No more Protest

[lightinthebox]

Regardless of your views of Just Stop Oil, we should all be worried.

This has gone through easily because people hate Just Stop Oil, it’s an easy target and has fooled people.

We should not be celebrating lengthy jail sentences for planning protests, we should be scared about what this means.

Not just that, but if peaceful protests equal a jail sentence then what’s to stop people from going to violence if they know they can’t protest.

People should stop and think, ignore your prejudice and see the bigger picture.

I don’t want there to be an equivalent of an environmental life tax where the highest marginal rate is paid by those who are poorer

Climate change is already disproportionately impacting the poorest people on the planet. It just so happens that they're being killed by it in foreign lands so it's out of sight, out of mind for those of us fortunate enough to live in places like the UK.

But given what you know about our capitialist systems, what do you think is going to happen when climate change starts to properly impact global food supply chains?

The cracks are already starting to show, theres expected to be a c17% reduction in wheat, barley and oats this year in the UK, India saw a significant decrease in rice yeilds in 2022 due to heatwaves, despite a 5% increase in farmed areas tomato yeilds are down 6% in Italy, and globally corn yeilds are predicted to decline by up to 24% by 2030. Who's going to be most impacted by the reduction in availability?

It's the role of the government to ensure mitigations and adaptations are equitable and so far they've failed miserably and continue to do so.

I agree the language isn't the clearest but if you read the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is the legally binding treaty they refer to, it's clear they are talking about banning the use of fossil fuels as an energy source.

Although not always explicitly stated almost all of these movements, campaigns, demands, treaties, etc, are about stopping the burning of fossil fuels for energy, as that is the primary cause of CO2e emissions and that is what's driving climate change.

Fossil fuels used in plastic don't impact climate as the CO2e is embodied in the product (obviously there's other environmental concerns).

5 and a half years is fairly soon now, but it was 9 years away when governments agreed to the Glasgow pact, 15 years away when the signed the Paris Agreement, 21 years away when they acknowledged the
Copenhagen Accord and 33 years away when they first created the Kyoto Protocol and agreed to take action to reduce emissions.

I also agree that groups like JSO tend to just increase there demands but that doesn't excuse over 3 decades of in action from goverments and business.

Who is batting it away?

It would be extremely difficult to prove if someone died as a direct result of the protests. How would you know if they would have died anyway? How do you know if they would survive if they got to hospital sooner.

I mean Google will tell you that plenty of people feel there’s been deaths as a result of these protests. If a just stop oil causes a diversion and someone dies travelling on that diversion, would you believe Just stop oil played a part in their death?

I think what surprises me most is that people are supportive of extremely privileged people directly impact less privileged people with the argument ‘well people are already dying as a result of climate change’.

Stopping people who need to work, getting to work to get paid, isn’t helping the people dying as results of climate change?

How many of the people who can’t get to work or to medical appointments are some of the least privileged in our society?

The vast majority of JSO protestors are privileged. They clearly don’t need to worry about not being employable. or they are so young they don’t really understand the consequences of their actions. Or sometimes both.

But it’s ok, for them to immediately damage less privileged people and their income and stability, to achieve nothing at all. But let’s feel sorry for these extremely privileged people because they had to face consequences for the huge amount of disruption they cause, damage they have caused and money they have cost the country. Yeah, sound like real hero’s.

Nope, not part of protests. Just an observer concerned about the effects and implications this has.

Purposefully unbiased about JSO, it’s concerning people are cheering jail sentences for protests.

What are your views on the farmers who blocked roads, motorways and ports during protests over brexit tariffs or the governments SFS proposal? 5 years jail time for them too?

Only those who are unable to distinguish between peaceful protest and mass and harmful disruption need to have any fear.

it is really dishonest for people to characterize those actions as ‘peaceful’. In a very narrow definition of ‘not punching anyone in the face’ I guess they were.

But they were certainly not harmless protests. A delay if two months for an appt related to cancer is certainly not harmless. It can potentially mean the difference between terminal and survivable cancer. It’s not harmless to be forced to miss the funeral of a loved one. There will be many, many people who suffered many harms as a result of these actions.

These protests caused harms. Many harms. It’s right for our legal system to recognize this and give deterrent punishments.

JSO, it’s concerning people are cheering jail sentences for protests
But they are not. They are cheering jail sentences for harmful civil disruption on a mass scale..

Fear not! Protests are allowed and those type of marches are legal and still happen.

Yes, especially where they have a history of doing it and show the full intention to keep doing it and doing it.

I expect to see OP start a thread decrying his trial and sentence as an assault on democracy in due course then.

Not at all, a good blast of cold water would discourage them from their anti-social behaviour.

