Grassroots activists

Real, not astroturf

One of the problems of lists like these is that their focus on individuals biases us towards an idea of social change rooted in charismatic leaders. The world doesn’t always work like that, and even when it does, not everyone wants it to. We thought about naming a few examples of grassroots activists, but that seemed to go against the point of activism which is by nature multiplicious and at its most powerful on a local level. In an era of social media sharing, both sceptics and environmentalists have drawn on the rhetorical power of grassroots activism; at best advocating it, at worse fabricating voices that aren’t really there. So here’s to the grassroots activists – real, not astroturf – most of us won’t know who you are, but we hope your communities will, and you’ll only grow. In a similar vein, we could add ‘people you overhear talking on the bus’ to this list, as arguably it is only when climate change becomes an everyday issue that change will happen.