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AOC Says Climate Movement Must Become 'Too Big and Too Radical to Ignore'
(www.commondreams.org)
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
In Australia we've just essentially criminalised climate protesting. Climate protestors now risk a huge fine and even jail time. A lot of people suspect it's because governments are preparing in advance for what might become a huge movement that they can't control. So they're trying to disincentivise people before shit hits the fan.
That sounds about right. Sadly for them, no manner of law is going to stop the mobs when people start going hungry.
Between this post and the responses to it so far, everyone reading needs to take note:
1- PEACEFUL PROTEST DOES NOT WORK AND NEVER HAS. Peaceniks are easily ignored. Say some nice things to them, tell them their concerns are being heard, then they go away. And before anyone says fucking MLK I will remind them that HE WAS SHOT AND KILLED
2- PROTESTS THAT REQUIRE PERMISSIONS AND PERMITS ARE NOT PROTESTS. If permission can ve granted then permission can also be denied, or regulated into meaninglessness and devoid of media coverage.
3- PROTESTS ARE CRIMINALIZED BY CRIMINALS. They do not respect the law or the social contract, and they have driven a wedge between the people and the elites. Their next plan is violence and only a complete fool would think that arming up and being prepared for violence is a bad idea.
I'd say it's more that peaceful protest and violent protest are symbiotic. Peaceful movements attract broad support, and ensure you can not easily be dismissed as extremists and violently suppressed. Violent protest show that you can not be ignored without consequence.
The idea that they are at odds is harmful.
Huh, never thought of it that way, but that makes a lot of sense. Kind of a carrot and stick approach.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/environment/2023/09/16/trial-protesting-against-woodside this is one of the examples of what's happening in Australia right now. Counter terrorism police raiding people's homes for vandalism (if you can even call it that). Let this be a warning and prepare accordingly. I guarantee your governments are looking at how they can do this shit in your countries.
I cant help but notice that every time conservatives scream about government violence and the "Deep State", its alway conservatives doing the authoritarian dictatorship style government violence.
I went to a climate protest in Canada last week and it was way to tame to actually get anything accomplished.
The main part of the protest was walking down a main artery. For protesters, there is incentive to walk slowly and spread out to make the walk longer and disrupt status-quo longer, but the organizers clearly only had permission to march for a specific duration so they were in the back hurrying people forward so we'd stay within our allotted time window. Maybe 30 minutes. Once a year. It was pointless.
Add to that that 90% of the people there were exactly the people you'd expect to be there and it just felt like a waste of time.
It absolutely was a waste of time, nobody noticed or gave a shit.