Why Do The Rich And Powerful Demonize Activists? - Clover Hogan (Transcript)

Read the full transcript of Climate activist Clover Hogan’s talk titled “Why Do The Rich And Powerful Demonize Activists?” at TEDxAthens 2025 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

A Viral Awakening

CLOVER HOGAN: I’m woken up by a persistent buzzing. I grab blindly for my phone and peer down at the too-bright screen. “Are you okay? Saw what happened on Twitter. Ignore the trolls. They’re just incels living in their parents’ basement. You are my hero.” These texts can only mean one thing: One of my tweets has gone viral.

You see, I’m a climate activist, and for over a decade, I’ve been communicating the science and advocating for change. Yet a big part of my job has become dealing with trolls on the Internet. So I roll out of bed, open my laptop, and check my notifications. Then I see it: I’ve been turned into a meme by Elon Musk, and 6,000,000 people have already seen it.

I squint at my own face staring back at me, photoshopped over Victoria Beckham’s. This can’t be real. I click refresh. Now it’s 6,200,000. There are already thousands of responses to Elon’s post. I can’t help but laugh at some of them, like being called a “posh British commie trying to make millions,” but I shudder at the more vile ones, like “you’re a waste of human flesh.”

I start to report those, but it’s like a depressing and never-ending game of whack-a-mole. A friend links me to extensive Reddit threads that have cropped up. Since Elon didn’t tag me, the Internet has launched its own investigation into who I am and why the world’s richest man and owner of X chose to memify me.

The Root of the Controversy

Now you may be wondering the same. And while I won’t attempt to psychoanalyze Elon, what I can tell you is that this image of my face was taken from a recent panel, one where I had warned of the danger of silver bullet solutions to solve the climate crisis.

I used electric vehicles as an example, the fact that their popularity has led to an increase in demand for materials like cobalt and, as a result, widespread human rights abuses. In a tweet, I wrote, “We are inadvertently doubling down on deeply entrenched injustices. What if we zoomed out from the combustion engine and asked how do we redesign mobility? This is a much more exciting question because then we can focus on solutions that serve the majority of people and not just the handful who can afford any Tesla.”

I also suggested that if we made cities less car-friendly and prioritized pedestrians, they could be both safer and greener, from parks and playgrounds to better cycling infrastructure.

Now, Elon could have challenged my claims about human rights or critiqued my proposed solutions, but he wasn’t interested in my argument. No. It’s much easier to simply brand someone you disagree with a communist and be done with it.

Media Portrayal of Activists

But he’s not the only one to use this tactic. Many media outlets today are intent on attacking environmental activists. Just look at these headlines from the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, and The Sun. Instead of reporting on the climate crisis or holding people in power to account, they depict peaceful protesters as extremists, zealots, fanatics. They even describe activists as being part of a “climate cult,” which is news to me.

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So take a quote from Rebecca Solnit, author of “Hope in the Dark”: “Everything in the mainstream media suggests that popular resistance is ridiculous, pointless, or criminal unless it is far away, was long ago, or ideally both.”

Historical Parallels: The Suffragette Movement

Today, as a citizen in the UK, I can vote thanks to the women who fought for the Equal Franchise Act, a law which passed less than 100 years ago in 1928, and this came after a struggle spanning almost three-quarters of a century.

Now the suffragists were the first to organize in the 1860s, and the suffragettes were a spin-out movement with a focus on direct action. While suffragists held public speaking events, lobbied MPs, and wrote petitions, the suffragettes disrupted meetings and vandalized art and buildings. Suffragists held dinner parties, and suffragettes went on hunger strikes.

Today, we celebrate the bravery of these women who worked tirelessly and often put their own lives on the line to fight for justice. Yet at the time, many in the media told a very different story of these women. Suffragists were portrayed as unattractive, neglectful of their families, set on emasculating mankind. Suffragettes were branded radicals and militant, disgusting and unhinged.

The term “suffragettes” was actually coined by a Daily Mail reporter as a demeaning nickname. But these women chose to wear it as a badge of honor.

History Repeating: Modern Activism

Now, we can see history repeating itself with the activists of today. The media makes the story about the messenger to distract us from the message. With climate activists, they particularly like to fixate on our so-called hypocrisy.

Just take this interview between Richard Madeley, a 65-year-old host of Good Morning Britain, and Miranda Whelehan, a 20-year-old activist from Just Stop Oil:

Richard: “Your protests are, by definition, massively imperfect. I mean, the clothes that you’re wearing, to some extent, owe their existence to oil because they were taken in a car or a truck or a van to a shop. You know? There are so many ways that oil impacts on your life, as a protester, but you don’t acknowledge that.”

Miranda: “We’re talking about crop failure by 2030. We’re talking about people in this country right now in fuel poverty because of the prices of oil, and you’re talking about the clothes that I’m wearing.”

