Category: News

Originally published by Chris Lang for REDD-Monitor on June 29, 2023

Dr Joseph Romm is a US writer and climate expert. In 2006, he set up the Climate Progress blog. Three years later, Time magazine described Climate Progress as “one of the most influential global-warming blogs on the Internet”. The blog closed in 2019.

Romm recently joined the University of Pennsylvania Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media as a Senior Research Fellow. His first contribution is a white paper titled, “Are carbon offsets unscalable, unjust, and unfixable – and a threat to the Paris Climate Agreement?”

Romm’s paper is detailed, 50 pages long, and includes 158 footnotes. REDD-Monitor will come back to Romm’s paper in future posts – for example, Romm’s analysis of corresponding adjustments, Natural Climate Solutions, and tree-planting offsets, among other things.

Romm writes that,

Today, every major offset program still has the same exact problems researchers and investigative reports have been identifying for more than two decades. That suggests the core problems are inherent to offsets and intractable – the impossibility of ensuring additionality or of counting them accurately or of solving the double counting problem in a just way.

And Romm concludes that “carbon offsets are unscalable, unjust, and unfixable – and a threat to the Paris Agreement”.

One of Romm’s findings is that, “There is a growing consensus that companies should not be using any offsets they buy from developing countries to make claims about emissions reductions or net zero.”

Romm illustrates the point with a graph showing the collapse in the price of Nature-Based Global Emissions Offsets since June 2022:

“The offset market is broken, and too far gone to fix”

Romm starts with a look at the Clean Development Mechanism. “Recent studies have estimated the CDM may well have led to a substantial increase in CO₂ emissions – 6 billion tons, in the case of one 2021 study,” Romm notes.

The reductions in developing countries would have happened anyway, and the reductions were far smaller than the number of carbon offsets that they generated. On the other hand, the greenhouse gas emissions that rich countries emitted after buying CDM offsets were real.

“One 2018 study explained the mechanism ‘does not reduce global emissions’ by its very design,” Romm writes.

Romm notes that,

[T]he U.N. has failed in the last two decades to prove it can create or run a credible official regulated offset market—the Clean Development Mechanism. The flaws in the CDM have been detailed again and again in the literature and media, yet the UN has failed to fix them.

Romm also looks at the voluntary carbon markets. He argues that the sale of voluntary carbon offsets soared in 2021 to US$2 billion as a result of the Paris Agreement, the increased focus on limiting global heating to 1.5°C, and the large number of countries and companies making net-zero pledges.

In October 2021, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) wrote that nearly 70% of the global economy had committed to net-zero by 2050. But “Net-zero targets are mostly greenwash,” SBTi stated. The net-zero targets focus on “offsets instead of reducing emissions”.

Mark Trexler, who worked on the first offsetting project in 1988, told Romm that, “I don’t think corporate net-zero leads to decarbonization.”

And Barbara Haya, Director of the University of California’s Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, told Romm that, “the offset market is broken, and too far gone to fix.”

Romm’s paper highlights the problems with carbon offsets: additionality and over-crediting; leakage; permanence; and double counting.

Double counting

Romm spends a considerable part of his paper looking at double counting and “corresponding adjustments”, which is the proposed solution to double counting at the UNFCCC level.

He summarises corresponding adjustments as follows: “The buyer gets to pretend the reductions occurred in its country, while the seller must pretend their own emission reductions never occurred at all.”

Romm points out that “The buyer just made achieving their Paris climate commitment easier, while the seller just made achieving theirs harder.”

Barbara Haya told Romm that, “I think corresponding adjustments reveal what’s wrong with the current system, but I don’t think it’s fair and I don’t think it’s what we should be doing.”

Reputational and legal risks

Romm quotes from a February 2023 article in The Drum, a media and marketing website. The article’s headline states that, “Carbon offsets present an emerging risk to advertisers”. The subheading continues on the theme, “Bad practice and questionable science in the voluntary carbon markets mean firms relying on offsetting to hit net zero targets risk greenwashing – and the law might be coming for them.”

