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0:07      Kay Summers: From the School of International Service at American University in Washington, this is Big World, where we talk about something in the world that truly matters.

0:16      KS: The idea of what would become known as climate change was first identified by a Swedish scientist in 1896. In the 1930s, scientists saw the US and the North Atlantic warming, but the only person who thought it was more than a temporary cycle at that time was a person named G.S. Callendar. The list of the names of people who've tried to alert the world about climate change and then spur its people to action is really long. It includes people whose names, like Al Gore and "Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action."

1:34      KS: Dana, thanks for joining Big World.

1:37      Dana Fisher: Thank you for having me, Kay.

1:38      KS: Dana, you have completed extensive research on climate politics and climate activism. Over the past few years, we've seen a rise in more extreme climate activism. Examples that come to mind include people throwing soup on famous paintings or gluing themselves to the seats at the US Open. Dana, you remember the '90s, don't you?

1:58      DF: Of course.

2:00      KS: I find not everybody does. I'm reminded of Julia Butterfly. This is the woman who lived in a redwood for 738 days.

2:08      DF: Darryl Hannah joined her, in fact, and so did Woody Harrelson.

2:12      KS: Up in the tree, right?

2:13      DF: Right.

2:13      KS: In the late 90's. And I contrast that with protesters in 2022 throwing tomato soup on Van Gogh's Sunflowers, which was covered in glass, thankfully. But the tone has changed. The tone of those two actions is definitely different. What have you discovered through research about how climate activism and action has evolved over the past few decades?

2:33      DF: That's a great question. When we think about Julia Butterfly and all the other folks who camped out in redwoods, their activism was specifically targeting protecting the trees that they were sitting in. So it was a direct activism. The aim there was that people weren't going to cut down a tree that they were sleeping in, so they slept there, and that was pretty effective. The thing is that if you're trying to save a redwood, you can camp out in it, you can chain yourself to it. Today, when we want to think about how to stop CO2 emissions and greenhouse gas concentrations from building in the atmosphere, it's not just about protecting a single tree. It's about stopping the entire system through which we get our energy, produce it, and consume it. So it's a much more abstract and broader problem.

3:23      DF: As a result, activism today that's trying to shift this narrative and change the way people process and deal with energy has become much more abstract. And much of that activism is targeting not direct action that will have direct consequences on what they're concerned about, like protecting that redwood. Instead, it's more indirect. The kind of activism that we're seeing within the climate movement today is really about using what I talk about in my book as shock and disruption.

3:54      DF: Shock is these activists that are throwing food, Krazy gluing, they actually last week, even slashed at artwork. There's a lot of this performative action with the aim of getting media attention. And it's not directly related to fossil fuel infrastructure. It's not directly related to what they're trying to stop. It's about getting media attention so that they can get their voices heard and the information out into the general public more broadly. And it actually has been relatively successful at that.

4:29      DF: I have a new piece that's just coming out where we talk about how those types of actions are really unpopular, but that kind of direct action has historically been very unpopular. So that's not a surprise. So we should expect that, but it is successful in getting media attention. And when the media starts talking about this type of activism, I can say this with a lot of knowledge because I tend to be the person they call up to do the media hits. And we start out by talking about these people who glued themselves to the bleachers at the US Open, or threw food, or did a whole bunch of things with Krazy Glue, maybe tossed paint. There's been a lot of paint tossing. But then they ask me, why? And they ask me what's effective about it. And it actually provides this opportunity to have these kinds of conversations about the activism and the reason why people are feeling so concerned that they're willing to risk arrest and to be very disruptive, to get attention for the climate crisis.

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5:25      KS: And I get your point that it makes sense that they're trying to affect something that's existential, hard to see—you can't climb up and live in climate change. But like you said, it's unpopular. I mean, sometimes it seems like they just really don't like French impressionism because there's Van Gogh, and then they went after a Monet and then they threw something at a Degas statue.

5:46      DF: But it's [inaudible 00:05:47]. I just think it's very important to note here, every single work of art they targeted, they targeted because it had a protective coating on it, so they never actually destroyed art.

