Just Stop Oil protesters stop an oil tanker at the Chiswick roundabout
Environmental activists caused rush-hour mayhem in west London on Thursday after activists climbed onto an oil tanker and forced the closure of a major roundabout leading to the start of the M4 motorway. Footage posted to social media showed four protesters stuck to the top of an Eddie Stobart tanker at the junction, which feeds west London traffic on and off the M4. Flags reading “Just Stop Oil” (JSO) hung on the side of the truck.
JSO is a coalition of youth-led groups working together to ensure the government commits to stopping new licensing and fossil fuel production.
Members of the group come largely from Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain, and have embraced the same direct action-style protests, which seek to cause mass disruption using civil disobedience.
This type of protest – as seen in west London – often stops people trying to get to work, prevents parents from taking their children to school and can hamper ambulances in their attempts to take patients to the hospital.
JSO members recognize that their actions will disrupt the everyday lives of ordinary people.
But, for those like Neil Rothnie, 69, a retired offshore oil and gas worker from Glasgow and one of JSO’s campaigners, disrupting the lives of a few people is a small price to pay in trying to save the future of the planet.
Asked by Express.co.uk if he thought JSO’s tactics were ‘alienating’ people, he said: ‘There are so many different people with so many different attitudes – obviously some people will feel alienated.
“But remember this: this action is time-limited, the type of destruction we’re calling attention to, we’re amplifying an alarm here, and the alarm is coming from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Evolution climate) and the IEA (International Energy Agency).
Just Stop Oil: Express.co.uk spoke to a handful of JSO protesters about their direct action protests (Image: GETTY)
Direct action: the style of protest sees people intentionally causing large-scale disruption (Image: GETTY)
“They’re telling us that unless we stop oil soon, we’re going to miss the 1.5℃ cap, and so they’re talking about a significant increase in temperature globally.
“It’s devastating: it means in some areas you’ll have huge temperature increases, three degrees is the average, but that includes large areas, from the middle of the Pacific Ocean to the middle of Africa.
“The kind of disruption that JSO is doing is nothing compared to warning these bodies that we are amplifying.
“Will some people be alienated? Yes, in the short term; but many people will understand and accept this if it is explained to them.”
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Since the beginning of April, JSO has intervened in 11 oil terminals in England.
While petrol retailers said the protests “did not have a serious impact on deliveries”, there were “dozens” of local reports of pumps “running dry”.
Nearly 350 protesters have been arrested since the group began operating this month.
Oil company Valero Energy won a High Court injunction on Wednesday to stop JSO protesters from targeting its fuel processing sites.
The conjunction prohibits anyone from damaging the ground at its sites or ‘attaching themselves to any other person or object’ after the company’s Warwickshire terminal was the scene of protests, which led to 32 arrests during the weekend.
Express.co.uk also spoke to JSO activist Hannah Hunt, 23, a university student, who said the group were aware they were causing disruption but that was not what many of its members wanted to do.
She said: “At 23, that’s not what I want to spend my time doing. I have friends, I have plans, I have a degree that I want to complete.
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Extinction Rebellion: Like other activist groups, JSO members stuck to objects (Image: GETTY)
Youth-led: JSO is largely run by a youth movement, although there is no hierarchical structure (Image: GETTY)
“But direct action is our only choice if we are to prevent impending climate catastrophe.
“It is necessary to cause disruption when the government is silent, which is itself complicit in the deaths of our children and supports industries that will kill millions.
“So yes, while it is disruptive, none of that disruption would be necessary if the government took the action it was elected to take.”
Much of JSO’s work appears to have been misinterpreted following a series of broadcast interviews of members, including Good Morning Britain’s Richard Madeley who spoke to 20-year-old campaigner Miranda Whelehan.
While the group’s name embodies its goal – to shut down oil – it says it knows it’s not viable to disconnect oil and gas overnight.
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On the contrary, he wants the government to immediately end all new fossil fuel supply projects, urging No 10 to ‘make a statement that it will immediately end all future licenses and permits for exploration , development and production of fossil fuels in the UK”. ”.
They believe that switching – not stopping – from fossil fuels “will help lower energy bills and help us meet our international climate obligations”.
A message on the group’s crowdfunding page reads: “Allowing the extraction of new oil and gas resources in the UK is a lewd and genocidal policy that will kill our children and condemn humanity to oblivion – it just has to stop.”
Members consistently refer to the IPCC report which concluded that many of the impacts of global warming are now simply “irreversible”.
Tankers: many activists rode on tankers to prevent them from delivering their goods (Image: GETTY)
The latest study found that more than 40% of the world’s population is “highly vulnerable” to climate change.
The only hope lies in limiting the temperature rise to below 1.5℃ – this would, according to the IPCC, reduce projected losses.
Professor Debra Roberts, co-chair of the IPCC, told the BBC in February: “Our report makes it clear that the places where people live and work may cease to exist, that the ecosystems and species we have all grown up with and that are central to our cultures and inform our languages are in danger of disappearing.
“So this really is a key moment. Our report makes it very clear that this is the decade for action, if we want to turn things around.”
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Source: www.express.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-04-14 16:55:00
