this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
72 points (84.0% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5289 readers
457 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
No. The reason is that the politicians are corrupt as fuck and oil companies have a lot of money to bribe them with. Also, the vast majority of the politicians are fascists who hate protesters and neoliberals who pretend to be their allies but prefer order to justice when it comes down to it.
You clearly have no clue about how protest works today a opposed to 60s to 90s. Media attention is the number one thing that you need to be able to inspire systemic change. Attention that you mostly get via what you so ignorantly call "performative nonsense" while advocating for sacrificing everything to further the cause only very little if at all.
You can't change the conversation without inconveniencing someone people and you can't change the system without first changing the conversation.
That's exactly what I said. The corrupt politicians will punish actual protests and go light on ineffectual protests (gluing oneself to items) because the oil companies love ineffectual protests and want to punish effective protests.
This has NOT led to more attention for environmentalism. It has only led to people speaking negatively about people who glue themselves to items. It has not led people to talk more about the environment. In fact it distracts people from the environment and works in the favor of oil companies.
But a protest must do more than merely inconvenience some people... especially when it only inconveniences normal people who might already agree with you but don't have much power. It's clearly just narcissistic attention-grabbing for their own egos.
If the conversation has been changed, it's been to distract from environmentalism and put focus on the warped egos of a few fools who glue themselves to things. 100% counterproductive.
You've said nothing of substance. And these protests have no substance.
Actually, it pushes the envelope. People making sacrifices makes the best kind of point to other people.
The Arab spring comes to mind.
Was that man also an idiot who didn't inspire anything?
At some point, the spark will catch.
It depends on the protest. You can't just do a random thing and expect people to get inspired. Gluing yourself to something makes you look foolish. Not inspiring. Blocking traffic is actually related to the problem, so it can start a spark.
Some of the best environmentist protestors are the ones who chain themselves to trees to stop old growth logging. These are excellent and passionate protests.
The glue and paintings nonsense works against this. It's stupid and distracting and discouraging.
Yes, and how is turning yourself ON FIRE related to a constructive solution to the problems in the Middle East?
I hear your point but I'm not buying it. Sounds like fear to me. I think people should do ALL KINDS of shit EVERYWHERE. Not fit themselves into some kind of rational frame of "what makes sense".
I'd guess it's not what "makes sense" that sparks revolutions, it's the real crazy stuff.
Setting yourself on fire is an ultimate and devastating personal sacrifice, not a bratty lashing out at random stuff. No comparison. However, once you set yourself on fire you can't help anybody anymore, ever, so it's still a bad idea.
Gluing yourself to things has proven to be a failed strategy. Everybody just makes fun of you. It's humiliating and does a disservice to actual activists.