The Brief – Leftists armed with lentils, leaflets, and a climate pretence

A new wave of anti-capitalist leftists claiming to fight for the climate is taking it out on car tyres, risking further damage to a climate movement already gasping for air.

The climate activists we are already familiar with – those who would glue themselves to the streets – may be annoying, but they are also highly courageous to brave the wrath of their “victims”.

But Europe’s big cities are seeing another, increasingly popular, trend: “climate activists” who sabotage big cars in wealthy neighbourhoods under cover of the night.

Meet the tyre extinguishers, a global network of anarchist activists open to anyone who opposes the status quo and whose sole purpose is to punish the owners of big cars, mostly SUVs. 

“ATTENTION – your gas guzzler kills,” state flyers the group leaves behind after sneaking lentils into a car tyre’s air valve. The group – which claims to be leaderless – aims to “make it impossible to own a huge polluting 4×4 in the world’s urban areas,” as per their website.

With increasing frequency, the group is responsible for European news stories to the tune of “climate activists sabotage 80 cars.” Anybody can claim to operate on the group’s behalf, and as media coverage of them increases, so does their activity. 

Berlin, the Petri dish of Europe’s radicalised left, saw 336 police reports because of “extinguished” tyres in 2022 alone. By 15 December 2023, another 1,001 police reports were filed on top.

The police told the CDU there had been 1,337 victims just in Berlin since the “tyre extinguisher” movement officially launched in March 2022, and the trend is pointing upwards. Since 15 December, another 400 cars were hit in the Berlin area.

Becoming an “extinguisher” is easy: You print out a few leaflets (one page of A4 paper makes two fliers), buy a bag of supermarket lentils, optionally grab disposable rubber gloves, and wait for the cover of night. There – you are now an anti-capitalist climate fighter.

Therein lies the first problem. It is an easy and cowardly form of societal sabotage, with little-to-no personal risk as these folks set out to make other people’s week miserable. They are rarely ever caught. And if they are, fines are rather manageable. In Berlin, perpetrators got off for €400 in 2023.

The second issue is that “climate action” targets any “large” car, whether it be running on petrol or electrons. 

What does the group say to justify this? “We cannot electrify our way out of the climate crisis – there are not enough rare earth metals to replace everyone’s car and the mining of these metals causes suffering.” 

Yet, electric vehicles are definitely part of the solution for transporting people in a climate-friendly way. Punishing the owners of EVs is thus a climate-damaging step.

Instead of a new narrative, the group relies on a set of dated talking points from the mid-2010s, once wielded by the reactionary conservative establishment to slow the pace of change and the inevitable crusade of the electric car.

Increasingly, pundits are becoming aware that total resource extraction for EVs will be lower than for the current fleet of petrol cars: One-time mining will replace continuous fossil fuel extraction of some 15 billion tonnes per year.

Suffering in battery mineral supply chains is equivalent to the status quo of fossil fuels. EVs are not really the problem.

No, the tyre extinguishers target SUVs no matter the make because they represent the concept they hate: a society that is growing ever richer while changing its way of life to be climate-friendly. But these folks feel left behind in that vision of the future.

So they resort to the classic anarcho callback measures – destroy what you feel like you can’t have.

“Destroy What Destroys You,” sang Ton Steine Scherben, a Berlin protest rock group, in 1970. In the olden days, folks used to pour milk or eggs into the ventilation system of nice cars, causing significant damage. 

Today, they use lentils. Less damaging, less brave. Lashing out against a liberal and democratic system they openly dislike.

“The left always say that capitalism is to blame, the structures, and that’s true,” a tyre extinguisher told German paper taz. Yet, his last sentence was revealing: “But I also just hate the rich.” 

The paper called him Stefan. He is, to me, emblematic of this new movement, and it is going to be a problem.

You think the activists gluing themselves to the street hurt the credibility of the climate action movement?

Wait until you feel the full impact of hundreds of lentil-wielding copycats who risk little and create maximum annoyance. Wait until they start targeting any car they see – or progress to stabbing tyres or setting entire car lots on fire.

The Roundup

Key EU lawmakers have asked the European Commission to present a package to boost the climate-friendly transformation of Europe’s industrial sector while expressing concerns about social stability once climate measures start to bite.

An alliance of German steelmaking states are supporting a global sustainable steel club that the US hopes will reduce China’s ability to undercut European and American markets, while welcoming support for the industry’s green transition.

Ongoing farmers’ protests can be partly attributed to the lack of consideration EU society and policymakers give to agriculture in general and geopolitical terms, Sebastien Abis, director of the agricultural group Club Demeter and research fellow at thinktank IRIS in France, told Euractiv.

France’s far-right Rassemblement National and far-left LFI are proposing to introduce a form of ‘agricultural exception’, which, as is already the case for the arts, would exempt some agricultural products from the EU’s free trade agreements with other countries.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that law enforcement agencies cannot indiscriminately store biometric and genetic data on those who committed criminal offences until their death, it said in a judgement published on Tuesday.

The Bulgarian prosecutor’s office issued on Tuesday a European arrest warrant for six Russian spies suspected of terrorist attacks targeting Bulgarian arms factories and warehouses.

A new government agency to “protect Hungary’s sovereignty”, which starts work on Thursday, will have a “chilling effect” on the country’s democracy, critics warn.

France’s controversial new immigration law, criticised by opponents as restrictive and racist, is part of an underlying European trend marked by repressive migration policies, particularly concerning access to the right of asylum, an expert told Euractiv.

Last but not least, don’t miss this week’s Transport Brief: To decarbonise transport, we need solutions, not fantasies.

Cover photo: The Brief is Euractiv's evening newsletter. [Shutterstock/Toa55]