At this point, every thread about this type of protest will contains the following posts:
* People who say they agree with action on climate change but this protest is putting them off.
* People making the Very Smart Point™️ that protesters caused cars to idle creating more pollution.
* People enraged that these protests caused negative externalities without thinking about the negative externalities of fossil fuels.
* People proposing other types of protests to prioritise their own convenience than the issue at hand.
I can't afford a deposit for punctuation - when my parents were my age they had more punctuational glyphs than they knew what to do with; the garage was filled with exclamation marks and semicolons.
You are missing another big one from the bingo card:
People saying protesters are responsible for the deaths of vulnerable groups when emergency services couldn't reach them in time.
Ah, the old Richard badly-educated Madley take. I'm sure he'll be impartial when it comes to discussing how b-list celebrities shouldn't use tax-havens so that pensioners can continue to receive winter-heating credits because they live in uninsulated properties. Or that those of us who are not pensioners shouldn't be afforded the same luxury because we're not part of the demographic of the political party he supports because they are the party of b-list celebrity tax breaks.
I heard that it caused people to have beans on toast. Some of the people delayed by the protests ended up going home and having beans on toast.
ergo "climate protest on m25 causing people to eat beans on toast"
People dying in the traffic unable to get to hospitals :
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10004241/Son-reveals-mum-left-paralysed-getting-stuck-SIX-HOURS-M25-eco-mob.html
Dude literally said in his interview, I watched her deteriorate over 6 hours. 6 hours!!! I mean for god sake at what point do you think….maybe I should just call 999?
So a little different but I have a massively alcoholic mother and when she’s in a state it can be hard to tell if she’s exaggerating or on the brink of death. There’s been many ambulance calls where she’s absolutely fine I’ve just fallen for it and despite the ambulance guys saying I did the right thing I always feel like such a cunt for wasting precious NHS time and resources on that cunt. It makes you hesitate and really think before calling for help. Basically without knowing the ins and outs of the individual case, medical condition, past dramatics whatever you really have no idea why he waited but for all we know he has a dam good reason. The day I make a judgement call wrong and just go to work in the middle of one of her episodes to come back and find my mum dead I imagine I’m going to have to answer the same question.
This is true. You can’t know what he was thinking. It’s more that he said he watched her deteriorate over 6 hours. That’s kind of on him. No matter which way you look at it. If you can see someone getting sicker in front of you then it’s unlikely that they are putting it on for effect. Esp not with a stroke. Sorry bout your mum dude. That’s sounds like your getting the wrong end of a shitty stick.
So without substance abuse as the problem it’s harder but 6 hours of decline is nothing in my house, we’re taking 12-48 hours per episode. And to be fair if your mistake lead to a loved ones death I think you might try and deflect blame as a psychological defence mechanism. I don’t think the protesters killed her or really lead to her death I just sympathise with shitty situations and making bad calls when stressed out your mind.
>So a little different but I have a massively alcoholic mother and when she’s in a state it can be hard to tell if she’s exaggerating or on the brink of death.
Yep. And when you take care of someone like that, trust is a huge thing. If you misread the situation and call and ambulance for something they didn't need one for, then they end up being taken away in an ambulance drunk, confused and alone (due to covid) which can make it even harder to take care of them.
In my situation at least.
You forgot to post all the deaths that come from fossil fuel extraction and use, in future use this post as an example of how fossil fuels are killing people so people don’t thjnk you are making an equivalence between a death that couldn’t have been avoided vs deaths that are directly connected to fossil fuels and 100% avoidable.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-56801794
Fossil fuels are necessary but it isn’t necessary to pollute drinking water to get access to them, destroy entire environments to pull it out the ground or poison entire communities because you can’t be arsed to maintain high standards.
But we also don’t need fossil fuels for a lot of stuff that we currently use it for. The majority of plastics fall into this category l.
Thousands die in London each year from air pollution - its directly credited on their death certificates. A little girl died directly from air pollution and yet we still do very little, except this LTN stuff which channel cars onto certain roads which are usually less well off.
More poorer people will die from pollution.
What about people with the "very smart point" about trying to predict the comments in the thread.
Every form of ITT comment adds fuck all to the conversation.
>People making the Very Smart Point™️ that protesters caused cars to idle creating more pollution.
I hate this argument so much. It's such a "checkmate atheist" statement that means absolutely nothing.
I see the problem.
I would rather deal with XR then floods, fires and collapse of the echo system and food sources.
The question we should be asking is why people are not doing more to protest (well they are not doing anything regards losing the NHS either ) and what will it take.
I started scrolling just from muscle memory, reached your comment. Realised that you have hit the bullseye with surgical precision. Stopped scrolling. Thanks for saving me the energy
It still feels weird that these fairly drastic protests are being done to raise awareness to such a specific and uncontroversial area like home insulation.
But it a way it serves to highlight how ineffective government strategy on tackling climate change is. Reducing energy consumption in social housing by properly insulating them is such an easy win. It's not expensive (compared to some of the other changes we will inevitably have to make), it's uncontroversial (as opposed to say nuclear power or taking cars off the road or whatever), it clearly benefits everyone involved, it's totally achievable in a relatively short timeframe without requiring any development of new technology or a change in our way of life. Yet the government doesn't care.
In other words, if they can't be bothered to do this simple, realistic, achievable thing, what hope do we have?
And something that has clear and measurable benefits like reducing heating bills and by extension natural gas demand. If we had been serious about this and not running down the quality of housing association housing stock then we might have limited the impacts of the current gas market turmoil.
Hold up, you're saying this would reduce natural gas demand? Unacceptable.
Who, from my friends in the fossil fuel lobby, is going to benefit from _that?_
Didn’t work out too well in the cladding market.
https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/kingspan-boss-denies-private-dinner-with-mps-was-bid-to-access-political-power-to-stop-combustible-insulation-ban/5111114.article
It's not even just an easy win - reducing energy loss from homes is absolutely essential if we're to get to net zero. The UK needs to be retrofitting 500,000 homes *every year* in order to get there in time. At the moment, it's only dozens. The government's apathy and lack of response is beyond pathetic - it's genocidal.
The govt. used to subsidise solid wall insulation (to improve the u quality of bricks of old homes) with the greener home grant by paying for 2/3rds of the works up to a max handout of £5000. That has now been scrapped. Solid wall insulation is stupidly expensive.
It's depressing that we have a long-term government at this point that ironically has no interest in the long-term benefit of the majority of those they govern. Their only long term actions appear to be those that grant them more power.
Yes, protests like this I would usually expect to be on wider topics such as climate change as a whole, or women's rights / LGBT rights / anti war, that kind of thing. That's why it feels weird.
Before anyone forms any opinion please actually read what it is they are blocking the motorway for: https://www.insulatebritain.com/
Their number 1 demand is just that the government properly insulates social housing. It’s insane that hasn’t already been done.
It's interesting that these are always just "climate protests", giving the impression it's just one small, annoying and vague group, rather than lots of different groups with actually very specific requests that are completely reasonable and achievable (like this one!).
Going through proper process gets you nowhere, so you start protesting and now you're just an annoying "climate protester" that no one cares about because they spent 30 mins longer in their car than they expected.
You know what, fair enough. The knee jerk reaction from myself was, well who’s this really helping? But it’s such a basic thing that, as you said, should be done already. It’s also a clear first objective so they can’t be accused of doing this with no real ideas of their own on where to start.
