Cornwall Climate Catch Ups: Holly Astle

We interviewed you twice for the Cornwall’s Climate Stories film #ClimateScam? – firstly in early 2024, when you were awaiting trial for your role in a Just Stop Oil action (in which you sprayed Falmouth University with orange paint), and again in July 2024, just after Labour’s general election victory. But the world has changed so rapidly, even in the short time since then. What has happened in climate activism since that time, and why?
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Much has shifted since my involvement with Just Stop Oil in October 2023. The campaign has come to a close since winning the demand of ‘no new fossil fuel licenses’ under the Labour government. Campaigns like ‘Youth Demand’ have continued, by adapting to straddle both climate justice and justice for Palestine.
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Accountable nonviolence, as embodied in the actions of climate groups such as Just Stop Oil, has served as a strategic approach to build broad public support. It aimed to appeal to the public’s conscience, leveraging a distinctive media environment and forming broader coalitions. But that media landscape no longer exists in the same way. Our media sphere is ever more polarised now, limited to creating quick soundbites and manufactured outrage to convey a story. Changes in things like social media to favour short video formatting, and 24/7 outrage reporting have led to a significant drop in ability to retain people’s attention.
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The strategy of accountability-based activism is based on audience empathy for the people involved – but this is hard when their voices aren’t given significant airtime. This strategy approach becomes boring to the media that are always wanting to cover new stories. Throwing soup over Van Gogh’s sunflowers a second time doesn’t get nearly the same coverage, as we found out last year.
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However, the climate movement, by its nature, is dynamic and adaptive. Its strength lies in its ability to evolve alongside global events.

One of the most significant developments in recent years has been that of Palestine. What the world has witnessed has wholly reshaped the geopolitical landscape, highlighting the urgent need to reckon with an increasingly militarised world that often turns its force against civilian populations. There has been a definite shift in the climate movement to address these acts of genocide. This is also consistent with climate justice as there are the same root causes: capitalism, neo-colonialism and imperial power. The goals of climate justice have always been to create a fair and just world as we see worsening impacts caused by the climate crisis, so to address the obvious and immediate harm of a population being slaughtered is completely aligned to this movement. Freedom for Palestine – there is no climate justice on occupied land.

Alongside the unbearable human suffering caused by the ongoing genocide in Gaza, there is another layer of violence that barely gets acknowledged: the environmental devastation being inflicted on its land and people.

The annihilation of Gaza's agriculture and tree cover, the poisoning of water sources through munitions, and the collapse of infrastructure leading to raw sewage pouring into the sea are part of a larger assault on life. Palestinians are being displaced in the thousands, where they are having to survive through unbearble heatwaves in tents, with little to no access to clean water or medical aid. It emphasises how truly inseparable environmental violence is from military violence, how systemic destruction of the land becomes another way to harm a civilian population.

The whole ethos of Just Stop Oil’s protests has always been based on the principle of non-violence. The movement for Palestinian freedom and independence has not always followed the same path. How does that sit with you?

Criticisms of Palestinian resistance, framed by questions like "Why couldn’t they resist peacefully?”, ignore a long history of nonviolent protest that led to further oppression. For example, the Great March of Return, a protest in Gaza in 2018, called for Israeli authorities to lift a blockade to allow displaced Palestinians to return to their towns and villages. This march was met by Israeli armed guards, tanks and snipers, and resulted in guards firing into the crowd, leading to over 150 Palestinians being killed, with over 10,000 injured.
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As JFK said: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable”.
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While violent resistance may feel justified, necessary and appropriate in the face of violent state practice, is it effective? It certainly shines a harsh light on the imbalance of power and force in a society, but it can also absolutely lead to a much greater level of suffering, as the state resorts to further sanctioned violence.
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With accountable, non-violent protest strategies increasingly seen as ineffective, could this be seen as justification for more confrontational or disruptive tactics?
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Moderate protest tactics have become part of the expected political landscape, and as such the government has learnt how to absorb and tolerate them. Large marches are now routine events, which are policed, permitted, and neatly scheduled. Writing to MPs often results in a standard party line response, promising to consider the issues but with no follow-up. In short, these strategies do not threaten power, but sit neatly within it. They have become institutionalised, risk-averse, symbolic gestures rather than tactics to create leverage by posing an actual threat to power.
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How long will activists continue to embrace ineffective strategies simply because they are more palatable? With even nonviolent strategies now being demonised, and groups such as Palestine Action being labelled as terrorist organisations, could the past decades of mass nonviolent organising provide the foundations for support for more confrontational tactics?
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When protest is treated like a crime, it becomes much harder to hold powerful people and systems to account.

That’s because real accountability today often involves personal risk or sacrifice, for example long jail sentences, and this is unsustainable if you want to build a movement. Big businesses and governments only tend to change when they feel seriously threatened. But if someone tries to cause real disruption, like damaging fossil fuel infrastructure, it’s almost impossible to do that while also staying “accountable” under laws that are designed to protect those very systems. Doing so could ruin your life.

Calling for protestors to always be 'accountable' in this situation can be unrealistic or even harmful. It assumes that the system is fair or just, when history shows that it often is not -  as, for example, when slavery was lawful, or when women were denied property rights. Morality and legality have never been reliable allies.

How has your own relationship with activism evolved in the face of the legal crackdowns on climate and other protests in this country over the past year or so?

A shift I have personally undertaken has been a direction into addressing land injustice in Cornwall and the wider UK through the Right to Roam movement. This is a campaign advocating for greater public access to the countryside. Across England we currently have the right to roam over only 8% of the land, with that dropping to just 3% in Cornwall. Much of our land is privately owned, tied up in big estates and the landed gentry, often in the hands of families that have owned it since the Norman conquest. This campaign challenges this unjust, feudal model, and advocates that access to green space should not depend on your wealth or where you live. Access to nature is essential for our physical and mental wellbeing, and increases our care and understanding for the world around us in a way that enhances our ability to fight for ecological systems under threat. It is not the everyday walker that has caused the UK to be one of the most nature depleted countries globally.
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I have found this change from campaigning on climate to access rights to be a seamless one, as at the heart of climate breakdown is a system, controlled by a wealthy minority, that treats land as a commodity, rather than as a shared resource essential for ecological balance and collective nourishment. The restriction of public access to land not only reinforces social inequality but also disconnects people from the natural world that we must all play a part in protecting. Right to Roam demands a reimagining of ownership and stewardship, asserting that access to land is fundamental for building resilient, sustainable communities. Reclaiming this right is not only about having freedom of movement, but about fostering a deeper relationship with nature – one that is rooted in care and accountability, as well as resistance to extractive capitalism.
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For further information about the Right To Roam campaign, visit: www.righttoroam.org.uk.

For further information about Just Stop Oil, visit www.juststopoil.org.

To see Holly's wonderful artwork, visit www.hollyastle.co.uk.
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