Activists often join forces in large groups. For example, Greenpeace, Fridays for Future, and Extinction Rebellion are all activist groups fighting for environmental causes .
行動主義者地球寶寶
行動主義者是怎麼做的？
These groups sometimes organise large protests. For example, in March 2019 a number of organisations held the first “Global Climate Strike”, where an estimated 1.6 million people took to the streets in cities around the world to demand climate action .
However, because governments make decisions for a number of reasons, it is often extremely difficult to know whether government action comes as a direct result of protests. This makes it hard to know whether the protest itself was successful at causing the change .
Plus, governments sometimes take action which harms protesters, rather than helping them. For example, in June 2020 around 15-26 million Americans took part in largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protests around the country . In some places, the police responded with disproportionate violence, including firing rubber bullets and spraying tear gas at protesters .
This can happen to environmental activists too: in 2019, French police used tear gas on a group of climate protesters blocking a bridge in Paris . In some countries, law enforcement can be much harsher on protesters, for example through arrest or violence .
While protesters like the Wet’suwet’en protesters in Canada have clear demands, a protest is not necessarily a failure if these are not met. This is because protesters have another goal too…
One famous study of anti-government protests shows that if a protest gets 3.5% of a population involved it is almost certain to succeed .
But studies looking at other types of protest have found that you need far more people - up to a quarter of a country’s population . What they all agree on, however, is that the bigger the protest, the higher the chance of it being successful .
Things become a bit more complicated when there are two protest groups in direct opposition to each other. Here we know that the difference between the two movements’ sizes becomes important .
More problematically, when there are two big protest movements on either side of an argument, their views can become even more extreme . This makes the problem worse because it becomes harder for each side to find middle ground and compromise . This is known as polarisation.
With almost 60% of the world’s population having access to the internet, it is no surprise that online activism is becoming so popular .
One way that activism happens online is through petitions…
什麼是請願？
A petition is a written request, signed by many people, to a person or body of authority, such as the government or a company, in the hope of finding a solution to an issue .
The theory is that the more people who sign the petition, the more pressure the body of authority will be under to follow through with the request .
支持所有人能有免費冰淇淋的請願
In the UK, anyone can create a petition, but it must receive 10,000 signatures to receive a response from parliament and over 100,000 for it to be debated !
Yet even this does not mean that the request will be granted. In fact, in 2017 four of the ten most signed petitions were not even debated, and not a single one of them was successful . Those are not great numbers!
我應該在請願書上簽字嗎？
Due to the high failure rate of petitions, you might be thinking there’s no point in signing them .
Petition signers are sometimes called ‘slacktivists’ - ‘lazy’ activists who feel as if they have created change, without actually engaging with direct action .
什麼是「懶惰的行動者」
There are some benefits to petitions, though.
Petitions and other forms of online activism, such as sharing information on social media, are peaceful, safe and accessible to anyone at any age with an internet connection .
This helps more people to engage with issues. Though online activists may spend less time being an ‘activist’ than those attending physical protests, it’s possible to argue that the sheer number of them make them an equally impactful part of a movement as the core minority .
Unlike the other personal steps we’ve looked at in this course, there’s no way to say how much CO₂ could be saved by taking part in protests.
But we can look at the ways past protests have been successful in changing how people think about an issue in order to learn how these could be applied to the environmental movement.
Beyond benefits to the planet, studies have suggested that going to protests can improve self-confidence , increase well-being later in life , help develop skills and knowledge , and more .
As long as you stay thoughtful and safe, and match activism with real life-long commitments to change, there’s little harm in making your voice heard , and there’s a chance you could contribute towards meaningful change .