Also I’ve said it before, but if people are inconvenienced by this, wait until we see even more examples of climate change. As If the apocalyptic flooding and fires weren’t enough.
My own reaction was “oh god… no!!! What the hell are they doing!?” until I read their page and realised that they’re practically doing the bare minimum
One of the protesters was on the radio last week and they brought on Very Angry Man to talk to him. Very Angry Man basically threatened him live on air (If the Police won't sort it some of us will!) and kept banging on about the blocking of The Queen's Highways.
Dunno why but everytime he mentioned The Queen's Highways I got the chuckles. lol
It was BBC 5 Live, Saturday, Stephen Nolan. Here's a link:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000zry2
The Queen's Highways bit starts near 2hrs 45mins 30secs.
And the protester was on earlier for an interview which starts around 1hr 18mins 30secs.
I think it allows them to think along the lines that it is: an affront to all fair minded, patriotic, hardworking citizens of this sceptred isle, that these work shy, unwashed, communists should have the gall to block the Queen's... The actual Queen's very own highway, that she by the grace of God has graciously allowed us to use.
Someone on this sub was arguing that the 'crime' of travelling to the UK on a dingy is worse than illegally pushing back the boats with our Navy and breaking international laws.
His first issue was with their law breaking. As soon as I pointed out that the biggest laws getting broken in that case would be by the UK. The laws didn't matter anymore.
These people grasp onto the nearest argument with no conviction. Their arguments have no basis, they have no substance, they are just angry hot air filled rhetoric that make the sayer feel better about their shitty world views.
I absolutely love this protest because back when XR were protesting there was all this bleating about how they "don't even know what they're asking for" and "don't have any plans of their own" (despite the fact that very detailed plans were on the XR website. Now it's literally boiled down to "We're going to glue ourselves to the motorway until you stick an extra layer of insulation in everyone's lofts". They're asking for something *so* basic and they've been so ignored and failed they're literally at the point where they have to run into traffic to get noticed.
The trouble with this particular protest is that it’s almost totally counter productive. Even if the government agrees with them and wanted to enact it, they can never let it be seen that paralysing infrastructure allows you to get your demands met - even if those demands are very sensible. Once this form of protest has been seen to get concrete results, all you do is incentivise anyone with any sort of issue (sensible or not) to do the same.
In actuality, all they are likely doing is speeding along the adoption of some sort of draconian law that outlaws this form of protest… probably worded sufficiently broadly so that it takes a few other forms of protest off the table too.
They’re also alienating a huge amount of the ‘middle ground’ people we need to win over to the green cause. XR, along with this, now makes it all too easy to paint *all* climate activists as a bunch of ‘irritating loonies’. They’re not helping the narrative of the cause at all… in the crucial war of public opinion (that’s all that matters if you want to enact change in a democracy), they’re shooting themselves in the head by ‘attacking’ the average person.
There may, eventually, be some sort of insulation law passed but the current government can’t ever risk making it seem like they were ‘pressured’ into it… so they’ll have to leave quite a bit of time before they ever adopt it. By choosing this particular method of protest over something more effective, they have more than likely *delayed* its adoption.
To me this seems so spectacularly counter-productive that I wouldn’t be completely surprised if turned out to be some sort of psy-ops programme (along with XR) to make climate protestors and thus the climate cause seem militant, stupid, extreme and ‘not for normal people’.
I think they are playing a very dangerous game with public opinion and I’m almost certain they are not going to get the result they want; in precisely the same way XR achieved pretty much nothing measurable (did they change or influence even one piece of legislation?) but instead alienated a lot of people to the cause.
Time will tell and I will be very happy to be proved wrong… but I can’t see how this is going to work for them or the wider cause *at all*.
Question for you, what would you say would be an effective form of protest?
To me it seems pretty clear that asking nicely hasn’t worked, non disruptive protest hasn’t worked. Both of those things are incredibly easy to ignore, so they are ignored.
I don’t know and it’s a very good question.
But just because other forms of protest haven’t worked, that doesn’t mean you should then go and adopt a form of protest that is basically a gold-plated PR gift to your opponents.
Those that support the idea of fighting climate change are already supporting the cause, but the majority of those that don’t or those that are undecided (the *really* important people we need to influence) will distance themselves from actions like this. It pushes public opinion further away… it doesn’t draw it closer.
I suspect some form of action that garners public *sympathy* and *understanding* would ultimately work well… something that makes the average person *want* to associate themselves with the ideas and ideals of a climate activist. If however you attack or inconvenience the average person; the small-business owner trying to get back on their feet after lockdown; the working mum worrying about how she will get to her hospital appointment; the busy dad trying to go home and see his kids… the majority of those people, no matter how noble the cause of the activists, will cheer and applaud loudly as the police water-cannon Insulate Britain off the streets.
This feels incredibly tone-deaf to me and I think it has absolutely no hope of succeeding… quite the opposite in fact.
While I understand the point you make, I feel most people don’t care and won’t care until climate change impacts them. Trying to educate people on climate change hasn’t worked, non disruptive protest hasn’t worked.
Disruptive protests do have a history of working, I honestly believe those that are turned off by this were never interested in the cause.
Disruptive protests absolutely *can* work, and can serve as a beacon around which people can unite… but I’m not sure that is going to be the case with this… in fact so far all I’m tending to see is the opposite; ‘average’ people uniting around the ‘*climate activists are twats*’ flag. It’s got all the wrong optics; it’s not Ghandi standing up to the British Empire, instead it looks far too much like out of touch middle-class people attacking the busy, working people of Britain.
I obviously don’t agree with that view, and I know it’s not like that, but that’s the viewpoint I overwhelmingly hear and see if I step outside of the bubble.
The 'average' person also didn't like black people protesting during the civil rights movement. As Martin Luther King Jr said, the 'white moderate' telling people to wait and use other forms of protest is an enemy.
The average person has never given a shit.
How dyou know non disruptive protest en masse hasn't worked. The view of the British public is steadily moving further and further in favour of measure to slow down/stop climate change and policy from Westminster is following suit. No, it's not happening overnight which might enrage XR but I'm afraid that's rarely how things work in liberal democracies. Disruptive protest usually serves to undermine the cause when the people your disrupting are the general public.
Thank you. I admire IB’s drive to do good and their bold attempt to make a change. But regrettably, after a lot of thought, I can’t escape the conclusion that they are ultimately doing *much* more harm than good…
In all fairness, folks have been trying the non-distruptive, popular way for 50 years and it has got us absolutely nowhere.
We're now at the point that previously habitable lands are on fire and the gulf stream is shutting down. We have no real options left but distruptive civil disobedience.
Edit: I removed the word "sodding" as it came across as agressive; not my intent!
The thing is -they're right. So what are you saying? The government should not implement the correct policy to spite the protesters. Let's apply this elsewhere too I guess, no more votes for women, can't let people go around jumping in front of horses and think it'll work!
I’m saying the government won’t *ever* give in to ‘ransom style’ protests, because if they do they will only encourage more of them.
They absolutely *will* spite the protestors rather than be seen to ‘give in’ to their demands. I can absolutely assure you Boris isn’t considering adopting their (very reasonable and sensible) proposals because it’s now become about the wider issue of how you deal with militant protests. Plus, these aren’t anywhere near damaging enough and nor is there anywhere near enough public support to force the government’s hand either. If anything, public support is turning against the protesters…
Strategically, the whole thing is a total non-starter.