Richard: “No. Listen. To be fair, up to now, you’ve answered questions, but that’s a complete avoidance of the question. What about the accusation of hypocrisy that actually you owe your lifestyle just as much to oil as the rest of us?”

Miranda: “If we want to talk about hypocrisy, look at the government that has pledged for net zero by 2050, and now they’re looking at opening 42 new oil fields which will be releasing fossil fuels into the 2050s after the death penalty for my generation and for your children.”

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Richard: “Are you going to answer that question or would you like—”

Miranda: “How can we be talking about individual scale when we’re asking the government to change that we as individuals no longer have to be?”

I get chills every time I watch that clip.

Figures like Richard, like Elon, know they can’t refute the data and the science outright, so they work hard to divert the public’s attention. It’s a clever sleight of hand. Don’t look at the facts, don’t hold your government to account, don’t question why companies are making billions in profit while you’re unable to afford your bills. No, no, no. Look over here at this hypocrite, this zealot, or even this communist.

The Power Behind the Media

Their goal is to plant a wedge between activists and everyday people, to misdirect the public’s anger so that we won’t look too closely at them. The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch, The Daily Mail by Jonathan Harmsworth, The Telegraph by the Barclay family, all billionaires with a vested interest in squashing anyone who threatens the status quo and, by extension, their wealth and power.

They will do anything to protect their personal profit. Profit, which they spend not on the betterment of society, but on buying islands and building bunkers to escape a crisis they’ve helped create. When we buy their lies, we line their pockets.

And the consequence is not just a divided public. It is a weakened democracy. When we dehumanize activists, it makes it easier for us to be silenced and squashed by the state. 1,300 suffragettes were imprisoned for their actions. And as of 2024, thousands of climate activists in the UK have been arrested for peaceful protest.

Earlier this year, 5 activists were imprisoned with 4-5 year sentences, not for protesting, but for merely planning to stage peaceful protests. During their hearing, the judge ruled that evidence relating to climate breakdown was irrelevant and inadmissible and could not be used in their defense.

In response to their sentences, which were the harshest in UK history for peaceful protest, the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, Michel Forst, stated that “rulings like today set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest, but any form of peaceful protest that may at one point or another not align with the interests of the government of the day.”

The Corporate-Government Relationship

Today, it’s easy to mistake governments with the corporations they’re supposed to regulate. Decades of corporate lobbying, weakened legislation, and corrupt politicians have created a deeply flawed political system, one that persecutes peaceful protesters and protects big polluters. This is why we must defend those without the power, without the influence, who are standing up against them. Importantly, we need to be those people.

Courage in the Face of Opposition

Activists throughout history—Emmeline Pankhurst, Rosa Parks, Marsha P. Johnson—knew tremendous courage in the face of opposition. In Emmeline’s life, not only were women unable to vote, but most forms of rape were still legal. Rosa was arrested and convicted for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Marsha grew up in a time where it was illegal to be gay or trans.

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Progress was not inevitable. It was fought for and won. And while change was ratified by judges and policymakers, it wasn’t started by them. It was led by activists, people in the margins of society, some whose names we know and many whose names we don’t. The reversal of rights such as Roe v. Wade or the resurfacing of fascism in Europe also show us that progress is not linear.

The Unique Challenge of the Climate Crisis

And yet, something singular about the climate crisis compared to past movements is that we do have public opinion on our side. Contrary to what the media may lead you to think, the latest research finds that 80%, or 4 out of 5 people globally, want their governments to take stronger action to tackle the climate crisis.

We need change to happen faster than may seem realistic or even possible. We won’t get there by elevating a handful of people onto a pedestal labeled “activist” from which they can be worshiped, but also ridiculed.

Like the movements that came before us, we need a mass mobilization of people from every background and belief. A handful of people might make a splash in the news. But millions of people is a tide of truth that cannot be denied.

To be an activist simply means to be someone who cares, and to choose to act on that care. That can happen at the water cooler at work, around the dinner table, out with friends. It can be organizing or participating in a protest, writing petitions, or simply choosing a job that works in the interests of people and the planet.

The Power of Collective Action

There is no doubt that we are up against a giant foe. Yet, it would be a mistake to underestimate our power when we work together in collective. Earlier, I shared an excerpt from Rebecca Solnit. Here is the full quote:

“The sleeping giant is one name for the public. When it wakes up, when we wake up, we are no longer only the public. We are civil society, the superpower whose nonviolent means are sometimes, for a shining moment, more powerful than violence, more powerful than regimes and armies. We write history with our feet and with our presence and our collective voice and vision.”

So let us write history together. Thank you.

Why Do The Rich And Powerful Demonize Activists? – Clover Hogan (Transcript)