Climate activists block private jet take-offs at Schiphol Airport
Climate protests, action, and legislation on Hacker News seem to act as a special attractor for particular types of repetitive comments, describing the legislation passed&#x2F;action taken as impossible or creating no change[1], or the people behing them as or the people behind them behind them actions as ingenuine, misguided, or as performance artists[2].<p>_I&#x27;ve added two links but a search can provide many more._<p>I would like to respond to some of these frequent critiques explain a bit about why such actions and legislation continue happening.<p>1) &quot;Only X% Percent of Emissions… No _real_ effect&quot;<p>A frequent talking point of such critiques has to do with the extremely small percentage CO2-equivalent reduction that might result from the given action. (An  example of this is present in a sibling comment which implies that fighting climate change is futile, since even the United States and China combined only account for 43% of glocal emissions. I haven&#x27;t verified the numbers.)<p>Given the vast mass of CO2 that human actions put into the climate, it is unreasonable to expect single piece of legislation or action can to solve this problem. Only the very largest pieces of legislation or actions can even be expected to make a noticable dent.<p>To claim that actions or legislation are innefective because they are relatively minor compared to the size of the problem can be reduced to asserting that large problems cannot be solved, since solving them involves mutliple steps. This is false.<p>2) &quot;Misguided hypocritical performance artist clowns&quot;<p>These types of critiques are applied mostly to activists but occasionally to legislators as well. Actions that make the news seem especially created _to_ make the news, so it seems reasonable to consider them performances of some sort or another.<p>It is also worth considering _why_ these are such performances. My impression is that activists are actively seeking to create media attention for an issue that has typically not received the media coverage it is due.<p>(For example, according to the IPCC, the most populated areas of the country where I currently live will be underwater in the next century, but the near certainty of this never makes the news except for rare occasions when it floods or when activists block the airport.)<p>If this is the case, blocking private jets is a convenient rhetorical springboard for garnering media attention rather than the main idea behind action. The point was to &quot;earn&quot; media coverage of the climate crisis, not to block planes. Given that this action was briefly on the frontpage of hacker news and my local news, it seems to have worked.<p>Well-intentioned and direct criticism of the headline, whether that is blocking private jets or people gluing themselves to paintings, feeds algorithms, helps the activists&#x27; end goals, and misses the point.<p>(Scott Alexander touched on this in 2014. [3])<p>----<p>Many dismissive comments on HN come from individuals whom seem to have opinions at odds with the scientific consensus. Others would prefer to see activism or legislation that makes a larger impact, is more effective, and is less disruptive.<p>If you are in the later category, please consider asking yourself what actions you have personally taken make a meaningful difference for the climate crisis. Please also ask yourself whether your actions can scale to other people, and what it would take to scale them (media coverage, network effects, etc.)<p>_I personally consider voting, lobbying, and dietary changes to be effective but don&#x27;t believe that they scale very well._<p>Activism and legislation are both complicated fields existing within larger climatic and political systems.<p>If you have not recently attempted to take such actions, found them effective, and attempted to scale them enough to generate some network effects (via media coverage or otherwise), I would personally doubt your ability to provide more useful analysis than the people doing work in this field.<p>---<p>The people behind such actions and legislation are trying to create positive change. Sometimes they fail. Other times, they succeed. It&#x27;s clear to me that many commentators do not understand how or why this is the case.<p>In my opinion, &quot;Why?&quot; questions may be helpful. &quot;What!&quot; type reactions are less so.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25134077" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25134077</a>
[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=33359991" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=33359991</a>
[3]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;slatestarcodex.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;12&#x2F;17&#x2F;the-toxoplasma-of-rage&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;slatestarcodex.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;12&#x2F;17&#x2F;the-toxoplasma-of-rage...</a>