(Cover image Christopher Nolan’s Bane. A fan art by Bung Carol.)
Public activism in the United Kingdom and many European countries which demand to just stop oil does not make any sense. The whole of Europe only contributes to a little under 15% of global CO2 emissions. What can the self-glueing and sauce-spraying movements in the UK and the EU tell us, then?
‘Just stop oil’ movements
Mass protests to stop the oil and fossil fuels industry gradually appeared more often in the last years. Mobilising under the banner of climate change, these movements appear in multiple Western countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, etc. The modus operandi varies, from marching, blocking the road by sitting on the traffic light line and glueing oneself to the ground, to splashing paintings and sauces to priceless artwork in the museums.
The movement is highly organised across Western countries with London, UK as its centre. Currently, it has its members from Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, France, Germany, Austria, Norway, New Zealand, and the United States, with every so-called “peaceful movements”, call for marches and updates on the recent movements posted in their website, www.juststopoil.org. Unsurprisingly, the website also has a ‘donate’ section to “support” the movements.
The website is divided into three big parts, ‘Get Involved’, ‘Donate’, and ‘News & Press’. It always insists on ‘non-violent’ movements with a ‘training’ subsection under ‘Get Involved’ to have interested parties learn about the meaning of ‘non-violent’ movements. The “peaceful” tagline clearly strengthens the narratives under ‘News & Press’ wherein a lot of updates about “injustices” are done by the government to oppress the “peaceful” movements.
As its name suggests, ‘Just stop oil’ movements have one single goal: to stop oil and every other fossil fuels industry across the globe, with London as its pivot. As the website describes, the movement demands “the UK governments to stop licensing all new oil, gas, and coal projects.” The proponents of this movement consider the fossil fuels industry to be dangerous to the planet and mortal to the generations to come.
Can one justify Just Stop Oil’s modus operandi and the vision it offers?
Global emissions reality
Here is a little reality check for self-gluers and sauce-sprayers in Europe and any first-world countries in the West: the statistics do not back them up, neither their “peaceful” resistance nor their pro-planet vision. Below are the statistics of the CO2 emissions from the world’s regions freely accessible on Our World in Data website.
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- Annual CO² emissions by countries (click to view).
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- Biggest contributors to global CO² emissions (click to view).
Out of the recorded 37.12 billion tonnes of global CO2, the whole of Europe, including the EU members, only contributes to 14% of the global emission. Compared to this, the whole of Asia with more poor people than Western countries emit 21.69 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions or 58% of total global emissions. The biggest individual contributor to global emissions is China which contributes up to one third of the global CO2. Even the United States which are dubbed as countries with ‘petroculture’, individually contributes to a mere 5.01 billion tonnes or 13,5% of the global emissions.
One can certainly argue that more than ten percent is not an insignificant number such that if we count from the whole Western countries alone (the whole Europe, the United States and North America), it makes up for one third of the global emissions or 11.44 billion tonnes of CO2. To that I say that the number is still rather modest. To put into perspective, it takes the whole West to equate what China is individually emitting.
On top of that, we have not even looked at the trend of the graph. Be it the United States as an individual country or the whole Europe have the similar trend as regards the CO2 emissions, namely, that they produce less over time. Meanwhile in China and the whole Asia, the emission trend continues to rise. If fossil fuel haters from Just Stop Oil want to have their goal achieved, it makes considerably more sense to rally, splash tomato sauce, and glue themselves in big cities in Asia.
If it makes more sense to rally and protest in any Asian countries, why have they not done so?
Illness beneath climate activism
Constantly rallying to self-glue on the middle of the road or to spray some paints and tomato sauce on priceless artworks, all to demand the Western countries, particularly the UK, to stop fossil fuels shows a complete ignorance of the state of the world. If CO2 emissions are the pivot of the movement, rallying the proclaimed “peaceful” protest in Asia makes more sense than in any part of the West. However, it is clearly not the case.
I suggest three reasons for this misplaced protest, all centred around a deep existential problem easily classified as ‘illness’ in our modern society: ignorance of the world, laziness to reflect, and pride.
The Just Stop Oil movement ignores the actual state of the world by focusing first and foremost on the West in general and the UK in particular. Had the movement’s proponents spent a tad more time to understand the current state of our global emissions today, it would be instantly clear from the statistical number and trend that spraying tomato sauce and glueing oneselves in any Western countries are simply unreasonable. While anyone can be ignorant about anything, if one wants to revolutionise an important part of the world based on a global-level claim such as the need to stop oil starting from the West, ignorance is unacceptable.
Ignorance of the state of the world from these climate moralists also reflects a serious laziness to reflect. Global-level claim requires careful thought and continuous re-evaluation of one’s own position by gathering information from relevant (statistical) data. Briefly put, one cannot be lazy to look for information.
However, beneath the ignorance and laziness, lies an even worse corruption, namely, pride. The call for “peaceful” action propagated across Just Stop Oil propaganda is a sign of false messianism. The activists’ worth lies in the belief that their climate crusade is done to save the future, be it that of the planets and of the next generations. This pride underlies the climate crusade to save the Planet from fossil fuels, allowing the proponents of Just Stop Oil a higher “moral” stance before those who do not share their obsession. The same pride feeds to the belief that there is such a thing as a noble mission to save the planet for the future generations by fighting against what they think is the root of planetary evil, namely, the fossil fuel industries. Such pride results in vandalism of the world heritage, hindering everyday people from earning their daily wages, all for an entirely off-the-mark aim only because they live in the West.
What are the better options to do or think about as an alternative to this ill behaviour?
What climate activists should rather think about
I do not wish to just stop at criticism. Beyond the modern illness of today’s climate activism, there is understandably a concern about the future and a wish for a better world. If global warming and sustainability are gripping subjects for climate activists, some things are worth pondering.
First, think about how the West has advanced so much as regards the CO2 emissions. The trend clearly shows that Western countries gradually emit less CO2 despite being petroculture countries. Western countries are not as evil as what climate activists claim them to be.
Second, think about why Asian countries emit most of the global CO2 and would likely continue this trend. There is a tight relation between reliance on fossil fuels and economic development. Not only do fossil fuel industries provide jobs, but the products themselves, i.e. the fuels, are reliable and price-competitive such that the poor can afford them. People need reliable energy and fossil fuels provide precisely that. Robbing the poor off the fossil fuels directly means sacrificing them for the sake of the worshipped planet.
Third, if Just Stop Oil proponents just have the guts to ask Asian countries to stop fossil fuels, they also need to provide better, or at least equally good alternatives. These alternatives are not limited to switching only the primary energy, but all the way through the infrastructure to turn them into final energy. It means, the electricity needs to be reliable by being non-intermittent and affordable for the poor. Not only that, replacement technologies such as electric vehicles to replace internal combustion ones need to be energy efficient and also affordable to most people. These activists need to think of a way to manifest reliable and affordable technological and market solutions for fossil fuel replacements in Asian countries instead of bickering comfortably in the West. Can they do that?
Self-glueing and sauce-spraying in the West clearly do not touch on any of the three alternatives above. Engineers and economists have been working on making clean energy products and its technology reliable as well as affordable, and no amount of sprayed sauce can meaningfully contribute to effectively reducing the global emissions without sacrificing the poor.
If any of these alternatives are too complicated to think about or too hard to do, shutting up is most likely the best option.
