Do we support Insulate Britain?

[The39thStep]

I can’t tell if you’re being serious.

The successful attack at the Gleneagles Spar shop at the G8 summit

 

[NoXion]

Conversely, in History the majority of Scientists have agreed on one thing and a minority on another, and it turned out that the minority were correct. One always has to be objective where one can be. In truth most say it is and some say it isnt.. Thats a fact.

You've got it completely backwards. The way to be objective is to look at the evidence. The evidence for anthropogenic warming is beyond all reasonable doubt, which is why the consensus exists among scientists.

 

[maomao]

I bet there were a lot of men at the time saying "Well yes of course in principle I think women should be allowed to vote, but these protests, well, it's all a bit too much isn't it? Almost turns one away from the idea!"

A man said this in this thread today.

 

[Fedayn]

Their aim yes, laudable and should be welcome.
Their tactics screams of middle class tantrums, aimless, annoying and I think counterproductive.

 

[Serene]

You've got it completely backwards. The way to be objective is to look at the evidence. The evidence for anthropogenic warming is beyond all reasonable doubt, which is why the consensus exists among scientists.

No, you arent reading what I am saying. I am saying I agree very much so with the Scientist majority that it is us causing it. I am also being objective in truth that there is a tiny majority of Scientists who disagree and say its the natural periodical of the Earths changes. That is true, it is a fact, there ARE some Scientists who say it isnt, I dont agree with them, but it is true to say that there are!
Franz Mesmer or whatwashisname, ask him if you can, he was popular a while back too.

 

[MickiQ]

You can't win with some people -- the old "you won't win any friends with that kind of protest" mob which many of you now belong to. All the victories the working class won were won through disruptive protest. Someone mentioned women's suffrage. I bet there were a lot of men at the time saying "Well yes of course in principle I think women should be allowed to vote, but these protests, well, it's all a bit too much isn't it? Almost turns one away from the idea!"

When XR blocked public transport they were rightly decried for targeting the very thing that they shouldn't. Now Insulate Britain are blocking roads -- i.e. private transport, not public, and we get a bunch of fucking moaning about inconveniencing "normal people".

Fuck's sake

Most of the suffragettes were largely middle class women with time on their hands (much like XR tbh) working class women of the time were far too busy to worry about something as useless to them as a vote.
There has been some research that the 'tipping' point of protests effecting non-violent change is when from 3-5% of the population support it.
There is a brilliant line in the film Suffragete where one of the characters says to a cop (the ever talented Brendan Gleason, can't remember the actress) "What are you going to do lock us all up? We're half the human race"
IB and XR are like 0.0000001% of the UK's population, they don't enjoy popular support and never will.

 

[Brainaddict]

You can't win with some people -- the old "you won't win any friends with that kind of protest" mob which many of you now belong to. All the victories the working class won were won through disruptive protest. Someone mentioned women's suffrage. I bet there were a lot of men at the time saying "Well yes of course in principle I think women should be allowed to vote, but these protests, well, it's all a bit too much isn't it? Almost turns one away from the idea!"

When XR blocked public transport they were rightly decried for targeting the very thing that they shouldn't. Now Insulate Britain are blocking roads -- i.e. private transport, not public, and we get a bunch of fucking moaning about inconveniencing "normal people".

Fuck's sake

It's not about making friends, it's about having a coherent strategy to get the change you want. We've got a government that doesn't give a fuck about this sort of thing, therefore I think their goal is to make the pressure on the govt so widespread that they have to give in and do it anyway. But to do that you need more people to join you so that it becomes normalised as an expectation of the government. Pissing off ordinary people is a funny way to do that. There are all sorts of protests and actions where popular opinion does not matter, but in this case it does.

The whole thing is not a strategy I would use btw, that's not really my point, but in the strategy they've chosen, public opinion matters, and the form of their action isn't coherent with that.

