Extinction Rebellion plans to shut down Heathrow Airport with drones - Polidicks

You can use this to justify literally any non-violent action because global warming itself is more important than any individual concern of any human being ever. ...Except that any individual protest isn't going to solve the problem, so the value of the protest isn't the same as the value of global warming.

It sure does reveal how certain people care more about their vacations or personal hobbies than about the planet we all have to live on. That's already one net positive. The other aspect is the same as the one you'd get in other similar protests, it puts financial pressure on companies that are responsible for a significant part of carbon emissions, and it also contributes to removing financial and practical incentives that would otherwise motivate consumers to make ecologically sub-optimal choices.

I don't even think it would have to use a accelerometer and a altimeter, if you were mass-dropping drones you could probably get away with just using a preset flight schedule just using timings (i.e. elevate for X seconds, go forwards for X seconds, bank left for X seconds, etc.). As you say, accuracy isn't a massive concern because they just need to be around the airport, and again they wouldn't be able to be jammed. I'm not sure if this protest will have the desired effect, but I think they could carry it out with a little forethought.

This will get people on our side! Idiots

The thing that worries me is that i think a lot of people who look at this are going to focus most or all of their attention on disrupting flights and wasting drones and shit instead of Climate Change. This thread doesn't exactly inspire hope, either

71% of carbon emissions are produced by only 100 companies. If you wan actual change to occur you need to highlight these companies and the damage they do, rile people up and get them on your side. Pissing people off and inconveniencing them does not actually accomplish anything. This protest is at best pointless and at worst actively detrimental to Extinction Rebellion's cause. It's oil and coal companies who are creating these emissions, not airlines. Yes every other industry needs to move toward using clean solutions, but you have to pick the appropriate targets, not just attack the high visibility ones. Convincing yourself that you're doing something while ignoring the actual problem is what will cause groups like Extinction Rebellion to fail, because fighting oil and coal producers is a more abstract war than doing dumb publicity stunts. There are only two ways to fight oil conglomerates. Work to make them irrelevant, which is very hard and will take far too long, or become an outright ecoterrorist, which is a hard moral line to cross. Getting mad at people for not supporting stunts like this, which will have no lasting effects, is detrimental to your cause.

71% of carbon emissions are produced by only 100 companies. If you want actual change to occur you need to highlight these companies and the damage they do, rile people up and get them on your side. Pissing people off and inconveniencing them does not actually accomplish anything. Note: this figure includes literally everyone who uses the fossil fuels by any of the 100 largest fossil-fuel producing entities, so any individual who drives a car or, indeed, flies in a plane contributes to this figure; all it's saying is that we're too reliant on and consume too much fossil fuels, the companies aren't "the" problem here. This also accounts transportation for most products. If we wish to lower this figure, many things need to be done, including smaller steps such as reducing the total amount of flying done, instead of sitting on your hands and going "well I'm not the problem, it's these companies!". If you do wish to do it only by going for these companies (for some fuckin reason), you're still going to be affected in exactly the same way, since the reduction in fossil fuel usage will mean fossil fuels becoming more expensive meaning they'll be used less. All the "71% of all emissions..." stat has ever said is that fossil fuels are main cause of carbon emissions; it's just wrapped up in blaming companies to cloud the issue. Pissing people off and inconveniencing them does not actually accomplish anything. This is neat rhetoric except for the fact that not everything is about getting support for your cause; sometimes it's about actually doing things, such as pressuring politicians and companies and forcefully putting the media spotlight on an issue, such as the heathrow expansion. Yeah, sure, they'll paint extinction rebellion in a bad light, but if you say that no toes are allowed to be tread on then you're just asking for perfection and don't really care about how successful the group actually is.

We've been over this many times already. Those 100 companies pollute so much because there's demand for their products and profit to be made, not because they get a kick out of it like some captain planet villain. They don't exist in a vacuum. Guess what is one of the significant source of demand for oil? Airlines. To argue that airlines aren't creating the very emissions that comes out of their planes' turbines is asinine. It's even more ludicrous to believe that attacking the oil industry itself would inconvenience people any less. I've pointed it out already, no matter your target, it will bring discomfort to people and they will bitch about it. At this point it's not really something to factor in, those people will be gigantic babies either way. You can be pretty damn certain that attacking the oil industry at large will affect people far more. We're talking businesses closing down and people losing their jobs. By comparison, blocking an airport for a few hours is small fry in terms of bad PR. Not saying it shouldn't be done, but saying that it would be preferable because it wouldn't piss people off is really naive.

If you had enough power to stay up there like that, that would work, but you wouldn't be able to soar using thermals. Soaring would also have the benefit of making the movements slightly less predictable.

There are only two ways to fight oil conglomerates. Work to make them irrelevant, which is very hard and will take far too long, or become an outright ecoterrorist, which is a hard moral line to cross. When you put it like that it's really not a hard choice.

I'm an aviation freak, but if you gave me the choice of sacrificing drones for just 0.1% more of the populace being aware and fighting against climate change then I'd do it in a heartbeat. And if you think that's some kind of mentally ill suggestion to make "on behalf of others" -- lack of awareness and lack of change for the climate effects all of us, without question. not a single person will escape if nothing is done. there is NOTHING to be gained by trying to get away.

What makes you guys think actions like these won't just increase support for climate skeptics?

This is the same tier of rhetoric as arguing we shouldn't fight back against Nazis because that gives them more ammo to play the victims. The people that such a protest would lead to believe that climate change isn't real (???) are either profoundly stupid or just making up excuses. Not people that would've been swayed by rational discourse either way.

