Pete Reacts to the Climate Organizations' Presidents' Day Protests: Can't You Find a Better Target Than Obama's White House?

Perhaps you’ve heard the news that the climate organizations this weekend are protesting outside the White House. 

To me, this is like whales protesting the Sea Shepherds!  I mean, the president has come out swinging in his second inaugural address and State of the Union in favor of sweeping climate action. 

Now, some will say they’re doing it for maximum visibility.  No!  They announced this in November, and probably were planning it way longer.  They just have an inability to change their plans.

A young environmentalist once told me it took six months to plan an action.  Bullshit!  Bill McKibben could get thousands of people to do something next weekend if he asked. 

And it’s not like, having asked all these people to come to DC, they have no other targets.  Why not go after the people who have been the biggest obstacles to doing something about the climate?  Go to those Koch brothers’ funded think tanks that are spreading all the disinformation!  You’re not gonna get on TV but, news flash, you’re not gonna get on TV at the White House either!  But at least you’ll be going after the real culprits.  

But if you really want to get on TV, start protesting the major networks, who still aren’t reporting on these huge things.  I mean, yesterday it came out that only a fifth of the sea ice remains from 1980 levels!  This is a gigantic story, with much more long term importance than anything, but the media isn’t reporting it.  So protest the networks, hammer away at the networks!  Maybe they’ll cover you, maybe they won’t, but, start targeting who’s really keeping climate awareness from happening!

The thing about these climate organizations that keeps them from being a movement is they still use “organization think”.  Organizations think it takes six months to plan an action.  Well it doesn’t!

And you’ve gotta be able to react to a changing political landscape.  Last summer all the extreme weather provided a great opportunity for the organizations of the "movement" to really make political hay in the coming elections, but they didn’t do a damn thing! 

Now you’ve got the president standing up to do something about this, and these organizations are still protesting him like nothing has happened over the last month.  Like he was Romney or something!  And if you look forward at what seems to be on the agenda for these organizations this year, it appears to be just more of the same!  They made all these plans of what to do this coming summer before Obama presented them with this golden opportunity.  So do they react to this golden opportunity?  No!  They’ve already made plans! 

What the hell?!

There’s a thing called rapid response and unless these organizations tap into the concept we’re not going to be able to give the president the citizen action that he needs.

Anyway, climate organizations: Throw away your game plans and react to the new reality.  It might just save the planet.

- Pete the Pissed-Off Polar Bear


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The Need for a Phased Strategy and Cause Consciousness

        Day 6 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who is serious about stopping climate change. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Sharp:  “Nonviolent action…participants are able to advance their cause in proportion to the degree that the opponent’s desire and ability to maintain the objectionable policy are weakened, and that the nonviolent group is able to generate the will and power to give it the internal strength  to effect the change.  The skillful choice of the point of attack is important in this connection.”

         We Pissed-Off Polar Bears saw the 2012 election, on the heels of this disastrously hot summer, as a breathtaking opportunity to get a lot of people talking about climate change and demanding action.  We considered an international treaty to be the best, fastest framework for change (still do), so we wanted to elect as many climate-friendly senators as possible to ratify such a treaty.  The rest of the movement did not show up for the fall campaigns at all, so our strategic thinking was for naught.

         Bill McKibben, in fact, started his Do the Math campaign the day after the election.  As best as I can tell, the divestment campaign he’s calling for are designed to hurt industry’s bottom line (although some doubt that it will have that effect), and to attack a key fossil fuel weakness: they’re jeopardizing young people’s entire futures.  This could, in fact, weaken industry’s ability to maintain the objectionable policy by rousing a lot of protest on campuses across the country.

Sharp:  “The planners choose the point of attack…which symbolizes the “evil” which is least defensible by the opponent and which is capable of arousing the greatest strength against it.  Success in such limited campaigns will in turn increase the self-confidence of the actionists and their ability to move effectively toward the fuller achievement of their larger objectives as they gain experience.”

         We Pissed-Off Polar Bears had a “staged campaign” in mind, but we couldn’t get past the first hurdle, getting the movement on it’s feet, so we’re back to square one:  How to get a movement up and at ‘em.  Whether McKibben or Gore or any other organization in the movement has a staged campaign in mind is unknown to me.  It would actually help the movement quite a bit if they could come out with an overall plan.  I, for one, am not comfortable just assuming that they are with the fate of the world at stake.  They haven’t had one before now, why should we assume they’ve got one now?

