To risk arrest for protesting about the climate emergency?

[medicellen]

I have recently taken part in climate protests with Extinction Rebellion but have stopped short of activities that would lead to an arrest.

I am a scientist and it has been beyond doubt for some years that the climate emergency is accelerating.

And yet, global carbon emissions continue to increase. Our government is granting new licences for fossil fuels, whilst oil companies rake in massive profits. This is utter madness (aka "collective suicide" according to the lead of the UN).

I have an 8-year old son who says one day he might like to have children. I have avoided saying that this may be either not possible or not desirable due to the state of the climate by then.

Petitions, campaigning, pleas, marches have failed. In my mind, the only option left is civil disobedience. Mass arrests advanced the causes of suffrage and civil rights and I am now contemplating arrest as the only meaningful contribution I have left.

I'd be happy to reevaluate if I had actually seen any evidence but I haven't.

Correlation doesn't equal causation. XR have stepped up their protests in recent years as the impact of climate change has become increasingly clear. Public concern has increased in the same period, but I haven't seen any evidence to support the idea that public concern has increased in response to the protests rather than in response to the overwhelming evidence that is actually out there. Could you point me towards this evidence, please?

In fact, I would argue that the protests are a symptom of growing public concern rather than the cause of it.

Wood burning from sustainable sources is climate neutral.

Some of the utter tosh posted is unbelievable.

Ban all wood-burning stoves where houses also have gas and electric - could do that immediately

Are there going to be special hit squads kicking down people's doors to check their heating arrangements?

I think one of my biggest problems with XR is the attitude.

The attitude that they are morally superior and that anyone who thinks they are a bunch of bellends isn't interested in the environment.

The Wah Wah Wahing is alienating.

I think we should be chucking a shedload into sustainable energy, to build up our sector and take the lead in it, because there is money in whoever does it first.

That means jobs and it means security and it means it benefits public pockets in the long run. It reduces reliance on fossil fuels so you don't have to cut back on them. In the long run they naturally become economically unviable. And thats the thing.

Make it hit a tipping point where fossil fuels aren't worth buying!

As i say, it's viable especially given this winter and the politic changes it makes (which are driving public concern far more than trespassing muppets).

I completely echo MrsBennetsPoorNerves comments above.

Make it affordable to switch because that's one of the biggest rubs. People are limited by what they can afford and if they are parents they are often limited by the time they have to run away doing all the jobs they need to.

Indirect policies like like greater on site child care at work would have a bigger impact than many other things like total bans.

Why?

Because it would reduce the number and length of journeys people have to make. Public transport doesn't work for working parents (particularly women) with kids because they multi stop to child care and then to work. This would improve quality of life for parents.

Equally up money for training in installation of things like solar panels and insulation. Change planning law to insist on charging points and solar panels especially on council owned buildings (Inc non residential).

Genuinely have some policies that relate to day to day lived experiences and problems and give a green solution to them.

People would soon get on board.

Sure:

Thackeray et al. 2020. Civil disobedience movements such as School Strike for the Climate are raising public awareness of the climate change emergency. Global Change Biology. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14978

I know correlation doesn’t equal causation, but obviously you can’t create a randomised controlled trial for this. When you have consistent spikes in public awareness in correlation with protests without an alternative explanation, I think that’s as good evidence as you’re going to get. Perhaps I should have said awareness rather than concern.

OP

i admire your efforts, and those of the other demonstrators.

We already know what needs to be done: what politicians don’t know is how to get re-elected once they’ve done it - so they won’t do it. Making people poorer, giving them fewer choices, forcing them to share wealth and resources fairly on a global scale and reduce their standard of living? Not going to happen in a democracy. Look at the posters on here, thinking that bamboo toothbrushes and other small voluntary measures will maker even the slightest difference? Humans aren’t good at big-scale thinking, or indeed caring too much about the distant future. We focus on our tribe and on what’s happening now.

neither human nature nor our political systems are capable of forcing through the huge social, economic and cultural changes that are needed on a global scale - and certainly not in the timescale that we currently face.

I have a science background: we were studying these issues in 1992 when the first Rio conference happened: nothing has changed since then - if anything things are much worse and much more urgent.

So campaign if you must. I would love to hope that you all can break through. But I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Would give the Wah Wah Wah crew their fix and have them doing something practical I guess.

We've had carbon taxes for over 15 years. Have you not been paying attention?

Much of China's emissions are directly attributable to products manufactured and sold to the west. It's basically massively hypocritical unless you stop buying Chinese made products

This really is overstating things, and even in the export-led sector, a lot of those goods are going to Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

I agree but it wouldnt hurt to 'ban the plastic tat' each Christmas and for birthdays tbh on a voluntary basis.

The best thing anyone can do is not have children and buy as little as possible and travel as little as possible. Just go without. Everything else is just pissing in the wind really. Can hardly have a global cull Logan’s run style but that’s the real problem there are just too many of us that live too well.

