Moral Toddlers Making a Mess
quillette.com
quillette.com
Environmentalists have tried dialogue for literal decades at this point and it has accomplished basically nothing. Escalating to threatening property rights seems the lowest possible escalation, and seems only natural from the perspective that climate change is an existential threat.
While I do not think that these strategies will be successful, I also think that calling them moral toddlers for it is dishonest.
But it is theoretically (game-theory) and practically (e.g. collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery) true that market economy has a failure mode known as the tragedy of the commons.
The solution to global warming is cap and trade system. We cap the allowed emissions according to the climate goals and trade the remaining allowances for the emissions.
IMO capitalism and state interventions are the most successful.
EU Emissions Trading Scheme is probably one of the best methods.
Cap emissions according to the climate goal and trade the resulting emission allowances.
Do I approve of throwing tomato soup at Sunflowers? Nope.
Was Sunflowers damaged? Nope - the frame was glazed.
I don't know if all these protests have been similar, but I think I'd have heard if any of them had damaged important cultural heritage.
I don't see why the author thinks that "Just Stop Oil" protests in particular are tantrums. The same analysis would make any protest, about anything, a tantrum. So he thinks protesters should instead come up with constructive solutions, instead of just whining that they're not happy? Cool, give them some civil servants, so they can build a policy-development team.
[Edit] My reaction is that this article is itself an enraged tantrum.
There's no clear path or discussion of the issues at hand, it's just a simplistic demand that's essentially impractical.
Civilized people get involved in a civilized way, that's just virtue signaling.
That's why we have democracies and legal systems, learn them and change the system from the inside.
Start a political party, petition, argue, discuss and most of all compromise. Without compromise it's impossible to sort these things out and in the end you may end up hurting whatever ill-defined cause that you're pursuing.
I don't agree. Your advice to "change the system from the inside" is unhelpful, if you don't happen to be on the inside.
It's not reasonable to demand that all political activity must be done by lawyers and politicians. Whether or not people trust them, they are not trustworthy.
Your assertion that direct action amounts to virtue-signalling is silly; people don't risk arrest and jail to signal their virtue. You can get seriously injured performing direct action.
I think you should take the actions of protesters a bit more seriously. And I think the article's author does the opposite, by painting them as tantrum-throwing toddlers.
I studied “geography and environmental management” in undergrad and a recurring quip among one of my labs was, “what are they raising awareness of? That environmentalists are babies? Thanks, guys.”
I think the one thing I would share with those who perform “awareness-raising stunts” is that I know it all seems too big for you to do anything about, so spectacles seem effective, but you’ve got to be the change you want to see, even if your contributions feel tiny. This doesn’t mean no activism or awareness, but those things cannot be the point.
P.S. I’m not trying to speak as an authority on the subject. I think it’s completely possible that I’m 100% wrong and these stunts are worth trying. This is just my perspective.
Here's what stopped them: I realized that they didn't work. If they worked I wouldn't have stopped. That's my theory for these incidents. These people grew up without learning that tantrums don't work ... because for them they did work.
Do I think these stunts are childish? Sure. Do I think they're ineffective? That's harder to say--clearly most people disagree with their tactics (and I specifically disagree with blocking traffic because of potential impact to emergency vehicles), but it's gotten a whole tranche of new people talking about climate change, even if it's just to gawk at the weirdos throwing soup.
There is a potential global catastrophe looming. We're capable of solving it if we can just move past our apathy. These folks are doing everything they can to shock us out of our hypnotic trance.
Yes. They identified correctly who they need to apply pressure on. If they had harassed the general population, they would have failed. Instead they were agreeable enough that they attracted allies more than they created backlash.
https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/charlottenburg-wilmersdorf/r...
Please don't try to argue that this was a necessary sacrifice.
But if that isn't sufficient on its own, elected leaders rule by the mandate of the electorate, making every adult in every democratic country share responsibility for the decisions of their elected leaders.
Take your pick. Or don't and keep enjoying the benefits of capitalism without taking on the responsibility. But then you are no different to those who stood on the wrong side of history in the societal transitions of the past.
>Just as we formerly pointed out that "hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions," we also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not believe that these days of new hope are days when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham…
>We further strongly urge our own Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better Birmingham. When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets. We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense.
They and their actions might be too extreme for many, with very public displays in art galleries garnering much media attention coupled with bring coal shipments to a stand still by suspending themselves from coal loaders etc.
But they have grabbed attention and started a broader discussion about how far is too far when it comes to limiting fossil fuel use, etc.
There is already widespread awareness that something needs to change and these tantrums are just noise drowning out any useful signal.
I've seen no reports of any serious attenpt to vandalise a painting, get a grip.
In every case it's been attention grabbing performance "art" involving a famous glass covered painting.