Switzerland’s advertising regulator recently upheld complaints against FIFA’s claims that the World Cup was “carbon neutral”. In June 2022, the Netherland’s Advertising Code Commission ruled, for the fourth time that year, that Shell’s adverts were misleading. In October 2022, Shell lost its appeal against the Commission.

And in May 2023, Delta Airlines was sued in California because the company claimed to have committed to being the “first carbon neutral airline globally”.

Romm writes that,

In September 2022, the global law firm Quinn Emanuel issued a 9-page memo to its clients titled, “Carbon Offsets: A Coming Wave of Litigation?” The firm, which has over 1000 lawyers operating in 12 countries, cited a variety of different offset-related lawsuits. It explained, “The VCM’s lack of oversight, combined with the difficulty in accurately measuring the impact of carbon offsets, makes it ripe for litigation.” This is particularly the case because “Regulators, investors, and NGOs are increasingly scrutinizing the quality of offsets used by companies to meet ‘net zero’ goals.”

Romm’s paper is not just a critique of carbon offsetting. He also proposes a solution to the obvious failure of offsetting:

[R]eplace offsets with programs whereby the richer countries and corporations focus on 1) meeting their climate targets by reducing their own emissions and 2) helping the poorer countries reduce their emissions without offset projects.

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Originally posted by Penn Communications on June 26, 2023

Joseph Romm, a leading expert on climate solutions and clean energy—and on communicating about these issues to the public—has joined the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media (PCSSM) as a Senior Research Fellow.

Romm holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and has authored countless articles and 10 books in the areas of climate change, clean energy, and communications. In the 1990s, Romm spent five years working on climate solutions at the U.S. Department of Energy. For three years, he helped to run the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, ultimately serving as Acting Assistant Secretary, where he oversaw $1 billion in R&D and demonstration of low-carbon technologies. This included renewables, building efficiency, industrial decarbonization, energy storage, bioenergy, hydrogen, and electric cars.

In 2008, Romm was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for “distinguished service toward a sustainable energy future and for persuasive discourse on … sustainable technologies.” In 2009, Rolling Stone named him one of 100 “people who are reinventing America,” and Time named him “Hero of the Environment” and “the Web’s most influential climate-change blogger.” Romm was Chief Science Advisor for the Emmy-winning docuseries, “Years of Living Dangerously.” His Oxford University Press book, Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know, 3rd Edition, was called “the best single-source primer on the state of climate change” by New York Magazine.

Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science and the director of PCSSM, said, “We welcome Dr. Romm to Penn and we look forward to working with him in advancing the study and practice of effective climate communication. I have personally known Joe for nearly two decades, since the time I was an early career climate scientist who found myself caught in the crosshairs of the climate change denial machine. Joe was one of the first scientists to confront industry-funded disinformation and taught us valuable lessons about science communication, lessons which I’ve taken to heart as I have focused more of my own time and effort on climate communication. We are now at a major crossroads when it comes to urgency of climate action, and I couldn’t be more delighted that Joe is joining us at Penn at this critical juncture in the climate battle.”

At Penn, Romm will be conducting research and producing a series of white papers examining the scalability of key proposed climate solutions, including the recently released “Are carbon offsets unscalable, unjust, and unfixable—and a threat to the Paris Climate Agreement?”

Click here for more information visit.

Originally published June 28, 2023 by Eric Roston for Bloomberg

Dr. Joseph Romm, a leading expert on climate solutions and clean energy—and on communicating about these issues to the public—has joined the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media (PCSSM) as a Senior Research Fellow.