5:55      KS: You are correct.

5:55      DF: At least not yet.

5:56      KS: Yes, so far. So it's unpopular, but my question is, is it effective? Has your research shown that intensifying action, this type of attention-getting from the media, is this effective at getting the attention of lawmakers when it comes to climate policy?

6:19      DF: Okay, I think that that's actually... It's an interesting question and I think that's a wrong question. The situation is that this type of performative action, which I talk about as these micro protests to shock and get attention are successful at, one, getting media attention. And two, they're successful at getting the attention and concern of what we call sympathizers in the world of social movements. Those are people who care about the issue but haven't really mobilized to do anything about it. But the reason that we talk about them being unpopular is because most people who are concerned about the issue will watch these types of more radical actions and then decide that they want to support a more moderate group. And that's why we call it the radical flank. And there's a whole bunch of research that documents how the splitting of tactics within a movement so that there are some that are more radical help to draw attention and support for the less radical tactics. And that's why, if you have a broad movement like the climate movement is today, it is really effective.

7:21      DF: I mean, with regard to the unpopularity, these groups and these kinds of actions are very unpopular in the general public. But what I think is very interesting, and something that I've tested recently, is there have been a lot of claims that it's actually going to turn off activists, turn off the sympathizers who've already mobilized. So I actually went out to the March to End Fossil Fuels in September in New York City, which is where 75,000 activists came out to protest climate change. And at that march, I went out, I surveyed protestors, and one of the questions was, do you support organizations that are engaging in civil disobedience to draw attention to the climate crisis? And we had a list of examples. 95% of the people in the crowd said they either support or strongly support these organizations, and not one person said they don't support it.

8:10      DF: So anybody who says that it is basically pulling people away from the movement, there's no evidence to show that that's true. So while the general public, some of them will say, "Can you believe what these guys are doing? And they're targeting art and they're wasting everybody's time. They made it slower to watch the US Open," sure, that's true, but it also drew attention of the people who are concerned about the climate crisis and want to do something and don't know what to do. And some of them actually, after seeing or experiencing these types of tactics, actually do something. They support more moderate groups.

8:47      KS: Right. You have the more radical groups, and then you have people who like French Impressionism, who then give to World Wildlife Fund or a more middle of the road group that's-

8:54      DF: Or Sierra Club or the League of Conservation Voters. I mean, the list goes on and on. There are many...

9:00      DF: I mean, there's an amazing diversity of groups out there that are working on climate change right now. The radical flank tends to work to push the conversation, to push attention, and in some ways it pulls also the tactics and the discussion more to the left and more to thinking about more radical actions, which over time, historically it's documented that that works to achieve political outcomes. In the climate movement so far we haven't seen that yet, but we have seen it be successful at getting attention and shifting conversation. There's lots of evidence out there about how that's been working so far.

9:41      KS: Dana, so your new book, which we mentioned, I'm going to mention it again, which is coming out sometime in early 2024. My birthday's in February. Just put that down.

9:49      DF: Me too. Me too.

9:51      KS: What day?

9:51      DF: 24th.

9:52      KS: 25th. That is so weird. Okay, well, we can get each other a copy of your new book for our respective birthdays, and you can sign mine.

10:00      DF: You bet.

10:00      KS: And I'll sign yours. And that won't make any sense. Okay, so from the book, and for everyone, what is the definition of a climate shock?

10:10      DF: I'm so glad you asked that. In the book, in the first chapter, one of the first things I do is define climate shocks. This is the definition from chapter one. Climate shocks are deviations from normal environmental patterns in the form of droughts, floods, heat waves, or other extreme events that have been exacerbated by climate change. What we know from the natural science, and it's extremely well documented, there's been some recent research that is really quite terrifying that's come out about this, is that these climate shocks, these deviations from normal environmental patterns are well documented that they are getting more severe and coming more frequently as the world warms, as the waters warm, as the poles melt.

