It might help if you delineate between pollution issues and others in your mind. Again, most people are on board with stopping pollution. But the public image of environmentalists is NOT of courageous people stopping the powerful from polluting on innocent people's property. Not by a long shot. Using that aspect of activism as a starting point is going to lead you astray if you really want to know what's behind this study's results; to address the image problem, you have to address the actual intrusions of environmental activists into private affairs (i.e., no third party [EDIT: as in a *person*] is getting their property, food, water or air damaged.)