Gotta love the sensationalism.
It’s not paint. It’s cornflour. It hoses off with just water.
Yea, I really hate these actually deceptive headlines.
The deception is the point.
They want you to sympathize with some old fucking rocks more than you want fossil fuel reform.
To be fair, that’s a false dilemma. Caring about Stonehenge doesn’t have to be compared to caring about fossil fuel reform. You can care about both or neither to any degree and they can be completely unrelated.
I will not be fair, the publication isn’t. Why should I?
Their objective is to misinform you so that you do draw that comparison. Even if it’s not conscious, especially if it isn’t conscious. They want to bombard you with a thousand little points, each one drawing a line between unhinged, violent, destructive protest and fossil fuel reform. You’re no more likely to go buy an F150 as a result, but you are more likely to try to distance yourself from fossil fuel reform movements, and that’s all they need you to do to be successful.
Fuck them. They need no sympathy, no advocate. They need to be held accountable.
I will not be fair, the publication isn’t. Why should I?
Because arguing dishonestly makes you look irrational and does their propaganda work for them.
but you are more likely to try to distance yourself from fossil fuel reform movements, and that’s all they need you to do to be successful.
Not really. This isn’t an effective form of protest or reform. Stunts like this allow articles like this to be written in the first place, but the stunts, even if written of with the highest of praise, are useless. Effective action would involve changing the minds of those who profit from fossil fuels the most and making it unprofitable for them to continue. You don’t need to convince people who care about world heritage sites or famous artwork. You need to convince the profiteers of industry and that won’t come from an appeal to emotion but from a threat to their financial well-being.
I mostly agree, but imo classic art is a much more valid target than Stonehenge or other historical sites. Some oil squirted onto cloth by an old white guy who’s been dead for 200+ years can be very pretty and can have some historical significance, but their loss isn’t anything close to a tragedy. What happened at Stonehenge would be inexcusable imo if it were coated with real paint that couldn’t be removed without ruining old carvings and stuff on it, as it is it’s just a stupid target. Fuck classic art, if people genuinely care more about preserving doodles made by slave owners than the environment, they should become climate activists to protect their precious art
It’s also possible to be a person who genuinely cares about classic art and the environment already. And it’s also possible to be a poor person with little to no power to influence the fossil fuel industry. Chiding people for not having the privilege of free time and minimal obligations to protest isn’t very productive. Again, change needs to happen at the top and it’s not going to be achieved through appeals to emotion or coercion via symbolic or actual threats to famous art or sites.
At the same time Stonehenge has some delicate evidence of ancient painted designs that requires special imaging equipment to detect that may have been wiped out bu this. There’s a reason why they tend to keep people at a distance from the thing.
If rain hasn’t wiped it out, then cornflour that washes off in rain won’t.