President Joe Biden will likely need climate activists to win reelection in November, but he shouldn’t count on their support.
That view comes from a leading scholar of the activist movement, Dana Fisher, who has studied political protests for decades and has written three books on activism. Fisher was also a contributing author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment, writing a section on citizen engagement and civic activism.
Eight years ago, the climate advocacy movement was united more than it ever had been, driven by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s assertions that climate change was a myth. Today, the movement is fractured as Biden prepares to likely face Trump again on Election Day, according to Fisher, author of the new book “Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action.”
“He earned the trust of all these young people who are highly activated, highly motivated, and they helped him get the youth vote in a bunch of key swing states,” Fisher said of Biden’s victory in 2020 in a recent interview.
