Of course they can work, and there is nothing at all wrong with the principle of disruptive protest, a la tree-huggers, but imo for it to work it is best if it targets or directly affects those who the protest is aimed at...like the developers, government departments or fossil fuel companies etc.
While gaining widespread publicity or a scatter gun approach seems to be an objective of some protests I have never gone along with "there is no such thing as bad publicity" (Gerald Ratner?), and have doubts that disruptive protest that annoys/inconveniences those people they should be drawing to their cause works...even if the people demonstrating are " 'respectable' educated people, doctors, teachers, scientists, lawyers (farmers even)" that the great unwashed should be impressed by.
In these times of great uncertainty it gets confusing as to whom is washed or unwashed doesn't it.??
Time was us protestors and activists.were labelled 'unwashed' 'rent a mob' who 'need to get a job'
Now it turns out many of us do have jobs (and also wash) but we also give up our 'spare' time to engage in activism on this urgent planetary issue..
I guess we're all going to be labelled as 'middle class do gooders' with no grasp on reality now.??
Or some such.
Oh well, just as well we don't expect to be thanked.
The fact is climate change is already 'disrupting' many peoples lives now..
People are being displaced by it, and being made to go hungry, being killed by extreme climate change related weather events.
They just don't happen to be the people who regularly use the M25, or whatever.
Disruptive protest, isn't one solution by itself.
There's also lots of lobbying, and education, solution finding, awareness raising and so on to do too,
It's way too simplistic to suggest that there's only one effective method.
Just as the actions we need to take to achieve climate justice, are complex, so are the points of leverage required to keep this issue front and centre of policy.