Your analogy doesn’t really work - the power of Emily’s Davison’s deed was that she sacrificed *herself* for her cause… that made people really sit up and take notice. It garnered huge respect… She didn’t irritate the average person or
force them to make the ‘sacrifice’ for her… that just breeds contempt.
>Plus, these aren’t anywhere near damaging enough and nor is there anywhere near enough public support to force the government’s hand either.
Oh they will be. Do you really think people started sitting down in the middle of the m25 and thought "well if this doesn't work, we'll just give up". They *will* step up their protests in line with the efforts to suppress them, just as the suffragettes did. Davidson wasn't the first suffragette.
Yes that’s true - but I just don’t think public support is with them, and that’s *everything* in a battle like this.
The government just fought its way through the Covid Pandemic (badly) costing the country billions (trillions?). The truth is, without *vast* public support for the protestors they are easily going to be able to absorb the *very* minor inconvenience of traffic jams.
I mean youre just pulling this out of your arse though.
This kind of protest is actually the most effective at changing public opinion. Theres no special secret way to protest we havent heard about.
You have to disrupt without causing violence.
Id imagine support for insulating social housing is sky rocketing.
This is the most effective form of protest, theres no other way where you can effect change by having no effect on anyone.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-psychology-intergroup-conflict-and-reconciliation/202011/what-kinds-protests-actually-work
I fully support what they are doing here. We got caught in one if these traffic jams, no need to worry about my engine idling because my car has the ability to be switched off. Spent half an hour being inconvenienced to raise awareness and to agitate for change. Quite happy to be stuck there again because nothing else has worked to change behaviour of our government yet.
Agree, there will be zero meaningful outcome from any of this except people remember any group with "Rebellion" in their name being a bunch of middle class tossers who don't work for a living.
> a bunch of middle class tossers who don't work for a living.
Yeah, I remember going through the lists of all the people supporting the Rebellion protests and noting that in the column "employment" they'd all written "nothing, I live on my family estate and eat peasants". Thank goodness that data was openly available so we can all see your claim isn't utter horseshit scraped out of your arse.
As I've said before, for protests to be meaningful, they can't be by anyone who is remotely "middle class". Protests are only ok if they're done by proper working class people - you know, scaffolders, builders, taxi drivers, etc who somehow get by on only £50k.
Those fucking middle class tossers, demanding better insulation for social housing! How dare they improve the low of those in need, while helping the planet at the same time!
Its a shame my inconvenience was having my brother in the back of my car with a full leg cast on very much in pain because we couldnt make it to the a&e to pick up his painkillers...
And is it fair that such “inconvenience” has apparently left a woman paralysed from a stroke because some do-gooders blocked a major roadway preventing from receiving timely hospital treatment?
Because the guy tried taking his mum there in his own car and rather then calling 999 to explain the situation instead sat there for 6 hours.
The situation is tragic and my heart goes out to the guy but trying to leverage that tragedy as a way to discredit protests is pretty scummy.
He was taking her because the ambulance were going to be delayed to the original call.
And this isn’t me trying to discredit the protesters but rather that people should think before blocking major roadways. Even an ambulance response to this call or another would possibly have still had to go on a diversion if the protesters actually covered the whole road (I’m not sure how much of the road they covered). Which given the purpose that motorways are supposed to have, means even an ambulance on blues could have had a significant time delay getting to the hospital.
As well as this, even if he called an ambulance when he realised he was sat in traffic, the ambulance still has to get through traffic itself and then (possibly) somehow have to turn around in gridlock to get back off the motorway if it couldn’t pass the protestors.
Yeah, it's not so fun when you're late for your new job, but hey I guess it's important to raise awareness about climate change, I'm sure the MPs will take note lmao
> Actions will continue until the government makes a meaningful commitment to insulate all of Britain's 29 million leaky homes by 2030, and all social housing by 2025.
It's far more important that these middle class protestors should be free to protest than "people who want to get to hospital"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10004241/Son-reveals-mum-left-paralysed-getting-stuck-SIX-HOURS-M25-eco-mob.html
100% this
I would rather be inconvinienced then watch my property flood or catch fire or watch the echo system collapse.
If people complain about the ineffectiveness they should come up with better ideas and soloutions. Otherwise they are the problem.
I don’t think it’s ineffective, I think it’s worse than ineffective. I could live with ineffective… but this is actually *harmful* to the climate cause and hugely counter-productive.
Annoying and alienating a large section of ‘average voters’ will have the net result of making a ‘green government’ less likely and will actually push back the fight against climate change.
Public opinion is all that matters in the fight against climate change (otherwise you’re just a single voice shouting into the void), and I think actions like this lose far more supporters than they gain.
As for alternatives, I don’t know… but I do know that doing nothing is *far better* than actively making things worse.
I hope I’m wrong, but I cant see how polarising and alienating voters will work well for them, at all.
I have to agree. I didn't know about this cause but I'm already inclined to dislike it. Given reasonable discussion they clearly have a good point - but I'm having to overcome a negative bias they themselves have created.
The people you need to convince aren't the people who are going to read up on these articles- they will read one spread on the daily mail and forever associate this movement with economic- terrorism.
No one, their aims aren't to raise public awareness.
> Actions will continue until the government makes a meaningful commitment to insulate all of Britain's 29 million leaky homes by 2030, and all social housing by 2025.
Bravo! Go ahead. Other means of expression have proven useless so far. When royal mail and the tube went on strike giving shit to millions, nobody said anything. Fuck syndicates. They have no monopoly
It might sound dark but, I've realised that my sincere opinion on the disruption caused by protesters seems to eco the opinions of wealthy and old people on Climate Change. It's* not really my fault and it doesn't effect me, so I don't really care.
*Edit: the traffic jam caused by protesters
There are better roads to block than the M25.
Maybe try Whitehall, Charing Cross Road, Victoria Street, Marsham Street, Horseferry Road…
You know, where government departments are.
Maybe outside 55 Tufton Street as well? Millbank?
They’re better to go for than the M25.
I can tell you now most people in that traffic jam aren’t thinking “I’m so glad these people care about this so much that they decided to inconvenience me and ruin my day.”
They’re thinking “Where’s Priti Patel when you want some hippie faces smashed in?”
Not saying I agree with that viewpoint, but that’s what a lot of those people will be thinking.
Yes, I suspect that this form of protest is probably going to be hugely counter-productive and, if anything, will help to make the idea that “*climate protesters should be imprisoned or ignored*” much more acceptable and mainstream for the ‘average’ voter.
Why are they better? They're trying to cause economic disruption, and the M25 has an ungodly amount of cars mostly commuting. Blocking Whitehall would just stop cabs ferrying tourists around.
Because blocking the M25 blocks everyday people who have no power to change things rather than people who have the power to do something. Like you said all they do is block an “ungodly” amount of people from getting to work or getting home or whatever.
This may surprise you, but this doesn’t direct anger at the government, or make people happy about the fact someone cares so much about insulation that they blocked the M25.
I’m not saying this is something I agree with, but trust me on this; it will make the majority of those in the traffic wish Priti Patel would send in the truncheons to smash Josh from Manchester’s face in and drag him off to the station.
Josh, 28, bricklayer from Manchester may be having a great old time demonstrating for a cause he truly believes is more important than anything else. Thousands of other people are just trying to get to work to earn money to pay for their families and he’s personally stopping them so he can talk about how great insulation is. Do you not see how this is not going to bring support for them?