10:52      DF: One of the things I thought was very interesting when I collected data at the March to End Fossil Fuels in New York in September is we also decided to ask the people in the streets if they had experienced climate shocks. We asked about experience of drought, flood, heat wave. We also asked about extreme storms, and we asked about wildfire. Remember that this past summer, many of us who were in the east coast of United States experienced wildfire or the smokes from wildfire. I believe it was 86% of the people in the streets on that day in New York City said that they had personally experienced wildfire or the smoke from wildfire. 85% said they had experienced extreme weather in the form of extreme heat, and over half of them said that they had experienced extreme events in terms of more exacerbated storms.

11:45      DF: This is all really interesting as somebody who studies climate change and the social effects of climate change. Because when I started out in the 1990s, we were doing all of the work with the idea that climate change could affect us personally. A lot of times, I used to go to all these climate negotiations and there were all these people who would dress up as polar bears. It was all like, "This is all about saving the polar bears. We're concerned about the polar bears." The question was, could we really get people to care enough and change their behaviors to save polar bears? Well, we know that the answer is no, first of all. But the other thing that we know is that we don't have to talk about this far away experience of an animal that you probably have only seen in a zoo if you've seen it at all.

12:31      DF: Now, we understand that the experience of climate change is this personal experience that people across the United States and around the world are experiencing every day. It's cyclical. You have, for example, we see a lot more extreme weather events happening during the summers. We see it on this part of the United States. We see it during the hurricane season, although California as well as the UK is also experiencing a hurricane season, which is unprecedented. All of that is thanks to climate change and the warming waters that are warmed because of the increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. All of that means that climate shocks are no longer something that is an abstract that we should worry about, but rather it's people are experiencing it today.

13:16      KS: Does the research yet show, and it may not be able to because it's still too new, but what happens when climate shocks are no longer shocking? When you've experienced it and then the smoke comes back the next year and you go, "Oh yeah, that's right. I had to put on a mask," and for some reason it doesn't feel as bad. What happens?

13:29      DF: We saw that this past summer where... I mean, I remember the first time the smoke came down, my kids' schools canceled all the outdoor activities, and everybody said, "Stay inside." They canceled baseball games, remember? Then the second time they were like, "Oh, just wear a mask." By the third time they're like, "Oh, you can smell it again. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha." That's the thing, is that we know that these kinds of extreme events, people get desensitized to them until they hit a certain level of risk personally to you.

13:57      DF: What I talk about in my new book is the fact that there's a lot of reason to expect that until we personally have experienced the true threat and risk of climate shocks in a personal way, like houses flooding, you can't work outside because it's so hot that it's dangerous. For me, I am asthmatic. I could not outside and do anything more than just walk to my car because it's just so hard to breathe. It's that level of risk that will finally motivate people to take action.

14:33      KS: That is sort of the what, but let's talk about the who in terms of who is currently activated to protest. We talked about the radical flank and then the moderate middle. What has your research discovered about the demographics of people who are participating in climate activism, and what's motivating them? Who's doing this?

14:53      DF: I've been studying climate activism actually since 2000. That was the first time that I surveyed protesters. That was at the COP 6 negotiations in the Hague, which is like ancient history now, twenty-three years ago, twenty-three COPs ago. That all being said, here's what we know about the people who participate in the climate movement. Historically, people who participate in the climate movement tend to be highly educated. They tend to be moderately privileged. They tend to be educated in the United States. They're predominantly white. Recently we know that they're more female than male, which is consistent with a lot of progressive activism since the resistance to the Trump Administration and it's policies. So, that's consistent.

15:35      DF: Since then, most recently when I was out at the protest in New York, I added another question because there has been some research coming from national surveys talking about people's emotional responses to climate change. One of the questions I had was, so you see people in the streets, what do they experience and how are they emotionally different from the general public? The people in the streets were predominantly reporting that they were out in the streets experiencing climate change and feeling sadness and anger about it. Three-quarters of the people who were in the streets said that they were angry about the climate crisis, and that was what was motivating them to come out in the streets.

