A new podcast asks: Are ‘radical’ climate activists really that radical? todayheadline

In October 2022, two protesters with the group Just Stop Oil shocked the world by tossing tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s iconic “Sunflowers” in London’s National Gallery. “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” said one of them, Phoebe Plummer, moments after the two soup-throwers glued their hands to the wall.

The painting, safely behind glass, was unharmed. But the soup-throwers were ridiculed. Piers Morgan, the British media personality, called it an act of “childish, petty, pathetic vandalism.” Journalists and scientists warned that stunts like this would alienate people and undermine support for climate action. Just Stop Oil, however, didn’t change course. They spray-painted Stonehenge with orange powder, zip-tied themselves to soccer goalposts, and blocked rush-hour traffic in London, with hundreds getting arrested.

A new podcast series digs into what drove these activists to pull these shocking stunts — and whether they actually work. In 2023, Alessandra Ram and Samantha Oltman, two journalists who met at Wired over a decade ago, quit their jobs to investigate every aspect of this story, from the street blockades and court drama to the money trail that supports disruptive climate activism. After they gained trust with activists, they embedded with Just Stop Oil, at one point observing how its members get trained for police confrontations (they “go floppy,” with their limp weight making it harder to get dragged out of the street). The podcast, “Sabotage,” landed in Apple’s top 40 podcasts and just wrapped up with its series finale last week. 

“Sabotage” raises a key question: Are “radical” climate activists really that radical? After all, the suffragettes actually slashed famous paintings, and “Sunflowers,” despite all the uproar over the soup incident, still sits untarnished in the National Gallery. All kinds of people have gotten arrested in order to bring attention to climate change, as the podcast documents, including climate scientists and a doctor motivated by how a warmer world spreads infectious diseases. If you take a clear-eyed look at what climate change means for life on this planet, Ram and Oltman ask, what’s the sane thing to do? 

The pair launched their production company, Good Luck Media, to “tell stories you won’t be able to stop talking about” — ones that just happen to concern climate change. As they developed the podcast, they used a litmus test to see if a particular story was worth telling: If they shared it while getting a haircut, would the stylist be into it?

Their podcast goes in unexpected directions — one episode follows a love story disrupted by a prison sentence, while others explore the wealthy heirs, like Aileen Getty of the Getty oil fortune, who are giving their inheritance away to controversial climate activist groups. The podcast was co-produced by Adam McKay (the director of Don’t Look Up and Succession) and Staci Roberts-Steele of Yellow Dot Studios.

Convincing Just Stop Oil activists to talk wasn’t easy. “There are so many misconceptions around this group, even though they have been, especially in the U.K., covered all the time,” Ram said. “People really just like to troll them.” The journalists slowly gained trust by approaching interviews with curiosity instead of judgment. 

“What we found really fascinating as we embedded with them was understanding they’re incredibly strategic, despite how almost goofy some of their stunts are,” Oltman said. The soup-throwing protest in London’s National Gallery, for instance, was critiqued as nonsensical — what does attacking art have to do with climate change? — but it turns out that the absurdity was the point. Recent research by the Social Change Lab in London shows that Just Stop Oil’s illogical protests get more media attention than those with a clear rationale and also lead to an increase in donations. It’s part of a growing body of research that shows climate protests achieve results, even unpopular ones.

Just Stop Oil’s stunts appeared to work. Just two and a half years after the infamous soup-launching — and despite the United Kingdom cracking down on peaceful protests with years-long jail sentences and raiding activists’ homes — Just Stop Oil has already achieved its central goal. This spring, the U.K. confirmed it was banning new drilling licenses for oil and gas. Just Stop Oil announced in March that it would be “hanging up the hi vis,” boasting that its movement kept 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the ground and was “one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history.” Hundreds of protesters marched through Westminster at the end of April for the group’s final action — though there’s been plenty of speculation that their disruptive stunts will continue under a new name.

Given Just Stop Oil’s over-the-top actions, you might expect the activists to have big personalities. But Ram and Oltman found that many of the protesters they met were shy, quiet, and anxious. “I was startled by the gulf between who these people seemed to be in their actual personality and the risks they were willing to take, particularly in the public shame and outrage front, to try to move the needle on climate change,” Oltman said. 

“Sabotage” paints their stories with nuance, managing to avoid the usual media caricatures to reveal the real people behind the movement through small, vivid details. The infamous soup-throwers, for instance? The night before their demonstration, they practiced the Campbell’s toss in a tiny bathroom, making a mess as they hurled tomato soup at the glass in the shower.

“I haven’t been acting in a radical way by joining Just Stop Oil,” Anna Holland, one of the soup-throwers, says in the podcast. “We’re facing the extinction of everything we know and love. And the only radical thing a person could be doing right now is ignoring it.”