This week: the most important election since 1997, The Big Sea goes mainstream: and why are people angrier about cornstarch on Stonehenge than the stealthy dismantling of our right to protest?
Woke up, checked emails, panicked it was Friday, checked date, Thursday, mixture of relief and disappointment. Week just got a day longer. Cheers Matt ;) Turns out LS10T is a significant part of my circaseptan rhythm.
Lots of people have been protesting outside oil company headquarters for decades and it hasn't really worked. In 2022 hundreds of people from the Just Stop Oil campaign spent weeks in tunnels underneath the roads into oil terminals, locked themselves onto refineries and climbed on top of oil tankers. They took their protests very much directly to big oil. In a pretty creative and unique way, in my opinion. Did it get any attention? No - the media and the public didn't care. It was basically ignored. Soon afterwards the oil companies paid large sums for their own private injunctions so that if you protested at oil terminals or outside for example the headquarters of Shell in London you could face 2 years in prison, unlimited fines and having your assets taken off you.
In contrast, two people spraying some removable cornstarch onto Stonehenge got the Just Stop Oil campaign, and their calls for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, global media attention and weeks of conversation all over the country.
"Lots of people have been protesting outside oil company headquarters for decades and it hasn't really worked."
Agreed, to your original question, yes, I've done it in the US decades ago. With hindsight now I can see how ineffective it was. Things have gotten much worse.
I listened to your podcast with Matt and agreed with much of what you had to say. There need to be many "on-ramps" for people to get involved and DA is one of those on-ramps. It's at the opposite end of the spectrum from the people trying to get legislation passed, but you need the full spectrum of tools in that range for an effective strategy.
My issue with this specific case isn't so much the idea of DA, but the poorly executed messaging that was missing. The nuance of it being cornstarch was lost (especially when all most people are exposed to is the short social media clip), and "Just Stop Oil" is so vague and dis-connected from Stonehenge that it seemed to leave a lot of people scratching their heads trying to make a connection as to what Stonehenge has to do with Global Oil production?
I have my own opinions, but they don't really matter.
Read the comments on The Times video below and let me know if this is the conversation you want to be having?
Woke up, checked emails, panicked it was Friday, checked date, Thursday, mixture of relief and disappointment. Week just got a day longer. Cheers Matt ;) Turns out LS10T is a significant part of my circaseptan rhythm.
Ha ha even I felt weird sending it on a Thursday
"Why have so many people... reacted so furiously to Just Stop Oil throwing removable cornstarch over Stonehenge"
It's a bit like punching a small child in the face to protest the overfishing of our oceans.
It's misdirected aggression in a vain attempt to seek attention by any means necessary.
Go lock out BPs headquarters in London if you want to bring attention to Big Oil. Do something creative and unique in context of the issue.
You’re going to love the blog I’ve got coming next Monday 🍿
Lots of people have been protesting outside oil company headquarters for decades and it hasn't really worked. In 2022 hundreds of people from the Just Stop Oil campaign spent weeks in tunnels underneath the roads into oil terminals, locked themselves onto refineries and climbed on top of oil tankers. They took their protests very much directly to big oil. In a pretty creative and unique way, in my opinion. Did it get any attention? No - the media and the public didn't care. It was basically ignored. Soon afterwards the oil companies paid large sums for their own private injunctions so that if you protested at oil terminals or outside for example the headquarters of Shell in London you could face 2 years in prison, unlimited fines and having your assets taken off you.
In contrast, two people spraying some removable cornstarch onto Stonehenge got the Just Stop Oil campaign, and their calls for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, global media attention and weeks of conversation all over the country.
"Lots of people have been protesting outside oil company headquarters for decades and it hasn't really worked."
Agreed, to your original question, yes, I've done it in the US decades ago. With hindsight now I can see how ineffective it was. Things have gotten much worse.
I listened to your podcast with Matt and agreed with much of what you had to say. There need to be many "on-ramps" for people to get involved and DA is one of those on-ramps. It's at the opposite end of the spectrum from the people trying to get legislation passed, but you need the full spectrum of tools in that range for an effective strategy.
My issue with this specific case isn't so much the idea of DA, but the poorly executed messaging that was missing. The nuance of it being cornstarch was lost (especially when all most people are exposed to is the short social media clip), and "Just Stop Oil" is so vague and dis-connected from Stonehenge that it seemed to leave a lot of people scratching their heads trying to make a connection as to what Stonehenge has to do with Global Oil production?
I have my own opinions, but they don't really matter.
Read the comments on The Times video below and let me know if this is the conversation you want to be having?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztyRjbC_7qc