“Get a job!” shouted yet another driver going past me in the sweeping rain outside Preston New Road fracking site, on another bitingly cold winters day. Recipients of these outbursts were mostly retirees like the Nanas of Lancashire (a group of women from the northern shire of England who had become prominent anti-fracking activists).

My mum often joined me and other protesters to oppose the exploratory drilling that throughout 2018 and 2019 caused earthquakes. Local people were worried about the damage this could do to their homes, the water they rely on and the area’s nature and wildlife.

When it got too cold and I could see mum was starting to get the shivers, we would go back to my family home for a nice cup of tea, leaving the die hards to keep guard 24/7, continuing the fight until we could rejoin them next time.

“It’ll never make any difference,” Dad would comment as we put the kettle on. As a reader of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring – the 1962 book which exposed the destruction of wildlife through the widespread use of pesticides – and a school teacher all his life, he knew all too well the threats of the climate and ecological emergency. Especially once I joined the environmental protest movement.

But activism was not for him. “What was the point?” he’d wonder.

I can see why many people might feel like that. Especially when the decision by Lancashire County Council to reject fracking at Preston New Road was overruled by the Conservative government of the time, and the magnitude of permitted earthquakes was raised.

Read more: Fracking causes earthquakes by design: can regulation keep up?

Frontline activism is certainly not for everyone. Especially when some journalists and politicians would have people believe these “eco-zealots” are the “enemies of society”, due to the disruption that can be caused by increasingly desperate and urgent protests and actions.

Stereotypes remain strong in public opinion and news sources often get basic climate change facts wrong. A quick google image search for “environmental activists” shows people with banners blocking roads, shouting into megaphones and looking angry. Perhaps even throwing soup at a painting or gluing themselves to the front of an office building if you scroll down a bit.

The radical flank frontline

More radical groups know that more disruptive actions lead to greater likelihood of coverage. This can lead to a “radical flank effect”, referring to the comparative outcome that occurs when more radical factions of a social movement like climate activism operate in the same arena as more moderate or less confrontational sections of that movement. The radical flank creates space behind it for others to move into and opportunities for social change can appear.

A vital role it would seem. But this doesn’t tell the whole story of what an activist is.

In a recent research study, I interviewed activists across a range of different ages, circumstances and ideological positions, from Just Stop Oil and Greenpeace to local wildlife trusts and community garden projects. All share concern for the future of life on this planet, trying to do what they can, where they can, to help shape a society we all deserve to live in.

Many express frustration and anger, alongside recognition, that the status quo and current economics are given more importance in political discourse and action than the large‐scale changes required to live sustainably within the natural world. One middle-aged woman who volunteers at the local climate hub (a public space for people involved in climate action) expressed “very little faith in governments. Just massive disappointment.”

The recent changes to protest laws which further vilify environmental activists and mean harsher sentences for attending zoom calls or holding a placard are seen as terrifyingly authoritarian. Yet a young employee of the group Surfers Against Sewage noted they are effective in that they “turn away the people who were kind of on the fence a little bit about it. But … it will also inspire others who are just like, dead against the injustice of it.”

My team’s research indicates a sense of despair due to this political inaction and pushback against those who speak out. Some on the radical flanks are seen by more conservative activists as too radical, and some on the flanks see those more conservative as too “soft” to generate the required changes.

Yet there is recognition of the vital roles everyone can play. A long-term Extinction Rebellion activist who now resides in Calderdale in West Yorkshire, recognised there needed to be “people fighting in different ways on so many different fronts, and I think there’s strength in supporting each other, if we can”.

Fracking was stopped in Lancashire. It was stopped by the Nanas, my mum and the many others on the radical flank frontline. But also by all of those working behind the scenes who put in time to lobby or protest in their own way. It was all these pieces of the puzzle working together that led to victory in Lancashire.

Our research shows you don’t have to be waving a placard shouting into a megaphone, although there is an important place for that too. Crucially, there are many roles for us all and ways we can work towards that future we all deserve to live in.

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This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Bob Walley, University of Lancashire

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Bob Walley receives funding from various internal research institutes and external funding bodies for the research and community projects he coordinates. He is affiliated with the University of Exeter, the University of Lancashire and Envirolution Network.