Dr. Romm holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and has authored countless articles and 10 books in the areas of climate change, clean energy, and communications. In the 1990s, Romm spent five years working on climate solutions at the U.S. Department of Energy. For three years, he helped to run the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, ultimately serving as Acting Assistant Secretary, where he oversaw $1 billion in R&D and demonstration of low-carbon technologies. This included renewables, building efficiency, industrial decarbonization, energy storage, bioenergy, hydrogen, and electric cars

In 2008, Romm was elected a Fellow of the AAAS for “distinguished service toward a sustainable energy future and for persuasive discourse on … sustainable technologies.” In 2009, Rolling Stone named him one of 100 “people who are reinventing America,” and Time named him “Hero of the Environment” and “the Web’s most influential climate-change blogger.” Romm was Chief Science Advisor for the Emmy-winning docuseries “Years of Living Dangerously.” His Oxford University Press book, Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know, was called “the best single-source primer on the state of climate change” by New York Magazine.

Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science and the director of PCSSM, says “We welcome Dr. Romm to Penn and we look forward to working with him in advancing the study and practice of effective climate communication. I have personally known Joe for nearly two decades, since the time I was an early career climate scientist who found myself caught in the crosshairs of the climate change denial machine. Joe was one of the first scientists to confront industry-funded disinformation and taught us valuable lessons about science communication, lessons which I’ve taken to heart as I have focused more of my own time and effort on climate communication. We are now at a major crossroads when it comes to urgency of climate action, and I couldn’t be more delighted that Joe is joining us at Penn at this critical juncture in the climate battle.”

At Penn, Romm will be conducting research and producing a series of white papers examining the scalability of key proposed climate solutions, including the recently released “Are carbon offsets unscalable, unjust, and unfixable—and a threat to the Paris Climate Agreement?”

For more information visit, web.sas.upenn.edu/pcssm

Originally published by The Philadelphia Inquirer and written by Will Bunch on June 8, 2023

Fans who showed up early at Citizens Bank Park for a scheduled Phillies game on Wednesday were stunned to learn the air was too dangerous to play baseball, the first-ever “smoke-out” for a team that for decades played in the old Connie Mack Stadium amid the then-belching smokestacks of North Philadelphia.

Only one thing seemed clear as the smoke from wildfires across Quebec and the rest of Canada enveloped the Eastern seaboard: Almost no one around these parts has seen anything like this.

But Michael E. Mann has.

Mann is the world-renowned climate scientist who came to Philadelphia last year to lead the University of Pennsylvania’s new Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media. In something of a coincidence, Mann spent late 2019 and early 2020 on a sabbatical teaching in Sydney — the peak of Australia’s devastating “Black Summer,” when wildfires triggered by record heat and drought darkened the skies just as they did here this week.

“It’s déjà vu for me,” Mann told me Wednesday. “I could see and smell the wildfire smoke from my front door — Sydney had the worst air quantity in the world at that time,” almost identical to what he saw here in Pennsylvania. But while eastern North America may be copying the “Black Summer” storyline so far, it’s much less certain whether our continent’s latest brush with disaster will have the same hopeful ending.

Down under, the spate of bushfires blamed for at least 33 human deaths and the loss of countless animals has triggered major changes. Australia’s then-prime minister, Scott Morrison, was widely lambasted for his response to the crisis and lost his job in 2022’s elections, with the more liberal Labour Party — along with a surge of Green Party environmentalists — taking control. In April, new prime minister Anthony Albanese pushed through that nation’s toughest climate law, which aims to steeply reduce carbon emissions by 43% by 2030.

Here in the United States, California, of course, has had its own devastating wildfires, while other parts of the nation have suffered multiple “once-in-a-hundred-years” floods or endured hurricanes like 2022’s Ian that strengthened over the overheated seas.

But can the stunning events and unforgettable images of the last couple of days — especially in New York, home to America’s “deciders” of big business, finance, and the media — become similar to what Mann and others now see as “a tipping point” in Australia? June 7, 2023, was the worst air-quality day in New York City’s history, a day when the World Trade Center disappeared into the blinding, orange apocalypse. But will historians also look back on Wednesday as the day everything changed for the climate — much as Jan. 6, 2021, has become for U.S. democracy?

I want to feel hopeful, but — maybe it’s the toxic particles I inhaled Wednesday on an ill-advised trip to the dog park — I keep coughing up cynicism.

