Novel and Brilliant Street Theater Would Translate to Climate Protests PERFECTLY!

I love flashmobs and I love Improv Everywhere.  They flooded into a Manhattan Best Buy, 87 people wearing blue polo shirts and khaki pants, the standard outfit of Best Buy employees.  The store manager called the police but the cop said "I'm not going to arrest them for wearing blue shirts and khaki pants".  They also got 207 people to freeze in place in Grand Central Station for five full minutes, only to then causally unfreeze and go about their business.  As that was happening, a bystander speculated "I think it's a protest".

It wasn't but why not do protests that way?  We Pissed-Off Polar Bears conjured up our "Going Away Party for FLORIDA!" at the RNC and a "fully-catered" hunger strike at the DNC called "A Taste of Things to Come: Famine Practice!".  It ended up being just me and her at both events, but imagine how great it would have been if more activists had been willing to have more fun with their protesting?

When I first became a climate activist I was very big on creating autonomous "dens" all over the country, where activists could come up with their own ideas.  My climate partner at the time chafed at the idea, but I still think it's the right way to go.  Not all ideas out there will be great, but if more people are creating more ways to protest, we're bound to come up with some great stuff.  The Otpor movement in Serbia was big on this, people could do any protests they wanted as long as the protests were targeted at Slobodan Milosevic and as long as the protests were nonviolent.  We could do the same thing, requiring nonviolent actions, but substituting Milosevic with the fossil fuel industry and the climate deniers that keep them propped up.

You got an idea?  You don't think the climate movement is doing enough?  Come up with your own groups and your own actions and send us videotape so we can promote it.  Just be sure your actions are completely nonviolent, which includes not damaging property.  We'd also prefer if they were funny!  Our email is PeteThePissedOffPolarBear@gmail.com.

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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