Just Stop Protesting

The South-East of this country was brought to a standstill by Just Stop Oil protesters climbing the Queen Elizabeth Bridge at Dartford yesterday. The business where I work was disrupted enormously; I imagine the wider economic chaos is incalculable. But the one thing which will not have been achieved is any increase in support for this renegade band of idiots, determined to damage the world in which they live.

But who will have suffered the most? Not the government, not the establishment, not the millionaires and billionaires, not the local authorities, not the schools, not the judiciary, not the policy advisors, not the very oil companies they seek to destroy … in fact none of the people who have any input whatsoever into decision-making around our energy policy.

The people who were harmed would almost certainly be on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder, those who have no power at all. Those casual workers in the gig economy who will not have been paid. Those waiting for urgent deliveries which arrived late or not at all. Those reliant on care by people stuck for hours in traffic. Those small business owners whose productivity and profits were dented but whose costs were not. Some people may even have died as a direct result of the disruption.

The first instinct for many would have been that the bridge climbers should have been shot – snipers being an excellent first resort in the frustration of the moment. But why close the bridge? Seriously, why not just leave them up there? Ready the police and maybe a standby ambulance, but just observe and let them sit out their vigil for as long as their reserves of strength hold out. Starvation, hypothermia, who cares? We do not have unlimited reserves of sympathy for those who have, in their hysteria, taken such stupid risks.

And why not treat all such protesters in the same way? Glue yourself to the road? Why don’t the police immobilise them with builder’s expanding foam filler and let the traffic take its toll? Throwing soup at a Van Gogh? Make soup out of them. Throwing paint on a car dealership? Strip the fuckers and paint them in creosote. Vandalise property? Vandalise their property. As long as we react to these protests in the soft way they know we will, they will never stop.

Never mind that the general public despise them, their intention is to be despised. They want our outrage and our impotence. But their further aim, to stop all new oil and gas projects, will not be achieved by these means. If anything, the efforts to limit the damage they cause is likely to involve a higher carbon cost, much like the jet-setting CoP circus which achieves little beyond making headlines.

Each year the gross amount of carbon dioxide emitted increases, even as western governments commit to the accounting fraud they call net zero. As with so many areas of national life, being seen to act is far more important to governments than to actually do anything effective. In this the protesters are no better than those they protest against. Sure, they may get a warm, fuzzy glow in the heat of their vandalism, but in the cold light of day they have achieved nothing.