In Washington, D.C., staffers at the National Zoo rushed a 2-week-old baby gorilla inside to avoid the hazardous air, but government officials are still racing ahead with a deal to reward Senate swing vote Joe Manchin with approval of a $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline that even the most conservative estimates concede would add between six million and 16 million tons of planet-warming carbon emissions to the atmosphere every year.

As smoke closed in on the statehouses of the East Coast, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin picked Wednesday — of all days in the history of the planet — to take Virginia out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the pact of Northeastern states working together to curb emissions that warm the planet and lead to more frequent, worse wildfires. In Harrisburg, Republican state senators — in a party-line vote on hopefully doomed legislation — voted to change the name of a key state agency from the Department of Environmental Protection to the Department of Environmental Services, because heaven forbid anyone thinks that Pennsylvania wants to protect its environment.

» READ MORE: Why top U.S. climate scientist moved to Philly | Will Bunch Newsletter

Some of the worst haze shrouded Bedminster in central New Jersey — the golf course where an otherwise besieged Donald Trump hopes to celebrate the looming partnership between the Trump-friendly LIV Golf — backed by billions of petrodollars from the journalist-bone-sawing, human-rights-abusing Saudi Arabian regime — and the PGA Tour. I don’t think it’s a stretch to see the lung-paralyzing smoke as a metaphor for this deal that shows how our addiction to the endless pile of dirty money soiled by fossil fuels is poisoning our very humanity.

So far, the only fog that’s lifted this week is the cloud of industry-funded denial that has suffocated our politics for decades. It used to be easy for your Fox News and AM talk radio types to claim that climate change was just a symptom of liberals’ “woke mind virus.” It’s impossible to deny global warming when you can’t see to the end of your block.

On Thursday, some 92 wildfires continued to burn out of control in Quebec, the epicenter of hundreds of fires that have been raging across Canada. So far, 2023 has been much hotter than normal for our northern neighbors, particularly in eastern Canada, which posted its driest April on record. The more than nine million acres that have burned there this year is close to an all-time high, even though the wildfire season doesn’t end until September.

Mann told me that both the Canadian wildfires and the southward path of the smoke are linked to “unusual jet stream patterns.” He told me that eastern North America is one location where we expect the greatest increase in combined heat and drought from human-caused warming. “Put that all together, and it’s a toxic climate change brew,” the Penn climate scientist said. “This is a sign of far worse things to come if we don’t reign in fossil fuel burning and carbon emissions.”

Yet that’s not the vibe among our nation’s leadership — not yet, anyway. The contradictions start at the very top. President Joe Biden — to his credit — won passage in his recent Inflation Reduction Act of some $369 million for programs like clean energy and electric cars, a big win for the planet. Yet, Biden also greenlit the Manchin-backed pipeline, expanded oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico, and fist-bumped the Saudi oil dictator.

Just imagine if Winston Churchill, facing the existential threat of World War II, had declared that “we shall fight on the beaches” before announcing business deals with Germany’s Volkswagen and IG Farben because he wanted to hold down costs for the British middle class. In a perfect world, Biden would have donned an N-95 mask Wednesday and spoken in front of the orange blur of the Statue of Liberty to declare unconditional war on fossil fuels.

Will nature’s smoke alarm serve as an American wake-up call, or will we hit snooze one more time?

We talk on and on in American politics about freedom, but is there any liberty greater than the right to inhale clean air? It’s no wonder “I can’t breathe!” — the last words of Eric Garner — became the rallying cry of the fight for civil rights in the 21st century. This week, nearly 100 million Americans got a whiff of the struggle for this basic right. Will we remember when the wind shifts — and finally do something?

Published June 8, 2023

Will Bunch

I’m the national columnist — with some strong opinions about what’s happening in America around social injustice, income inequality and the government.

The Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media is thrilled to announce that three post-doctoral researchers will be joining the center starting Summer 2023! Keep reading for more on our incoming post-docs.

