Just Stop Oil

[Artaxerxes]

The Greek fires are terrible but getting more coverage because of status as UK tourist destination. Fires in Algeria getting less coverage but are just as bad if not worse. Dozens dead so far. Sicily also badly hit.

The latest Sunak u-turn is a horror show.

I'm watching the cut the green crap news surge in absolute fucking shock.

 

[not a trot]

This lot have obviously been reading plattysage’s ramblings!!

If they have any spare concrete, they can come and finish my patio. Fed up with getting grief from wifey.

 

[Flavour]

I'm watching How to Blow Up a Pipeline on Netflix at the moment. I suggest you all do too.

I liked the book. The guy I linked earlier, gelderloos, occasionally makes some cutting remarks about the writer of HTBUAP not actually being involved with any real struggles, perhaps with a slight tinge of envy

 

[kabbes]

It’s fuckin’ 33 degrees in the shade at 8am in Larnaca — I know because my mum keeps insisting on burdening the family ‎WhatsApp group every fucking morning with photos of the thermometer. And yes, I know it’s Cyprus in July but believe me folks, that is not normal. You don’t need actual wild fires to see the very real effects of a global average temperature increase of circa one degree. But you do need people shouting about it to keep it visible.

Geez, this was today’s photo. I can only hope it wasn’t at 8am.

 

[Flavour]

Phoenix has been at more than 43°C for like a month straight

 

[yield]

I'm watching How to Blow Up a Pipeline on Netflix at the moment. I suggest you all do too.

Long but worth a read.

Risk and Revolution
Wen Stephenson, July 20, 2023

The laughter is the tell. In a deftly written and acted scene in How to Blow Up a Pipeline, the new action-thriller directed by Daniel Goldhaber (and inspired by Andreas Malm’s identically titled 2021 book, which, unlike the film, does not describe how to blow up anything), a ragtag group of eight fossil-fuel saboteurs—young, diverse, mostly working class, several from polluted frontline communities—pass a bottle around, blowing off steam the night before they blow up a pipeline in the West Texas desert.

...

Whether armed or not, violent or not, the point is that revolution is approached seriously now only as history, as collective memory and mourning of the heroically vanquished and tragically betrayed. (Traverso explored this phenomenon in his 2016 book, Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory.) And, most often, as cautionary tale. “The tragedy of revolutions,” Traverso writes in Revolution, “lies in the fatal metamorphosis that drives them from liberation to the struggle for survival, and finally to the edification of a new oppressive rule; from emancipating violence to coercive violence.”

 

[LDC]

I'm watching How to Blow Up a Pipeline on Netflix at the moment. I suggest you all do too.

Just finished it this evening chilango absolutely excellent film, highly recommend!

 

[chilango]

Just finished it this evening chilango absolutely excellent film, highly recommend!

Yes, much better than I expected.

 

[platinumsage]

Meanwhile while everyone is busy measuring the success of JSO on metrics such as solidarity-building and awareness-raising, this announcement marks how successful they have actually been with regard to their one stated aim:

Hundreds of new North Sea oil and gas licences to boost British energy independence and grow the economy

Hundreds of new oil and gas licenses will be granted in the UK, the Prime Minister has confirmed today (Monday 31 July).

www.gov.uk

 

[LDC]

Meanwhile while everyone is busy measuring the success of JSO on metrics such as solidarity-building and awareness-raising, this announcement marks how successful they have actually been with regard to their one stated aim:

Hundreds of new North Sea oil and gas licences to boost British energy independence and grow the economy

Hundreds of new oil and gas licenses will be granted in the UK, the Prime Minister has confirmed today (Monday 31 July).

www.gov.uk

A terrible and depressing announcement, and if anything it shows JSO have been far far too mild with their activity.

 

[Pickman's model]

A terrible and depressing announcement, and if anything it shows JSO have been far far too mild in the their activity.

