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Why would anyone want to do that?

Wow, that's really impressive. Climate activists are really going out of their way to make sure their voices are heard. Good on them.

They’re only saying what everyone already knows, though, aren’t they? Sure, they’ll feel better because they did something with their aggression, but it’s ritual. We know the message, we know how it’s going to play out, come Monday they won’t have brought the problems any closer to a solution. Pretty disruptive way to be a cliche.

On Friday, I had to undergo a painful medical procedure. On the way, there was a truck accident up ahead which meant that instead of getting to the clinic in 15 minutes, I was on the road for an hour and a half. During that unexpected delay, the painkiller I took for the procedure wore off. I had no more with me and the clinic had none to give me. So I underwent that painful procedure without the benefit of a painkiller. Now, that was due to a truck accident. If that delay had been due to a climate activist deciding I needed to be told that something needs to be done about our fucked-up climate, I would not be very sympathetic.

Some of the people in stopped traffic are on their way to care for children, dependent elders, and developmentally disabled adults. Some are on their way to court, and if they are late, an abusive or negligent parent will get custody. Some are hospice nurses on their way to help a patient in agony. Some are on court supervision, and will go to prison if they don't go straight home or straight to work. Some are diabetic with plummeting blood sugar. Some are police officers on their way to a distress call. Some are bringing dozens or hundreds of paychecks from a bank to a workplace. Some have diarrhea. Some have enlarged prostates and urinary tract infections, and need to stop frequently to urinate. Some are on their first week on a job their families desperately need. Some have infants in the car. Never, ever block traffic. There are other ways to effect positive change. Use your imagination. Have a heart.

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What I like to do to bring someone over to my cause is piss them off. Works like a charm.

Also while they are blocking traffic all those vehicles are sitting there idling, spewing the very greenhouse gases they are protesting against. If the goal is to reduce GHG emissions, forcing people to burn extra gas while they sit in a traffic jam that the activists created is achieving the exact opposite effect. And it angers a lot of people who are then less likely to support their agenda.

But they do get to pat themselves on the back and give themselves participation awards for "doing something" about a crisis that continues to go on exactly as it was the day before.

I love the comment section in these threads. So many people are missing the point of climate change, our entire fucking species is going to die off.

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You mustve missed the point about how the protest is causing cars to still in traffic, while running and pumping more Greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

So many comments about protests being bad for disrupting business as usual as if that's not the point of the protest. The leaders in our worlds only care about "the economy" so disrupting that repeatedly is the only way to get their attention.

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That's a ridiculous argument, in the face of millions of cars idling for thousands of hours.

If a protest isn't causing a disruption then it is ignored.

> on their way to care for children

Not to worry. Those kids probably won't make it in the new environment anyway.

Are you ok?

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It's time for mass protests. Hope this is just the beginning of the youth standing up for their planet against old idiots destroying it for cash.

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The road they blocked has an easy bypass, traffic was not significantly impacted, it is the last bit of a highway before it ends. Remember Den Hague is a seaside city, meaning that a highway going east-west is going to end there(this is the a12). During the protests my google maps suggested a 3 minute detour* if I wanted to get to Nassaubuurt (other side of the protests).

Another interesting question is the legal one, the protesters said they were planning on closing down the highway so the government closed it for them. Does that mean they even did anything unlawful?

Another bit of background: recently, Dutch farmers closed down almost all highways by driving their tractors on them and dumping trash on them to protest environmental regulations. Almost nobody was arrested for that. However, shortly before these climate demonstrations most of the organizers were arrested. This greatly increased the size of these demonstrations as they were joined by oxfam novib and others because it was a great example of how climate protestors are punished far harder than industrial/commercial-based protests.

*Assuming of course that you aren't willing to take public transport as the region has excellent accessibility by train/tram/bus (the whole thing happened in sight of Den Hague central station.)

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Agreed with your first sentences. I seriously doubt bringing "awareness" to climate change is changing many minds at this point. Most people know what it is, kids will learn about it, and will make up their mind. I think that energy/time could be better spent actively impacting the environment in a positive way, or contributing something other than "awareness" for something as widely known as climate change at least.

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You can protest as much as you want, but at the end of the day, it's up to governments to do something about climate change, and governments simply aren't going to bend the need to climate protesters. They would simply pass bills that make these protests even harder to do.

What needs to happen is people to elect politicians that would do something about climate change, but these kinds of disruptive protests are hurting public perception of people who want to do something about climate change, making it impossible to elect said politicians.

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Yeah, protests aren’t supposed to be for your fucking convenience.

I feel like you think you made a great point but honestly this is embarrassing

Oh buddy. You are going to be very surprised

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Yeah, totally man. I’m now for ending life on earth because I was late getting to the gym. Great point

So, if science isn’t real?