Mass scale? you'll have to define that, a few 1000 at the very most, out of 70m people.

Anyone cheering a 5 year jail sentence for someone peacefully protesting is imho, quite sick.

These people lives and those around them will now be utterly ruined, the terrorism charges alone will ensure they'll never work again, families torn apart and financial ruin..... and people cheer for this!!!
Meanwhile, a thug can stick a broken glass in someones face and get 18months but thats all ok because he didn't challenge the establishment.

People saying we are still allowed to protest. These are marches that require the police to allow it.

So don’t make it worse by hitting the poorer hardest in the process. Focus on the areas it has greatest impact. Personally I don’t see the point in one sided measures to restrict drilling for pike where the reality is it will just be imported instead. All that will happen is that they’ll pretend restrictive measures are to go ahead without working properly in tandem with actoons to mitigate the impact - the “we’re going to do this” will allow them to pretend they are taking action- then at the last minute they’ll say “ah, sorry, no” , again.

My DH is a sustainably consultant. He has recently flown to an airport to talk about sustainability and was asked to do the same again the other day - he didn’t go and when he joined the meeting remotely he said he probably wouldn’t even have been asked to contribute. That would have been eight hours flying for fuck all.

Anyone cheering a 5 year jail sentence for someone peacefully protesting is imho, quite sick.

This is the sort of thing that just alienates people. Whatever reasonable point you had about the punishment handed out you’ve just lost. Of course it’s not “sick” to approve of five year prison sentences for people who cause serial disruption, frustration, anger and loss to thousands and thousands of people (leaving aside any physical harm) and cost god knows what in public money.

BTW, yes, I do think farmers or anyone else blocking roads should get the same treatment.

I disagree vehemently. This is not an example of peaceful protest. This is a vile group who have cost people their lives. They have actively stopped emergency vehicles, ensured ill people did not get their timely and very necessary chemo and other treatments. Stopped loved ones being together during end of life. Caused massive disruption to those going about their day. Good on the judge. Absolutely jail these types of protesters every time. Meanwhile they pretend to care about climate change and wear nylon jackets, leave waste behind them etc. Horrible group of people.

I’m glad that most marches understand it is sensible to liaise with the police before marching.

I know you are trying to pretend there is something sinister about this. But sensible people can see there is not.

Well worth reading the sentencing remarks before commenting and seeing what the protest was meant to do www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/R-v-Hallam-and-others.pdf

Look, I’ve seen interviews with JSO about those ‘protests’ and when the harm it had caused to others, including the lady who missed the funeral of a close relative, was put to them, their response was ‘ of course that is very sad but this is a climate emergency and we have to take action’. We have seen this same thinking throughout this thread.

It is very hard for me to have sympathy with people who bat away the harm they have caused others with the justification of ‘climate emergency’ and yet are outraged at themselves facing the consequences of their own deliberate and chosen actions. Suddenly, ‘it’s worth it for the climate’ no longer seems to apply. That does seem enormously hypocritical. It’s worth for the environment if the consequence are on others, but not on them.

I mean this was only a few people out of what, 70 million, to use your previous argument. You were arguing that the numbers don’t matter if those affected are comparatively small compared to the UK population, so you surely you are unbothered by the tiny number of jailed JSO people?

Or are all people equal, but JSO ‘protestors’ are more equal than others?

What you re in fact wanting and getting, is a Chinese system of punishment for protesting.

The sentences handed out to the JSO protestors are not too far away from what student protestors have got in HK.

The UN has also called these sentences utterly wrong.

For the love of God, stop saying they’re “peaceful”. They aren’t. They’re actually pretty nasty individuals when you see any of them interviewed and they’re challenged on their conduct.

By all means support them if you like, but stop trying to pretend their actions are peaceful.

No, not at all, i doubt anyone affected by the JSO protests will still be feeling the effects many years later.

I think the sentences are not in proportion.... all protest or indeed any public gathering can cause delays, so yes its awful someone missed a funeral but on that basis we would ban football matches, Cheltenham, music festivals and any form of protest as they can all cause someone to miss a very important appointment.

I would have financial penalties for illegal protest & that the punishment is laid out very clearly before hand.

Jailing people is extreme & should be reserved for violent offenders.

That’s very enlightening. The conspiracy charges were very well proven; the conspiracy was very serious.

It was not just a case of hotheads boasting about causing trouble.

The law takes conspiracy to commit offences very seriously.

The discussion of sentencing in a lesser, similar case and of the appeal judgment in that case is also illuminating.

These people had a fair trial and received carefully considered sentencing.

The only useful thing about the view of the UN (or of some UN official) is what it tells us about the UN.

The UN has become so politically compromised that many just ignore it now.