I’m not sure how this helps though. These people can say to future generations, “well, we didn’t get people to stop using fossil fuels, but we did damage a 5000-year-old monument that was made long before anyone had the idea of burning fossil fuels to make people aware of a problem they were already aware of but powerless to do anything about.”
This isn’t going to stop oil companies from drilling for oil.
It reminds me of a friend of mine I used to follow elsewhere on social media. Every day, she would post pictures of ‘death row dogs’ in nearby shelters that were going to be euthanized. There was fuck all I could do about it. I already have two dogs, from shelters. I don’t have room for more and I couldn’t afford more. So all it did was make me feel like shit. Then she started posting photos with “too late” messages and I stopped following her.
Your example shows exactly what people are missing. Just because you did not have the capacity for more dogs doesnt mean that other people never got convinced to save one of those dogs. If those pictures convinced even just one person to adopt a dog, then it was worth the minor inconvienience that you had to go through.
Similarly the actual damage from this protest is slim to none (if they used the same stuff as usual that just washes away with water) and if it convinces somebody to get politically active for climate change then it was already worth it.
You thinking that you are powerless, shouldnt result in other people being forced to be powerless when they are not.
A better way to propose your question is: out of all the millions of people on Earth who hear about these activities, will literally 0 of them take any meaningful action against climate change?
The likelihood of that quite small, suggesting a non-zero value. That non-zero value is likely to be smaller than the damages of water-washable paint.
I’m not advocating for anyone here, but I think that’s the calculus OP was suggesting, and it makes perfect sense to me.
If eye-rolling and annoyance produced greenhouse gases, then it might be a different story.
Many of the recent protests about climate change have been less direct and more about stirring up controversy to force the public to actually think about their decisions.
My hat off to them as so far this style of protest has been working and has resulted in many of us pushing for better climate control.
You’re right this isn’t going to stop companies, but even if you disagreed with them it puts climate change in your conscious mind. Even if that simply means you’ll try to make slightly more climate friendly decisions moving forwards, that’s a win.
Personally I don’t know if I agree with the technique, but I do feel like it has been working in terms of making people discuss this topic more.
For the record, I’m not saying I agree with their methods, but I don’t think it’s fair to them either that everyone is acting like they did irreparable harm to the monument.
As far as I could find out, they used orange cornflour that will just wash off the next time it rains. The most amount of damage anyone could seriously bring up was that it could harm/displace the lichen on the henge.
That’s not to say that I specifically condone the action, but it’s a lot less bad than this article makes it sound. It’s the same with the soup attack on one of van Gogh’s painting, which had protective glass on it. So far all the JSO actions targeting cultural/historical things (at least the ones that made it to the big news) have been done in a way that makes them sound awful at first hearing, but intentionally did not actually damage the targeted cultural/historical thing.
I think the biases of the journalist/news outlet/etc. are somewhat exposed by which parts they focus on and which they downplay or omit entirely.
I hope you’re right because this article says they used a spray can.
Also, orange dye can easily get into cracks in the rocks and stay there for a very long time. Especially if it displaces the lichens. That won’t make it collapse, so maybe ‘damage’ is not the right word, but this is potentially long-lasting vandalism which, as far as I can see, will have no effect on the actual problem.
I hope you’re right because this article says they used a spray can.
Which brings me back to the last point in my comment.
I also hope I’m right. The two times I looked into it (right after the attack and before writing my comment) both came up with that result. Also it seems that English Heritage came out today saying there was “No visible damage”.
As I said, I’m not writing to defend the action, just pointing out that the OP article is, willfully or not, omitting certain aspects that could make JSO look a little bit better.
Those stones will be suuuper useful to us after we died because our global ecosystem collapsed.
Maybe we should set up our own stones for explaining to future generations why we didnt do anything about climate change until it was too late.
I’m not sure how this helps though. These people can say to future generations, “well, we didn’t get people to stop using fossil fuels, but we did damage a 5000-year-old monument that was made long before anyone had the idea of burning fossil fuels to make people aware of a problem they were already aware of but powerless to do anything about.”
This isn’t going to stop oil companies from drilling for oil.
It reminds me of a friend of mine I used to follow elsewhere on social media. Every day, she would post pictures of ‘death row dogs’ in nearby shelters that were going to be euthanized. There was fuck all I could do about it. I already have two dogs, from shelters. I don’t have room for more and I couldn’t afford more. So all it did was make me feel like shit. Then she started posting photos with “too late” messages and I stopped following her.
How does that help?
Your example shows exactly what people are missing. Just because you did not have the capacity for more dogs doesnt mean that other people never got convinced to save one of those dogs. If those pictures convinced even just one person to adopt a dog, then it was worth the minor inconvienience that you had to go through.
Similarly the actual damage from this protest is slim to none (if they used the same stuff as usual that just washes away with water) and if it convinces somebody to get politically active for climate change then it was already worth it.
You thinking that you are powerless, shouldnt result in other people being forced to be powerless when they are not.
.
A better way to propose your question is: out of all the millions of people on Earth who hear about these activities, will literally 0 of them take any meaningful action against climate change?
The likelihood of that quite small, suggesting a non-zero value. That non-zero value is likely to be smaller than the damages of water-washable paint.
I’m not advocating for anyone here, but I think that’s the calculus OP was suggesting, and it makes perfect sense to me.
If eye-rolling and annoyance produced greenhouse gases, then it might be a different story.
.
Many of the recent protests about climate change have been less direct and more about stirring up controversy to force the public to actually think about their decisions.
My hat off to them as so far this style of protest has been working and has resulted in many of us pushing for better climate control.
You’re right this isn’t going to stop companies, but even if you disagreed with them it puts climate change in your conscious mind. Even if that simply means you’ll try to make slightly more climate friendly decisions moving forwards, that’s a win.
Personally I don’t know if I agree with the technique, but I do feel like it has been working in terms of making people discuss this topic more.
.
We’re talking about it
.
“The orange cornflour we used to create an eye-catching spectacle will soon wash away with the rain…"
Just like any attention they may have grabbed due to their stunt.
For the record, I’m not saying I agree with their methods, but I don’t think it’s fair to them either that everyone is acting like they did irreparable harm to the monument.
.
As far as I could find out, they used orange cornflour that will just wash off the next time it rains. The most amount of damage anyone could seriously bring up was that it could harm/displace the lichen on the henge.
That’s not to say that I specifically condone the action, but it’s a lot less bad than this article makes it sound. It’s the same with the soup attack on one of van Gogh’s painting, which had protective glass on it. So far all the JSO actions targeting cultural/historical things (at least the ones that made it to the big news) have been done in a way that makes them sound awful at first hearing, but intentionally did not actually damage the targeted cultural/historical thing.
I think the biases of the journalist/news outlet/etc. are somewhat exposed by which parts they focus on and which they downplay or omit entirely.
I hope you’re right because this article says they used a spray can.
Also, orange dye can easily get into cracks in the rocks and stay there for a very long time. Especially if it displaces the lichens. That won’t make it collapse, so maybe ‘damage’ is not the right word, but this is potentially long-lasting vandalism which, as far as I can see, will have no effect on the actual problem.
Which brings me back to the last point in my comment.
I also hope I’m right. The two times I looked into it (right after the attack and before writing my comment) both came up with that result. Also it seems that English Heritage came out today saying there was “No visible damage”.
As I said, I’m not writing to defend the action, just pointing out that the OP article is, willfully or not, omitting certain aspects that could make JSO look a little bit better.
Edit: Formatting
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