Originally published April 25, 2023 by Penn Arts & Sciences

Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science and Director of Penn’s Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, has been named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.

The honor, established in 1953, recognizes “a person of national or international reputation who, through the application of humanist values, has made a significant contribution to the improvement of the human condition.” Previous awardees include Anthony Fauci, Gloria Steinem, and Salman Rushdie.

“Mike is a distinguished scientist committed to truthful, open dialogue about climate change, stemming from his now-iconic hockey stick graph, which showed how significantly humans have affected global temperatures,” says Steven J. Fluharty, Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences and Thomas S. Gates, Jr. Professor of Psychology, Pharmacology, and Neuroscience. “In receiving this honor, he joins many others who have pushed boundaries in the name of improving the world.”

For more than three decades, Mann has studied human-induced climate change. In the late 1990s, he and colleagues mapped temperature changes for the past 1,000 years, determining a dramatic uptick around the year 1900—a jump that aligned with increases in the emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases. The finding, which pointed clearly to the part humans were playing in a warming planet, put Mann at the center of the climate change debate, a role he didn’t take lightly.

Today, he’s an outspoken advocate for accurate depictions of climate science in the media, actively debunking misinformation pedaled by climate deniers. His current research involves modeling climate systems to better understand what triggers an ice age to begin and end, how changes in climate are affecting extreme weather, and much more. He has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed and edited publications, numerous op-eds, and commentaries, as well as five books: Dire Predictions, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, The Madhouse Effect, The Tantrum that Saved the World, and The New Climate War.

Originally published April 24, 2023 by Ben Adler for Yahoo! News

A group of climate change activists who deflated the tires of 43 gas guzzling SUVs in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood last Wednesday night told Yahoo News that they think their aggressive action is necessary to draw attention to carbon emissions.

“We’ve generated media coverage in the 17 countries we’ve been active in, as well as other countries we haven’t been active in yet,” a spokesperson for the Tyre Extinguishers, a grassroots organization operating in several countries, told Yahoo News in an email. “We’ve been featured in newspapers, radio, TV — we have generated quite a lot more media attention than quite a lot of formal climate groups.”

Tyre Extinguishers claimed responsibility for the vandalism in a Thursday post published on its website; it explained that the group was motivated by concern for the outsize greenhouse gas emissions of SUVs. The larger class of vehicles have been increasing in popularity and size in recent years, which, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. is blocking progress in reducing planet-warming pollution from cars and trucks.

“The group took this action to render the large greenhouse gas emitting vehicles unusable, directly preventing the outpouring of emission from the vehicles into our atmosphere which further contribute to climate change and air pollution,” Tyre Extinguishers wrote in a statement. The group was founded in the U.K. in March 2022 and is active in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and several European countries.

The activists believe that taking such forceful measures generates more attention than holding traditional rallies and marches and therefore has a greater effect on public opinion.

Some climate change experts have questioned the effectiveness of this approach. A survey conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania last November found that disruptive protests for climate action tend to make the public less supportive of the cause.

Following on a spate of incidents in which activists in Europe defaced the plastic cases of famous paintings in museums and blocked roads to stop traffic, the survey asked more than 1,000 Americans what they think of those tactics. The result? Forty-six percent said the activism reduced their support for measures to address climate change, while only 13% reported increasing support and 40% said it had no effect on their views.

Michael Mann, one of the world’s leading climate change experts and the Penn professor who oversaw the research project, told Yahoo News in an email that this likely means the public reaction to deflating tires would be similar.

“Based on our study, I would speculate that this particular disruptive action is damaging to support for climate action,” Mann said. “Just as with the actions that we considered (defacing or appearing to deface rare art, disrupting the morning commute) the target, rather than the bad actors e.g. fossil fuel interests, who are behind the problem, is the very people — ordinary citizens operating within a still largely fossil fuel-driven world — that we are trying to win over.”

