Insulate Britain Protests

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A court ruling won by the government warns climate change protesters that they could be jailed if they continue their campaign of blocking the M25.
Ministers hope the High Court injunction can prevent further disruption around London.
Insulate Britain has blocked parts of the M25 five times in the last fortnight.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps tweeted that activists faced "possible imprisonment if they flout".

A large number of Insulate Britain campaigners have been arrested at the protests, the first of which affected Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent on Monday, 13 September.
Protesters have also targeted other motorways, included the M11 near Stansted Airport in Essex and the M3 in Surrey.
The civil court action was taken by National Highways - the government body which runs motorways.
Footage online of these protesters walking out in front of moving traffic on the M25 as well as blocking traffic on other motorways. Today a spokesperson for the group confessed he hasn't insulated his own home.
 

altodevil

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Alan partridge told them to do one
 

Foxbatt

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What are they protesting about? Against climate change or insulating homes?
 

The Corinthian

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RonaldoVII

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The cars at the front should turn around and just choke them out with exhaust fumes until they move the feck out of the way
 

hobbers

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Blocking roads and causing massive tailbacks for the environment is right up there were gluing yourself to electric buses and underground carriages in terms of winning in the court of public opinion.
 

Mr Pigeon

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Blocking roads and causing massive tailbacks for the environment is right up there were gluing yourself to electric buses and underground carriages in terms of winning in the court of public opinion.
They don't want the public on their side. They don't even want you to support their movement or get involved at all. They just want to complain because they can't get proper jobs and they spend their days smoking roll ups made from their trousers and listening to Steely Dan. Seriously though, can we stop killing the planet
 

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No idea who these people are but if that guy has been chosen as their spokesperson when he can barely string two words together you have to wonder what the rest of them are like.
 

DOTA

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No idea who these people are but if that guy has been chosen as their spokesperson when he can barely string two words together you have to wonder what the rest of them are like.
 

decorativeed

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I'm all for climate action protests, but these people are great at making the problem worse while actively turning others against the cause. Morons.
 

noodlehair

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A lot of older "leaky" homes can't be fixed by just insulating them more. They'd need substantial work or even rebuilding, which requires materials and transportation methods and has its own surprisingly big carbon footprint, and is also not practical at all when we're still struggling with how to build new homes that are close to carbon neutral, and converting loads of office space to homes which is never going to be carbon neutral.

It would be nice if people would educate themselves about things they allegedly are passionate enough about to organise protests and get arrested for. Otherwise it's just a bunch of morons protesting for the sake of having a protest.
 

Jericholyte2

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The media will throw out these individual stories of people being stuck in medical emergencies because of these types of protests to try and sway public opinion due to the immediate emotion involved, but what they’re fighting against is so much worse.
 

Mickeza

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The media will throw out these individual stories of people being stuck in medical emergencies because of these types of protests to try and sway public opinion due to the immediate emotion involved, but what they’re fighting against is so much worse.
Well exactly. You’d kinda hope we’d be beyond the “bloody hippies” stage of the climate change debate considering the impending doom awaiting us but alas not.
 

noodlehair

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The media will throw out these individual stories of people being stuck in medical emergencies because of these types of protests to try and sway public opinion due to the immediate emotion involved, but what they’re fighting against is so much worse.
No it isn't. What they are asking for would quite possibly leave a bigger carbon footprint than not doing it would, and is also both impossible and impractical to achieve when we can't even mass build new homes that are carbon neutral, and have a housing shortage.

Creating, transporting and using materials emits carbon. A lot of it. And you can't just shove a bit of insulation into an 80 year old home which will have a multitude of other issues in relation to energy efficiency (not least cold bridging areas in the construction which would render extra insulation somewhat pointless) and expect it to make a big difference.

The answer is going to be in either how energy is provided to these homes (wind, solar), or a revolutionary way being developed to build new homes that are carbon neutral, that is efficient enough to allow old homes to be replaced (doesn't exist yet).

The problem with these protests is exactly this. Protesting about something you don't even have an answer for and are too lazy to research properly is completely fecking pointless.

I'd be right on board if their proposals had any ounce of sense, but they might as well be protesting for the government to fly them all to Mars in a hot air balloon.

At the moment the government can't even get developers to build new housing as energy efficient as it should be, so maybe they should be protesting about that instead of something completely self defeating?
 

decorativeed

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Well exactly. You’d kinda hope we’d be beyond the “bloody hippies” stage of the climate change debate considering the impending doom awaiting us but alas not.
Do you not think their actions actively make the problem worse?

It's even worse than when we had teenagers protesting climate change in Manchester city centre a couple of years back. In theory, brilliant, I'm very supportive of that, and would encourage it. But their protest involved sitting on the tram tracks, which brought the greenest form of public transport in the area to a standstill for hours. How did that achieve their goals? A good protest should highlight the issues, and encourage people to see your point of view, rather than act to make the situation worse and turn the public against you.
 

Mickeza

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Do you not think their actions actively make the problem worse?