16:17      DF: I would hypothesize, but I do not have full evidence yet, but I would hypothesize that the people who are experiencing climate shocks are emotionally responding to climate shocks, not with despair, but with sadness and anger. And as a result, they're going out in the streets. That is layered on top of the fact that we know these tend to be privileged, highly educated, predominantly white, relatively female groups of people.

16:43      DF: Now, will that change over time? Will we see more frontline communities, more communities of color joining people in the streets? We haven't seen it as much as you might expect yet, but my expectation is as the climate crisis worsens, and more and more people experience climate shocks, the people who are going to be most at risk for these climate shocks are people who are working in frontline communities, people who have jobs where they have to work outside and have to be exposed to climate shocks in a way that those of us who can hide in our cars, have air conditioning, don't have to work outside don't.

17:21      DF: As a result, we're going to see more of those people so concerned and angry probably, that they will also be in the streets.

17:37      KS: Dana Fisher, it's time to take five. You get to reorder, or maybe just put your spin on the world. What are five climate policies you'd like to see adopted in the United States?

17:49      DF: This is a great question, and I have to say, as somebody who studies both climate policymaking, but also democracy, I'm going to answer in kind of a creative way here.

18:00      DF: First, I would implement two Democratic policies. Number one, I would take the money out of politics. That means that I would limit contributions to campaigns and I would provide public financing because there's a whole bunch of research that says that the money in politics, particularly fossil fuel money, is biasing voting behavior of all elected officials, not just Republicans. And that goes across the board. So the only way to deal with it is get the money out of politics. Number two, I would implement term limits. That would mean that the people are actually leading themselves rather than it being this kind of professional elite that is in office until they're in, I don't know, their 80s maybe. And then I would implement two domestic climate policies.

18:47      DF: Number one, I would structure a legitimate phase out of fossil fuels, which would basically mean there'd be no more fossil fuel expansion, no more fossil fuel infrastructure being built and I would figure out a way to slowly and effectively move us into a clean energy future. Number two, I would also train young people to be capable of helping to make that clean energy future possible. And I would do it by taking advantage of the Federal Service Corps programs that already exist. So I would basically take that program that the Biden Administration proposed and blow it out to make it scalable to the level that we need to get young people involved in this service of saving ourselves.

19:32      DF: And finally, is more of an international climate policy and that would be, I would, instead of funding more wars, I would be funding loss and damage and helping countries that are the front lines of climate crisis to be able to adapt, be resilient, and in some cases, to relocate because we're already seeing some small island nations having to move large portions of their population because of sea level rise and because their islands are no longer inhabitable.

20:02      KS: Thank you. Dana, by the time we release this, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP 28, will already be taking place in Dubai. Yes, it's 28 years old. It's well past the legal drinking age. What kind of action or agreements do you anticipate coming out of the conference this year?

20:23      DF: That's a really good question, and I do not expect much at all coming out of the negotiations this year. They've already been lowering expectations and signaling that we're not going to see much coming out. I mean, the fact that the negotiations are being held in a petro state, that the person who is holding the presidency used to be the head of a fossil fuel company, the fact that for the first time OPEC is actually having its own, what's it called, it having its own area within the climate negotiations, which as somebody who used to go to the negotiations every year, you used to hear the people who represented oil and fossil fuel interests whispering in the corner. They're speaking it all out loud. So the idea that there is going to be any real commitment to phase out fossil fuels, which we know is absolutely necessary to address the climate crisis, it's not imaginable.

21:25      KS: I Googled this because I didn't know. Dubai is about 7,000 miles from DC. So Dana, what are your thoughts on officials traveling very far distances for this and other climate conferences, because for the amount of fossil fuels burned to bring them all together, I'm not sure the world benefits anymore, and I'm also wondering, could this be done on a Zoom? And I'm only asking that partially sarcastically, is this necessary? Is there something about bringing them together that actually helps?