In an email interview, a spokesperson for the Tyre Extinguishers, who declined to give any details about their identity, said that other evidence suggests that disruptive protests are a more powerful motivator for climate action. They pointed to a series of London-area protests in 2019 by Extinction Rebellion, a grassroots climate group that used civil disobedience tactics such as blocking streets and occupying monuments and an oil tanker. News coverage mentioning climate change spiked as a result.

The Tyre Extinguishers noted that polls showed a subsequent surge of concern about climate change among the British public. However, the polls did not ask about what motivated respondents and pollsters said it’s possible that the shift occurred for other reasons.

“Attention-grabbing protests actually increase support for climate action,” the Tyre Extinguishers spokesperson wrote. “The same was true of Extinction Rebellion’s protests in 2019 — it increased climate change concern to its highest level ever, despite lots of moaning from the political right.”

Ironically, Extinction Rebellion declared earlier this year that it would no longer engage in disruptive protests, while other groups responsible for the attacks on paintings such as Just Stop Oil have recommitted themselves to it.

One segment of the public is certainly unlikely to look on climate activism more favorably due to tires being deflated: the owners of the SUVs. “You know, I’m all for taking action to save the environment, but I just don’t know that destroying people’s personal property or damaging people’s personal property is the way to go about doing it,” the daughter of one couple whose tires were deflated told a local Boston TV news channel.

The Tyre Extinguishers, however, puts the blame squarely on the consumers who have bought those vehicles.

“Ultimately, politely asking and protesting for these things has failed. It’s time for action, so there is little point in calming down SUV owners,” the spokesperson added. “They cannot be reasoned with. They know the climate science, yet they continue to own SUVs. The only thing that we can do is make it impossible or extremely inconvenient to own one.”

The Tyre Extinguishers hope that the threat of more eco-vandalism will deter people from buying SUVs.

“So far, we have deflated over 11,000 SUVs,” their spokesperson wrote. “This is likely to be an underestimate as people don’t always tell us when they’ve taken action, and we only find out because we get angry emails from a particular city or area!”

originally published here

By Brandon Goldner

April 20, 2023 / 5:44 PM / CBS Philadelphia

CAMDEN, N.J. (CBS) —  As the Philadelphia region faces unseasonably hot weather Thursday and Friday, climate experts say this is a direct result of climate change.

Hotter temperatures mean more stress to people’s bodies, and scientists say that stress is felt the most in under-served communities.

It’s why dozens of people gathered along Dudley Road and Westfield Avenue in Camden Thursday morning to plant new trees in the neighborhood.

PowerCorps Camden, a group of young people who help tackle pressing environmental challenges in the area, was among several organizations that participated in the planting.

The group’s program director, Darron Thompson, said it was important for his organization to be a part of the planting.

“To plant trees, wherever, assists Camden with flooding issues,” Thompson said. “It brings more oxygen into the air, and it beautifies the area as well.”

Anthonique Murray, a member of PowerCorps Camden, helped dig a hole for one of the trees.

“I really love planting trees and flowers. That’s the best time,” Murray said. “I love to smell the flowers, and it’s different types of flowers. Some of them don’t have all the smells, but they’re really cool, and I like to get my hands dirty!”

University of Pennsylvania professor and climate expert Dr. Michael Mann said the new trees can absorb carbon emissions, which contribute to climate change and the new trees can help keep people cool.

“Especially when it comes to under-served communities, it’s really critical that we provide ways of adapting to some of this increased heat that we’re already seeing with climate change,” Dr. Mann said.

According to federal data, Camden has a total tree canopy of less than 3%, compared to more affluent areas like Cherry Hill, which has a 26% total tree canopy.

“We should have programs, in fact, that help incentivize this,” Dr. Mann said. “Especially in urban environments where people are already dealing with extreme heat stress from the effects of climate change.”

Murray’s glad she’s doing her part to help blunt the effects of climate change.

“For me, I feel happy because it’s not a lot of trees around the city,” Murray said.

Originally published PBS on January 20, 2023

By Ethan Brown for PBS

On December 31, 2022, Extinction Rebellion (XR) — a UK-headquartered global environmental organization founded in 2018, known for acts of civil disobedience — posted a piece on its website with the headline “WE QUIT.” This is a good thing.