Sharp:  “It is necessary to publicize the facts, the issues and the arguments advanced by the nonviolent group…The need for such a period of motivational preparation has been long recognized as important to a well-supported and sustained nonviolent movement.  For example, in 1769, in correspondence with George Washington…his neighbor James Mason argued it would be necessary to publish ‘something…to warn the people of the impending danger and to induce them to the more readily and cheerfully to concur in the proper measures to avert it.'”

         Here’s where Bill McKibben and Al Gore have done a better job than anyone else in the movement.  Still, though, as a society we’re a long way away from completely coming to grips with how bad climate change could be. It’s very important that this movement does a much better job of publicizing the worst-case scenarios, which most Americans are completely unaware of (because they get no air-play), and which happen to be highly plausible, by the way.

Sharp:  “Inform the public in general of the grievances, encouraging people to feel that nonviolent action is needed to correct them, and finally to enlisting participants for the coming struggle.  A very important part of this activity is aimed at arousing the feeling that something can and ought to be done.”

         People who think that the president will handle it don’t understand how little political will there is to implement something on a scale that will be necessary to really make a dent in the advance of climate change. Nonviolent action, in the streets on a massive scale, is the only thing that will create that kind of political will. 

Sharp:  “A properly conducted journal can be of immense help in such a campaign…’Cause consciousness’ must be placed on quality rather than speed or quantity, and strict efforts must be made to avoid exaggerations, distortions, or falsehoods.  Neither should feelings of hatred or intolerance be aroused…’Many people are only looking for an excuse not to support the movement.’”

         With the need for action on climate change being so urgent, it’s tempting not to put anything before speed, but nonviolent action is most effective because it can work so quickly.  Remember what Ivan Marovic of Otpor said, “If it is carefully planned, by the time they start, everything is over in a matter of weeks”.  

CH   

Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action.  You can order it HERE.

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Homework for a Movement: Know the Science, Know the Worst-Case Scenarios, and Know Your Demands

         Day 5 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who is serious about stopping climate change. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Sharp:  “Careful planning and preparations are essential.  Gandhi’s careful attention to detail in laying plans for satyagraha and in solving organizational problems has been acknowledged as one of the reasons for his effectiveness.”

         Satyagraha was what he preferred to call his particular brand on nonviolence, instead of passive resistance.  “Passive resistance,” he wrote, “does not necessarily involve complete adherence to truth under every circumstance. Therefore it is different from satyagraha in three essentials: Satyagraha is a weapon of the strong; it admits of no violence under any circumstance whatsoever; and it ever insists upon truth. I think I have now made the distinction perfectly clear."

Sharp:  “Few things can weaken such a movement as much as the revelation that the actionists did not really know the facts nor have accurate information on the situation they were complaining about.”

         This has become the prized tactic of the climate deniers.   As long as there is a shred of doubt about what’s causing climate change, whether it’s responsible for any particular weather event, or how bad global warming can be, they will throw that in the activists’ faces to make us look bad.  It’s a real quandary for us because no one knows how bad climate change will be or when exactly it will really kick in, there are too many variables for anyone to know.

         The activist must be as informed as she can be (the climateprogress website has a good overview here), but she also can’t let the scientific uncertainties keep her from being active.  That’s what they want us do to.  To me, we need to know the worst-case scenarios and stick resolutely to them.  Because, again, no one knows. 

The Japanese built the Fukushima reactor to withstand an 8.3 earthquake, the one that hit was 9.0.  The sea walls were built to hold back 30 feet of water, but the quake dropped coastal sea level by 6 feet, so the walls were too short.  If you don’t prepare for the worst-case scenario, nature will overwhelm you in a hurry.

         So, admit that no one knows, but be adamant that its foolish to underestimate just how bad climate change can be.

Sharp:  “After the information has been gathered by investigation or other means, the widest possible publicity is to be given to the facts of the case, the grievances, and the aims of the nonviolent group.”

         Quick, what exactly is the worst-case scenario for climate change?  When could it kick in?  We need to put together and widely distribute a look at those worst-case scenarios.  Until we do, no one will understand what we’re so worked up about.

Sharp:  “Representatives of the nonviolent group will make clear their minimum demands…Once the demands are set, it is generally recommended that they be kept unchanged during the struggle.”

