🚗 At 8:30am today, two Just Stop Oil supporters sprayed orange paint over several luxury car dealers on Berkeley Sq and Bruton St, including HR Owen Bugatti, Jack Barclay Bentley, Bentley Motor Cars London and Ferrari Mayfair pic.twitter.com/gZhjIQDedw
Many of these activists are going to jail, and they know they are. They’ll have their records permanently marked with convictions, hampering their own future economic prospects – and they know this. They know that the the British government is increasing penalties for all these protest actions – and that even Labour leaders support these tougher penalties. They’re willing to do these things, seeing the penalties to themselves as a small price to pay compared to what environmentally is happening and will happen in the future.
The nearest analogy with the current “Just Stop Oil” campaign that comes to my mind is the CND group the mid to latter 20th Century, where there were many arrests and even a death (in a protest at an British RAF base).
Some of the arrested spent time in prisons and suffered for their strong beliefs.
The CND organization had good general support (across left and right) as nobody supported the idea of being nuked, and did not face the strong build up of skepticism and disinterest caused by professional bodies and think tanks that climate change science faces.
Protest groups still face an upwards struggle to the the issue recognized as the threat it should be.
“Since the 2010s the building has hosted a network of libertarian lobby groups and think tanks related to pro-Brexit, climate science denial and other fossil fuel lobby groups.”
When you read about what is happening in places like Somalia, or Pakistan, or the Great Barrier Reef, its hard to identify these people as ‘the terrorists’.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/26/current-emissions-pledges-will-lead-to-catastrophic-climate-breakdown-says-un
I think Bob Geldof has got it right.
“Annoying people into policy change may not work. Does that mean I’m against their passion? Their anger? Their bravery? No.
“Would I put up with it? They’re not killing anyone. Climate change will.”
https://news.sky.com/story/just-stop-oil-protests-bob-geldof-says-climate-activists-who-threw-tomato-soup-over-van-gogh-painting-were-1-000-right-12729296
Not climate change will, but climate change is.
I hope 55 Tufton isn’t a listed building or that man is in for a world of hurt.
Many of these activists are going to jail, and they know they are. They’ll have their records permanently marked with convictions, hampering their own future economic prospects – and they know this. They know that the the British government is increasing penalties for all these protest actions – and that even Labour leaders support these tougher penalties. They’re willing to do these things, seeing the penalties to themselves as a small price to pay compared to what environmentally is happening and will happen in the future.
The nearest analogy with the current “Just Stop Oil” campaign that comes to my mind is the CND group the mid to latter 20th Century, where there were many arrests and even a death (in a protest at an British RAF base).
Some of the arrested spent time in prisons and suffered for their strong beliefs.
The CND organization had good general support (across left and right) as nobody supported the idea of being nuked, and did not face the strong build up of skepticism and disinterest caused by professional bodies and think tanks that climate change science faces.
Protest groups still face an upwards struggle to the the issue recognized as the threat it should be.
55 Tufton on Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Tufton_Street
“Since the 2010s the building has hosted a network of libertarian lobby groups and think tanks related to pro-Brexit, climate science denial and other fossil fuel lobby groups.”