Photo credit: Just Stop Oil
A new study from the Annenberg Public Policy Center investigated public opinion of non-violent but disruptive climate protests, as a recent report coauthored by Michael E. Mann, a member of NCSE's board of directors, explains.
"[W]e attempt to answer three questions. First, does the public approve of using tactics like shutting down traffic or gluing oneself to Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Ear[r]ing to raise attention to climate change? Second, do these tactics affect public beliefs surrounding human-driven climate change? And third, [does] the framing of these tactics influence that support?"
"Overall, we find that the public disapproves of non-violent, disruptive climate protests," the report continues. "Second, through a survey experiment, we find that priming these protest efforts does not affect respondents' beliefs toward climate change. ... And finally, we find that these effects are not predicated on the framing of the tactics deployed."
Mann is Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media.
