Activists who block traffic and despoil Van Gogh paintings are turning people away from being green, a survey reveals.
Just Stop Oil protesters pouring soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers picture in the National Gallery received more than a 50% disapproval rating.
The same figure was annoyed at Insulate Britain blockading traffic on the M25.
The study of 3,000 people was conducted by Opinium.
Both protests increased support for the view that “climate action will do nothing but make us all colder and poorer”, the survey found.
People thought roadblocks were ineffective at gaining the public’s approval.
The protests – which brought misery to many motorists – left the over-40s unwilling to take action on climate change.
Eventually, the Government introduced new police powers to deter the protests.
The survey was commissioned by Steve Akehurst, a climate campaigner…
He thought the Van Gogh protest and Insulate Britain’s road blocks had failed.
He said: “The first was a target that probably appeared random to most people; the second was marred by scenes of dispute with ordinary members of the public.”
Earlier this year Extinction Rebellion changed it’s disruptive tactics to concentrate on a “collective” protest.
Mr Akehurst said: “Because successful and influential stunts are genuinely hard to pull off, activists (understandably) occasionally fall-back on the idea that, basically, all publicity is good publicity.
“If there’s one thing this experiment proves, it’s this isn’t true.”
