The Recipe for Engagement in a Direct-Action Climate Movement for the Future of Humanity

Sammanfattning: Climate scientists have sounded the alarm for decades, making increasingly frightening predictions about the coming effects of climate change, yet world leaders have largely failed to address the climate change crisis. As the real time effects of climate change are starting to be felt around the world, citizen activists are increasingly taking matters into their own hands, adding pressure on governments to act swiftly and forcefully. Climate change is arguably the single largest threat humanity has ever faced. Given the severity of the issue, the number of people actively involved in the climate movement is fewer than one might expect. To get a better understanding of why some people decide to become climate activists, while most do not, this study examines what motivates first-time activists’ involvement in Extinction Rebellion (XR), a system-critical direct action climate and environmental movement using non-violent civil disobedience as their primary method to bring attention the severity of the climate crisis. By analyzing semi-structured interviews with XR activists in Sweden it was found that the main motivating factors for the activists’ involvement in XR, grouped in themes, are ‘Having Real Impact’, ‘Transforming Anxiety to Action’, ‘Finding Community’, and ‘Doing the Right Thing’. The themes are presented and discussed using previous research and relevant theory to provide a better understanding of what motivates radical climate activism in XR, and discussed in relation to the wider direct-action focused climate movement, with implications for mobilization and movement growth.