Climate Protests: Better Targeting is Better Communication
BREAKING: We’ve just disrupted a performance of Romeo and Juliet at Sadler’s Wells theatre, telling them to drop @Barclays dirty oil sponsorship! It’s time to get #OilyMoneyOut of our arts, our city and our futures 🚫 pic.twitter.com/NU9hQjUpou
Above, climate protesters disrupting a performance of Romeo and Juliet. I would argue this is perhaps not the sharpest choice of venue, if you are trying to make your arguments in the most sympathetic light. I’ve expressed some frustration with some of the more militant greenie groups on social media, not because I’m a clueless curmudgeon, but rather because, I think I’ve developed a little bit of expertise on communication, and what best practices might be.
Below, same group, in, I would argue, a more appropriate venue, might have a better chance of getting a hearing from average citizens.
BREAKING: We're staging a sit-in outside the main entrance to @Shell's London HQ! We won't let Big Oil continue to profit from burning our futures and hiking our energy bills – it's time to get #oilymoneyout! pic.twitter.com/KrZhposoeX
Sunday was not a fun day for the thousands of people on their way to Burning Man. In the days leading up to the bacchanal, traffic is typically a nightmare on the two-lane highway that leads to the barren former lake bed in the Black Rock Desert, a national conservation area that, for a week every year, becomes known as Black Rock City, population 80,000.
But this year, a small group of climate protesters parked a 28-foot trailer across the road, causing miles of gridlock. Seven Circles, a coalition of organizations that includes Extinction Rebellion and Rave Revolution, made some simple demands of the Burning Man Organization, which hosts the annual desert party: “Ban private jets, single-use plastics, unnecessary propane burning, and unlimited generator use per capita at the nine day event in Black Rock City, Nevada.” There were also calls for the organization to mobilize its members “to initiate systemic change.” But the ban on private jets — that seems pretty straightforward.
“Burning Man should aim to have the same type of political impact that Woodstock had on counterculture,” Mun Chong, an organizer with Extinction Rebellion, said in a statement. “If we are honest about system change, it needs to start at ‘home.’ Ban the lowest-hanging fruit immediately: private jets.”
The many tens of thousands of people the event attracts must travel through some of the most remote parts of the country to a destination where there are few natural resources, where everything gets trucked in, and where vast structures are lit ablaze on the last night of the festival, pumping carbon-filled smoke into the atmosphere. But over 90 percent of the event’s carbon footprint comes not from the fires themselves but from travel to and from Black Rock City, according to a 2020 environmental sustainability report from the Burning Man Organization. Another 5 percent comes from gas- and diesel-burning generators that keep lights and air conditioners on during the festival.
Finally, there’s a sliver of lefties who think it’s cool to protest Democratic politicians who are trying to do the right thing for climate in the face of enormous and powerful opposition. To those, I say I’m old enough to remember 2000, when Al Gore, (yes, that Al Gore) was running for President against George W Bush, and a lot of folks, like, I don’t know – Michael Moore, Bill Maher come to mind, thought that it would be cool to have Ralph Nader as a third party candidate, to show those damn corporate Dems that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Al Gore and George Bush.
What do ya know? Turns out, there was a difference, and there’s a million people in the Middle East that could probably tell you why.
But they can’t, because they’re fucking dead. So there’s that.
So choose your targets carefully, gang. They are not all the same, and it makes a difference if you are actually trying to persuade people and make a difference as opposed to just jerking off for your own egos.
UPDATE:
People often react by telling themselves protesters are extremists. They are not. They are speaking the truth. https://t.co/pxElgieEg6
6 thoughts on “Climate Protests: Better Targeting is Better Communication”
They are doing protests at ‘appropriate’ venues. There’s little to no effect on society in general. I agree that they are more likely to just tick people off with a protest at a play, but the ‘shocking’ protests are the ones making the headlines.
