For the last few months there have been a lot of large marches, protests and actions.
But these kinds of things aren't new - people have been angry and frustrated and looking
for change for a long time.
But how effective are these kinds of actions?
And specifically, how effective are climate actions at tackling climate change.
Let me get this out of the way – in a lot of cases it is hard to draw a straight line
from a march or action to actual political and policy change.
That being said, when you get a lot of people together to do a thing, that means data.
And where there is data, there is research.
So let's start really broad: Marches, are they effective?
It really depends on how you measure effectiveness.
Is it the number of people who show up?
The platform?
How many tweets it got, instagram posts?
Arrests?
Its a little bit of all of that.
Here's a rough way of analyzing how effective a march could be.
Okay, so what is this chart saying?
Alone in a bubble, a single person walking down a street holding a sign isn't going
to do that much.
Unless you happen to block the route of your elected official.
So it needs context.
How the demonstration or march is viewed depends on a lot of things.
First and foremost is how disruptive.
100 people on a sidewalk with signs, in most cases not very disruptive.
Hundreds of thousands of people blocking major roadways across the country?
That's pretty disruptive.
And there is research linking size and disruptiveness to changes in political agenda.
But the direct action of disruptiveness is not the only thing that can determine a march
effectiveness.
That's where these other boxes come in - they can help to mediate or amplify a demonstrations
messages.
We'll start here: the Political Context.
Basically - it depends on the political regime.
In the US we have elected officials, their re-election and, their job depends on getting
voters to come back out and vote for them again.
If a bunch of those voters are out in the streets yelling about how badly they are doing,
they're prolly going to pay a little attention.
A really good example of this – the tea party.
They protested and showed up at town halls and marched, and their representatives got
scared and it affected their political agendas.
Now in a non-representative government, this kind of action doesn't work so well - b/c
the leaders don't rely on voters to stay in office.
Effective actions in that kind of environment?
Very different.
Political allies are also important.
Demonstrations don't just target political opponents, they also serve to elevate the
agendas of the politicians who are most in line with a marches goals.
This is kind of a two-way street.
Politicians can participate in the demonstration, like Elizabeth Warren did at the Boston Women's
March - this offers the movement some credibility, as well as giving the politician another platform
to discuss their agenda.
The empirical research on exactly how effective political allies are isn't super conclusive
and very dependent on the circumstances so take that as you will.
Which brings us to: Societal Context – which is even less studied but also still important.
Particularly with large disparate movements like climate or racial justice – public
opinions can have a lot of sway.
This is also where the media steps in.
Which nowadays, can mean a lot.
Tweets, instagram posts, national news coverage, small blogs, even niche youtube channels *eyes
emoji.*
The revolving door between public support and media coverage is important.
If people care about a thing, they'll click the story, if they click the story, that site
or paper is more likely to keep covering it.
And in the best of cases – that march or organizations agenda ripples out into mainstream
thought and political discourse.
The reverse is also true – without amplification from the media, a lot of marches fizzle out
and never lead to continued actions or political change.
So how does all of this work through an environmental actions?
Let's start a little way back, at the more-or-less beginning of the mainstream environmental
movement.
Earth Day.
The first Earth Day - was a march.
Errr… a national teach-in.
Which is like a march, but with more words.
In 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson got millions of people across the country involved in some
kind of demonstration under the umbrella of Earth Day.
And that continued this year, there are hundreds of local community actions every Earth Day.
You can draw a kinda squiggly line from that first big demonstration on April 22,1970 to
Nixon creating the EPA and the NOAA and and then probably follow it even further to the
modern environmental movement.
The other big example of effective environmental actions – the Ozone layer.
In the 80s scientists noticed a hole forming above antarctica in the ozone layer – which
is a thin layer that basically protects us from most of the really harmful radiation
bouncing around out there in space.
And this is a bit of a stretch as an example, b/c there was a lot of more than just marches,
but thanks to loads of public pressure – CFCs, the main contributor to the destruction of
the ozone layer – were banned.
It is maybe worth mentioning there is possibly a link between climate change and further
depletion of the ozone layer, but that is topic for another video entirely.
Okay, so, granted, these big moments in the environmental movement, weren't just because
of a single march.
The most successful marches, environmental or not, had follow-thru – they had something
to do the next day, after the march.
It is also worth remembering that there have been a lot of environmental marches and protests,
and yet emissions and temperatures continue to rise, we're driving more and further, we're
eating more meat, industrial agriculture practices continue to damage the environment and we're
throwing more things away.
Marches and protest alone, aren't going to tip the scale.
All this is not to say that marches are pointless, or not worth going to.
In fact, I think the individual benefit often gets kinda ignored.
I can't remember I march I regretted going to, although there are a lot i regret not
going to.
I spend a lot of time reading and hearing about the alarming rate of climate change,
and listening to the stories of peoples whose lives have already been affected for the worse,
But that's really isolating to do most of that from behind my computer screen.
Going to a march lets me see the thousands of others who care just as deeply as I do.
It gives me the energy to go back to my local community and do the hard, less fun work,
like picking up trash and calling my representatives.
The effectiveness of the recent Peoples Climate March is up for debate.
It just happened, we don't know the ripples yet.
In fact, it is hard to argue just how effective the 2014 march was.
Hopefully it will have some effect, but either way, we've got a lot of work to do.
If you want to learn more about political activism and organizing, or the study of those
– I've left all the links I've come across while researching down below.
And let me know in the comments if you've been to a march recently and how effective
you thought it was.
Did it do anything for you?
Did you see any ripple effects in your community or, you know, on a larger scale?
And before I go, I just want to say, marching is an excellent experience 10 out of 10 would
recommend, but please, if you really want measurable impact: get involved in community
organizing.
In my mind, going to a march is just kinda the tiny little baby step on the way to getting
actual work done.
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