21:52      DF: So last year, I made this statement in the media when the climate negotiations started in Egypt, saying that people who really care about climate change should not... If you really care about climate change, you should not be getting on a plane and flying to Egypt, particularly if you're not a delegate for a country that is involved in negotiating, because what all of these NGO observers do is they go to these quote unquote side events, many of which are side events where a group from DC is talking to another group from DC, and it is just shocking to watch. And my personal opinion is that these events have become these crazy kind of three ring circuses. They're literally three rings because you basically no longer have NGO observers allowed even into the same area where the delegates are actually negotiating. It used to be that we would be able to interact with the delegates, and there's just no reason to spend the carbon to go and do that.

22:50      DF: As somebody who's trying very hard to figure out how to organize a book tour while keeping my carbon consumption as low as possible, the idea of going to participate in a symbolic conversation where I'm talking to a bunch of people who I could talk to by taking the Metro downtown, it just seems absolutely wrong, and it's shortsighted and it's really frustrating. So should there be a zoom? I mean, sure, or at least at this point, there's a lot of international relations scholars who talk about how this type of regime formation that is multilateral may not be the best way to get to anything.

23:28      DF: I mean, and I think 28 years later, there's a lot of evidence that's true. Instead, bilateral agreements or regional agreements are much more likely to yield some sort of outcome that gets us closer to where we need to go and those don't involve traveling all the way to the other side of the planet, that would mean something like North American countries will come together and talk, or even just those in our hemisphere.

23:54      KS: It almost sounds like you've got a parallel conference of green groups happening alongside-

24:00      DF: Businesses and green groups, right? So you've got your think tanks, your green groups, you got... I mean, they all are there and everybody has to go see the show. And the other thing that happens is, I'm going to call out our friends in the media too, is that the media sends large contingents of folks to follow different interests around. So you've got the groups who are following the delegations that are following the US delegation, are following small island states. They're following certain international agencies. And the question is, do we really need all these people to expend all of that carbon to go there to report on it?

24:34      DF: It's become a fiasco. I was trying to come up with a better word that was a little nicer, but it really has. I mean, these meetings have also grown exponentially. I mean, the big turning point was COP 15, which was 2009 in Copenhagen, and at that meeting, so many people came that they actually had to shut down entrance. So people had registered, they flew to Copenhagen, and then they weren't allowed in, so they couldn't pick up their badges. So people would stand for eight hours to try to get in. It was like trying to see the Beatles or something. I mean, really, it was crazy. And I remember I was there early, thankfully, because I had worked with the United Nations University before. So I had a UN badge, I had a blue badge. It was very exciting.

25:19      DF: So I was able to get in, but I remember talking to a negotiator from Japan who I'd worked with when I was working my dissertation in Japan. And he looked at me and he said, "You, you're an endangered species," because he said, "There's no way that NGOs are going to be allowed in these negotiations for much longer." And basically, we've seen that now; moving forward, NGOs have been kept separate. And the idea that you fly to all sorts of exotic locations to be separately isolated from the negotiations, what's the point?

25:50      KS: Are the fossil fuel people separate from the negotiations?

25:53      DF: Well, they're separate on some levels, but no, they're throwing parties. I mean, historically, what happens in OPEC, for example, has their own little, I forget what they're calling it, it's like the OPEC hub, right? Where they give out and they give out very nice swag at these kinds of things. But historically, what would happen is these different fossil fuel companies and other petrochemical companies would throw receptions and throw events and give out goody bags. Imagine what we hear about for the Academy Awards, but fossil fuel based. I mean, I'm sure some of that is too. So the whole thing is that people go to these and they get wined and dined. Does that play a role in decision-making and what people are willing to say and willing to commit to? It's hard to argue that it doesn't at this point, but that's how the process works.

26:48      KS: Yeah. I mean, you're not going to have, if you've got a wealthy oil company handing out swag bags that have, I don't know, nice things, watches, whatever, and then you've got an NGO that's

27:00      KS: ... handing out beer Koozies or whatever it is that they have with their, you know [inaudible 00:27:06]

27:06      DF: Wildflower seeds. You get your wildflower seeds, or you know, I don't know, your champagne and, you know.

