this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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[–] ElChapoDeChapo@hexbear.net 77 points 3 months ago (7 children)

I'll be real with you, these people and Extinction Rebellion feel like ops designed to make the movement look bad

Like what the fuck does Stonehenge have to do with climate change? Couldn't they have done this to BP or something?

[–] dead@hexbear.net 42 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Maybe they're feds, maybe they're not. I can't really say.

There is no perfect activist. Every person is flawed. I watched some of these people being interviewed and they seem like random people who are just actually afraid of climate change. Also the media did misinformation on the soup painting thing. The activists said they only threw paint/soup at painting that they knew was behind glass.

Last summer, the sky was filled with smoke for 2 whole months. For months of the summer there was smoke in the sky every day from the Canada wildfires. I could smell the smoke outside daily. I live in North Carolina. I am hundreds of miles away from Canada. I would ask people, "Do you see the smoke in the sky? Do you smell it? It's on the news" and still people were completely oblivious to it.

Every year is the hottest year on record. The sky is on fire. I'm struggling to care about the optics of painting of old rocks.

If climate change is a genuine danger, then some people will respond in irrational ways. The point is not to chastise the people who react this way, it is to fix the threat of climate change.

[–] ElChapoDeChapo@hexbear.net 25 points 3 months ago

Maybe they're feds, maybe they're not. I can't really say.

There is no perfect activist. Every person is flawed. I watched some of these people being interviewed and they seem like random people who are just actually afraid of climate change. Also the media did misinformation on the soup painting thing. The activists said they only threw paint/soup at painting that they knew was behind glass.

For sure

Didn't mean to disparage the people on the ground, I just think the leadership is sus

[–] RION@hexbear.net 39 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Without having looked into it deeper, my guess is that it's meant to say something about how historical artifacts and landmarks we ostensibly deem valuable will nonetheless be affected by climate change, and not doing enough to avert that is its own form of vandalism.

[–] ped_xing@hexbear.net 21 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Would we have heard about it if they threw some paint on an office building?

[–] Findom_DeLuise@hexbear.net 33 points 3 months ago

Drone striking Buckingham Palace with rigged spray paint can IEDs to "raise awareness"

[–] coeliacmccarthy@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago

no, and good. who cares about your fucking paint

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Like what the fuck does Stonehenge have to do with climate change?

Pagan Witchcraft made the world hotter.

[–] Findom_DeLuise@hexbear.net 22 points 3 months ago

Hell yeah it did sicko-fem

[–] toilet_wolf@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

my thought exactly; this is just wack. there are so many better things to vandalize

[–] fox@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago

It was cornstarch paint or something that would wash off in the next rain and is biodegradable anyways

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's not an op, it's investor grifting. Capitalists being capitalists.

https://hexbear.net/comment/5030476

[–] GenXen@hexbear.net 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My first thought was that it was done to take a swipe at the types that would be showing up for the Solstice celebration that claim that it's all about spiritual connection with nature but turn it into a rave full of upper middle class anglo influencer types in the same vein as burning man.

Any reporting on stories of activist vandalism tend to downplay the fact that it's never permanent damage by design. The reporting always present the story like the fact that the soup or whatever never made it past the protective glass as incompetence on part of the protestors, and not in fact a conscious choice since the goal was never to permanently damage the art.

[–] SnowySkyes@hexbear.net 6 points 3 months ago

Stonehenge is used during the Solstice by druids of OBOD. It’s not just some out of touch people or what have you.

[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 41 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I get this was meant to get attention

But you know what else gets attention?

A concentrated campaign of [Redacted] focused entirely on [redacted] and followed up with a mass [redacted]

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 34 points 3 months ago (2 children)

But killing CEOs to stop climate change is viiiooollleennnttttt

[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 29 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, I would make the French revolution look like Baby's First Sunshine Hug-A-Roo

I don't have it in my heart to think that any less would work

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 13 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The late 70's through the 80's and early 90's had vigilante porn like Death Wise and people were fine with it because "thugs" got killed in those movies. Where the 2020 version where CEOs that are killing the planet get got? Oh yeah I forgot, the FBI will visit you for producing such things.