We accidentally make the world cleaner and healthier?

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The species will be fine. Humans are really adaptable. Like yeah, people will die from stuff that wasn't really their fault, but that already happens every day.

But we do have a decent idea on how to fix it. There's just a lot of money in not fixing it.

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Those people are expecting that either themself or their children will die a rather ugly death due to the climate crisis. Have a heart - but also make a rescue alley when in a traffic jam.

If your protest is causing innocent people to be hurt or killed, you’re doing it wrong.

Humans are crazy motherfuckers. We are the evil monsters that other animals dream about. The humans that made it through the ice age were evolutionary the same humans as we are today.

Humanity will be fine.

Civilasation as we know it today and hundred of millions, if not billions of people on the other hand...

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Because education and peacefull protests worked like a charm in the past... is it 50 years allready?

Less roads, more docks. Start sinking yachts and at least you’ll be hurting the people who deserve it.

That obviously depends on what "being wrong" implies. Even if all that C12 vs C13 thing and what it does to our atmosphere does is wrong and just a "happy random missunderstanding", because we missed something.... we most likely still fought for a healthier world.

The risks of being right and continuing to ignore the issue most likely outweight the risks of being wrong by far.

Agree, but two comments:

1. Humans as a species will survive. However the effects of climate change will not effect everyone uniformly. People who are not well off will bear the brunt of climate change (forget cars, these people already don't even have proper drinking water).

2. Other species will be affected if their niche environments change

If your protest isn't causing any inconvenience you're doing it wrong. Because if it doesn't politicians will simply ignore the protest.

Ah yes. Nothing like a good ol existential threat.

People don’t see how this can and is and will be weaponized. After all, we’re on a mission to save the world!

It very much reminds me of the infallibility of religion. Don’t ask critical questions and, as long as you’re doing it in the name of Mother Earth, anything is justified.

Science was wrong in the past, basicly all the time.

Just read up upon the history of climate science. Its fascinating how fast things escalated. A hundred years ago, the believe was that we still had hundreds of years of time, till the temperature change would be measurable...

But bad jokes aside... does it matter if they are right? More importantly: Is there any reason to believe that the results of science of over 100 years is flawed?

The amount of CO2 put into our atmosphere due to this traffic jams is basicly 0, if you meassure it against what needs to be changed.

I guess it's not selfish farmers for once.

If your support was contingent on you never being slightly inconvenienced then your support is pretty much worthless.

Yikes this news sub is always a battle 🤣

Don't worry, when we get to the point where we're having to fuck around with geoengineering to head off the worst effects of climate change we may well get a nuclear war on top of climate change.

Climate change is a particularly difficult topic to whatabout because it's gonna make all these other problems worse.

No prediction is more certain than that if we follow your ideas, nothing will be done about climate change.

Why don't these activists actually show up at the oil companies properties, the runways full of private jets, GOV'T buildings. Just impeding regular peoples day. Why inconvenience me when you're mad at shell and Exxon??

And these road protests are getting the job done? Politicians don’t care about inconvenience, they care about votes. If you convince the electorate to support your cause then the politician is forced to comply. You don’t get that by pissing off locals.

Not to mention people die because of these road blockages.

Politicians certainly care about the economy

What makes you say we don't? We protest in all those places, and also on the highway right next to the ministry of economic affairs and the ministry of agriculture. The place is very appropriate, and it has parallel roads so that traffic is only mildly hindered. What better place to protest against those two governments than right here?

I'd prefer to see climate activists dragging fossil fuel executives to the Hague.

Oh, this is cute. It’s a guy who thinks the only problem is climate change.

Boo-goddamn-hoo

Since it’s basic measurements and physics, no

Protests, strikes, and riots. Things only get better if we make them get better.

Yeah, because voters care about the economy.

> So many comments about protests being bad for disrupting business as usual as if that's not the point of the protest.

the greatest thing the establishment has ever done is convince you this is sufficient.

This isn't about convenience. It's about harm.

Feel free to produce evidence to prove anyone was harmed by this protest.

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The news is bringing it like a major highway was disrupted: This is simply not true. Also, no one was harmed so I don't know what you mean by that.

I never said it was.

Also "the establishment"? Really? Are we gonna talk about fake news next?

You gotta educate yourself.

I would say anyone trying to get to the hospital for an emergency was more than slightly inconvenienced.

But it has nothing to do with me being inconvenienced. If a group is known for being assholes, I might think twice before listening to their views.

Every time people deliberately block traffic, the impose an increased risk of harm on others. It is immoral.

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> Also "the establishment"? Really?

yes

maybe take your own advice.

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The word you're looking for is Hegemon. Wikipedia isn't a good source for education.