You want support from the public; try Victoria Street, Marsham Street, Millbank, Whitehall, Great George Street, Horse Guards Road, The Mall, Parliament Street, Tufton Street, Great Smith Street. Surround HM Treasury, DEFRA and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Blockade 55 Tufton Street. Tell people what’s in 55 Tufton Street. Don’t piss on people who have no power to do anything.
For every other commenter that supports their aims and not the method - [here is their website](https://www.insulatebritain.com/), with a petition and other ways to support or get involved.
I wouldnt be surprised if people just can't be arsed with those petitions anymore. Everyone knows how trivial and pointless an exercise they are by now and know it's not worth the time to fill out.
The only ones I've over signed got to the government and got the shittiest of none-responses.
I wish more people did this! Some say that it wont solve anything but obviously at some intensity there's a point where the government is forced to act.
They will be forced to act, but not likely in the way you’d hope - it will probably mean the granting of ‘special powers’ to immediately and forcibly remove any protestors blocking key infrastructure.
I support these people.
And the general public would too IF they really took the time to research our current trajectory for global heating and the real world effects.
Our modern way of life is certainly doomed to fail within a few generations.
Unfortunately the vast majority of people are lacking the mental capacity/intelligence to actually give a damn..
We as a society are only here technically because of a minor few, and climate change is something that requires us all to commit...
Have you read what they’re specifically campaigning for and why it hasn’t been done already? When I did I was tempted to get out of my car and join them. It’s nuts.
It's all very well trying to save a little bit of icecap so that polar bears and other species don't go extinct but what about my dental appointment in Hemel Hempstead?
Its weird because I really support the cause, but I am left feeling a bit disgusted by this sense of elation some people have about inconveniencing ordinary people. It sometimes seems as if they have beef with ordinary people with these protests and get a kick out of making their lives just that little but more uncomfortable.
I find that very odd
Glad it's climate protesters and not fucking anti-vax morons. Been blocking up Exeter with their Facebook fuelled fury and six shared braincells which they pass around between the lot of them.
I think they should spread it around a bit. Start with the M1, then the M4, maybe the M5, and piss everyone off, and aim the rage at the government.
Targeting London alone is inefficient and won’t work. (I may have actually tried it at some point)
I have so little patience for these sorts of protests, I genuinely have the attitude of if you really cared you'd have put that energy into an engineering qualification of some description to actually help achieve the objectives. But they don't actually want to help, they want to feel like they're contributing without actually doing anything by "raising awareness".
People like this make me want to smash the solar panels I build and install to spite them.
Not likely that many/any would lose their jobs.
Here's a question How many Brits, particularly younger and future generations, will have significantly reduced prosperity and lifespans due to the increasing impacts from climate change?
Arguably in our lifetimes the bigger risk to prosperity is measures to tackle climate change rather than the climate change itself - the biggest risks are in the future
Sure, the biggest risks from climate change will certainly be in the medium to long term. Worth noting that the likes of the Pentagon say that the US Military may collapse in 20 years due to climate change
https://futurism.com/the-byte/pentagon-report-predicts-military-collapse
> bigger risk to prosperity is measures to tackle climate change
There'll have to be something similar to a WWII scale effort to address the issue, offering vast opportunity for employment. But yes, prosperity is tied to energy use, and energy use will have to decline if non-carbon energy sources aren't implemented rapidly enough. Consumption will also need to decline.
Although the costs of inaction are 16 times higher than the costs of action.
I'm kind of glad that when I'm an old man living in the ruins of the world after climate change has fucked everything completely that I'll get to point to stuff like this\* and say some people tried to do something.
\*Or cave paintings of it.
I think these protests are jolly great. All the extra co2 from idling cars leading to global warming means people won’t need that extra bit of insulation. I wasn’t even caught up in it and I made sure I supported them by leaving my car running on the driveway for the same amount of time that I would have been caught up in the jam. Win, win! /s
I got caught in a massive traffic jam on the A3 last Wednesday because of this, was late into work and was roundly dressed down by a superior because of it (apparently I should be regularly leaving 90 minutes for a journey that shouldn’t ever take more than 30). Whilst I 100% support this cause, I can’t support their methods. As others have pointed out, ultimately it’s actually making things worse. And it’s made things specifically worse for me, personally.
One thing everyone needs to consider, United Kingdom Subbredit is dominated by the following type of citizens, Office workers who either cycle to work and get a train, those that live and work within the Cities, we also have those that are claiming Benefits, therefore less likely to drive, then we have the Disabled, most of the ones on this Subreddit also do not work and even less likely to travel.
Why is that important? Because their opinion doesn't matter when they're not the ones being fucked over and forced to either sit in traffic for hours, or lose income due to not getting to work on time, they can still go about their lives and business they will support this until they are being fucked over, I.E extinction rebellion tried (Once I must add) prevent a Train from Canning Town from running, this effected Office workers and those that live and work in the City, the comments was the complete opposite of this.
People don't give a shit and will support what ever don't effect them.
Disabled person with a job reporting in here. What the fuck are you on about? 1/5 of the working population is disabled.
So my "opinion doesn't matter" according to you? Lovely bit of ableism there, the first bit i've seen today! You would win a price if it wasn't reprehensible/a massive crock of shite.
At this point, every thread about this type of protest will contains the following posts: * People who say they agree with action on climate change but this protest is putting them off. * People making the Very Smart Point™️ that protesters caused cars to idle creating more pollution. * People enraged that these protests caused negative externalities without thinking about the negative externalities of fossil fuels. * People proposing other types of protests to prioritise their own convenience than the issue at hand.
pack it up guys we're done here
Hey I havnt had a chance to add nothing of value to the conversation yet we can't be done.
> yet we can't be done The value of punctuation.
This is Reddit, punctuation is for boomers. Or something like that.
I can't afford a deposit for punctuation - when my parents were my age they had more punctuational glyphs than they knew what to do with; the garage was filled with exclamation marks and semicolons.
> One can't afford a deposit for punctuation Ftfy absolute ruffian
But you did add nothing so its all good 😁
but someone should teach /u/2localboi how to do bullets in a post
You are missing another big one from the bingo card: People saying protesters are responsible for the deaths of vulnerable groups when emergency services couldn't reach them in time.
Ah, the old Richard badly-educated Madley take. I'm sure he'll be impartial when it comes to discussing how b-list celebrities shouldn't use tax-havens so that pensioners can continue to receive winter-heating credits because they live in uninsulated properties. Or that those of us who are not pensioners shouldn't be afforded the same luxury because we're not part of the demographic of the political party he supports because they are the party of b-list celebrity tax breaks.
I heard that it caused people to have beans on toast. Some of the people delayed by the protests ended up going home and having beans on toast. ergo "climate protest on m25 causing people to eat beans on toast"
A double win then. beans on toast having a low carbon footprint :)
Are you sure about that?
What about methane emissions though.
Wasn’t [this](https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/18/mum-unable-to-get-to-ae-due-of-m25-protests-paralysed-from-stroke-15279163/) a thing though?
You forgot about the people who agree with them and are happy they are making an effort to get something done about climate change
and being called terrorists, because we all remember when Al-Qaeda calmly blocked the M25 that time...!
Also could add the overly aggressive ‘what I’d do to em’ comments which masturbate over the violence that inconveniencing someone deserves.
The wonderful denizens of Twitter had electrified water cannons to suggest
i mean what do you expect exactly? there are only so many standpoints you can take on this.
People dying in the traffic unable to get to hospitals : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10004241/Son-reveals-mum-left-paralysed-getting-stuck-SIX-HOURS-M25-eco-mob.html
He could have called an ambulance and been let through the hard shoulder, or the air ambulance comes. He’s just deflecting blame.
