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"Extinction Rebellion" Protest results in man unable to reach his dying father

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Avatar for Jingo7
Jingo7
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It's always the case that protests will inconvenience some people. You have to weigh up whether that inconvenience is worth it. If you take climate change seriously, then a man missing the last moments of his dad's life pales in comparison to the results of general inaction on climate change.

We are talking about world altering changes here. Like, not just more summer sunshine, but Norfolk being underwater, that kind of thing.

I am not saying that the protests are a perfect way to increase consciousness about climate change. Also I went down to see the Waterloo bridge blockade, it was a friendly vibe, However, it was obvious that the protesters were not socialists particularly, more like a mixture of left-liberals etc. There is even a disturbing anti-human streak among environmentalism, a kind of fetishisation of animals and nature that I find repulsive.

Climate change is an unfortunate issue. It doesn't really affect us in the UK, it doesn't affect people's day to day existence. It is hard to get across the idea of changes that are gradual and have happened over 100 or so years. Even worse, the end of civilisation, in our cynical depressed era, strikes many people as something to be greeted with indifference, even approval.

Also, since the most obvious effects of climate change have been pushed away from the Western world because of de-industrialisation, we don't see the smog, desertification, drying up of aquifers, forest fires etc. that are visible reminders of how this planet might kill us all.

I don't see an obvious way of linking the struggle against climate change, with a struggle that might have more immediate impact for ordinary people, like the anti-cuts, anti-austerity campaign. Ordinary people rarely mobilise politically at all, let alone against something so non-intuitive as climate change, but some way must be found to do this.
I do have some issues with some aspects of XR - some of their leading figures (not the vast majority of activists) are a bit cultish - but this isn't one of them. Effective protest is disruptive, that's just the way things are.
I get that the man has just lost his dad, and wants to blame someone for it. But it's not XR.

If you're not physically present with someone when they take a sudden turn for the worse like this, you're probably not going to get to their bedside in time. A lot of people live and work in different cities from their parents, and unless the man had actively chosen to work only so far away because he'd usually be able to get to the hospital within a certain time (and somehow be okay missing his dad if he died sooner), then he can't really blame XR. If his dad had died instantly, or 5 minutes after, who's to blame then?
Original post by anarchism101
I do have some issues with some aspects of XR - some of their leading figures (not the vast majority of activists) are a bit cultish - but this isn't one of them. Effective protest is disruptive, that's just the way things are.

In what way are they cultish? I hadn't picked that up? Gail Bradbrook has a very scientific background, as do one or two of the others.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
In what way are they cultish? I hadn't picked that up? Gail Bradbrook has a very scientific background, as do one or two of the others.

Bradbrook is by no means the worst offender, but many of them - Roger Hallam in particular, I'd note - make claims way in excess of what the climate science actually says, often giving way too much undeserved credence to figures (often lacking in relevant expertise) who are generally regarded as fringe doomist cranks by the mainstream scientific community. Now, if the only consequence of that was to generate more activism, I wouldn't mind so much. But it has many other problematic results. Most directly, it's sometimes used to inflict unnecessary mental distress on activists and make unreasonable demands of them. Telling people that their kids are going to die in 20 years if they don't give up their jobs and work full-time for XR (yes, Roger Hallam has done this) is very cultlike.
Regardless of the rights/wrongs/effectiveness of the protest, I think in this specific incident, it's a bit ridiculous to solely blame protesters.

I don't know how well other people know that area of Bristol, but I drove around that area and commuted along a similar route for part of the last year. The M32 as a road and the junctions leading into Bristol City Center aren't really fit for purpose, and there are always delays. It doesn't take much to cause delays in excess of an hour! Honestly, I've never known a road where massive delays accumulate more easily even if there's no real reason for them!

Whilst this is really sad for the person it happened to- he could have faced delays for any reason, or got stuck in traffic along that route for any reason. It's also been well publicized that these protests are happening. If it had been me, I'd have probably looked into trains first as a way of getting into the city, although tbf the station is a long way from the hospital.

Maybe what this really highlights is how rubbish Bristol's current infrastructure is!
@anarchism101
What's their stance on malthusianism and population control?
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
@anarchism101
What's their stance on malthusianism and population control?

Some of them seem uncomfortably close to Malthusianism for me.
Original post by kali8603
Disagree about China. I used to say the same thing, but you should realise how much China has actually done to combat global warming. I mean, it's actually so hard to get a car in China


Original post by kali8603
Don't call them socialists, because they're not. I am a socialist. These people are liberals. Please learn the difference.


