Author丨Cheng Jing
Editor丨Qi Fei
In recent times, the actions of British environmentalists have attracted particular attention. Stories of them sitting in sins, climbing bridges, spraying paint on landmarks or splashing soup on famous artworks across the country make headlines every day. This was followed by a build-up of the number of arrested protesters and increasingly stringent actions taken by the British government to deal with them.
The movement culminated in the collection of the National Gallery and Van Gogh's famous painting "Sunflowers" being poured with tomato soup. Opponents slammed environmentalists for destroying human art treasures, while supporters rejoiced that the protests had sparked discussion of climate change.
On October 14, protesters from the "Stop Running Oil" group poured tomato soup on Van Gogh's masterpiece "Sunflowers" at the National Gallery in the hope that the public would pay attention to the issue of reducing fossil energy.
This is not the first time environmentalists have sparked controversy in recent years. From the angry eyes of Swedish "environmental girls" to the "attacks" of Van Gogh and Picasso's famous paintings, the increasingly outspoken protests of environmental activists seem to be trying to bridge a huge gap, with the high threshold for public understanding and participation in the transformation of the energy structure on one end and the ultimate question of human "life or death" at the other end.
Nearly 500 people were arrested within a month
On October 14, local time, on an ordinary morning in central London, two young girls wearing white cultural shirts walked into the National Gallery and splashed canned tomato soup on Van Gogh's masterpiece "Sunflowers" 134 years ago. After the flowers in the painting were covered with orange soup, the two used glue to glue their left hands to the wall below the painting.
Facing the camera at the time, they had the slogan "Just Stop Oil" written on their chests. One of the pink-haired girls, Phoebe Plummer, immediately made a declaration: "What is more valuable? Art or life? Is art worth more than food and justice? Are people more concerned about protecting a painting than our planet? She added that the growing cost-of-living crisis in the UK is part of the oil crisis, and that "millions of hungry and cold families now can't afford fuel, they can't even afford a can of soup."
The two were soon arrested by London police and later charged with criminal damage. The souped Sunflowers, worth about $84.2 million, is one of seven versions of Van Gogh's painting. The National Gallery later stated that the frame was slightly damaged due to the glass protection of the painting's surface, but the painting was not damaged. The painting was removed, cleaned, and returned to its original position that afternoon and displayed as usual.
The move has sparked controversy, but it's not the only recent "out of the ordinary" move by environmentalists. Since April, Stop Oil' members have been operating across the UK, targeting transport arteries, petrol stations and well-known art. In addition to "Sunflowers", the frames of another Van Gogh masterpiece "Peach Blossom Garden", Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" and the works of Scottish painter McCulloch also encountered similar "sticky" actions.
Since October, the group has begun more intensive protests. Not only did they block four bridges over the Thames, but they also staged sit-ins on several of London's traffic arteries. As recently as October 17, protesters poured soup on the façade of the British government's Office for Business, Energy and Industrial Policy (BEIS) and glued themselves to the ground on Victoria Street, where the government is located. Earlier in the day, two protesters came to Dartford on the Thames River to climb the Elisabeth II Bridge cable, which is more than 100 metres high, forcing police to temporarily close the bridge, causing miles of congestion on nearby roads. On October 16, some protesters splashed orange paint on the Aston Martin sports car showroom in central London.
On October 18, members of the "Stop Oil" group staged a sit-in on a street in West London to protest Prime Minister Truss's issuance of a new oil and gas license.
For the above radical actions, the British quarreled on social media. A person who identified himself as a florist tweeted that the "stop using oil" road closure had prevented the delivery of flowers she had prepared for the funeral, hampering her business and people's daily lives. Another netizen lashed out, saying, "The earth is changing irreversibly, and you only care about your flowers." Others argue that these young "babies" who only care about the climate have no understanding of the reality of life when they need to be fed and clothed.
It is undeniable that the "suspension of oil" blocking traffic has attracted a lot of abuse, and even London Mayor Sadiq Khan has "bitterly" advised protesters, saying that their behavior has affected the attendance of ambulances and fire trucks in London, and has also made people who need medical treatment unable to catch up with appointments.
