There was yet another climate march in London last Saturday. Somewhere between 5,000 and 20,000 people went along. I wasn’t one of them.
That evening, I met a friend who had attended. They, not unreasonably, given my well-publicised interests, asked why I had chosen to be absent. I gave many answers, none of them good. Among the reasons I gave were:
Now, there are strong qualitative reasons why the first two explanations are better classed as ‘excuses’. If I care about this issue - and I do - they don’t really cut it, on any level.
But the third - that my presence was never going to tip the scales in favour of climate action - sounds plausible. At the very least I can attach some numbers to it. And I like attaching numbers to things. It helps cover my personality defects.
I will say now that this is a bit of a silly idea, and i’ll go into detail about why below the chart. Nonetheless, from what I could find from a quick google search, no one has collated estimates of the number of people who have been on marches, and put them alongside a timeline of major policymaking successes/failures (possibly because it's a silly idea, I concede).
Well, here is a version of such a chart - click through for the more detailed interactive version:
The circles above the line are climate marches, with the size representing the number of reported attendees. The circles below are major climate policymaking moments.
There are many caveats to this chart. It is not comprehensive. Estimates of how many people attend protest events are notoriously iffy (for the sources used here, see this spreadsheet). It has a strong US/UK bias. This is, frankly, pretty darn unscientific.
Nonetheless, as you can see, there’s no correlation between the success of major climate policymaking moments and boots on the ground prior to it.
The one ‘successful’ policymaking moment included in this dataset - the passage of the UK’s Climate Change Act in 2008 - was preceded by three marches in the UK, attended by between 1,200 and 25,000 people. The unsuccessful Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 was also preceded by three marches in the UK that year, with about 1,200 people attending the smallest event, and 55,000 people attending the largest.
That all suggests there was something of a surplus of people in marching in New York at the end of last year, and wandering the streets of Westminster on Saturday. It seems their sore feet are unlikely to be the defining action that finally pushes politicians into agreeing a new global deal in Paris later this year.
So there. I win. Me not going on Saturday quantitatively did not matter.
Of course it’s not (I did warn you this was a silly exercise). The idea that you can identify a tipping point where just enough toes traipsed the pavement, just enough hands gripped wry banners, just enough chants were bellowed, is obviously absurd. It’s just conceptually nonsensical.
To start with, all direct actions aren’t created equal. Remember the handful of people who climbed the Shard? Arguably a much bigger impact than last Saturday's march, with much fewer people participating.
Moreover, the relationship between marches, the media and politicians taking notice is incredibly complex. Just think back to the millions that took to the streets in 2003 to protest against the Iraq war. It’s a tired cliche, but if Tony Blair can ignore that, the Saudi’s can and likely will ignore last weekend’s 20,000-or-so marchers come Paris in December.
Finally, abstracting a protest from the time and place it happens is fantastically unfair. Protests are part of a nebulous, accumulating, vague and occasionally effective pressure-inducing machine. Policy successes can rarely be attributed to a single political action, so policy failures should be treated the same.
So maybe my absence on Saturday didn’t matter. But maybe, just maybe, in some vague but very real way, it did.
But you knew all that. So did my dinner companion, their continuously raised eyebrow giving it away.
Perhaps I’ll go next time.
That evening, I met a friend who had attended. They, not unreasonably, given my well-publicised interests, asked why I had chosen to be absent. I gave many answers, none of them good. Among the reasons I gave were:
- I’d been planning a particular countryside walk for months and Saturday’s weather made it almost criminal not to go;
- I was a bit hungover and the idea of getting the tube into central London felt like a mountain I simply could not climb;
- I wasn’t sure my presence would really make a difference, anyway.
Now, there are strong qualitative reasons why the first two explanations are better classed as ‘excuses’. If I care about this issue - and I do - they don’t really cut it, on any level.
But the third - that my presence was never going to tip the scales in favour of climate action - sounds plausible. At the very least I can attach some numbers to it. And I like attaching numbers to things. It helps cover my personality defects.
The data
I will say now that this is a bit of a silly idea, and i’ll go into detail about why below the chart. Nonetheless, from what I could find from a quick google search, no one has collated estimates of the number of people who have been on marches, and put them alongside a timeline of major policymaking successes/failures (possibly because it's a silly idea, I concede).
Well, here is a version of such a chart - click through for the more detailed interactive version:
 |
| Climate marches and major policymaking moments. Various sources. Interactive version. |
The circles above the line are climate marches, with the size representing the number of reported attendees. The circles below are major climate policymaking moments.
There are many caveats to this chart. It is not comprehensive. Estimates of how many people attend protest events are notoriously iffy (for the sources used here, see this spreadsheet). It has a strong US/UK bias. This is, frankly, pretty darn unscientific.
Nonetheless, as you can see, there’s no correlation between the success of major climate policymaking moments and boots on the ground prior to it.
The one ‘successful’ policymaking moment included in this dataset - the passage of the UK’s Climate Change Act in 2008 - was preceded by three marches in the UK, attended by between 1,200 and 25,000 people. The unsuccessful Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 was also preceded by three marches in the UK that year, with about 1,200 people attending the smallest event, and 55,000 people attending the largest.
That all suggests there was something of a surplus of people in marching in New York at the end of last year, and wandering the streets of Westminster on Saturday. It seems their sore feet are unlikely to be the defining action that finally pushes politicians into agreeing a new global deal in Paris later this year.
So there. I win. Me not going on Saturday quantitatively did not matter.
But that’s not the point
Of course it’s not (I did warn you this was a silly exercise). The idea that you can identify a tipping point where just enough toes traipsed the pavement, just enough hands gripped wry banners, just enough chants were bellowed, is obviously absurd. It’s just conceptually nonsensical.
To start with, all direct actions aren’t created equal. Remember the handful of people who climbed the Shard? Arguably a much bigger impact than last Saturday's march, with much fewer people participating.
Moreover, the relationship between marches, the media and politicians taking notice is incredibly complex. Just think back to the millions that took to the streets in 2003 to protest against the Iraq war. It’s a tired cliche, but if Tony Blair can ignore that, the Saudi’s can and likely will ignore last weekend’s 20,000-or-so marchers come Paris in December.
Finally, abstracting a protest from the time and place it happens is fantastically unfair. Protests are part of a nebulous, accumulating, vague and occasionally effective pressure-inducing machine. Policy successes can rarely be attributed to a single political action, so policy failures should be treated the same.
So maybe my absence on Saturday didn’t matter. But maybe, just maybe, in some vague but very real way, it did.
But you knew all that. So did my dinner companion, their continuously raised eyebrow giving it away.
Perhaps I’ll go next time.
Nicely put. As Chris Shaw has tweeted to you, I wrote about this recently (and I didn't go either). http:// marchudson.net/2015/03/09/cli mate-change-the-way-ahead
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