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Comment by bbor | Hacker News Reader

Never loved this framework because the arbitrary quantization can make things look better than they are (“sure temps are up 4° but we’re still banning aerosols, so drill baby drill!”) but it’s certainly a good starter framework for getting people’s attention.

And to those that read this and just give up: please don’t. We’ve done incredible things as a species, and today’s world is not based in unchangeable natural constants, but rather social constructs. We can win. And assuming we can’t is, frankly, immoral. What will you tell your grandchildren?

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Some of us who give up won't have grandchildren because we're not having children either.

I’m in that boat with you! But my family planning decisions do not excuse me from the shared human endeavor of morality.

The question stands: what will you tell the kids visiting us in the nursing home?

What a brilliant gotcha ! /s

Every time I say the solution is to restrain those who callously and deliberately profit off climate damage, by force if necessary, people get upset and downvote me, metaphorically speaking. But all the 'yay humanity let's all cooperate in pursuit of a solution' thinkers are demonstrably failing, because selfish people make up the largest bloc (though still a minority) of humanity.

People who go to a museum and throw paint at a work of art (which is protected behind glass) are routinely condemned and sent to jail. But even if they were actually destroying art, their point is that many extractive industries are actually destroying the environment and killing off whole species, damaging human health etc., and not only does society tolerate this, in many cases it subsidizes it. We choose instead to condemn the people who draw attention to this.

> People who go to a museum and throw paint at a work of art (which is protected behind glass) are routinely condemned and sent to jail.

They're condemned because their way of protesting is worthless. Protesting only works if it either inconveniences people enough to trigger action or if it targets the people actually responsible. If they truly believed that climate change was a critical issue, then they should take a page from how union strikes used to work.

  The movement was characterized by nonviolent mass protests and civil disobedience following highly publicized events such as the lynching of Emmett Till. These included boycotts such as the Montgomery bus boycott, "sit-ins" in Greensboro and Nashville, a series of protests during the Birmingham campaign, and a march from Selma to Montgomery.

Eh, none of that seems to fall into either of the buckets you describe, other than maybe sit-ins "targeting" racist owners of restaurants. Plus, I know this is annoying but... source? Any data backing that claim?

Re:JustStopOil, they also regularly target banks and private jets. It's just that those protests get much less attention in the press, and draw harsher criminal punishments. How else do you make progress on changing laws other than convincing voters that it's a problem?

Assuming we can't just do what the US did for civil rights and rely on an unusually powerful judiciary to save the day via anti-democratic fiat ;)

> Eh, none of that seems to fall into either of the buckets you describe, other than maybe sit-ins "targeting" racist owners of restaurants. Plus, I know this is annoying but... source? Any data backing that claim?

You do realize that said protest caused mass inconvenience, right? It was upending a lot of the racist norms at the time which in turn triggered waves of violence against black protesters which is what started the ball rolling. Said waves of violence also lead to the creation of the Black Panthers which actively scared many parts of the government at the time.

This is exactly Just Stop Oil's strategy and it's working.

The Montgomery bus boycott specifically targeted racist laws on segregation on public buses. [0] I don't see how you can get much more specific than that.

I think there's a better argument around the approach of Act Up, which focused attention on AIDS. [1] Many people were offended by their tactics, which were directed (again) at specific people, organizations, and media who were relevant to the topic. They were very effective. They targeted the root cause.

[0] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/montgomery-bus-boycott

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/ACT-UP

This is one way of inconveniencing people. Road closures are another way. Like many protest tactics, it doesn't bring about change, until it does. The Just Stop Oil protesters are using an 'earned media' strategy that has proven successful for decades. Publicity stunts draw attention, and even negative attention (in the short term) often yields dividends over the long term.

Who are they inconveniencing? Who are they making reconsider their stance? What are their explicit demands? A protest needs a target audience, a target and a set of demands. They have none of the above.

Occupy Wall Street for example had two of the three, but ultimately failed in most of its goals because it didn't have a concrete demand. And that was an example of a protest on a far larger scale.

They are inconveniencing people who work in and visit museums, people who use motorways, car dealers and so on.

They're hoping to force change in government policies. This is obviously not happened yet, though they claim a success in halting the issue of new oil and gas exploration licenses in UK territorial waters.

