They would be looked upon more fondly if oil companies didn’t pay for a massive media campaign against them.
THEY are making the campaign against them, mate.
Them gluing themselves to roads blocks ambulances from reaching people in need. There's already been one case where a person died because the ambulance didn't get there in time.
How exactly am I, a random dude who enjoys looking at art, supposed to feel about them when they throw paint on art in galleries?
And, most importantly, what does that accomplish?
They piss off regular people, they attempt damaging art. And for what?
A couple of years ago I did some maths - if a 40 million European country went zero emissions for a year - not reduced, not "net zero", just null CO2 emissions - they'd have "saved" enough CO2 for fifteen minutes of what global industry is spewing into the atmosphere.
You won't stop oil by making a dude get late to work, and I fail to see Stop Oil activists in factories. So, fuck them.