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.

Excatly, one could ask the question if they were detained in a official sanctioned site, weather it would modify their behaviours.

The world is becoming inhabitable. Some kids throwing paint at a painting behind glass will not change that the earth is literally in places flooding and or underwater.

@Journeybacknorth thanks for the considered reply, however just to take issue with the figures quoted - whilst "true" via the lense applied to them they are manipulated (time/ capex/ projections etc)

I know first hand that for 22-23 the figure for one of those that you quote is more like 40% of profit invested in energy transition linked projects, not traditional exploration and production.

That's where we need big technology companies to develop new technologies to help save the environment.

People don't seem to understand that if we want to halt, let alone even try to reverse climate change it will mean HUGE changes to "ordinary lives" but even then that's better than the alternative which is that there won't be any ordinary lives left to live for billions because huge parts of the planet will be uninhabitable and the knock on effects on even those homes aren't flooded or to hot to live, lives will.be affected or ended by the knock on effects of global famine/mass migration etc

The planet is not going to be uninhabitable. You read the IPCC reports and you’ll read no such thing.

Funny how the countries where people are fleeing from are the very ones without stable access to energy. You don’t see desperate migrants from say, China (well, anymore), because they’ve managed to raise the living standards of the average person by leaps and bounds. Migration from developing countries would drop if they followed the East Asian model of development. We should encourage that to raise global living standards instead of impoverishing ourselves pointlessly

But these people are being imprisoned. They are throwing themselves in front of cars though not horses. And someone was threatening to run them over in this thread. Suffragettes also took part in what were seen as outrageous publicity stunts. Maybe these protesters will be seen differently in 100 years time. I do think there are some similarities between them and the suffragettes

I haven't RTFT but they seem to have been unsuccessful in that we are all discussing their tactics rather than the climate disaster.
It is of course possible to care about and want to protect art
and also
care about and want to protect nature, the planet and people
they should direct their attention to the oil companies and the government.
They also need to do the boring hard work of talking to ordinary people and persuading them that we actually face an emergency- this takes time, patience, imagination, compassion and respect.

I despair I really do- I have been talking about climate change since possibly before these 2 were born. I eat a mostly local, vegetarian diet. My leaky house is insulated as well as I can afford and heated very conservatively. I use active transport or public transport wherever possible. I fly very very rarely and only when unavoidable. If these people have alienated me, how do they expect to win over the people who are still thinking 'warmer summers? bring it on!'

One key difference, they are not after being able to vote, and their actions are unlikely to alter anything, it could be debated, especially when it's usually big business that with investment and research, it could also be debated that will help the environment.

This. They are incredibly naive and misinformed middle-class muppets who have never experienced real hardship. Do they think that world governments can suddenly magic-up a new special form of energy that will be magically cheaper and cleaner than oil and gas and all abundant? They are just causing problems for people trying to get to work and get to hospital. I wish the police would treat them with the same uncompromising urgency as they treat football thugs.

I don't think their actions are anything to do with climate change. I think these are individuals who get a kick out of causing trouble, plain and simple. As someone who supports green initiatives, I think it damages the message massively.

And what point were they trying to make? That even the oil in oil painting must be forbidden now? 😆

@latetothefisting You cannot expect new technologies to be developed much more quickly than has been achieved. Several attempts to make safe workable batteries for instance. Remember the laptop batteries that caught fire. Airlines threatened to ban them from aircraft. Estimate the greater amounts of heat that a few hundred would develop in a family car.
What did these activists contribute to science to speed up the solution?

Some Suffragette campaigners damaged paintings in public art galleries in the early 1900s (and also committed arson elsewhere).

There was a display at the National Portrait Gallery in London a few years ago of the steps galleries took to prevent it: liaising with each other and the police, circulating mug-shots, extra guards, bag searches (sound familiar?). And I'm not sure if I'm mis-remembering but I think at one stage only women visitors were allowed if they were accompanied by a man.

Here's an article about similar steps taken in Liverpool:

www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/troublesome-ladies-and-vote100

"... as reported in the Liverpool Daily Post on 8 May 1914, visitors had been banned from bringing bags, cameras and packages in to the Walker and four additional commissionaires, or guards, had been employed to patrol the galleries in the hope of averting a suffragette attack."

I don't know who they are but from their actions, I would class them as petty vandals and thus not be interested in their motives. I don't understand how some groups think this is effective in making a point and gaining support

I think they are the militant wing of a very just cause. Yes their methods are questionable but that’s kind of the point of doing something designed to spark outrage and media coverage!.

And I think history is going to look upon them and their actions a lot more kindly that it will look upon the climate crisis deniers on this thread.

🤣🤣🤣

Yes the main question, how to arrest the protesters,

It could be debated which is !more effective, a few people waveing some banners and being vandles or big tech and other companies investing, in research and development.

People aren't denying climate change; they are questioning the strategy of this kind of protest. These protesters are sparking outrage but it's outrage directed at them and not at the oil industry. They're hardly the equivalent of Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Well it Got us talking about them

Not entirely pointless as it's got you and other MNetters talking about it, which is of course exactly what they want.

I wonder if the response would have been different had they chucked soup at a Damien Hurst work.

I have only skim read this thread, but haven’t noticed any climate crisis deniers.

Yea, on how to arrest them, and prevent vandalism, and breaking the law.

There are no climate change deniers on this thread. That's the point. These fools - and those defending them here - seem to be unaware of the fact that, as OilSlick pointed out, WE KNOW. We all know. It's a subject that is CONSTANTLY in the media and on the political agenda.

They've achieved nothing - just got people's backs up at their astonishing, patronising idiocy. Do you really think anything is different now than it would have been if Dumb and Dumber had just stayed home today?

They're not even remotely like the Suffragettes or the CND protestors.

And just 😂that two people have said they've donated to this admirable cause. Hope you're trolling.