Arthur Brand, a Dutch art crime investigator, denounced: "There are hundreds of ways to get climate attention and this shouldn't be one of them." ”
Since October, London police have made more than 470 arrests of members of the group, according to the local Evening Standard newspaper on October 19. On October 18, the High Court approved a directive allowing police to pre-empt protesters or imprison them.
All the protesters have done is to force the British government to withdraw its newly issued oil and gas licenses. Earlier, the spokesman for "Stop Oil" shouted to then-Home Secretary Breverman (who resigned on October 19) to invite the latter to come out for talks, and they would stop "pouring soup".
But in the end, they waited for harsh criticism from the other side. On October 12, Brevmann said on social media that blocking roads and obstructing ambulances and fire trucks was "completely untenable" and called on police to "do everything in their power" to stop the protesters who are disrupting people's lives.
In the face of a ban, a spokesman for Stop Petroleum responded again that it "will not be threatened by a change in the law" and said that "the climate crisis is a crime that threatens law and order and will kill millions", and that they will continue to protest unless the British government stops new oil and gas extraction.
The Climate Emergency Fund, a charity that funds Stop Oil groups, also said it would build on the Sunflower incident and further support climate protests in the United States and Europe.
It is worth noting that the philanthropist Aileen Getty, who helped found the Climate Crisis Fund, and his grandfather, J. Getty, founder of the US Getty Oil Company. Paul Getty）。 Since the fund's inception in 2019, Irene has funded $1 million.
Similarly, two descendants of the Rockefeller family, who founded Standard Oil, also funded an environmental group called Equation Motion, which aims to limit the use of oil and gas. Peter Jill Keys, a member of the family, told The New York Times that he funded the organization because he had a "moral obligation." He also called on today's financial leaders to embrace innovation that goes beyond the profits of fossil fuels to develop banking models that perform well in a zero-carbon world, and that large banks should use their lending power to constrain the big oil industry.
UK government 'reverses' on environmental policy
On October 20, local time, British Prime Minister Truss, who had been in office for only 45 days, dramatically announced his resignation, thus becoming the shortest prime minister in British history.
On October 20, British Prime Minister Truss announced his resignation in a speech at 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister's Office.
The tax cuts introduced by Truss after taking office triggered a violent reaction in financial markets, and the pound fell sharply, which put the ruling Conservative Party under great political pressure. Within a week of her resignation, two ministers resigned one after another, in addition to Home Secretary Braverman and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarten.
The recent escalation of demonstrations by environmental groups is also attributed to the Truss government's "turning back the clock" environmental policy.
Back in his bid for Conservative leadership this summer, Truss had promised to approve 130 new North Sea oil and gas drilling licences. After taking office in early September, she reiterated her vision to expand oil and gas extraction; It didn't take long for the British government to lift the ban on fracking to extract shale gas, stressing that strengthening energy supplies was an absolute priority now.
Truss's resignation came a day after the Conservative government won a crucial vote proposed by Labour on a ban on fracking, with MPs ultimately voting 326 to 230 against the introduction of a fracking ban.
Hydraulic fracturing refers to the use of chemical-infused water (fracking fluid) into shale formations for hydraulic fragmentation to release natural gas, which can improve the extraction rate and final recovery of hydrocarbons, but its negative effects include large consumption of fresh water, polluted groundwater, and may cause slight shaking of the formation. Under pressure from environmental groups and concerns about potential earthquakes, the UK has banned fracking for shale gas since 2019.
On October 14, environmental groups protested in front of the British Prime Minister's Office, creating a poster with a photo of Prime Minister Truss that read, "Shell Oil Company Employee of the Month," satirizing her energy policies for profiting big oil companies.
But the Russia-Ukraine war, which began in February this year, has pushed up energy costs in European countries significantly. The electricity and gas bills of the British people soared several times, and the cost of living rose in response. This spring, senior Conservative Party officials, including then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwarten, called for a focus on "energy security" and brought fracking back to the table.
Even more nerve-wracking for environmental groups was Truss's appointee for business, energy and industrial strategy, Jacob Rees-Mogg, at a private event. He bluntly said that Britain wanted to exhaust "every cubic meter of gas" in the North Sea, and the government would not only "spend a lot of money" to achieve this, but also try to persuade the public to accept it. He also declared that the use of domestic energy is "greener and more in line with energy security goals."