A socialist defending China? Interesting. A nationalistic state capitalist regime that builds billionaires from the exploitation of hundreds of millions in sweatshops, and has a tradition of coming down on Marxist protesters like a tonne of bricks? Not even sure there's much of a ML argument for China now.

China is responsible for more CO2 emissions than the EU and US combined. They've only recently begun to work at decreasing it (you seem to be implying it is an effort to reduce global warming - I suspect it is largely to reduce the pollution in their cities rather than to mitigate global warming, but their reasoning is irrelevant to us).

Original post by AngeryPenguin
China is responsible for more CO2 emissions than the EU and US combined.

True, but not surprising given it also has a higher population than the EU and US combined. When you look at emissions per capita, China is equivalent to an average EU country, well below the US.
Original post by The RAR
Like I already said, they are idiots. Last time I checked, the UK CO2 levels are going down since the 19th century and they keep on going down, why don't they protest in countries that actually contribute a lot of CO2 like China, India and the good old USA?

This is technically true. CO2 levels IN the UK are going down, but this doesn't include emissions caused by UK companies operating overseas. If indirect emissions are accounted for, research suggests that UK emissions may have increased since 1990, due largely to manufacture of short-term consumer items overseas.
Original post by lorien2907
This is technically true. CO2 levels IN the UK are going down, but this doesn't include emissions caused by UK companies operating overseas. If indirect emissions are accounted for, research suggests that UK emissions may have increased since 1990, due largely to manufacture of short-term consumer items overseas.

Yes, but this wouldn't really mean anything. Those emissions are accounted for in the emissions totals of the countries they are operating in. You can make the argument that they should be counted as UK emissions (though this would make both national emissions calculations and government policymaking much more complicated) but all that's doing is moving emissions from one box to a different box, while global emissions remain the same.
Original post by lorien2907
This is technically true. CO2 levels IN the UK are going down, but this doesn't include emissions caused by UK companies operating overseas. If indirect emissions are accounted for, research suggests that UK emissions may have increased since 1990, due largely to manufacture of short-term consumer items overseas.

Indeed. The UK lies at the centre of a global web of mining operations, oceanic trade, airline communications and vast numbers of corporate activities, all merrily churning out CO2.
Original post by AngeryPenguin
A socialist defending China? Interesting. A nationalistic state capitalist regime that builds billionaires from the exploitation of hundreds of millions in sweatshops, and has a tradition of coming down on Marxist protesters like a tonne of bricks? Not even sure there's much of a ML argument for China now.

China is responsible for more CO2 emissions than the EU and US combined. They've only recently begun to work at decreasing it (you seem to be implying it is an effort to reduce global warming - I suspect it is largely to reduce the pollution in their cities rather than to mitigate global warming, but their reasoning is irrelevant to us).


When we say 'China' now, we should really say 'the base for global capitalist production that is located for now in China', since their CO2 emissions are really our CO2 emissions, every time we buy a mobile phone, a pair of trainers, etc, etc.

Anyway, even if the biggest share of the problem is outside our borders, we in the UK have a global communications and media reach, we are looked up to globally as a source of ideas and decency and we are relied on to do the right things. It makes no sense whatever to abdicate our responsibilities in this area, but it's really just doubletalk anyway to suggest that the issue is China, since as above, that is simply where our stuff is made now.
Original post by anarchism101
Some of them seem uncomfortably close to Malthusianism for me.


My prediction for the 21st century is that the ones who are the real problem are not the climate change deniers, rather the true believers who adopt solutions that would fit comfortably within an eco-fascist framework.
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by anarchism101
True, but not surprising given it also has a higher population than the EU and US combined. When you look at emissions per capita, China is equivalent to an average EU country, well below the US.

It's not only about population (compare it to India). China doesn't have the standard of living of the EU and US, yet emissions already exceed those places. How likely, then, is a significant decrease in emissions, when the standards of livings of hundreds of millions has catching up to do?
Original post by Fullofsurprises
When we say 'China' now, we should really say 'the base for global capitalist production that is located for now in China', since their CO2 emissions are really our CO2 emissions, every time we buy a mobile phone, a pair of trainers, etc, etc.

Exactly. Although it should be pointed out that China's industrial production is still outstripped by the EU and US combined, so their manufacturing isn't nearly as clean as it could be.

Outsourcing to China is an ecological disaster, done by greedy companies to circumvent workers' rights protections, and encouraged by politicians because it is a way of cooking the books by pretending the CO2 emission figures aren't as bad as they actually are.
(edited 4 years ago)

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