If the Climate Movement isn't Going to Act with a Sense of Urgency, How can We Expect Anyone Else to?

It’s New Year’s Day, 2011 in Cairo.  President Hosni Mubarak awakens to a gorgeous dawn and another year of power, with no end in sight.  

Forty-one days later his 30 year reign is over and the Egyptian Revolution is complete.

Nonviolent movements can happen fast.

Memo to the climate movement: If you’re operating on a five-year plan: you’re doing it wrong. 

First of all, who says we have five years to spare?  The climate is unravelling fast, way ahead of even the worst projections (anyone remember when they said the polar ice cap would be gone by 2100?  Now they’re saying as early as 2020).  I know two leaders of the climate movement who have given up hope, despairing that it’s already too late to stop the natural feedback loops from kicking in.  The truth is no one knows, but it’s foolish to assume we can take our time here.

Second, if the climate movement isn’t going to act with any sense of urgency, how can we expect anyone else to?  I’m SO DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t show up en masse after the scorching summer to make the crisis a major issue in the elections.  It was ripe for the picking.  This is a failure of leadership.  Many people are desperate to do something about climate, but the leaders of the movement didn’t react to the situation staring them in the face to create action on the issue NOW.  They were too busy, no doubt, with their five-year plans.  The movement didn’t act with a sense of urgency, and – shocker! – no one else has.

Finally, nonviolent movements can happen fast.  First, though I know he wasn’t nonviolent, consider the words of The Art of War’s Sun Tzu, who wrote “Though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been associated with long delays”.  Now update that with these words of a co-leader from a nonviolent movement, Ivan Marovic of Serbia’s Otpor: “If it is carefully planned, by the time they start it is over in a matter of weeks.”

Americans are basically contented, and don't give a lot of thought to the climate tsunami racing toward us.  But if we don't act fast, the whole world is in for a world of hurt.

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McKibben Leads Group of Keystone XL Protesters on March Around White House

Environmental activists protest against the Keystone XL pipeline on 18 November 2012. Photograph: 350.org

Yesterday Bill McKibben's 350.org led a group of marchers around the White House, hoping to renew pressure on President Obama to block the Keystone pipeline.  The Guardian wrote this piece about the protest.

I was most impressed by the fact that the march was only planned ten days ago.  Probably they needed to see who would be president before they could plan it.  But they didn't let the timeline stop them.  I've met organizers who insist that it takes six months to plan an event, which is fine, and I'm sure if 350.org had been calling for this since May they would have had more than 3,000 people at yesterday's event.  But, hey, they had 3,000 people at yesterday's event!  That's awesome.

McKibben is always writing about how amazed he gets at the response he gets to his initiatives.  I'm not.  PEOPLE WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD ALREADY!  For awhile it seemed like whenever McKibben said "Jump", people would respond "How high?" and he'd put his index finger and thumb about an inch apart and say "This high".  Clearly that's changing, but I still wish he'd push harder.

I think people would do a LOT more if he asked.  I think we could have had a huge impact on the November elections, and certainly could have forced the crisis into the discussion during the presidential debates.

Those of us who get how serious this crisis is know how little time we have.  We all should ramp up our sense of urgency.

Still, though, major kudos to Bill McKibben and the 350 team!

CH

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You want to stop climate change? Join us.

The Pissed-Off Polar Bears are committed to ACTION.  Action must be every day, not once every six months.  We are prepared to help guide that. 

We went to the Republican National Convention in Tampa and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte and were disappointed to find no other climate activists in either town.  (Turns out Whit Jones of the Energy Action Coalition was in Charlotte leading a push to get Duke Energy to dump ALEC, which is fantastic and we applaud him for it, but where was the rest of the movement?)