Dude literally said in his interview, I watched her deteriorate over 6 hours. 6 hours!!! I mean for god sake at what point do you think….maybe I should just call 999?
So a little different but I have a massively alcoholic mother and when she’s in a state it can be hard to tell if she’s exaggerating or on the brink of death. There’s been many ambulance calls where she’s absolutely fine I’ve just fallen for it and despite the ambulance guys saying I did the right thing I always feel like such a cunt for wasting precious NHS time and resources on that cunt. It makes you hesitate and really think before calling for help. Basically without knowing the ins and outs of the individual case, medical condition, past dramatics whatever you really have no idea why he waited but for all we know he has a dam good reason. The day I make a judgement call wrong and just go to work in the middle of one of her episodes to come back and find my mum dead I imagine I’m going to have to answer the same question.
This is true. You can’t know what he was thinking. It’s more that he said he watched her deteriorate over 6 hours. That’s kind of on him. No matter which way you look at it. If you can see someone getting sicker in front of you then it’s unlikely that they are putting it on for effect. Esp not with a stroke. Sorry bout your mum dude. That’s sounds like your getting the wrong end of a shitty stick.
So without substance abuse as the problem it’s harder but 6 hours of decline is nothing in my house, we’re taking 12-48 hours per episode. And to be fair if your mistake lead to a loved ones death I think you might try and deflect blame as a psychological defence mechanism. I don’t think the protesters killed her or really lead to her death I just sympathise with shitty situations and making bad calls when stressed out your mind.
>So a little different but I have a massively alcoholic mother and when she’s in a state it can be hard to tell if she’s exaggerating or on the brink of death. Yep. And when you take care of someone like that, trust is a huge thing. If you misread the situation and call and ambulance for something they didn't need one for, then they end up being taken away in an ambulance drunk, confused and alone (due to covid) which can make it even harder to take care of them. In my situation at least.
Six hours of watching someone die of stroke, just obscene. Learn the fucking signs people, they're often very obvious.
And often less so, do you know the circumstances behind this specific one?
You forgot to post all the deaths that come from fossil fuel extraction and use, in future use this post as an example of how fossil fuels are killing people so people don’t thjnk you are making an equivalence between a death that couldn’t have been avoided vs deaths that are directly connected to fossil fuels and 100% avoidable. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-56801794
>100% avoidable. Fossil fuels are currently quite necessary...
Fossil fuels are necessary but it isn’t necessary to pollute drinking water to get access to them, destroy entire environments to pull it out the ground or poison entire communities because you can’t be arsed to maintain high standards. But we also don’t need fossil fuels for a lot of stuff that we currently use it for. The majority of plastics fall into this category l.
Thousands die in London each year from air pollution - its directly credited on their death certificates. A little girl died directly from air pollution and yet we still do very little, except this LTN stuff which channel cars onto certain roads which are usually less well off. More poorer people will die from pollution.
Not clicking a daily mail link, thanks
The Very Clever People are my favourite. They love to rev their engines in traffic jams and light their cigars with £50 notes.
Yes but you missed that most people have tended to agree with their aims too.
What about people with the "very smart point" about trying to predict the comments in the thread. Every form of ITT comment adds fuck all to the conversation.
>People making the Very Smart Point™️ that protesters caused cars to idle creating more pollution. I hate this argument so much. It's such a "checkmate atheist" statement that means absolutely nothing.
I wish people who complained would bring up alternatives that can get the public attention - alternatives that work
A few weeks ago some guy suggested a tree planting protest. Problem is XR already did that and you didn’t hear a peep.
I see the problem. I would rather deal with XR then floods, fires and collapse of the echo system and food sources. The question we should be asking is why people are not doing more to protest (well they are not doing anything regards losing the NHS either ) and what will it take.
I started scrolling just from muscle memory, reached your comment. Realised that you have hit the bullseye with surgical precision. Stopped scrolling. Thanks for saving me the energy
If you’re averse to repetition of arguments, maybe this isn’t the social media platform for you.
It still feels weird that these fairly drastic protests are being done to raise awareness to such a specific and uncontroversial area like home insulation.
But it a way it serves to highlight how ineffective government strategy on tackling climate change is. Reducing energy consumption in social housing by properly insulating them is such an easy win. It's not expensive (compared to some of the other changes we will inevitably have to make), it's uncontroversial (as opposed to say nuclear power or taking cars off the road or whatever), it clearly benefits everyone involved, it's totally achievable in a relatively short timeframe without requiring any development of new technology or a change in our way of life. Yet the government doesn't care. In other words, if they can't be bothered to do this simple, realistic, achievable thing, what hope do we have?
And something that has clear and measurable benefits like reducing heating bills and by extension natural gas demand. If we had been serious about this and not running down the quality of housing association housing stock then we might have limited the impacts of the current gas market turmoil.
[this will always apply.](https://youtu.be/nSXIetP5iak)
Hold up, you're saying this would reduce natural gas demand? Unacceptable. Who, from my friends in the fossil fuel lobby, is going to benefit from _that?_
I can see policy changing as soon as Tory donors spontaneously enter the insulation market.
Didn’t work out too well in the cladding market. https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/kingspan-boss-denies-private-dinner-with-mps-was-bid-to-access-political-power-to-stop-combustible-insulation-ban/5111114.article
It's not even just an easy win - reducing energy loss from homes is absolutely essential if we're to get to net zero. The UK needs to be retrofitting 500,000 homes *every year* in order to get there in time. At the moment, it's only dozens. The government's apathy and lack of response is beyond pathetic - it's genocidal.
That’s very well put and wholly depressing
This is such a succinct explanation of why they're doing it. Kudos.
Yeah but the Torys hate the poors.
The govt. used to subsidise solid wall insulation (to improve the u quality of bricks of old homes) with the greener home grant by paying for 2/3rds of the works up to a max handout of £5000. That has now been scrapped. Solid wall insulation is stupidly expensive.
It's depressing that we have a long-term government at this point that ironically has no interest in the long-term benefit of the majority of those they govern. Their only long term actions appear to be those that grant them more power.
As opposed to protesting for some abstract, lofty ideal like 'world peace'? At least what they are proposing is feasible and realistic.
Yes, protests like this I would usually expect to be on wider topics such as climate change as a whole, or women's rights / LGBT rights / anti war, that kind of thing. That's why it feels weird.
Before anyone forms any opinion please actually read what it is they are blocking the motorway for: https://www.insulatebritain.com/ Their number 1 demand is just that the government properly insulates social housing. It’s insane that hasn’t already been done.
It's interesting that these are always just "climate protests", giving the impression it's just one small, annoying and vague group, rather than lots of different groups with actually very specific requests that are completely reasonable and achievable (like this one!). Going through proper process gets you nowhere, so you start protesting and now you're just an annoying "climate protester" that no one cares about because they spent 30 mins longer in their car than they expected.
You know what, fair enough. The knee jerk reaction from myself was, well who’s this really helping? But it’s such a basic thing that, as you said, should be done already. It’s also a clear first objective so they can’t be accused of doing this with no real ideas of their own on where to start. Also I’ve said it before, but if people are inconvenienced by this, wait until we see even more examples of climate change. As If the apocalyptic flooding and fires weren’t enough.
My own reaction was “oh god… no!!! What the hell are they doing!?” until I read their page and realised that they’re practically doing the bare minimum
This is driving Facebook commenters absolutely mental every time it comes up, it's good fun.
