“Activism: A for effort, F for feasibility.”

In recent years, the term “activist” has become increasingly synonymous with blue-haired menaces who dedicate their lives towards seemingly anti-social performances of defiance against authorities. Some of these delinquents have even adopted the noble title of “keyboard-warrior”, hoping that their sharp and brusque tweets will save the world from impending threats of “microaggressions”.

Are these all our commendations of individuals with great passion for their causes? Many of us view early activists such as Rosa Parks (famously known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott) with high regard. A strong and courageous woman, Rosa Parks refused to move to the rear of the bus per the segregationist policies in those days and kickstarted a whole movement that led to eventual racial integration (1).

So, what exactly is it that differentiates her from modern day activists like the notorious group Extinction Rebellion? According to conservative-libertarian socio-political commentator Lauren Chen, their acts of civil disobedience have created an image of public nuisance and disruption. Acts such as sitting on trains brought about inconvenience for regular passengers, hindering these commuters from reaching their intended destination on time. Their moves were not targeted towards their cause of “Environmentalism +” (environmental agendas sprinkled with some other goals such as feminism and socialism), whereas Rosa Parks’ were (2).

It seemed to us that current climate change activists are being criticised for their failure to target their efforts effectively towards furthering their causes, and instead opt to utilise methods that do not aid their final goals at all. In this article, we will attempt to discuss the feasibility of modern climate change activism, and how activists can up their game.

Activist movements often fall under a lot of scrutiny. When a movement takes hold, it affects a lot of people, and in many cases, its impact is a negative one. This prompts many media outlets to take a look at it for a juicy story, compelling the masses to talk about it. Naturally, out of all this, criticism will arise.

One of the many camps criticising climate change activism comprise of those who believe activists hold a very unrealistic, naive world view. They believe that what activists are doing is nothing more than simply making noise, without making any substantial changes to this world.

For example, they have been advocating for the ban of plastic straws. Research done by National Geographic show that plastic straws make up 0.025% of the total plastics in the oceans (3). This means that reduction of the usage of plastic straws has done almost nothing to help our ocean pollution problem.

While some companies, such as fast-food chain Burger King, are able to move away completely from plastic straws, others may not be able to replicate this success. For drinks like the ever so popular bubble tea, as well as packet drinks, straws are a necessity and cannot reasonably be removed. Hence, these companies, in an attempt to show that they are environmentally conscious, have turned to the usage of paper straws.

This brings forth yet another problem, where the paper straws provided for customers are wrapped in plastic to comply with regulations concerning sanitation. What is worse is that the production of paper straws is way more energy intensive than that of plastic straws (4), and as normal paper alone can absorb water, processes have to be done to rectify this issue. This just makes the carbon footprint way higher, contradicting the movement’s initial purpose.

This example shows how activism has made little impact on the problem they were trying to fix, and perhaps, causing more overall harm than good. It is not an isolated case either. Similar arguments can be made for the case of plastic vs paper vs cloth bags, as well as the problems the ecosystem faces when trees are replanted at the large scale that they are currently (5), where the side effects of wanting to ‘go green’ have caused significant damage on the environment, counteracting their intended cause.

Preaching But Not Reaching

Be it the vegan protesters holding up protest signs in supermarket meat aisles or a handful of megaphone-toting anti-abortion protesters, many of us would be familiar with the issue of virtue signalling in activism as a whole.

Virtue signalling essentially refers to activism where activists are seen to “preach” from a moral high horse and incline towards demonstrating such morals but do not actually create significant change. As such, protesters carry out their protests in the name of grandiose morals without affecting impact on the aim.

For climate change activism, virtue signalling also applies to a large extent with the aspect of radical vegetarianism in a bid to cut food-related greenhouse-gas emissions. According to a 2016 paper on the effect of dietary responses to climate change, an extreme scenario of the world switching to veganism would cut current emissions by 70%.

That said, a cookie-cutter vegetarianism plan seems more of a token virtue-signalling campaign than an effective climate change plan. This takes into account that only a seventh of all emissions are food-related as well as the root cause of the problem - unsustainable agricultural practices rather than the type of food being produced.