[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 13 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I can do a pretty good Charles Bronson

"Hey pally, I heard your stocks are on the rise"

(Shoves him out of a window)

"Too bad about the crash"

(Car honks, followed by a loud crunch)

[–] fox@hexbear.net 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

John Wick where he mows down CEOs in a three hour action scene

[–] Ildsaye@hexbear.net 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

john-brown People keep asking if I'm back, and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah...
jb-shining I, John Brown, am now quite certain the crimes of this guilty land will not be purged away, but with blood

[–] BGDelirium@hexbear.net 6 points 3 months ago

Just watched The Beekeper with Jason Statham where he goes after call center scammers. Pretty good catharsis throughout. Would love to see a sequel.

[–] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 32 points 3 months ago

The amount of outrage stuff like this gets vs the actual effects of climate change makes me sick. Also disappointing how many people don't realize similar tactics were used by other movements. The history of protesting and social wins has been erased.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 32 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Just Stop Oil is an advertisement for investors.

Their process is attention grabbing high exposure protest that is then used as a form of advertising and "this is our impact" to philanthropy investors. It's essentially a business. Some notes I took in a chat when doing research with a friend:

Trevor Neilson, alongside Rory Kennedy and Aileen Getty are founders of the CEF (Climate Emergency Fund)

Trevor Neilson is a director of Wastefuels limited with Aileen Getty and Nck hurd mp

Trevor Neilson is a co-founder of I (x) Net zero, Nick Hurd is a chairman of the board

It's basically a net zero hedge fund.

Trevor Neilson has also worked for the Bill & Melinda gates foundation and Princes Charitable trust, so he's got real experience in the Philanthrocapitalism industry

Wastefuels ltd is a Berkshire Hathaway startup that's partnered with Maersk shipping to develop waste to fuel energy


In short. They fund the protest action as a form of investment that generates interest in their zero carbon companies. Advertisement. They then get investment in their zero carbon companies and have a financial incentive to generate the most buzzy hypey protest stuff possible, not because it's effective but because it has the highest advertising impact for them - providing something that attracts and sells to investors about how effective they are at generating attention.

tl;dr - they're profiting off of climate activism

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 13 points 3 months ago

Just compare these controlled opposition to Palestine Action. They couldn't be more different.

[–] IzyaKatzmann@hexbear.net 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

hey cde where's the source? i didnt see the text in the posted article... wanna share it with someone if you don't mind providing it

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Independent researching I did a while back. You'll have to specifically look up CEF and individuals involved and connect it all together as I have not seen anyone write about it. We dug around back when some sus people were trying to contact the /r/greenandpleasant modteam about doing AMAs and possible further "partnerships". We also needed to know what the subreddit's party line on the topic of JSO should be and all of this ended up being how we came to the final decision to kill topics about them.

[–] dead@hexbear.net 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

When I search what you wrote, it says that even though CEF gave money to JSO in the past, Trevor Neilson left CEF in 2021 and condemned JSO as only disruptive in June 2023.

What you wrote doesn't seem up to date. It would seem that JSO went in a different direction.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/just-stop-oil-extinction-rebellion-donor-climate-activists-counterproductive-b1090030.html

Also this article from from November 2023 says that JSO only received 2% of it's funding from CEF. That doesn't seem as significant as your post claims.

https://time.com/6334072/just-stop-oil-climate-change-activist-group/

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It was up to date as of 11 months ago when I originally wrote it. Whether Neilson has fallen out with his collaborators and since "condemned" them in the media doesn't matter much though. The setup of JSO itself continues to be that of a grift for investments in funds. Might need some research doing to update it along the exact lines of whatever orgs are now involved and called, possibly names have changed or whatever, but I'm confident the overall grift going on is this.