I think their explicit demands are extremely obvious, right there in the name of the organization 'Just Stop Oil.' A visit to their website (cryptically named https://juststopoil.org) lays out 3 simple demands:

  Demand 1: No New Oil and Gas Licences – WON!
  Demand 2: Just Stop Oil by 2030.
  We need a Fossil Fuel Treaty.

Amazingly, they have a whole page on the website which discusses these in greater detail.

In all honesty, I find it hard to believe you are as mystified as your post suggests.

> We choose instead to condemn the people who draw attention to this.

We condemn them because what they do is dumb not because they draw attention to climate change. It’s the same thing as glorifying a teenager skipping school. Climate activists are incredibly good at killing their own credibility. That’s why most people don’t bank on them to change anything.

> But all the 'yay humanity let's all cooperate in pursuit of a solution' thinkers are demonstrably failing, because selfish people make up the largest bloc (though still a minority) of humanity.

It’s a useless way of tackling the issue. You won’t magically convince the global population to have a worse life especially considering inequalities are so high. You go tell the Nigerian that they should accept to die of starvation (the country feeds itself through oil export and its population is booming) because sadly the USA polluted too much. It’s all for the greater good after all.

Meanwhile, people actually tackling the issue are making impressive strides in the right direction. You want to solve global warming? Go do research on cleaner tech. Throwing soup at paintings is a pointless waste of time.

It's not dumb because it fulfils their communication goal.

You go tell the Nigerian

This is trying to displace responsibility for fossil fuel extraction to some remote place with different incentives. Climate activists like Just Stop Oil are concerned with the policy choices, lobbying, subsidies, infrastructure, and overconsumption of fossil fuels in the developed countries where they live. Demanding those change is a valid political position.

> This is trying to displace responsibility for fossil fuel extraction to some remote place with different incentives.

That seems meaningless to me. You can’t displace responsibility for a global problem. You do realise extraction is massively done by national companies in countries which hold the ressource and not by developed countries. The days Big Oil dominated the market are long gone.

That’s the core of the issue. You won’t magically convince countries which are entirely dependent on fossil fuels for their prosperity to stop. That’s why tackling production is missing the point. Unless you find alternative to consumption and develop capture, you are bound to fail.

> Meanwhile, people actually tackling the issue are making impressive strides in the right direction. You want to solve global warming? Go do research on cleaner tech. Throwing soup at paintings is a pointless waste of time.

Ahem, https://scientistrebellion.org/

> It’s a useless way of tackling the issue. You won’t magically convince the global population to have a worse life especially considering inequalities are so high. You go tell the Nigerian that they should accept to die of starvation (the country feeds itself through oil export and its population is booming) because sadly the USA polluted too much. It’s all for the greater good after all.

These things are going to happen unless we transi... no, wait, that's too late... unless we learn to adapt and actually adapt.

> But even if they were actually destroying art, their point is that many extractive industries are actually destroying the environment and killing off whole species...

How does trashing art actually solve the problem? It just makes people with normal level of concern who are actually trying to do something look as if they are in cahoots with people who are bonkers.

You know how: it makes people talk about an issue they would otherwise prefer to ignore. The fact that some people's first instinct is to reject them (using weasel words like 'bonkers') is beside the point. The use of repetition and attention-grabbing techniques to drive an argument home is a well-established PR and political communication tactic.

Nobody talks about the issue as a result of people chucking paint at the Mona Lisa. They talk about how dumb the people chucking paint are.

The “activists” doing the chucking are either intentionally self-sabotaging, or are doing the slightly harder version of shit-posting on social media. It’s useless, irrelevant, and easily ignored. But it’s also easier than voting, running for office, or getting new laws passed, which would require time, effort and actually being slightly serious about solving problems. So I get why they don’t bother.

> because selfish people make up the largest bloc (though still a minority) of humanity.

The noise a small group can make is not to be underestimated. Even though I have no idea what a largest bloc that is a minority means. Either they are the largest group or not. This I think is even more confused than minority majority which is absolutely an arrogant/racist way of thinking.

Look up the word 'plurality'. If you have 3 groups sized 40%, 30%, and 30%, the largest one is the 40% group, even though that is still a minority of the total. You're welcome.

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