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Earth

Climate Activists Stop Air Traffic After Breaking Into Four Airport Sites 94

Climate activists have broken into four German airport sites, briefly bringing air traffic to a halt at two of those before police made arrests. From a report: Protesters from Letzte Generation -- Germany's equivalent to Just Stop Oil -- gained access on Thursday to airfields in areas near the takeoff and landing strips of Cologne-Bonn, Nuremberg, Berlin Brandenburg and Stuttgart airports at dawn. Air traffic was suspended for a short time at Nuremberg and Cologne-Bonn due to police operations. The activists cut holes in fences with bolt cutters, glued themselves to the asphalt and unfurled banners reading "Oil kills" and "Sign the treaty," in reference to Letzte Generation's demand that the German government negotiate and sign an agreement for an international ban on the use of oil, gas and coal by 2030.

The action was reminiscent of similar protests this summer and followed raids carried out a week ago on the homes of climate activists in five German cities, at which police collected DNA samples, in what Letzte Generation called "an attempt at intimidation." The interior minister, Nancy Faeser, condemned the protest and called for anyone convicted of involvement in Thursday's action to be given prison sentences. She wrote: "These criminal actions are dangerous and stupid. These anarchists are risking not only their own lives, but are also endangering others. We have recommended tough prison sentences. And we obligate airports to secure their facilities significantly better."
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Climate Activists Stop Air Traffic After Breaking Into Four Airport Sites

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  • by ebunga ( 95613 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @03:48PM (#64709604)

    Those planes in the air had to either divert or stay in a holding pattern until their protest was over. Great jobs protestors. You did literally the exact opposite of your goal. You caused more green house emissions than you stopped.

    Then again, if these protestors are funded by big oil, all their antics make sense.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @03:52PM (#64709618)

      You don't need to invoke malice to explain something easily explained by stupidity.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      The people who wanted cheaper tea made the price rise because they destroyed 92,000 pounds of it. How did it work out for them?
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      Then again, if these protestors are funded by big oil, all their antics make sense.

      It's Germany. The country with no brains. It's on track to be heavily dependent on fossil fuels for another 2 decades thanks to these kinds of activists.

    • No, they exactly achieved their goal, which is to bring attention to the issue of fossil fuels & global warming. People don't realize that even if we reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions we've already caused several degrees of warming. Undoing that warming will require net negative greenhouse gas emissions. But instead our emissions continue to increase! The situation is very bad and becoming ever worse.

      • No, they exactly achieved their goal, which is to bring attention to the issue of fossil fuels & global warming.

        Negative attention, in all likelihood. These kinds of protests, as when people lay in the street and block traffic, most often seem to end up reflecting badly on the protestors and their cause.

    • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      You did literally the exact opposite of your goal. You caused more green house emissions than you stopped.

      Isn't that how all investments work? Short term losses in exchange for long term gains?

    • by Racemaniac ( 1099281 ) on Friday August 16, 2024 @08:03AM (#64711084)

      Ah yes, because these protests are meant to make a change in carbon emissions at the time of the protest, and not raise the larger question of why the civilized world still seems to be doing very little to actually reduce emissions.

      Jezus, the stupid remarks like this are all over this discussion, and they're all upvoted O_o...

      You want them to get heatseeking ground to air missiles so they can make an actual impact, or what do you suggest as a protest?

      (Of course i know what you suggest: they don't protest at all since it might be a bother to you at some point...)

    • Since their goal is destruction, not preservation, I'd guess they did exactly what they wanted to do.
  • 1. Be a self-righteous pest

    2. ???

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Modern life of children of the rich is mostly bereft of meaning. All big battles that these classes engaged in that are sang about in our cultures are far behind us. Midwits from well off families grow up with no real challenges to their lives. No meaning. No faith. Religious impulse is there, and there's no outlet for it. No strong beliefs at all.

      This cult gives such people the very thing they crave the most. Faith. It's them saving the world, by waking the sleeping fools to reality that Doomsday is upon u

      • by Bongo ( 13261 )

        There's a reason for this and it comes from adult developmental psychology. A human being grows up and their mind develops through stages, where a stage is a kind of structure, a structure which produces their thoughts, values, social patterns, and so on.

