They used chalk, not traditional spray paint, so no real damage done. Good way to protest and get people’s notice, for sure.
Props to them. No damage done and they got climate change into public discourse again.
I agree, but their tactics are more polarizing than they are uniting. I don't think that's the way to go.
It takes all types: we need friendly and approachable people explaining how climate change will hurt us, we need entrepreneurs building tools that lower our emissions, we need people showing how to live a happy low GHG lifestyle, we need politicians writing policy.
And we need in-your-face activists reminding society that there's a clear and immediate threat.
in-your-face activists reminding society that there's a clear and immediate threat
I know it's a clear an immediate threat, but their tactics won't make anyone who doesn't already want to do something about it change their mind, and will probably make a lot of people who would have tried to do something give up in shame and disgust (to the point that I'm 99.9% certain that any one of them who isn't too stupid to know where their own arse is is being paid by big oil to make actual climate activists look like particularly moronic terrorists).
Personally it makes me wish the lunatics in the white house or the kremlin would nuke Antarctica, hoping that these absolute imbeciles will drown with the rest of us.
"We've done it on Darwin's grave specifically because he would be turning in that grave because of the sixth mass extinction taking place now."
Ms Lee added: "I believe he would approve because he was a good scientist and he would be following the science, and he would be as upset as us with the government for ignoring the science."
I think that they're wrong about what can make the public more concerned about global warming, but they may have a point about what Darwin would have thought of the modern day.
I'm beginning to think that Just Stop Oil is paid by oil companies to do dumb shit to make it look like oil guys are the good guys.
They do dumb shit to make the news.
It's definitely not the media that is paid to throw dirt on them whenever they do something, that's for sure.
What exactly about this is dumb?
It seems like a harmless way to get the message out. Charles Darwin likely would be spinning in his grave, along with Newton, Einstein, and many others.
Pretend the public has no idea who they are or what their message is. The public sees this and, without the context of their published statements, assumes they vandalized Darwin's grave because they must have something against Darwin or what he represents. Even then, before I read further, my initial reaction was much the same.
The statement of a protest should ideally be self-evident. Sit-ins, occupying corrupt institutions, publicly breaking unethical laws, defacing monuments of reprehensible people, assassinating a CEO, those are all much better approaches to get a message across. Protests that draw attention to issues are effective, protests that draw attention to the protestors less so.
By "the public," do you mean people who are seeing this in person, or people who are seeing it in news articles on the Internet?
Most of the public would be in the latter category, where the context is in clear display.
Assuming people bother to read more than the headlines, or trust news to not put their own spin on things. The title of this post, and the BBC article it links to, are just "Arrests after Charles Darwin grave spray-painted". It doesn't even mention who or why until you get into the body of the article, which tragically few people will bother to do these days.
I'm beginning to think that climate change is paid by the public to do dumb shit to make it look like comets are the good guys.
What?
I think this is a great way to draw the public eye when they would otherwise be ignored. These stunts have granted them so much power and reach. They may even be doing everything right. Why not deface shit and inconvenience people if it gets people talking about it? I'd choose to be hated if it made a change. There are so many protests today that don't even make the back page of the news. You know what has a chance of making the front page? Violence and things that piss everyone off. Gets people talking. Asking why. They walk a very fine line. You can't go too hard on hitting oil execs directly or you will be stopped and you can't do quiet protests or you will not be heard. This could be the conclusion of the most harmless way to achieve their ends even if it doesn't pan out the way they want.
Provocation gets eyes.
But are people actually talking about climate change or are they talking about whether or not the protestors were idiots?
I have to agree. Every time this group makes the news, the conversation isn't about climate change. It's about how these people are defacing beloved historical works of art. They don't discuss the climate at all; they just discuss what these people are targeting. And there is no link between the message and the target.
Rules: