This was the case for 70 years and thus far all the mad man where all to wise not to press it, because at the end of the day they know how it will end.
We didn't stop all human activity or activism for the last 70 years and neither should we have done so.
This is the biggest Whataboutism if have ever heart of.
I'll be up front and admit that I don't know what activism FOR the cause would be effective. But that doesn't stop me from knowing what isn't effective and what is actually wholly counterproductive.
The reason why this doesn't look rational or 'for the cause' is because the target in question really has nothing to do with the petroleum industry. Johannes Vermeer painted this art in 1665 before the industrial revolution. The subject is just a woman with a pearl earring. So neither the painter nor the work of art have any persuasion or symbolism that encourages fossil fuel use. It seems totally illogical to commit an act such as this. I think the public at large sees no connection between what the activists went after and what they are trying to achieve. When that happens, it delegitimizes the movement in peoples eyes.
Agreed. The argument seems to be that the targeted pieces are "oil" paintings. But surely they know that the oil in these masterworks is derived from renewable sources and that therefore makes no sense, oil in oil paint is not petroleum based. So it seems the argument is disingenuous and there is a conspiracy. On the other hand I have realized that very few things people do are rational so the assumption common in economics theories that people are making rational choices I am not convinced by. Personally I think these people are all just crazy. However I can not rule out conspiracy to discredit. Like UFOs, this movement is an enigma.
What about this is counterproductive? People get angry, emotional involved. After a few minutes they realize that the glass in front of the painting is not that expensive and all is well. Or is it? That's when they have time to think about destruction and maybe what these people just said about climate change.
What picture exactly is of course not important. Any popular picture with a glass plate in front of it could have done the job. I don't they have any ax to grind about Vermeer, nor will the controversy have any connections to him or his art.
>"After a few minutes they realize that the glass in front of the painting is not that expensive and all is well. Or is it? That's when they have time to think about destruction and maybe what these people just said about climate change."
I don't think this is true, for most people. People do not generally stop and think in a deep and reflective way after getting angry about something. What these activists did was not inspiring and it did not look like justice. They aren't Rosa Parks 2.0, they're people throwing liquid at valuable inanimate objects which people find beautiful while gluing themselves to surfaces at a museum. There is no powerful symbolism of defiance here, this is not speaking truth to power. They just look like childish weirdos. Childish weirdos do not make me self-reflect and question if I'm actually the one doing something wrong.
> the target in question really has nothing to do with the petroleum industry.
This is correct. The target is an irreplaceable piece of art. It's supposed to stand in for the earth (or some subset like nature). That's the point. The stand-in for the petroleum industry is whatever commodity they are throwing at it
It's also pretty logical because it doesn't actually cause permanent damage, but sensationalist headline writers make it seems like it did. So the stories get more virality then they otherwise would.
> What would you expect a rational actor to do FOR the cause?
Di Caprio is rich and support nature conservation. Is not really so much difficult if you are rich. You just buy a chunk of land with a unique ecosystem, keep people from entering on it and you save ten species from going extinct. Is as simple as that.
What I would -not- expect is the children of some millionaires convincing poor or dumb people to perform humiliating, illegal and dangerous stunts in public for a small fee.
Lets imagine the outrage if one influencer would be caught paying homeless people to glue their heads and hands to a wall, and videotaping them while claiming, hey! I do it for the environment!.
This is mocking ecologists, manipulating poor people to perform degrading acts in public and endangering invaluable art. Three in one, all in the same stinking package.
This kind of fun is unacceptable, and should have consequences.
> Is not really so much difficult if you are rich. You just buy a chunk of land with a unique ecosystem, keep people from entering on it and you save ten species from going extinct. Is as simple as that.
Oh do you mean that land in Hawaii that he blocked native caretakers from accessing and has since been taken over by invasive species?
look at any other 'eco-terrorist' group, you'll find more direct action rather than propagandist actions intended to influence the public.
the Animal Liberation Front didn't ask the public to destroy slaughter-houses. the sea-shepherds didn't ask the public to attack whaling vessels, and to give an example from fiction 'Avalanche' didn't ask the public to attack power stations.
I have yet so see any argument why this should be ineffective or even highly so. Or why this should be any less effective than anything else that has been tried.
With regards to your article: I think the authors answers his own questions: These are serious scientists. They told everybody in the whole world that we are all going to die (I'm paraphrasing, but you get it) in the most adult and sophisticated way possible: Highly prestigious peer reviewed journals, conferences and so on for several decades. Nobody listed. THAT was highly ineffective. Now it seems like time for a change in strategy.
And given how very well it worked for the yellow vests and their infantile demands it looks like a good strategy.
No, the serious scientists did not tell everybody in the world. I would challenge that assertion. As to "time for a change in strategy". Sure, why not. Turn off the lights and go home. Remember the quote from the attempted Sunflowers incident:
"Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice?" ... "are you more concerned about the protection of a painting? Or the protection of our planet and people? The cost of living crisis is part of the oil crisis. Fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold hungry families. They can't even afford to heat a tin of soup".
I will let you think on this. "No new oil" is the supposed solution to unaffordable fuel. And cold.
Sure, no new oil. I guess it is an oil painting. The good news? Maybe they are beginning to learn to not make statements.
That's a huge subjective leap to say time has disproved people who consider PETA and their methods ridiculous.
I would consider myself a person in favor of the ethical treatment of animals, and PETA campaigns like (the now quite old, but eminently memorable) "rebranding fish as sea kittens" [1] are so far out in la-la land, so ridiculous, and go so far in letting perfect be the enemy of good ("let's go after those unethical pescatarians!") that the organization loses credibility.