        Because these stages of mind are in every human, they also show up for whole cultures, as culture is made of people, and so there's a sort of group average bunch of stages making up any cultural group.

        There's about 8 stages known to exist overall, but there

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          I'm well aware of Wilber's and Loevinger's work. Probably the best integrated map of their understanding of development stages of mental models is, ironically, done by a fairly popular dating advice coach.

          https://i.redd.it/8nnyfcpw9hzb... [i.redd.it]

          His take on levels, while arbitrary, fits my personal observations of myself and other people very well.

          And the bounce between what he defines as level 6 and 7 is utterly brutal. Most people, get utterly demolished upon reaching it for the first time, because it atomizes ev

      • By "the holy numbers", you just mean what all climate scientists have been shouting for decades now that we're doing too little, and the fact that we probably just crossed the mythical 1.5C increase we really should have avoided at all costs?

        I wouldn't want to be stuck due to one of their protests either, but I think things like the Exctinction rebellion just by their name pose a great question: looking at current affairs, is humanity just doomed to basically extinct itself? Will we keep competing with each

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          >what all climate scientists have been shouting for decades now that we're doing too little, and the fact that we probably just crossed the mythical 1.5C increase we really should have avoided at all costs?

          Which is why Maldives are underwater already, Great Barrier Reef is dead and Arctic is ice free in winter.

          This is what I went over in this thread: https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]

          You most likely got stuck in that 6-7 boundary, and failed to integrate the ego into the new paradigm properly. Which is wh

          • Ah yes, because climate scientists have said the arctic would be ice free, the great barrier reef would be dead, and the maldives would be underwater by now... There might have been some stupid articles by journalists knowing that sensationalism sells that posted such bullshit loosely based on worst case projections that no scientists would ever say is what expected, and now all climate science is bullshit.

            The climate is like this enormous & slow thing, and even if we completely stop carbon emissions ri

            • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              >There might have been some stupid articles

              Like the post you make above about the supposed future which is made in the same spirits as these "stupid articles" in the past? Like the claims by green fanatics?

              You're so close to reality you could see it if you just looked. But the elephant continues to rampage in the room, and you're dead focused on the fly on wall.

              • Ok, i got it, you're a denier. We're measuring record temperatures month after month, starting to see certain hot countries getting bigger regions that we consider not livable for humans, and climate scientists are kind of worried because it's suddenly going faster than they predicted, not slower, and are trying to figure out what's up and what's coming next.

                But you prefer to ignore it since it (probably) won't affect you personally in the next decade,so who cares...

                And btw, it's you disagreeing with scient

                • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                  >We're measuring record temperatures month after month

                  You really know nothing about reality, just propaganda?

                  Here's a fun fact. The "top temperatures we're measuring recently"? Almost none of them measured. Stations doing measuring documented a pretty average year. But this year, there was a beginning of modelling the gaps more densely.

                  The process is that the temperatures are measured at GISS stations. Then the gaps are modelled. We have new models this year. Notably, "modelling" is not science. It's dat

                  • "it's not science, it's data science" XD ...
                    I wonder why they put the word science in the term data science XD.

                    Dude, link the papers that bring the evidence of all you're saying, or STFU.

                    You can take any piece of science, imagine some bias or bad methodology, and than pretend that it's something everyone missed, but unless you actually investigate whether that's the case or not, your point has literally zero value.

                    Anything that's asserted without any evidence can be dismissed without any evidence.

                    But i'll h

                    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      >I wonder why they put the word science in the term data science XD

                      To confuse midwits. Data scientists themselves will openly state that it's not science when pressed, because they have scientific training, and therefore understand that data science is not science, as it inherently does not employ the scientific method.

                      You would understand that if you could leave the "emotional & political view of yours" and actually examine the merits of the case. You only need to know the following:

                      1. What is scien

                    • Why aren't predictions following the scienitifc method? They put a hypothesis: this is what we predict, and then measure the years after that to see how good their predictions are. The further they go into the future, the more they show that there is a lot of uncertainty in their predictions, but they do validate them continuously, sounds like a very scientific endeavor.

                      By the same idea of yours, is predicting solar eclipses not a science because the day before the eclipse they do accurate measurements of t

                    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      >Why aren't predictions following the scienitifc method?

                      Because they cannot. By definition, when you predict the future, the goal is to predict it before it arrives, not when it arrives. You only need to know that time is linear to understand this.

