
There's evidence that climate activism could be swaying public opinion in the US - elorant
https://theconversation.com/theres-evidence-that-climate-activism-could-be-swaying-public-opinion-in-the-us-123740
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Hokusai
A green economy will create a lot of local jobs to any country that wants to
adopt it. It will make countries more energy independent so oil exporters will
have reduced influence in green-countries politics and their military budgets.
It will reduce the cost of health care pollution-related problems and citizens
will be healthier and have a higher quality of living.

There is a lot of money in the oil industry. But, it is still small,
politically charged and morally ambiguous compared with the new economy that
is growing.

The USA has lost decades, proof of a high level of institutional corruption.
But, it was just a matter of time.

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chewbacha
The protests and Greta Thunberg's addresses have given me hope during a time
of political darkness.

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mguerville
Likewise, especially because unlike many others her speech feels authentic.
She's not selling a book, she's not running for office, she's not trying to
milk this but rather appears to do it based on a sense of civic duty.

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elorant
To anyone flagging the post. Would you please mind explaining what's bothering
you in order to know what to avoid posting? Because I can't for the life of me
understand what's so controversial about the topic.

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colejohnson66
Climate change is political for some reason

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snowwrestler
It's really, really hard to figure out how activism affects public sentiment.
Aggressive activism, on its surface, seems counterproductive. How does pissing
people off by blocking their commute help change their mind on climate change?
That's a very reasonable and intuitive question.

But if we look back at history, there's plenty of empirical evidence that
aggressive activism does work to advance its goals. Many of the protests
against the Vietnam War were far more disruptive than anything we've seen from
climate activists, and engendered a far more serious backlash--the point of
National Guard soldiers shooting at college student protesters. But ultimately
public sentiment _did_ turn against the war.

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AlexB138
> But if we look back at history, there's plenty of empirical evidence that
> aggressive activism does work to advance its goals. Many of the protests
> against the Vietnam War were far more disruptive than anything we've seen
> from climate activists, and engendered a far more serious backlash--the
> point of National Guard soldiers shooting at college student protesters. But
> ultimately public sentiment did turn against the war.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. There's no evidence that the protests caused public
sentiment to change, they simply coincide. It's equally (more?) likely that
people's kids dying in droves changed their opinions, and many people credit
the gruesome and explicit nightly news coverage of the war as turning public
opinion.

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snowwrestler
Logical fallacies only prove that you can't _deduce_ a conclusion from given
evidence. They don't prove that the conclusion is wrong, or exclude inductive
analysis.

> many people credit the gruesome and explicit nightly news coverage of the
> war as turning public opinion.

One of the theories for how public activism affects broader public opinion is
that it affects public awareness, via news coverage. A big protest creates
news for the media to cover, and that coverage will include some explanation
for why people are protesting. A big protest may also convince reporters that
there is enough interest to support further reporting on the topic.

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migueloller
Can somebody with some research experience comment on the effectiveness of
this survey?

Being inexperienced with this type of process, it would seem to me that ~600
people is a far too small number to get reliable results, specially when the
"change" in opinion is from two different ~300 sized cohorts.

Also, wouldn't there be a large amount of variables that could affect the
outcome in that ~1 month period? Aren't there better methods to isolate
independent variables or is it just very hard to do that in an inquiry like
this?

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thrower123
I'm not sure whether most of this climate activism is productive, or just
produces more backlash in reaction.

It would be helpful if climate change could be taken away from the zealous
environmentalists, as they have a long track record of advocating for policies
that do more to inconvenience people than they do to solve problems. It's the
modern day equivalent of wearing a hair shirt.

It certainly doesn't help to keep up the fire and brimstone, judgement day is
coming, listen and repent rhetoric. They've played that card too many times to
be taken seriously.

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pjc50
The responsibility lies then with "centrists" to come up with something
sensible and effective, doesn't it? Or is the argument that because these
people are annoying we're going to do nothing in order to spite them?

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weberc2
I’m not sure what centrists are meant to do. It seems like an issue like this
requires clear, actionable advice from the science community. Maybe the
science community has clear guidance, but what makes its way to me is often
contradicted a week later (“we need to recycle!”, “actually recycling doesn’t
do much and landfills aren’t that bad!”, “use solar power!”, “actually solar
may use as much carbon to create as it saves”). I want to do something, but I
have no idea what the answer is.

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danaris
Except that's not actually what science is doing.

1) "We need to recycle"—We do! It's very important. Unfortunately, recycling a
lot of materials is not currently profitable (or profitable _enough_? I'm a
bit unclear on that part), so a depressing amount of stuff we put in the
recycling goes several steps along the chain, then gets thrown in the trash
anyway—or possibly dumped somewhere illegally. This is not a problem with
science, or recycling; it's a problem with uncaring corporations and
externalized costs.

2) "Use solar power!"—Do. I've only ever heard the claim that solar uses as
much carbon in its construction as it saves over its lifetime from unsourced
posts on the Internet (which, yeah, who am I to throw stones? but still...)
who clearly had a pre-existing bias against everything that liberals like.
Every reputable study I've ever seen linked regarding the total cost of solar
puts it much lower than its output for modern panels. There is _some_ concern
regarding some of the components—the more unusual metals, for instance—but the
main solution to that, to the best of my understanding, is better recycling.
(See #1.)

Basically, what _science_ , scientists, and good science reporting does is
tell you "if you do X, Y will happen with Z% probability". The reason you see
all this contradictory advice is that most of it (on both sides) doesn't
actually come from scientists—it comes from the media, imperfectly reporting,
and in some cases maliciously misreporting, what scientists say...and often
what people who aren't actually scientists say, claiming that it is science.

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weberc2
That’s kind of what I was driving at—there is a need for good clear
communication regarding what to do about climate change. Maybe you feel like
there is a clear channel to you—I don’t, and I’m guessing that’s true for most
Americans. Maybe I’m just thick skulled, but it’s hard for me to determine
what things are bonafide and what things are environmental fashion (do I need
to eat organic? Vegan? Do I need to stop using plastic straws? Etc). I’m
guessing that I’m more tuned into science journalism than the average
American, and I couldn’t give a ballpark estimate as to the carbon savings
various initiatives and lifestyle choices would afford.

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pjc50
The big things need to be system-wide changes through the political system.
Individual action isn't going to be enough. Vote for people with serious green
policies.

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danaris
This is largely the filter I use. Banning plastic straws (for instance) does
very little to solve the overall problem—the majority of the plastic in the
oceans is commercial fishing nets—and does actually have significant negative
impacts on some people with particular kinds of disabilities. Using less
water, eating vegan, all the individual-level things you can do are not
_worthless_ , but they are vastly overshadowed by the harm done by large
corporations with an overdeveloped interest in profit and underdeveloped
scruples.

There are certain individual-level measures that, if our whole society decided
to adopt them, would be beneficial, and others that are beneficial (at least
long-term) _to_ the individuals who can adopt them, and also have small
positive effects for the environment. Rooftop solar is, for many, in the
latter category. I believe my parents expect theirs to have fully paid for its
installation (3-4 years ago) within the next year or two, and get several more
years of useful life out of it, despite living in the US Northeast (winters
aren't nearly as detrimental to their effect as is often suggested).

