I am an environmental social scientist and climate activist. As Jack Shenker describes in his article (The existential question for climate activists: have disruption tactics stopped working?, 6 March), Extinction Rebellion’s recent decision to stop disrupting the public caused quite a fuss. Some people applauded the move as they thought it would favourably shift public opinion, while others insisted public disruption needs to remain a primary tactic to garner wider attention.
Unfortunately, both camps are missing the point – once you have enough dedicated activists, the public is largely irrelevant to achieving political change. It is not the opinion, or even attention, of the public that matters, it is whether or not you are disrupting structures of power. Historical social movements have shown this repeatedly.
Despite what we may like to believe in a democracy, public opinion is only one small influence on the government. It may theoretically give governments a mandate to act, but real change must first overcome powerful opposition from the structures that support governments, such as business and the legal and financial systems. The role of activists is to change the cost-benefit equation for these structures until it is more beneficial for them to accept change than to carry on with the status quo.
For climate activists, the real question is not about the efficacy of disruptive tactics, it needs to be about targets. And the answer is power, not the public.
Dr Laura Thomas-Walters
Llandaff, Cardiff
What can we do about the climate crisis? What form should our protest take? Do the actions of Extinction Rebellion risk alienating those who they look to for support? Indigo Rumbelow, a supporter of Just Stop Oil and co-founder of Insulate Britain, takes the view that the debate “is not between those who want to take ‘moderate’ or ‘radical’ action. It’s between those who are standing by doing nothing at all, and those who are doing something. That’s where the line is drawn.”
But it should never be like this. A democracy should allow voters to choose how their country is governed. There should be a constitutional requirement for those of us seriously concerned about the climate crisis to have our views expressed in government. This obviously doesn’t happen. Our government consists only of Tory MPs representing a minority of voters. Yes, we have offshore wind generation, but otherwise their response is desperately inadequate.
As a result, we have to resort to any kind of protest we feel might make a difference. If our civilisation truly wants a route to survival, we need a representative democracy with proportional voting.
Tim Williamson
Bath
Jack Shenker asks if disruption tactics have stopped working in climate protests. I would ask: did they ever work? Starting with the suffragists and suffragettes (or possibly earlier), most radical and progressive movements have had extreme wings, driven by a sense of frustration that their voice is not being listened to.
I would love to see some academic work try to quantify the effect of publicity-seeking “stunts” against patient political foot-slogging. Having spent most of my life doing the latter, I feel politics does work. I was born into a world where homosexuality and abortion were illegal and mixed‑race marriage regarded as immoral. That has changed. Conventional politicians such as Roy Jenkins and David Steel did their stuff – and succeeded.
Paul Chandler
Brighton