Poll: Oddball "Soup Can" Climate Protests Don't Help The Cause

Polling indicates that stunts like this, in which climate 
activists threw soup on a Van Gogh painting, tend to
discourage other people from advocating
against climate change. 

 Remember that protest last month in which a pari of young people threw tomato soup onto a Van Gogh painting to protest climate change? 

At least according to one poll, that type of demonstration isn't really getting people to join the anti-climate change bandwagon. 

According to Politico:

"Forty-six percent of respondents to a survey conducted by SSRS and published by the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Science, Sustainability and Media said that non-violent disruptive actions decreased their support for efforts to address climate change. Only 13 percent of the more than 1,000 people polled said these actions boosted their support, while 40 percent said these types of incidents had no effect."

These non-violent, disruptive protests include throwing cans of soup onto famous paintings, as I've posted about, block major highways during rush hour and throwing paint onto the facades of buildings and shops. 

To nobody's surprise, political positions and divides affected the attitudes in the polling.   Sixty nine percent of Republicans said these climate protests turned them off, compared with 27 percent of Democrats. 

Even so, the figures indicate more Democrats are turned off by these protests than energized. 

Atmospheric scientist and climatologist Michael Mann told Poltico that the survey results shouldn't discourage activist from engaging in non-violent, direct action.  They just have to be smart about the ways they do it. 

In that October protest involving the tomato soup, the Van Gogh painting was not damaged because it was protected by glass. 

The survey found that framing the polling questions in different ways didn't affect the results much. The surveyors found no difference in support for these protest when they varied whether respondents were asked about "damaging pieces of art: or "pretending to damage pieces of art."

These protest - throwing stuff on paintings, blocking traffic, do not seem to influence whether the public believes climate change is real.  It just affects whether people want to personally take up the cause of fighting climate change.