It's even worse than when we had teenagers protesting climate change in Manchester city centre a couple of years back. In theory, brilliant, I'm very supportive of that, and would encourage it. But their protest involved sitting on the tram tracks, which brought the greenest form of public transport in the area to a standstill for hours. How did that achieve their goals? A good protest should highlight the issues, and encourage people to see your point of view, rather than act to make the situation worse and turn the public against you.
Absolutely. I agree their actions are wrong and unhelpful completely targeting the incorrect people. However, my point is we shouldn’t still be at this stage of the debate where the media are painting such people as “terrorists” - climate change is already happening, with disastrous outcomes, those will only amplify within our lifetime and world governments are doing nothing. Ultimately that’s where the story needs to be.
 

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The more a protest disrupts normal daily life and makes the news, the better. If someone will turn against a good cause because they were inconvenienced, then they would never really support it anyway.
 

Gehrman

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I wonder how many leftwingers would support what they want to be done if it meant skyrockting energy prices. Which would hit the poor more than anyone.
 

maniak

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I wonder how many leftwingers would support what they want to be done if it meant skyrockting energy prices. Which would hit the poor more than anyone.
I haven't seen any left wing organizations/parties defending raising energy costs for the poor.
 

Gehrman

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I haven't seen any left wing organizations/parties defending raising energy costs for the poor.
Granted i live in Denmark, but im poor. I have to pay the same as everyone else in energy costs.
 

TheReligion

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As quite often this kind of protest disrupts and targets the wrong people and as such makes the mistake of losing support and it's message quite quickly.
 

TwoSheds

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I wonder how many leftwingers would support what they want to be done if it meant skyrockting energy prices. Which would hit the poor more than anyone.
a) green energy should be the cheapest form - there is no fuel, that's the whole point.
b) even if it wasn't then the right moral way to approach this would be to pay the correct amount reflective of the real climate+production cost of the energy and give tax relief / subsidies to people who can't afford it at that price.
 

Buster15

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As quite often this kind of protest disrupts and targets the wrong people and as such makes the mistake of losing support and it's message quite quickly.
Well I don't think that the message has been lost at all.
How many people were talking about home insulation a few weeks ago?

And these disruptions will be nothing compared with the adverse effects of man made climate change.
 

Gehrman

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a) green energy should be the cheapest form - there is no fuel, that's the whole point.
b) even if it wasn't then the right moral way to approach this would be to pay the correct amount reflective of the real climate+production cost of the energy and give tax relief / subsidies to people who can't afford it at that price.
What are people going to put into their cars? Where is the energy going to come from when the isnt shining and the wind isnt blowing? Would you support building a feckload of nuclear power plants?
 

golden_blunder

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No it isn't. What they are asking for would quite possibly leave a bigger carbon footprint than not doing it would, and is also both impossible and impractical to achieve when we can't even mass build new homes that are carbon neutral, and have a housing shortage.

Creating, transporting and using materials emits carbon. A lot of it. And you can't just shove a bit of insulation into an 80 year old home which will have a multitude of other issues in relation to energy efficiency (not least cold bridging areas in the construction which would render extra insulation somewhat pointless) and expect it to make a big difference.

The answer is going to be in either how energy is provided to these homes (wind, solar), or a revolutionary way being developed to build new homes that are carbon neutral, that is efficient enough to allow old homes to be replaced (doesn't exist yet).

The problem with these protests is exactly this. Protesting about something you don't even have an answer for and are too lazy to research properly is completely fecking pointless.

I'd be right on board if their proposals had any ounce of sense, but they might as well be protesting for the government to fly them all to Mars in a hot air balloon.

At the moment the government can't even get developers to build new housing as energy efficient as it should be, so maybe they should be protesting about that instead of something completely self defeating?
Completely agree but it looks like you’re talking to a brick wall in here
 

TwoSheds

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What are people going to put into their cars? Where is the energy going to come from when the isnt shining and the wind isnt blowing? Would you support building a feckload of nuclear power plants?
We already have electric cars, more and better please. Hydrogen will be what we go for on commercial vehicles most likely. And the sun is always shining somewhere, the wind always blowing. That's why grid interconnections and storage projects need to happen.

And yes, as it happens I would back using some nuclear as long as dipshits like the Tories aren't the ones commissioning the projects. For example, commissioning a nuclear plant with Chinese state-owned contractors is a mind bogglingly stupid thing to do when you consider the security implications for the UK but...a great idea if you're a Tory minister. Until 3 years later when you've already wasted billions and you decide it's a bad idea again.
 

Gehrman

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We already have electric cars, more and better please. Hydrogen will be what we go for on commercial vehicles most likely. And the sun is always shining somewhere, the wind always blowing. That's why grid interconnections and storage projects need to happen.

And yes, as it happens I would back using some nuclear as long as dipshits like the Tories aren't the ones commissioning the projects. For example, commissioning a nuclear plant with Chinese state-owned contractors is a mind bogglingly stupid thing to do when you consider the security implications for the UK but...a great idea if you're a Tory minister. Until 3 years later when you've already wasted billions and you decide it's a bad idea again.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judecl...an-more-coal-and-natural-gas/?sh=ead5a512a376

Unfortunately clouds and nighttime gets in the way off the sun and the wind is not always blowing and not always enough.