Top climate fundraiser offers defence of disruptive protests
FOR years, Margaret Klein Salamon laboured behind the scenes to try to convince politicians about the existential threat posed by climate change.
Today, she has changed her approach: the American activist is in charge of a fund that exclusively finances groups engaging in civil disobedience.
It’s the “most effective way to change policy fast, and public opinion”, the 37-year-old New Yorker told AFP during an interview in her Brooklyn neighbourhood.
Salamon is the executive director of the Climate Emergency Fund, which was founded in 2019 by the filmmaker Rory Kennedy – niece of the late president – and Getty family heiress Aileen Getty.
Its board of directors includes Adam McKay, director of the satirical film about climate Don’t Look Up, who is also the biggest donor.
In 2022, the fund distributed US$5 million to groups such as Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, Scientist Rebellion and more.
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These are the groups behind some of the most eye-catching recent climate protests: gluing their hands to roads or airport runways, disrupting sports events or throwing soup or paint at works of art protected by glass.
Such actions have drawn anger and accusations of harming the wider cause.
But Salamon, author of Facing the Climate Emergency, stands by the headline-grabbing protests.
“Social science and history both are very clear, that disruptive activism is the fastest way to create transformative change,” said the Harvard graduate.
“Which tactics of the civil rights movement or the suffragettes or the Aids movement went too far?“ she argued provocatively.
For her, the arguments against just don’t hold water. “I would like to actually hear from someone who says, ‘I used to care about climate change, but now that these protesters have used these tactics, I no longer do.’“
“Emergency mode”
The goal, she said, is to make the issue as visible as possible, so that it is present in the minds of voters. And to broaden a sense of “climate emergency”, that she believes is “contagious”.
“Humans evaluate risk socially, not rationally,” explained the trained psychologist, who made a complete career shift shortly after witnessing the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in New York City in 2012.
For example, if a fire alarm goes off in an office, people take their cues from others and generally stay calm and assume it’s a drill, unless told emphatically otherwise, particularly by someone in leadership.
Such mass awareness can happen “pretty quickly”, she argued, and trigger a shift into “emergency mode”.
That’s what it’ll take for a massive mobilisation of resources, she believes, like what happened during World War 2 or during the Covid pandemic.
Activists want to break the “mass delusion of normalcy” among those members of the public that remain passive and disengaged.
They’re also targeting the decision-makers themselves, with very concrete results, she argued.
Joe Manchin, a US senator whose vote was key to passing Joe Biden’s signature climate law, was followed by protesters for months, blocking his car, his boat, and more. The fund spent around US$200,000 to support them.
Salamon is under no illusion that the protests alone were enough to sway the West Virginia lawmaker. But even if they were “2 per cent of the reason”, for passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which comes with US$370 billion in climate investments, “just think about that return on investment.”
“Not a popularity contest”
While there has been a large influx of money into the climate space, not enough has been directed towards activism, warns Salamon.
What she calls the “reformist gradualist movement”, that works “within the system” and is embodied by groups like Greenpeace, has been the dominant force for decades.
But for new groups, she quickly became aware of the significance of fundraising – “a very unpopular” role, in her words, but one in which she found herself to be highly effective.
Ironically, she’s not personally drawn to protests. Having never been arrested, she said she has nothing but admiration for the “incredibly brave” demonstrators on the ground, some of whom have gone to prison.
She condemned growing repression by governments towards climate dissidents, stressing that the groups supported by the Climate Emergency Fund are committed to being non-violent.
But she’s not worried if public sentiment isn’t always in favour. “It’s not a popularity contest,” she said.
“We’re sleepwalking off of a cliff – and the activists are shaking us, trying to wake us up,” she said. No one likes being shaken, but inaction will lead to a far worse outcome. AFP
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