These are the Highway 9 activists who have been convicted of contempt of court for breaking an injunction prohibiting them from blocking a highway. They are demanding the government insulate British homes. In a statement issued after they were imprisoned:

Insulate Britain was a small but noisy group that got a lot of people very angry because, as we all know, nothing is worse than somebody who isn’t in a car slowing traffic. But on Saturday, November 20, about 400 people showed up to protest the imprisonment of the Highway 9, and about 124 were arrested for blocking Lambeth Bridge.

According to Insulate Britain’s statement: “The majority of those arrested have never participated in an Insulate Britain roadblock. They were moved to take action by the criminal inaction of this government, with speakers referring to the nine people imprisoned last week as ‘political prisoners.” So it is is becoming a much bigger deal.

As a writer and architect, I have long promoted increased insulation—it is part of the Passive House standard we write about so often. But I have also complained that insulation is boring and invisible and inconspicuous. Unless you are a Passive House nerd, it is hard to get worked up over it.

As an activist, I have attended rallies when cyclists are killed and have supported many organizations. But when I first saw photos of older people gluing themselves to roads, getting pushed by cars, getting ink sprayed in their faces, getting picked up and carried away by police, I thought taking all this risk and abuse over insulation was odd. Particularly because insulation is only part of the solution. As architect Paul Testa wrote in October 2021:

I was also going to remind readers of the limits and problems of insulation, quoting Harold Orr complaining that just insulating misses the big hunks of air leakage and uninsulated basements. But if you look at the master report from Insulate Britain issued in September, they know all this. The report reads: “Insulation is a large part of the ‘Fabric First’ approach that will reduce the heat demand of the house and make it greener and cheaper to run. It is done following a full understanding of the building and the residents’ needs.” They also note that “making houses less draughty and more air tight is an important way of reducing heat loss.” This is a serious document that goes way beyond just insulation.

Calling out insulation is really a simplification of the issue. It is really more of a metaphor for climate action. Spokesperson Liam Norton recently told the Thompson Reuters Foundation that Insulate Britain wanted to pick a subject that people could understand and relate to. Norton said: “We wanted to transcend environmentalism, so it wasn’t about dolphins and polar bears. What speaks to every single person in Britain is their home.”

Treehugger spoke to Norton, and asked about the name Insulate Britain: He told us:

I reached out to architects I knew in the United Kingdom to find out what they thought of Insulate Britain. One responded:

Architects Declare and the Architects Climate Action Network issued a joint statement in support of the aims of Insulate Britain.

Insulate Britain’s tactics have certainly got people aggravated. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson called them “irresponsible crusties who are basically trying to stop people going about their day’s work and doing considerable damage to the economy.” Injunctions were issued so that “anyone who causes misery to motorists may face prison.” They have not yet passed British laws making it legal to run down protesters with cars, as they are doing in some U.S. states.

But we know that stopping traffic is just about the most attention-getting thing that any protester can do because the cars must move at all costs. The anger and vitriol directed against Insulate Britain is extraordinary. Perhaps this all says more about people and their cars than it does about Insulate Britain, which notes in a statement: “We agree that disrupting everyday life for ordinary people is unacceptable. The failure of Boris Johnson and his government to cut carbon emissions will lead to endless disruption of everyday life for ordinary people.”

Norton told Treehugger the decisions to block roads were all about the carbon, and was also inspired by the Freedom Riders in the U.S. in the ’60s, and they weren’t particularly popular either.

The speaker in this tweet, the partner of one of the arrested Highway 9, notes that “any architect or economist could tell you that if the government were serious about climate change, retrofitting homes is one of the first steps you would take.” She also notes the government would rather imprison pensioners (as many Insulate Britain activists are) than fix their homes.

It was a big crowd. It might actually be a turning point. When asked about this, Norton told Treehugger:

So perhaps blocking traffic to demand insulation isn’t such a bizarre idea, but part of a much larger decarbonization strategy. Perhaps more of us in the built environment professions should be joining them in the streets because it is a much bigger story than just insulation.

Here is an interesting video from The Guardian, showing Insulate Britain in action: