Just Stop Just Stop Oil

thatsdaft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415718#Comment_122415718

You wouldnt be saying that if your child died in ambulance due extremists causing pointless disruption

Thelonious Monk

Imagine the outrage if the scumbag patriots dragging their kids onto the road and blocking traffic going to Dublin Airport were jailed, yet these jail sentences from just stop oil are lauded

Vote4Squirrels

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415647#Comment_122415647

Then the child rapist should get 10 plus years - and stop babying these people, they know full well the havoc they are causing.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415732#Comment_122415732

Your child is vastly more likely to die as a consequence of the impact that burning fossil fuels has in various ways than they are because of a protest delaying said ambulance having them reach a hospital.

Like probably thousands of times more likely, and yet, we've people losing the run of themselves because of the latter rather than the former.

Why is that, in your view?

thatsdaft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415870#Comment_122415870

No they are not, that’s some extreme mind gymnastics you are performing there

kabakuyu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415741#Comment_122415741

Top class whataboutery.

Vote4Squirrels

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415870#Comment_122415870

That is a complete fallacy and you know this. You have a child in the back of an ambulance, currently in a medical crisis and needing hospital intervention.

Would you say to the paramedic "it's okay not to take my daughter in; pull the ambulance up and save the fuel - burning that petrol would be more of a danger to her; I believe the anaphylaxis she currenly has can wait".

Seriously ?

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415718#Comment_122415718

Maybe the JSO wealthy uni kids can bang their heads together for a change and come up with renewable solutions instead of pissing around?

Backstreet Moyes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415718#Comment_122415718

These people are not doing anything to help, all they do is annoy people.

Accidents and delays on roads are not deliberate acts to stem the flow of traffic, in such cases cars make way for emergency vehicles.

What we had is a deliberate act to stop traffic and an ambulance carrying a passenger couldn't make it to the hospital.

This was a deliberate act that could have caused the death of a person by idiots.

Like said above, if a friend or family member of yours was in that ambulance and died, are you telling me you wouldn't put any blame on these people.

What did this deliberate act do to help protect the planet?

That is what I am discussing here an incident about them blocking a motorway, I have no idea why you are quoting me and going off on a big rant about the planet.

If you want to show me how blocking this motorway helped the planet then please go ahead, otherwise your rant has no relevance to me discussing a blocking of a motoryway where someone's life was put in danger by a deliberate act.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415969#Comment_122415969

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415905#Comment_122415905

Yeah, I'm not playing this BS of ignoring the reality of the world so you can focus on the 'gotcha' you're trying to create.

Off with you, keep ignoring the real problem so you can blow off some steam.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415993#Comment_122415993

The vast majority of societal benefits we all enjoy came about because of someone at some point standing up and saying 'This could/should be better'. A lot of the time, they were targeted, demeaned, ridiculed and insulted. And they persisted, and they became a nuisance because they knew that that was necessary in order to attract attention to the their cause.

The arguments and insults thrown at Just Stop Oil is just the latest example of this.

What do you mean they're not doing anything to help? Many who take part in these protests are literal experts in the field who also put their careers at risk in trying to highlight the severity of the situation.

And even if they are not directly involved, why does that negate their message? It's used as an attempt to shut them down so those who are on the sidelines doing nothing to help can feel better about everything.

Vote4Squirrels

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122416044#Comment_122416044

The "real problem" that is seemingly solved by entitled gap year kids throwing orange paint on a cricket ground or tomato soup on the protective glass covering Van Gogh's work ?

If they protested at the ACTUAL polluters like for example, going to China (responsible for one sixth of the fossil fuels burned) and throwing their favourite powder on a coal fired power station in Beijing then people might have a little respect for them.

Not much though.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122416252#Comment_122416252

No one said their actions solve the problem.

Not even them.

Try again.

Vote4Squirrels

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415732#Comment_122415732

You know the truly worrying thing ? Some probably would. Never underestimate the insanity of the true zealot.

SchrodingersCat

Re: hypothetical situation involving their child in an ambulance being held up by a protest:

BorneTobyWilde

https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/tracey-emin-roger-hallam-archbishop-keir-starmer-philip-pullman-b1172321.html

More than 1,200 artists, athletes and academics have condemned the
“injustice” of the sentences handed to the Just Stop Oil Five for
peaceful protests.

BorneTobyWilde

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13661043/chris-martin-danny-boyle-chris-packham-demand-meeting-just-stop-oil-m25-sentences.html

More than 1,000 prominent lawyers, academics and celebrities have
demanded a meeting with the attorney general over the 'injustice' of
handing five eco-activists record sentences.

They described the jail terms handed to the activists as , “ the greatest injustices in a British court in modern history”.

