Rahul Somvanshi
A 2025 study published in the Journal of Environmental Management, titled “Art as a target for climate activism: Does it raise public attention?” and authored by Vincenzo Alfano and Massimo Guarino, used weekly Google Trends data across Western countries to assess whether the 2022 artwork attacks shifted public attention. Applying both interrupted time series and difference-in-differences estimators, the researchers found that, across multiple specifications and robustness checks, climate action became relatively more salient following the attacks. The study also noted, however, that public interest in climate topics does not always translate into support for action, and that focus on climate can come at the expense of attention to other Sustainable Development Goals.
Separate research from the Penn State Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media (PCSSM) surveyed public attitudes following the Sunflowers incident and found that while the protest succeeded in drawing attention to climate change, it also hardened negative views of climate activists among some segments of the public. The PCSSM work suggested that the soup-at-art stunt may have shifted views about climate protests — but not always in the direction activists had hoped.
This tension between attention and backlash is not new. Social movement theorists have long described what is known as the “radical flank effect” — the idea that extreme actions by some activists can make more moderate demands seem more reasonable to decision-makers, even as they alienate the broader public. Whether the radical flank effect helps or harms a movement depends on which audience is being measured.
The history of activists targeting art for political purposes goes back more than a century. In 1914, suffragette Mary Richardson slashed Velázquez’s “Rokeby Venus” at the National Gallery in London with a meat cleaver, protesting the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst. Other suffragettes attacked works by Rembrandt and other masters in the same period. Those actions, like the 2022 climate protests, generated headlines — but historians continue to debate whether they advanced the suffragette cause or merely shocked the public.
In the case of Just Stop Oil, the group announced in early 2025 that it was ending its campaign of disruptive protests, including those targeting artworks, after deciding that the tactics were no longer effective in advancing its goals. The decision came amid widespread public frustration with the protests and a series of arrests across the UK.
The evidence from the past three years suggests that targeting artworks can succeed in generating public attention to climate issues — the Alfano and Guarino study found measurable increases in Google searches for climate-related terms following the 2022 protests. But whether that attention converts into policy action or lasting behavioral change remains unresolved. The Penn State research suggests that a protest’s effectiveness may depend less on the spectacle itself than on what happens after: how the story is framed, whether the protest is perceived as justified, and whether it galvanizes support beyond the initial moment of attention.
For climate activists considering whether to target cultural objects, the accumulated research offers no simple answer. The tactics generate attention — and attention is a necessary precondition for action — but attention alone has not proven sufficient to produce the policy changes that climate science says are needed.
Related coverage on Karmactive has examined the conviction of four Just Stop Oil activists for airport disruption, the lawsuit by Shell against Greenpeace over North Sea protests, and the broader debate around whether high-profile lifestyles can coexist with environmental activism. Other stories have looked at youth-led climate movements including Xiuhtezcatl Martinez’s combination of Indigenous advocacy and hip-hop, and Billie Eilish’s $11.5 million donation from tour proceeds to climate justice and food equity. Meanwhile, satellite technology is increasingly being used to monitor and mitigate the climate crisis.
