Tougher laws said to be inspiring clandestine attacks on the ‘property and machinery’ of the fossil fuel economy
Edward Abbey, ecodefense, monkey-wrenching, it’s not new. Ecotage came out in ‘72. The monkey wrench gang came out in ‘75.
You’re totally right, direct action for ecological/environmental/etc is not something new.
And thank you for your input. You mention some stuff I did not know and I will gladly look into.
“Those who made peaceful reform impossible have made violent revolution inevitable.”
Countries are making the act of protest itself criminal. If the risk of penalty is in the same ballpark I can see how some folks will elect for direct action over pleading for public attention that never seems to come.
there’s an old saying: “you may as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb”.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
why climate activists are turning to sabotage instead of protest
Because violence and sabotage brings attention
Not just attention, but increases risk so companies avoid such activities if they know the reward (dividend paid to shareholders) doesn’t justify the risk (equipment being damaged, assets being burned)
Don’t forget the cost of insurance. That’s the big one. If it stops being possible to insure fossil fuel infrastructure, then investments shift to renewables that can be insured. It’s pretty simple economic math.
Edit: that also works in all levels of the economy. Pipeline constitution vehicle get torched every time there’s a pipeline built? Uninsurable therefore reduce or stop investment. Cas in cities always get flat tires and vandalized? People won’t buy cars they can’t insure.
Also insurance companies that provide insurance for such companies are themselves valid targets for direct actions to cause economic loss.
The goal of both is to start reducing or simply stop large scale actions that are doing damage to the environment. If peaceful protesting is being prevented or simply is just being ignored, then the next step is directly stopping things. If it’s vandalism or misdirected damage, that’s not really accomplishing the goal and can be used against activists and their message.
The caveat is that most changes either through successful protests or more direct measures will harm others at some point, but I fail to see a way around that when we live in a society where everyone is dependent in many ways on the society continuing its destructive path. The longer we wait to change, the worse it will be for more people, and at some point it won’t be protesters that cause the change, but the environment or some other factors like demand exceeding supply that cause huge suffering.
Vandalism is a crime. Causing economic harm to a business that is causing mass extinction is sabatogue, not a crime.
They are making protests illegal or almost impossible in some places
The fucking Guardian, of all papers, is partially paywalled now. Either you give up your privacy, or you hand over money.
Any chance anyone has a workaround so I can read this?
Check out this archived link of the article
Thank you!
When you risk as much when protesting. Why not ? This is less risky too. A protest police know when and how to arrest people.
The machine must be prevented from working at all. Good work.
“Direct action gets the goods.”
Luigi had countless fans metaphorically sucking his dick before it came out that he allegedly did it. I wonder if a similar thing could happen with an oil refinery or something.
I wonder how difficult it is to sabotage one of those gigantic coal digging machines.
