> 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.