In 1970, 20 million people participated in demonstrations across the country for Earth Day, advocating for clean air and water among other environmental reforms. This movement paved the way for the 1970s to be the decade of environmental policy, during which Congress passed legislation including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Toxic Substances Control Act, and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and created the Environmental Protection Agency. These laws led to significant reductions in air and water pollution and to the protection of many threatened species, demonstrating the effective outcomes of an environmental social movement.

In 2021 alone, we have experienced some of the most extreme hurricanes, largest wildfires, and hottest temperatures in U.S. history. Somehow, though, the largest environmental protest we’ve seen since 1970 was only a sixth of the size of the Earth Day demonstrations during the People’s Climate March in 2014.
So why has there been no cohesive social movement to demand better climate policies? Why is this not an all-consuming issue? And what will it take of us to make a change?

The first major challenge hindering progress on environmental issues is political polarization. In the past 50 years, both parties have lost their moderate factions and become more uniform, and clustered at more extreme ends of the ideological spectrum. Polarization rears its head on almost every issue, and inevitably, when our two parties are divided by what seems like a chasm, it’s hard to get anything done.
Deadlock within our government today is a real problem. In fact, based on a 2021 poll only 3% of U.S. citizens view the environment, pollution, and climate change as the most important problem facing this country today. In contrast, 19% responded that the most important problem facing the country was dissatisfaction with government or poor leadership, up from just 2% in 2018.

We don’t have to look very far to see real-world examples of the serious consequences of political polarization. Two bills, the Build Back Better Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, are intended to include major climate policies and energy reform, such as clean energy and electric vehicle tax credit expansions, a methane fee, funding for rural electric cooperatives, and money for agriculture and forestry carbon capture programs. If passed, they would represent the biggest investment in climate action in U.S. history and by some analyses could cut greenhouse gases by a gigaton. Yet, these two bills are currently stuck in Congress due to an utter lack of bipartisan support, and it looks like the only way they will be passed is by cutting many programs, including those targeting carbon emissions.

While in 1970, we saw political leaders respond to public outcry with policy outcomes, it feels doubtful that politicians will be able to pass any kind of sweeping environmental legislation today, particularly because they are hesitant to acknowledge climate change as a threat in the first place.

This division on the climate issue seems two-pronged. On one hand, interest groups and campaign finance laws have perpetuated government support for maintaining a dependence on fossil fuels. As of a 2021 analysis, there are still 139 elected officials in Congress, 109 representatives and 30 senators, who do not acknowledge the scientific evidence of the climate crisis – and collectively, these 139 members have received more than $61 million in lifetime contributions from coal, oil, and gas industries. The 2010 Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court to reverse limits on campaign spending has only exacerbated industry influence by fossil fuel corporations, who play a hand in re-electing our politicians, thereby determining policy outcomes.

Meanwhile, science has never been under greater threat than it is today. Politicians can score political points by promoting a disbelief in science.

It’s frustrating that our political leaders are so divided on what is now accepted as scientific fact. More concerning, however, is that overall, only 40% of U.S. citizens view climate change as a big problem at all. It’s no wonder that we feel disillusioned and disempowered to make a change.
Perhaps we can blame poor science literacy for the lack of awareness of the severity of the threat of climate change. Certainly, misinformation is at an all-time high in the age of social media. However, there is evidence that science literacy is not the problem – one study found that a greater percentage of climate deniers scored higher in a test of science literacy and numeracy than most non‐deniers. Rather, an understanding of the facts of climate change results in conflict with people’s core values, and thus education won’t necessarily lead to action, because people are reluctant to change their lifestyle by giving up driving or eating meat.
This dilemma brings us to the crux of the issue: the discord between individual action and corporate action. Key industrial players such as fossil fuel companies have promoted the belief that solving climate change rests on the shoulders of everyday citizens – that if you recycle, you can fix the problem. In fact, the idea of a “carbon footprint” is a myth devised by BP to shift the blame away from corporations. The reality of the situation is that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global carbon emissions, according to the Carbon Majors Report.
This is not to say that we should be of the mindset that we are completely powerless. The backlash to the idea of individual action is equally problematic: those who don’t buy into the myth of individual action tend to put the blame back on the corporations and politicians, absolving themselves of any responsibility. This only results in feeling helpless as we watch the government provide fossil fuel subsidies and promote fracking.
But the opposite of individual action is not corporate action. It’s collective action. The two contradictory notions of where the blame belongs creates a gap that we have yet to fill. Instead of trying to reduce our carbon footprints individually, or complaining that there’s nothing we can do because it’s on corporations, we should be mobilizing. Since 1970, there has been no national or global social uprising on environmental issues – yes, because of polarization and science denial, but also because we don’t agree on who is responsible and how to take action.
Tackling climate change can often feel overwhelming to the point of paralysis, particularly because there is no clear and easy route to “fixing” the problem. And there is certainly an element of desensitization to the issues. How many conversations have you had about climate change that have ended in “I just don’t want to think about it,” or “but it feels like there’s nothing we can do”? If we all feel this way, why are we not mobilizing together? Individually, our actions can do very little, and pushing responsibility onto corporations does nothing. If we work together, though, we might be able to make a difference. We certainly don’t have time to waste.
We need a massive upheaval of our political systems, our agricultural industry, and our dependence on fossil fuels. We need collective action. Climate change is no longer a long-term, way-off-in-the-future, will-only-affect-our-great-grandchildren problem. It is a right-now problem. We need to stop talking about the environmental crisis and start building a grassroots movement large enough to make our voices heard. By bringing climate change to the forefront, we can force legislators to respond by passing policies, in the same way that they did in the 70s on environmental issues, in the 60s with civil rights, and in the 20s with women’s rights.
Social movements have been some of the most effective routes to enacting change, and we need a social movement now more than ever.
Especially as college students, we have more power than we realize. In 1970, over 700 college campuses organized walkouts and demonstrations in protest of the Vietnam war. More than 4 million students participated, and more than 450 school campuses across the country were shut down by student strikes. If everyone who talked about climate change showed up at one organized protest, we could push the needle on WashU divestment. If every college divested, we might change the dialogue around our country’s dependence on fossil fuels.
We have the capacity to say something. In our country’s history, the largest changes have come from collective action movements. Fifty years from now, major cities could be underwater. What will it take to convince people to act?