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Dr Lobster*
Posts: 2104
Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14

I've noticed on reddit, this tweet https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1513545879181004800 has been causing a stir - that Labour are supporting a ban on climate protesters disrupting fuel supplies.

I think climate change is a very real thing, but I can't help but think most climate protesters are unemployed students that are just as thick as pig shit with no skills or talents whatever using this particular cause as an excuse for a wider protest against capitalism or some other simplistic 6th form student reasoning, which alienates pretty much everyone against the core climate message.

Whether we like it or not, all the technological progress on this planet since the industrial revolution has been built on fossil fuels in some way. Our dependancy on them isn't going to go away over night or even in 100 years. So whilst I don't disagree with their premise of their message, but I do disagree with their methods.
bilky asko
Posts: 1400
Joined: Sat 08 Nov, 2008 19.48

Dr Lobster* wrote: Tue 12 Apr, 2022 10.02I can't help but think most climate protesters are unemployed students that are just as thick as pig shit with no skills or talents whatever
Are you OK?
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Dr Lobster*
Posts: 2104
Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14

bilky asko wrote: Tue 12 Apr, 2022 10.32
Dr Lobster* wrote: Tue 12 Apr, 2022 10.02I can't help but think most climate protesters are unemployed students that are just as thick as pig shit with no skills or talents whatever
Are you OK?


I see a lot this sort of thing which bubbles up to the top, which doesn't really seem to be a very sensible approach to persuade any kind of sympathies to your cause
DavidWhitfield
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue 17 Nov, 2020 14.15

For me, protests which target companies and politicians relevant to the protestors' cause(s), I can get my head around, however, when protests start to negatively affect normal working people, I can't get behind the action, how ever noble a stand these groups think they're taking.

Take climate change, for example - an incredibly important issue and something which we need to take very seriously, however, I fail to see how Extinction Rebellion / Insulate Britain stopping people from getting to work and taking their children to school by blocking roads and preventing London Underground trains from running at peak times does anything other than turn normal, decent, hard-working people against a cause which, ordinarily, they'd likely be fully behind.
Dr Lobster*
Posts: 2104
Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14

That's my view, and that guy on the radio gluing his hand to the microphone just sounds like a sanctimonious twat.

I've listened to loads of TED talks on the subject - just 5 minutes of those is more knowledge, common sense and balance than I've ever heard from any activist speaking about climate change who actually don't seem really know anything about the subject other than it's bad, but because they don't know a lot about it, have to be all shouty.
Charlie Wells
Posts: 354
Joined: Tue 02 Nov, 2004 16.23
Location: Cambridgeshire

With the fuel depo protests on the one hand I agree that ideally we should move away from using oil. However at a time when petrol & diesel are already at a record high the last thing we need is protestors causing fuel shortages, which result in forecourts keeping the prices high.

It thereby hits already struggling households further, who cannot afford to buy an electric vehicle, and who's commute is not near public transport (and too far to walk/cycle). It also costs taxpayers money to pay for the additional policing to deal with the protestors.
"If ass holes could fly then this place would be an airport."
Dr Lobster*
Posts: 2104
Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14

I think most fair minded people would agree that we need to move away from fossil fuels and invest in renewable technology, and even nuclear energy - and as far as electric cars go, I'd buy one tomorrow if I could get a similar featured car for the same price as a dinosaur juice car - but not only would an electric car the same spec as my diesel be 3 times the price, not even factoring in the lack of charging infrastructure here in rural Norfolk, there just isn't a workable green alternative for many millions of people that they can afford.
all new Phil
Posts: 1965
Joined: Sun 13 Feb, 2005 00.04
Location: Next door to Hell

I know what you mean. I’m in the unfortunate position of completely agreeing with what the protesters are protesting about, whilst also completely disagreeing with their methods. Rather than get people on board I feel they actively disengage people in what they are about - particularly Insulate Britain. They manage to turn the argument from “don’t we need to do something about these issues” into “what are these twats up to now?” which is massively frustrating as it actually sets their cause back rather than advancing it.
cwathen
Posts: 1309
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 17.28

I always recall the XR protests in 2019 which brought chaos across the country, but where I saw it was in Bristol when at the time I was working mere feet away from one of their major picket lines when they carried out their 'uprising' in July of that year (you know, that city where a man couldn't be with his father as he died because the M32 was gridlocked over some XR dickhead blocking the end of the motorway into town).

The narrative often claimed amongst these kinds of protests is that their numbers are largely made up of bored well to do people who find it a bit exciting and fun rather than truly caring much about the issue, but that narrative was totally played into. Weather-wise, it was a week of two halves. The first few days were beautiful sunshine and the 'area of protest' was filled with young kids sat in the road having a good time. Then the second half of the week the weather turned, and I still have a picture on my old phone of a deserted picket line one evening when it was raining. It's hard to buy the argument that these people all truly cared that much about the cause when they weren't willing to get rained on for it.

I did one evening in the first half of the week get into quite a conversation with what appeared to be a well to do couple regarding their actions. As I see it, the right to protest and freedom to criticise government policy without fear of persecution or much of any intervention in the UK is absolutely sacred and it is a huge privilege which many people even in other democracies do not have. But, it also comes with huge responsibility on people seeking to exercise that right where there are unspoken lines which won't be crossed, and preventing ordinary people from going about their lawful business in order to protest absolutely crosses a line. Because if those lines are crossed, the government will not put up with it forever and laws to stop it happening will be introduced. That's not arguing the rights and wrongs, that is simply what will happen.

The fact that the XR protests went off with such little intervention to stop them was not because there was a belief amongst government and the police that intervention shouldn't have happened, it's simply that the laws as they existed simply did not allow for what to do if a protest went that far without actual violence and as such TPTB simply didn't know what to do with them, so they did very little. I made the point that if such lack of regard for the unwritten rules of protest continued, then not only would XR be unable to protest on their cause, but if we weren't careful, nobody would be able to protest against anything. And then just as the arguments started to become circular and the evening started to draw in and the temperature started to drop, the well to do couple excused themselves from the picket line because they had a booking at a city centre restaurant. So just as the police drafted in to watch over the protest were living off of bags of crisps, some of the protestors buggered off for dinner because they were hungry. Forgive me if I ever so slightly question their absolute belief in the XR cause.

And where are we now? The somewhat terrifying potential restrictrictions on right to protest that are in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill. And if we had any hope that these curbs might not actually happen, Insulate Britain, Stop Oil Now, and whatever that group of twats that are going around letting down the tyres on 4x4s are called will make sure they will.
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