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But we're not talking about it. We're not talking about political action, or technological solutions, or mitigation programs, or investments in adaptation, or natural resource management, or harm reduction, or food distribution, or drought management.
No, we're talking about a bunch of first world children who decided to paint a bunch of ten-thousand year old rocks for attention.
“The orange cornflour we used to create an eye-catching spectacle will soon wash away with the rain..."
Just like any attention they may have grabbed due to their stunt.
For the record, I'm not saying I agree with their methods, but I don't think it's fair to them either that everyone is acting like they did irreparable harm to the monument.
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But it also stops us from talking about anything else. Part of this is not allowing other things to take over. Yes it would be even better if the discussion focussed on a productive way forward. It would be worse if we were discussing something else.
And therein lies the problem with today's generations. Instead of doing the hard work of getting involved in civic groups and local politics in order to mobilize voters and enact real, substantive change, we're taking the short cut by spraying shit on the walls so no one can talk about anything else.
You made my point very succinctly, so thanks for that.
Oh I see we are at the "this generation is lazy" level of discussion. Have a nice day.
I'd say spraying colored powder on archeological sites and art galleries instead of getting involved in civic action to enact societal and economic change counts as lazy, yes.
I mean how do you know that this "instead of" is factual and isn't in reality a "additionally to"?
Their website. It's a string of performative, attention-seeking destruction, peppered with the rare "letter to party leaders" or "disrupted" public event.
It's clear as day.
It's possible to be a part of multiple organisations. Just because someone is part of JSO that doesn't mean they can't also be active in other groups. Highly motivated people like these tend to do that. It also makes sense to not lump these efforts under one name so that the public messaging doesn't get muddied.
The number of people described in those news articles that have been arrested, imprisoned, or spent months in court fighting charges, tells me they're spending more time in the judicial system than participating with other civic groups. The two protestors who painted Stonehenge are currently behind bars, so I'd say that cuts into their grassroots organizing time, wouldn't you?
The public messaging is that people painted Stonehenge. I'd say the clarity of their messaging is exactly the topic currently up for debate.
I won't speculate on how much energy they are able to put into other efforts because I don't have any actual experience with the judicial system. A few days behind bars are not enough to stop one from participating though.
Now imagine this was a group that also engages in constructive participation. Suddenly the messaging of that group would be very messy, full of misunderstandings. Instead of this they do activism that will not be favourable in the public opinion under that specific organisation where it won't hurt the constructive efforts.
If "a few days" is all you think we're talking about, you need to read the news releases on their website more closely...
They don't. I just showed that they don't, and that's coming from someone who does constructive environmental engagement both at the grassroots and governmental level. My wife and I have dedicated our entire lives to environmental protection, and what these dipshits are doing is not constructive and makes the rest of us look like morons.
They're using a front group because they know it will run afoul of public opinion and won't be constructive??? Do you hear yourself right now? I'm telling you that you're making a very convincing argument about why these tactics are such a waste of oxygen. They "stop us from talking about anything else" and "hurt the constructive efforts" because they're unpopular. They're accomplishing nothing except pissing people off and attracting attention away from more constructive endeavors. Surely you see that you're supporting my argument.
All I see are things that will cost them money. Spraying paint somewhere wouldn't result in a lot of jailtime. If that's the case in the UK well that's weird.
So no you didn't show that. And while I want to thank you for your engagement, that doesn't give you the right to tell everyone else how they are supposed to engage themselves. You are entitled to your opinion but that isn't a definitive fact.
It's not a front. It's just possible to engage in different forms of activism and if those differ in style it makes sense to separate them into multiple organisations.
There is a common misconception that activism needs to please people to be valid or effective. I think we just differ in opinion on this. Which is fine but we don't need to waste time on arguing about this as it seems we are both pretty convinced of our respective stance on this.
And time. You know, because time spent with other organizations is what we're talking about here? It takes time to fight a criminal charge. Besides, we're now nitpicking about how much time they'll spend in jail, rather than you proving with any evidence that they're doing anything more constructive than performative stunts. Rather than show actual good they're doing, you've just supposed that they might be doing it, and challenged that I can't prove that they don't. I hope you see how ridiculous this is.