                      It is very simple to understand provided you're not a midwit who can only regurgitate talking points, and instead is capable of actual logical reasoning at fairly basic level. Imagine you model what will happen tomorrow, today. How do you test this before tomor

                    • >>Why aren't predictions following the scienitifc method?

                      >Because they cannot. By definition, when you predict the future, the goal is to predict it before it arrives, not when it arrives. You only need to know that time is linear to understand this.

                      Let's just stick to this, i don't care about you deflecting again towards climate denial. Prediction is like the very basis of the scientific method. You make a verifiable prediction, and then try to verify it. If your claim is that Climate predictions

                    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      I'm just going to open by noting the fact that in your closing statement, you admit to not understanding what science is. As you stated that I "have a theory", which means that I have a hypothesis that is proven beyond reasonable doubt.

                      And they proceed with the staple of left wing political activism when caught in a lie: "so you're saying that [strawman]".

                      Because you're so utterly scientifically illiterate, that you don't even know what "theory" is, but you are well trained in how to regurgitate dogmatic po

                    • > As you stated that I "have a theory", which means that I have a hypothesis that is proven beyond reasonable doubt.
                      Ah yes, word games, the pinnacle of genuine debate (and i don't even say you have a theory anywhere... i say you make a claim)

                      >And you immediately strawman the claim to maintain your delusion. To the point where your counter examples are also ones where we have no ability to meaningfully predict more than a few months ahead:

                      Ah yes, i didn't take astronomy as an example that can predict

                    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      >word games

                      No, basic scientific concepts. Hypothesis and theory are definitional to scientific method.

                      As scientific method is literally "generating a hypothesis, testing it, and if it is found correct, it is considered a theory".

                      But for people who view Science, capital "S" as a religion as you apparently do, and Scientists as a priesthood that brings us the Holy Word and the Holy Numbers of Science, those are indeed "word games".

                      >Can making predictions be scientific or not?

                      Yes on condition that you fo

                    • >> Can making predictions be scientific or not?

                      > Yes on condition that you follow the scientific method.

                      Thanks, you now contradicted your previous statement you used to say my science is a religion: "Because they cannot. By definition, when you predict the future, the goal is to predict it before it arrives, not when it arrives. You only need to know that time is linear to understand this."

                      Now, pretty much all of your statements are of this level, and i'm honestly not going to take a week painstaki

                    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      I keep forgetting that your types view words as spells that they cast on the world to define it from the social ether. Because there is no inherent truth, there's only power and there is no speech, only fight for power over who gets to cast a spell that defines reality.

                      For example, above you asked about specific predictions, made in a specific way, and I answered why.

                      You then proceeded to cut this context entirely, and generalize it to everything, and then declare victory. You genuinely believe that in doin

    • I generally don't agree with extremist tactics, but climate change is a serious issue: how do you propose John Q. Public get the attention of elected leaders who are more likely than not in the pockets of the moneyed corporations? If not glueing themselves to a runway, then what? And please don't suggest "petitions."
      • I don't suggest anything whatsoever. It is up to them to decide how to act, but as a general rule, extremist tactics will not just fail, but actively hurt your cause almost every time. You are not just trying to get the attention of elected leaders but also trying to sway the rest of the John Q. Public to your side. Many people who might have been sympathetic to your cause will quickly decide they want nothing to do with you and will spend their limited attention on other causes or even actively work agains
  • Or did they run out of soup?

    Behaving like petulant children while complaining nobody takes you seriously. Well duh.
  • Eco terrorists (Score:3, Interesting)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @04:00PM (#64709662)

    According to Google, terrorism is defined as "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims". That's what these people are. Quite literally. The seemingly noble cause driving their behaviour doesn't matter. It's time we start treating them on par with other terrorists and putting them away for decades, not years.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      What violent intimidation was involved? They just occupied part of the airport, peacefully.

    • No. Literally the first part of your definition didn't have it's criteria met. It's neither violence nor intimidation to jump a fence on an airport and have the airport shut itself down. They didn't threaten to shoot down a plane. They didn't intimidate anyone.

      There are eco terrorists out there, but these guys aren't it. They are just ignorant idiots.

