Extinction Rebellion

[kwackers]

The "inconvenience" of ET protests has not affected me directly, and living out here in the sticks I think that is likely to remain the case. But I wonder if for commuters in London, if disruption becomes a regular thing, ET protests will become like roadworks and Tube strikes, another part of life's daily battle, and a negative thing. Perhaps initial support for ET aims might become strained and the disruption might become self defeating.

You started by answering your own question.

Most people aren't affected and most people are whom it's aimed at.
Doesn't matter if a small number of folk who would have otherwise supported them swing the other way as long as the message gets out.

If the messenger rather than the message is an issue for someone then I'd be inclined to question their motives anyway.

Sortof reminds me of drivers coming up with excuse after excuse as to why they don't need to take care around cyclists. I think some folk realise they're a bit crap and so look for excuses to justify their crapiness and shifting the blame is always a good starting point.

[661-Pete]

The "inconvenience" of ET protests has not affected me directly, and living out here in the sticks I think that is likely to remain the case. But I wonder if for commuters in London, if disruption becomes a regular thing, ET protests will become like roadworks and Tube strikes, another part of life's daily battle, and a negative thing. Perhaps initial support for ET aims might become strained and the disruption might become self defeating.

Aha, so it's not "XR" or even "ER" now, it's "ET" is it? You been watching too many Steven Spielberg movies, pwa?

[Cugel]

"Sir Christopher Hohn, who is worth £1.2 billion, gave £50,000 to the group, because there is an “urgent need” for people to wake up to climate change."

Yet another super rich "save the planet " warrior... who will never be affected by any changes to the climate .... Small change from the £500 million divorce settlement to his ex-wife ....

Nice video on a cycling website this morning of 2 female "eco-warriors" getting out of mummies car and verbally abusing passing cyclists ...
Jesus Wept ..
Find it yourself ...( it's not difficult )...

Come one ER, Take your fight to Russia, China, India .... not much chance of that is there ...................

I would like to make you feel better about your obvious angsts, guilts and other worries that you are a profligate planet-warmer fellow. Would it help if I could work up some hypocritical acts or be even more smug than I already am about the solar panels? DIsplacement behaviours (your lashes at the XRers and so forth) will help with your angsts a bit. But you will eventually have to face reality rather than look for some way to avoid the issue by poking at those even more anxious about that issue than you are.

On the other hand, I have to admit that, personally, I see no chance of stopping the human damage to not just the atmosphere but everything else, including each other and everything else that lives (or used to until we made it extinct). Unlike you, I would like to stop doing the damage myself. Perhaps I am just a girlyman snowflake?

Still, have a good time flying to your next holiday. One only hopes that a bit of warmed-up weather doesn't eat your 'plane and everyone on it. Mind, you won't be encased in a glacier for 70 years, as used to happen to them as crashed over the mountains.....

Cugel

[Mick F]

Does all this really matter? We've only been on the earth a dog-watch. Million years or so. Does it matter what we do?

Stegosaurus was already fossilised when Tyrannosaurus came along, then they were wiped out by an asteroid.

[pwa]

I think some folk realise they're a bit crap and so look for excuses to justify their crapiness and shifting the blame is always a good starting point.

Aren't we all like that to some extent? We all have reasons why we can't change this or that thing we do that isn't ideal, but that bloke around the corner with a motorhome on his drive is just taking the proverbial. I'm guilty of that sometimes, and I bet we all are. I wonder, though, if sometimes we like to think we are making changes for the better because we choose to, rather than because someone else is forcing us to. There is a lot of potential goodwill out there in suburbia towards environmental improvement, which certainly does need a bit of adrenaline added but it is there nonetheless. I was talking to a man washing his Jag a few days ago and we discussed electric cars. He was keen, but was holding back due to infrastructure worries. His wife cycles to work and has done so for a couple of years. Before that she went by Landrover Discovery. If you saw them on the road, in the Jag, you might dismiss them simply as part of the problem, which they are, but they are also part of the way forward. We need to be making a positive pathway for people like that to move in a direction they already feel attracted to.

[pwa]

The "inconvenience" of ET protests has not affected me directly, and living out here in the sticks I think that is likely to remain the case. But I wonder if for commuters in London, if disruption becomes a regular thing, ET protests will become like roadworks and Tube strikes, another part of life's daily battle, and a negative thing. Perhaps initial support for ET aims might become strained and the disruption might become self defeating.

Aha, so it's not "XR" or even "ER" now, it's "ET" is it? You been watching too many Steven Spielberg movies, pwa?

Enjoy the typo

[reohn2]

Does all this really matter? We've only been on the earth a dog-watch. Million years or so. Does it matter what we do?.....

Ultimately not,but relatively very much so.

[kwackers]

Aren't we all like that to some extent? We all have reasons why we can't change this or that thing we do that isn't ideal, <snip>

Sort of, I don't do enough.
But I'm not aggressively against doing anything at all like some and so I don't get angry when other people point out my hypocrisy.

I've maintained all the time that the only people that can really do anything is the government. Once person swapping their Discovery for a bicycle is great - but ultimately meaningless.
The solution is big changes, money pumped into projects, appropriate taxation etc. Not me and you fiddling around the edges.
Of course if everyone fiddled around the edges that would be significant - trouble is they wont, not without help.

