Contrary to most of the opinions in this thread, I think this (and the van gogh incident) is a great and appropriate protest.
It causes a knee-jerk reaction to be mad that they are harming a precious piece of history and culture, which is a perfect juxtaposition to how the climate change harms our precious natural resources and will harm ourselves, and
It achieves this without actually causing permanent damage to the subject artifact, and
It is incendiary enough to remain in our public consciousness long enough for it to affect the discourse.
I only wish there was a more direct way to protest the people most responsible for the worst effects (oil executives, politicians, etc.), but the truth is that the "average middle-class Westerner" (most of the people who have access to enjoy these particular cultural relics) is globally "one of the worst offenders". While I firmly believe that individuals have less power to enact change than corporations and policymakers, this protest does achieve the goal of causing reflection within people who have the power to make changes.
That's the point though. They've done other protest work "the proper way" and nobody knows about it because it doesn't get reported on. They want the message "just stop oil" to be in the news, so they do what gets them in the news.
If they go for the "right" attention, they're barely reported on by two local outlets. If they go for public outcry, they're global news in hours. Their goal isn't to get you to support their organization. It's to keep you talking about and thinking about and caring about climate change.
I have no sympathy for anyone that builds close to water. It will ALWAYS win. I will never understand people who don’t take these things into account when buying a safe place to sleep.
Exactly! Dutch dunes are mostly natural: beach sand is blown onto the land and started to pile up, eventually forming dunes. Even in the places where there are buildings facing the sea, they are at least 100(‘s) meters away from the coastline.
The man-made dikes are much more than just a pile of sand. To quote wikipedia:
Artificial levees require substantial engineering. Their surface must be protected from erosion, so they are planted with vegetation such as Bermuda grass in order to bind the earth together. On the land side of high levees, a low terrace of earth known as a banquette is usually added as another anti-erosion measure. On the river side, erosion from strong waves or currents presents an even greater threat to the integrity of the levee. The effects of erosion are countered by planting suitable vegetation or installing stones, boulders, weighted matting, or concrete revetments. Separate ditches or drainage tiles are constructed to ensure that the foundation does not become waterlogged.
They're exporting for profit, our own countries essentially colonized by these farmers exploiting our shared natural resources polluting the ground, water and air for their own gain at our expense.
If they even exist in 10 years. With the way the EU has shafted farmers for the last few years, a lot of them will probably go out of business by then.
Meh, i've talked to organic farmers here in Europe (and real organic farmers, not bigscale "we're technically organic), and even they were against the current proposals. the plan appeared to be very naive, and would just end up making farming (even the most ecological variants) extremely uncertain and always at direct odds with nature preservation, and as some others have already said, we would just end up in more food being imported from parts of the world where farming standards are way lower, where there is more worker exploitation, etc... that can't possibly be the goal of an environmental plan either.
There of course is a big conflict between farming & nature preservation, but then adding that to the pile of bullshit farmers already have to endure (a lot of regulation, big supermarkets dictating the price at which they 'may' sell, even outside the proposal that was cancelled here, a lot of constantly changing environmental regulations, expensive farmland because they're competing against wealthy people who want to put some horses there, ...)
And if the end goal is to have nearly no farming left in Europe, then that should be clearly communicated, and not just adding random things to the pile of stuff farmers have to deal & contend with.
I feel like a ton of C02 at air pressure should be bigger.
I know it's correct, but it looks like the amount of exhaust produced by a car idling for a few minutes, at a visceral level you just expect a literal tonne of gas to take up more volume.
So what's coming out of a car exhaust is 13 per cent CO2, 13 per cent water (26 per cent sub-total) and 73 per cent nitrogen gas. The air that you're breathing right now is 78 per cent nitrogen gas, 21 per cent oxygen, and one percent everything else.
Helicopter him to Prince William Sound and tell him we'll come back for him once he's finished licking up what remains of his company's greatest accomplishment?
Rising seas aside, Florida has already been hit by some major hurricanes in recent years and hurricanes are predicted to just get worse with climate change.
Ranching and fishing, yes. But considering that worldwide more than 70% of agriculture is used to support ranching, it definitely seems that ranching is reducing the amount of food worldwide, not increasing it.
Edit: Also should mention, generally when climate activists talk about drastically cutting down or outright ending ranching, that's for the developed world, where healthy alternatives exist. Nobody sane is talking about going and taking the dairy cows off of Indian villagers who depend on it for survival.
Also, we have destroyed the global aquaculture with overfishing.
ever since I tasted oat milk ill never go back to animal milk at all. I tried for years to like soy or almond but never really could get into it, now all that's sorted
Lactose intolerance gives me little other choice (doesn't always stop me when it comes to cheese tho) 😅 oat milk is delicious but doesn't always work for cooking purposes, almonds are atrocious as far as sustainability goes.
Never really had the opportunity to try goat (outside of cheese). Not as common to find in my area, I think I've only seen it on a menu in a Mexican restaurant
The person you are responding to is not arguing in good faith. I was going to say don't feed the troll but maybe it's better to refute the BS so unsuspecting people don't read them thinking they are correct.
"a protest against Dutch subsidies and tax breaks to companies linked to fossil fuel industries"
We can do all the activities you mention with a much lower impact. And fighting climate change allows many farmers in developing countries to actually survive. (Think of the problems with cocoa harvests failing or with Mongolian herders losing herds three years in a row instead of once a decade.)
saved an average of 3.3 tons of fuel each day. And in optimal weather conditions... reduced fuel consumption by over 12 tons a day. According to Cargill’s math, that’s an average of 14 percent less greenhouse gas emissions from the ship. On its best days, Pyxis Ocean could cut that down by 37 percent.
False dichotomy, it's all of our fault. We are all perpetuators of the system, some small, some large. Just like with cocaine, placing all the blame on the producers and ignoring the massive demand and the reasons for it isn't how drug problems are solved.
For things to change, we all need to change, if your effect is small because you're just a person, the needed change is small, like buying less and making better choices. If you're a large perpetuator like a company, the needed change is large, up to and including stopping or radically altering operations because they are fundamentally unsustainable (e.g. Exxon).
In a capitalist world, if there's a demand it will be supplied consequences be damned.
You're right, of course. But people want to be convenient. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. If the most convenient path is one that funds "unseen" human misery and climate catastrophe, that's still gonna be the path a lot of people are gonna take. Especially if it results in the lowest costs. With the majority of people earning little money, the effect is gonna be predictable.
"Demand" is a very sketchy concept. People are gonna want what they can easily get.
So the best solution is to penalize the negative production chains and reward the positives.
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
Top