Culture VS Big Oil

We announced in early May that we would do disruptive protests at the festival in Bergen against the Equinor sponsorship. The organisers and Equinor went out in the media to try to delegitimise us: saying it is not appropriate to “destroy a cultural festival” and that Equinor is doing a “great job in the green transition”.

We then proceeded to do different protests and actions at the event - disrupting two concerts, taking down the Equinor flags, distributing a petition addressed to the organisers and blocking one of the main roads in Bergen during the festival.

Despite many people always saying to us that this kind of thing just “destroys the conversation”, what actually ended up happening?

Yes……surprise surprise…..a conversation was once again created around fossil fuel sponsorship! The media wrote about it and the festival even organised a public debate where we were invited to come and speak about the problem to the public alongside a vice president of Equinor and a board member of the festival.

In this article I want to go through 3 things that I learned during this campaign:

1. Why Culture Is Such An Important Arena For The Oil Industry.

2. The Effectiveness Of Public Disruption.

3. The Role of Scientists in Climate Activism

1. Why Culture Is Such An Important Arena For The Oil Industry

When I first arrived, I couldn’t help but notice how often Equinor’s logo appeared across various events and public spaces. Coming from Scotland - another oil- producing country - I was quite struck by the difference.

Growing up, I never saw my sports heroes adorned with oil company logos. I never had any of my local sports team sponsored by oil companies. I never had an oil industry logo on the materials I was reading at school. The notion of oil industry sponsorship being integrated into almost everything in society seemed pretty distant.

In Norway, however, these sponsorships are absolutely everywhere. What they do is basically create positive associations with fossil fuel companies - embedding themselves into the cultural fabric of society. Through this approach, they subtly influence public discourse.

Instead of all Norwegians thinking of Equinor as one of the worlds biggest polluters - they think of Equinor as this nice cosy company that sponsors your kids local ski team, the cultural festival every year in Bergen or the Ski World Championships. They position themselves as integral, socially responsible companies that contribute to the cultural and national identity of the country.

This embedding into the cultural landscape effectively normalises their presence. It blurs the line between corporate interests and societal values. When so many Norwegians have such a positive association with Equinor, it makes it much more difficult for us who are speaking up against them and their activities.

Instead of being viewed as a villain causing irreparable damage to our climate, Equinor appears as a nice commendable contributor to Norwegian society.

A recent article in DeSmog in May 2025 published subpoenaed documents which give us evidence that these cultural strategies have been actively used by the fossil fuel industry. For example, in a memo to UK staff in 2021 BP instructed their communications teams to “pivot existing sponsorships to mitigate social risks of the business”, to “showcase BP as a British champion” and to “profile BP as a thought leader and convenor, including during COP27”.

This activity creates a narrative that benefits the industry by undermining anti-fossil fuel sentiment and reinforcing the idea that they are an essential part of societal progress.

Companies like Equinor do not do this for a laugh. It was recently reported that Equinor had spent $82.7 million on sponsorships between 2020 and 2024. They have also been in hot water over the last few months after it emerged they had paid for a game to be distributed across schools in the UK called Energy Town.

The company in the UK who’s job it was to promote the game appeared to accidentally say the quiet part out loud - writing on their website (before it was swiftly taken down once the story broke) that the game was part of an educational initiative which would help to: “build future talent pipelines and secure permission to operate at a time of sensitivity around fossil fuels, particularly in light of approval for the Rosebank development”.

It was also recently revealed that Equinor spent £200,000 to sponsor classrooms on Shetland - the Rosebank developement is just 80 miles of the coast of Shetland. Coincidence? I would argue, probably not.

Its simple really. When the fossil fuel industry’s influence is woven into stories of national achievement, cultural pride and even our educational system - it becomes far more difficult to challenge their role in climate breakdown.

So thats where our campaign comes in. In the next section I will explain how we are successfully able to “hack” these events that Equinor sponsor. To shift the conversation and the focus towards the climate crisis and the role of fossil fuels.