To be clear, XR isn’t quitting in the sense of shutting down. Rather, the group has learned an important lesson: Climbing oil tankers, gluing themselves to famous paintings, and tweeting that hard-working climate writers such as myself are trying to “delay meaningful action” will not inspire a single person to think more favorably about climate action. To XR’s credit, its webpost outlines a new strategy for the organization, one which “prioritizes attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks.”

It’s certainly frustrating that it took this long for XR to adopt these values. But — and I do mean this sincerely — better late than never.

XR’s original tactic of “civil” (but expensive, annoying, and sometimes illegal) disobedience hinged on the belief that a very small minority of a population can bring about change just by being loud enough. The XR website reads, “Historical evidence shows that we need the involvement of 3.5% of the population to succeed – in the UK that’s about 2 million people.”

Other environmental groups have referenced that 3.5% number too. It originated with Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth, who studied over 300 movements from the past 100 years, and found that a movement never failed if it could mobilize 3.5% of the population. If this actually is the case, these groups can contend that their environmental protests need inspire only a tiny fraction of the population to succeed, leaving them free to alienate the rest of us.

But there are a few problems with drawing this conclusion from Dr. Chenoweth’s research.

First, their data was limited to “maximalist” campaigns such as those which aim to overthrow dictators or achieve territorial independence. Because of their black-and-white nature, these causes are more easily termed successes or failures. Complex issues such as civil rights, women’s suffrage, and animal cruelty were not surveyed because their rate of success or failure is more difficult to determine. Thus, to apply the 3.5% rule to environmental movements would be premature at this stage.

Second, technology and social media have made it a lot easier to mobilize 3.5 percent of the population as compared to 50 or 100 years ago. Take for example the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was considered a remarkable organizational success. Back then organizers managed to mobilize 250,000 people in Washington D.C. — a city whose population was 800,000 people at the time – by using only telephones and party lines. Compare that to today when a mid-level influencer can reach 250,000 people within an hour of posting a video on TikTok.

But third and most importantly, the 3.5% rule refers to 3.5% of the population protesting. Not everyone chooses to express themselves via protest. For example, in the summer of 2020, 67% of Americans supported the Black Lives Matter movement, but only 6% of the population participated in demonstrations. This means less than 10% of the movement’s supporters mobilized for public protests. And that’s not a bad thing for a movement — supporters can vote, donate, write, talk to friends and family, call representatives, post to social media, and take action in many other ways than taking to the streets. Without that large swath of the population engaging in alternative actions, disruptive protesters quickly become a fringe minority. (In fact, a 2021 YouGov poll indicates that only 19% of people in the UK hold a positive view of XR.)

Due to these fundamental misunderstandings about the 3.5% rule, XR has struggled not just with favorability, but also with positive impact. According to polling data from University of Pennsylvania researchers Shawn Patterson Jr. and Michael Mann, 46% of respondents reacted to non-violent disruptive protests by decreasing their support for efforts to address climate change. Increased support was the response of only 13% of those polled. Moreover, learning about the protests did not have a statistically significant effect on respondents’ views about fossil fuels.

The idea that annoying people into obedience was ever a legitimate tactic for the environmental movement is baffling. No rational person would disagree with the notion that a world with clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment is a better world to inhabit. Furthermore, climate solutions often have synergies with economic, health, justice, and national security goals. There will inevitably be disagreements on policy. But an environmental movement that follows science, embraces nuance, and fosters common ground could potentially inspire all of humanity.

XR may have a difficult road ahead as they attempt to form new relationships and, perhaps, earn back the trust of those they’ve antagonized. But as a climate writer whose calling card is cultivating common ground, I am encouraged to see XR joining our effort. I imagine building a larger coalition and not getting arrested all the time will be a welcome and rewarding change.

For more information, see the companion “Tip of the Iceberg” podcast episode here.