An actual attempt to actually vandalise would look very different.
What a strange and tiresome article.
I might be going paranoid.
I'm not calling for violence, I'm just pointing out how hypocritical and annoying it is when someone wants a change, goes out of their way to inconvenience the wrong people, and complaints again how those people aren't doing enough to help their cause.
(b) We should draw attention to things that can improve the environment or things that are harming the environment, e.g. building more solar, wind and nuclear power; how much waste goes into retail packaging.
Taking an example protest from the article, and reducing it to absurdity: we "just stop oil" right now, today. What happens? For one the majority of the human population which is concentrated in cities cannot feed itself. It's genocide.
So why do we keep hearing these over simplified solutions for political, social and moral problems (which I would argue are more complex systems than a software project)? I am genuinely interested in what causes this and it can be solved, as I see it as a rising problem which eats up valuable time and energy in our societies.
You are driving down the highway when an oncoming semi truck pulls out to pass… in your lane. Do you carefully consider your maneuver, perform a small test, and gradually roll out your decision? Good luck and best wishes for you!
Is there any scenario where that is no longer true? For example, if the current state of the system is an existential threat to itself?
Yes, if the system is already down and the cost of introducing new problems is zero. Which is not the case now.
In hardware: overheating CPUs.
In software: BSODs or kernel panics.
The only reason more abstract levels, such as web servers, databases and userspace applications, can solve their problems in the way you describe, is that there is a lower abstraction level that deals with the truly bad failing system states for them.
So then the question becomes, what is the equivalent lower abstraction level system of the human economy? If it doesn't exist, it will have to be shutdown and restarted or redesigned to not reach a failure state, or do the economic equivalent of a BSOD.
At least if the environmentalits' perspective that climate change is an existential threat is true, which of course is not necessarily true. There are many possible scenarios between human extinction, a permanent state of human misery, and successful adaptation which could be possible.
Sabotaging sustainable energy programs, and increasing reliance on fossil fuels.
Demanding that two stroke engines be banned, and focusing on absolutely miniscule contributions to emissions, while turning a completely blind eye to flying around the world in jets for dinner parties.
Legislating insane policies against ICE vehicles, while desperately trying to get people to stop charging their vehicles at peak consumption hours because the current grid can't sustain it.
Putting ridiculous taxes and standards on dairy farms, increasing the cost of food during a time of inflation and economic hardship.
What these guys are doing with the soup and blocking highways is just the distilled manifestation of climate activism. Screw everything up, be obnoxious, accomplish nothing.
Not just two strokes...
> Legislating insane policies against ICE vehicles, while desperately trying to get people to stop charging their vehicles at peak consumption hours because the current grid can't sustain it.
I don't know if the EU can pull it but it certainly looks, let's say, ambitious to ban the sale of any new non-EV vehicle in the EU by 2035. Even if the european car manufacturers somehow can adapt and source all the material they'll need to produce EV-only vehicles, how is the grid going to be ready?
In doubt I'll certainly be trying to fetch a plug-in hybrid in a few years, while they're still sold, so I'll have at least options.
It's not like scientist have not been trying to have honest conversation about change with the people in power/money for decades already, to almost no effect. What a way to dismiss the concern people have about the future where there will be no livable planet as "moral toddlers".
If anything, I think the Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion are too mild in their tactics. After decades of inaction, they are merely trying to (mildly) shock the system from apathy to action, to avert the biggest catastrophe humans have ever faced.
I can't wait in a year or two, when it becomes more evident what is happening to our natural world, and who's been benefitting from that. The Shells and Exxons of this world would then wish that the people then would use such soft tactics as spraying a painting with paint or gluing themselves to the road. But I am afraid that instead they are simply going to face a lot of VERY angry people with pitchforks and torches.
This statement is demonstrably false and completely disconnected from reality. We are not literally about to boil.
You cannot reach anyone that you need to reach in order to effect changes with that type of thing. I mean, I'm "on your side" and I've stopped reading at this point and will not resume.
Saying: "our planet is gradually getting hotter, due to (preventable) man-made changes like extraction and burning of fossil fuels, raising cattle on an industrial scale, and cutting down forests, so wild fires are becoming statistically more prevalent and damaging" doesn't quite have the same ring as: "we are literally about to BOIL/BURN". I think both approaches have been tried, and both showed not much tangible result for the effort.
> You cannot reach anyone that you need to reach in order to effect changes with that type of thing
I don't want to reach the people, they should have come to that conclusion themselves and be demanding change from their governments and industries. If that's happening only in such a small scale now, then not enough people have understood the severity of the problem.
When the problem becomes more evident and impossible to ignore by even the ones most complacent, when there is no bird song, no living animals, trees, bushes, plants, then it will be too late for anything else but the pitchforks and torches that I mentioned above, which I find to be a pity.