It doesn't help that in the intervening years, my main interaction with the organization (as well as Oxfam, ASPCA, etc) has been shady third party donation subscription hawkers trying to earn commissions off of tricking me into acknowledging them on lunch hour.
If there have been improvements in the treatment of animals over time, I'd make my own subjective leap to say they happened in spite of PETA, not because of it.
Yes, peta are profoundly unlikeable people, back then and now. I don't like them, I think their holocaust comparisons are unforgivable and neither am i vegan. My point is that they are living rent free in peoples heads and do actually change attitudes. Because there was a huge change and i just don't see who else could have caused that.
My point was: Effective activism does not have to be likeable. Going for the opposite seems a viable strategy.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you implying that the world has come to accept PETA's cause. Because while some issues are dramatically different than 20-30 years ago (e.g. marijuana legalization, gay marriage), I don't think the bar has shifted very much on animal welfare.
Of course everybody thinks PETA as lunatics, maybe rightfully. But it was them made veganism a thing. It's mainstream now. I guess about between 2% and 5% of the population and growing. Burger king and McDonalds sell vegan options. That's absurdly successful. When they started it was literally about 5 people.
I don't think most vegans will quote them for their change, but their activism that gave animal welfare attention in a attention economy, when it would otherwise simply not have gotten any.
I think globalisation plays a part in this too. Some Asian cultures are vegetarian or vegan and increased ties with the rest of the world has spread their culture too.
I often eat at a Nepalese vegan restaurant and the food sure beats McDonald's or burger king. Not to mention they actually believe in veganism, they don't just have a token veggie burger on the menu because the market wants it.
They even prohibit consumption of baby food with meat on the premises :)
Prohibition is the very issue. Instead, market whatever vegan you got as better for environment (if that is your goal).
As for prohibiting baby food, I would kindly tell them to go fuck themselves. Nobody is going to prohibit a parent from feeding their baby with food already prepared and bought. Its exactly this type of rhetoric which makes moderates skip on vegan community (and I eat vegan dishes on a daily basis!)
I don't want whoever to believe, I want a neat combination of healthy, tasty, and good for environment/animal, but in a spectrum. Not extremes, not any toxic belief systems.
(As for McDs and BK there are better veggie and vegan options available but I prefer BK vegan way over McDs vegan, hands down. That we have these options is a sign of time. When I was full-time vegan it was a nightmare to go out eating. Now we have New York Pizza delivering delicious vegan shoarma pizzas.)
And they fail again and again. Peta (and similar groups), are responsible of a lot of acts that can only described as environmental terrorism. And they did it for the money, not for the cause.
What? Anyway the point is that fur was at one point, not that long ago, quite common and fashionable, and now most people have never even seen a fur coat. This could be simply fashion (we dress a lot less formally now in general) but IMO you can also trace it pretty directly to PETA throwing paint on people wearing them. Why buy an expensive fur if somebody is just going to ruin it with paint or, worse, you just look like an asshole wearing it?
> Why buy an expensive fur if somebody is just going to ruin it with paint or, worse, you just look like an asshole wearing it?
Why buy an expensive tablet made of nasty coltan if a brat is just going to assault you and jump over it?, oh wait... in fact they don't do it.
This hypocrites bully grandmas "in the name of ecology" while using all the time products made of materials that destroy the African rainforests and must be replaced each five years occupying entire landfills, and never think twice about it.
And in their totalitarian utopia we all wear plastic replacements. Of course plastic fur is super-ecological. Have you heard of the problem with particles of "micro-leather" or "micro-fox-hair" polluting the oceans for decades?. Me neither.
They are directly responsible of the death of animals and plants. Ruined clothes that would last an entire life otherwise, have now to be replaced at a much faster pace and hidden from sight, so more small carnivores will die for the children paint.
They liberate chimps in the zoos with the results that the chimps must be shoot and killed by the same people that cared for them for years. Great job lads!. This animals could have a long quiet life. Save the chimps! under soil
They blocked fixing the American grey squirrel invasion in Italy when it was possible. Grey is a squirrel species know for eating complete rings of bark and killing entire branches. Now the grey squirrels are killing the young trees and also propagating a virus that kills the native red squirrels. They were told before by the zoologists that the squirrels would be a problem. They just don't care.
They did the same when the first racoons invaded Japan in 90's. Now the rampant coons cause millionaire damages in agriculture, threaten japanese unique biodiversity and scratch and urinate over 800 years old japanese temples damaging invaluable cultural artifacts. They were warned about it. Stupid, stupid people.
They liberate alien carnivores that kill millions of birds. They never apologize by this, or showed the slightest sign of remorse.
In resume, they are poison for a sensible ecological management and always take the wrong side in terms of nature conservation. This is what happens when you put toddlers to do surgery.
But of course the rest of people are not moral enough and not saint enough. Not like them.
Might actually happen in Bulgaria. And yet, for the most part, people are overreacting. I for one have lived in a temporary unheated german apartment with horrible insulation (build around 1955, not upgraded). It sounds way worse than it is. The only actually unpleasant thing is washing your hair. Just keep an eye on the humidity.
I won't heat my (different) apartment this winter. It will be ok.
German policy has always been that this pipeline is a stranded assert once russia shuts it down.
Keeping this as a lever and credible threat is vastly important for maintaining a somewhat secure supply of gasoline for east germany. When speaking about a energy catastrophe you really, really want this pipeline shut.
In fact germany has taken measures to make sure that the pipelines will not become operational again. Confiscating and removing compressors and reuse them for the planned LNG terminals.
If anybody profits from these explosions, it's germany.
And russian natural gas revenues hit ground and are now searching for oil themselfs, now.
Because the west was too greedy, and thus to cautious about sanctions when this war started in 2014. For russia war actually looked more profitable that the status quo, and i can see why.
