Millions of young people have joined Greta Thunberg klimatstrejk. In Berlin, gathered over 20,000 last week. Does it matter?
On a superficial plane, the success is already a fact. The media, the impact has been enormous. Greta Thunberg teaches the last few months have talked with more global leaders than Stefan Löfven.
But it is not the same thing as the protests is reflected in climate policy. Or that they influence the decisions of individuals and businesses. And ultimately: to skolstrejkarnas agenda reflected in the emissions.
to help, and begins with a report presented by a group of sociologists at Stanford last year.
the setting was simple. The researchers compiled a thousand miljödemonstrationer in the united states in the years 1990-2007. They brought in all of the protests in a database and then counted out the effect on the states ‘ carbon dioxide emissions in a four-year perspective.
They found a small but significant rash. Increased environmental activism appears to reduce a state’s carbon footprint. And it seems primarily to be about changing behavior among individuals and enterprises, according to the study’s authors. A kind of klimatångestfaktor. Maybe.
Stanfordstudien has not yet been published in any scientific journal. A reservation is also that the report does not quite get around the old problem of the chicken and the egg. Maybe it’s not the protests that make the imprint in the greenhouse without any other, the hidden dynamics that affect both of these factors.
sometimes drastic effects are confirmed by other research. A much-publicized study from 2013, which, among others, the economist Andreas Madestam is behind, measured the shockwaves after the conservative Teapartyrörelsen in the united states.
It looked closely at a particular date, april 15, 2009. It was Teapartyrörelsens big day with demonstrations in over 500 locations in the country.
Andreas Madestam and his colleagues then took the weather to help as a kind of deputy laboratory assistant. Demonstrators did not like the rain. Precipitation the number of participants declined by 60 per cent. And because some towns had the rain, while others had residence on april 15, occurred the slumpfaktor needed to draw conclusions about cause and effect.
Their results: For every protester who joined the Teapartytåget on april 15, got the republicans between the ages of 7 and 14 more votes in the subsequent midterm elections. Högervågen received a hefty multiplier effect, and the demonstrations contributed to the Democratic defeat in 2010.
in Addition, the point the study towards kongressledamöternas agenda was affected by the protests. They became more conservative.
to Gretas climate movement can’t know. Skolstrejkerna is not as political as Teapartyrörelsen. Participants are not entitled to vote (yet). But it is far from inconceivable that Gretaeffekten get a multiplier that affects many tens of millions of people.
the Studies give at least reason to question the headlines that the in Kristianstadsbladet on 15 march: ”Acid teens with placards does not save our climate”. Was not so sure.