While taking into account that the current production of food is indeed harmful to the environment be it the egregious hunting of livestock or gas emissions, it should still be acknowledged that the radical vegetarianism preached by protesters is an unsuitable policy response to climate change. Reminiscent of the Green Revolution that saw the rise of agricultural practices in East Asian countries, a paradigm shift from the ethical morals of vegetarianism towards developing sustainable agriculture practices can have a larger impact on climate change as a whole.

Viability of Climate Protection

But to what extent is the climate protection that activists are fighting for truly a viable goal?

The absence of significant measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will likely cause a six degree celsius increase in global temperatures (6). Even if we completely halted greenhouse gas emissions today, it would take over a decade for global warming to stutter to a stop (7). Global warming is being carried by the inertia of existing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Further climate change is inevitable, it is its severity that remains undefined.

Mitigating this further change is a complex endeavor, dependent upon economic, social and political factors. To successfully temper the worst of climate change, we must drastically curtail pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. This involves transitions away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy, which activists have definitely been fighting for.

But turning away from fossil fuels may be harder than activists expect. Per unit area of land, renewable energy sources yield less energy than fossil fuels, in this sense being less efficient (8). After all, natural gas is 64.5 times more energy-dense than solar power systems. If we want to supply energy to the world solely through renewable energy systems, we must carve out a significant amount of space — land about 1.5 times the size of Malaysia.

Furthermore, renewable energy systems are costly. It will take USD$131 trillion to fully adopt renewable energy systems and developing countries (DC) largely lack the financial resources and technology to accomplish the transition away from cheap fossil fuels. Apart from the additional land needed for renewable energy systems, the production of solar energy costs 1.8 times more than that of fossil fuels (9). And subsidies for fossil fuel extraction amount to USD$4.7 trillion per year, further incentivising the already potent market (10).

So fossil fuels are cheap, energy dense, and are also used to manufacture many materials. Understandably, DCs are highly reluctant to leverage renewable energy to advance their economies (11).

What do activists have in their favor, then?

Well, only 0.48% of the land of 143 countries is needed for a full shift into renewables (12). Renewable energy systems are actually able to recoup the energy expended in their production (13). And developing countries can leverage less costly decentralized renewable energy systems to take a shortcut in the transition away from fossil fuels (14). It will be extremely difficult to meet the terms of the Paris Agreement and the like, but it is not impossible.

Adding value to Climate Change activism

Moving forward, what can be done to help improve the activist movements against climate change?

First and foremost, we must remember the very definition of activism. It is to raise awareness about an issue via campaigning to bring about a political or social change. It is not to forcefit a set of beliefs or an impractical solution onto an issue that has already plagued our world for decades, namely climate change. Ultimately, activism is merely an accelerator in society, and should not be seen as the be-all and end-all in the engendering of change.

Secondly, it is crucial to set practical goals. Acknowledging that climate change is inevitable and irreversible helps to keep activists on track and may compel organisations to take action. Many are quick to make frivolous remarks such as “just ban all plastic straws” or “convert to solar panels then,” when it comes to climate change. These are unattainable goals at the moment and do not help to resolve the issue. More often than not, issues that arise due to climate change have many intricacies that we are unable to understand, much less tackle. Hence, by managing our expectations and reaching a common ground with organisations, activism would be more effective and it would set the stage for change.

Thirdly, achieving a middle ground is key in the context of climate change. For instance, a major factor that fuels climate change is the use of fossil fuels. However, for countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, the petroleum sector accounts for almost half of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (15). Hence, in situations like these, it is vital to strike a balance between the economic development of the country and the feasibility of climate change activism. In the near future, especially with the economic implications of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is unlikely that any decisions that could potentially further worsen the economy would be made, since many of the methods employed to tackle climate change may involve a drop in revenue or an increase in expenditure. Thus, activists have to come to a consensus with the government or various organisations in managing trade-offs so as to maximise the effectiveness of activism.

Written by Davina Sitoh, Jace Bong, Kassendra Lok Yixuan, Karenin Lee, Curtis Neo

---

References