary people for no gain.

What is more important than your future and your children's future??What?

If someone I loved had been in one of those ambulances that couldn't get through they would have been much more important to me than anyone or anything else.

What I find fundamentally bizarre is when the protestors from Just Stop Oil are interviewed and say they're just providing a future for their children. If oil production stopped overnight, we would all starve well before we got to this utopian future. What's needed is huge investment in alternatives, and that doesn't happen in countries where basic infrastructure has ground to a halt in the meantime.

History gives us examples of campaigns that both changed the geopolitical landscape to those that although unsuccessful, highlighted oppression. Spartacus’ uprising, the Protestant Reformation, the Boston Tea Party, the Haitian Revolution, the Storming of the Bastille, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the Hungarian Revolution, Gandhi’s Salt March, the Stonewall Riots, Vietnam war protests, Tiananmen Square, the anti- Apartheid movement are just a few examples of struggles throughout history that represent the human need to make their own choices, to be free from oppression in all forms as well as to be given a voice.

I suspect Gandhi would not have thought of protests intended to pressurize regular people into doing what you want are a good or moral idea.

Just because you think a cause is worthy does not mean any way you try and achieve it is ok, or even pragmatic.

I absolutely agree with the right to protest. However, to cause mass upheaval and risk to life does their cause no good.

I am yet to be convinced that we are in "climate chaos" - floods, fires, earthquakes, volcano eruptions etc have all occurred since long before humans.

What ER and their ilk have been doing has been absolutely risking other peoples lives. Those twats who dangled on a rope from a London bridge had to be "rescued" by professionals putting not only the rescuers lives at risk but also other people who may have had a genuine emergency.

Personally, I would have cut their ropes and let them get on with it. Idiots who glued themselves to the road would have been pulled off, none of this namby pamby gently taking the glue off with specialist solvent.

@chitofftheshovel what would convince you that "climate chaos" is real?

What I find amazing is that these protesters seem to think the reason you protest is to disrupt the lives of other citizens, so that they will be pissed off and the government will take action to placate them.

It's a softer version of the philosophy of terrorism, which says that you threaten citizens in order to force the state to negotiate.

That is not "protest." That is not showing the state that the citizens at large want a certain change or something addressed. Or even just that a group has a problem with a certain policy or action or lack of action.

When protesters start to use pressure on other citizens to get their way, they become a lobby group trying to force society to do what they want. And they should not be surprised if society returns the favour by using the power of the law to stop them doing it.

Whether on not they think it's justified is irrelevant, that's always what authoritarian factions think.

Why weren't they active during winter

That's what I keep asking and there's never been an answer. If it's all such an emergency you'd think they'd be out whatever the weather, but no - they only come crawling (or rather, driving) out once the weather improves

FWIW I also agree with the right to protest responsibly, but there's nothing responsible about blocking ambulances and so on, and for me that's when they should be shifted

Why are climate protesters always such wankers? After the Greenpeace demonstration in Copenhagen in 2009 there was so much garbage left in the streets that it cost the equivalent of one year's wages for two nursery nurses to clean up after them. A huge team started cleaning right after the demonstration stopped Saturday afternoon. There were people cleaning all through the night and it continued until late afternoon Sunday. In the afternoon on the Sunday three people from Greenpeace showed up and claimed that the council workers really didn't have to clean it up as they had every intention of doing it themselves. Three people. As if. It would have taken them more than a month.

Unfortunately too many thickos think that they are changing the world by ‘protesting’. While the smart ones get on with solving problems with real engineered solutions.

Such shortsightedness and ignorance will be the end of us all

I agree - I sometimes wonder if some of these groups are actually helped and encouraged by the "rich people" they hate

Yes it would be interesting to know who donated and how much. Don’t the owners of Lush give money to causes like this? Presumably they are very rich.