 

[A380]

The tortuous thought process of deciding whether you support Insulate Britain or not

ONE minute you think they’ve got a point, the next they’re desperately annoying f**kwits blocking your route to Tesco. Do you support Insulate Britain or not?

www.thedailymash.co.uk

 

[NoXion]

No, you arent reading what I am saying. I am saying I agree very much so with the Scientist majority that it is us causing it. I am also being objective in truth that there is a tiny majority of Scientists who disagree and say its the natural periodical of the Earths changes. That is true, it is a fact, there ARE some Scientists who say it isnt, I dont agree with them, but it is true to say that there are!
Franz Mesmer or whatwashisname, ask him if you can, he was popular a while back too.

Now you're not reading what I am saying. Mesmerism was rejected because there is no evidence to support it. It's the evidence that matters.

So what if there are climate scientists who reject the evidence? There are also Young-Earth Creationists with PhDs in Astrophysics. They're irrelevant.

 

[chilango]

Do I think they're making strategical mistakes? Yes.

Do I think they're making tactical mistakes? Yes.

Are some of them annoying middle-class wankers and hypocrites? It's certainly possible.

Do I still support them? Yes.

 

[Flavour]

Now that runaway climate change has arrived and will be kicking the shit out of the world with increasing severity every year for the rest of our lives, would anybody argue that environmental protests in the '90s went too far?

Exactly.

It's not about making friends, it's about having a coherent strategy to get the change you want. We've got a government that doesn't give a fuck about this sort of thing, therefore I think their goal is to make the pressure on the govt so widespread that they have to give in and do it anyway. But to do that you need more people to join you so that it becomes normalised as an expectation of the government. Pissing off ordinary people is a funny way to do that. There are all sorts of protests and actions where popular opinion does not matter, but in this case it does.

The whole thing is not a strategy I would use btw, that's not really my point, but in the strategy they've chosen, public opinion matters, and the form of their action isn't coherent with that.

Good job loads of people have tons of ideas for forms of protest which are nice and friendly and get lots of passerby involved in having a jolly good time without creating too much inconvenience then, isn't it.

The disruption of capital is the only thing which can force government (and corporate action). We need both. As we've established many times, individuals recycling their glass bottles and turning the lights off when they're not in the room is not going to save the planet.

 

[Flavour]

Most of the suffragettes are largely middle class women with time on their hands -- working class women are far too busy to worry about something as useless to them as a vote.

Changed to present tense and deleted reference to XR to give us a snapshot of what urban would have been like if it had been founded in 1885 and the users were all a bunch of softie boomers by the time the suffragette protests came around. "Middle class" as an insult to protestors. Real working class people don't have time to protest for something useless

 

[Chilli.s]

There must be a more effective way for this protest to work. Hold all the doors open in public buildings, all turn on the kettle at the same time, bombard town planning departments with spurious applications/inquiries... don't know what but something better than pissing off the people who they need on their side

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I wonder how disruptive a revolution would be.

Should go full Khmer Rouge. Anyone educated above GCSE level for the chop. Should lower the UK's CO2 emissions too, as the boffs seems to puff out a lot of hot air.

 

[Yossarian]

Most of the suffragettes were largely middle class women with time on their hands (much like XR tbh) working class women of the time were far too busy to worry about something as useless to them as a vote.

Worth a read: British Library

 

[Chilli.s]

Successive governments aren't able to even build enough homes to house the population let alone insulate the current housing stock. It's just too challenging for them

 

[Raheem]

Someone mentioned women's suffrage. I bet there were a lot of men at the time saying "Well yes of course in principle I think women should be allowed to vote, but these protests, well, it's all a bit too much isn't it? Almost turns one away from the idea!"

This is a way in which inconveniencing and annoying people is a winner. People are conservative and are always looking for reasons to object. Allow them to object to your means, and it helps to build a consensus that your aims are sound.

 

[BillRiver]

It does feel a bit wierd when so many sleep on the streets (and even more are in precarious renting situations) to be asking for insulation on homes not everyone has.

Mind, concensus on the psych ward last week (patients being predominantly working class women of colour/Irish women, including many with lived experience of homelesness) was very much in favour of them.

 

[LDC]

Exactly.

Good job loads of people have tons of ideas for forms of protest which are nice and friendly and get lots of passerby involved in having a jolly good time without creating too much inconvenience then, isn't it.