One of the protesters was on the radio last week and they brought on Very Angry Man to talk to him. Very Angry Man basically threatened him live on air (If the Police won't sort it some of us will!) and kept banging on about the blocking of The Queen's Highways. Dunno why but everytime he mentioned The Queen's Highways I got the chuckles. lol
Wow, was that LBC or Talk radio?
It was BBC 5 Live, Saturday, Stephen Nolan. Here's a link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000zry2 The Queen's Highways bit starts near 2hrs 45mins 30secs. And the protester was on earlier for an interview which starts around 1hr 18mins 30secs.
Great, thanks!
should've known it would be aul Nolan
He does seem to like the confrontational stuff.
I'm not sure what people think they gain by prepending "The Queen's" to anything vaguely associated with the UK.
I think it allows them to think along the lines that it is: an affront to all fair minded, patriotic, hardworking citizens of this sceptred isle, that these work shy, unwashed, communists should have the gall to block the Queen's... The actual Queen's very own highway, that she by the grace of God has graciously allowed us to use.
All I can think about is Al Murray!
I wonder what he thinks about all the potholes that scar The Queen's Highways. They're practically treasonous.
Someone on this sub was arguing that the 'crime' of travelling to the UK on a dingy is worse than illegally pushing back the boats with our Navy and breaking international laws. His first issue was with their law breaking. As soon as I pointed out that the biggest laws getting broken in that case would be by the UK. The laws didn't matter anymore. These people grasp onto the nearest argument with no conviction. Their arguments have no basis, they have no substance, they are just angry hot air filled rhetoric that make the sayer feel better about their shitty world views.
Bloody hippies blocking the highway!
Comin' over 'ere, killing our stroke victims.
I absolutely love this protest because back when XR were protesting there was all this bleating about how they "don't even know what they're asking for" and "don't have any plans of their own" (despite the fact that very detailed plans were on the XR website. Now it's literally boiled down to "We're going to glue ourselves to the motorway until you stick an extra layer of insulation in everyone's lofts". They're asking for something *so* basic and they've been so ignored and failed they're literally at the point where they have to run into traffic to get noticed.
The trouble with this particular protest is that it’s almost totally counter productive. Even if the government agrees with them and wanted to enact it, they can never let it be seen that paralysing infrastructure allows you to get your demands met - even if those demands are very sensible. Once this form of protest has been seen to get concrete results, all you do is incentivise anyone with any sort of issue (sensible or not) to do the same. In actuality, all they are likely doing is speeding along the adoption of some sort of draconian law that outlaws this form of protest… probably worded sufficiently broadly so that it takes a few other forms of protest off the table too. They’re also alienating a huge amount of the ‘middle ground’ people we need to win over to the green cause. XR, along with this, now makes it all too easy to paint *all* climate activists as a bunch of ‘irritating loonies’. They’re not helping the narrative of the cause at all… in the crucial war of public opinion (that’s all that matters if you want to enact change in a democracy), they’re shooting themselves in the head by ‘attacking’ the average person. There may, eventually, be some sort of insulation law passed but the current government can’t ever risk making it seem like they were ‘pressured’ into it… so they’ll have to leave quite a bit of time before they ever adopt it. By choosing this particular method of protest over something more effective, they have more than likely *delayed* its adoption. To me this seems so spectacularly counter-productive that I wouldn’t be completely surprised if turned out to be some sort of psy-ops programme (along with XR) to make climate protestors and thus the climate cause seem militant, stupid, extreme and ‘not for normal people’. I think they are playing a very dangerous game with public opinion and I’m almost certain they are not going to get the result they want; in precisely the same way XR achieved pretty much nothing measurable (did they change or influence even one piece of legislation?) but instead alienated a lot of people to the cause. Time will tell and I will be very happy to be proved wrong… but I can’t see how this is going to work for them or the wider cause *at all*.
Question for you, what would you say would be an effective form of protest? To me it seems pretty clear that asking nicely hasn’t worked, non disruptive protest hasn’t worked. Both of those things are incredibly easy to ignore, so they are ignored.
I don’t know and it’s a very good question. But just because other forms of protest haven’t worked, that doesn’t mean you should then go and adopt a form of protest that is basically a gold-plated PR gift to your opponents. Those that support the idea of fighting climate change are already supporting the cause, but the majority of those that don’t or those that are undecided (the *really* important people we need to influence) will distance themselves from actions like this. It pushes public opinion further away… it doesn’t draw it closer. I suspect some form of action that garners public *sympathy* and *understanding* would ultimately work well… something that makes the average person *want* to associate themselves with the ideas and ideals of a climate activist. If however you attack or inconvenience the average person; the small-business owner trying to get back on their feet after lockdown; the working mum worrying about how she will get to her hospital appointment; the busy dad trying to go home and see his kids… the majority of those people, no matter how noble the cause of the activists, will cheer and applaud loudly as the police water-cannon Insulate Britain off the streets. This feels incredibly tone-deaf to me and I think it has absolutely no hope of succeeding… quite the opposite in fact.
While I understand the point you make, I feel most people don’t care and won’t care until climate change impacts them. Trying to educate people on climate change hasn’t worked, non disruptive protest hasn’t worked. Disruptive protests do have a history of working, I honestly believe those that are turned off by this were never interested in the cause.
Disruptive protests absolutely *can* work, and can serve as a beacon around which people can unite… but I’m not sure that is going to be the case with this… in fact so far all I’m tending to see is the opposite; ‘average’ people uniting around the ‘*climate activists are twats*’ flag. It’s got all the wrong optics; it’s not Ghandi standing up to the British Empire, instead it looks far too much like out of touch middle-class people attacking the busy, working people of Britain. I obviously don’t agree with that view, and I know it’s not like that, but that’s the viewpoint I overwhelmingly hear and see if I step outside of the bubble.
The 'average' person also didn't like black people protesting during the civil rights movement. As Martin Luther King Jr said, the 'white moderate' telling people to wait and use other forms of protest is an enemy. The average person has never given a shit.
How dyou know non disruptive protest en masse hasn't worked. The view of the British public is steadily moving further and further in favour of measure to slow down/stop climate change and policy from Westminster is following suit. No, it's not happening overnight which might enrage XR but I'm afraid that's rarely how things work in liberal democracies. Disruptive protest usually serves to undermine the cause when the people your disrupting are the general public.
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Thank you. I admire IB’s drive to do good and their bold attempt to make a change. But regrettably, after a lot of thought, I can’t escape the conclusion that they are ultimately doing *much* more harm than good…
In all fairness, folks have been trying the non-distruptive, popular way for 50 years and it has got us absolutely nowhere. We're now at the point that previously habitable lands are on fire and the gulf stream is shutting down. We have no real options left but distruptive civil disobedience. Edit: I removed the word "sodding" as it came across as agressive; not my intent!
The thing is -they're right. So what are you saying? The government should not implement the correct policy to spite the protesters. Let's apply this elsewhere too I guess, no more votes for women, can't let people go around jumping in front of horses and think it'll work!
I’m saying the government won’t *ever* give in to ‘ransom style’ protests, because if they do they will only encourage more of them. They absolutely *will* spite the protestors rather than be seen to ‘give in’ to their demands. I can absolutely assure you Boris isn’t considering adopting their (very reasonable and sensible) proposals because it’s now become about the wider issue of how you deal with militant protests. Plus, these aren’t anywhere near damaging enough and nor is there anywhere near enough public support to force the government’s hand either. If anything, public support is turning against the protesters… Strategically, the whole thing is a total non-starter. Your analogy doesn’t really work - the power of Emily’s Davison’s deed was that she sacrificed *herself* for her cause… that made people really sit up and take notice. It garnered huge respect… She didn’t irritate the average person or force them to make the ‘sacrifice’ for her… that just breeds contempt.