If global warming is indeed the greatest crisis to ever face humanity, what the hell are the climate organizations spending their time doing?  Raising funds?  Writing websites? Doing speaking engagements?  Organizing one big action every six months and then occasionally standing up to the Keystone pipeline?  (We don’t mean to minimize the hugeness of stopping the pipeline—stopping it for now anyway—but we do intend to push the movement to nut-up and start acting like this crisis is as urgent as it truly is!)

The American political system will play a HUGE part in solving this.  The rest of the world cannot do it if the USA doesn’t lift a finger, and unfortunately one political party (talking to YOU Republicans!) is determined to make sure that doesn’t happen.

So this election is enormous.  Mother Nature gave America a huge wake-up call with the dreadful heat, drought, and wildfires this summer, BUT THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT HAS NOT ACTED UPON IT.  NONE of them, as far as I can tell anyway, are looking to influence the American elections.

WHY THE HELL NOT?

We still have 50 days to have an impact before these elections.  The measure of our success will be dependent upon the commitment of everyone, INCLUDING the climate movement during those 50 days.  We are surrounded by a HUGE OPPORTUNITY: Pre-gathered crowds at political rallies.  We can and must go to those rallies with smart, funny, NONVIOLENT actions to recruit and win the sympathy of the American public. (Humor is an incredibly effective tactic, it disarms people; and people who take themselves very seriously are defenseless against it.)

We Pissed-Off Polar Bears spent the first half of this year studying Gene Sharp’s books on Nonviolent Struggle, and we’re CERTAIN that with a disciplined nonviolent strategy, we can create huge shifts in public opinion in a very short time.  (By the way, “nonviolent” does not mean “passive” – which is completely LAME and it will NOT get the job done.  It also doesn’t mean simply “peaceful”, because, in fact, Nonviolent Struggle is a very CONFRONTATIONAL technique that should put its opponents in a serious bind.)

At Democratic rallies we will push to recruit activists who understand that THIS IS THE MOVEMENT OF OUR TIME (Actually, of ALL TIME). 

At Republican rallies we will push to win over the media, the police, the family-members – the reasonable people - bystanders mostly - who know something’s seriously amiss with the weather.   Sure we’ll be confronted by bellicose deniers, but with patience and calm towards those who are attacking us, we hope to reach the others nearby.  

So we’re calling on people to STEP UP AND JOIN THE FRAY!  This is no less than a Call to Adventure to save all life on this planet.  We’ll show you how to do it by organizing “meetups” in your town to create groups to go to the rallies and start vibrant, active campaigns in your area.  We have precious little time, but our cause couldn’t be more awesome.

So f***ing JOIN US!!!  Go to our website (PissedOffPolarBears.com) and see how to start a MeetUp in your town.  Donate funds so we can take our actions to senate rallies nationwide! 

We need your help.  We need your involvement.  We need it now.  Contact us directly to become part of our well-planned strategy!

petethepissedoffpolarbear@gmail.com

polly@pissedoffpolarbears.org



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Hello!

Hello!  We are The Pissed-Off Polar Bears, and we want to get everybody on our side to stop the man-made climate catastrophe before it's too late!  (in other words, NOW!)  

This might seem impossible because no one's been able to do anything about it, but after months of reading up on Gene Sharp's books about Nonviolent Struggle, we believe that with an effective nonviolent strategy massive shifts can be created in public opinion and that this can happen in a hurry!  

We're also committed to what Serbia's Otpor movement learned, that the most effective weapons are humor and enthusiasm.

We just got back from The Republican National Convention in Tampa and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, were we introduced Pete the Pissed-Off Polar Bear to people in the streets and did many actions, including The Going-Away Party for FLORIDA! and our 8 Day Hunger Strike Against Global Warming: A Taste of Things to Come: Famine Practice!  

Now we're focused on the American Political Campaigns, where we intend to help get as many candidates elected who understand the urgency of this crisis.  Our main focus is on electing a president who "gets it" (Obama) and electing Senate candidates who will ratify an international climate treaty.

We intend to use MeetUp.com and political rallies to recruit other activists.  

Much more to follow!  Join us!

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