this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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The memes of the climate
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Have these protests done anything? For example that due to the lack of public transport people are obliged to use a car, or many workplaces especially office work are put around cities not inside because of tax reasons? In my case I had to use a car for my previous work, for it was 45 minutes instead of 4,5 hours with trains and buses.
These people do nothing, but scream STOP USING OIL, STUPID! and call it a day.
Nobody is oblivious to this problem, but many have few choices.
The method behind the road blocks is: Block road to hold normal people hostage -> normal people get angry and demand change -> government changes it's policy towards your demands. Yeah everyone knows climate change to be a problem but if nothing is being done despite that you have to apply pressure somewhere, so because Fridays for future moved the needle maybe minimally, by doing normal marches, you start to be the tiniest bit annoying by blocking streets without prior warning.
The very few people getting stuck in traffic from these protest are really just innocent bystanders but, they also need to change, and both the real targets, so politicians and rich people, have enough influence to easily shield themselves from the effect of protests, apart from maybe the private yet stoppages which the same groups also organised.
And at least here in Germany the media coverage about climate change is now much more frequent than before LG started blocking the streets. And the coverage is only interspersed by talking about the protests themselves not singularly about the protests. So there is at least some noticeable change.
These people don't do nothing, they are fighting for my right to live 60 more years in relative peace and prosperity, protests and civil disobedience is far from doing nothing. The political message that gets told whenever any of them is interviewed is certainly much more nuanced than the slogan as well. And the reason they are on the street to begin with is because they themselves also have few choices, if the people going out to the street had power apart from their time and body they would be and are using it towards that same goal, but obviously their power via other ways is insufficient.
All in all if you think you act efficiently and fairly towards climate change reversal/reduction, but write a comment defending your 45min car commute, you might be missing something.The lack of public transport in your city for example isn't solved by just continuing to use it without reflection about why it is that way, and honest investment into fixing it.
I'm sorry but your explanation of the method just doesn't understand human beings. The drivers will get angry and demand change. The change they demand won't be about the climate. They aren't sitting in their cars going "hmm, maybe these people have a point". What they demand will be stopping protests that disrupt traffic.
I'm sorry but you don't seem to understand human beings either. Just because drivers get angry and demand a crackdown doesn't mean a crackdown actually is feasible from the governments point of view. The drivers for which this is the reaction fundamentally don't matter to the protestors. What matters to the protestors is political change, the number of drivers they directly impact is small, the number of people being told climate change is an existential threat is disproportionately large. Which furthers their political goals on the whole, even if everyone hates them.
This entire argument is the same argument against every "civil" and not so civil protest, public disobedience or other dissent. BLM 202x FFF 2019, Antifa since 193x, LGBTQ movement, women's rights, they all get this same argument against them: Why won't you just be civil, why won't you play by the rules, why don't you try to gain sympathy from your political enemies.
As if that'd work, as if that'd be sufficient to keep your own freedom, live and livelyhood, inside of a system that tries to take it from you. How could you ever trust in the process when you've seen it fail time and time again, specifically for the issue that is of concern in your group.
This is the other human you failed to account for, the protestor that isn't going to stop, because they deeply believe their way of life is threatened in a way where a more direct confrontation is necessary. And they rightly understand that it's a confrontation with the entire system, not with some commuters on arbitrary streets.