Fifteen years ago, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek wrote of how ongoing riots in the suburbs of Paris weren’t expressions of rational political protest but represented outpourings of uncontrollable frustration.

He suggested that these incidents of vandalism and arson against the amenities of the perpetrators’ own communities were equivalent to acts of self-harm.

This summer, as violence has erupted once more across France, Zizek's words continue to ring true.

Such violence is at its most prevalent during the hottest months of the year. Tempers tend to rise in line with temperatures. Such situations are clearly exacerbated by climate change and exemplified by our responses to that global crisis.

In the UK, these include the approaches adopted by those groups – such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil – which have chosen to take direct action in their efforts to communicate their messages about the dangers of global warming.

They’ve tried blocking the traffic in Central London and gluing themselves to motorways. They’ve interrupted classical music festivals and snooker tournaments. This month, their supporters have thrown orange confetti around various venues in attempts to disrupt tennis matches at Wimbledon and even the wedding of former Tory Chancellor George Osborne.

Many reasonable people will of course agree with the view expressed by the much-loved nature broadcaster and campaigner Chris Packham that the current British government’s lack of substantive action in response to the climate emergency is rather more scandalous than delays caused to what is,   after all, only a couple of people lobbing a ball back and forth over a bit of grass.

At the same time, most sensible people might fail to share the outrage expressed by the perennially unpopular broadcaster Piers Morgan, who took to Twitter to berate the “cretins” of Just Stop Oil for “wrecking a couple’s wedding day” – despite the fact that the Osbornes themselves didn’t appear especially upset by the incident.

There’s a clear difference between the first-world problems of those whose enjoyment of elite sporting and social fixtures has been mildly disrupted and the immediate threats posed by rising sea levels to small island states and by soaring temperatures to drought-stricken developing nations.

Yet one still has to ask how effective the tactics of such militant campaigners are in influencing attitudes to this escalating catastrophe.

Do their media stunts persuade members of the general public to change their lifestyles or their political allegiances?

Do traffic-blocking protests convince drivers to give up their cars for the sake of a greater cause – or do they just compound the congestion, the pollution, and the emissions of carbon dioxide by jammed vehicles still overwhelmingly reliant on fossil fuels?

These protesters are often very angry, and usually rightfully so. A surprising number of them are elderly people acting on behalf of future generations. It’s to their immense credit that their actions very rarely turn to violence.

Their impact has, however, been minimal – apart from giving the government the justification to introduce tough new measures to crack down on such peaceful but disruptive protests.

They’ve expressed their own frustration and caused a lot of other people to feel similarly frustrated, but for wholly different reasons.

The inconvenient truth of the matter is that they’ve managed to lose a lot of public sympathy and support for a crucially important cause, and have given the right-wing press an excuse to twist the climate change debate into a narrative about woke zealots and airhead greens apparently out of touch with the real world.

That’s why some of their natural supporters are now starting to desert them.

“It’s pathetic and quite tedious,” Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said this month, shortly after watering down her party’s ambitious plans to invest in green economic growth. “They’re not building support for their cause. They’re doing the exact opposite.”

“I can’t wait for them to stop their antics,” added her boss Sir Keir Starmer, condemning what he called the protesters’ “arrogance that only they have the right to force their argument on other people in this way”.

In fact, the Labour leader has no doubt been disappointed by the way that such tactics have diverted attention and support away from his own environmental agenda, and, by giving his rivals another stick with which to beat him, have undermined his own political momentum.

In particular, he can’t have enjoyed the headlines in the Daily Mail this month about a prominent Labour Party donor’s latest generous contributions to the coffers of Just Stop Oil.

Mr. Starmer – who was recently reported as expressing his intense dislike for such “tree-huggers” – may well feel that the actions of these well-intentioned people are paving the road to his own personal hell.

The recent shock Tory by-election victory in the West London constituency vacated by Boris Johnson was made possible by a Labour mayor’s unpopular green policy agenda, one which failed to understand the concerns of ordinary working people – one almost as out-of-touch as the petty disruptions caused by those predominantly middle class climate change activists.

We may understand and indeed share the desperation and outrage of these most zealous environmental campaigners, as they perform their vigil, a death-watch, or even the last rites for the dying days of a doomed world.

But if indeed, as some are coming to fear, they’re starting to do more harm than good, then our message to them needs urgently to be spoken loud and clear…

We profoundly admire how much you care, but, dear friends in Just Stop Oil, please, for now, just stop.