2. The Effectiveness Of Public Disruption

Like we did at the World Ski Championships in the winter, just by simply announcing protests at the event, got us in the media and generating public debate. On the first week of the festival the campaign disrupted a theatre production and within a few days the organisers of the festival asked us to join a public panel debate alongside a representative from Equinor. This event was not part of the program before the protests.

The fossil fuel industry, as I have described above, has huge power to influence the public during events like these. Ordinary people simply cannot compete on the same terms. I am almost 100% convinced that the festival would not have even dreamed of organising a panel debate to talk about fossil fuel sponsorship if we had simply sent them a letter or arranged a petition. Being disruptive puts ordinary people in a position to make demands and hold powerful structures accountable. It is democracy in action.

However, during this campaign we used a variety of different tactics and levels of disruption. The media were not all that interested in what we were doing for the first few protests where it was just disruption of concerts and events at the festival itself. It was not until the final day where we announced a blockade of one of the main roads through the city itself that both the TV and the biggest newspaper in Bergen showed up. This again, to me, shows the importance of public disruption in activism like this.

So many people tell us when we disrupt the public that you “just put people off the cause” by inconveniencing them. Unfortunately, it is just a simple matter of fact that if you disrupt a major road for 10 minutes you challenge the normal flow of daily life and it forces the public and the media to confront the issue you are talking about. Many years of protest has shown us that blockades of roads are one of the the most effective methods for regular people to get out their message. Especially when they are challenging industries with million kroner marketing budgets

I believe that living in a democracy means tolerating some inconvenience to our daily lives in exchange for the fundamental right to express dissent, protest and push for change.

For us as a campaign from a simple impact perspective, this strategy of public disruption has proven pretty effective. I did a media analysis of the coverage during this action which showed that we reached an estimated three million people through media coverage, with an advertising value equivalent (an approximate of the monetary value of earned media efforts by comparing it to the equivalent cost of placing advertisements) of 247 000 kroner.

The results from the World Ski Championships this winter were even more interesting due to getting so much international media attention around the protests. In the space of a couple months we got over 226 million in media reach and 18 million in advertising value equivalent.

I very much hope there is some people sitting round a table in Equinor getting very annoyed at the fact that a small group of people can get so much publicity with a tiny fraction of their own budget!

3. The Role Of Scientist’s in Climate Activism

During this campaign, we were joined by a few different scientists who took action with us. One of them was my friend Ina Nagler. She is a climate researcher at the Bjerknes Centre in Bergen and does modeling of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). I think that scientists have a CRUCIAL role to play in climate activism, and I think their involvement can really help to amplify the urgency of the message. 

After my recent article about a climate conference in Sogndal, and the criticism I received from numerous different scientists - I think this is an even more important point. Often, I hear from scientists that they're hesitant to engage in activism because they believe that it will undermine their credibility and people wont listen to them as seriously because of it. They worry that being seen as activists might discredit their scientific work.

I believe it’s precisely this kind of engagement that’s needed now. For years, scientists have been warning us about the severity of the climate crisis - telling us how urgent and critical the situation is. But despite this, their words tend to be often ignored. I think that in 2025 it is critically important that scientists step out of their comfort zones and demonstrate that the crisis demands action - by risking their reputation or risking arrest. People tend to listen more when respected voices like scientists speak with moral authority and show they are willing to sacrifice for the cause.

The more scientists are willing to stand up, be visible, and participate in civil disobedience, the stronger their voice becomes. Their participation can also help to challenge the perception that climate activism is just a bunch of angry young protesters with nothing else to worry about. So, just a little shout out to all the scientists out there like Ina who understand the power of them engaging in civil disobedience and a challenge to more of you reading this to step up! I encourage following Peter Kalmus here on Substack for lots of good writing and advice on the role of scientists in climate activism.

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Check out Calum Macintyre's Substack page here. If you want to support the work that Calum and Folk Mot Fossilmakta is doing, you can donate here.