this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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If you ever wanted to read about fake druids vs. environmental activists, now's your chance.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Not paint, literally orange corn flour that'll wash off with the first rain. Stop spreading disinformation for big oil pls. Idk why they went for this instead of classical art, but acting like this is some terrible evil crime is exactly what oil companies want you to think, they want you to root against people protesting climate change, no matter how tiny their vandalism is in the grand scheme of things

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The article says it came out of a spray can. So how am I spreading misinformation?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Not misinformation, disinformation. You read the article, yet choose to act like this is comparable to spray paint or something else that won't immediately wash off. This is like getting indignant bc somebody threw a couple eggs at a great pyramid. It's stupid and irrelevant to climate change, but sharing articles where the title says they threw acid instead of eggs is just fucking wrong, and serves no purpose besides discrediting climate activism

Edit actually this article says nothing about corn flour, sorry for accusing you of ignoring that. That's super shady and shitty on the Guardian's part, a detail that majorly changes how actually harmful this act was

Double edit you're still acting like they threw actual paint, so nvm my apology. Stop being such a blatant oil shill

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's stone. Stone is full of cracks. It will get into those cracks and not wash off.

Furthermore, environmentalists pissing people off in the middle of a religious ceremony does nothing to help with an environmental cause. That's the way PETA goes about doing things. Do you think they've been remotely effective?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (6 children)

You know what else will get into the cracks?

Rain. To wash it off.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

I can root for people protesting climate change and think this was incredibly idiotic.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

What is it the activists wanted people to think? Did they consider their actions might lead people to turn against them instead of against the oil companies?

[–] [email protected] 38 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Those stones will be suuuper useful to us after we died because our global ecosystem collapsed.

Maybe we should set up our own stones for explaining to future generations why we didnt do anything about climate change until it was too late.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (13 children)

I'm not sure how this helps though. These people can say to future generations, "well, we didn't get people to stop using fossil fuels, but we did damage a 5000-year-old monument that was made long before anyone had the idea of burning fossil fuels to make people aware of a problem they were already aware of but powerless to do anything about."

This isn't going to stop oil companies from drilling for oil.

It reminds me of a friend of mine I used to follow elsewhere on social media. Every day, she would post pictures of 'death row dogs' in nearby shelters that were going to be euthanized. There was fuck all I could do about it. I already have two dogs, from shelters. I don't have room for more and I couldn't afford more. So all it did was make me feel like shit. Then she started posting photos with "too late" messages and I stopped following her.

How does that help?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (2 children)

but we did damage a 5000-year-old monument

As far as I could find out, they used orange cornflour that will just wash off the next time it rains. The most amount of damage anyone could seriously bring up was that it could harm/displace the lichen on the henge.

That's not to say that I specifically condone the action, but it's a lot less bad than this article makes it sound. It's the same with the soup attack on one of van Gogh's painting, which had protective glass on it. So far all the JSO actions targeting cultural/historical things (at least the ones that made it to the big news) have been done in a way that makes them sound awful at first hearing, but intentionally did not actually damage the targeted cultural/historical thing.

I think the biases of the journalist/news outlet/etc. are somewhat exposed by which parts they focus on and which they downplay or omit entirely.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I hope you're right because this article says they used a spray can.

Also, orange dye can easily get into cracks in the rocks and stay there for a very long time. Especially if it displaces the lichens. That won't make it collapse, so maybe 'damage' is not the right word, but this is potentially long-lasting vandalism which, as far as I can see, will have no effect on the actual problem.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (3 children)

How does that help?

We're talking about it

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Note how we are talking about how large of douchebags the activists are and just how much they damaged a cultural heritage site.

Fuck these people.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (27 children)
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Which does exactly what? Is it at all likely that anyone actually able to do anything about this was unaware of the climate change disaster we're facing and this will change their mind?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Many of the recent protests about climate change have been less direct and more about stirring up controversy to force the public to actually think about their decisions.

My hat off to them as so far this style of protest has been working and has resulted in many of us pushing for better climate control.

You're right this isn't going to stop companies, but even if you disagreed with them it puts climate change in your conscious mind. Even if that simply means you'll try to make slightly more climate friendly decisions moving forwards, that's a win.

Personally I don't know if I agree with the technique, but I do feel like it has been working in terms of making people discuss this topic more.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

My hat off to them as so far this style of protest has been working and has resulted in many of us pushing for better climate control.