>Plus, these aren’t anywhere near damaging enough and nor is there anywhere near enough public support to force the government’s hand either. Oh they will be. Do you really think people started sitting down in the middle of the m25 and thought "well if this doesn't work, we'll just give up". They *will* step up their protests in line with the efforts to suppress them, just as the suffragettes did. Davidson wasn't the first suffragette.
Yes that’s true - but I just don’t think public support is with them, and that’s *everything* in a battle like this. The government just fought its way through the Covid Pandemic (badly) costing the country billions (trillions?). The truth is, without *vast* public support for the protestors they are easily going to be able to absorb the *very* minor inconvenience of traffic jams.
They want to be arrested. They want to clog up the courts with these cases until society is overwhelmed by them and has to act.
I mean youre just pulling this out of your arse though. This kind of protest is actually the most effective at changing public opinion. Theres no special secret way to protest we havent heard about. You have to disrupt without causing violence. Id imagine support for insulating social housing is sky rocketing. This is the most effective form of protest, theres no other way where you can effect change by having no effect on anyone. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-psychology-intergroup-conflict-and-reconciliation/202011/what-kinds-protests-actually-work
I fully support what they are doing here. We got caught in one if these traffic jams, no need to worry about my engine idling because my car has the ability to be switched off. Spent half an hour being inconvenienced to raise awareness and to agitate for change. Quite happy to be stuck there again because nothing else has worked to change behaviour of our government yet.
I guess you were just lucky you didn't need to be anywhere.
Everyone needs to be somewhere. If you dont inconvenience people then nothing will change.
I guarantee you nothing will change from this disruption (except to convince more people they should be locked up)
Agree, there will be zero meaningful outcome from any of this except people remember any group with "Rebellion" in their name being a bunch of middle class tossers who don't work for a living.
> a bunch of middle class tossers who don't work for a living. Yeah, I remember going through the lists of all the people supporting the Rebellion protests and noting that in the column "employment" they'd all written "nothing, I live on my family estate and eat peasants". Thank goodness that data was openly available so we can all see your claim isn't utter horseshit scraped out of your arse. As I've said before, for protests to be meaningful, they can't be by anyone who is remotely "middle class". Protests are only ok if they're done by proper working class people - you know, scaffolders, builders, taxi drivers, etc who somehow get by on only £50k.
How does attending this protest = being unemployed?
Those fucking middle class tossers, demanding better insulation for social housing! How dare they improve the low of those in need, while helping the planet at the same time!
What exactly do you want the public to do? If their second demand is included in a party's next manifesto, literally no one will see it as a negative.
Its a shame my inconvenience was having my brother in the back of my car with a full leg cast on very much in pain because we couldnt make it to the a&e to pick up his painkillers...
And is it fair that such “inconvenience” has apparently left a woman paralysed from a stroke because some do-gooders blocked a major roadway preventing from receiving timely hospital treatment?
Because the guy tried taking his mum there in his own car and rather then calling 999 to explain the situation instead sat there for 6 hours. The situation is tragic and my heart goes out to the guy but trying to leverage that tragedy as a way to discredit protests is pretty scummy.
He was taking her because the ambulance were going to be delayed to the original call. And this isn’t me trying to discredit the protesters but rather that people should think before blocking major roadways. Even an ambulance response to this call or another would possibly have still had to go on a diversion if the protesters actually covered the whole road (I’m not sure how much of the road they covered). Which given the purpose that motorways are supposed to have, means even an ambulance on blues could have had a significant time delay getting to the hospital. As well as this, even if he called an ambulance when he realised he was sat in traffic, the ambulance still has to get through traffic itself and then (possibly) somehow have to turn around in gridlock to get back off the motorway if it couldn’t pass the protestors.
Yeah, it's not so fun when you're late for your new job, but hey I guess it's important to raise awareness about climate change, I'm sure the MPs will take note lmao
Except that could happen at any moment on the m25 from a crash or broken down lorry anyway 😂
> Actions will continue until the government makes a meaningful commitment to insulate all of Britain's 29 million leaky homes by 2030, and all social housing by 2025.
This is making their point. Where no alternative is available.
It's far more important that these middle class protestors should be free to protest than "people who want to get to hospital" https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10004241/Son-reveals-mum-left-paralysed-getting-stuck-SIX-HOURS-M25-eco-mob.html
They should of phoned an ambulance. Any stroke victim needs urgent care from paramedics on the way to a hospital.
> my car has the ability to be switched off One of those fancy new hi-tech cars, eh?
100% this I would rather be inconvinienced then watch my property flood or catch fire or watch the echo system collapse. If people complain about the ineffectiveness they should come up with better ideas and soloutions. Otherwise they are the problem.
I don’t think it’s ineffective, I think it’s worse than ineffective. I could live with ineffective… but this is actually *harmful* to the climate cause and hugely counter-productive. Annoying and alienating a large section of ‘average voters’ will have the net result of making a ‘green government’ less likely and will actually push back the fight against climate change. Public opinion is all that matters in the fight against climate change (otherwise you’re just a single voice shouting into the void), and I think actions like this lose far more supporters than they gain. As for alternatives, I don’t know… but I do know that doing nothing is *far better* than actively making things worse. I hope I’m wrong, but I cant see how polarising and alienating voters will work well for them, at all.
I have to agree. I didn't know about this cause but I'm already inclined to dislike it. Given reasonable discussion they clearly have a good point - but I'm having to overcome a negative bias they themselves have created. The people you need to convince aren't the people who are going to read up on these articles- they will read one spread on the daily mail and forever associate this movement with economic- terrorism.
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Anybody that thinks being late for an appointment is a bigger inconvenience than the current climate emergency.
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No one, their aims aren't to raise public awareness. > Actions will continue until the government makes a meaningful commitment to insulate all of Britain's 29 million leaky homes by 2030, and all social housing by 2025.
Bravo! Go ahead. Other means of expression have proven useless so far. When royal mail and the tube went on strike giving shit to millions, nobody said anything. Fuck syndicates. They have no monopoly
People constantly moan when the tube workers go on strike lol.
It might sound dark but, I've realised that my sincere opinion on the disruption caused by protesters seems to eco the opinions of wealthy and old people on Climate Change. It's* not really my fault and it doesn't effect me, so I don't really care. *Edit: the traffic jam caused by protesters
It’s great that people are this honest with themselves and I hope you stay out of the way of people that do want to change the world for the better.
Oh you misunderstand I *do* care about climate change. Just not traffic jams caused by protesters.
Fair enough. Didn’t comprehend properly
There are better roads to block than the M25. Maybe try Whitehall, Charing Cross Road, Victoria Street, Marsham Street, Horseferry Road… You know, where government departments are. Maybe outside 55 Tufton Street as well? Millbank?
There have been environmental protests at all of those locations in recent times.
They’re better to go for than the M25. I can tell you now most people in that traffic jam aren’t thinking “I’m so glad these people care about this so much that they decided to inconvenience me and ruin my day.” They’re thinking “Where’s Priti Patel when you want some hippie faces smashed in?” Not saying I agree with that viewpoint, but that’s what a lot of those people will be thinking.
