By Oscar Braun
Throughout history, protest and the right to freedom of speech and expression have been pivotal in catalysing change, often for the ‘greater good’. We can break climate action protests into three main types: peaceful marches, civil disobedience, and violent protests.[1] Which is the ‘best’? How do we even begin to categorise and objectively determine how successful a protest is? We should probably begin by saying that a protest is successful if it achieves its goal, whatever change it sets to bring about. However, gaining public support, and long-term influence over policy decisions are equally important. By looking at one controversial group ‘Just Stop Oil’ and their strategies, we can decide whether law-breaking is justified for climate protests.
Just Stop Oil (JSO) knows how to steal a spotlight, with daring public stunts, they are not afraid to cause disturbance to people ‘just going about their day’. Despite being barraged with verbal and physical threats, protesters stay put, whether they are sat on top of an oil tanker lorry, or stood in the middle of the motorway. They are not often confronted with peaceful discussions of their aims whilst protesting. Yet, they have stated that they perceive the imminent threat of climate disaster as more important than getting to work on time or being able to fill up your car. A common response is that the people at the top, the politicians and the oil executives should be targeted, not you, an innocent bystander. It’s this complacency to what Al Gore called an ”inconvenient truth” that relieves pressure on those at the top, say JSO.[2] If a protest sparks and engages discussion, it has been successful, bringing light and attention to the movement. That is all the activists want. They know that you cannot single-handedly stop new drilling for oil in the North Sea, but as a movement, or a collective, you can.
The government has recently introduced the Public Order Act 2023, giving draconian powers to police to conduct ‘stop and searches’ without anything more than a fleeting suspicion, as well as lowering the threshold in vague terminology for what is considered a disruptive protest, even with only one protestor.[3] However, JSO seem unphased by this stating that only the “death penalty will stop our activists”.[4] There have been many occasions where courts have ruled climate protests lawful with a ‘necessary defence’ used by the defendants, meaning that their actions were morally imperative because not breaking the law would result in catastrophic harm to the planet.[5] But where do you draw the line, at what point does necessary defence become an excuse for violence in the face of climate change? JSO is not a violent movement, yet they are forced to use societally disruptive methods as passive petitions and angry letters have proved to only go so far. They’ve stolen the spotlight, but can they succeed in actually stealing the conversation?
It is clear regardless of where people stand on this secondary issue of civil disobedience, that the primary issue is that of climate collapse. Many will argue that they agree with the message of JSO, just not how they accomplish it. This reasoning has been brandished as contradictory by the movement: how can the public agree that things must change without allowing people to advocate for that change in a way that draws public attention to it? If JSO’s hard-hitting, extreme action disgruntles people, but they still agree with the message, then they should put themselves forward to campaign in a way they find better, says Jeff Sparrow, a columnist and author of ‘Crimes Against Nature: Capitalism and Global Heating’.[6] The harsh reality is that most of us want to change but the anger at JSO represents our ‘resentment for being reminded of climate change’.[7]
Civil disobedience is required for change, the suffragettes in the early 1900s took the path of extreme violence, bombings, and arson.[8] Yet the suffragettes are admired by both politicians and JSO activists. JSO recently coined the suffragette movement as a ‘role model movement’ for their campaign, even slashing the same painting as the Suffragettes did almost 110 years ago.[9] This does not mean they advocate for eco-terrorism, but rather that extremely uncomfortable social pressure is needed for change. Instead of allowing protest and acting on it, the government has decided to persecute and quash voices demanding change. JSO may pay the price now with lengthy jail time, but their message is, ‘We will all pay the price in years to come’.
The question remains, if ‘far-left’ eco-action groups like JSO are permitted to be given a voice through civil disobedience, under a fair democracy does that mean that conspiracy groups, like those campaigning against 5G masts, should be given an equal voice? The right to freedom of speech should be universal, but allowing law-breaking sends signals to other protest groups that violence is justified if you truly believe in your cause. However, JSO do not want violence, they want attention and disruption. The disruption’s effects have been two-fold, 68% of UK adults disapprove of JSO, whilst 82% of respondents considered climate change a large threat.[10] People are visibly conflicted; they know things have to change but are against the protests demanding change. JSO has a few choices; they can either, as Roger Hallam (the group’s founder) began, disrupt the imports of oil by sitting on tankers and blocking major ports, or draw public spectacle as was seen in the vandalization of paintings in the National Gallery. The latter got the media attention the group needed; it may have turned the public against them, but it has drawn the nation’s eyes to them. If the group goes for a method of protest with high public support, it will likely lack the discussion-making confrontation needed to draw attention at the political level.
They have succeeded in bringing attention to themselves and being a ‘nuisance’ to most of the general population but, in doing so, they have also acted as a ‘radical flank’ where radical activists can increase support for their movement making more moderate activists appear as reasonable.[11]
Environmental entrepreneur Dale Vince, a strong supporter and donor to JSO and its predecessor Extinction Rebellion, has recently withdrawn his support and funding from the group arguing that, since sentences for protesting are more severe, it is more dangerous than ever to act with extreme measures. Instead, he say we should “just vote” and use our democratic power to choose what values we align with when it comes to new oil and gas licences as well as other climate objectives.[12]
There are many avenues protests can take, yet it is clear that protests which draw public attention succeed in directing the conversation and encouraging discussion about the problem at hand. The aim of JSO is not to polarise public opinion but to create an air of discomfort. Climate protests have over the years tried peaceful marches, protesting on Parliament Square, and petitioning politicians. The draw to ‘extreme’ action is in part due to the extreme nature of the situation and our unwillingness to change and notice the discussions around us. The issue of law-breaking has always been objectively wrong, but in the case of environmental collapse, JSO says it is justified. As the pressure on the government builds in the lead-up to the general election, the divisive nature of JSO’s tactics continues to shape public discourse on environmental activism.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and may not reflect the opinions of The St Andrews Economist.
Image: John Cameron via Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/photos/a-man-laying-on-the-ground-in-front-of-police-Liwkbcx7W1M
[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2378023120925949
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/18/outraged-xr-just-stop-oil-disruptive-climate-crisis
[3] https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/campaigns-blog/public-order-bill-explained
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/21/just-stop-oil-says-only-threat-of-death-sentence-would-stop-its-protests
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/14/climate-change-activists-trial-washington
[6] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/18/if-you-dont-like-climate-activists-staging-art-gallery-protests-organise-something-better
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/18/outraged-xr-just-stop-oil-disruptive-climate-crisis
[8] https://history.blog.gov.uk/2013/07/04/mrs-pankhurst-lloyd-george-suffragette-militancy/
[9] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/12/in-adopting-suffragettes-as-role-models-just-stop-oil-painting-itself-into-corner
[10] https://www.bristol.ac.uk/psychology/news/2023/116.html
[11] https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac110
[12] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/06/fund-just-stop-oil-ballot-box-disruption-election-protest