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Philosophy Tube's "Violence & Protest" - "A video about protest, direct action, and revolution in the context of the climate crisis" - covered this topic, at ht

Philosophy Tube's "Violence & Protest" - "A video about protest, direct action, and revolution in the context of the climate crisis" - covered this topic, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh4G1Gjv7bA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh4G1Gjv7bA Quotes https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n06/john-lanchester/warmer-warmer https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n06/john-lanchester/warm... from 2007: > It is strange and striking that climate change activists have not committed any acts of terrorism. After all, terrorism is for the individual by far the modern world’s most effective form of political action, and climate change is an issue about which people feel just as strongly as about, say, animal rights. This is especially noticeable when you bear in mind the ease of things like blowing up petrol stations, or vandalising SUVs. In cities, SUVs are loathed by everyone except the people who drive them; and in a city the size of London, a few dozen people could in a short space of time make the ownership of these cars effectively impossible, just by running keys down the side of them, at a cost to the owner of several thousand pounds a time. Say fifty people vandalising four cars each every night for a month: six thousand trashed SUVs in a month and the Chelsea tractors would soon be disappearing from our streets. So why don’t these things happen? Is it because the people who feel strongly about climate change are simply too nice, too educated, to do anything of the sort? (But terrorists are often highly educated.) Or is it that even the people who feel most strongly about climate change on some level can’t quite bring themselves to believe in it? ... > We deeply don’t want to believe this story.