         I think the movement needs to agree to a uniform set of demands, so we all know exactly what we’re demanding.  James Hansen, the scientist with longest-running visibility about climate change, has recommended a world-wide six percent reduction of CO2 each and every year.  Sounds good.  He also says we need to initiate massive campaigns to re-forest the planet and plant new grasslands, so that needs to be a part of it too.  But it’s tough to find his prescription easily online.  It shouldn’t be.  It mustn’t be if we’re going to do this.  What are we demanding of our president and world leaders?  This should be easy for every activist to find.

        And there can’t be any wiggle room here.  In his excellent book Eaarth, Bill McKibben talks about the oft-cited notion that "you can’t let perfect be the enemy of good”, then makes the point that when it comes to solving the climate catastrophe, perfect is the only solution that will be strong enough to save us.

        

CH   

Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action.  You can order it HERE.

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Power Shifts in Nonviolent Movements are a Roller Coaster Ride

            Day 3 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who is serious about stopping climate change. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Sharp:  “The variations in the respective power of the contending groups [in nonviolent conflict} are likely to be more extreme, to take place more quickly, and to have more diverse consequences…The nonviolent group may, by it’s actions and behavior, control the increase or decrease in the relative strength of the opponent group.”

         That’s why you do nonviolent struggle.  It’s obvious by now that the conventional political activism route has had zero effect upon the power of the fossil fuel industry and their allies.  If you want to seriously make an impact, you have to be willing to go “all-in” with a completely different technique.  I think Bill McKibben is well-poised to do this.  His 350.org supporters always astound him with their tremendous response to his calls-to-action. But he and his lieutenants don’t seem to have broken completely free of the regular political activism model.  In their Do the Math presentation they asked for everyone to text them so that then they could reach out to us when needed, but only with the promise that that they won’t be annoying about it.

         I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t be worried about annoying us.  The fossil fuel industry is what annoys us, we’ll do anything you ask, so don’t hesitate to ask as often as is needed!  And if you don’t ask often enough you’re probably not doing enough.  Don’t hold back on our account, remember how astounded you always are and give us some credit!

Sharp:  “The conflict is therefore not one between two clear-cut groups of fixed composition and strength.  Instead the  power of both groups varies…The strength of the nonviolent group will be strongly influenced by the people who are actually carrying out the action…If they participate fully, and persist despite the punishments meted out to them, the nonviolent movement is likely to be strong."

         The struggle group needs to be fully committed.  The leaders and the participants.  It’s actually a sin to be shy about "annoying" us.

Sharp: “In a given nonviolent campaign the active participants are usually a relatively small percentage of the whole population…The attitudes and activities of that wider population associated with the nonviolent struggle are, however, highly important: its approval or disapproval of the nonviolent campaign may influence the morale and hence the behavior of the active participants.  If sympathetic, the wider group may provide funds, facilities, and supplies, take less dangerous symbolic actions of support, or provide new volunteers.”

         This is a big problem for the movement.  While a majority of the population at large gives lip-service to the problem of global warming, very few think it’s worth getting worked up about.  Our peers don’t seem all that concerned.  To them, we seem a little crazy, misguided, or even unrealistic.  Right now I’d argue that this is our opponent’s greatest source of strength.  As long as the wider population is largely unmoved by climate change, industry's strength shall remain unchallenged.  Awakening the wider population is job one.

Sharp:  “The importance of national and world opinion to the outcome of the struggle varies considerably and can be highly exaggerated.  Such opinion may…influence the morale of the respective groups, and hence the outcome of the conflict.”

         In our conflict world opinion will play a key role.  True, world opinion will not factor as importantly as does American public opinion toward creating political action in this country, but this is a global problem and will require global action.  We need the citizens of the world on our side.  We need them to be every bit as active in pushing their governments to act as we must be here.

CH   

I’m including little snippets, but if we’re going to break the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold upon our government's climate  policy, you need to read Gene Sharp’s stuff.  Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action. You can order it HERE.

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To Make the Climate Movement Great, We Need to Cast Off Our Fear

Day 2 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who wants to help save our life-support system. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Sharp:  “Nonviolent action is not a safe means of struggle; there is no such thing.   People are liable to be hurt and to suffer in various ways, including economic loss, physical injury, imprisonment, and even death….There are, of course, risks in passivity.”

         Like, for instance, having the world overheat to the point that rivers run dry and civilization can’t feed itself.

