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Climate activists too radical? They point to suffragettes as a comparison.

To draw society’s attention to the urgency of climate change, German-Austrian climate activist group Last Generation has staged disruptive protests, usually by gluing themselves to roads and tarmacs.

Politicians and citizens alike have called out Last Generation for being irritating, reckless, or even criminal. In one survey, 86% of German respondents said the group’s actions are hurting the climate cause.

Why We Wrote This

Activists are taking radical steps, like gluing themselves to streets, to draw attention to the climate crisis. Such acts, if unpopular, fall in line with earlier, violent moral crusaders like British suffragettes.

Their tactics may not be earning public plaudits, but Last Generation is drawing on a tradition that has been used for moral crusades past – including ones remembered favorably today, like the campaign to earn women the right to vote in Britain, which was waged, often violently, by the suffragettes. And climate activists are willing to use a similar strategy today.

“History shows that civil disobedience can work, although it’s unpopular. Whether this [climate activism] will work, no one knows,” says Reinhard Steurer, a professor of climate politics at Vienna’s University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences. “We don’t have the mass protests anymore, because society is fed up with the climate crisis and wants to be left alone. So you can either put your head into the sand, or try other things, and that’s what these small groups are doing. They’re trying to wake up society.”

For members of German-Austrian climate activist group Last Generation, the stakes could not be higher.

“It’s the climate crisis that is hurting people, that’s endangering lives,” says member and university student Zoe Rüge. She’s shocked by society’s blasé attitude toward climate change, and says leaders have two to three years before certain tipping points make it impossible to meet the 1.5-degree Celsius global warming limit set by the Paris agreement. 

To draw society’s attention to the issue, the group has staged disruptive protests, usually by gluing themselves to roads and tarmacs. In October, members halted traffic on a major Berlin highway, which ended up blocking a rescue vehicle whose patient later died. In November, they paralyzed operations at Berlin’s airport, diverting more than a dozen flights and affecting nearly 4,000 passengers.

Why We Wrote This

Activists are taking radical steps, like gluing themselves to streets, to draw attention to the climate crisis. Such acts, if unpopular, fall in line with earlier, violent moral crusaders like British suffragettes.

Politicians and citizens alike have called out Last Generation for being irritating, reckless, or even criminal. In one survey, 86% of German respondents said the group’s actions are hurting the climate cause.

But are they really ineffective? Their tactics may not be earning public plaudits, but Last Generation is drawing on a tradition that has been used for moral crusades past – including ones remembered favorably today, like the campaign to earn women the right to vote in Britain, which was waged, often violently, by the suffragettes. And climate activists like Lost Generation are willing to use a similar strategy today.

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