Just one over was bowled at Lord’s before Just Stop Oil showed themselves. It felt almost inevitable that they would disrupt the Ashes at some point this summer and the home of cricket always felt a likely venue. After all, the primary sponsor at Lord’s is JP Morgan, who have staunchly pumped $317 billion into financing fossil fuels between 2016 and 2020.
The protestors, carrying bags of orange chalk, did not make it far. Players and security stopped them from reaching the wicket, Johnny Bairstow even going so far as to carry one of them off the pitch. The loud boos that had greeted Just Stop Oil’s arrival were replaced by clapping and cheers. The faces of the members, many of whom had turned smoked salmon pink with disgruntlement, returned to their ordinary colour. The champagne fuelled burble picked up again. Groundsmen came on with leaf blowers and the protestors’ dust was literally scattered on the wind.
There are a multitude of reasons why people might be annoyed by the intrusion. Boos and cheers might seem natural enough. Yet there seemed a note of arrogance within that response, a high-handed dismissiveness. Let’s all laugh at the long-haired weirdoes and their silly powder and cheer on good old Johnny. Back to business as usual, chaps.
This arrogance is dangerous. It suggests a total unwillingness to engage with the message that Just Stop Oil were trying to bring across. This is a shame, because it is a simple enough: that our government needs to stop granting new licenses for the exploration of fossil fuels in the UK, that we need a rapid shift to renewables if we are to have any hope of averting total climate breakdown and total disaster. The UK government seems blind to this pressing need, with plans to license over 100 fossil fuel projects by 2025.
That is a travesty.
But instead of engaging with that message, let’s sneer and jeer and move on, the response from all quarters at Lord’s – whether it be the stands or the commentary boxes – seemed to suggest. This is a dangerous attitude for cricket to take. After all it is arguably threatened by the climate crisis to a greater extent than any other sport. Many other cricketing nations are already feeling the sharp end of climate breakdown: hurricanes in the West Indies; drought in South Africa; heatwaves in Australia; floods in Pakistan; life threatening heat and humidity in India. The climate crisis is making even just playing cricket increasingly unviable in these places.
So, yes, Just Stop Oil are annoying. But that is kind of the point – the dangers they are trying to warn us about will be more than just annoying. They will be disastrous. So, rather than just booing and cheering, cricket in England at all levels should do some thinking too. Business as usual may have been the order of the day at Lord’s, but it cannot continue to be the case beyond that. Cricket needs to engage with the issues Just Stop Oil brought onto the pitch, rather than just carrying them straight off it.
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