Who is really endangering art?
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/who-really-endangering-art
Just Stop Oil has been criticised for targeting the work of Van Gogh, but it’s inaction on climate that’s putting great paintings at risk, argues LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
ON the occasions when activists from Just Stop Oil have targeted works of art or historical landmarks, there has been an outcry, both from horrified onlookers at the time and later in the press and the courtroom.
The British government is intent on cracking down on protest, even if it’s an action intent on trying to save us all from the ravages of runaway climate chaos.
“They are pathetic, they are self-defeating, and they need to feel the full force of the law,” pronounced Keir Starmer of Just Stop Oil activists in June. “That is what will happen if we have an incoming Labour government.”
The fact that these “antics,” as Starmer referred to them, had continued was “a failure to grip criminal justice,” he said. Now Starmer and his version of the Labour Party are in power, and climate protesters are being duly gripped, tried and sentenced.
Because in today’s world, climate activists are criminals. As one of Just Stop Oil’s self-described foot soldiers put it, “Slow-walking across Waterloo Bridge becomes an offence that goes to crown court.”
Throwing soup at glass-enclosed paintings by Van Gogh is just the most high-profile of the various direct actions being carried out to demand immediate and effective measures to drastically reduce carbon emissions.
A sensible government should have arrived at such a realisation on its own, thus obviating the need for Just Stop Oil not only to toss soup but to exist at all.
Instead, the Starmer government’s latest move is to squander £22 billion on one of the most useless (along with nuclear power) of all the supposedly “green” climate solutions — carbon capture and storage (CCS).
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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/who-really-endangering-art
