To think this is awful? (Just Stop Oil protesters throwing soup over Van Gogh painting)

[TheCatsPyjamas1]

Just read that some Just Stop Oil protesters have thrown soup over a Van Gogh painting in the National Gallery in London. AIBU to think this is unacceptable?

I fully support the message of the group (investing in environmentally responsible energy rather than fossil fuels, and helping to make society more equal for everyone), but I find their protest methods are awful and risk alienating people who would otherwise support them.

They keep on doing crazy things, and seem to be escalating their action each time they protest. I don’t really know when or how it’ll end.

@windtunnel(?)

My point was that historically governmental change is often persuaded by what % of the populace wants and starts to do. Charities and individuals have started all of the conservation concerns here in the UK. From animals, birds, historic buildings to the more recent solar panels, heat pumps etc.

A government is not an imaginative thing, as Truss is finding out. Their job is to represent us, not have us represent them. And that is how things get changed.

Larger corporations do have to be imaginative. They have to see the beginnings of trends even make those trends. Most of the big utility/fuel companies started their changes decades ago and have pumped millions into research and development of new products. Products the government destroy sometimes, like the manufacturer of wind turbines who was put out of business by Cameron's (?) taxation.

Stop Oil should know where the new solutions are, should be pushing for specifics, could harness the very companies they vilify. But they seem far to evangelical, to set on being Angry Young Things, to be logical. Their pettiness will, like XR, make them ineffective.

It really is down to us, Joe Public. And teeny temper tantrums won't gain traction. They will irritate and the message will be lost. They need far better PR.

You've deliberately missed what I'm saying.
If you're sitting on a road and get killed by a vehicle it is your own fault. They're putting their life and others in danger.

They're not preventing some oil tycoon from getting to his daily dose of caviar. They're preventing people getting emergency treatment, encouraging possible collisions, preventing a single mother getting her kids to school on time and reaching a much relied on job, bus loads of people unable to get to where they need, family members not having the opportunity to say goodbye to a relative before they pass away. Fuels expensive too. There's a cost if living crisis. Stop dalaying traffic and endangering the public. This act is doing nothing for their cause.

Just Stop oil is such a ridiculous concept as literally the whole world 'runs' on oil products. For a start the 'activists' should be detained in a place that has no continued use of oil. so they would be caged up and would both starve and freeze to death (eventually). If they want to protest, they should walk to Russia and stop Mr Putin trashing vast quantities of oil/gas in his war. Similarly the 'Insulate Britain protestors need to protest to the government to INSIST that all UK housing stock (private and council) is adequately insulated. Those that are gluing themselves to roads etc should simply be physically removed and if it takes chunks of their skin off, so be it.

For a start the 'activists' should be detained in a place that has no continued use of oil. so they would be caged up and would both starve and freeze to death (eventually).

Those that are gluing themselves to roads etc should simply be physically removed and if it takes chunks of their skin off, so be it.

You fucking nutcase.

if this is really what you think, you need to go and see your GP. I'm being serious.

This is what the climate deniers are like, guys. This is what we are up against.

Just Stop oil is such a ridiculous concept as literally the whole world 'runs' on oil products.

And this is bollocks too, @ILeclercreturn . Around half of the world's energy consumption is currently 'dirty' fossil fuels - coal and oil (Source: ourworldindata.org/energy-mix; OWID is connected with Oxford Uni). Of the remainder, there is some gas and biomass but these are much cleaner.

A transition to a cleaner, safer world for our young people is possible; the scalable technology exists. But you're more interested in seeing those young people freeze to death, or having their skin ripped off.

I don’t really know when or how it’ll end.

Extinction. It will end the extinction of humanity via climate change, following terrible suffering for billions.

I love that painting, but surprisingly am not annoyed at all. It's just a painting.

“But where is your rage at the destruction of the natural world”

The destruction of the natural world is due to mankind. We are already overpopulated and it is humans who are destroying the planet. It is humans that need energy and food and the more the population grows the more energy and food will be needed.

The earth’s population in 1900 was circa 2 billion. It took 300,000 years to get to 2 billion.

It is forecast that next month November 2022 we will hit a world population of 8 billion. So we have taken just 122 years to increase the population by 6 billion.