Bostonian 4y ago
"blowing up petrol stations" can get people killed. Someone who advocates such terrorism does not have a valid complaint if they are the target of violence.
- eesmith 4y ago
  I see two forms of complaint you might be referring to. I don't believe anyone carrying out "MASSIVEN KRIMINELLEN GEWALTTATEN" will fail to understand how the state-backed violence will be used against them. So yes, if they complain about that response, then I don't think it's all that valid. However, that does not mean that the original complaint - the lack of required and urgent response to the climate change crisis - is not valid. Suffragettes carried out a bombing and arson campaign. "Places that wealthy people, typically men, frequented were also burnt and destroyed whilst left unattended so that there was little risk to life, including cricket pavilions, horse-racing pavilions, churches, castles and the second homes of the wealthy. They also burnt the slogan "Votes for Women" into the grass of golf courses." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_bombing_and_arson_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_bombing_and_arson_... . That doesn't invalidate the complaint about the lack of woman suffrage.
- codefreeordie 4y ago
  People love political violence in support of their views. It's only bad when their adversaries turn it back on them
gus_massa 4y ago
> Is it because the people who feel strongly about climate change are simply too nice, too educated, to do anything of the sort? Because a surveillance camera will catch you and you will have to pay to fix the car and some community service as part of your probation.
- eesmith 4y ago
  We see pro-abortion activists in the US arrested during protests. We've seen anti-abortion activists murder doctors. We've seen Q-Anon supporters arrested for their attempted coup. We saw anti-nuclear activists jailed for their vandalism (famously including a nun). We've seen eco-terrorists and anti-vivisectionists sent to jail. Some suffragettes broke the law, deliberately and in public, and the more militant suffragettes committed vandalism, set off bombs, and more. One thousand suffragettes were in jail. Many of these prisoners went on hunger strikes. I don't think any of these people would have been dissuaded by fines and community service.
  - Bostonian 4y ago
    The mainstream pro-life movement condemned the murder of abortion doctors. It achieved success through the political process -- supporting GOP presidents who appointed judges that overturned Roe and electing state legislators who enacted abortion restrictions.
    - eesmith 4y ago
      And mainstream environmentalists condemned eco-terrorists and mainstream animal rights activists condemned the militant actions of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty. I'm sure mainstream climate activates will also condemn militant actions in the name of CO2 emissions. But as the video points out, people talk about the non-violent civil rights movement, and ignore the militant civil rights movement. ("A riot is the language of the unheard"); ignore the militancy of the suffragette movement in the UK; etc. The question is: why do/did all of these movements have/had a militant arm willing to break the law, while the modern anti-global warming doesn't. gus_massa suggested it was due to the risk of being caught, fined, and punished. Which doesn't make sense to me given the examples I listed of people willing to risk much more severe consequences in the name of their causes.
giantg2 4y ago
The funny part is that these sorts of acts increase consumption to fix or replace the destruction, which generally involves a lot of C02. "just by running keys down the side of them, at a cost to the owner of several thousand pounds a time." I imagine quite a few owners would stop caring. At least here in the US, you have to not give a shit about having a nice car in the city due to the high risk of collision, side swipes/mirror, vandalism, theft, terrible potholes, etc.
- eesmith 4y ago
  It changes the cost-benefit analysis away from buying an SUV. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/07/stereotype-of-chelsea-tractor-reflects-reality-of-urban-suv-sales-says-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/07/stereoty... say 10% of the new cars in Chelsea are Land Rover SUVs and "Three-quarters of the 360,000 SUVs sold in 2019 in the UK were bought by people living in towns and cities" If all six thousand SUV owners paid their several thousand pounds and kept their SUVs, while 5% of potential new SUV owners switched to another petrol car ("2019 average emissions of petrol SUVs were 134g/km compared to 121g/km of other petrol cars") then the overall carbon consumption decreases. > At least here in the US, you have to not give a shit about having a nice car in the city I think it's fair to say the owner of a Land Rover SUVs who stereo-typically uses it "for the school run", gives a shit about having a nice car. You'll need to get the side swipes/mirror fixed by the next MOT test.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "It changes the cost-benefit analysis away from buying an SUV." How? Aren't people forced to pay restitution? Isn't there insurance? "I think it's fair to say the owner of a Land Rover SUVs who stereo-typically uses it "for the school run", gives a shit about having a nice car." So it sounds like they won't be deterred if the argument is that they want what they want.
    - eesmith 4y ago
      > How? Aren't people forced to pay restitution? Isn't there insurance? My views of this topic are shallow. I've seen the Philosophy Tube video I linked to, and read a few related essays. If you really want the "how", I'm the wrong person to ask for details. The video references Malm's "How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire" - perhaps look there instead. My shallow views on this specific example of keying SUVs are: 1) not everyone will be caught, 2) what happens if the activist doesn't have the money to pay full restitution?, 3) insurance goes up if this becomes a wide-spread practice, 4) the SUV will be in the shop to get fixed, adding some nuisance overhead, and 5) the the bubble the SUV owners live in will get smaller. A DDG search for anti-fur protests, which included throwing red paint onto fur clothing, gluing locks shut, and more, found https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/03/11/animal-rights-groups-harass-fur-wearers/13d66093-53f6-4a4a-a988-1c8d928180d1/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/03/11/a... with a related argument: "giving selfish people a selfish reason to stop wearing fur coats, even if they don't give a damn about the animal". So, this might all be summarized as "giving selfish people a selfish reason to stop driving SUVs, even if they don't give a damn about CO2 emissions." > So it sounds like they won't be deterred if the argument is that they want what they want. What they want is a nice car. There are other nice cars besides Land Rover SUVs. Including ones with lower CO2 emissions.

Bostonian 4y ago

"blowing up petrol stations" can get people killed. Someone who advocates such terrorism does not have a valid complaint if they are the target of violence.

eesmith 4y ago
I see two forms of complaint you might be referring to. I don't believe anyone carrying out "MASSIVEN KRIMINELLEN GEWALTTATEN" will fail to understand how the state-backed violence will be used against them. So yes, if they complain about that response, then I don't think it's all that valid. However, that does not mean that the original complaint - the lack of required and urgent response to the climate change crisis - is not valid. Suffragettes carried out a bombing and arson campaign. "Places that wealthy people, typically men, frequented were also burnt and destroyed whilst left unattended so that there was little risk to life, including cricket pavilions, horse-racing pavilions, churches, castles and the second homes of the wealthy. They also burnt the slogan "Votes for Women" into the grass of golf courses." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_bombing_and_arson_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_bombing_and_arson_... . That doesn't invalidate the complaint about the lack of woman suffrage.
codefreeordie 4y ago
People love political violence in support of their views. It's only bad when their adversaries turn it back on them

gus_massa 4y ago

> Is it because the people who feel strongly about climate change are simply too nice, too educated, to do anything of the sort? Because a surveillance camera will catch you and you will have to pay to fix the car and some community service as part of your probation.

