For years, I have maintained that a percentage of far-left activists would often rather “protest life than live life.”
It is easy to imagine that after failure in their own lives, the only way some of these activists can feel “relevant” is to protest… anything. But at what point, do such protests actually prove massively counterproductive to the welfare of humanity?
I would cite the “Just Stop Oil” movement in Europe and spreading to the United States as a prime example of the unintended negative consequences of “good intentions.” As in, unimaginably horrible consequences for the greater good of humanity should their far-left activist utopian pipe dream ever come to fruition.
Activists from Just Stop Oil march through London’s financial district, May 22, 2023. (Reuters/Henry Nicholls)
Now, are there decent and responsible people associated with the “Just Stop Oil” movement? One can only hope so. That said, this is the same group which approves of the shockingly juvenile antics of defacing Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting; gluing themselves to other famous artworks; and smashing cake into the wax model of King Charles III at the Madame Tussauds museum in London.
Unfortunately, such an unassailable truth is lost on – or denied by – the “Just Stop Oil” protesters who recently wanted to make themselves feel really “relevant” by grinding traffic to a halt in London at a number of bridges, including the Tower and London bridges. The stated goal of the activists being their demand for Britain to immediately stop all new oil and gas production.
Sadly for them, other than angering a number of commuters seeking to get on with their real and productive lives of working and taking care of their families, the protesters accomplished nothing.
Again, as we could honestly teach that 4-year-old, as meticulously outlined in a report from the Institute for Energy Research (IER), “Nearly every facet of modern developed economies requires petroleum products and natural gas to function and provide the comfortable lifestyles that citizens of developed countries have come to expect. These resources are necessary for agriculture, heavy industry, transportation by all modes – road, rail, air, or ship – and a great number of the products that we take for granted. They’re ingrained in almost everything.”
Zealots who also may need basic lessons not only in “supply and demand,” but “geo-political aspirations” as well.
A Just Stop Oil protester jumps on the table and throws orange powder during the Cazoo World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, England, April 17, 2023. (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
For instance, what do they think will happen if they “Just Stop Oil” in the United Kingdom, the United States and other Western nations? Do they truly believe it will be “magically better for the environment?”
If so, allow me to introduce them to the People’s Republic of China, Russia and other rogue nations that put regional and global domination well before the wishes of “Green Energy Zealots” trying to make themselves feel better. (Zealots who more likely than not, arrived at the protest sites in London thanks to fossil fuel powered transportation or on footwear often created via petroleum products.)
Here in the United States, millions of acres of forestry and agricultural land are being sacrificed to vastly under-performing solar panel “farms.” Thousands of offshore windmills are not only becoming unavoidable eyesores but killing untold numbers of marine and fowl life. And 1,000 to 2,000-pound highly corrosive electric vehicle batteries – you know, as in the ones mostly built in China, which accounts for over 70% of global EV market – are becoming increasingly problematic to dispose of.
Solar panels at the ENGIE Sun Valley Solar project in Hill County, Texas, on March 1, 2023. (Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images)
With all that and more, even rich liberals are now starting to wonder if “Green energy” is weakening the power supply, costing tens of thousands of jobs, and hurting the quality of life of those human beings almost entirely dependent upon oil and fossil fuels to, you know… survive.
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