Every second we spend on this stupid conversation is a second that proves the effect of the protest is to make the stunt the subject of the conversation, rather than the climate.
I just pointed you to their website. The proof is in the pudding, and I'm not going to try to prove a negative.
If the protest accomplishes their goals, then why separate them? Why have a separate organization at all? What's the point of that?
No, activism doesn't need to please people, it needs to be targeted to inconvenience the right people.
If I show up at your home first thing in the morning and pour colored powder on the car you use to get to work, and I tell you "I'm helping spread the word about starvation in Africa", you're going to wash the powder off and then yell at me for being a fucking idiot and taking it out on you. You're not going to stop what you're doing and send a donation to feed children in Africa because I vandalized your car.
You and me are arguing a non-provable hypothetical. Yes time they spend in jail is time they aren't doing anything productive. That doesn't mean they don't do anything productive in their time they do not spend in jail. Also: The repressions they face as a consequence of their activism is part of the activism in my book.
I'll argue that without that stunt we'd be talking about something different entirely likely unrelated to the climate crisis. Which would be even less helpful.
As I have explained already: it's about communicating to the public. Doing things under a certain name helps the public associate the current actions with past actions under the same name. If you do two vastly different things it helps to separate those by name too, otherwise it can get confusing for people that are not interacting with your group often enough.
That's quite the strawman you've put up here. I'm not advocating for bothering random people at their home and that's not what JSO is doing. As far as I can tell they are targeting people of public interest, big events, and popular public places. Which is the "right" people because the climate crisis is about all of us. We all are contributing to it be it daily choices or our choices while casting our democratic votes.
Yes. We're arguing in circles because the protestors are the story, climate change isn't.
I'd argue that we're still not arguing about the climate crisis. Not a single person in this thread has said a single word about climate change or how to solve it. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.
Why do you not want these actions associated with the other group?
Furthermore, you don't think painting a fucking rock is confusing to the people who want to discuss climate change, but having one interest group perform varying kinds of direct activism and grassroots organizing is confusing to the people who want to discuss climate change?
It's a hypothetical, not a strawman, which should have been obvious when the sentence began with "if".
You're advocating for bothering random people at a tourist attraction, and you're doing it in a way that a) distracts from talking about actual climate change, b) leaves them virtually NO information about how to address climate change, and c) is potentially affecting people who already do what they can to address climate change. See how this entire thread has been about painting rocks, instead of daily choices we make that contribute to or affect climate change???
The fact that we are talking about this and not about climate change is also partly your decision. You are free at any point to disengage this thread and focus your energy on more productive things. The fact that you're not doing this is just one example of humans being humans and not always doing the best of all things. Me still arguing with you is of course another example.
I can repeat this as often as you want: people want to engage in different kinds of activities under different names because the actions do not relate and the messaging becomes confusing. I can both disturb the operation of a pipeline and try to mobilize locals to support the building of a solar power plant. Doing both under the same name makes everything more complicated even if there is personal overlap. I really don't get why you are so hung up on this.
I don't exactly get the question here. I'm not saying any of those options is particularly confusing. I'm saying doing both under the same name might get confusing for people not intimately familiar with your group and their actions.
The hypothetical that you are posing instead of what I'm actually arguing for. You then argue against that hypothetical instead of my actual points. That's a classic example of a strawman.
Yes I'm advocating for bothering people in public. Where else would you bother people?
That's a choice the public is making. And again I think this is fine.
That's also fine. It's not like there aren't any publicly available sources on how to fight climate change. If the people are interested they can go talk to the many many local groups that engage in productive activities.
This thread is a prime example of people like you who could be allies here and engage people who aren't yet convinced that we need to take action, that instead take up a lot of time and energy to argue about the kind of protest.
No one in this thread or any other Lemmy thread about this situation is talking about climate change. Everyone is talking about paint on rocks.