  • Non-Thinkers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @04:13PM (#64709692)

    Hey, I'm all for replacing fossil fuels with something better but "stop all oil" just throws everyone back into the stone age. How about "gradually replace all oil" instead? These whack-a-doodles are doing nothing productive.

    • On one hand, "stop all oil" is not feasible.

      On the other hand, "gradually replace all oil" is also not feasible, and is also too slow.

      What we need is "replace as much oil as possible immediately" and then we can start looking at the gradual changes.

      Unfortunately we do not seem to be capable of any of these things. We will let the corporatists destroy us instead.

    • If you believe scientists who say that the oceans will boil [youtube.com], then it's rational to stop burning oil now, even if hurts in the short term.
  • Bad strategy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @04:29PM (#64709740)

    This kind of crap turns potential allies into enemies and gives conservatives evidence to support the claim that all protesters are criminals

    • Re:Bad strategy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday August 16, 2024 @04:00AM (#64710776)

      Fundamentally Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are doing more to harm the rights of people than any other group in history.
      To protest effectively you need to: a) get your message spread, b) effect the people who can make a change, c) get sympathy for your message.

      Defacing a bank building achieves that. Dropping a shipping container in-front of an oil major's head office (which was really funny by the way when Greenpeace did it in London) achieves that. Scaling a refinery fence and putting large banners up on tanks for the world to see acheives that.

      But XR and Just Stop Oil aren't doing that. They affect ordinary people who have no power to change, and they garner no sympathy. The art lover watching soup getting poured on a painting can't stop oil, all they now do is hate protestors. The guy stuck in traffic in his EV because protestors glued themselves to the highway already did his bit, and he's still being punished, all they now do is hate protestors. Flying... flying fucking sucks, no one does it voluntarily. The protestors making this worse causes people to hate protestors.

      If you want to eliminate the right to protest just keep doing what you're doing. There was literally no talk in west of reducing the rights to protest before XR and Just Stop Oil came along.

      I support their message, but they are DUMB FUCKS doing more damage to their own goal than they are doing to support it. !

      • Flying sucks so bad that we now have a huge increase in flying traffic due to city hoppers. People now just get a cheap ticket to Barcelona or Amsterdam to go there for the weekend, where it used to be a lot more expensive and not worth it for just a weekend.

        • Yeah but why do people do it, they don't do it for the joy of flying or because they feel like getting groped at Schiphol and told to pour their coke out. People fly because of the destination. It's the I've been working all week in rainy Amsterdam and need some Vitamin D this weekend so I'm flying to the sun. By blocking this XE and the like are just pissing off the common people whose support they require to enact any change.

          Remember people's support is key. Look at the the UK. Protests everywhere, visibl

    • Just suppose a group with the name "Extinction Rebellion" actually believes its name (which imo isn't that hard to imagine, we've got how many decades of climate scientists pointing out we're getting deeper and deeper into trouble, and how little that's actually happening?).

      So they believe humanity is basically on a course of self exctinction, and most people are ignoring it, and we're just blazing past warning signs saying "don't go beyond here".

      Then what kind of protests do you expect them to do? Of cours

  • glued themselves to the asphalt

    What if they simply made sure they were out of the way, and left them glued down for a few weeks?

    "Oh, you're not currently under arrest. You can stay here, glued down, while we decide what to do with you. Did you bring any food?"

    • Seems reasonable. If they are in the way though I still don't see the issue. Just takes a few more people to pull on them.
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      How would they be in the way? Large aircraft would just roll over them, squishing them like a toad under a car tire.
    • Should have scooped them up with a front end loader and executed any survivors.

  • in reference to Letzte Generation's demand that the German government negotiate and sign an agreement for an international ban on the use of oil, gas and coal by 2030

    And... what are airliners going to run on after 2030? Electricity? Solar Power?

    Unless they think something like Hydrogen will suddenly, magically become viable jet fuel, the Letzte answer to this is probably... no more airplanes.

    • by c-A-d ( 77980 )

      Everywhere they want to go uses electric trains. What's the problem?

    • by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      And... what are airliners going to run on after 2030?

      Synthetic Aviation Fuel exists. It's not cost-effective right now, and it'll require recertification of engines, but it's a possibility.