SchrodingersCat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415184#Comment_122415184

The Anti-protest legislation that the Tory government brought in to prosecute JSO is pretty bad. The JSO who were given 4-5 years each for stopping traffic on the M25 were prosecuted using these controversial new laws. JSO protesters were named in the drafting of the bill but it affects all potential protests in the country. It received criticism regarding to declining civil liberties in the country. The UK Parliaments Joint Committee on Human Rights was concerned how it:

Prevents people being able to exercise their right to protest

Represents a disproportionate response to any protest

Allows the police to carry out searches where there is no reasonable grounds for suspicion

Allows the prosecution of demonstrators who simply link arms with each other

These laws are was criticised by Amnesty International and the UN high commissioner for human rights.

We are lucky in the this country that they don't bring out similar laws to cover protests that happen to take a march down a road, i.e. pretty much any large protest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Act_2023

kowloonkev

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122416788#Comment_122416788

That's likely to be 1,198 "artists" then.

BorneTobyWilde

Their approach is annoying, and it only leads to people disliking them, so it's very flawed their approach. It achieves nothing, when a more persuasive approach would achieve more.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122416757#Comment_122416757

Actual situation of "protestors".

SchrodingersCat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122418186#Comment_122418186

Why bastardize a simpsons quote with your own text when one exists already? Meme fail.

Real Donald Trump

Protest away, but block roads ? sentence is harsh, but it's hard to have sympathy for them

Yeah_Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122415741#Comment_122415741

Jail them too. Won't hear any complaints from me.

magicbastarder

I can't help wondering how half the people on this thread would have reacted to a bunch of lefty insurrectionists staging an armed rebellion in Dublin, over a century ago, given their 'hang em high' reaction to five year jail terms over peaceful protests that never even got a chance to happen.

thatsdaft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122421445#Comment_122421445

Eh one lot wanted independence from a colonial empire

The other lot are using ISIS like terrorist tactics for what essentially is a first world overblown issue which majority of the planet doesn’t give two 💩 s about nor wants to do anything about, especially if it involves giving up on something as useful to modern life as oil

Your comparison is an insult to heros of the past

magicbastarder

Q

E

D

kabakuyu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122416810#Comment_122416810

TThe Greatest injustice in modern history was the conviction of the Birmingham six,the Guildford 4 and the Maguire family,but I wouldn't expect 1000 attention seekers to know that.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122418298#Comment_122418298

Yeah, freedom of speech is wasted on these attention seekers.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122421460#Comment_122421460

They were gonna block a road not blow up a train. A different country I know but the patriots blocked the port tunnel multiple times and roads to the airport and no one was even arrested. I didn't hear people worrying about ambulances etc. then because I assume they agree with the cause.

Raichų

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122414822#Comment_122414822

your username is apt

Isis don’t destroy art/monuments cop on to yourself.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122432940#Comment_122432940

Didn't they blow up an ancient temple in the UNESCO site in Aleppo?

briany

Governments and corporations will never stop oil of their own. It would have been like relying on record companies in the early 2000s to move to cheap streaming services of their own volition. In the latter case, they were forced to go that way after subversive user-driven, user-oriented technologies emerged. The same will be true with fossil fuels.

Whether or not you think climate change is a hoax, a natural cycle or even just over-exaggerated, who would disagree that oil is a finite resource and that it's pretty short-sighted to expect there not to be a crisis point where economic growth collides head first with the dwindling availability of oil in the kind of quantities we need.

Therefore, instead of staging divisive protests designed to persuade inert governments to do something I don't think they could do even if they wanted to, and they'd be better off divising ways to get cheap, clean, plentiful energy into people's hands - whatever it takes to do it. Even if it means breaking patent laws, going around planning permission laws to erect an ad-hoc turbine, volunteering to set the systems at no cost to the users, setting up networks of researchers and engineers etc. Everything possible to get cheap, clean energy to people, and you will see things change quite quickly. There might be some awful ructions as those with vested interests try to shut it down, but if people hung on, it would become undeniable.

thatsdaft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122432940#Comment_122432940

start here

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_heritage_by_the_Islamic_State

magicbastarder

JSO DON'T DESTROY ART.

why is this repeated so often?

Augme

This thread is absolute gold. Fictional stories about ambulances with dying children, comparisons with ISIS. **** me, and people call left wing people snowflakes? Comical.

SchrodingersCat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122433995#Comment_122433995

they threw washable orange corn flour over stone henge for publicity.
We are told that is comparable to ISIS who, you know, blow up world heritage sites, persecute women and behead infidels.

Raichų

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122434034#Comment_122434034

don’t get me wrong, the throwing tomato soup/orange powder is despicable behaviour but it’s unreal to compare them to Isis.

Raichų

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122433973#Comment_122433973

oh yeah you’re right then they are just like Isis

Sure you couldn’t move for the stories coming out about JSO blowing up things?

silverharp

I see the trust fund kids are being a nuisance again, Heathrow

thatsdaft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122444288#Comment_122444288

Someone should check their social media for past posts of vacations outside the UK

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122421445#Comment_122421445

You can not (or should not at any rate) make any comparison between those who are fighting for suffrage and independence when peaceful means are closed off to them and those who can, and should, be attempting to achieve their messaging through democratic means available to them.

