Climate/ecological breakdown

Lack of income will help.
Those of us of certain years can remember saving string and wrapping paper.
We used to preserve eggs in isinglass for the winter.

Sums up the intelligence level of these controversial climate activists then. Hopefully the glass will reflect what despicable threats they are making.
Perhaps best to let the climate do its worst which surely can’t be as bad as these youngsters one day running the country.

There is a certain truth in what you say.

Ummm…so extinction of most life on earth is a better option?

If that’s a joke it’s in poor taste.

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Did you notice in the video Jane the prescription that developed - or rather over-developed countries need to get back to the levels of consumption in Europe in the 1960s ?
Interesting, isn’t it, that things many of us remember from our childhoods - eg. returning glass bottles to be refilled - are precisely what we need to do again.

Also reinforces the point I try to make often enough, that things didn’t start going really wrong until the rise of neo-liberalism, and particularly Thatcherism and Reagonomics in the 1970s - and its subsequent hegemony in key international bodies like the World Bank, and in many other countries.

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Again, I’m left wondering what really drives this visceral hatred of the very people that are trying to save us all - which sometimes even seems to extend to ‘young people’ in general. It’s pathological.
Right-wing death cult?

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No joke, look at those running the world today, many of them vocal protestors and disrubtors of yesterday.

If someones views are aired often enough i.e. those who shout the loudest, some then follow that view.

I have lived with that theory all my working life as a builder who has won awards for my work and left a legacy of structures that will providefor years to come but the label of cowboy builders taints the majority by the few, its pathological.

Right-wing death cult
I have read this so many times on this thread that it must be true :roll_eyes:

It will do its worst and they and all living things will have to deal with it, which is what the protesting is about. You and I will be dead so I think it is inappropriate to carp.

I also wonder how many of the people harrumphing about awful environmental vandalism of art have any respect for or appreciation of art or if they just see a heap of money when they look at artworks, and that is what they appreciate. How much time and or money do they actually spend in galleries?

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A couple of years after Laszlo Toth vandalised Michelangelo’s Pietà, I sat my school ‘S’ Levels (not the same as today’s ‘AS’ Levels, but ‘Special’ exams supposedly ‘above’ A-Levels). In one I answered the question:

“The man that takes a hammer to the Pietà is either a madman - or a sculptor” - Discuss

As you can imagine, I tackled this with relish - drawing on Duchamp’s LHOOQ, Burrough’s cut-up, and other works of anti-art. Today, I think an equally interesting question might be:

Which does the more damage to great works of art: political protest - or art galleries ?

This and many other threads - it’s a fascinating but scary thing. I recommend Sartre’s analysis of this aspect of the extreme right, in Réflexions sur la question juive etc. He writes of the right-winger ‘longing to be the stone’ - to stop thinking - in effect to die (precisely the link expressed in the Spanish fascist slogan “¡Muera la inteligencia! ¡Viva la Muerte!”.
Not to mention, of course, the very obvious link between right-wing ideology and apparently aimless mass killings - often ending in the killer’s own suicide.

When we consider the refusal of some people to take climate/ecological breakdown seriously, there is only a limited range of possible explanations - among them, I think we have to take seriously the idea that some people are so psychically wounded that they welcome death and destruction.

Indeed. We may not be here, but the world will still turn, and life in general will thrive. I do get a bit annoyed by people who say that we are ‘destroying the Earth’, because we’re not. What we are doing is destroying ourselves and many other species around us. Equilibrium will return in time and the Earth will probably thrive better without H. Sapiens.

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In case anybody is wondering about the emissions associated with their UK bank accounts (includes Wise and Revolut)…

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I agree the Earth and nature will recover Hairbear - although I don’t think humanity will disappear entirely either - we are too many, too widespread, and too adaptable. Unless we act more urgently, civilisation might well collapse, with the loss of almost everything we currently take for granted - and millions will die - but I think our species will survive.

My biggest fear is the slow disintegration of civilisation. Ever more frequent extreme weather events, floods, droughts, wildfires, etc, will lead to crop failures and mass migrations, and the resulting chaos will lead to civil conflict, wars and political repression.

This is why I find it so hard to understand those that think throwing soup at a great painting (or rather just the glass covering a painting) is unacceptable. Surely they simply haven’t grasped the fact that we stand to lose almost everything in our cultural heritage ?

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An example of which is throwing soup at art,

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That’s disingenuous Corona. Throwing soup at art doesn’t really endanger civilisation. Climate/ecological breakdown does.

Incidentally, the protesters are probably much more sophisticated than you think, both artistically and scientifically. Artistically because the soup alludes via Warhol to artists’ reactions to consumerism, and therefore the deepest issues in climate/ecological breakdown - and scientifically (I’ve been talking to a fine art curator friend) because there was in fact no chance of the soup damaging the painting.
The protest was, in my view, itself performance art - just as the only art associated with the Colston statue was created at the moment and in the manner of its destruction. See my comment above…

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But it is a sign of early breakdown of society. Anger seems quick to rise these days, whether polution, fast food or too much CO2 causes this who knows. Traveling to France was an eye opener. I went and booked my breakfast and returned to my table to find two people sitting there. The man said tough! I explained and he said Not moving. I asked him to think about how this will work when my breakfast arrives? He just went to 100mph without any thoughts of what he was saying. Would you prefer me to sit on your lap or your wifes with my half smile. Go and find me another table he demanded, do you every think before you speak I asked? He eventually moved when breakfast arrived. On the plane the chap in front started effing and blindling as an 11 month old baby kicked his seat back no asking to please prevent this just another to 0-100 mph. Lots getting very angry very quickly, I see changes in society.

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Interesting. Obviously I have observed voters, and indeed parties moving to the political extemes, and I do think this is ultimately related to climate/ecological breakdown (because the centre-ground ideology - basically: things are not too bad, rapid change risks social breakdown, best to tinker a bit to try to improve things slowly - is no longer tenable, and deep down I think most people know it).
However, I had not myself observed anger (other than the notorious ‘road rage’), like that you describe, in everyday life.
Were these incidents in France?

Uk airport Gatwick in this case.

It wouldn’t surprise me if tensions in UK society are beginning to manifest in irritability, etc. From what I read a lot of people are having or anticipating financial difficulty - even formerly comfortable people (such as you might encounter at airports) might well be facing unaffordable mortgage payments soon, or at least uncertainty, along with the frustrations - and dangers - of disintegrating public services, strikes, etc.

It’s a difficult time here and in many other countries too, of course - but the UK is definitely worse off than its close neighbours. Some friends of ours (who also occasionally post here) have just come back from the UK - it’ll be interesting to get their take.

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And his nationality was?

English/British presumably?

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