[–] EmoThugInMyPhase@hexbear.net 20 points 3 months ago

It’s performative nonsense but at the same time I think’s it’s funny and they should keep doing it because if the world is gonna end anyway, then it should end with demons being pissed off

[–] shitholeislander@hexbear.net 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

why can't they do this on a bank or oil company's facilities somewhere. Pal Action and others in the Pal solidarity movement have advanced these kinds of tactics with their targeted and highly-visible campaigns against various companies complicit in the genocide in Palestine, it's stupid for JSO to continue with these late 2010s radlib style actions that do very little good for the movement. go put paint on some actually unpopular target, and aim not to get arrested. stop doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 14 points 3 months ago

Just Stop Oil is an advertisement for investors.

Their process is attention grabbing high exposure protest that is then used as a form of advertising and "this is our impact" to philanthropy investors. It's essentially a business. Some notes I took in a chat when doing research with a friend:

Trevor Neilson, alongside Rory Kennedy and Aileen Getty are founders of the CEF (Climate Emergency Fund)

Trevor Neilson is a director of Wastefuels limited with Aileen Getty and Nck hurd mp

Trevor Neilson is a co-founder of I (x) Net zero, Nick Hurd is a chairman of the board

It's basically a net zero hedge fund.

Trevor Neilson has also worked for the Bill & Melinda gates foundation and Princes Charitable trust, so he's got real experience in the Philanthrocapitalism industry

Wastefuels ltd is a Berkshire Hathaway startup that's partnered with Maersk shipping to develop waste to fuel energy


In short. They fund the protest action as a form of investment that generates interest in their zero carbon companies. Advertisement. They then get investment in their zero carbon companies and have a financial incentive to generate the most buzzy hypey protest stuff possible, not because it's effective but because it has the highest advertising impact for them - providing something that attracts and sells to investors about how effective they are at generating attention.

tl;dr - they're profiting off of climate activism

[–] coeliacmccarthy@hexbear.net 18 points 3 months ago

this is what we do in place of doing something

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Palestine Action just exposes how impotent these other groups are. I think at this point any sincere person within these controlled opposition orgs are better off just quitting their org and joining Palestine Action. And it's not like everyone in Palestine Action is smashing windows and drone parts. There's plenty of red paint being sprayed on buildings, so there should be nothing stopping people of these crappy orgs from joining Palestine Action and putting their paint-vandalizing skills to good use for once.

Palestine Action goes after drone factories and banks that support the genocide in Gaza while these other orgs go after rando targets that have nothing to do with climate change.

[–] dead@hexbear.net 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

https://nitter.poast.org/Pal_action/status/1533135671585546240

https://nitter.poast.org/Pal_action/status/1746896745022312593

In these 2 tweets, Palestine Action write that they have solidarity with Just Stop Oil.

These groups are not mutually exclusive. They are not competing. One person could be in both groups.

The way that your post is written is anti-solidarity. You can't say fighting climate change is more important than protecting Palestinians, you also can't say protecting Palestinians is more important than climate change. It's not comparable. Both causes are very important.

Your post is anti-solidarity. Shame on you.

[–] coeliacmccarthy@hexbear.net 6 points 3 months ago
[–] Monk3brain3@hexbear.net 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A bit of a tangent but I don't know how anyone cares about Stonehenge.

[–] AdlachGyfiawn@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

It's a 5000 year old structure that pre-dates the Indo-European settlement of the United Kingdom by centuries, surrounded by hundreds of burial mounds of a people who no longer exist.

It's aligned with the sun in such a way that it suggests the pre-European people of 3000BC were engaging in astronomy and had the ability to predict celestial phenomena decades in advance despite not having writing.

Some of the stones were sourced from ~150 miles away, which, considering they weigh ~5 tons, is a hell of a feat in 3000BC.

How can you not think all that's rad as hell

[–] AdlachGyfiawn@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Not to say it's more important than climate change or whatever but damn give it a little respect

[–] Monk3brain3@hexbear.net 1 points 3 months ago

That is pretty cool tbh. I think my dislike of Britain colors my opinion so I automatically became dismissive.