For their numbers perhaps they've done well but no one seems to seriously suggest they've attracted many people with their tactics, au contraire

 

[edcraw]

Meanwhile while everyone is busy measuring the success of JSO on metrics such as solidarity-building and awareness-raising, this announcement marks how successful they have actually been with regard to their one stated aim:

Hundreds of new North Sea oil and gas licences to boost British energy independence and grow the economy

Hundreds of new oil and gas licenses will be granted in the UK, the Prime Minister has confirmed today (Monday 31 July).

www.gov.uk

Yay! Serves ‘em right - the world burning will really put it to those jumped up eco-warriors!!

 

[Karl Masks]

Meanwhile while everyone is busy measuring the success of JSO on metrics such as solidarity-building and awareness-raising, this announcement marks how successful they have actually been with regard to their one stated aim:

Hundreds of new North Sea oil and gas licences to boost British energy independence and grow the economy

Hundreds of new oil and gas licenses will be granted in the UK, the Prime Minister has confirmed today (Monday 31 July).

www.gov.uk

More they seem to be measuring their success by how many protesters are released from jail/sentences appealed etc than actually stopping this. While labour fail to counter any tory narrative for fear of upsetting British capital, the greens could win big off this

 

[tommers]

Nothing that is happening is making me rethink my "we're fucking stupid and deserve everything that's coming" stance tbh.

That announcement from Shapps is just one of the stupidest fucking things I have ever seen, for so many reasons.

 

[LDC]

Nothing that is happening is making me rethink my "we're fucking stupid and deserve everything that's coming" stance tbh.

That announcement from Shapps is just one of the stupidest fucking things I have ever seen, for so many reasons.

I do get the misanthropic angle, but I think the problem isn't that 'we're stupid' (I mean the reason we're in such a mess is the opposite in some ways) but that we've got societies and systems, and in large part a world, that's developed and now set up in a way that makes change on a global level for this very, very difficult - arguably impossible (at the moment anyway).

People say revolution is an impossible dream etc, but I actually think some kind of a mix of State and capital collapse or withdrawal in some areas of the world, huge social and political turmoil due to climate refugees and resource scarcity plus other similar things, all resulting in chances for establishing new ways of doing things (including revolution) seems much more likely to me than states across the globe willingly turning away from capitalism.

One of the 'good things' about the climate stuff is its inherent internationalism/global context, it's really all of us or none of us.

 

[danny la rouge]

I do get the misanthropic angle, but I think the problem isn't that 'we're stupid' (I mean the reason we're in such a mess is the opposite in some ways) but that we've got societies and systems, and in large part a world, that's developed and now set up in a way that makes change on a global level for this very, very difficult - arguably impossible (at the moment anyway).

Agreed.

I had more to say but I’m unable to put it into words this morning.

 

[kabbes]

Meanwhile while everyone is busy measuring the success of JSO on metrics such as solidarity-building and awareness-raising, this announcement marks how successful they have actually been with regard to their one stated aim:

Hundreds of new North Sea oil and gas licences to boost British energy independence and grow the economy

Hundreds of new oil and gas licenses will be granted in the UK, the Prime Minister has confirmed today (Monday 31 July).

www.gov.uk

You have a point that ultimately, we have to look at whether the trajectory of oil use is changing, to gauge the success of protests. I would suggest, however, that the interesting thing to observe will be what happens next, rather than just this very right-wing government’s desperate dying acts. Will their strategy be popular or will it generate a backlash?

 

[Pickman's model]

I do get the misanthropic angle, but I think the problem isn't that 'we're stupid' (I mean the reason we're in such a mess is the opposite in some ways) but that we've got societies and systems, and in large part a world, that's developed and now set up in a way that makes change on a global level for this very, very difficult - arguably impossible (at the moment anyway).

People say revolution is an impossible dream etc, but I actually think some kind of a mix of State and capital collapse or withdrawal in some areas of the world, huge social and political turmoil due to climate refugees and resource scarcity plus other similar things, all resulting in chances for establishing new ways of doing things seems much more likely to me than states across the globe willingly turning away from capitalism.

the problem is that revolution is an active act of overthrowing the auld order and the context in which you're talking about new ways of doing things being possible is where the auld ways have proved utterly unable to cope with the new situation. it's not going to be building jerusalem in england's green and pleasant land, far from it. revolution might answer the question 'barbarism or socialism?' but i think the withdrawal of the state and the subsequent encroachment of other hierarchical organisations will lead very swiftly to the barbarism answer. organised crime gangs and so on, jihadis, will fill the void in parts of the world. i admire your optimism but i think it's much more misplaced than the aspirations many people here had for a lexit or the opportunities for nationalisation and so on that might emerge outside the european union.

