British Cycling is sponsored by oil company Shell according to the article.
Do you mind? I’m trying to be righteously infuriated over here.
It’s amazing how “righteous fury” people seem to get over folks protesting sporting events because the fucking planet is on fire.
“Oh but couldn’t they be more calm and quiet about it, I want to watch the race!”
With participants who likely flew themselves their bikes in from all around the world for a pointless competition. I wouldn’t compare an international bike race to a person who rides their bike to work to help the environment.
Sporting events are the best way to reach hundreds of millions of people to deliver the message. Athlete flights are a tiny price to pay for it. And protesters literally fucked it up. Because they are dumbfuck attention whores and nothing else.
Tour de France sends the message performance is everything, and if you don’t perform, destroy your body with drugs. It is inherently toxic.
I’m sure they had many sponsors? Admittedly, I’ve done zero research…
I’m sure they had many sponsors?
Visit https://www.cyclingworldchamps.com/ and scroll to the bottom. Neither Shell nor Ineos are on the list of sponsors.
Admittedly, I’ve done zero research…
Seems the protestors didn’t either.
“One of the riders in the lead group was Britain’s Owain Doull. British Cycling is sponsored by oil company Shell.”
https://www.reuters.com/sports/cycling/protesters-halt-mens-road-race-2023-08-06/
British Cycling is sponsored by oil company Shell.”
Visit https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/ and scroll to the bottom. Neither Shell nor Ineos are on the list of sponsors, only lotteries.
On Twitter the group claims that Ineos is fielding a team, now British Cycling is allegedly sponsored by Shell and yet visiting any of the official web sites does not list any of those sponsors. Must be very shy sponsors.
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/partners Shell is the first one listed on this page.
Dunno what to tell you bud. Reuters, BBC etc all report it so either they’re all lying or they see it where we don’t.
This is what I see
Huh, so indeed one of those shy sponsors that don’t appear on the main page in the footer.
So reading through that, the Shell sponsorship is about bike chain lubricants and electric charging. Yes, very evil things.
Is shell paying you to run defence? I don’t get it. Shell=bad and you should google it if you don’t know why
Shell is good and you’re a lunatic.
Y’all remember that post the other day about leaving all the idiots behind on reddit… About that…
The protestors too. So? XD
Cycling is environmentally friendly, but let’s not equate world championship to cycling as transport. The event itself must have a lot carbon footprint. Still, weird choice of event to protest, but I can see them doing what they can to get the publicity they need.
The event itself must have a lot carbon footprint.
Same is true for almost every form of entertainment but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the truly big polluters.
And if they protested people commuting into a city, a huge source of global emissions, they’d be criticized for that too. People always manage to label protests as the wrong time/place. What they really mean is “protest is fine as long as no one, especially me, is asked to actually pay attention to it.”
And if they protested people commuting into a city, a huge source of global emissions, they’d be criticized for that too.
May, just maybe, those aren’t the only two choices. Maybe they could also protest in front of offices of politicians and actually reach the people who can change anything.
Greenpeace recently protested on top of British PM Rishi Sunak’s private mansion while he was away. And they still got swamped with “YoU cAnT pRoTeSt LiKe tHaT” and people coming up with the most contrived reasons to say they are hypocritical.
It literally does not matter how these people protests, people will always say they are doing it the wrong way, because chuds dont actually mean it when they say that. They simply dont want them to protest at all, so they can pretend its not happening.
while he was away.
That’s the problem.
???
And maybe, just maybe, the protesters should have a goal of not only getting their message out but winning people over to their side. Maybe a goal of gaining support.
I don’t think this strategy of “annoy as many people as you can” will succeed in gaining any positive attention
I don’t think this strategy of “annoy as many people as you can” will succeed in gaining any positive attention
It’s literally the only strategy that has ever worked before, other than outright violence.
After all, who gives a shit about “positive attention” for its own sake? What matters is actually effecting change, and that does not require people to like you.
When has this stragety ever worked?
Lunch counter sit ins in the 1960s are the first thing that came to mind.
Yeah…
Racism is almost non existent now, because of this /s
The Civil Rights Act was passed in large part because of it. Is your argument that the Civil Rights Act changed nothing? Because that’s silly. Or were you just not thinking, and trying to score internet points? Because that’s also silly. You’re being silly.
It never worked, don’t delude yourself.
Weird flex to brag about not knowing history
What if you want to make a movement lose support? Could you then do this as a tactic to hurt a cause?
100%. The moment you point out that this isn’t the way to go you’re instantly seen as the bad one, that you don’t want to be inconvenienced. It’s so dumb.
People have done that but the publicity isn’t nearly as large as a globally televised event.
That’s a fair point yeah, I guess the publicity does help
Any publicity is good publicity, huh? Here’s a data point that says “nope”
I have this big thing I love to go into where I list dozens of better ways of getting media attention and starting dialog, one of the ideas is a big group of well organised people going to clean train stations and educate people on why trains are more climate friendly than cars and why that’s important…
Talked up a lot of people involved in and supporting direct action and they all say one of two things ‘i don’t have time for this’ or ‘yeah sounds great but I’m going to stick with things that haven’t been working for decades thanks’
I really have come to belive that for most people in these things the environment is just an excuse for attention seeking, or the support of these groups acts as a way of telling themselves ‘we try so hard but nothing changes’ because they don’t actually want change, they just want a way of separating themselves from the guilt of consumerism.
