Why would you throw orange dust on Stonehenge, anyway?

A few days ago, the activist collective Just Stop Oil vandalized Stonehenge. They used orange-colored cornstarch and blasted it all over the stones. Here’s the video.

This is sort of standard for JSO. Most famously, they threw soup all over a van Gogh. But the vandalism against cultural artifacts so far has all been fairly symbolic: the van Gogh is covered in protective glass, and cornstarch is not exactly a permanent stain. (It has already been removed.) 

PM Rishi Sunak said JSO should be "ashamed." Kier Starmer said that they were "pathetic" and should face the "full force" of the law. Pundits declared the action "unforgivable" and a "desecration". JK Rowling mocked the group, saying "Let’s not target anyone or anything remotely responsible for climate change. Let’s attack a unique ancient monument to which everyone’s hugely attached, incidentally endangering rare lichen that only grows there." (If you like endangered lichens, I have very bad news about what climate change will probably do to them.)

JSO is very, very good at provoking this kind of reaction from British society. The questions and commentary follow a fairly predictable pattern: What’s the point? What’s the conenction between Stonehenge and climate change? Doesn’t this just alienate potential supporters? Is this all a psyop by the oil industry to radicalize us against climate protesters?

Oddly, nobody in the British media seems to ask them whether they’ve thought about the answers to these questions. I thought it would be a good idea to call Just Stop Oil’s media team and ask them. I spoke with JSO's Addie May, a chef and lifelong climate activist. Our conversation is below. (It has been edited for length and clarity.)

It is strange that nobody seems to interview you. 

A lot of mainstream media, or at least the more liberal media, will not have us on. We do get a lot of requests from a rightwing media because they like to bait us and attack us, and are quite disparaging to us. But no, in general, it's hard to get a platform. 

Why do you think that is?

The science doesn’t really fit with our lifestyles. It’s uncomfortable to talk about the world ending and it’s hard to emotionally connect with that. And of course, our country’s media is mostly controlled by four billionaires who invest in oil. 

So I'd like to give you a chance to explain your side of the story, and let's start from the big picture. What is your vision for the future? What do you want to have happen and how does this activism move us closer to that?

My vision is quite simple. I want there to be a future for life on earth. If climate crisis continues as it is, we'll have runaway warming and it won't just be us that dies out. All forms of life ever will go extinct. 

Just Stop Oil’s demand is to stop extracting and burning fossil fuels by 2030. It seems like an impossible thing to do, but the alternative is all life on earth dies. We need to stop licensing new fossil fuel projects and revoke all the licenses granted under the current Tory government. I was 11 when I learned that I might not survive to old age because of a climate crisis. And each year we have got worse and emitted more each year. It’s crazy! 

I saw a study the other day that suggested 10% of global excess mortality is due to the climate crisis from extreme temperature. And that's because of extreme heat, extreme cold. Not to mention the crop failures. The prices of food have gone crazy. That’s in part due to global shortages because the effects of climate crisis, with reduction in crops, with increased pests, disease, all of it. It’s everywhere and every day. Sometimes it's just too much. I'm taking action and doing something about it. It's overwhelming.

Yeah it is overwhelming. Does taking action give you hope though?

Hope? Yeah, that's a difficult one to answer. I'm not sure how much hope I have. To change the entire structure of a world, to change capitalism, it does seem insurmountable. I think what gives me hope is that the only thing that could possibly work is nonviolent, direct action, civil disobedience. It's the only thing that's worked before now. The suffragettes, the Civil Rights Movement, ending apartheid. Those things happened due to a relatively small amount of people standing up and refusing to engage with the system. It's not always successful, but it's the only thing that has been successful. 

It's so important that we remain peaceful and nonviolent because when people try to make these changes with violence, it's less successful and usually makes the situation worse. I have hope in the tactics and the methods and the science and the reasoning behind it. I have hope that people power can change us. 

And yet the British media seems to treat you like you’re eco-terrorists, even though to my knowledge you have neither hurt anyone nor even caused lasting property damage to anything.

We are 100% peaceful. We have extensive training in nonviolence. So this idea of terrorism is absolutely ridiculous. And as you say, we haven't caused lasting damage to anyone. But we have to disrupted people. For protests to be effective, we have to disrupt the status quo. Going on a big legal march doesn’t change anything. 

So off the back of that – what are Just Stop Oil’s tactics and strategy? What’s your theory of change? 

JSO is trying to be something called a “radical flank.” There are moderate movements such as Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion, right? Studies show that having other groups doing more radical action, unpopular actions, and being divisive – this actually increases support for the more moderate organizations. 

Why go after things like Stonehenge rather than places more obviously involved in climate pollution?

When we go to the oil terminals, when we go to the politicians, when we go to parliament, the industries that are actually causing this issue – nobody knows that we've done it. So everyone turns around and goes, “why are you disrupting normal people?” And we're like, because we've done everything else and nobody knows and nobody cares. [JSO has an extensive page of press releases detailing all of their actions at these places, and it’s true – I’d heard of only a few of them.]

So with things like the Van Gogh Souping or the Stonehenge protest, the connection to climate change is a little less than obvious. But also those have the biggest media cut through. 

