#44 Just Stop Oil - How Far Will They Go?

Within Reason

Alex O'Connor

Religion, Morality, Ethics, Society & Culture, Cosmicskeptic, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy

4.9 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Just Stop Oil are one of the most well-known and thoroughly hated political groups in the UK. You may recognise them as the brand behind stunts such as throwing soup over Van Gogh's Sunflowers, covering the felt of a snooker table at a world championship with orange powder, blocking traffic on busy roads, and, most recently, climbing on stage during a production of Les Misérables in London's West End.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Within Reason.
0:01.6	My name is Alex O'Connor.
0:03.3	Just Stop Oil are one of the most controversial political organizations in the United Kingdom.
0:09.2	They're an environmental activist group, with a focus on pressuring the British government to completely end new fossil fuel licensing and production.
0:17.0	The controversy surrounds their methods. The group is well known for taking part in direct action and disruptive protests which have brought them considerable media attention and inspired volumes of backlash and anger from members of the public and media personalities. Their methods have previously included things like in
0:35.3	2022 throwing a tin of soup over Van Gough's sunflowers in the National Gallery in London, which was
0:42.0	importantly behind a layer of glass.
0:44.8	They disrupted the 2023 World Snuka Championship with an astonishing video showing a
0:50.3	protester climbing onto a snooker table mid-game and covering the felt in orange powder.
0:56.0	Protesters also invaded the track at the Grand Prix in 2022, sitting down on the asphalt before being pulled off by security.
1:04.0	Most famously, the group regularly physically blocks traffic on busy roads in London, causing that traffic to come to a standstill.
1:11.0	A video of one such protest features a woman who gets out of her vehicle
1:15.3	claiming she has a baby in the car and needs to get to the hospital. The protesters do not
1:20.5	move out of the way for her. Stunts like these will be discussed in what you're about
1:24.9	to hear. I reached out to Just Stop Oil to see if there might be somebody willing to speak with me
1:29.6	about the ethics and the efficacy of such protest methods as these.
1:34.4	I was introduced to James Skeet, a member of the organisation's media team who has appeared
1:39.4	on television numerous times to defend the mission and behaviors of the group.
1:44.6	I wanted an opportunity to see how far this organization is willing to go, whether they
1:49.9	recognize the ethical scandal of potentially blocking a mother from taking her child to the hospital
1:56.3	and whether they have any functional policies in place to prevent physical harm from befalling people
2:01.4	in situations such as these during what are supposed to be
	...

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