It's really, really hard to figure out how activism affects public sentiment. Aggressive activism, on its surface, seems counterproductive. How does pissing people off by blocking their commute help change their mind on climate change? That's a very reasonable and intuitive question.

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.