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This article examines the strategies used by a democratic state to suppress dissent by criminalizing social protest activities. We compile and tabulate new legislation in Australia affecting protest rights from 2010 to 2020. Using data collected from the Facebook pages of 728 environmental groups and climate-related arrests reported in media articles, we then examine connections between climate change protest and protest criminalization in Australia between 2010 and 2019. Australian governments are shown to have criminalized climate protest via large-scale arrests by introducing laws curtailing protest freedoms and expanding police and corporate discretionary power in the application of those laws. State, corporate, and media actors are shown to engage in the rhetorical criminalization of climate protest, portraying protesters as threats to economic and political interests and to national security. However, the ongoing growth of climate change activism indicates that these criminalization strategies seeking to prevent climate protest may have been largely ineffective. Keywords: activism, civil resistance, climate change, criminalization, environmental movements, protest, repression, As global environmental indicators continue to decline, the escalating effects of climate change are being felt through increased wildfires, floods, droughts, and other natural disasters (Ripple et al. 2017). Australia [...]

Environmental activist leaders play a critical role in organizing grassroots activism. They often do so in a voluntary capacity while enduring long periods of failure in their quest to achieve environmental goals. Through 21 interviews we investigate how environmental activist volunteer leaders experience failure and the strategies they use to overcome it. Using a two-stage reflexive thematic analysis approach, four dimensions of failure were identified: movement, campaign, organization, and individual. Participants used three overarching strategies to manage these experiences of failure: Re-evaluating outcomes, emphasizing individual benefits, and changing tactics. Our findings suggest that environmental activist volunteer leaders regularly experienced failure across all four dimensions. The strategies they used to manage failure enabled them to maintain belief that success is achievable. We conclude with a discussion of how these findings can be used to develop tools and resources to enhance activist leaders’ capacity to prevail in the face of failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volunteers play critical roles in leading the activities of environmental organizations seeking to address the environmental crisis. Despite their importance, we know little about the factors that motivate individuals to engage in different environmental volunteer behaviors. Drawing on an extended Theory of Planned Behavior model, this study surveyed 259 experienced environmental volunteers who had participated in a range of environmental volunteer "leadership" and "participation" (i.e., nonleadership) behaviors to identify factors associated with these behaviors. Findings indicate that higher self-efficacy beliefs about specific leadership tasks, and higher past participation in participation behaviors, were significant predictors of engaging in more leadership behaviors. Higher self-efficacy and stronger identification as an environmental volunteer also predicted increased participation behaviors, as well as a younger age. Qualitative analysis of open-ended responses highlighted the importance of organizational factors such as training opportunities and receiving support and appreciation from the group in building leaders' self-efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water management increasingly focuses on tackling stormwater pollution to improve waterway health. Community members have a role in adopting pollution-reduction practices and supporting technologies such as water sensitive urban design. However, because communities are unfamiliar with these practices and technologies, little is known about how they make sense of these 'water sensitive innovations'. Drawing on Diffusion of Innovations theory, we conduct focus groups across different regions of Australia. Our findings indicate that key barriers to adoption included poor understanding of the relative advantage of these practices and technologies, and perceived poor compatibility with community members' lifestyle and local geography. In turn, appraisals of relative advantage were constrained by limited observability of stormwater pollution and the benefits that innovations generate for people and the environment. Our findings suggest engagement strategies should emphasize the relevance and advantages of water sensitive innovations, and help individuals visualize the intangible elements of stormwater pollution management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is the most significant threat to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). While Australians express appreciation and concern for the GBR, it is not clear whether they connect climate‐related action with reef conservation. An online survey of 4,285 Australians asked "...what types of actions could people like you do that would be helpful for the GBR?" Only 4.1% mentioned a specific action related to mitigating climate change; another 3.8% mentioned climate change but no specific action. The most common responses related to reducing plastic pollution (25.6%). These findings demonstrate that most Australians have poor capacity to identify individual climate‐related actions as helpful for reef protection, and that generic calls to action—such as "protect the reef"—are unlikely to elicit climate‐related actions. As such, reef conservation initiatives must explicitly promote actions—in the home and in society—that reduce emissions and support the transition to a low carbon society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]