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.

Question to Just Stop Oil. Bearing in mind that we rely on oil for pretty much everything, I again ask the question, how do they think it is possible to stop all and everything without huge detriment. We can and should cut down, but it will take years and years to redirect our technologies away from reliance on oil. So many processes and products rely on it. You have to look beyond the raw uses of oil and gas, for cars or home or industry, and look at all the vital things that we make from plastics, which will need to be redesigned. I am not saying it is not possible, but it will take time.

Look at all the plastic shit that came out of Covid for example. PPE, drugs, detergents etc etc

They are pricks. If they wanted to make a difference to someone’s life, they could have donated that soup to a food bank.

Whether in Pakistan or Somerset, large scale flooding is more often than not down to a change in land use.

In the case of Pakistan either deforestation or removal of other things that slowed the flow upstream. This is then combined with humans moving into flood prone areas.

Climate merely change alters the frequency and/ or volume (in both directions)

Simon Reeve had an interesting bit about just that in his Lakes Series. They are putting the kinks and bends back into rivers to slow them down, having removed them in the Victorian age.

The biggest one of all - and an impact that hasn't yet landed fully from this energy crisis, is the availability of fertilisers.

We can't just rely on dung, look at what happened in Sri Lanka.

It's a really nihilistic and unintelligent way of protesting. It gets publicity (negative publicity) but it doesn't forward their argument or persuade people to their cause. They'd be far more effective if they won people over or devoted their lives to finding scientific solutions to the problem.

How exactly do they think we are going to Just Stop Oil? It’ll take decades for alternative technologies to be developed. Do they intend to keep on doing this for decades? It isn’t going to make technology develop any faster!

Not really. Some of us know how to protest. We were as passionate and angry in our own youth. What we didn't do was silly things like throw food around or piss off the public we were trying to get inside.

We did chain ourselves to fences, put ourselves in some real danger when security tried to move us on. We courted TV cameras and passers by, we made demands that were short, sharp and achievable.

Today's protestors don't think things through and seem to assume that the general public is thick as shit and need to be educated out of its ignorance. It is patronising in a way we never were.

And that attitude is, in some sectors, doing their cause far more harm than good.

Basically they need facts, pictures, short sharp slogans. Not tears, illogical phrases and weird non logical actions.

YES! Greenham Common and CND!

Land use is inextricably linked to the climate crisis though - while not necessarily pertinent to the discussion at hand, I don’t disagree with you that it is a huge contributing factor.

But you can’t deny that climate change is making more frequent and extreme weather events that exacerbate events such as flooding (notwithstanding other factors).

I just named the floods in Pakistan as a recent, shocking event that is indicative of the sort of extreme event we can expect to see more frequently as a result of a changing climate.

Maybe people looked at the suffragettes in the same way. Extremely annoying but ultimately right. Maybe like the climate protestors of today. People who are right and before their time are often extremely irritating and face a lot of public opposition.

But Just Stop Oil aren’t saying to cease all use of fossil fuels tomorrow. They’re saying the UK shouldn’t license any new fossil fuel projects.

But this young woman didn't say that at all. In fact, if you hadn't made that clear, I would have had no idea what they were campaigning for.

And that's why it's a shit campaign and no more intelligent than smashing up a bus shelter for kicks.

A lot of older people probably thought that chaining to fences etc was weird and illogical at the time.

River bends, replanting indigenous flora and all other local, small scale changes will be the catalyst for real change in most countries. Waiting for governments, global groups to find accord won't do it, they have always needed a kick start and usually move far to slowly.

If today's protestors had any kind of plan they could articulate, real stuff that individuals and corporations could do, or if they actually spoke to the large corporations they are vilifying, joined with them to add pressure, then they'd get somewhere.

It is us, Joe Public, that will make the first meaningful changes. We don't need to be entertained and annoyed by such silliness. From the fake New Orleans style funerals and gluing themselves to tube trains and now throwing of milk and soup, there is something missing. A real disconnect.

Not to mention the oil used in the production of their hi-vis jackets and their banners.

Also, how do they travel to their protest spots?

Thus week alone, I have read about 3 different acts of vandalism all in the name if some greater cause:

Pouring milk all over the shop floor in Fortnum and Mason.

Pouring human excrement on Captain Tom's memorial statue.

Throwing soup on Van Gogh's painting.

All from different groups. How is any of this furthering their argument and helping their cause if they are having to continue causing damage to property?

Sorry for typos, hope you get the gist.

Well it has brought you to a thread discussing Just Stop Oil, which has informed you of the campaign’s purpose. So is that not the campaign working?

Yes, we were seen as illogical at first. But we had good speakers who could explain what we were doing and why we were doing it. The explanation made sense, had a point and realistic demands, proposed outcomes.

It should be equally doable to persuade people that small lifestyle changes can make a real difference and also put pressure on organisations and governments.

What won't work is what is perceived to be teeny tiny temper tantrums by privileged twonks who have no idea about working for a living. That's something they really could have avoided.

Okay, maybe not the Stroud lot, Piers Corbyn etc. The public perception of them is pretty accurate 🙂

Most of their protesting does nothing to further their point, it just annoys people. There was a vegan group in the US who tried to stop a truck entering a slaughterhouse by standing in front of it, doesn't take a genius to figure out who would win between a tiny 66 year old woman and an 18 wheeler lorry but for those wondering, she was run over, horrifically injured and died. They then had the nerve to blame the driver for it

@Wonnle sorry I don't want to get in to an argument as I respect your right to disagree etc, but mainstream insulation is often made from cellulose (recycled newspaper) or sheep's wool, although as sheep are pretty environmental vandally themselves probably not the best.
Yes we are all hypocrites amd stuck for ideas on what to do, I just feel like no gov anywhere listens as they're too entrenched in "the way things are".

I volunteer!

Throwing some soup at a painting covered in glass isn't what 'direct action' means.

I’m a vegan, don’t have a car, love in a well insulated house, don’t buy fast fashion and recycle. I’d willingly be educated about more things I am do. The pp who said it’s us who can make a change is right. Throwing soup at a piece of art does nothing to educate me. It just depresses and angers me.

The suffragettes were imprisoned. Force fed. Threw themselves in front of horses. They died.

These people are causing other people to die, by blocking ambulances and other emergency vehicles.

Bit of a difference, don't you think?