Because if you're not embarassed or ashamed of the pipeline disturbance/damage, then you shouldn't have a problem openly associating yourself with it. The fact that you're trying to hard to suggest it's prudent to distance oneself from a disruption/protest tells me that deep down you understand these things are perceived negatively and are therefore more likely to cause friction and disagreement than sympathy for a cause.
And painting a rock is confusing to people who don't understand what the paint or the rock have to do with climate change. Yet you're her cheering for rock painting. Why are you worried about confusing the public in one instance but not worried about confusing the public in the other instance?
No, it's a hypothetical that's followed by a question mark. It's also called a "thought exercise". Nowhere did I attribute the argument to you in order to debunk it. You need to read the definition of strawman fallacy more carefully.
You would bother people who aren't already on your team and in a way that leads to a productive conversation, rather than in a way that's completely detached from the cause and in a way that completely distracts from the issue.
Also known as a shittily designed protest. If you set out to accomplish a goal and the public responds predictably in a way that doesn't help you achieve that goal, you should probably reflect on the fact that your methods were shit.
Ah, so now it's enough to acknowledge that public resources exist and people can find it if they want? Because seconds ago you were cheering for people to paint rocks in a public place to keep people from talking about anything else. Seems you're not quite sure what you believe or how you think it should be accomplished. So what is it? Should it be shoved into people's faces so they can't ignore it? Or should they be left to find their own resources?
I am an ally. That's what you don't understand and refuse to entertain as a possibility. I'm an environmental advocate both personally and professionally, and I've been working on climate change and environmental issues for over a decade. And even I'm telling you that painting a rock is stupid and counterproductive. The only people who give a shit and empathize with it are people who were already on your team.
You are still arguing from the perspective that activism needs to please people or else it's "embarrassing" or "shameful". I do agree that there is activism that displeases people, I think that is still valuable and nothing to be ashamed of.
But I can acknowledge that there are people that do not see that as something that should be supported. Different forms of activism have different target groups and different wanted effects. It's just a rational thing to address different target groups and produce different effects under different names.
I want the issue front and center in the public discussion. You and I are both aware that people aren't 100% of the time participating in the public discussion but spend time doing their own thing. Which is partially influenced by what is happening in the public discussion. If climate change is a topic, even if just tangential, that still helps influence people to think about it in the times they spend outside of the public discussion.
Again I want to thank you for your work, we need people like you. But I don't think that's all we need. It has become apparent that just silently working on this at the grassroots level hasn't shown the necessary progress. So people have decided to express their opinion in more loud and disturbing manners.
Again, this protest isn't about sympathy. I don't think anyone is having the illusion that a majority would be happy about this kind of protest. But I think "no one gives a shit" is pretty evidently a lie. People very demonstrably give a shit about Stonehenge being orange for a little while.
Well would you look at that, meaningful progress in Hawaii and Montana that didn't involve damaging priceless historical artifacts. Who knew!
I really don't get what you're trying to say here. That's obviously great. I am all for doing this stuff, how could you even think I wouldn't? I'm saying both kinds of activism provide value.
(Aside from the fact that nothing really got damaged...)
And I'm saying one does and one does not. You've yet to actually demonstrate that these protests have any value or have ever moved the needle in the right direction.
No, I'm very clearly saying these are "more likely to cause friction and disagreement than sympathy for a cause." For some reason you have committed to this weird hypothetical where the people currently sitting in jail have some other secondary organization they use for grassroots organization, which was a stretch when you first brought it up. I'm only speculating that you made that situation up because deep down you understand the need to disassociate yourself from these protests, and it's increasingly clear to me that you see their value in some kind of shell game strategy, where no one knows who's pulling the strings. But again, you made that up, not me.
And water is wet. I'm saying that these protests are stupid and counterproductive. You're now veering off into platitudes that don't actually contribute anything to the conversation.
And what you still haven't grasped is that climate change is not a problem because people don't know about it. This isn't some kind of pink ribbon campaign where we're bringing attention to an issue that's too often ignored as nonexistent. Climate change is front and center, it's all encompassing, and it's deeply imbedded with the way that our entire global economy operates. The reason we can't deal with climate change isn't awareness, it's capacity and political will. If you bring up that I'm not eating enough fruit, and I tell you that I can't afford to buy fruit on my current salary, then pelting me in the face with oranges isn't going to get me to eat more fruit. It's just going to piss me off.