It’s like the chorus of people saying that it’s corporations that use all the plastic, like the list of top ten plastic uses isn’t just a list of companies that make products everyone uses - coke is in the list for example, they don’t have a massive pile of plastic bottles to swim in like Scrooge McDuck nor do they have some magic power that forces people to buy their drinks. Working together we could change the world, but no one wants to change they just want a moment of self importance and an excuse for being part of it.
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This is mildly infuriating but ruining the climate is very infuriating. So I understand the protesting and I hope we’re gonna see a good second half of the race.
What’s mildly infuriating is that you are complaining about these protesters without providing any details on the protest.
What’s mildly infuriating…
No it’s not!
“White moderate” pearl-clutching is much more than “mildly” infuriating.
I don’t know about this Cycling competition, but the Tour de france thing has more helper cars, truck, cameraman motorcycle. Entire mobile village with caravan, trucks etc. Thats a lot of ecological impact even if indeed Cycling is one of the greenest transportation method.
Yeah a big competitive bike race with corporate sponsors and television cameras has little to do with cycling as a green method of transportation. It’s a bigass corporate gangbang and a fair target for disruption. Only the most lazy, dense observer would look at the Tour de France and think it was there to promote environmentalism.
And this makes us talk about the fact that cycling is one of the most environmentally friendly alternatives to fuel driven personal transportation.
Yeah, there’s a big difference between pro cycling and biking to get around. The pro peloton isn’t remotely sustainable—lots of international travel, transfers of team cars, team buses, helicopters, signal relay planes, etc. I suppose no pro sport is green. But biking for transport is one of the most efficient and sustainable.
Yeah, there’s a big difference between pro cycling and biking to get around.
Of course, but there’s also a big difference between a cycling race and a car race.
Neither are vital transportation, but one is a helluva lot more polluting for entertainment than the other.
Of course. All in saying is that it makes us talk about how cycling is a good alternative to motor transport. Doing the pro peloton to work isn’t an option.
I suppose no pro sport is green.
SailGP claims to be trying, although I have… questions… about how they get both their boats and personnel from event location to event location, as well as the use of combustion-powered support boats during races. (Frankly, I won’t really believe they’re green until they’ve built a sailing cargo ship to schlep those racing catamarans around.)
Cycling might be.
Cycling the sport isn’t. The sheer volume of support cars, media cars, motorbikes at every race is utter insanity.
That’s before we get into the sponsorship from oil and chemical companies, and at least two sportwashing teams
sportwashing
For the folks too lazy to look it up:
Sportswashing is a term used to describe the practice of individuals, groups, corporations, or governments using sports to improve reputations tarnished by wrongdoing. A form of propaganda, sportswashing can be accomplished through hosting sporting events, purchasing, or sponsoring sporting teams, or participating in a sport.
Seems the protest was effective then
Try cycling where I live and you’ll hate the idea of cycling in a week
That’s not a problem with cycling. That is a problem with city planning.
Which isn’t a excuse not to improve it.
Why?
They live on the international space station
Death roads most likely
I’ve commuted regularly by bicycle for almost 2 decades in 3 other countries, but were I am now - Portugal - I won’t because drivers are stupidly dangerous (some of the worst in Europe judging by accident statistics), though unlike almost all of my countrymen here I refuse to buy a car and walk, use public transportation or at worst rent one when needed.
The infrastructure isn’t even worse than in Britain (were I did regularly cycle to and from work): it’s just that when there are no segregated cycling lanes the quality of everybody else with you on the road makes a huge difference when you’re the narrow crosssection (so harder to spot for drivers who just quickly peek on the mirrors and easy to fit on their blindspot) squishy, i’ll protected and low-acceleration road user.
If you actually would like to read about it: https://www.reuters.com/sports/cycling/protesters-halt-mens-road-race-2023-08-06/
My guess is that those “protesters” are paid and organized by some oil industry people (maybe without the activists glued to the floor knowing about this), just to give real climate activists a bad image. I’ve talked to a real climate activist recently, and she was furious about those “gullible idiots”.
It’s a little funny how someone believing an actual literal conspiracy theory would call others gullible idiots.
Many conspiracies are true. Probably not the ones about aliens or lizard people, but certainly the ones about oil companies (and oil countries) lying and spreading propaganda.
There are plenty of examples of dumb environmental protests too, though. I’m not saying it’s impossible for these to be false flag impostors but to go all the way to the extreme of calling people gullible idiots for not seeing that they are hired impostors… that’s just extreme. It smacks of many conservative fantasies: gun violence victims are just hired actors, blah blah blah. Thinking that people who ruin your narrative are all hired fakes is a sign of delusion.
Because no conspiracies have ever existed.
Therefore all conspiracies are true. Your logic is impeccable.
Umm… What conspiracy, the climate change?
No, saying that dumbass environmental protestors who are against bicycles must be hired by oil companies to give environmentalism a bad name. That’s a straight up theory that there is a conspiracy by oil companies to hire actors and ruin environmentalism.
That’s not the point though is it, smartass?
I stg posts like these are just part of some sort of psyop at this point.
I just assume these dumb protest ideas are actors paid by oil
The men’s road race wasn’t temporarily interrupted. When a race is interrupted, it’s done for good because you lose all the positions and momentum.
You’re not watching the race are you…
Nope. But I don’t need to in order to know that races that get interrupted can’t be started again and still be valid.
Well it did even after a 45 minute break.
Maybe bc cycling fans will listen
all this does is to make sure to alienate the cyclists who would actually listen.
Mother fucker we all about to die from climate change and you worried about how it might make people feel bad.
Hahaha fucking idiots