If they think these stunts will increase their level of democratic support then fine, but if they think that I'm pretty convinced they are sorely mistaken. I suspect they aren't even concerned about that though.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122416889#Comment_122416889

R-v-Hallam-and-others.pdf

If anyone wishes to read the sentencing judgement it is not that long.

Every last one of the defendendents was on a suspended sentence already, some several. They showed zero indication that they had any respect for the court or its judgements. While I think the sentences are still excessive, custodial sentences were absolutely fair at this juncture.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122444611#Comment_122444611

i suspect we'll just have to agree to disagree so - i don't agree with your contention that political independence can warrant lethal armed insurrection, but the fate of the climate does not warrant peaceful, albeit wilfully disruptive protest.

AllForIt

Any protest group that say things like '…till the government meets our demands' should rightly be treated as terrorists. In recent years people have taken to understand that protesting is a legal way to get what you want. Is is for this very reason the UK have had to revise their protesting laws so if your going to blame anyone for feeling that your living in a more authoritarian state you should blame the terrorists not the government.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122444820#Comment_122444820

That's not my contention and my argument is in fact completely agnostic to the end goals and their merits and is entirely about the methodology available.

At the end of the day JSO and their ilk will only succeed with public support. The only valid and just means of accomplishing their goal is democratically. Ireland in the 20s, the suffragettes etc did not have this option available to them and thus the comparisons are poor.

At the end of the day, my issue with their methods is that I think fundamentally they are idiots (well meaning perhaps) and are failing miserably in their stated goal. I'm sure they picture themselves akin to protest movements of the past but they should be modelling themselves instead of the much more effective lobbying movements that work on garnering public support for their initiative.

SchrodingersCat

I would not agree that current groups like JSO should not protest because there are democratic methods like voting and lobbying are available to them.

Protests are important in a democracy because the draw attention to issues. These issues would otherwise be ignored or marginalised. By forcing a wider audience to notice, more people with similar views can be reached, thus leading to change. While voting and lobbying are also important in a democracy, they are not a substitute.

Elections occur at set intervals while protesting can bring immediate attention to urgent issues. There was no guarantee that the 2011 Roscommon Hospital A&E closure wouldn't have been stopped if the disruptive protesters waited for an election, for example.

Certain issues may not be adequately addressed through elections or lobbying due to lack of awareness or political will. The Student Fees Protests in 2010 led to the government to concede on much of the fee increases that they implemented and some would argue that the Labor Party have never properly recovered since. The Water Charges Protests is another example, where the government were forced to suspend the charges. Due to the awareness that the protests brought, politicians ran their election campaigns on scrapping the water charges altogether. Thus protests and voting can work together.

Lobbying costs money. Big industries like Oil and Gas have notoriously large lobbyists on their payroll swamping counter efforts by the activists and scientists. Lobbying is a notoriously bureaucratic and legislative, which is in the governments interest as it slows down any change keeping their status quo.

Similarly, I wouldn't agree with the argument that groups in the past only protested because democratic methods like voting and lobbying were unavailable to them. The Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa initially looked for change through peaceful, democratic means. They were met with violent repression and legislative obstacles. So they moved to boycotts, sabotage and strikes. These were controversial methods but were key to ending the apartheid. Even the peaceful Gandhi in his campaign for India's independence used civil disobedience and non-cooperation with the British rulers to get their voices heard. Or there are examples of civil rights movements from the 50's and 60's where black people were allowed to vote, but I didn't mean that their issues were heard or resolved.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122452098#Comment_122452098

I would not agree that current groups like JSO should not protest because there are democratic methods like voting and lobbying are available to them.

To be clear, I do not think that they should not protest. I think that is their right if they so choose.

However where I disagree is that when they do so illegally they are making a clear choice and should face the consequences of those actions. There are alternative options available to them which they have chosen to ignore. Potentially for good reasons (in the JSO case I think not, but that is an opinion), but nonetheless they have full suffrage as do all those they are seeking to convince. And, I can't stress this enough, it is wildly ineffective.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa initially looked for change through peaceful, democratic means. They were met with violent repression and legislative obstacles. So they moved to boycotts, sabotage and strikes

The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa didn't move to this, the movement outside South Africa did. The movement in SA of those oppressed is a completely different scenario. Same with Gandhi, he was opposing an oppressive regime.

If JSO et al want their views to be heard and understood, in our modern democratic societies they need to get the mass of the population on their side. And it appears they are not remotely trying to do that. They are using tactics from 100 years ago to enforce the will of the unrepresented on the powerful - that is not the world we live in today. The students protests/water protests, whether or not anyone agreed with them, there mass movements. JSO are absolutely not, they are killing the mass movement.

I am broadly pro their ideology and work in the renewable energy industry. But they are not helping in any way, shape or form

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122280328#Comment_122280328

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122280352#Comment_122280352

This reminds me of all the lads with their tone policing in the early days of the Repeal campaign, complaining about the obstreperous young women who weren't being nice enough to the men who wanted to control their ovaries.

We all know how that one ended up.