Bad Behavior Never Advances A Cause

On Friday, The Gateway Pundit reported on a group of people called The Tyre Extinguishers deflated tires on forty SUVs in New York City’s Upper East Side neighborhood. First of all, this group needs to take a deep breath and take a good look around. If global warming were going to kill us all in the very near future, why are celebrities and politicians still running around in private jets, yachts, etc.? Why have they demanding that the rest of us decrease our carbon footprint while making no effort to decrease theirs?

The article reports:

Starting initially in the UK, Tyre Extinguishers groups have sprung up in the UK, USA, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Sweden and New Zealand. In the UK, actions have taken place in London, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester.

This is the first action in New York City, the first of many.

The Tyre Extinguishers target SUVs because:
• SUVs are a climate disaster
• SUVs cause air pollution
• SUVs are dangerous
• SUVs are unnecessary

The Tyre Extinguishers want to see bans on SUVs in urban areas,
pollution levies to tax SUVs out of existence, and massive investment in free, comprehensive public transport. But until politicians make this a reality, Tyre Extinguishers action will continue.

So the Tyre Extinguishers want the government to tell us what we can drive. I wonder if they have thought this through.

The article includes the Tyre Extinguishers rationale for what they are doing:

We are The Tyre Extinguishers.

We are people from all walks of life with one aim: To make it impossible to own a huge polluting 4×4 in the world’s urban areas. We are defending ourselves against climate change, air pollution and unsafe drivers.

We do this with a simple tactic: Deflating the tyres of these massive, unnecessary vehicles, causing inconvenience for their owners.

Deflating tyres repeatedly and encouraging others to do the same will turn the minor inconvenience of a flat tyre into a giant obstacle for driving massive killer vehicles around our streets.

We’re taking this action because governments and politicians have failed to protect us from these huge vehicles. Everyone hates them, apart from the people who drive them.

We want to live in towns and cities with clean air and safe streets. Politely asking and protesting for these things has failed. It’s time for action. Join us.

We have no leader – anyone can take part, wherever you are, using the simple instructions on this website.

The terrorists encourage attacks on hybrid and electric SUVS:

Hybrids and electric cars are fair game. We cannot electrify our way out of the climate crisis – there are not enough rare earth metals to replace everyone’s car and the mining of these metals causes suffering. Plus, the danger to other road users still stands, as does the air pollution (PM 2.5 pollution is still produced from tyres and brake pads).”

The terrorists claim attacks on thousands of vehicles around the globe.

This is not protest–this is destruction of other people’s property, and the people doing this should spend enough time in jail to rethink what they are doing.