Why climate activists are becoming more radicalized (and why that’s not a bad thing) 

As we turn the page on the warmest year ever recorded, and the first year we ever surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius of human-induced warming, a vanguard of activists are employing attention-grabbing tactics to draw attention to the climate crisis.  

In 2024, they spray painted Stonehenge, held “die-ins,” teach-ins and other actions in front of Citibank HQ, blocked the entrance to the Department of Energy and spray-painted planes on a private airfield. As these performative and disruptive tactics have spread, so too has the criminalisation and repression of climate activists.   

When Tim Martin is sentenced this week for his participation in an action that involved smearing paint on the protective covering of a Degas sculpture in 2023, he will join a growing number of climate activists who have been charged with severe sentences for their participation in non-violent civil disobedience in the United States. 

In many ways, this movement to limit the climate crisis is following a common model of radicalization. Since climate activists are being disproportionately charged compared to participants in the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, onlookers might believe climate activists are truly a threat to the nation. But climate activists are not the first radical activists to be demonized and repressed. When we consider the long trajectory of activism in the United States, there’s much to learn from the struggle for civil rights in America regarding the cycle of radicalization and repression that we are seeing in the climate movement. 

It's no surprise that the general response to these actions has been relatively negative. Critics often compare climate activists to a sanitized memory of the civil rights movement as “a purely peaceful movement” to argue that radical and confrontational tactics won’t win hearts and minds. We agree — direct action doesn’t win friends, and the climate movement has much to learn from the struggle for civil rights in America. The difference is that while these critics believe the take-away is for climate activists to back down, research from other movements documents how the climate movement can use disruption and repression to expand the movement and lean into the criticism. 

Back in the 1960s, the civil rights movement received the same critiques and was accused of similar divisiveness as today’s climate movement: activists were agitators, the movement was too disruptive and the tactics were called unwise and misdirected. 

Despite their unpopularity with the media and the general public, as well as the challenges of internal conflict over tactics, the movement persisted. Thanks to the diversity of tactics employed and groups involved, the movement expanded and was able to generate enough support to demand political change — change that resulted in our now holding the civil rights movement in the U.S. up as the epitome of a successful social movement. 

So, how can we make sense of what comes next for the climate movement by looking back to the civil rights movement? 

Any movement that challenges the status quo will be divisive. Civil rights leaders knew that they were not just challenging unjust laws; they were challenging the very basis of America’s identity and its democracy. Like the struggle for civil rights, the climate movement is fighting to get its battle cry for systemic changes to be heard over the entrenched interests that are clinging to the status quo. So too might the climate movement — and its sympathizers — lean into its efforts to ruffle feathers and wake people up.  

In other words, it should continue to spray paint stuff, block traffic, disrupt speeches, shows and performances, throw food and much, much more. 

The civil rights movement shows us that successful movements can strategically embrace rather than reject their radical wing. As a form of civil disobedience, sit-ins were initially considered radical to the mainstream civil rights movement. Rather than distancing themselves from the movement, though, civil rights leaders leaned into the tactic and the Black church provided valuable resources and support. It was through these local connections to communities that the movement was able to meet, organize and expand. 

To date, the more formal factions in the climate movement and the left generally have been critical of the radical flank of the movement and the confrontational tactics they are employing. They question the tactics and criticize the actions and the activists. Such factionalism in the movement is likely to be a big drag on its capacity to expand and work together to achieve its goals.  

Radical flanks can draw public attention and consciousness to the cause (as in the many performative protests involving spray paint, soup and crazy glue). They provide an expanded space and community for organizing. The radical flank of the climate movement, though, does not yet have the kind of local roots into communities that the civil rights movement had through the Black church.  

Finally, the climate movement is likely to learn about the important role that violence plays in successful movements from the struggle for civil rights. While civil rights leaders trained activists in nonviolent civil disobedience, they were acutely aware that even non-violent civil disobedience was likely to result in violence as the police state and aggrieved white publics would respond. 

Instead of balking at the threat, civil rights activists leaned into the violence. They got arrested. They filled the jails. Research documents how it was the violence against nonviolent activists that generated the necessary public attention, which sparked the moral outrage among the general public that mobilized sympathizers; it led to broader public discussions about the struggle for civil rights in America and held up an unflattering mirror to American society. 

Leveraging moments of violence and state repression are opportunities rather than threats to the movement. Mass social change requires persistence in a long game. It requires risks. It requires being willing to give something up. When Tim Martin is sentenced for his climate activism, it should remind us of the messy realities, internal conflicts and ever-present dangers of movements to individuals and communities that are working to achieve deep systemic changes. 

As the civil rights and other social movements that have been successful in achieving their goals will remind us: saving the world is not for the faint of heart. 

Dana R. Fisher is director of the Center for Environment, Community & Equity; professor in the School of International Service; and author of “Saving Ourselves: from Climate Shocks to Climate Action.” Hajar Yazdiha is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Southern California and author of “The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement.”