According to some scientists the earth can reasonably sustain a population of 10-14 billion. We are nearly there!! It’s us who are destroying the climate, it’s us destroying the earth with our need for fuel/ heat/food. The more of us, the more the need.

A very quick Google will tell you you’re wrong on all counts. Just wrong

lol is that all you’ve got? You absolutely must know that our safe, comfortable lives are underpinned by fossil fuels, in nearly all matters.

We cannot transition, no matter how much you may want this.

You could switch to nuclear for electricity generation, but this would still leave us in need of fossil fuels for plastics production/medical devices/agriculture/construction/heavy transport, etc.

all you want to do is deny reality.

This is what the climate deniers are like, guys. This is what we are up against.

There is no evidence whatsoever to say the poster is a climate change denier. So we are looking at an irrational movement full of conspiracy theories and manufacturing enemies out of paranoid delusions, which means it will fail because there's no way whatsoever you'll get normal people on your side.

(I guarantee my carbon footprint is a tiny fraction of that of most if not all of those so-called protesters against climate change)

Great post. It’s a HUGE, irrational leap to assume people who think stunts like this are wrong must be a ‘denier’.

Distinct lack of critical thinking.

Well, she's calling for the torture and execution of climate activists, so I think it's a reasonable presumption that she is on the other side of the argument. You're free to infer otherwise, of course.

This thread alone shows that there are plenty of people who think the activists have behaved, here, within reasonable parameters.

I guarantee my carbon footprint is a tiny fraction of that of most if not all of those so-called protesters against climate change

Don't be stupid. You have no way of knowing this.

🤦‍♀️ Oh dear.

It’s the incongruity that gets me

They started with Just Stop Oil then segued into Cost of Living crisis

The latter is caused by the shortage of the former

So if we did just stop oil as they want how many of us could afford to heat our homes?

If they want transition so the price doesn’t spiral further than isn’t that what many want and we are doing already. As pp said above you probably can’t get rid of all of it but bringing in nuclear etc will take time. In the interim what does Just Stop Oil want to happen

A cursory Google of the efficacy of environmental activism will tell you it is a necessity for accelerating concrete, meaningful action.
Environmental activism in the UK in the last 5 years has served to significantly shift the Overton window, 'mainstream' environmental issues and facilitate a move toward policy change. I am absolutely certain it would not have happened had it not been for the commitment and diligence of Extinction Rebellion activists, and the subsequent efforts of allied or related groups such as Insulate Britain, Stop HS2 and Just Stop Oil. As a society, we owe them a great debt of gratitude.
I find myself bemused when posters consider climate mitigating measures with some sort of caveat for preserving current western standards of living. These are the very standards, and the aspiration toward them, that have put us in this position. We must expect, and plan for, a change in our expectations of what a good standard of living looks like, thinking more in terms of sustainability and collectivism.
We live without many of the things many of my friends take for granted, yet our 'standard of living' would have been the norm in most homes until fairly recently. We don't replace things unless actually necessary (ie not for cosmetic reasons, but only if broken or worn beyond repair) and then source second hand replacements or parts where possible. We consider aquisitions in terms of resource required to manufacture and distribute, and whether the manufacturing process carries additional environmental harm, such as pollution. We're not loaded, and can't necessarily go for pricier eco alternatives (for paint, for instance); we just decide that, on balance, we'd rather not paint, if the environmental impact is deterioration of water courses as a result of the use of heavy chemicals in the manufacturing process. Or, we buy paint second-hand.
As for the van Gogh action, I am glad they did it, because here we are, talking, and normalising the conversations about what the hell can be done.

thedancingbear

I don't drive, I've never flown, I walk almost everywhere and rarely get public transport because of the cost, I've been vegetarian since I was about 11, I haven't bought myself new clothes for a good decade or so, I don't have a tumble dryer etc - and I don't use toxic bright pink hair dye either.

I am sure her ‘toxic bright pink hair dye’ is probably a vegetable-based temporary dye (most wacky colours like that are).

The complexity of the issue is completely lost to them I fear.

The biggest thing anyone can do, is not have children. No-one, except perhaps I think Attenborough tried, suggests this as a solution. The next is to keep using what you already have. Keep you car, yes, the one powered by petroleum fuel, because the manufacture of and the extraction of precious metals for a new electric vehicle uses more energy, and causes way more damage to the planet than keeping your 20 year old petrol vehicle going. Fix your washing machine. Keep you mobile phone more than 2 years. How about legislating against the process of bitcoin mining. So many issues.