eesmith 4y ago
We see pro-abortion activists in the US arrested during protests. We've seen anti-abortion activists murder doctors. We've seen Q-Anon supporters arrested for their attempted coup. We saw anti-nuclear activists jailed for their vandalism (famously including a nun). We've seen eco-terrorists and anti-vivisectionists sent to jail. Some suffragettes broke the law, deliberately and in public, and the more militant suffragettes committed vandalism, set off bombs, and more. One thousand suffragettes were in jail. Many of these prisoners went on hunger strikes. I don't think any of these people would have been dissuaded by fines and community service.
- Bostonian 4y ago
  The mainstream pro-life movement condemned the murder of abortion doctors. It achieved success through the political process -- supporting GOP presidents who appointed judges that overturned Roe and electing state legislators who enacted abortion restrictions.
  - eesmith 4y ago
    And mainstream environmentalists condemned eco-terrorists and mainstream animal rights activists condemned the militant actions of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty. I'm sure mainstream climate activates will also condemn militant actions in the name of CO2 emissions. But as the video points out, people talk about the non-violent civil rights movement, and ignore the militant civil rights movement. ("A riot is the language of the unheard"); ignore the militancy of the suffragette movement in the UK; etc. The question is: why do/did all of these movements have/had a militant arm willing to break the law, while the modern anti-global warming doesn't. gus_massa suggested it was due to the risk of being caught, fined, and punished. Which doesn't make sense to me given the examples I listed of people willing to risk much more severe consequences in the name of their causes.

giantg2 4y ago

The funny part is that these sorts of acts increase consumption to fix or replace the destruction, which generally involves a lot of C02. "just by running keys down the side of them, at a cost to the owner of several thousand pounds a time." I imagine quite a few owners would stop caring. At least here in the US, you have to not give a shit about having a nice car in the city due to the high risk of collision, side swipes/mirror, vandalism, theft, terrible potholes, etc.

eesmith 4y ago
It changes the cost-benefit analysis away from buying an SUV. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/07/stereotype-of-chelsea-tractor-reflects-reality-of-urban-suv-sales-says-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/07/stereoty... say 10% of the new cars in Chelsea are Land Rover SUVs and "Three-quarters of the 360,000 SUVs sold in 2019 in the UK were bought by people living in towns and cities" If all six thousand SUV owners paid their several thousand pounds and kept their SUVs, while 5% of potential new SUV owners switched to another petrol car ("2019 average emissions of petrol SUVs were 134g/km compared to 121g/km of other petrol cars") then the overall carbon consumption decreases. > At least here in the US, you have to not give a shit about having a nice car in the city I think it's fair to say the owner of a Land Rover SUVs who stereo-typically uses it "for the school run", gives a shit about having a nice car. You'll need to get the side swipes/mirror fixed by the next MOT test.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "It changes the cost-benefit analysis away from buying an SUV." How? Aren't people forced to pay restitution? Isn't there insurance? "I think it's fair to say the owner of a Land Rover SUVs who stereo-typically uses it "for the school run", gives a shit about having a nice car." So it sounds like they won't be deterred if the argument is that they want what they want.
  - eesmith 4y ago
    > How? Aren't people forced to pay restitution? Isn't there insurance? My views of this topic are shallow. I've seen the Philosophy Tube video I linked to, and read a few related essays. If you really want the "how", I'm the wrong person to ask for details. The video references Malm's "How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire" - perhaps look there instead. My shallow views on this specific example of keying SUVs are: 1) not everyone will be caught, 2) what happens if the activist doesn't have the money to pay full restitution?, 3) insurance goes up if this becomes a wide-spread practice, 4) the SUV will be in the shop to get fixed, adding some nuisance overhead, and 5) the the bubble the SUV owners live in will get smaller. A DDG search for anti-fur protests, which included throwing red paint onto fur clothing, gluing locks shut, and more, found https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/03/11/animal-rights-groups-harass-fur-wearers/13d66093-53f6-4a4a-a988-1c8d928180d1/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/03/11/a... with a related argument: "giving selfish people a selfish reason to stop wearing fur coats, even if they don't give a damn about the animal". So, this might all be summarized as "giving selfish people a selfish reason to stop driving SUVs, even if they don't give a damn about CO2 emissions." > So it sounds like they won't be deterred if the argument is that they want what they want. What they want is a nice car. There are other nice cars besides Land Rover SUVs. Including ones with lower CO2 emissions.