Making people poorer, giving them fewer choices, forcing them to share wealth and resources fairly on a global scale and reduce their standard of living? Not going to happen in a democracy

👆this is their goal. Eco-extremists want to make you poorer and engineer a drop in your living standards.

Doubtful that they’d make any difference in the developing world either, only thing that has ever elevated the common person is a robust industrialisation policy, as in East Asia.

I work in manufacturing.
It is absolutely impossible to boycott China, you simply can't get some components without going to China.
We've brought as much back local as we can and are very proud of that, but we risk losing custom thanks to pricing and lack of parts.
China are too powerful globally, but that's another issue altogether.

Sorry, I might not have made myself clear. I am definitely not saying that protest never works. I thought that was clear from my earlier posts but you may not have read them or connected them with me. My issue is with the type of protest that XR is using and to my perception that they are alienating people rather than promoting their cause.

The reference you have provided looks like it relates to the school strikes rather than to the kind of tactics that XR is using? I think the voices of young people like Greta Thunberg and others have been incredibly powerful and certainly encourage people to think about the issues, not least becausewe all know that the younger generation are the ones who are going to have to face the impact of all this. Throwing soup at paintings, pouring milk on the supermarket floor and glueing people to roads is a bit different, though. Do you have any evidence that those types of protest in particular are effective in changing public views? I'm talking specifically about the types of protest where people are essentially engaging in antisocial behaviour in order to draw attention to their message, rather than the school strikers who were not going to school buy not causing trouble either.

Can you direct it at the actual rich people who are capable to change policy and companies and who use private jets? Not everyday people on their way to hospital or to work who will end up emoting more carbon fumes sitting in the traffic Jams the disruption creates.

i can life with paper straws but how many coal plants are being created per year and does blocking the m25 really stop that?

Mass arrests advanced the causes of suffrage and civil rights and I am now contemplating arrest as the only meaningful contribution I have left.

It wasn't really the suffragettes so much as the war effort. Many other countries already allowed women to vote and we were seen as a bit behind the times. Women got the vote at the same time as most men (previously only war veterans and land owners could vote).

Where are the protests for sustainable energy or a decision on a nuclear power station?

Its just petulant 'we don't like this' without grown up solutions that aren't going to devastate us economy and leave us even more at the mercy of a global elite.

You are right about the severity of the environmental issue.
Please do not undermine a legitimate cause by using illegal actions.
There is plenty of legal actions to take: peaceful and organised demostrations, collecting signatures, pressure groups on govetment, flipping voting for someone else as soon as we have the chance, and so on.

Why doing something illegal? So you can get an article in the newspaper showing how the so called environmentalists are trouble makers? Because that is what you will do. A step back for your cause.

And there is an alternative explanation...the growing body of evidence of the very real impact of climate change on real people's lives. Surely you acknowledge that this evidence exists and that it is compelling in and of itself? It's actually rather bizarre that you think a bit of soup on a Van Gogh painting is more likely to shock people into taking action than evidence of the real human suffering caused by climate change. I don't understand this perspective at all. What evidence is it, do you think, that has inspired the XR protestors to protest in the way that they are now protesting, and do you not think that the same evidence might have inspired wider public awareness and concern in any case?

I am personally making efforts to reduce my carbon footprint but if anything, the XR style protests make me less inclined to make those efforts because I don't actually want to align myself with people who I see as idiots. Thankfully, I am able to take a step back from that instinctive reaction and I am persuaded to carry on trying by the more measured voices in the debate, and by the very real evidence that we are seeing in the world around us.

Just Stop Oil were a pain in the arse today, what exactly are they achieving?

You know what? I just don't care! And neither do many (most) people really. There's a huge amount of virtue signalling going on out there. and of course a lot of money to be made in 'green' industries

Personally I think what a load of selfish bellends when I see eco idiots vandalising property and hurting ordinary working people but if it adds meaning to your life and makes you feel super virtuous then get on with it. Have you thought about China in regards to climate change? Are you going to nail about yourself to the Great Wall to make a point perhaps? Anywhere I can donate to for your plane ticket? Sorry boat ticket - must think of the environment.

Even before going into arguments about climate change, the reason YABU, very U, is that JSO has no coherent aim or plan. As was the case with XR. It's all very well shouting that you don't like something, but please have a clear plan what you want done about it. Also who should be the one to do it, and how it would actually work.

To take JSO for example, we can't 'just' stop oil, because our entire way of life is contingent on oil. What is your actual plan for 'just' stopping oil? How do we heat our homes? From where will electricity come? How will we truck products from place to place? How do you do a large shop without oil? Horse and wagon?

Apart from that, even if you did actually have a coherent argument and plan, what right do you have to disrupt the lives of other people? If anything, you should be targeting the ones you demand they implement your plans.

That's even if your cause was right and righteous.

I fully support climate change protesters. The issue is too urgent to ignore, thank you for your efforts.