Maybe I'm being naive, but I think that a lot of the responses are being a little too cynical about this question. Honestly, I think that the main answer is that a lot of people feel pretty desperate about what is going to happen to us because of climate change, but also have no idea what to do about it. The kinds of actions that Stop Oil undertake require very little organisation and are very visible. I don't know if they are actually 'doing something', but it definitely has the appeal of looking like 'doing something'. And, it probably does make the people involved feel better just because they are doing something, which is ultimately I think what underpins a lot of people's activism - I know it does mine. I think we have to bare in mind that the populations of many western societies have essentially been politically demobilised for several decades (this was a key part of neoliberalism's programme and was very successful). They/we have almost no experience or knowledge of how to build political power, and (in the UK and US, at least) have basically no institutions through which to try to do so. I think this is the result of that.
TLDR: People are desperate and feel like they have to do something, but don't know what to do. Gluing yourself to the road or spraying paint on a bank has the appearance of doing something, so people latch on to doing that.
Just Stop Oil and other philanthropy funded climate protest groups are just a clever outlet to give the most distressed people a harmless way to feel like they are doing something. The organizers get to make money off donations and the members get to feel like they are actually doing something. The most die hard members will get themselves arrested and locked up for taking illegal but ultimately low impact actions, which is also useful to those who fear things actually escalating.
I'm honestly expecting within the next decade an iconic moment of "mr president a second plane has hit the offshore oil rig". It is only a matter of time before this starts happening, we already have people setting themselves on fire in protest (in the US of all places) and the logical next step is one of those people wanting to die making a statement decides to truly escalate. Once it happens a couple times and the perpetrators manifestos somehow don't get suppressed, it will start happening regularly because that is how it always works with this kind of thing. There will also be the US and European government response that will be as brutal and escalatory as the war on drugs, war on terror, and every other counter insurgency that only ever causes even more of what they're fighting by hurting millions of uninvolved people.
edit: yes, I know that this is a borderline fed post and maybe I'm just too cynical
Theres really nothing fed at all about this post, its just solid analysis that I have also pretty much reached. Its really weird how we in america at least keep having these huge moments of distilled crystalized political crises like George Floyd and Uvalde, and they are constantly foundered and writhe in powerlessness before dissipating back into the ether before the masses can act politically to abolish the conditions that cause these crises.
If anything the perceived nature of the state being an unstoppable and omnipotent controller of violence will be its downfall. It really is much more fragile than any of us really know, and that will make the time after it collapses to be insanely important for the rest of the future of humanity.
Maybe I'm being naive, but I think that a lot of the responses are being a little too cynical about this question. Honestly, I think that the main answer is that a lot of people feel pretty desperate about what is going to happen to us because of climate change, but also have no idea what to do about it. The kinds of actions that Stop Oil undertake require very little organisation and are very visible. I don't know if they are actually 'doing something', but it definitely has the appeal of looking like 'doing something'. And, it probably does make the people involved feel better just because they are doing something, which is ultimately I think what underpins a lot of people's activism - I know it does mine. I think we have to bare in mind that the populations of many western societies have essentially been politically demobilised for several decades (this was a key part of neoliberalism's programme and was very successful). They/we have almost no experience or knowledge of how to build political power, and (in the UK and US, at least) have basically no institutions through which to try to do so. I think this is the result of that.
TLDR: People are desperate and feel like they have to do something, but don't know what to do. Gluing yourself to the road or spraying paint on a bank has the appearance of doing something, so people latch on to doing that.
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Just Stop Oil and other philanthropy funded climate protest groups are just a clever outlet to give the most distressed people a harmless way to feel like they are doing something. The organizers get to make money off donations and the members get to feel like they are actually doing something. The most die hard members will get themselves arrested and locked up for taking illegal but ultimately low impact actions, which is also useful to those who fear things actually escalating.
I'm honestly expecting within the next decade an iconic moment of "mr president a second plane has hit the offshore oil rig". It is only a matter of time before this starts happening, we already have people setting themselves on fire in protest (in the US of all places) and the logical next step is one of those people wanting to die making a statement decides to truly escalate. Once it happens a couple times and the perpetrators manifestos somehow don't get suppressed, it will start happening regularly because that is how it always works with this kind of thing. There will also be the US and European government response that will be as brutal and escalatory as the war on drugs, war on terror, and every other counter insurgency that only ever causes even more of what they're fighting by hurting millions of uninvolved people.
edit: yes, I know that this is a borderline fed post and maybe I'm just too cynical
Theres really nothing fed at all about this post, its just solid analysis that I have also pretty much reached. Its really weird how we in america at least keep having these huge moments of distilled crystalized political crises like George Floyd and Uvalde, and they are constantly foundered and writhe in powerlessness before dissipating back into the ether before the masses can act politically to abolish the conditions that cause these crises.
If anything the perceived nature of the state being an unstoppable and omnipotent controller of violence will be its downfall. It really is much more fragile than any of us really know, and that will make the time after it collapses to be insanely important for the rest of the future of humanity.