
Pipeline Vandals Are Reinventing Climate Activism - ForHackernews
https://www.wired.com/story/monkeywrenching-vandals-are-reinventing-climate-activism/
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GhostVII
It seems counterproductive to attack the transportation infrastructure for
oil, rather than the users or producers of oil. Would the "pipeline vandals"
rather oil be transported by truck or train? I'm pretty sure the numbers show
that those transportation methods are more dangerous and damaging than
pipelines.

I think it is more relevant to try and get the users of oil to stop using it
than to get the producers to stop making it. Their will always be some country
that is willing to produce oil so long as there is still oil available.
Reducing demand is the only way to actually make a significant difference IMO.

~~~
eesmith
They want the oil to not be transported at all.

Switching to truck or train would reduce the profitability of using tar sands.
[https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=7270](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=7270)
says (for Bakken oil) "Shipping oil by rail costs an average $10 per barrel to
$15 per barrel nationwide, up to three times more expensive than the $5 per
barrel it costs to move oil by pipeline". It looks like oil is about
$70/barrel, so that adds about 10% to the cost.

[https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012015/what-
average...](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012015/what-average-
profit-margin-company-oil-gas-drilling-sector.asp) says "the average net
profit margin for the oil and gas drilling industry is 6.1%." Tar sands oil is
already pretty expensive to produce, so I'll guess there already isn't as much
profitability.

There are enough people in the environmental movement that many approaches can
be done at the same time.

Plus, as the Wired piece quotes:

> This is really the dirtiest oil on earth, in carbon terms,” McKibben says by
> phone from Vermont. It’s a mixture of bitumen and sand about as gooey as
> peanut butter. “In many cases you have to burn natural gas to heat the
> ground to get the stuff to actually flow, even before you burn it in
> somebody’s car and produce more carbon. If you set out to build a machine to
> wreck the climate, it would look like the Alberta tar sands.”

I think it's easy to compare it to attempts in California to reduce smog. One
method is to require strict emissions control. Another is to start a vehicle
buy-back program to get "clunkers" off the streets. These can work together.

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DoreenMichele
If this really matters to you, there are things you can do:

Walk and bike more.

Eat less meat.

Drive and fly less.

Wherever you live, promote a more walkable city.

Get involved and make an effort to track successes, track progress and
publicize what's working. Humans are terrible at counting the successes. We
tend to focus on everything that's going wrong.

~~~
eesmith
Yes. This Wired piece is tracking the progress and success of a technique for
climate activism, based on the necessity defense. And it seems that it has had
some success.

------
eesmith
When Mike Wallace interviewed Martin Luther King, race riots were going on as
a minority of African Americans, angry that decades of "reluctance of white
power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the
Negro" (quoting MLK), advocated violence instead.

King strongly advocated for non-violence, and commented that "riot is the
language of the unheard".

I think I can draw a parallel here, with people who "[f]or years ... [have]
done all the things law-abiding climate change activists do: filed petitions,
lobbied legislators, hosted speakers, wrote letters, blockaded refineries, and
tried to block Shell from moving their drilling rigs into the Arctic." Without
effect.

The data is clear. We are past the point where there can be any doubt that
human generated CO2 emissions are causing ecosystem problems, and it only will
get worse unless we drastically reduce our pollutant levels.

I expect this 'vandalism of the unheard' will only increase, while the police,
and government in general, act as the socialized protection force for large
oil companies.