Sharp: “A high degree of courage is required of nonviolent actionists.”

         There are those in the movement who think we can win with “slacktivism”.  That somehow by clicking “like” on a facebook page people are doing their bit to help defeat the forces of industry.   These people are steeped in the old paradigms activists have been using, unsuccessfully, for the past thirty years.  Until people really start putting themselves on the line, this movement will continue to be ineffectual.

Sharp:  “The coward seeks to avoid the conflict and flees from danger, the nonviolent actionist faces the conflict and risks the dangers involved in pursuing it honorably.  ‘Cowardice is impotence worse than violence,’ concluded Gandhi.

“The nonviolent actionist must have confidence in the right and strength of his cause, in his principles, and in his technique of action.”

         That should not be hard, when you’re attempting to save the world.

Gandhi:  “The Government takes advantage of our fear of jails.”

         In America, businesses refrain from hiring people who have any kind of a criminal record.  Think of it, fighting to save the world can give you a “criminal” record.  We cannot be afraid of that! We can not let a system designed to do something else work against our saving the future for everyone, including the very businesses that supposedly won’t be hiring us. 

In his Do the Math tour, Bill McKibben correctly pointed out that older Americans, especially tenured professors, can be the first ones to be arrested, jail fodder, as it were.  But younger Americans can make a great statement by fearlessly being willing to risk jail.  During the Freedom Rides, Mississippi’s jails became flooded with idealistic young people from all over the country who flocked to the state to take on segregation laws, until Mississipi’s system couldn’t handle it anymore and the Freedom Riders won a change in the unjust laws.  During the Otpor struggle, it became a point of pride to be arrested, as it was in Montgomery, Alabama, during the bus boycotts.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:  “Those who had previously trembled before the law were now proud to be arrested for the cause of freedom.”

We can’t be afraid of jail guys, just remember to be nice to the police, we’re fighting for their futures too.

Sharp:  “Gandhi repeatedly emphasized the importance of this inner psychological change from fear and submission to fearlessness and self-respect as a necessary prerequisite of real political freedom… Gandhi wrote: ‘We have to dispel fear from our hearts.’…Also, participation in nonviolent action often seems to lead to a loss of fear….

         “Courage in this technique is not simply a moral virtue; it is a practical requirement…Courage is required if the nonviolent struggle is to…lead to the increasing strength of the nonviolent group and an undermining of the opponent’s power.”

Rachel pointed out in her Save Face or Save the Planet post that the biggest roadblock we in the movement face is simply putting ourselves out there, for the world to see, as very visible activists.  That does take courage. Don’t hide behind “slacktivism”.  Get fearless and get active.

CH   

I’m including little snippets, but if we’re going to break the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold you need to read Gene Sharp’s stuff.  Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action. You can order it HERE.

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Chris Parenti’s Excellent Rx to Save the Planet

         How did I miss THIS?  What was I doing on November 29th?  Rachel and I have been lone voices in the climate wilderness that expressed doubts about Bill McKibben’s battle plan from his Do the Math tour.  Nothing against Bill McKibben, who is rightfully revered in this movement, but it’s our planet too, and if we feel like his big plan will fall short, we feel compelled to differ.

Apparently Chris Parenti feels the same way.  In this excellent article Parenti points out serious flaws in McKibben’s plan, but also comes up with a very impressive plan of his own.  First of all, he points out that in the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency decision, the laws are already in place to start fixing the problem immediately.  President Obama’s EPA is sitting on 30 rules it must issue as a result of that decision.  As Parenti points out, “the (climate) movement has not pressured for action on this front.”  (Note to Chris Parenti: we weren’t even aware of said decision, but, as part of the movement, the Pissed-Off Polar Bears will see what we can do to pressure for action.)

Parenti continues: “Another tool that the government could use is to reorient government procurement away from fossil fuel energy, toward clean energy and technology -- to use the government's vast spending power to create a market for green energy. After all, the government didn't just fund the invention of the microprocessor; it was also the first major consumer of the device. For most of its first three decades of activity, IBM-- which lead the creation of computers -- got more than half of its business from federal contracts.

‘In other words, government consumption (not just its R&D investment) is a powerful force that has created whole markets and new technologies.

“Elsewhere I have called this strategy the Big Green Buy. Consider this: Altogether federal, state and local government ("total government expenditures") constitute more than 38 percent of our GDP….

