Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 260 posts

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#101

Post by NotPaidToPost »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #96
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There certainly are wrong and undemocratic ways to "participate". Breaking the law, causing public nuisance (to say the least), putting aircrafts are risk are not acceptable.

Come on. Civil disobedience is a cornerstone of peaceful, democratic protest. Every black American who sat at a white lunch counter or in the white seats on a bus was breaking the law and "causing a public nuisance." As for putting aircraft at risk, the Economist won't actually let me read the article (I wish people would stop posting links to sites like this), but I doubt they actually put anyone in danger. It's lik…

This is not civil disobedience.

Flying drones to shut down an airport is nothing like sitting in the white seats of a bus. That's a ludicrous comparison.

Such drone attacks are dangerous (they do put aircrafts at risk), affect thousands of people, cause millions in damage, and, simply put, are lightweight terrorism. It is quite right that the article open with a reference to the IRA attacking Heathrow airport with empty mortar rounds to shut it down. This is exactly the same thing.

And it is completely ineffective. The only result is to alienate the majority of the public.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#102

Post by adrianN »

nrb wrote: post #80
macinjosh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? According to your link aviation emits twice as much CO2 than long distance road travel. Clearly limiting long distance travel would have an impact. Doubly so if aviation was reduced. Yet many global elites (Obama, Macron, et. al) agree to impose heavy restrictions on vehicle emissions used to feed, transport, and employ the average citizens of their countries. Meanwhile those who can afford it take…

Absolutely not... who gets to decide what reason is good enough to fly? How about instead of reducing freedom we stop externalizing these costs, no matter their purpose or industry?

Just set up a carbon tax that is tied to the cost of removing carbon from the atmosphere and everybody can decide for themselves whether they want to pay or not.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#103

Post by adrianN »

dogma1138 wrote: post #97
opportune wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think aviation is pretty well-suited to carbon taxes/offsets. There are only a few major players and it would be very easy to enforce. Also I think the market would rather easily bear a 30% increase in flight costs

The UK is an island, if you crank up airfare by 30% if would have a huge impact on the economy.

You know what else will have a huge impact on the economy? Catastrophic climate change.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#104

Post by ShorsHammer »

freebear wrote: post #47

Air travel is such a non issue, for any person flying it will of course be a large part of their carbon footprint, but the atmosphere does not care where the CO2 came from. https://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/styles/icn...

Completely disagree. Airtravel has been consistently growing at 6% for a while now, there's still billions of people waiting in line to get easy access to it.

As your graphic alludes to short distance regional flights can be replaced with a greener alternative, but the vast majority of flights cannot.

Air travel is growing exponentially and we have no way to stop those emissions. Virtually everything else has alternatives, there simply isn't the energy/kg to move airplanes with anything other than petroluem products. Biofuels would be an even worse disaster.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#105

Post by NotPaidToPost »

vorpalhex wrote: post #4
exabrial wrote: post #2

That's a funny way to spell terrorists.

There's a difference between trying to destroy ships or blow up power plants and shutting down an airport. Still not great, probably worth heavy fines and some jail time, but not exactly terrorism under the common definition.

First result on Google: "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims."

Isn't this unlawful intimidation in the pursuit of political aims?

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#106

Post by FartyMcFarter »

adrianN wrote: post #98
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There certainly are wrong and undemocratic ways to "participate". Breaking the law, causing public nuisance (to say the least), putting aircrafts are risk are not acceptable.

Without breaking laws and causing public nuisance India would still be part of the British Empire and African Americans would still be second class citizens. Climate change is a vastly more serious problem than either of those two.

How far does this apologist attitude go?

Let's say a "climate activist" causes a plane to go down with a drone, killing 200 people. Then one of the victim's family takes justice into their own hands by hunting down this activist and killing them.

Would this be ok since it's breaking laws to solve a serious problem of a family member getting killed?

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#107

Post by samcday »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #106
adrianN wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without breaking laws and causing public nuisance India would still be part of the British Empire and African Americans would still be second class citizens. Climate change is a vastly more serious problem than either of those two.

How far does this apologist attitude go? Let's say a "climate activist" causes a plane to go down with a drone, killing 200 people. Then one of the victim's family takes justice into their own hands by hunting down this activist and killing them. Would this be ok since it's breaking laws to solve a serious problem of a family member getting killed?

This hypothetical situation is bordering on the absurd, I think. XR has made it abundantly clear what they intend to do, and when + how they intend to do it. I'm not going to say it's impossible, but I would venture that the chances of their actions causing a plane to go down are so extraordinarily slim that it's an utter waste of time to discuss the implications of it happening.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#108

Post by samcday »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #101
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. Civil disobedience is a cornerstone of peaceful, democratic protest. Every black American who sat at a white lunch counter or in the white seats on a bus was breaking the law and "causing a public nuisance." As for putting aircraft at risk, the Economist won't actually let me read the article (I wish people would stop posting links to sites like this), but I doubt they actually put anyone in danger. It's lik…

This is not civil disobedience. Flying drones to shut down an airport is nothing like sitting in the white seats of a bus. That's a ludicrous comparison. Such drone attacks are dangerous (they do put aircrafts at risk), affect thousands of people, cause millions in damage, and, simply put, are lightweight terrorism. It is quite right that the article open with a reference to the IRA attacking Heathrow airport with em…

Of course, you are completely entitled to your opinions, but I'm not going to engage them because I don't think you're really interested in having an open discussion about this.

Why do I say that? Because in response to a pre-planned demonstration from a group that has made abundantly clear that they intend to engage in acts of civil disobedience that are 100% non violent, you have used the words "drone attack", "terrorism" and have likened them to the IRA.

I'm pretty confident I have absolutely no chance of changing your mind here, but it would mean a lot to me if you were to just consider for a moment your choice of words and what they say about your tolerance to people who hold different opinions to you.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#109

Post by samcday »

The level of negativity and hostility in the comments here is really disappointing to me. I agree that XR are definitely pushing the envelope on what we consider to be reasonable activism and protest.

However, I also think that the old adage "desperate times call for desperate measures" applies here. Yes, there are plenty of actions being taken to combat the damage we're inflicting to this little wet rock we all call home. But it seems obvious to me that there are enough people who think we're not doing enough that they are organizing and mobilizing in extraordinary ways.

Maybe some of those extraordinary ways cross the line. But who decides what the line is anyway? The people who are sitting at home typing out angry comments about how we should and shouldn't deal with the existential threat to our species? I hope not, or we're all doomed!

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#110

Post by NotPaidToPost »

samcday wrote: post #108
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not civil disobedience. Flying drones to shut down an airport is nothing like sitting in the white seats of a bus. That's a ludicrous comparison. Such drone attacks are dangerous (they do put aircrafts at risk), affect thousands of people, cause millions in damage, and, simply put, are lightweight terrorism. It is quite right that the article open with a reference to the IRA attacking Heathrow airport with em…

Of course, you are completely entitled to your opinions, but I'm not going to engage them because I don't think you're really interested in having an open discussion about this. Why do I say that? Because in response to a pre-planned demonstration from a group that has made abundantly clear that they intend to engage in acts of civil disobedience that are 100% non violent, you have used the words "drone attack", "ter…

I respect people with different opinions. I do not respect people who try to impose their opinions through criminal and reckless actions.

By the way, I have not likened their actions to the IRA's, the article does that based on fact. That's obviously a very disturbing and inconvenient fact to you but that's a fact nonetheless.

Again, what they are doing is not civil disobedience and has no place in a democratic country.

Post reply on HN