Recently, an English coalition group called “Just Stop Oil” has been making headlines for throwing Heinz soup on Van Gough’s “Sunflowers” and trying to superglue themselves to Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Though it may seem humorous or revolting to some, to the protesters, projecting their anger onto art to spread a message about climate change is a serious matter. In each of their demonstrations, they question the audience’s reaction. They ask, “How do you feel?” — the audience’s disgusted looks often give the answer away. In their “Girl with a Pearl Earring” demonstration, they followed with “Outraged? Good. Where is that feeling when the plant is destroyed before our very eyes?” In the far background, viewers can hear the audience calling out words such as “shame on you” and “shut up,” but the protesters remain unaffected. The protestors continue, saying, “This painting is protected by the glass; it is just fine … The future of our children is not protected.” This demonstration is only one of their numerous climate change demonstrations. The group wants “the UK government [to make] a statement that it will immediately halt all future licensing and consents for the exploration, development, and production of fossil fuels in the UK.”

Are these radical demonstrations effective?

These courageous demonstrations are met with embarrassment from critics who claim that they “alienate the public from the cause itself.” The group asserts that even if the public may feel hate towards them, their demonstrations still spark important discussions among voters.

Many studies have focused on the severity of protests and the reaction of public opinion. Further research has also developed the idea of the activists’ dilemma, where “activists must choose between moderate actions that are largely ignored and more extreme actions that succeed in gaining attention, but may be counterproductive to their aims as they tend to make people think less of the protesters.”

Colin Davis set out to conduct his own experiments on the public's perception of extreme protest tactics. . He found that “decreasing the extent to which the public identifies with you may not be helpful for building a mass movement [b]ut high publicity actions may actually be a very effective way to increase recruitment, given relatively few people ever become activists.” With a topic such as climate change, which is not always considered a high priority, these protests induce conversation and dialogue in the public. Overall, the protests did spark conversation and moderate change in England, resulting in increased house insulation and elevated public awareness of the significance of “the environment” in the public’s consciousness.

The simple fact that “Just Stop Oil” is making headlines shows the effectiveness of their radical protesting. Even if the public dislikes the protesters, they are still discussing the essential ideas that the group is trying to convey, which is the protestors’ main objective. .

Why this wouldn’t work in America

Although this demonstration shows great optimism for change in England, I couldn’t imagine it doing the same in America. American politics are far too polarized on the topic of climate change for this demonstration to ever cause positive change. Just the phrase “climate change” causes conservatives and liberals to react in completely divergent ways. In fact, researchers “found that promoting energy-efficient products and services on the basis of their environmental benefits actually turned conservatives off from picking them.” The words associated with climate change activism already steer many Americans away from sustainability. England is a more liberal country in the sense of climate change; the outrage was directed toward the “damage” of art rather than the message itself. In America, the idea of climate change is already a source of polarization, and the message of the protest would not be taken well in discussions with either side. Along with that, the media would misrepresent the ideas being presented by the protest, as shown by many headlines that focus on the acts rather than the message. Historical political protests support this misrepresentation— for instance, during the suffrage movement, extreme protesting was often counterproductive because of how polarized the topic was.

In a nation so partisan, we should find common ground on the topic and start discussions from there. Activism and education for climate change should follow communities’ interests and show individuals how climate change is affecting them. Climate change seems so far off for many because they are unable to relate to the big pictures presented, but if we localize and work in our communities to talk about climate change, people will feel a greater connection to the movement and will feel the same passion for Earth as they do for a painting of beauty.