Why Just Stop Oil is part of the problem not the solution when it comes to the climate emergency

The UK climate emergency campaigning group Just Stop Oil (JSO), with its tactics of causing maximum disruption to the lives of ordinary working people, have only succeeded in alienating rather than inspiring public support for a cause that is undeniably and eminently worthy. In so doing, they have managed to make themselves the issue, attracted the ire of the general public in consequence.

Footage of them stopping traffic across London by occupying major arterial roads and slow marching in front of beeping while holding placards demanding an end to new oil and gas contracts only highlights a complete lack of self-awareness and empathy for a general public currently being battered by what is less a ‘cost not of living crisis’ and more a ‘cost of late capitalism crisis’.

The result has been growing anger on the part of motorists whose lives are being disrupted to the point where we are now witnessing incidents of violence. Though such incidences are abhorrent, they are inevitable in places like…