These activists certainly manage to keep themselves in the headlines. I'm not convinced that they actually get anyone incrementally interested in the underlying Global Warming issue, much less induce any change.

Only if you are willfully blind. Between crazy heat waves in Europe, the mass die off snowcrabs, unprecedented forest fires and flooding, unending droughts, various Arctic parts not fully freezing, disappearing glaciers etc. etc. it honestly feels like a week doesn't go by where something climate related isn't in the news. Gluing one's self to famous painting isn't going to convince the people who are already ignoring the real stories.

If it's so powerful a narrative in the media why isn't anything being done? And of that being done, it being so insignificant in comparison to what is the bare minimum needed?

Is there really nothing that is being done, at all? No solar + wind farms? No process optimization for energy saving at industrial sites, no highly efficient insulation for buildings etc etc? You could argue that not enough is being done, but nothing? That's ridiculous.

Instead of seeking media attention, protesters could also just learn how to install solar panels or build wind turbines. We have a tremendous shortage of skilled labor in those areas, which increases the price of installation and limits the speed of transformation.

But it's harder than gluing yourself to something and bringing a photographer, so they won't. Which suggests to me that it's not really about climate change. Climate change is the medium, the message is narcissism.

It's interesting how it exposes the hypocrisy of how millions of people feel incredibly concerned about, say, a can of tomato soup destroying a small bit of our shared cultural heritage, but many of whom don't feel anywhere near that level of concern at the wholesale destruction of our natural heritage.

People do care about the bigger issues but not everyone is able to do something about it.

It's not hypocrisy. It's just people are limited by their resources and capabilities.

You are mistaken in thinking that people in general care about the bigger issues. Most people don't, and many the ones who do only care until gas is $7/gallon.

This is exactly it. If you're serious about climate change, then you should see high fossil fuel prices as a good thing. In reality, few people do.

The reason people care about $7 gas is because often they can't afford it. People who can barely pay bills can end up losing their home, their car, getting their power shut off when expenses go way up. Poor people often have to commute long distances for work because they can't afford to live near their jobs. $7/gallon may not be asking a lot of you, but it is for them. I would submit that the people most willing to make sacrifices, the people quickest to condemn others for not being willing, are only making sacrifices they can afford, that are fun, that fit into their lifestyle, that enhance their self image.

So, you agree with me that most people don't meaningfully care about the bigger issue?

I'm not passing a value judgement on them, here. I'm just stating a fact about priorities.

Yeah, I guess I do agree with you then. My apologies for misreading your point.

What are you able to do about a painting? Heck, why should I care about some painting about a man I don't know? There are so many paintings in any given museum, aren't there enough to go around?

If that sentiment makes you upset innately but the destruction of our future does not, may be you are in fact the target of the protest and the fact it offends you proves its point.

The activism serves no purpose. The "destruction of nature" does serve a purpose, it keeps their house warm, their car rolling and their fridge filled.

Lots of activists have a hard time understanding that, because they come from very privileged families that have never had to worry about anything, and thus never made the connection between the factory, the jobs it brings, and the goods that are consumed. They only see the factory and declare it evil, which is easy to say if you have some bullshit-job with the government, and didn't have a working-class ancestor in the last three generations.

People can be worried by both cases also, or by none of them. Two wrongs don't made a right.

People is fully justified to feel angry about such stupid way to waste the scarce resources (in terms of both, money and credibility) that we should be using instead to support people really fighting climate change or to lobby politicians to accelerate the process.

This kind of action seems totally like a scene extracted from the don't look up movie.