“A redirection of government purchasing toward wind, solar power, etc., plus robust action by the EPA - that is, imposition of a de facto carbon tax (if you emit too much you pay a fine) -- would create massive markets for clean power, electric vehicles and efficient buildings, and would simultaneously drive private investment toward that market.

“This strategy -- call it cap and buy -- could and should happen at the state and local level as well. I hope that 350 campaigners and others will add these ideas to their strategy. Activists can pressure their universities, churches and towns, as well as their state and local governments to buy clean power and electric vehicles, retrofit buildings for efficiency, and pressure the federal government to allow the EPA to do its job and enforce the clean air act, very vigorously.

“Let's be honest. The only force on earth that can really control Exxon is the U.S. government.”

         Well done, Chris Parenti.

CH

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Before You Start a Nonviolent Struggle, Read Your Gene Sharp

It’s amazing how few climate organizations have read Gene Sharp, therefore it’s also no wonder so many of them are so clueless.  Nonviolent movements have a great history.  They haven’t all been successful, but considering that virtually all of them were making things up as they went along, it’s astonishing how successful these movements have been.

Some 50 years ago Gene Sharp dedicated his life to studying nonviolent struggle groups, and he’s amassed an incredible body of knowledge regarding just how these groups have been able to succeed and what tactics they’ve used.  His pamphlets have helped train not only nonviolent struggle groups, but also were instrumental in helping tiny Baltic states with histories of being occupied draft into their constitutions methods designed to make their nations more unconquerable through noncooperation.

Next summer in Turkey, 350.org will be training youth from around the world in how to successfully create a movement.  In Sharp’s latest book, Self-Liberation (read it yourself here), he and his assistant Jamila Raquib note that “groups that received…lectures, courses and workshops have remained themselves unable to plan grand strategies for their conflicts.  Those groups have usually been unable even to to prepare strategies for smaller limited campaigns intended to achieve modest goals.”

(I recognized I’ve been a little hard on Bill McKibben and 350.org of late, but we’re running out of time to SAVE THE WORLD, and if I see them moving too slowly or proposing things that people with experience say doesn’t work, I will call them on it.  In McKibben’s Do the Math presentation, he includes a film clip of Van Jones saying McKibben's activists “did not come to Washington to pull the president down, but they did come to push him to be who he said he could be”.  I’d say we Pissed-Off Polar Bears have the same attitude toward McKibben, we’re rooting for him, and pushing him as best as we can to be a more effective leader.)

The analysis in Self-Liberation continues “The training the trainers approach is highly questionable for advanced purposes…this approach trivializes the amount of knowledge needed by a person who attempts to plan strategies. It also assumes that the necessary knowledge and understanding can be successfully trained verbally twice and then applied in strategic planning.”

What does work?  “Careful study of printed presentations and analyses…Printed materials can be studied slowly when needed, repeated, and reviewed…Significant study is required of selected printed studies of the operation of nonviolent struggle and the analyses of its potential…wide dissemination and study of the recommended public texts on nonviolent action is encouraged.  Such wide dissemination and study can counteract any possible tendencies toward elitism…This alternative route to knowledge, if followed carefully, should eventually enable persons and groups to become capable of self-reliantly preparing a grand strategy for a major conflict.”

So buy your Sharp and read it, all of it.  It’s thousands of pages and his writing doesn’t always jump off the page, but the ideas are sound and we’ve got a world to save, so do it!  

In the coming weeks and months, I will share stuff I’ve highlighted from reading his canon, not as a substitute, but hopefully as inspiration for you to buy the books yourself!

CH

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My Favorite Movement – Part 1

At his Do the Math tour, Bill McKibben talks about how people need to engage in “the hard work” of organizing and that it will be "kind of a slog…the most important slog ever”.

Who wants to sign up for a slog?

Besides, we need to push governments to act on climate change as soon as possible, WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR A SLOG!

You want to build a real movement?  Look to Otpor, the Serbian movement that started with 8 students in a coffee shop and ended less than two years later with the ousting of a dictator.

They were “the only movement in Serbia that tried to make political activity light, hip and fun,,” writes Tina Rosenberg in her excellent book Join the Club.  Said Otpor activist Slobodan Homen “For us it was a great party all the time.”