I don't know that I believe that is because of these protests and not just seeing what's happening to the world. I really do not see pissing people off by painting Stonehenge, especially when it's during a religious festival, helping this cause.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Normally I would say this damage was inappropriate. But, considering humanity is going to be eradicated in the next hundred years, give or take, I think maybe we should be doing more to slow that down.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (8 children)

FWIW this kind of alarmist talk only lets people write off your comment as hysterical. Humans are not going to go extinct in the next 100 years, Canada isnt going to become hotter than Arabia and become unlivable.

What we might (and even possibly the most likely scenario is to) get is wide scale societal breakdown, starvation of billions, mass migration of billions of those currently living in regions that become uninhabitable but dont starve, and the consequant resource wars that those entail. The future is bleak enough without making up even worse things that wont happen.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (11 children)

But how will this slow that down?

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I get that the stunts will draw attention to the environmental issues the activists are protesting for, but surely not pissing off the public would be beneficial in spreading a message to them?

The uninvolved public would just remember the attempted defacings, and not care about the damage being temporary or minimal.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I agree with the sentiment, but I feel like the methods are pointless and even might have a reverse effect. Doing this does nothing really to help the cause, imo. Any minimal publicity it gets, I feel, just invigorates the right leaning conservatives to have more fuel to hate "the left" and "liberals". I just don't see any benefit to these types of stunts.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

As always, while I support their claimed ideals, I can only see them as petty vandals who care more about attention seeking than their cause. They certainly won’t get any of my time or attention. If you’re against Big Oil, protest Big Oil and half the population will agree. If you’re intentionally seeking my outrage with unrelated crap, you got it: rot in jail

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

They do it because the stuff you're asking for doesn't work that well, but this does (that said they do still engage in those actions as far as I'm aware). Activism is about making noise, there aren't many tools beyond that and they've worked for all sorts of issues in the past.

The point is that JSO doesn't exist in a vacuum.

https://wagingnonviolence.org/2023/12/the-method-behind-just-stop-oil-annoying-madness/

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (9 children)

Yeah I don't know why they wouldn't block the entrance to an oil refinery. Some people would be unhappy about this especially the people that work there. But the general public could understand, who knows it could possibly slow production for a few days.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (13 children)

They have. Compared to this, it got barely any news coverage.

That is why they do this. Their only goal is attention, and they do that quite well.

The way they seem to operate is quite smart, actually:

  • Their stunts get a lot of press and bring climate change to the forefront of people's minds, frequently.

  • They're not a political party, so pissing voters off isn't a problem. They can afford to be unpopular to further the cause.

  • Those who already care about the climate won't change that based on a small group they dislike.

  • Those who call them "terrorists" are people who call anything short of licking oil company boot "eco-terrorism". They were never going to be convinced to care whatever the group does. Probably read the Daily Mail.

  • Those who are apathetic about the climate are still going to be apathetic, with a bit of rage towards this group as with the others, but again, ultimately that doesn't matter as they still won't change anything based on a single group.

  • A small handful of people will be inspired by them and their constant reminders of climate crisis, and be motivated to push for change.

The last bullet seems to be the target audience of the group. And they're the ones who will actually do anything.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

It's orange power which washed off with water

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

Man big oil has it easy with all these slacktivists shitting in public and calling it a protest.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think this action lacked some supportive commentary, a spoken idea why they did it and what does it mean. It comes of as an attention bait without a clear message. It's also too random to associate it with climate activism without a context.

After hearing about that I thought what would become our Stonehenge if we fail miserably (Statue of Liberty, like in Planet of the Apes?), or if we get back into a new Stone Age making this circular monument both the past and the future of humankind. I would not probably care that much if they actually damage it a bit if that's for creating a powerful symbol, adding to it's (contemporary) significance instead of taking from it. But that's too much to ask, it seems, all we can do is orange paint.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

These activists make fighting to end climate change harder every time they pull this shit. It's pure asshole behaviour.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

At this point I feel like it's akin to art that people just don't get. The average person doesn't understand the message or point.

These protestors are committing simple acts that threaten to damage something that people value. People are so very angry that biodegradable paint was sprayed on an ancient monument, or that soup was tossed onto the glass protecting a famous painting.

Yet they continue on with their lives and refuse to hold many corporations accountable while those corporations make our planet less habitable. This would become a wall of text that nobody would read if I tried to just outline the existential threat human society faces thanks to the reckless behavior of many of the organizations. The suffering, loss of life, economic damage... unimaginable... yet we are basically barreling toward that inevitability at full steam.

But I'm sorry, how silly of me. How could I forget that some scientists might lose the opportunity to study undisturbed lichen on Stonehenge this year.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Just stop oil is funded by the oil industry to make environmentalists look like morons.

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