The disruption of capital is the only thing which can force government (and corporate action). We need both. As we've established many times, individuals recycling their glass bottles and turning the lights off when they're not in the room is not going to save the planet.

Is this type of blocking traffic really disrupting capital, or is it really disrupting a mix of people doing a variety of things, only some of which will be a disruption of capital - unless you use a very expansive definition of that? One of my criticisms is that this type of action happens as those doing it (through no fault of their own) are largely unable to disrupt capital in any significant way, so end up doing things like this as it has a high impact publicity and disruption wise.

I'm not sure if I think this type of thing is a good idea at all tbh, I am open to being convinced, but currently I'm erring that on balance it does much more damage support wise than it does forcing the governments hand to enact their demands. And I don't see it as a 'building a movement' type thing either. I also suspect that it might even harden the government's position as it can't be seen to give in to this type of thing.

(Haven't read the rest of the 6 pages, will go and do that now...).

 

[T & P]

Poll responses are not nuanced enough so I can't vote.

If I had it my way all Urban polls would henceforth be conducted in this manner:

 

[Serene]

Now you're not reading what I am saying. Mesmerism was rejected because there is no evidence to support it. It's the evidence that matters.

Exactly, and there were people who agreed with him. You are setting yourself up with a false opposition here. I am relating objective truth and you are arguing that the minority are wrong. I keep stating that I agree with the majority. There is a fact also that a minority of Scientists disagree. Are you denying that there is a minority of Scientists that disagree, or do you agree that they exist?

 

[mauvais]

Not had chance to read this entire thread but some really shit thinking on display here.

I find it useful to start from the baseline of never criticising someone's protest, and then breaking that rule requires justification. Not least because, generally speaking, shit activism is better than no activism.

There is or was a certain poster on here that armchair critiqued stuff the entire time - I would have done blah, they haven't given any focus to blah - and well, just fuck off and protest yourself then eh? Not to mention the myriad sects of the left that will disown anything that isn't fully conformant with their one true path.

You can't criticise them for minor consequences either. An ambulance can't get through (not even true, IIRC). So what? The revolution will not be convenient. Even if you played this exactly right, someone will invent something to try and discredit you. Don't fucking go with it, FFS. And if it alienates people, even the majority, are we supposed to give a fuck? Again - you want what, focus grouped mild reformism? You know what else alienates the public? Dying in a flood or a fire.

And you definitely can't criticise them for enraging the government who bring in laws about it. You've got to be thick as mince to utter that.

You can criticise them - to an extent - for stuff like being long term holistically counterproductive, or just a self-indulgent waste of energy. I really don't have a very high opinion of XR for this kind of reason. But I'm still not totally comfortable slagging them off. They're doing something that I'm not. It could be much better but that's more on everybody else to muster that than it is on them to get it right.

TL;DR: get a fucking grip you liberal dickheads.

 

[andysays]

Well quite.
And me trying to get home from work. On a bus. Which normally came over that bridge.

I'm guessing that the choice of Westminster Bridge was at least partly symbolic, what with it being right outside the Houses of Parliament.

As a more general point, causing disruption by blocking roads is a pretty blunt instrument, and is always going to inconvenience some people who it would be better not to inconvenience or alienate (unless it's possible to allow buses and ambulances through, but not private cars, which I think would be impractical).

So does that mean (general question, not just for you) that any sort of protest which might cause disruption and inconvenience is off limits?

 

[NoXion]

Exactly, and there were people who agreed with him. You are setting yourself up with a false opposition here. I am relating objective truth and you are arguing that the minority are wrong.

Because the evidence says that they're wrong. The fact that they have qualifications in climate science is immaterial.

I keep stating that I agree with the majority.

Which is precisely the wrong way to go about things. What is your assessment of the evidence?

There is a fact also that a miority of Scientists disagree. Are you denying that there is a minority of Scientists that disagree, or do you agree that they exist?

I agree that they exist. But so fucking what? Flat Earthers exist. But what actually matters is what the evidence shows.

