From the article: *Large SUVs were particularly affected. According to the police, notes were attached to the cars indicating that they were harmful to the climate. The tyres were not punctured, but merely deflated. The cars were parked in the area between the S-Bahn line and Elbchaussee around Kanzleistraße. *
Personally, I like this protest way more than glueing themselves to the streets, causing traffic jams where cars burn gasoline for hours and ambulances / firefighters / police gets stuck, putting innocent life in danger.
The article is in German. Warning: this link leads to google translate.
Civilization at least, yes, the science is quite clear on that.
Are you using anarchist properly here, or as a pejorative? And if properly, what do you mean by ‘unhelpful?’
I am an anarchist, yes. I think more people should be too, yes. One reason why I am an anarchist - which means I oppose vertical power structures with lots of hierarchy - is because horizontal power structures are more accountable to their stakeholders. Our society is paralyzed in the face of climate change, because we rely on a few powerful individuals to take action even though that action is against their personal interests. Instead of saving us they mislead us and cling to their power. Anarchist power structures do not give rise to unimaginably powerful actors that can no longer be controlled by society, because that is a feature of hierarchy.
People don’t want to accept that millions are going to die in the near future due to climate change. They want to keep going with Business As Usual, and reform it to hopefully something better as we go along. But that isn’t an option. Replacing all of our infrastructure with ‘green’ tech like EVs and solar cells would send us right over the limit just from the emissions of mining the minerals. Arable land is decreasing and predicted to continue to decrease at an accelerated rate. Even if carbon capture technology is improved by an order of magnitude, you’d still have to cover most of the land in the world with it to achieve a meaningful level of capture - which is of course entirely infeasible. Fusion power would make it possible, but fusion would solve many of our problems. But we’d have to have the fusion plants up and running by the end of the decade for it to matter and that is far from the consensus timeline.
We can look at this another way. Jevons Paradox tells us that when capacity is expanded, usage expands keeping utilization more or less constant. Building more lanes on an interstate does not significantly benefit traffic and throughput. When you add more power to a grid, it gets utilized. As the US has added greener power sources to its grid, those additions have been entirely eaten up by increases in usage - meaning in terms of the environment, there has been no net benefit. The motives in our society do not properly value externalities like the environment, so our damage to the environment will remain unmitigated until we change our motivations.
The AMOC is slowing. The Jet Stream and Gulfstream are turning chaotic. IPCC scientists are screaming and leaking drafts because the final IPCC reports disagree with the science they are based on (it’s politicians and lobbyists that have final IPCC editorial control). A new ocean temperature was set off the coast of Florida. India lost count of how many people died in their last wet bulb event, and now the US is experiencing them. Antarctic Sea Ice has entered a new state (or else we’re watching a 6.4 sigma chance event… lol). Wheat and rice harvests are abysmal this year, with some countries implementing export controls.
This is dire and I am not being hyperbolic.
Collapse is almost certain at this point regardless of what actions we take. However, we can be confident that our current behaviors are what led to this collapse, and it logically follows that to change course (if possible) we must change our behaviors.
Nothing except changing our behaviors will achieve anything.
I know I am not the greatest and most eloquent proponent of our planet’s vital systems. That’s never who I wanted to be, I just fill in for the role as best I can when no one else is around. I encourage everyone to join c/collapse and keep an eye on some of the studies that come out. With so many bad faith actors around, the most reliable thing that we can do is to inform ourselves through primary sources.