Essay by Eric Worrall

h/t Dr. Willie Soon; A sabotage technique which in my opinion creates a lethal risk for drivers. The eco-terrorists hide small hard objects under the tire valve cap, like a dry lentil, which subtly presses on the valve and slowly bleeds the air out. But this surely leads to a window of time after the attack, during which a driver might not notice their vehicle has been sabotaged.

Tyre Extinguishers – deflating SUV tyres as a form of climate action

UK activists fighting climate heating and pollution say public response more welcoming than expected

Damien Gayle@damiengayle Fri 18 Mar 2022 18.00 AEDT

The activists who took “climate action” against sports utility vehicles by flattening their tyres in the last two weeks have been receiving solidarity and calls for information from around the world.

Tyre Extinguishers provides instructions on how to deflate SUV tyres, offers guidance on who to target and collates reports of actions across the country. They have gauged the campaign’s reach by angry emails from SUV owners.

The group registered a website and started a Twitter account in July 2021. The first reports of actions came at the beginning of March. But in just the past week, activists have “disarmed” SUVs in Chiswick, Maida Vale, Wood Green and Muswell Hill in London, Brighton and Hove and Manchester.

Acting autonomously and, usually, under the cover of darkness, the activists have used lentils to deflate tyres by placing one inside the tyre valve, holding it open and slowly bleeding air until the tyre is flat. The group calculates they’ve deflated the tyres on at least a thousand vehicles in two weeks.

The response from the public has been much more welcoming than they expected. “We are getting loads of emails from SUV drivers in parts of the country where nobody has actually told us they are doing the action, so there’s probably a lot going on we don’t know about,” the group told the Guardian in an email.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/18/tyre-extinguishers-deflating-suv-tyres-as-a-form-of-climate-action

Britain’s roads are heavily congested, and their is some resentment towards people who drive large vehicles. So I believe the terrorists when they claim they have received some support. When I lived in Britain, I personally heard people complaining about SUVs taking more than their share of space on the roads, or producing large amounts of diesel pollution, in already polluted urban areas.

But do “supporters” of Tyre Extinguishers actually want to kill SUV drivers? Because people will die if this eco-terrorism continues. What if a SUV driver leaving early for a long trip, shortly after an attack on their tyres, loses control on the road? What if other people die in the resulting accident? Did those other people also deserve to die, for the “crime” of one person whom they never met before owning a SUV?

The terrorists allegedly leave a note – but notes can blow away if they are not secured properly, or they can disintegrate into mush if there is rain. Or they might simply not be noticed, if the driver is in a hurry.

Owning a SUV while living in London is not a crime. The eco-terrorists have no idea why the people they target own a SUV.

And there are plenty of legitimate reasons to own a SUV, even if you live in London.

For example, British road maintenance is a joke. There are plenty of times I wished I was driving a SUV, even when driving in London. A SUV can smooth out the bumps, from all the unfilled pot holes, and is far less likely to be seriously damaged when the road gets really bad – benefits which might matter, especially to say someone nursing a back injury, or other painful condition.

Perhaps someone runs a home business which requires them to move goods or people. A van might be too specialised – but a SUV might give them the capacity and flexibility they require.

In my opinion these eco-terrorists should be seen for what in my opinion they are – murderous lunatics, who likely don’t care if their attacks cause deaths. We have already seen this kind of callous disregard for human life from British eco-terrorists, with Insulate Now’s outrageous excuse that people who die when they block roads are “collateral damage”, like those who died during WW2 to protect the secret of the Bletchley Park Enigma code breakers.

Let us hope “supporters” wake up, and realise the people they think they support don’t genuinely represent their values, before someone comes to real harm.