Right now, the people on this planet are releasing carbon emissions at record levels that will cause untold suffering for many future generations. A slight inconvenience like an interrupted play or a longer wait to get to Burning Man are laughably miniscule in comparison. I know ‘we’ don’t see it that way – we just get annoyed. How dare them!
I don’t know what the answer is ~ the answer is never the answer; it’s the mystery that interesting ~ but splashing paint on a Picasso or interrupting Romeo and Juliet isn’t it. I would argue it in fact plays into the oil companies’ hands
Burning Man is an ecological nightmare. They’ve destroyed a unique High Desert ecosystem that may take millennia to recover, if ever. It should not happen
As an aside ~ I do get a chuckle at the thought of if the shit hit the fan all those people trying to get out of there all at once. Reminds me of the time a protester chained themself to a gate to keep me out of the Bull Run, and I just dragged him across the pavement as I was going out. Yes, my path to environmentalism ran through the woods, and I still a bad attitude about people who tear it up for no good reason. If that road happened to get bulldozed …
I’ve always been worried about street blockers impeding emergency travel, and that’s always a turnoff for me.
I’m not nearly as annoyed at interrupting Romeo and Juliet. The people attending are not the poor and stressed and workers that comprise a good chunk of transportation, and Sadler’s Wells Theatre (and related businesses) will think twice about embracing fossil fuel and FF funding sponsorship in the future. I suspect that they could have protested outside the theatre and had a better chance of delivering their message interactively than chanting at a seated crowd.
What a perfect recipe for getting people to hate climate solutions – entitled activists piss off people in their private lives at an event which comes out of their pocket. Great way to make friends.
That picture of the line-up for Burning Man; I see a whole lot of vehicle roofs that could mount a PV assembly. Since they’re all parked in the same area you could have temporary PV sheltered parking already put in place. Or do the same for the majority of the camping site which is mostly filled with conventional tents. I’m sure they’d appreciate the shade.
They are doing protests at ‘appropriate’ venues. There’s little to no effect on society in general. I agree that they are more likely to just tick people off with a protest at a play, but the ‘shocking’ protests are the ones making the headlines.
Right now, the people on this planet are releasing carbon emissions at record levels that will cause untold suffering for many future generations. A slight inconvenience like an interrupted play or a longer wait to get to Burning Man are laughably miniscule in comparison. I know ‘we’ don’t see it that way – we just get annoyed. How dare them!
I don’t know what the answer is ~ the answer is never the answer; it’s the mystery that interesting ~ but splashing paint on a Picasso or interrupting Romeo and Juliet isn’t it. I would argue it in fact plays into the oil companies’ hands
Burning Man is an ecological nightmare. They’ve destroyed a unique High Desert ecosystem that may take millennia to recover, if ever. It should not happen
As an aside ~ I do get a chuckle at the thought of if the shit hit the fan all those people trying to get out of there all at once. Reminds me of the time a protester chained themself to a gate to keep me out of the Bull Run, and I just dragged him across the pavement as I was going out. Yes, my path to environmentalism ran through the woods, and I still a bad attitude about people who tear it up for no good reason. If that road happened to get bulldozed …
I’ve always been worried about street blockers impeding emergency travel, and that’s always a turnoff for me.
I’m not nearly as annoyed at interrupting Romeo and Juliet. The people attending are not the poor and stressed and workers that comprise a good chunk of transportation, and Sadler’s Wells Theatre (and related businesses) will think twice about embracing fossil fuel and FF funding sponsorship in the future. I suspect that they could have protested outside the theatre and had a better chance of delivering their message interactively than chanting at a seated crowd.
BTW, I noticed that the first car being blocked by the street protest was a Leaf.
What a perfect recipe for getting people to hate climate solutions – entitled activists piss off people in their private lives at an event which comes out of their pocket. Great way to make friends.
That picture of the line-up for Burning Man; I see a whole lot of vehicle roofs that could mount a PV assembly. Since they’re all parked in the same area you could have temporary PV sheltered parking already put in place. Or do the same for the majority of the camping site which is mostly filled with conventional tents. I’m sure they’d appreciate the shade.