I am being misrepresented on several fronts.
I am not calling for torture and execution of climate activists. I said that they should be denied ANY of the modern conveniences that oil provides, so no imported food, no heating beyond lambswool garments so basically reverting to 'hunter gatherers'. OK if they can get a fire going that could be a source of heat for them. No plastics (they are usually derived from oil).
I m not a climate change denier as it is blatantly obvious the worlds climate is shifting with more extreme weather events. As the earth is a big rock in space it will always undergo changes partly defined by the proximity of the moon but also sunspots that affect many things in subtle ways. Look at the vast areas of Russia and America that have been rendered desolate by drilling for oil and exploding nuclear 'bombs' (see also atolls in the caribean and central Australia) that have been sacrificed by Human's 'research and greed. Fertilisers and farm machinery rely on oil to enable food to be produced in sufficient quantities to feed people. Humans must stop trying to live in environments that are either too hot or too cold for survival and life that requires earth's resources to sustain existence. So cut out 'air conditioning' and excessive heating so if you can't survive by putting on arm clothes or sitting in the shade, don't live there.
Rather than stopping oil (gas) the world needs to scale back expectations and use ANY fuels as efficiently as possible. solar (PV) panels use a lot of glass and silicon which is very energy intensive in it's production, likewise cement for concrete uses vast amount of heat energy to produce. This of course is usually derived from coal, oil or gas.
So, The Dancingbear needs to look at the WHOLE issue not just her prejudices.
As for being insulting that should see a doctor maybe she should look to her own errors first. I have 'done by bit' for sustainability by only having one child and living in a property with hardly any heating that used relatively small amounts of natural resources to build.

You posted:

^For a start the 'activists' should be detained in a place that has no continued use of oil. so they would be caged up and would both starve and freeze to death (eventually)...

Those that are gluing themselves to roads etc should simply be physically removed and if it takes chunks of their skin off, so be it.^

Leaving aside the point that the 'activists' could rely on green fuels (which represent getting on for 50%) to sustain themselves, you are literally stating that you want the protesters to physically suffer, even die.

That's fucking deranged.

If what you meant to type was 'I would like to see them prosecuted and fined, even imprisoned' then I look forward to your clarification.

This is a sensible post, and I agree with a lot of it. In particular, electric cars are not the panacea that they are being sold as.

However I don't think we can assume that the complexity of the issue is lost on the protesters. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't - we just don't know, but we shouldn't assume they are idiots simply because they're young.

The thing is, they could write a detailed paper comparing the harm-adjusted costs of various different kinds of power generation, and write erudite letters to their MP - and be completely ignored. And all the while things carry on towards their inexorable conclusion, which plenty of posters on this thread have acknowledged. I think the comparison with the suffragettes is a good one, and we need more non-violent direct action like this.

And, again, this doesn't extend to blocking ambulances and fire engines; people who do that are arseholes.

It's great that your doing these things. What do you know about the protestors' own footprints?

I agree that there are lots of hypocrites in this area - private jets to attend carbon summits and all that - but I've not seen anything to suggest these protestors are in that category. I think it's more likely they are pretty hardcore in their own lifestyles, but of course we don't know.

I think people are misrepresenting what was said. That poster said their son was critically ill, every second counted, and if they were blocked from getting to the hospital, it is fair to run them over in an emergency. They didn't say run them over just for the sake of it, they were talking about in an emergency. I'm sure if it was your child or family member who was minutes away from death you'd see it their way too.

DH is working on a project - The decarbonisation of the NHS. It is further proof that quite a lot is being done behind the scenes, but no-one seems to know about. Big caveat, again it will take a looooonnnng time to achieve. It covers everything from specific running costs, heat light etc, to anetheastics, to drugs, to suppliers of consumables, to staff commuting, to patients attending. A lot relies on digital implementation, which many are resisting.

These are the very standards, and the aspiration toward them, that have put us in this position. We must expect, and plan for, a change in our expectations of what a good standard of living looks like, thinking more in terms of sustainability and collectivism

Good lord. This will cause far more human suffering than climate change.

It was an oil painting. They really don't like oil do they?