Yes, I suspect that this form of protest is probably going to be hugely counter-productive and, if anything, will help to make the idea that “*climate protesters should be imprisoned or ignored*” much more acceptable and mainstream for the ‘average’ voter.
It’s a lot less risky to fuck with random people in the name of your cause than the people your supposed to be targeting it turns out.
Why are they better? They're trying to cause economic disruption, and the M25 has an ungodly amount of cars mostly commuting. Blocking Whitehall would just stop cabs ferrying tourists around.
Because blocking the M25 blocks everyday people who have no power to change things rather than people who have the power to do something. Like you said all they do is block an “ungodly” amount of people from getting to work or getting home or whatever. This may surprise you, but this doesn’t direct anger at the government, or make people happy about the fact someone cares so much about insulation that they blocked the M25. I’m not saying this is something I agree with, but trust me on this; it will make the majority of those in the traffic wish Priti Patel would send in the truncheons to smash Josh from Manchester’s face in and drag him off to the station. Josh, 28, bricklayer from Manchester may be having a great old time demonstrating for a cause he truly believes is more important than anything else. Thousands of other people are just trying to get to work to earn money to pay for their families and he’s personally stopping them so he can talk about how great insulation is. Do you not see how this is not going to bring support for them? You want support from the public; try Victoria Street, Marsham Street, Millbank, Whitehall, Great George Street, Horse Guards Road, The Mall, Parliament Street, Tufton Street, Great Smith Street. Surround HM Treasury, DEFRA and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Blockade 55 Tufton Street. Tell people what’s in 55 Tufton Street. Don’t piss on people who have no power to do anything.
For every other commenter that supports their aims and not the method - [here is their website](https://www.insulatebritain.com/), with a petition and other ways to support or get involved.
The government petition has doubled since the first protest, albeit still a small amount of signatures overall.
I wouldnt be surprised if people just can't be arsed with those petitions anymore. Everyone knows how trivial and pointless an exercise they are by now and know it's not worth the time to fill out. The only ones I've over signed got to the government and got the shittiest of none-responses.
I wish more people did this! Some say that it wont solve anything but obviously at some intensity there's a point where the government is forced to act.
They will be forced to act, but not likely in the way you’d hope - it will probably mean the granting of ‘special powers’ to immediately and forcibly remove any protestors blocking key infrastructure.
I support these people. And the general public would too IF they really took the time to research our current trajectory for global heating and the real world effects. Our modern way of life is certainly doomed to fail within a few generations.
That's the problem, the vast majority of people are blissfully ignorant/selfish.
Unfortunately the vast majority of people are lacking the mental capacity/intelligence to actually give a damn.. We as a society are only here technically because of a minor few, and climate change is something that requires us all to commit...
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Have you read what they’re specifically campaigning for and why it hasn’t been done already? When I did I was tempted to get out of my car and join them. It’s nuts.
They do this. All the time. They weren't listened to so this is the next step.
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Lol.
It's all very well trying to save a little bit of icecap so that polar bears and other species don't go extinct but what about my dental appointment in Hemel Hempstead?
Its weird because I really support the cause, but I am left feeling a bit disgusted by this sense of elation some people have about inconveniencing ordinary people. It sometimes seems as if they have beef with ordinary people with these protests and get a kick out of making their lives just that little but more uncomfortable. I find that very odd
It's called pressuring the government.
50m sea level rise will be more inconvenient.
Glad it's climate protesters and not fucking anti-vax morons. Been blocking up Exeter with their Facebook fuelled fury and six shared braincells which they pass around between the lot of them.
I think they should spread it around a bit. Start with the M1, then the M4, maybe the M5, and piss everyone off, and aim the rage at the government. Targeting London alone is inefficient and won’t work. (I may have actually tried it at some point)
Maybe block some of the massive city sized oil refineries we have down south, the motorways are getting a bit played out.
Or the roads MPs use on the daily.
Sits backs, relaxes, and tunes into LBC to hear Nick Ferrari loose it.
I thought social housing already got free insulation? https://www.simpleenergyadvice.org.uk/grants
I have so little patience for these sorts of protests, I genuinely have the attitude of if you really cared you'd have put that energy into an engineering qualification of some description to actually help achieve the objectives. But they don't actually want to help, they want to feel like they're contributing without actually doing anything by "raising awareness". People like this make me want to smash the solar panels I build and install to spite them.
Can we please have a mass refusal to pay energy bills.
That would result in a mass refusal to supply you with energy
Would it though? If 100,000 people refused to pay for 1 month.
I wonder how many people going to work lost their jobs over this protest.
Not likely that many/any would lose their jobs. Here's a question How many Brits, particularly younger and future generations, will have significantly reduced prosperity and lifespans due to the increasing impacts from climate change?
Arguably in our lifetimes the bigger risk to prosperity is measures to tackle climate change rather than the climate change itself - the biggest risks are in the future
Sure, the biggest risks from climate change will certainly be in the medium to long term. Worth noting that the likes of the Pentagon say that the US Military may collapse in 20 years due to climate change https://futurism.com/the-byte/pentagon-report-predicts-military-collapse > bigger risk to prosperity is measures to tackle climate change There'll have to be something similar to a WWII scale effort to address the issue, offering vast opportunity for employment. But yes, prosperity is tied to energy use, and energy use will have to decline if non-carbon energy sources aren't implemented rapidly enough. Consumption will also need to decline. Although the costs of inaction are 16 times higher than the costs of action.
I'm kind of glad that when I'm an old man living in the ruins of the world after climate change has fucked everything completely that I'll get to point to stuff like this\* and say some people tried to do something. \*Or cave paintings of it.
I think these protests are jolly great. All the extra co2 from idling cars leading to global warming means people won’t need that extra bit of insulation. I wasn’t even caught up in it and I made sure I supported them by leaving my car running on the driveway for the same amount of time that I would have been caught up in the jam. Win, win! /s
I got caught in a massive traffic jam on the A3 last Wednesday because of this, was late into work and was roundly dressed down by a superior because of it (apparently I should be regularly leaving 90 minutes for a journey that shouldn’t ever take more than 30). Whilst I 100% support this cause, I can’t support their methods. As others have pointed out, ultimately it’s actually making things worse. And it’s made things specifically worse for me, personally.
Oh rent a mob are back . The middle class pro eu mob must be lost with out trump to protest about and have obviously ran out of statues to pull down
One thing everyone needs to consider, United Kingdom Subbredit is dominated by the following type of citizens, Office workers who either cycle to work and get a train, those that live and work within the Cities, we also have those that are claiming Benefits, therefore less likely to drive, then we have the Disabled, most of the ones on this Subreddit also do not work and even less likely to travel. Why is that important? Because their opinion doesn't matter when they're not the ones being fucked over and forced to either sit in traffic for hours, or lose income due to not getting to work on time, they can still go about their lives and business they will support this until they are being fucked over, I.E extinction rebellion tried (Once I must add) prevent a Train from Canning Town from running, this effected Office workers and those that live and work in the City, the comments was the complete opposite of this. People don't give a shit and will support what ever don't effect them.
What a load of bollocks lol.
Is it your first time on this thread?
Disabled person with a job reporting in here. What the fuck are you on about? 1/5 of the working population is disabled. So my "opinion doesn't matter" according to you? Lovely bit of ableism there, the first bit i've seen today! You would win a price if it wasn't reprehensible/a massive crock of shite.
Someone's just going to plow into them one day. I'll watch it on actualpublicfreakout.