Climate Thoughts with Brian

Just Stop Oil.

Now pause and consider the emotional response you just had to those words. 

Was it pride? Frustration? Anger? Apathy? From where did those emotions arise? How did you form that opinion, and has a dominant narrative shaped your response to this group of activists? Jonathon Porritt gathers together testimonies, contributions and profiles from 26 young climate activists and co-authors, to present an alternative reading of much needed climate activism. 

Porritt notes, ‘The principal purpose in writing this book is to allow readers to find out a whole lot more about who these campaigners are, their hopes and fears and why they have chosen to live in ‘civil disobedience’. And why all of this is so directly relevant to all of us.’ He urges a wider view of climate protest, one which allows for climate messaging to be heard, instead of being shut down as recent UK judges have tried to do. Silencing the motivation behind non-violent, or peaceful direct action potentially leads to a worrying precedent, one, which to date, UK juries have not been led by. ‘As well as providing a more balanced view of what Just Stop Oil was, and particularly its young activists are, trying to achieve.’

He argues that their impact and profile have been hugely significant and follows the actions of powerful resistance groups of the past. ‘Few, if any, campaigning organisations have achieved such a high profile in such a short period of time.’ From 2022 until 2025, their many high profile actions of civil resistance have caused mainstream environmentalists, as well as the media and the general public, to focus more on their actions, rather than their motivations. ‘Just Stop Oil ‘burst on the scene in a blaze of orange’ back in March 2022. Three years on, it announced that it would be bringing to a close all its campaigning activities within the month. During that time, 3,500 Just Stop Oil Supporters were arrested with around 180 instances of people sentenced or held on remand.’ 

Their actions are meant to be disruptive. They are meant to polarise.

‘[Just Stop Oil] organises disruptive actions specifically designed to polarise opinion, and to encourage the ‘still undecided’ to decide which side they are on.’

It is noticeable that the media have highlighted and made more prominent actions by Just Stop Oil over their 3 year campaign- focusing on those which are the most disruptive, as well as those which are symbolic. It may be that Just Stop Oil is just the last incarnation of climate protestors from Extinction Rebellion to Insulate Britain, to Just Stop Oil. As the job remains unfinished, there is still a space for a radical movement to challenge those in power. “As the climate movement’s Radical Flank, Just Stop Oil was not there to be liked either. And its activists asked the same questions of the mainstream environment movement: What has your sympathy for the cause achieved in practice?”

It remains true that how a group or an individual presents their direct action impacts how the message is ‘heard’.  Far too often we have heard, ‘I agree with them, but I don’t agree with what they are doing.’ Leading to the interesting question, of what action would the public prefer to see which matches the urgency of the climate crisis. A stereotypically British response of a stern letter? Furthermore, for some reason, the public chose who to accept and listen to, even though science methods and findings are the same. David Attenborough, yes. Greta Thunberg, no. Climate Scientists, no. 20 year old activists, no. Though there is no difference between where Attenborough has gathered his information and where other climate scientists and environmentalists have gathered theirs. In acknowledging this, Porritt continues to ask, ‘Why are most politicians still so indifferent to scientists’ warnings about the climate crisis?

There is also a real contradiction in the narrative and perception of the need for climate justice and needed climate action. From polls and surveys, Just Stop Oil is viewed negatively, though at the same time, the public, across countries, are worried about climate change and its effects and the lack of climate action from governments. The last YouGov survey on Just Stop Oil in 2023, noted that 66% of respondents had an unfavourable view of the group. Towards the end of 2024, a YouGov survey across European countries found that well over 60% of respondents were worried about climate change and its effects. At the same time, over 70% of respondents accepted that the world’s climate is changing as a result of human activity.

Radical resistance has a long history

Repeated links and comparisons are drawn throughout the text between the activists of Just Stop Oil and the powerful voices of the past who fought for change, from the Suffragettes, the Freedom Riders, the Civil Rights Movement, Gandhi’s protests against the British. Porritt is careful to limit the comparisons though, acknowledging the awful violence committed by the state to those who dared to challenge the status quo and raise their voices. From the horrific violence of Birmingham, Alabama, and too many towns and cities in America, to the sexual and physical violence against the Suffragettes, the ‘Radical Flank’ of resistance movements has always faced persecution.

What is happening to the right to protest in the UK?

Porritt details and explores the ‘manifestly excessive’ prison sentences meted out to Just Stop Oil activists, using the example of Roger Hallam’s 5 year sentence for planning a direct action, suggesting that they too are a persecuted movement. ‘Lady Justice Carr described the five-year sentence for Roger Hallam as ‘manifestly excessive’, reducing it to four years.’

‘The right to peaceful protest remains a basic human right, but you sure as hell wouldn’t know that here in the UK any longer.’