Absolutely. And everyone asks me, “oh yeah, so you disrupted the snooker. What have you got against snooker?” We don't have anything against snooker, we don't have anything against art or monuments. It's about getting that attention. People know about those actions worldwide. Very often I hear people, say “I've joined JSO  because I saw you throw the soup.” 

I think these kind of shocking actions do really help people who are on the cusp of joining to take action. I've seen it with my own eyes. People see these actions and then they sign up because it's not a big time commitment to do these things.

And these actions have got a bit of humor to them. They're a bit tongue in cheek, aren't they? No damage is caused in these situations. In the case of Stonehenge, they just have to blow the corn flour off. 

I mean, I saw a picture on English Heritage's website where someone literally is using a hairdryer to blow it off. It's silly.

Yeah. But that has given us the opportunity to talk to the media and get the message out. It's about keeping things fresh in people's memory. 

But if there’s no real damage done, why do you think the public reacts the way they do? 

The climate crisis – facing the breakdown of everything we know – is just too big for people to connect with. It’s easier to make us the villains and go, “oh my God, look what you've done! This is so disrespectful!” rather than accepting the very difficult truth. Our planet is being destroyed, and it's not just going to brush off with a hair dryer a day later. So I think there's some defensiveness. 

So these actions are very much about recruiting and raising awareness, rather than just provoking the media to freak out. 

Ultimately, all these things are about putting pressure on the government and big businesses to make these changes. Pressure comes from the media. So an action that has got more chance of getting more coverage is going to result in more pressure.

On that note, every time JSO does an action like this, everyone comes out of the woodwork to criticize your tactics or strategy. How would you respond to somebody that says they’d be on your side, but the tactics are pushing them away?

I guess we don't need the people that disagree with us. We need the people that already agree with us and are doing nothing. There's enough people in the UK and the world that understand, that care, that agree and support, but they're not taking action. We need those people. That's all we need to win. People that disagree, unfortunately, we just don't have time to change their mind. This crisis is a crisis. 

And also there's just no way to predict what will work. We can use all of the best experience, knowledge, what's worked before – we can use all of that to inform our decisions, but we do not know what will work. We try things and see if it works and then keep trying things. 

From my perspective, it is better to try something than to do nothing. I have taken countless actions, and I haven't always agreed a hundred percent with everything I’m doing, but as long as it's peaceful, and long as it's furthering the aims of protecting a future for life, I will do it. 

The big protest are what everybody sees, but what are other activities that JSO does that people don’t know about?

We have such a strong community, and it has been like nothing I've ever experienced in my life before. We do things like soup socials, inspired by throwing the soup on the painting.

Oh that’s funny!

Yeah. We all get together and share free vegan food and hear speakers. We put on activities, we made zines one time, and we have a lot of support in terms of mindfulness, yoga. The community really looks after each other in every way because it's hard connecting [with the climate crisis] emotionally. We have to build each other's resilience. 

And speaking of food – you mentioned that you were a chef. How does being involved in climate activism affect or influence how you cook?

I’ve been working in restaurants on and off for 18 years, I started when I was a teenager. So I'm vegan or I'm freegan, I'll eat anything if it's going to waste. I was vegetarian for most of my life. I've been vegan for, I don't know, eight years maybe. I love to cook all sorts of cuisine.

I've worked at predominantly vegetable-based places. I've worked on a lot of restaurants on farms, but I've obviously prioritized using their local produce. I've pretty much always worked with vegetables my whole life. And being on organic farms, obviously we need to farm organically because the soil is being degraded, all the bees are dying, and we need that soil and bees to be able to grow foods to eat. 

How do you eat more sustainably? 

I almost always by UK-grown vegetables, unless they're being chucked out in clearance or something. So that's a real great first step. Obviously being vegan and plant-based is the biggest way you can reduce your personal emissions. And then within that, using locally sourced ingredients. So yeah, buying things in season. I always shop seasonally and pretty much always from the UK apart from things like bananas. 

At the moment, I'm eating a lot of salads. I've been really enjoying the asparagus season, and British tomatoes are coming now. I'm having lots of wonderful salads like that, doing a lot of stir fries and Korean kind of appetizers (Banchan). 

What would you say is your biggest tips for putting together a salad for people who do not do it or only do it occasionally? How do you make a really kick ass salad?

I think some people have the impression that a salad is boring, and I think a lot of people's salads are boring. But if you really put a load of love in it – I'm using like 10-15 ingredients in my salads, making a really beautiful dressing. Having all those different textural and taste elements is great. And it's really low calorie, so you can eat buckets of it. 

And when I talk about salads, I mean anything kind of like room temperature made out vegetables, not just lettuce leaves. I really like to char grill vegetables – it just adds so much depth. You can either char them in a little ridged pan, or roast them. 

So a really nice simple summery one, with what's coming in season now in the UK: cut courgettes (zucchini) into long strips, char grill all of them. Get some basil, olive oil, lemon - a bit of garlic, but not too much because it'll be raw – and whiz it all up. So you've just got a basil oil dressing, kind of like a pesto with less ingredients. And then mix your char-grilled courgettes, the tomatoes, any kind of white bean and tomatoes and that basil dressing. And if you wanted to roast the tomatoes as well, just to bring any even more intensity to it. Otherwise fresh is also fine.

Man. That sounds really good. I'm going to try that tomorrow.

Yeah, it's classic.