There's evidence that climate activism could be swaying public opinion in the US
theconversation.com
theconversation.com
There is a lot of money in the oil industry. But, it is still small, politically charged and morally ambiguous compared with the new economy that is growing.
The USA has lost decades, proof of a high level of institutional corruption. But, it was just a matter of time.
But if we look back at history, there's plenty of empirical evidence that aggressive activism does work to advance its goals. Many of the protests against the Vietnam War were far more disruptive than anything we've seen from climate activists, and engendered a far more serious backlash--the point of National Guard soldiers shooting at college student protesters. But ultimately public sentiment did turn against the war.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. There's no evidence that the protests caused public sentiment to change, they simply coincide. It's equally (more?) likely that people's kids dying in droves changed their opinions, and many people credit the gruesome and explicit nightly news coverage of the war as turning public opinion.
> many people credit the gruesome and explicit nightly news coverage of the war as turning public opinion.
One of the theories for how public activism affects broader public opinion is that it affects public awareness, via news coverage. A big protest creates news for the media to cover, and that coverage will include some explanation for why people are protesting. A big protest may also convince reporters that there is enough interest to support further reporting on the topic.
Being inexperienced with this type of process, it would seem to me that ~600 people is a far too small number to get reliable results, specially when the "change" in opinion is from two different ~300 sized cohorts.
Also, wouldn't there be a large amount of variables that could affect the outcome in that ~1 month period? Aren't there better methods to isolate independent variables or is it just very hard to do that in an inquiry like this?
It would be helpful if climate change could be taken away from the zealous environmentalists, as they have a long track record of advocating for policies that do more to inconvenience people than they do to solve problems. It's the modern day equivalent of wearing a hair shirt.
It certainly doesn't help to keep up the fire and brimstone, judgement day is coming, listen and repent rhetoric. They've played that card too many times to be taken seriously.
1) "We need to recycle"—We do! It's very important. Unfortunately, recycling a lot of materials is not currently profitable (or profitable enough? I'm a bit unclear on that part), so a depressing amount of stuff we put in the recycling goes several steps along the chain, then gets thrown in the trash anyway—or possibly dumped somewhere illegally. This is not a problem with science, or recycling; it's a problem with uncaring corporations and externalized costs.
2) "Use solar power!"—Do. I've only ever heard the claim that solar uses as much carbon in its construction as it saves over its lifetime from unsourced posts on the Internet (which, yeah, who am I to throw stones? but still...) who clearly had a pre-existing bias against everything that liberals like. Every reputable study I've ever seen linked regarding the total cost of solar puts it much lower than its output for modern panels. There is some concern regarding some of the components—the more unusual metals, for instance—but the main solution to that, to the best of my understanding, is better recycling. (See #1.)
Basically, what science, scientists, and good science reporting does is tell you "if you do X, Y will happen with Z% probability". The reason you see all this contradictory advice is that most of it (on both sides) doesn't actually come from scientists—it comes from the media, imperfectly reporting, and in some cases maliciously misreporting, what scientists say...and often what people who aren't actually scientists say, claiming that it is science.
There are certain individual-level measures that, if our whole society decided to adopt them, would be beneficial, and others that are beneficial (at least long-term) to the individuals who can adopt them, and also have small positive effects for the environment. Rooftop solar is, for many, in the latter category. I believe my parents expect theirs to have fully paid for its installation (3-4 years ago) within the next year or two, and get several more years of useful life out of it, despite living in the US Northeast (winters aren't nearly as detrimental to their effect as is often suggested).