Here’s a passage from Join the Club: 

“Otpor’s leaders realized that to keep volunteers happy, they needed to feel responsible and important, that their work and achievement really mattered.  They also needed to be constantly busy, not sitting around and waiting for instructions from above.  So while the central organization set overall strategy, each cluster decided how to carry it out and how to best use local talent.  Volunteers were trained in Otpor methods and the principles of nonviolent struggle and then set loose to be the movement in their towns or neighborhoods.  It was…an animal with no central brain; each finger contains the whole idea….

“Activists had to only follow two rules.  Every Otpor action had to be aimed at Milosevic.  And it had to be nonviolent….  Follow the two rules and anything was permissible….

“You could write your own script for street theater, create whatever props you needed, and stage any action, no matter how goofy.  You could design your own leaflet and propose designs for more expensive-to-print stickers and posters, which would receive serious consideration from the marketing team.  You could put up stickers and posters wherever you wanted.  You could recruit anyone you wanted and organize your high school the way you wanted.  ‘If you were anti-Milosevic and nonviolent, you could go naked with “Otpor’ painted on your chest and we wouldn’t denounce you, we wouldn’t say you weren’t Otpor.’ Said (co-leader) Milja Jovanovic.  ‘Our job was to say yes,’ said Stanko Lazendic, one of Otpor’s leaders in Novi Sad.

“If you wanted to, you could become a hero.  You could be an Otpor spokesperson and appear in all the opposition media, or you could…wallpaper your neighborhood and run from the police, heart pounding.  If you didn’t run fast enough, then you would be arrested – but when you finally got out of the police station late at night, a crowd of supporters would be cheering you and you could get your picture in the paper for all your friends to see the next day.

“You were never a part of anything, and you feel all of a sudden that you’re part of something.”

Slog schmog!  Let's make the Climate Movement a PARTY!


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Climate Monday - The Need for an EVERY DAY Movement

In November of 2010, a climate ally of mine went to the fantastically-named (NOT!) "Pricing Carbon Conference" in Connecticut. The usual leaders of the climate movement were panelists, and over a long weekend conference-goers were continually hammered with just how bad this looming catastrophe will be.

On Sunday afternoon questions were opened to the audience, and a young woman got up and said "I get it!  I can see how serious this is!  I'm ready to do whatever it takes to stop this!  But what can I do?  Where can I go?  Where can I go MONDAY?"

The panelists had no answer.

This movement will never get anywhere unless people start devoting themselves to this FULL TIME.  Lots of people can--retirees, young people who haven't yet joined the workforce or who have parents who can support them (don't scoff, the 8 leaders of Serbia's Otpor, who led a movement that overthrew a dictator, were all twenty-somethings who were supported by their parents during the two-year struggle), unemployed and under-employed people, professionals who can take a sabbatical, etc.

Even if, like most people, you can't work on this full-time, you can devote evenings and weekends to the cause!

Nothing is more important, guys!  Let's not look back on this in the decades to come (which should be increasingly dire if the climate continues to precipitously unravel) and think "What was I thinking?!"

Otpor's leaders decided that they had to do this full-time.  They also quickly learned there always had to be something to do or people would stop showing up.  So as a movement we should appreciate what they were able to accomplish and learn from their success!

There's much to be done, of course, but it's all doable and there are templates out there (which I'll be sharing in future posts) that will help us pull this off.

But don't think you can just sit back and wait for President Obama or Bill McKibben to do this.  Part of why they're not pushing for immediate action is they require a vibrant and active movement to make change happen, and we haven't got that yet.  So YOU have to get serious and take matters into your own hands!  Open up your home, find a donated office space, join or create a MeetUp group, or whatever, to start a local nonviolent campaign where activists can create a kick-ass community where there's always something to do and people are always pushing nonviolently to save our futures.

So hopefully soon, when people ask "Where can I go and what can I do?", you can tell them "Come to our place, we have plenty of stuff to do!"


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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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Naomi Klein to Bill Moyers: "If This is an Emergency, We Have to Act Like it"

Last night Naomi Klein sat down with Bill Moyers for the first half hour of Moyers and Company.  The whole piece is worth watching, and the transcript is included with the link, but the definite take-home of the segment is Naomi's summation:

"I don't mean to beat up on the big environmental groups, because they do fantastic work. But I think that part of the reason why public opinion on this issue has been so shaky is that it doesn't really add up to say to the public, you know, "This is a huge problem. It's Armageddon." You know, you have “Inconvenient Truth.” You scare the hell out of people. But then you say, "Well, the solution can be very minor. You can change your light bulb. And we'll have this complicated piece of legislation called cap and trade that you don't really understand, but that basically means that companies here can keep on polluting, but they're going to trade their carbon emissions. And, you know, somebody else is going to plant trees on the other side of the planet and they'll get credits."

