Articles by Ken Ward

Convincing evidence for the central role of protest and a troubling cost-benefit analysis

The most important and relevant research for U.S. environmentalists is being conducted by Jon Agnone, a sociologist at the University of Washington. Agnone studies sources of environmentalist power -- the first social scientist to undertake a systematic analysis. His comprehensive findings are summarized in "Amplifying Public Opinion: The Policy Impact of the U.S. Environmental Movement" (PDF), appearing in the June 2007 issue of Social Forces.

Agnone compared the relative impact of public opinion, institutional advocacy, and protest on passage of federal environmental legislation between 1960-1998, using a sophisticated analytical model and data drawn from The New York Times.

Three key findings in this first-ever quantification of environmentalist power upend conventional political wisdom:

1. Protest is significantly more important than public opinion or institutional advocacy in influencing federal environmental law. Agnone found that each protest event increases the likelihood of pro-environmental legislation being passed by 1.2 percent, and moderate protest increases the annual rate of adoption by an astonishing 9.5 percent.
2. Public opinion on its own influences federal action (though less than protest), but is vastly strengthened by protest, which "amplifies" public support and, in Agnone's words, "raises the salience of public opinion for legislators." Protest and public opinion are synergistic, with a joint impact on federal policy far more dramatic than either factor alone.
3. Institutional advocacy has limited impact on federal environmental policy.

Agnone's findings demonstrate that protest is neither a historical phase of the environmental movement nor a peripheral tactic: it is the central basis of environmentalists' power. As Agnone notes, "these results lead to an important conclusion: when both protest and public opinion are at high levels, they jointly influence policy makers in ways that would be impossible if each existed without the other."

When we stopped protesting, in other words, and began to rely on advocacy and mobilizing pubic opinion alone, we threw away our single most important lever of influence. The accompanying chart shows the correspondence between declining trend lines of environmental protest and passage of federal environmental law:

Reality checking the polls

Public opinion polls show a significant increase in the number of Americans who support strong climate action. Deeper digging shows this support is superficial, too thin to drive the rapid sociopolitical change now required. For the first time, however, a small, but measurable number of Americans -- probably no more than 3% -- identify climate change as the greatest threat. U.S. environmentalists' carefully buffered climate narrative, calculated to not frighten the majority, does not engage these "three percenters."

A significant shift in U.S. public opinion on climate has been measured in recent polls. 27% of those polled in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll between May 4-6, 2007, said global warming is "extremely important" and 26% "very important." 33% believe that global warming is the "single biggest environmental problem facing the world," according to a April 5-10, 2007 ABC News/Washington Post Poll, up from 16% in March. Public support for "immediate action" on climate has increased to 34% in January, 2007, from 23% in 1999, according to a NBC/Wall Street Journal tracking poll.

When asked to choose what is most important -- either in open-ended polling questions or picking one issue from a list -- climate change, and environmental issues in general, are barely mentioned:

Quoting some scripture

It seems appropriate that we consider the death of Jerry Falwell in the spirit by which he lived -- on a "higher level ... the Biblical perspective" -- and take a peek into what the Bible has to say about climate change as well.

Churchill, not Chamberlain

Why are we letting pro-fossil fuel bozos hijack the only forum that environmentalists and climate-change activists have for wrestling with the daunting task of transforming America?