DoingIsLearning wrote "Start suing start and start lobbying. It is pretty much the only thing left bar from going full eco terrorist (which I believe is entirely likely in our current timeline)."
That's a prediction that suing and lobbying won't work, leaving only eco terrorism.
You posit that it will work because "if the majority agrees we'll deal with it".
I consider that either an unfounded article of faith, or a confusion between political majority and population majority. (Under apartheid South African whites were a minority of the population but with the majority of political power.)
"Sixty-four percent of people believe climate change is a global emergency," says https://www.undp.org/press-releases/worlds-largest-survey-pu... . From the report:
> • Regionally, the proportion of people who said climate change is a global emergency had a high level of support everywhere - in Western Europe and North America (72%), Eastern Europe and Central Asia (65%), Arab States (64%), Latin America and Caribbean (63%), Asia and Pacific (63%), and Sub-Saharan Africa (61%).
> • Of the people that said climate change is a global emergency, 59% said that the world should do everything necessary and urgently in response. Meanwhile 20% said we should act slowly, while 10% percent of people thought the world is already doing enough
Given that a majority of the world's population believes there is a climate emergency, where is the corresponding government response that you say should exist now that a majority agrees?
If the population majority agrees we need urgent and radical change now, but the political majority does not deal with it - what's the next step? What will you do?
> Those are all things that will help without forcing your views on others through force
CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions are being forced on us, very strongly, backed by the use of police and military power. "Fossil Fuels Received $5.9 Trillion In Subsidies in 2020, Report Finds" - https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trill... . Where did that money come from? Our taxes. What if we don't pay taxes? I'll let you finish that.
We may see MLK Jr now as a leader in non-violent protests, but focusing only on his non-violent methods ignores the effect of riots ("A riot is the language of the unheard") and more militant organizations on establishing legal civil rights equality.
Remember, violence can be effective. Violence supported centuries of racial oppression in the US. Violence also ended slavery in Haiti.
> Eco terrorism is just like any other form terrorism.
Especially in that the government gets to define what is and is not terrorism.
Dumping poisonous waste into a waterway, knowing that the fine is cheaper than actual clean up, and knowing that even if it kills plants, animals, and people at most the company will get a fine, is not eco terrorism.
Why not? Because it's not 'violent' (even though it's deadly) and because it's not in support of environmental causes. The government is set up to support large companies over individual people, so fines like this are a simple cost of doing business rather than a death penalty for the company and manslaughter charges against its employees.
The violent attacks on the Dakota Access pipeline protestors were also not eco terrorism, because the attacks are not in support of environmental causes.
Let's call it "biz terrorism", like how coal companies used to hire people to carry out machine gun attacks on strikers. Odd that biz terrorism isn't it's own special category, yes?
Famously, "one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter", and Nelson Mandela was on the US terrorist watch list until 2008. Quoting the commentary at https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/is-one-... :
] "As a descriptor, terrorist is almost never applied rigorously and consistently to describe the tactics a group is using -- rather, it is invoked as a pejorative to vilify the actions only of groups one wishes to discredit. People who agree with the ends of the very same groups often don't think of them as terrorists, the negative connotation of which causes them to focus on what they regard as the noble ends of allies they're more likely to dub freedom fighters."