And people look at that going, "Okay, if this was a crisis, wouldn't be we be responding more aggressively? So wouldn't we be responding in a way that you have, we've responded in the past during war times, where there's been, you know, that kind of a collective sense of shared responsibility?" Because I think when we really do feel that sense of urgency about an issue, and I believe we should feel it about climate change, we are willing to sacrifice. We have shown that in the past. But when you hold up a supposed emergency and actually don't ask anything of people, anything major, they actually think you might be lying, that it might not really be an emergency after all. So if this is an emergency, we have to act like it."

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Naomi Klein's Message to the "Do the Math" Tour

Naomi Klein couldn't attend the event at UCLA on Sunday (she has a newborn son on her hands), but she prepared a brilliant message delivered to the crowd via a video feed.  Here's a transcript of the second half of her message:

"Again and again we've seen popular movements rise up to fight climate change.  We all get fired up and we start to recycle and we start to bicycle and we work like crazy to elect politicians who promise to build an economy based on green jobs and to pass comprehensive energy reform.  And we invest our hopes in big environmental summits in Rio or Copenhagen.  Again and again, over the past two and a half decades, we have mobilized to make individual changes and demand systemic ones.  And again and again this movement has somehow lost momentum.  Petered out.  

"Why is that?  It's not because deep down in our collective unconscious we really have some sort of death wish.  The problem is that our profound desire to protect life on Earth is a direct threat to Exxon and Shell's desire to remain the most profitable companies in, as Bill (McKibben) puts it, 'the history of money'.  Their stock price is based on always having in reserve as much as they have in production.  And that means the very thing we must do to meet the climate challenge, stop digging, is the very thing they cannot contemplate without the staring in the face of their own demise.  

"And by the way, it's not just corporations.  Entire countries, the ones that heavily depend upon oil revenues, end up waging a wholesale war on truth -- attacking scientists and environmental groups -- simply because the truth challenges their economic paradigm.  Faced with such a serious threat to their bottom line, these forces fight like they mean it.  Every time the climate movement has gotten its act together, the fossil fuel interests have sent powerful lies into the culture and bankrolled their endless repetition--that climate change is a hoax, that climate action will destroy the economy, that you have to choose between good jobs and a healthy planet.  They've bought our politicians and blanketed our airwaves.  They have attacked our movement from all sides.  They have defamed us, infiltrated us, and tried to buy us off.  In short, they have behaved as if they're at war, because they are.  We really do want an end to their business model.  Not because we hate them, but because our survival depends on it.  It depends on keeping 80 percent of their proven reserves in the ground.  

"It's our side that's been kidding itself.  For a long time the environmental movement behaved as if climate change was the one cause that didn't have an enemy.  That it was just a matter of getting the information out or finding the right technical fix and then everyone would realize that we're all in this together.  But here's the thing: We do have an enemy.  We have a few of them actually.  The good news is we know exactly who they are.  And as of right now, we're going after them precisely where it hurts them most.  Remember this moment.  This is when we got serious." 

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McKibben Issues a "Call to Adventure" on his Do The Math Tour

Sunday night we attended Bill McKibben's Do the Math Tour in Los Angeles.  We were happy to be there, and liked what we heard, including McKibben issuing this Call to Adventure:

"There's really no more important place that you all could be right now.  Very few human beings ever get the chance to say "I'm doing the most important thing I could be doing at this minute.  But if you join in this fight - as you join in this fight - you will be able to say that and it will be absolutely true.  (Climate change) is the biggest thing human beings have ever done... and so standing up to it is the biggest thing human beings can be doing."

We absolutely agree.  This isn't some ordinary issue we decided to get riled up about.  This isn't some "in a perfect world" ideological cause we're making a stand about.  This is about protecting everyone's LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM before it collapses completely.  

In the words of scientist Tim Flannery, "in the years to come this issue will dwarf all the others combined, it will become the only issue."  

That's it.

We need all hands on deck for this, because nothing, EVER, has been this important. 

CH


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