Uh yeah, it is the top issue amongst likely voters.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/05/politics/voters-issues-economy-midterms-2022/index.html

https://news.gallup.com/poll/404243/economy-top-election-issue-abortion-crime-next.aspx

Everything is done for short term gains with no concern for long term consequences. I hope that people start taking this seriously, but I am also concerned that we've already crossed an event horizon of sorts.

Yes, politicians care about the economy because their constituents care about the economy. My comment was not sarcastic.

People are complaining about being inconvenienced by protests... do they think that the effects of climate change won't bring maybe a modicum of inconvenience?

So you now understand why it’s important that protestors do things that harm the economy so that they are not ignored by politicians?

> They’re only saying what everyone already knows, though, aren’t they?

Sadly, there's still a lot of people who clearly haven't got the message.

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The leaders only care about their individual gigaprofits, and getting oneself arrested for blocking traffic doesn't even begin to scratch that.

Blocking a road for a few hours isn’t hurting the economy in any meaningful way. It’s just angering the people you need to have on your side and giving your detractors a lot of ammunition to use against your cause.

Public perception is the entire point here. If you lose the public then it doesn’t really matter what you disrupt.

If disrupting things alone worked, why haven’t animal rights activists ever made any meaningful progress? They block trucks from entering slaughter houses and cause disruptions at restaurants or clothing stores. That’s definitely causing an economic effect so why haven’t politicians done anything?

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Blocking the only road to the Hague interrupts supply lines and deliveries, damaging profits. There's not some secret cabal that controls the world, politicians are reliant on the support of the Capitalist class and not some individuals.

I think it's a fine line to walk. If you're too much of a dick to normal people or make their lives worse, it can have the opposite affect to their goals.

> That’s definitely causing an economic effect so why haven’t politicians done anything?

Wait, are you now changing your argument to “politicians don’t care about the economy”?

Didn’t we just decide that politicians DO care about the economy?

I never said politicians care about the economy. I said politicians care about whatever their constituents care about

So if politicians care about the economy because voters care about the economy, then what do you mean by this?

> That’s definitely causing an economic effect so why haven’t politicians done anything?

If the reasons politicians made public policy were based on economic reasons, why haven’t we seen any major changes to the meat industry?

Protestors block roads to slaughter houses, disrupt operations at factory farms, and routinely engage in actions that screw up the daily operations of restaurants that sell meat or stores that sell animal products.

Why does that economic disruption fail but you think the same kind of disruption on a road would work?

There’s no right way to protest.

So if you are saying that economic disruption will work, but it has not worked yet, is the thing that you are calling for larger scale economic disruptions?

I disagree. The protest is aimed at the capitalist class and centered around denying them profit. With enough disruption the capitalists must change their methods to continue making money.

It's not a protest to persuade people or change their opinion. As others have said, people already know what they think about climate change.

If it doesn’t make the front page, it never happened.

But is it not arrogant to disrupt society because of personal beliefs?

I’m saying you need to get the voting populace on your side.

>Why does that economic disruption fail but you think the same kind of disruption on a road would work?

Care to answer?

> Why does that economic disruption fail

Well, according to your logic, because it wasn’t a sufficient amount?

Or are you saying that politicians don’t care about economic disruption?

What are you calling for?

Because it sounds like you either don’t believe that politicians care about the economy, or that you want protestors to do larger economic disruptions.

So you’re only going to answer by asking questions, gotcha.

I’ve simply been asking you to clarify your first message, which seemed to be sarcastically saying that politicians don’t care about the economy, and then turning heel and then claiming you were earnestly claiming that when faced with evidence; which is strange because if so, you seem to be arguing against yourself.

Can you simply clarify your statement and state your stance clearly?

Where do you think the line between causing economic consequences with a protest and turning the voting group against you lies?

Are we answering questions by asking questions now?

It’s easy to argue a point when you don’t have one

Uh yeah, which is why I called you out on trying to save face when being met with evidence.

The point I made was: voters care about the economy, and that you need to clarify your argument, which you have refused to do.

I’ll rebut your argument once you make one, but so far all I’ve done is fact check you while you tried to save face/ avoided making a clear argument.

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Finally somebody who gets it. People act like they cut the power of an entire country for a day.

I love it.

One question: how did they start this? How did they start blocking the highway without getting run over?

If humans weren't selfish, we wouldn't have climate problems this severe in the first place.

So forcing people to make a slight detour is hurting and killing people? This is basically the same situation as a traffic accident. People will need to find another route. And you know what, that's exactly what you can do with a car.

The plan was to have a couple of cars drive slowly and then stop. This is more of an entrance to a highway than the actual highway itself, traffic comes from a big intersection with traffic lights so the speed is still relatively low anyway.

Instead, the police halted those vehicles and arrested the people in it. They then proactively blocked the highway themselves, I believe.

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