27:15      KS: All right, all right. This is super fun. I do want to wrap up. I want you to, Dana, please give us a little sneak preview of your book. Again, the name, "Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action." What will readers learn? Tell me a couple of things they'll learn.

27:31      DF: So what readers are going to learn is they're going to learn, I mean, the sad part, we've already talked about, that the effects of climate change are getting worse. We're going to see more climate shocks that come more frequently and are more severe. And what we're also going to learn is that all the policymaking that everybody's done so far, including the Inflation Reduction Act and other types of policies that are happening around the world, are absolutely insufficient to get us where we need to go. The metrics don't lie, concentrations in the atmosphere continue to go up, and unfortunately, all of the models that the IPCC came out with that were used to think about the Paris Agreement, say that we should have already stabilized CO2 emissions. And basically they keep coming out with these new models, where like, okay, well we can go a little more up in our burning of fossil fuels and increasing our CO2 emissions, but then we have to have a super steep slope to just phase it out completely.

28:28      DF: And so basically from that, I talk about that and then I say, so given that what we should really expect is that certain parts of the world are going to become uninhabitable, at least some parts of the year. We're going to see lots of people feeling the squeeze of the climate crisis, and that is going to lead to climate migration. It's going to lead to food shortages, water shortages. We've already seen more and more wildfire and more and more climate shock. And from that, people are going to start to rise up. So the folks that we see now in the climate movement are what I would think of as the vanguard. And they're going to be joined in the streets as things get worse.

29:06      DF: And what I talk about in the book, so I'm an apocalyptic optimist, which basically means that I think that there is hope, but I don't see hope without us going through something pretty painful. Now, the way that the book ends is it takes us through this relatively depressing story, and it basically concludes that the only way forward is to give more power to the people and to help encourage people to mobilize, to work together, to help us save ourselves, because that's where change is going to have to be initiated. And I end by talking about three steps that can be taken for us to save ourselves. That's based on the research I've done on the climate movement, as well as from research that I talk about from previous social movements that have been relatively successful. And particularly, I build on a lot of the findings from the Civil Rights Movement here in the United States.

29:53      DF: And what I say is the three steps that we can take to save ourselves and save ourselves faster, which means less pain, more success more quickly, is one, we need to create community and real solidarity. And that is all about connecting interested folks, coming from different backgrounds, orientations and identities, and leaning into intersectionality, so connecting the environment and labor movements, which is only just starting to happen, but historically has not been very successful coalition. Capitalizing on moral shocks, and that includes violence. One of the things that we know will happen based on historical movements is that the more there's a radical flank that's more confrontational and disruptive, the more likely it is that law enforcement is going to be aggressive, repressive, and the more likely it is that we're going to see counter movements. What I mean by capitalizing on violence is that there's a historical precedent for violence against peaceful protestors helping to draw attention to inequities and the crisis itself. And so I think activists need to be prepared for that, which is unfortunate, but we can see it in previous movements that have been successful.

31:13      DF: And finally, and this is for anybody who doesn't want to be an activist and isn't comfortable with getting beaten up by potentially armed counter protestors, we need to be cultivating resilience and we need to cultivate resilience in our communities. And when I talk about resilience, I mean we know that there are going to be more climate shocks, we know that people are going to be affected by the climate crisis, we need to build the capacity in our communities socially and environmentally to respond to them. And that's about building resilience and social cohesion and connections within communities to make communities capable of handling these kinds of shocks, because they're coming. And what we can do is work together and prepare.

31:53      KS: Dana Fisher, thank you so much for joining Big World to discuss climate activism and action. I will not say that it has been fun topically, it was fun substantively, and the company was excellent. It's been great to speak with you.

32:07      DF: Thank you so much. I know I'm such a bummer, but ..

32:11      KS: Big World is a production of the School of International Service at American University. Our podcast is available on our website, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you leave us a good rating or review, it'll be like finding out your single stream recycling actually is getting recycled instead of all being taken to the landfill, as I always fear.

32:32      KS: Our theme music is, It Was Just Cold, by Andrew Codeman. Until next time.