However, according to research by Rystad Energy, Norway's independent energy business think tank, the energy consumption of oil and gas rigs in the North Sea is one of the highest in Europe, and the emissions of local production are also higher than those of Norway's natural gas produced from renewable energy using pipelines; According to the Global Energy Monitor (GEM), new North Sea oil and gas extraction could generate 984 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, more than double the UK's combined 14-year carbon budget between 2023 and 2037. What's more, as the new rig will take years to build before it can be commissioned, a "opening" would mean a delay in the UK's overall emissions reduction plan.
Not only that, but some Conservatives have begun to question Britain's plan to achieve "net zero" carbon emissions by 2050 – a target written into UK law in 2019 – and questioning the plan means questioning the UK's formal commitment to change the way the economy operates.
Truss has also raised the divide between economic growth and environmental goals to the level of "friend or foe". At the Conservative Party's annual convention in early October, she gave economic growth an unparalleled status, while classifying groups such as environmental groups, Remainers and the Scottish National Party as an "anti-growth coalition" along with groups that disagree with her ideas. At that time, some environmentalists criticized Truss not only for failing to fulfill his campaign promise to protect the environment, but also for smearing the reputation of environmental groups in the public opinion field.
A woman wades through knee-high floodwaters in Pakistan's Balochistan province on October 6, 2022.
Truss and the Conservatives' statements in recent months seem to be pulling back the world's efforts to make the energy transition. In this way, the anger of environmental groups can be understood.
Ajay Gambil, a senior fellow at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and Environment in the UK, said lifting the ban on fracking in the face of a climate crisis "seems particularly anachronistic, with little left of our carbon budget – the upper limit on the amount of carbon dioxide allowed to be emitted to meet the temperature targets set out in the Paris Agreement, so there is no more room to seek new sources of fossil fuels." John Gummer, the government's climate change adviser, also said Britain had led the global transition to emissions reductions, but plans to develop new oil and gas could wipe out previous efforts.
At the same time, the United Nations Intergovernmental Task Force on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that all new fossil fuel exploration and production should cease if global warming is to reach the target of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, or humanity will move towards a "climate tipping point" – a climate catastrophe such as ocean current collapse and monsoon changes.
What is the significance of the soup spilling incident?
This summer, heavy rainfall in many parts of Pakistan broke a century-old record, with some provinces receiving more than five times the average over the past 30 years. By early September, one-third of the country had been flooded, affecting more than 33 million people. The Pakistan Meteorological Service believes that climate change is the main cause of this abnormal rainfall - the extreme heat in May and June produced a strong thermal depression, which kept the Indian Ocean monsoon axis in southern Pakistan, and the prolonged rainfall caused great damage.
Pakistan clearly belongs to the relatively underdeveloped "South" of the global "North-South divide" – according to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan is one of the countries most affected by climate change with less than 1% of global carbon emissions.
The floods in Pakistan are just a microcosm of the catastrophe caused by global warming – protesters who poured tomato soup on Van Gogh's paintings also recognized that "billions of people in the 'Global South' are not protected compared to famous paintings protected behind glass, and neither are the next generation of humanity."
Despite the growing number of climate disasters, it is not easy to get more public attention. Since 2019, two American men have set themselves on fire in an attempt to "gain" public attention to climate change, but they have not received as much exposure as "Sunflowers".
To draw public attention to climate change, NASA's climate scientist Peter Kalmus once handcuffed himself outside a Los Angeles bank. He believes that the controversy caused by "Sunflowers" proves that people are more angry about a famous painting than the irreversible changes in the earth.
Dana R Fisher, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who studies climate protests, argues that while it is impossible to assess the effectiveness of the protests, the goal of environmentalists' protests is to grab the attention of the media and mobilize those who have sympathy for the planet that is suffering from climate change.
Margaret Klein Salamon, chief executive of the Climate Crisis Fund, is optimistic that the Sunflower Splash is the most successful climate action of the past eight years in terms of the exposure it has received, breaking through a "new normal" that ignores climate change. She hopes that the actions of the so-called radicals can mobilize voters in the US midterm elections or force Britain to reverse its policy of new oil and gas extraction.
"I hope people can at least think about climate change, even if they're angry with the protesters, it's better to be angry than to ignore." Salamon said.
An abandoned oil rig on the shores of the Cromati Fjord, Scotland.