What will happen to those who have been arrested for holding ‘Palestine Action’ signs and for those showing support for the state of Palestine, once the UK acknowledges the genocide committed there and acknowledges the state of Palestine? Will their arrests be erased? What will happen to climate activists when the reasons for their actions become manifestly obvious?

Porritt argues that the UK state is using its given power to oppress any challenge to its lack of climate action. He quotes John Locke’s famous saying from 1689: ‘wherever law ends, tyranny begins’. But what if the laws by which you as a citizen are bound are themselves tyrannous? In other words, using power or authority in a cruel and oppressive way. That is exactly what is happening here in the UK today.’ Porritt uses the example of a police raid on a Quaker House to highlight the direction of police action and asks in whose interest this is in. In the past week alone, 4 Just Stop Oil supporters were given conditional discharges for marching in the road- or for ‘interfering with key national infrastructure’- a law solely created to target Just Stop Oil activists. Take a moment there. The UK Government took legal action in order to ensure that peaceful direct action would be criminalised. Of course, a simple internet search would reveal many other protests which have marched on ‘national infrastructure’ without any lengthy prison sentences following- so what is it about Just Stop Oil which the UK Government objects to?

Porritt eviscerates the UK Government by pouring scorn on plans that we can come back from a climate ‘overshoot’ through direct air capture schemes, or recarbonising the soil. He is scathing of the current UK Prime Minister’s climate credentials. ‘Keir Starmer himself does not have a climate-friendly bone in his body. He’s been forthright about his contempt for Just Stop Oil.  He quotes Starmer’s speech in 2024, where he said, ‘I will not sacrifice Great British industry to the drum-banging, finger-wagging Net Zero extremists.’ He continues in a blunt manner, ‘The harsh truth is that politicians are making a catastrophically bad job of addressing this challenge.’ He concludes that there will be a time of climate reckoning, as the scientific methods make this clearer and that those who delay the necessary climate action need to be accountable.

“I cannot find it in my heart to rationalise the vast majority of politicians’ indifference and inertia, let alone to forgive it.” 

Porritt then quotes George Monbiot who asks why there is a fervent drive to silence and imprison climate activists for speaking out, while ignoring the real guilty parties. “‘Why do the mass killers of the fossil fuel industry walk free while the heroes trying to stop them are imprisoned?…Why, when we know so much, do we permit a handful of billionaires to propel us towards predictable catastrophe?’” To support this argument, Porritt draws attention to the direct support for fossil fuels which is still ongoing around the world. “The US Federal Government in 2022 stumped up an extraordinary $757 billion in direct and indirect support for fossil fuels. How can one interpret this as anything other than a conspiracy against the American people by their own Government?”

There is a moral reckoning, as well as a legal and political reckoning to the climate crisis. Porritt returns to the tradition of peaceful resistance from the past to make the point that simply waiting to be given justice has never been successful, as those with power will cling tenaciously and desperately to any vestige of control. It does make one think more of post-apartheid South Africa with this reasoning, that a political present is not always ‘just’.

“When Martin Luther King said that the ‘arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice’, he sure as hell didn’t mean that justice will simply arrive, so sit back and wait for the happy outcome! Such justice is never freely given by those who have power; it is only ever won.”

Porritt rings out the clear warning that narrowing the right to protest and the right of freedom of expression will inevitably lead to more protestors heading to prison for ‘crimes’ which are questionable. “As the climate crisis worsens, repressions of resistance will increase, and the bar for going to prison will get lower and lower as the government continues to try and deter us from taking further effective non-violent action.” It is curious to note that the far right in UK politics argue that the freedom of expression of the far right is being restricted, but these are also the ones most opposed to Just Stop Oil. There is never any challenge to Just Stop Oil’s freedom of expression being infringed by the state from these groups and indeed the right wing media in the UK- clearly climate action and climate protest is so beyond the pale, despite millions demonstrating around the world in 2019 in the biggest climate protests in history.

Who are the real ‘dangerous radicals’?

“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperilled.”

Porritt concludes by successfully arguing that climate change is not an environmental issue, nor that it should be labelled ‘an issue’ at all.

“Climate change is not, and has never has been, ‘an environmental issue’. It is not, and never has been, ‘an issue’ of any kind. It is an unfolding physical and geopolitical reality that is already affecting the lives of the vast majority of human beings, and will, in the not too distant future, become the single most significant influence determining the future of our entire species.”

António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the UN, makes it clear where he sees dangerous radicalism. ‘Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness.’ 

Guterres is always stark in his analysis and never shies away from telling climate truths. It is this point where Porritt chooses to conclude this intergenerational, challenging read. An argument which draws together all the threads of the 26 climate activists, focusing on the starkness of the climate action that is drastically required.

‘We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.’ 

-António Guterres