You’re shifting goalposts and conflating two different groups and with different ideas and tactics.

Just Stop Oil activists protest in museums with timeless paintings with great cultural and historic significance. They take care that their actions don’t irrevocably harm the art. The priceless quality of the art is essential to the message of the protest, as it contrasts with the priceless nature of what climate change is in the process of actually destroying.

The anti-genocide protester damaged a portrait of a British statesman displayed on the wall of a public area of Trinity College. This is part of a conceptually distinct form of protest where activists challenge public monuments to people with tainted legacies. The artistic merit of these products were pedestrian even for their time, and merely being old does not endow them with intrinsic cultural value. People concerned about the preservation of similar works have moved them to museums where their public display is less likely to be interpreted as an endorsement of their legacy. One could argue that a greater artistic value comes from the creative defacement of these publicly displayed political advertisements that have long-since outlived their historical moment.

Do you carry the same outrage toward the destruction of monuments to Confederate commanders or defacement on Nazi memorials?

Thank you for sharing the supporting article. Sometimes, evidence contradicts intuition. From your link:

Less is known about the relative impacts of non-violent but disruptive tactics. “Is it better to throw soup on a painting, or block traffic, or glue yourself to something?” says Dana Fisher, a sociologist at American University in Washington DC. “We don’t know which is the most effective.”

But there is evidence that these types of protest can have an impact. Social Change Lab gathered opinions in three surveys — each asking around 2,000 people — before, during and after disruptive protests in the United Kingdom by Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion in April 20228. The protesters blockaded oil depots and glued themselves to government buildings and oil-company offices. Most people who were surveyed opposed the actions, but continued to support climate policies and Just Stop Oil’s goals to stop new fossil-fuel projects. This counters the view that disruptive action can sour public opinion on an issue.

Overcoming bias is an essential part of science literacy in both acknowledging climate change as a phenomenon and policy change to prevent it.

Link: Paywalled. Experts? Dubious.

A page from the civil rights era:

Chicago Tribune 1966