No it's not. Fighting Nazis doesn't involve ruining the day of perfectly ordinary people. My experience is that some people tend to be really petty. If you take something away from them, they will hate you no matter what your intentions are. As a result they might just throw their support behind the deniers in a ways to get back at those they perceived to have wronged them.

...And none of those people can be of any use when it comes to tackling climate change. Absolutely no possible scenario involves them doing anything to solve the problem, as doing so necessarily involves personal sacrifice. As such, I see no reason to take those people's views into account. We're way past the point of trying to convince everybody of the dangers of climate change. Anybody who still denies the truth is entrenched so deeply within their beliefs we may as well just leave them there. Now's the time to get those who accept that climate change is a threat to act, too bad for those who don't.

This is a comically childish view of the world and how people react to protests, especially non violent protests.

My attitude has become rather more fatalistic of late. If the only way to save the planet is going to be to have every nation on earth make drastic changes right now, then we know that doesn't have a chance of happening. It means it's already far too late. We had our chance, and we blew it. Our efforts now will be too little, too late. Still worth doing, if only to cling to life a little bit longer, but it's akin to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. I don't really see what's worth saving in a species so short-sighted and collectively stupid, anyway. Oh, Earth itself will be fine. Just as Carlin said, after the Holocene extinction it'll slowly restore equilibrium and complex life will one day thrive again, as it always has. We just won't be here to see it.

You guys are being so extremely obtused. This is a great idea. Civil disobedience isnt suppose to be convient. Especially since the airport would be pretty useless if the world ends due to climate change. Nonetheless they should sent drones to the white house/capital instead. The airport isnt the best target I admit, but still bold and better then nothing.

It does, and it did. Well done proving you know nothing about World War 2. Go read a history book about wartime shortages and rationing. And yes, it was necessary.

Fuck those ordinary people and their vacations. Everybody's live at stake with climate change. We need NOISE. Not quiet, useless protesting in government permitrd areas in which the media will ignore. That's completely useless. Dont blame the activist, blame the elites for letting it get this far.

We have very inclusive commication within our programs. I've been part of road blockades and as far as I can tell the ones that get absolutely buttmad at you for blocking are the ones that would never stand for our cause anyway. Other people on the other hand who are actually thinking about what is happening in front of their eyes and why are usually very interested in blockade actions, why we are doin them and how we are doing them. These are the ones we are targeting anyway since one of the core theories behind XR is that we only need ~10% of people as support anyway to create significant change.

There's nothing wrong with this. Everyone agrees that we need action on climate change but they suddenly become tight-lipped when it comes to doing the hard work of protests and direct action. A protest that isn't inconvenient is a worthless protest. The only way to get the powerful to take legislative action is to force them, not ask them politely.

Erm there's everything wrong with this. I don't disagree that there needs to be a push for climate change, but at the cost of air traffic accidents possibly happening? Imagine if, some airplane disaster happened because of this. Congrats, now everyone hates you. This move is just extremely stupid and dangerous. You wanna protest, there's plenty of ways much more safe.

Guess you missed the part about airports shutting down out of safety the second a drone is sighted. The whole point of this protest is to be noticed right away and to shut the airport down. It benefits absolutely nobody if they fly under the radar so they'll logically go out of their way to avoid exactly that.

If you blockade a road, what if some car hits you and a pile up happens, if you blockade a building, what if there's a fire and people can't evacuate, if you...

I didn't mean that they should avoid inconveniencing people. I think that inconveniencing people as the primary method of protest is counter-productive, especially when it's done sporadically and inconsistently. If they want to make an actual impact they need to be shutting down airports constantly and consistently, shutting down an airport for a day is something that happens with a bad storm, they're prepared to eat that cost. To effectively combat oil companies they need to make it too expensive for them to operate in general, or make it too expensive for their partners to operate. Shutting down an airport or a highway for a day every few months isn't effective strategy, it's a feel good measure so people can pat themselves on the back and act like they're doing something. I'm not saying they're going too far, I'm saying they're not going nearly far enough.

So far, even just the announcement worked.

Those can only catch weak-ass consumer drones, you'll need a net to catch a freestyle/racing drone. It'll probably severely injure the bird.

As somebody mentioned before; how could you even say that? When the Allies/resistance were fighting the actual Nazis during WW2, lots of infrastructure was sabotaged, bridges, railroads, roads were blown up in order to fuck up their supply lines, but at the same time it ruined the days of perfectly ordinary people. Firebombing cities (which back then was a perfectly acceptable strategy) was a thing. Don't you think that razing a whole city might irritate the civilians a little bit? Was it all for nothing? No, apart from material loss, it definitely caused a drop in morale. Now, let's think about some contemporary issues; Let's for example say that Twitter decides to automatically flag and add a debunking explanation to tweets by accounts that regularly post disinformation and their tweets included many racists remarks. Some people may be flagged incorrectly and sure, it may ruin their day because they had absolutely nothing to do with the far-right, but does that mean we should just say fuck it and let them convince the impressionable folks? (Probably a shitty example, but I am at work and my brain is running on low power mode ) Whenever there's a conflict, any kind of conflict, be it war, relationships, politics, etc. people who have absolutely nothing to do with it may get hurt by it or have their day ruined by it. And frankly, I don't believe that there is ever a way to fully avoid it. You can lessen the impact on others, but you'll never avoid it completely. What these people are doing is in my opinion a right thing to do. If it were me, sure I'd be pissed off, but then again if it makes a difference, I'd rather choose the option that causes me a temporary inconvenience rather than having the planet on fire.

Those things don't exactly stay airborne for long. Though, you could rapidly deploy a new one, so there is that.