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BY CHRIS HOUSTON

Disruptive climate protests annoy some people, but studies from the UK confirm that they have been effective at shifting public opinion and helping create policy change.

Back in July, activists from the UK protest group Just Stop Oil repeated their common tactic of being dramatically disruptive at landmarks and cultural events. Two protesters made news after spraying orange dust at the Stonehenge historical site. The large orange plume was a visual spectacle and made British newspaper front pages. Shortly after, staff removed the dust from the stones with compressed air. No damage was done to the heritage site.

This week, well-meaning commentators repeated the same errors that were shared during the summer – that disruptive protests are necessarily counterproductive to the environmental cause. 

Last month, the scientific journal Nature Sustainability published research by British and U.S. academics. Their paper entitled “Radical climate protests linked to increases in public support for moderate organizations” documented how public support for a moderate environmental organization was boosted by disruptive protests by Just Stop Oil.

The paper drew on surveys of the British public before and after Just Stop Oil blocked a major highway in England. It noted that “results suggest that increased awareness of a radical group as a result of a highly publicized non-violent disruptive protest can increase identification with and support for more moderate climate groups (here, Friends of the Earth) in the span of only 2 weeks.”

Disruptive protests can be successful at changing public opinion. But do they result in policy change? A year ago, the scientific journal Nature included the piece How effective are climate protests at swaying policy — and what could make a difference? The commentary piece noted that in 2019, environmental concerns featured in the British public’s top three priority concerns for the first time. The article noted the increased concern for climate issues was “undoubtedly boosted by the publicity raised for the environmental cause by Extinction Rebellion” and noted that the activist group “had occupied prominent central London sites for two weeks” while the polling occurred. 

The article also reported a similar pattern two years later. In 2021, when protest group Insulate Britain demanded better heat insulation in social housing “the number of mentions of the word ‘insulation’ (but, notably, not ‘insulate’) in the UK print media doubled.” The paper states that people “took notice of the issue, if not the specific climate group.”

The commentary noted that quiet protests don’t tend to make national news. Media tend “to report on protests that include some sort of disruption or shocking action, such as defacing a building, a fountain or a work of art.” The article quoted a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion saying that “only through disruption, the breaking of laws, do you get the attention you need.”      

The scientific journal Climate Policy published research in September this year that also confirmed that protests in the UK influenced policy. The paper Climate action or delay: the dynamics of competing narratives in the UK political sphere and the influence of climate protest notes that 2019 legislation and pledges made by the governing Labour Party were “aided by climate protests.”

The Nature article reminds people of the increasingly violent means deployed by protesters campaigning to give women the right to vote. In 1913, they were “undertaking, on average, 20 bombings and arson attacks per month.” 

In Europe, politicians are increasingly criminalizing peaceful protest. That is a logical disaster. If avenues for peaceful expression are closed off, society can drive people with concerns towards more extreme paths.

As a comparator, women in the US actually began their civil disobedience years after the British women, were also treated brutally, but kept their code of conduct disciplined nonviolent and won the vote faster and before the women in the UK.

Peaceful protest is a legitimate act and right guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada and by the First Amendment in the U.S. Even breaking the law but remaining nonviolent can be adjudged legal at times by the necessity defense (also called the competing harms defense, which would allow you to break down a door to rescue a child from a burning building). 

Peaceful protests can work, even if they are disruptive.

(Chris Houston is the President of the Canadian Peace Museum non-profit organization.)