Just Stop Oil supporters blocked a junction near Mansion House station in London, Britain, on October, 27, 2022 .
Just Stop Oil via Getty Images
Climate activists ramped up stunts in October like throwing food on famous art and blocking traffic.
The tactics make headlines but fueled a debate over whether they lead to climate action.
Activists say disobedience pressures politicians, while others worry it risks undermining the cause.
This article is part of Insider’s weekly newsletter on sustainability, written by Catherine Boudreau, senior sustainability reporter.
Alice Hu was incensed to learn that ABC’s “The View” would interview Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who rejects the scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming.
So the 24-year-old organizer with New York Communities for Change, an advocacy group, decided to join the audience of Monday’s show and interrupt it with a message.
“ABC needs to cover climate change more instead of platforming a climate denier like Ted Cruz,” she said before the show’s security escorted her out in a video that’s been viewed more than 250,000 times.
Hu also criticized ABC for not running more climate stories, citing research from Media Matters showing that the network dedicated five and a half hours to the issue in 2021 across its morning and nightly programming. That was an improvement over the previous year, but still not nearly enough given the threat the climate crisis presents for humanity, Hu told Insider.
The protest was just the beginning for New York Communities for Change, which this week has blocked traffic on Manhattan’s Park Avenue and poured coal down the escalators at the headquarters of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, which is run by Larry Fink, the company’s chairman and CEO. BlackRock is a major investor in fossil fuels. New York Communities for Change is asking Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration to tax the rich and boost funding for climate programs, such as switching buildings powered by fossil fuels to renewable energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The demonstration was among a flurry of civil disobedience this year by groups including Just Stop Oil in the UK and Last Generation in Germany, which made headlines after activists threw tomato soup and mashed potatoes on famous artwork by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet, then glued their hands to the wall. This week, Just Stop Oil sprayed orange paint on the London headquarters of fossil-fuel lobbyists that backed Liz Truss, the now-former prime minister of the UK who pledged to expand oil and gas production and end a fracking ban. The group also blocked the Piccadilly Circus traffic junction.
The movement is bankrolled in part by the Climate Emergency Fund, which counts the oil heir Aileen Getty as a donor, as well as Adam McKay, who’s directed movies like the climate-crisis satire “Don’t Look Up” and “The Big Short.” The group on its website said its $4 million in donations so far in 2022 fills a gap left by climate philanthropy, a small slice of which flows to disruptive activism.
The public reaction has been mixed. Some question the connection between defacing art and climate action and argue the stunts could alienate people from the cause, ultimately undermining its impact on politicians and executives.
Theo Schnarr, a biochemist earning his doctorate at the University of Greifswald in Germany by day and supporting Last Generation by night – or rather on his days off – disagreed.
“What value does a painting have if humanity is destroyed?” Schnarr asked. “I could spend 20 minutes talking about the destruction from climate change. One-third of Pakistan’s population was hit by the biggest floods the country has ever seen. There’s famine in Africa. And people are enraged about a painting? That’s the question we’re asking.”
Schnarr said non-violent disobedience has worked in other social movements and he’s already seeing the impact in German parliament. The aim is to achieve change by disrupting daily life and attracting media attention, which in turn puts pressure on policymakers and corporate executives to stop expanding fossil fuels. Schnarr has been arrested at least twice for protests in Berlin and Frankfurt.
There’s little consensus among researchers on how the tactics used by the climate movement affect its support. The University of Toronto and Stanford University studied animal rights, Black Lives Matter and anti-Trump protests and found that “extreme” actions like damaging property and threatening violence undermined their credibility and made people less likely to identify with the movement. However, a separate study in July by the same universities showed that disruptive tactics can motivate people who already moderately support a cause, known as the “radical flank” effect, while causing little backlash from others.
Louise Harris, a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil, pointed to a nationally representative survey of 2,000 UK adults that found a majority supported the group’s demands and there was no evidence disruptive tactics backfired.
While only 18% of those surveyed said they supported the protests, the acts led an additional 1.7 million people to say they were more likely to engage in environmental activism in the coming year. Harris added that Just Stop Oil’s action periods have led to an increase in donations and the October demonstrations alone doubled its social media followers.
“More people are aware of this climate crisis and that we have to do something about it because of our actions,” Harris said. “Journalists don’t report on the climate crisis like it is an emergency. It should be front page news every single day. Ridiculous stunts like the art action gets the climate crisis into the headlines and millions of people talking.”
For its part, ABC said it created a climate unit last November dedicated to telling stories in the US and globally. ABC was also the only network present at the 2021 UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, and received awards for World News Tonight with David Muir’s coverage of climate-induced famine in Madagascar.
Insider also asked Sen. Ted Cruz for comment. A spokesman referred to Cruz’s comments during his interview on “The View.”
“I’m really glad you don’t have a Van Gogh on the wall,” he said.