 

[tommers]

I do get the misanthropic angle, but I think the problem isn't that 'we're stupid' (I mean the reason we're in such a mess is the opposite in some ways) but that we've got societies and systems, and in large part a world, that's developed and now set up in a way that makes change on a global level for this very, very difficult - arguably impossible (at the moment anyway).

Sure thing. Who's fault is that?

We can't conceive of long term effects being as important as the short term. We all have our own priorities, we don't want to make changes if we feel it disadvantages us to others, we're selfish. We're suspicious of other countries and systems.

Worst of all we think we're exceptional and we have an underlying faith in "it will be alright". We're not, we're just clever enough to get ourselves in trouble but not clever enough to get ourselves out of it.

We can argue whether stupid is the right word or not, but it kind of sums it all up for me. We simply aren't capable of resolving this. People want it to go away, but not if it affects them in any way.

(and obviously this is a huge generalisation and there are people who buck whatever of those trends you want to focus on.)

 

[LDC]

the problem is that revolution is an active act of overthrowing the auld order and the context in which you're talking about new ways of doing things being possible is where the auld ways have proved utterly unable to cope with the new situation. it's not going to be building jerusalem in england's green and pleasant land, far from it. revolution might answer the question 'barbarism or socialism?' but i think the withdrawal of the state and the subsequent encroachment of other hierarchical organisations will lead very swiftly to the barbarism answer. organised crime gangs and so on, jihadis, will fill the void in parts of the world. i admire your optimism but i think it's much more misplaced than the aspirations many people here had for a lexit or the opportunities for nationalisation and so on that might emerge outside the european union.

I wasn't being optimistic, just stating what I think is more likely. At most I was being slightly hopefully for something better happening.

 

[tommers]

Yeah, makes me fucking miserable tbh. Had my kid in tears the other day worrying about it and had no idea what to say to her.

 

[kabbes]

Things will change. Things are changing. Humans have always created problems and always made changes in response to those problems. The difficulty with climate change is that the effects are so lagged from the causes, so that the motivation to make a necessary change is always much less than the change that is needed. I have no doubt that the world will transition to a heavily carbon-free energy system, it’ll just be 50 years too late and won’t stop the apocalyptic effects that by then will already be embedded

 

[LDC]

Sure thing. Who's fault is that?

We can't conceive of long term effects being as important as the short term. We all have our own priorities, we don't want to make changes if we feel it disadvantages us to others, we're selfish. We're suspicious of other countries and systems.

Worst of all we think we're exceptional and we have an underlying faith in "it will be alright". We're not, we're just clever enough to get ourselves in trouble but not clever enough to get ourselves out of it.

We can argue whether stupid is the right word or not, but it kind of sums it all up for me. We simply aren't capable of resolving this. People want it to go away, but not if it affects them in any way.

(and obviously this is a huge generalisation and there are people who buck whatever of those trends you want to focus on.)

I think 'stupid' or a similar word for me individualises it a bit too much, and/or makes it seem like some kind of ethical or intellectual failing.

But I do think you're right as well with the way we're currently living and our ability to deal with future problems and making changes.

I used to argue that making changes for climate wouldn't be a simple case of 'hair shirt giving up luxuries' but now it seems that for us here in the UK/Europe/industralised world I do think the days of private car use, flying everywhere, highly inefficient importation of some goods, etc. just need to stop now, and that likely does mean some changes that will involve not being able to do the things many take for granted.

 

[platinumsage]

Lots of miserabilists on here today. Take comfort from the work of Hans Rosling, who demonstrated that the better-educated you are, the more unjustifiably pessimistic about the future of the world you are likely to be.