Painting Stonehenge or pouring soup on a priceless piece of art isn't doing anything to shine light on bad actors, or to challenge us to think about the problem differently, or to provide more information, or anything else like that. It's just blind rage. The people who weren't allowed to sit in whites-only cafes didn't protest by dumping piles of trash in the street, they protested by sitting in the whites-only cafe and refusing to move. They didn't protest having to sit in the back of the bus by painting the walls of the town hall. They protested by sitting in the front of the bus and refusing to move. They protested as throngs of people in the streets and marching across the country. This is two spoiled little shits spraying paint because they want to be the center of attention, and per your very words because they don't want us to be able to do anything except focus on them. This kind of protest is absolutely, unequivocally ridiculous.
No offense, but you can take a hike. There is so much actual, tangible work that happens behind the scenes that I'm actually stunned you'd say something so flatly asinine. We are making progress, and we're doing it within existing governmental systems. We're doing it with marketing campaigns. We're doing it with land acquisition. We're doing it by working with these organizations, and these organizations, and these organizations, and these organizations.
Which really just reiterates that it's not awareness that's the problem. It's capacity. And painting a rock is like taking a shit in the middle of the street to protest climate change. Like, what the actual hell are you expecting to come from painting Stonehenge? And you're trying to tell me that hundreds of thousands of people working tirelessly day in and day out to solve this issue isn't enough, but a bunch of spoiled brats painting rocks is going to make a difference? Give me a fucking break.
I have no idea why you keep trying to twist my words. I'm saying that by doing this the only people who are going to sympathize with the cause the protestors are trying to highlight are the people who were already sympathetic with the cause the protestors are trying to highlight. And what I'm saying to you is that you're not convincing anyone who's not already convinced. In fact, you're probably pissing some of your allies off in the process, so it's quite literally counterproductive to do stupid shit like this. It hurts more than it helps.
So again, don't come back with that same platitude that protests have to be inconvenient to be effective. I'm not saying they shouldn't be. I'm simply saying that this is a stupid form of protest that does more harm than good and likely alienates some of your potential allies while converting and convincing absolutely NO ONE.
Part of your anger seems to stem from me saying that this whole thing isn't moving forward fast enough and somehow you think that's a critique of your personal work. I assure you that wasn't my goal. But you have to admit that we are, globally, not moving fast enough.
The connection to the fight for racial equality is interesting but I'm not sure how well this applies. How do you suppose you can do anything equivalently "not accepting the rules we want to protest" in the context of climate change? Because before there was a big movement there were just a few people breaking the unfair rules. Which where likely talked similarly about as you are talking about these activists right now.
I am being very clear about the fact that two forms of activism can and should be done under different names. And that that is because some forms of activism that I deem valuable would have detrimental effects on the other form of activism if done under the same name. You seem to have a hard time getting that but that's not because I'm being unclear about this.
No, the part that bothers me is you're completely ignoring the point I've made multiple times, namely that this protest is counterproductive and doesn't actually do anything to change the situation. It just pisses people off. It doesn't promote climate action or change the amount that people care about it or want to do something about it.
With the exception of the first, none of those sentences form a complete thought, and I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say or if there's a question buried in there somewhere.
WHY?
This is so far beyond the point of the article I'm just not sure why you keep falling back on this singular argument. Why is that relevant? This thread started because I said the people currently sitting in prison are being lazy because they painted a rock rather than doing something productive. You've now latched onto some weird scenario where they can do multiple kinds of protesting but can't do it in one organization and have to form or join splinter groups to do multiple kinds of organizing? It like you've convinced yourself that what JSO is doing is fine because its members are doing something else less disruptive in another group, which is so disconnected and irrelevant as to be utterly meaningless. Not to mention it's a thing which (as far as I can tell) is entirely made up on the spot!
So again, why is one detrimental to the other? So far you've only said it's confusing, but you haven't said why it's confusing, and you also skipped over the part where painting a rock to protest oil is also confusing.