Activism 2.0
A splintering in the protest movement is brewing. What does it mean to be an effective activist in a hurry?
There was a lot to admire in the stunts and protests executed by Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain last year. Prolific in number, at times audacious, and garnering the kind of media coverage that would satisfy a member of the Royal family with a book to launch. The stunts have been instrumental in ensuring the climate crisis stays in people’s minds.
But a section of the climate activist community is growing weary of the tactics. Blocking roads, stopping trains and targeting art works has lost even supporters to the cause. And are the stunts even working? A split is widening over whether protests should be less combative or, in fact, they’re not combative enough.
Rebooting climate protest is on the agenda. Smarter, smaller, more specific, more winnable campaigns are coming.
Meanwhile the most pressure felt on fossil companies last year didn’t come from activists on the streets; rather from agitators in law courts and boardrooms.
Welcome to the first Field7 newsletter of 2023, coming after a rather extended hiatus. (Here’s why 2022 was a year to forget on a personal note).
It’s been a big week for protesting
…here’s what’s been going on
Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman are going after protesters. Police can now stop marches, even before anything has taken place. (It has a similar feel to Sunak’s moves to legislate against striking teachers, nurses, and other public workers. Potentially illegal as explained here).
Extinction Rebellion this week staged an eye-catching protest outside Michael Gove’s department highlighting the proposed mega coal mine in Cumbria which Gove green lit last month.
XR declared at the end of December that it’s done with public disruption, switching instead to protest. “This year, we prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks,” the organisation said.
Just Stop Oil was defiant in the face of the government’s new measures, vowing it would not let up.
Climate protesters are in Davos, targeting oil companies.
In the background….
ClientEarth is taking Danone to court over plastic pollution. The news last week was the latest in a burgeoning scorecard of wins for the charity. Last year, Client Earth (lawyers representing the planet, hence the name) used advertising and consumer laws to successfully pursue the greenwashing antics of Total, BP and KLM.
In 2021, it pressed the Polish authorities to wind down one of the biggest coal plants in Europe.
Legals wins and dollar dollar bills
Client Earth has been gliding on a flywheel of legal wins to crow about, more donations, more resources, more legal wins and so on.
In the next few weeks the charity will reveal its 2022 report. Income is expected to be well above forecasts. Money has been coming in from philanthropists and foundations. Donations from the public is growing quickly too. In 2021, despite the Covid backdrop, the charity’s total coffers swelled by 36% to £28.3 million.
It’s not surprising. People like being on the side of winners. Especially if the winning is for a cause you believe in. What’s not clear is whether donations to XR and Just Stop Oil are drying up, and whether people who had given to protestors are giving to charities like Client Earth instead. And this is where public sentiment could matter. Have XR’s biggest donors expressed a view about the more contentious public disruptions?
Just this week, the right wing media went big on the news that the Labour Party has received £360,000 from Dale Vince - the Ecotricity founder (below). But his donations to Just Stop Oil were given higher billing in the Mail, Sky and Times, with a pearl clutching tone as if he was wiring money to Isis.
Get up, stand up
In the story of how contemporary climate movements were formed, a crude summation would be Greenpeace begets Extinction Rebellion begets Just Stop Oil/Insulate Britain. Each time, the graduates have fine tuned and ratcheted up the tactics.
What’s remained consistent is a loose set of consequential assumptions:
The public is largely on the side of bringing down emissions.
Splashy stunts will keep the climate issue in the media.
Politicians will act on climate issues if the story remains in the news.
Change will come from the pressure on politicians.
I’m simplifying, but that’s the thrust of it.
In one sense Just Stop Oil has been tremendously successful. It has disrupted a premier league football match by tying one of its number to a goal post. A Van Gogh painting (safely inside a glass cabinet) was pelted with tomato soup. It has attacked Harrods, an Aston Martin showroom, the Bank of England, Madame Tussauds, the HQ of the leading think tank behind the Conservative Party. Various roads and bridges have all been brought to a standstill.
There’s one big problem and five smaller ones. The big one is clarity. Or the lack of it. Stunts appear scattergun. Messages are ambiguous and quixotic. Even passionate supporters of XR aren’t clear what the objectives of the stunts are. Just Stop Oil set a clearer goal: no new coal plants.
Here are the other problems:
Public sentiment. The public supports the cause but doesn’t like to be inconvenienced. (Voters said they’re against Just Stop Oil’s tactics by 64 to 21, according to a YouGov poll).
Politics. Both political parties have been critical of climate protestors. Keir Starmer’s angry dad response to a protest underlined his broader strategy of playing it safe in the run up to a probable 2024 general election.
Bizarre targets. Art galleries and football grounds won spectacular media exposure but were unrelated to oil and coal companies, leaving many people perplexed and even irked.
Organisational structure. The loosely hierarchical nature of organisations like XR mean bone-headed stunts like bringing to a halt a tube train ferrying workers can happen from time to time, and live long in the memory.
Demographics. A largely white and middle class group stopping working class people trying to get home from work is not a good look. One commentator memorably remarked: ‘Why do so many XR occupations look like an audience in search of the National Theatre?’
A segment of climate activists are looking at a different strategy of building momentum through a series of winnable battles under specific umbrellas.
Examples being discussed are campaigns tightly focused on shutting the Cumbrian coal mine project. Or a campaign pressing for guarantees on specific policy change on wind turbines or heat pumps. One recent campaign has focused on meat, with the ask of Sunak going vegan for a month.
The climate writer David Wallace Wells pondered this week whether we’re at ‘peak climate alarmism’. He spoke to Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell.
This report on Just Stop Oil by the FT’s Henry Mance is brilliant.
‘How to blow up a pipeline’ by Andreas Malm is also well worth a read.
Other stuff…
🌾 A breakthrough on growing wheat resilient to withstand intense heat emerged earlier this month.
🏭 Australian investor Mike Cannon-Brookes was reported to have been battling with a former mining magnate over the funding and strategy of a renewable energy company. He remains one of the most interesting corporate activists out there having bought shares in a highly polluting company in Australia last year to shut down its coal plants and accelerate the company’s shift to renewable energy.
💰 Over $70bn was invested in American climate tech startups last year. That’s 40 times more than 10 years ago.
🔋 The UK’s ambitions of being a leader in battery technology has been dealt a major blow by the collapse this week of Britishvolt. Not good for jobs, the British EV industry and broader net zero goals.
💃🏼 Among the tributes on the passing of Vivienne Westwood, this lovely story stood out. A brilliant and long serving climate campaigner.
📚 This incredible Arabic bookshop has stood for 44 years in West London. It’s been a beacon for anyone interested in Arabic writing, politics, art and culture. One of the booksellers is trying to revive it. It’s an incredible story.
📊 Finally, the FT produced this excellent chart on how we got our electricity last year.
Thanks for making it to the end. I’d love to hear any feedback and story ideas. soheb@field7.co
If you or anyone you know is suffering from chronic back pain, I’ve written about my experience here.
Thank you
Soheb