CarloGesualdo

Yeah, it probably sounds cynical, but I agree with you there. When there are successful actions that make powerful people uncomfortable, those power people successfully repress news coverage of those actions.

Here’s an example of Greenpeace blocking a russian liquid natural gas tanker from reaching port in Finland from September of last year, and here’s an example of Greenpeace activists boarding a container ship containing paper to protest deforestation from November of last year, here’s another example of the same group boarding a heavy lift vessel to protest offshore oil drilling from January of this year, and here’s an example of some scamps vandalizing a wal-mart heiress’s yacht from earlier this month.

You’re absolutely right, that activists boarding ships or otherwise vandalizing them gets way less press and markedly less discussion than this protest has. Why do you think that is?

I appreciate you and I mean that

I mean…here we all are…talking about it. Some people are being more civil than others, but some people are genuinely attempting to discuss the role of individual responsibility in the face of catastrophic climate change.

I read everything you wrote because you went through the effort to write it. I think the “agree to disagree” place is about as good as we’re gonna get.

As far as they’re concerned, they’re innocent victims and you’re a criminal.

“They” meaning the bored old dudes with rifles watching over their parked vehicles and dense urban centers? “They” are a hypothetical group of people who don’t exist and don’t have concerns. Or are you also speaking hypothetically about how an imaginary group of individuals would respond to a potential form of protest?

To be perfectly frank, I think it’s weird to write so much about your personal life in a reply to a stranger on the internet. How am I supposed to respond to any of your personal details without risking you taking it personally? Are you looking for my approval of your rugged individualist lifestyle? For whatever it’s worth, it sounds very romantic and if I knew you in real life I’m sure I would be polite enough to keep whatever opinions I have about your vehicle to myself.

So for many reasons, I need a truck. It is almost never loaded when I have to go into the city. It’s not lifted, I don’t have obnoxious wheels, but it’s a big truck (they don’t seem to make them any other way these days).

I suspect we both agree that vehicle sizes have gotten out of control, especially with respect to pick up trucks. Would you have bought a smaller truck if it were available? Would you support governmental regulation to bring pick up trucks back in line with where they were 30 years ago?

Now I have to also worry about people with attitudes like yours taking their misguided vigilante justice out on my vehicle because you’re not thinking beyond your nose? Do you really think that’s fair?

When I think of “vigilante justice” I think of violence, so it seems a little disconnected with the reality of letting the air out of someone’s tires along with posting a note on their windscreen. I think the protestors would agree that ‘thinking beyond your nose’ is very important, and that individual choices can have collective impacts.

I feel this would go over differently in the land of “fuck around and find out”. You’d have bored old dudes with rifles setting up watches. And if when something did happen, public opinion is not going to be on the air-letters side.

Bored old dudes with rifles watching over their parked vehicles in dense urban centers seems like a disproportionate response to having some tires deflated. I think your speculation about the public supporting someone being murdered over their participation in peaceful protest is pretty depressing. I hope you don’t actually think that.

My insurance comes with road hazard that would cover this at no cost; and I’m a poor.

This is a good point - I’m not very knowledgeable with respect to insurance, especially internationally. Thank you for your insight

Go pop some private jet tires.

I think this is something we can all get behind

I’m sure the 90/10 ratio is simply a rhetorical device for the sake of argument, but since you brought it up, given that the protest does not destroy personal property but merely inflicts considerable inconvenience on the owner, what ratio would be permissible in your eyes? 95 and 5%? 99% and 1%? What if instead of deflating tires someone merely put some sticky jam under the drivers’ side door handle along with a note explaining why the owner has been “jammed”?

The situation you are describing where a car owner returns to their vehicle, fails to see their four flat tires, fails to notice the note on their windscreen explaining that their tires have been deflated in protest, fails to notice their car’s tire pressure warnings, and drives any way, and drive enough to ruin their tires AND wheels seems unlikely enough to qualify as catastrophizing. The far more likely outcome is that the owner returns to their car and then spends some time, perhaps an hour or two, figuring out how to reinflate their tires.

I’m sure the individuals taking part in these protests also support politicians who desire stricter regulations about the types of vehicles they are targetting. Participating in peaceful protest and participating in a political process are not mutually exclusive.

I wish this form of protest would catch on elsewhere as well. Every day I’m struck by the number of huge gas-guzzling pick up trucks parked around the city, and seemingly every bed completely empty. Letting out the air to their tires would certainly be slower and more work than the old method of puncturing their tires, but has the dual benefit of not necessitating replacement (which has a carbon cost of its own) and not enabling the vehicle owner to file an insurance claim.