 

[tommers]

Things will change. Things are changing. Humans have always created problems and always made changes in response to those problems. The difficulty with climate change is that the effects are so lagged from the causes, so that the motivation to make a necessary change is always much less than the change that is needed. I have no doubt that the world will transition to a heavily carbon-free energy system, it’ll just be 50 years too late and won’t stop the apocalyptic effects that by then will already be embedded

It reminds me of my friend's dad who stopped smoking when he got a lung cancer diagnosis. Bit late then mate.

We've got the diagnosis and just bought a new carton of 200 on the duty free.

 

[Karl Masks]

I do get the misanthropic angle, but I think the problem isn't that 'we're stupid' (I mean the reason we're in such a mess is the opposite in some ways) but that we've got societies and systems, and in large part a world, that's developed and now set up in a way that makes change on a global level for this very, very difficult - arguably impossible (at the moment anyway).

People say revolution is an impossible dream etc, but I actually think some kind of a mix of State and capital collapse or withdrawal in some areas of the world, huge social and political turmoil due to climate refugees and resource scarcity plus other similar things, all resulting in chances for establishing new ways of doing things (including revolution) seems much more likely to me than states across the globe willingly turning away from capitalism.

One of the 'good things' about the climate stuff is it's inherent internationalism/global context, it's really all of us or none of us.

Is it though? Elon Musk for example is much less likely to be as affected. I wouldn't waste my tears on that, but for the fact that these rich capitalists control things like social media which shape how many people are reacting to the new normal

 

[lazythursday]

This week of all weeks, I decided to start reading 'How to blow up a pipeline' and right now I am fantasising all sorts of fiendish volent acts against assorted oil executives, upper class parasites, and platinumsage.

 

[LDC]

Is it though? Elon Musk for example is much less likely to be as affected. I wouldn't waste my tears on that, but for the fact that these rich capitalists control things like social media which shape how many people are reacting to the new normal

No, we're not all in it together of course. But Musk is a bit of an outlier really. Even the ruling class might/will be impacted, but clearly not in the same way at all, and also obviously not something I'm concerned about. But I think it's true that on some level unless there's some kind of revolution/rupture with how things are more generally then it can't be done without them.

E2A: And that is problematic for a wider left politics, but it's one of the messy things with climate change, alongide things like some possible authoritarianism to impose climate measures and where we might stand on that.

 

[danny la rouge]

I'm feeling despondent because what can I do?

If I write to my MP - which is something that even as an anarchist who has no faith in representative democracy or indirect action I have done - then what I'll get is a reply saying he agrees with me, and a pre-prepared list of all the (inadequate) things his party has done. He is a member of the SNP. Whatever he says or does will be ignored by the Conservative government. So pretty much a waste of time contacting him.

I have been vegetarian for 40 years. I try to be mainly vegan (but allow myself dairy lapses). But I'm in a tiny minority.

I rarely buy new clothes. I don't replace things until they are broken. I reuse, reduce, recycle. I have flown, but just 5 round trips in my lifetime. I consider the environmental impact of the things I do. But unless governments and corporations act adequately, my behaviours, and yours, will be a drop in the ocean.

I'm living with disability. There is a limit to what I can physically do to protest.

I have, however, been active on environmental issues since the 1970s.

It hasn't been enough, but I don't think it's fair to say "we" are stupid or to blame.

Nor, in fact, do I think those in the big corporations with the actual decision making powers are wilfully stupid or evil. Their actions and mindsets are shaped by structural forces. The structures of business and finance and capitalism limit and shape them.

Without sufficient political will to make sufficient changes, those changes will not occur. Sadly I agree with those who say the will is unlikely to materialise soon enough.

 

[Rob Ray]

Lots of miserabilists on here today. Take comfort from the work of Hans Rosling, who demonstrated that the better-educated you are, the more unjustifiably pessimistic about the future of the world you are likely to be.

Europe is on fire, we just had the hottest July in known history, and what are you doing? Wanking on smugly about how the Tories are ignoring Just Stop Oil (as though any other tactic is working better, and as though in the last year of whining about their shortcomings you've said or done anything of any more value), telling us to buck up.

Fuck off.