      • by galabar ( 518411 )
        It's still an "evil" hydrocarbon. It would take violating a tenant of their religion to allow such a thing.
        • by steveha ( 103154 )

          If they are sincere protestors, neither idiots nor paid shills, e-fuel should address their concerns. If we pull carbon from the atmosphere and convert it into jet fuel, then the jets are just putting the carbon back into the atmosphere, carbon-neutral.

          The energy to do this will make it horribly expensive right now. But with wind and solar, the energy costs will drop. And if you can design the e-fuel facility to run when power is cheap and go into standby if prices go up, you can take advantage of the va

      • You can also create oil from the by removing CO2 from the atmosphere. It's expensive, but maybe preferable to the alternative.
    • And... what are airliners going to run on after 2030? Electricity? Solar Power?

      Who said they want airliners and air travel to be a thing? There's already folks out there that there should be a lifetime limit on the number of flights any one person can take.

  • Porsche (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @05:01PM (#64709850)

    My favorite response to a protest like this is when activists glued themselves to the floor of the Porsche museum in Stuttgart. The staff shrugged, locked up, and left for the day. The security guard checked in on them every once and a while. In the morning the police were called along with a maintenance guy with industrial solvent.

  • These people don't realize how much they are actively working against their own cause. Delaying thousands of airline passengers is not going to bring anyone to your cause, nor is gluing yourself to the street thus creating traffic snarls that inconvenience hundreds, nor will throwing soup on priceless paintings.

    I'm very concerned about global warming but every time jerk offs like these pull their stunts part of me very much wants to be against them no matter what their message is supposed to be.

  • Like most of the plastics that are in everything we use. Can't make a phone without oil.
    Like the nylon, polyester and other synthetic textiles these protesters are probably wearing.
    Like the roads that the EV's drive on, and the tires they consume - apparently 7 gallons per tire.

    • Like most of the plastics that are in everything we use. Can't make a phone without oil.

      Yes, you can. We can make plastics from biological feedstocks, like algae. So far they are mostly inferior to other types of plastics, but that's a surmountable problem with sufficient research. Also, it's a lot easier to make compostable plastics from bio sources, so there are potential benefits there if we're not going to recycle plastics even though we absolutely can recycle all plastics (and recycle them back into similar plastics even) using fluid bed pyrolysis to break them down. It's not profitable,

      • You can make an LCD screen out of bioplastic? Never seen a bioplastic polarizer film.

        What do you think they make the separators in a lithium battery from? It's not PLA.

        My point is, pretty much nothing that exists for consumers right now is made without oil.

        A lot of things will require significant developments in new technology, probably synthetic oil.

  • These jackasses are complete morons.
  • by RossCWilliams ( 5513152 ) on Thursday August 15, 2024 @08:26PM (#64710258)
    They called attention to the elite's favorite transportation mode as they head off to another conference on what to do about global warming. The reality is banning private jets is low hanging fruit, but we aren't going to do that. We are going to ban gas stoves. The entire climate change movement has been hijacked by people trying to make a buck. These folks are going after real change which unfortunately usually involves real pain for someone. Its important to make it clear that is not going to be just the middle class slobs, its going to have to hit the jet set as well. We can't let the wealthy buy their way out as they are used to because the very act of buying their way out increases emissions.
    • I actually agree with this.

    • They called attention to the elite's favorite transportation mode as they head off to another conference on what to do about global warming.

      No they didn't. They affected air traffic at major airports for common people while the elite were not impacted in the slightest. It is just yet another dumb protest by these groups that achieved only hate from the public (whose support they need) while strengthening the support for politicians to curb the rights of protestors.

      There are plenty of airports they could have protested at which only handle private jets, but that's not where they protested.

  • I remember the old says when you could shut down a German airport with a dozen Acengers or soâ¦
  • "German government negotiate and sign an agreement for an international ban on the use of oil, gas and coal by 2030"

    All that heating, all that gas for transport (and more) would need to be replaced by alternatives. Renewable and similar intermittent would not cut it (there is zero massive physical or chemical battery infrastructure, neither is there good scalable solution for it). That leaves only switching to a different baseload like nuclear.... Which was massively rejected by the German people. If "las
  • Stop giving their cause any press. The media doesn't show streakers at sporting events anymore, and the same should happen here.

    "Activists shut down an airport for publicity". Publicity for what? No-one knows...

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