 

[hitmouse]

There must be a more effective way for this protest to work. Hold all the doors open in public buildings, all turn on the kettle at the same time, bombard town planning departments with spurious applications/inquiries... don't know what but something better than pissing off the people who they need on their side

They could start breaking into people's houses and illicitly installing insulation like Robert de Niro in Brazil, but I suspect that'd be quite difficult to organise?

 

[Sue]

Not least because, generally speaking, shit activism is better than no activism.

I don't agree. If shit activism turns people off what you're trying to achieve, surely it's better to work out what non-shit activism looks like before cracking on?

Sometimes doing nothing is definitely better than doing something if that something is rubbish/counterproductive.

 

[Serene]

Because the evidence says that they're wrong. The fact that they have qualifications in climate science is immaterial.


Which is precisely the wrong way to go about things. What is your assessment of the evidence?



I agree that they exist. But so fucking what? Flat Earthers exist. But what actually matters is what the evidence shows.

All I said was that there is a minority of Scientists that disagree. It is a statement of fact, nothing more, nothing less. Just as I would say there was a single red car parked on a street earlier amongst the other colours of cars parked. It is a statement of fact.

 

[Pickman's model]

Not had chance to read this entire thread but some really shit thinking on display here.

I find it useful to start from the baseline of never criticising someone's protest, and then breaking that rule requires justification. Not least because, generally speaking, shit activism is better than no activism.

There is or was a certain poster on here that armchair critiqued stuff the entire time - I would have done blah, they haven't given any focus to blah - and well, just fuck off and protest yourself then eh? Not to mention the myriad sects of the left that will disown anything that isn't fully conformant with their one true path.

You can't criticise them for minor consequences either. An ambulance can't get through (not even true, IIRC). So what? The revolution will not be convenient. Even if you played this exactly right, someone will invent something to try and discredit you. Don't fucking go with it, FFS. And if it alienates people, even the majority, are we supposed to give a fuck? Again - you want what, focus grouped mild reformism? You know what else alienates the public? Dying in a flood or a fire.

And you definitely can't criticise them for enraging the government who bring in laws about it. You've got to be thick as mince to utter that.

You can criticise them - to an extent - for stuff like being long term holistically counterproductive, or just a self-indulgent waste of energy. I really don't have a very high opinion of XR for this kind of reason. But I'm still not totally comfortable slagging them off. They're doing something that I'm not. It could be much better but that's more on everybody else to muster that than it is on them to get it right.

TL;DR: get a fucking grip you liberal dickheads.

You can also criticise them for having only one tool in their repertoire of action, which is blocking roads.

I don't think shit activism is actually worse than no activism - things that play poorly with a great number of people, eg the xr train bollocks or this spate of major road blockings - alienate a lot of people who are, or were, really or potentially sympathetic to the cause ib espouse. It poisons the well for other environmental groups with better politics.

You also presume ib are on the left, of which I'm not as persuaded as you are. I think their activism is substitutionist, elitist, and frankly misguided as it stands zero chance of achieving its stated goals. It's not even a good stunt

 

[mauvais]

I don't agree. If shit activism turns people off what you're trying to achieve, surely it's better to work out what non-shit activism looks like before cracking on?

Sometimes doing nothing is definitely better than doing something if that something is rubbish/counterproductive.

Take the briefest look at the rich history of human protest. It's not a tapestry of perfect, universally applauded schemes, is it? Usually it's clumsy and grubby and contentious.

'Counterproductive' is subjective. Will Insulate Britain get what they want? Is what they want even remotely the answer? In my uninformed opinion, probably not on either count. But do they further normalise climate activism? Do they encourage others to do better? Maybe. So in a different scope it's no longer counterproductive, is it?

 

[platinumsage]

I don't agree. If shit activism turns people off what you're trying to achieve, surely it's better to work out what non-shit activism looks like before cracking on?

Sometimes doing nothing is definitely better than doing something if that something is rubbish/counterproductive.

Yes, the same principle applies to insulating homes. Perhaps civil servants are as we speak carefully working out a scheme that would be messed up if the government bounced them into pushing out some half-baked strategy in response to people sitting on motorways touting some half-baked demands.