Anyway

[Mike Sales]

Does all this really matter? We've only been on the earth a dog-watch. Million years or so. Does it matter what we do?.....

Ultimately not,but relatively very much so.

Life on earth will recover no doubt.
I fear there will be quite a lot of human suffering on the way.

[pwa]

Aren't we all like that to some extent? We all have reasons why we can't change this or that thing we do that isn't ideal, <snip>

Sort of, I don't do enough.
But I'm not aggressively against doing anything at all like some and so I don't get angry when other people point out my hypocrisy.

I've maintained all the time that the only people that can really do anything is the government. Once person swapping their Discovery for a bicycle is great - but ultimately meaningless.
The solution is big changes, money pumped into projects, appropriate taxation etc. Not me and you fiddling around the edges.
Of course if everyone fiddled around the edges that would be significant - trouble is they wont, not without help.

Anyway

The bloke with the Jag said he was waiting for more charging facilities before he made the change to electric. Which fits with what you say. He can't do that by himself. He needs government to facilitate a change he wants to make.

[landsurfer]

You, of course, see fit to do different. Talk about treating this forum, and forummers on it, with contempt...!

Lets talk about it then ... maybe, just maybe we should only talk about cycling. There are hundreds of for and against ER forums, political forums, conspiracy theory forums, climate change denial forums...
Why even raise political environmental issues on here ?
I've never treated any of the many posters on this forum that i've actually met with a hint of contempt. And would never treat those i have yet to meet with contempt. I enjoy my conversations on here, especially deciphering Cudgels missives.

Contempt "If you have contempt for someone or something, you have no respect for them or think that they are unimportant." I have never felt that way towards anyone on this forum .... and breath....

[Tangled Metal]

I read a piece about ev users that put a few myths away. Stories of people travelling distances with EVs without any issues with charging. They plan their journey to stop at regular intervals and charge up while they take a break. Bear in mind you're recommended to take a break from driving every 2 hours. They got to the ferry port to get to shetland and the charging point was not working so they drove a few minutes and charged up at another point. Others doing the same. Even remote locations have them.

This might become an issue in more built up areas perhaps but they're being put in all over the place these days. Putting of getting an ev and driving a jag in the meantime is simply daft imho. Demand drives facilities but facilities drive take up vicious circle? The only way to break it is to make the jump and manage it.

[Mike Sales]

We live on a beautiful planet with an incredibly intricate and beautiful biome which has evolved over many millions of years. We have grown into a marvellous complicated animal, evolved to suit this planet, which is the only one we know of at all comparable.
Instead of valuing this unique home, we have treated it like a rubbish dump, and are trashing its systems, out of greed, but not out of ignorance.
We are destroying the marvellous plants and animals co-evolved to live here.
The upheaval to what we call civilisation will be colossal.
Seems a pity, and we should be ashamed of this wanton vandalism.

[pwa]

I read a piece about ev users that put a few myths away. Stories of people travelling distances with EVs without any issues with charging. They plan their journey to stop at regular intervals and charge up while they take a break. Bear in mind you're recommended to take a break from driving every 2 hours. They got to the ferry port to get to shetland and the charging point was not working so they drove a few minutes and charged up at another point. Others doing the same. Even remote locations have them.

This might become an issue in more built up areas perhaps but they're being put in all over the place these days. Putting of getting an ev and driving a jag in the meantime is simply daft imho. Demand drives facilities but facilities drive take up vicious circle? The only way to break it is to make the jump and manage it.

There was a piece on BBC tv a week or two ago that took the example of a man from (I think) Sheffield who has splashed out on an electric Jag and tried to go to Cornwall for a holiday. He listed all the things that went wrong. Firstly, he had to set up about five accounts with all the charging providers he might need. Then when he had done all the research on charging facilities, downloaded the apps and all that, he set off. There then followed a list of mishaps. Charging facilities that didn't work, others that were not compatible with his particular car, facilities blocked by parked cars that were not charging, facilities that appeared on apps but did not exist on the ground, treks from one potential facility to another due to these problems, culminating in the return journey from Cornwall taking eleven hours due to having to divert for a charge that one facility after another failed with. He returned his electric Jag and got a refund. The piece then went around the Sheffield area with him and observed problems with charging facilities that mean that if you have an electric car you just cannot go far from home without stress. That needs to change.

[661-Pete]

Lets talk about it then ... maybe, just maybe we should only talk about cycling. There are hundreds of for and against ER forums, political forums, conspiracy theory forums, climate change denial forums...

True - but I'm not a member of any of those forums: I happen to be firmly lodged in this one. Yes I do have a few other forum memberships. One about bridge - wouldn't interest you unless you're a bridge-player. One about butterflies. Oh and I mustn't forget the Flat Earth forum (use a different ID there - and it's all good fun)!

Why even raise political environmental issues on here ?

Why indeed? Some forums come down heavily on contributors who deviate from the forum's main topic. This one doesn't - and I welcome that, up to a point. I suppose some people may not.

The fact remains, I don't know where you got that story from. If it's true, well all it shows that you can't account for everyone's behaviour in supporting a common cause (bit like cycling really - remember Alliston?). But until I see a source, I'm inclined to disbelieve it.