And what can ClimateProgress do to help?
Many readers tell me of their interest in creating a genuine sustainable grassroots movement — with teeth. That’s not an easy thing, obviously, and would require a tremendous collective effort. But I think a higher fraction of climate hawks read CP than any other blog, and, as Hillel said :
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am ‘I’? And if not now, when?”
[Strangely, I don't think this made the incredible list of favorite quotes from last week's Open Thread.]
UPDATE: In the comments section, Eban Goodstein reposts his Grist piece, “Time for Clean Energy Party?”
ClimateProgress is going to increase its content and presence on the web this year, including a Facebook strategy. So I welcome comments on how we can all work together to create a grassroots movement, and what CP in particular might do.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Personally i dont think it even viable to make a difference this way sure you can make a personal difference but not a major one that has any bearing on the worlds future. Unfortunately we are all tied up with the other 7 billion people on the planet vying for its resources. Tony Blair said of ACC and its solutions that we cannot expect people to give up their cars or change their life styles. What he meant was that we need large scale at source energy changes and this is all that the public want to know or can bear to hear.
Home entertainment is hear to stay and powered by whatever means, so are cars of whatever power source, public transport, aircraft, and stuff. Its time to realise what is really the solution and its gigantic and needs to be argued at the highest levels of politics. For those that are fighting the battle thanks but for the readers of this site who have normal lives and jobs just vote for the greenest party.
Its all we can do.
My thought this morning, spawned from the “where do we go” and “what do I do” discussions, is that we need our Civil Rights Movement equivalents – our lunch counters, buses, and marches – to bring activists together, get attention, and grow the movement. I’m wondering what that might look like. What sort of action would provide a platform for prosecuting those responsible for confusion and delay? Perhaps its blockading coal deliveries.
Buy a beautiful climate hawk pin and wear it on your hat, or put it on your laptop case! Give one to someone you love for Valentine’s Day! Be a climate hawk, not a chicken/dodo/ostrich/goose.
http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/p/climate-hawk-pin.html
I am an Engineer/Plant Manager that became a Pastor/Theologian after a 30 year career in Industry. After 6 years of being a local church Pastor, I, with the support of my wife, have begun a full time prophetic ministry to raise the awareness of the Global Warming Crisis as a critical issue that requires a Faith response. This ministry will be focused on preaching & conducting workshops on the subject of the “Gospel & Global Warming”.
There is a web based portion of this ministry which can be found at http://www.SacredConversations-Detroit.org. It is very early days into this effort but it is our hope to touch people and move them to take action to reduce their Carbon Footprint and to become active advocates for National Policy change to reduce CO2 emmissions as a nation and as a world family of nations.
I was surprised, as an engineer, to find that I had failed to recognize the immediacy of this issue. Once I became aware of the need to educate myself via read books, journals, blogs and other publications, I was shocked to realize that this crisis is not simply a future crisis for my grandchildren to deal with but it is happening right now. The critical actions to reverse this escalating disastor have to be put in place right now not 20-30 years from now.
So how do we go about changing the perspective and the political willpower of the USA?
How do we get a very comfortable people to willingly make sacrifices to their comfort level before they absolutely have to do so?
How do we convince people living around us in the Great Lakes region which will arguably be the last area to suffer direct consequences of Global Warming to act now? After all, so far, the effects of Global Warmingcan be seen as a benefit to the Mid-West. We kind of like having balmy days in November and the earlier start of Spring etc etc.
How do we get people to embrace that our comfortable way of life which is dependent on consuming vast amounts of energy is endangering life as we know it when all around us life looks pretty good right now?
The only answer that I can see is to root the need for a sacrificial response in the Faith based response of to “Love God’ is to “Love Neighbor”.
We shall see in the coming weeks,months and years, if this Faith based approach has any effect on reversing the current escalation of damage that we are doing to this fragile world of ours.
Shalom
Terry
I think part of it would be having something concrete and attainable to do.
Even for those of us who are working to do what we can, it seems a little overwhelming.
What I was thinking was that in addition to educating people and the like, taking direct action in a manner that indicates feasibility is important. The two things I can think of, and I’m still not sure about their feasibility, are getting coal plants to retrofit to enhanced geothermal (if that’s doable without damaging aquifers), and trying to either retrofit an old building, or build a new one for as little as possible, to make a vertical farm somewhere in a city.
Basically find a way to make a self-powered building in a vacant lot or what ever that produces a couple acres worth of produce year round, an doing it without billions of dollars for the extravagant skyscraper plans currently online.
I think getting examples out there so that people realize that it IS within our ability is important, so other methods of action would also be good. Maybe finding a way to install a prototype solar roadway in some rich suburb somewhere or something.
Changing Climate Means Changing Oceans
Listen to the Story on NPR
Talk of the Nation
[47 min 3 sec]
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/21/133117332/changing-climate-means-changing-oceans?ft=1&f=1025
Burning Down the House
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/phillips-southern.pdf
If you want to know more about the conservative politcal agends please read this article.
One simple but psychologically effective method might be to counter all the ridiculous and misinformed comments that follow online articles. If we had a sign-up list where many of regular readers here held themselves accountable to follow at least one online publication (local newspaper in addition?) and comment when climate related and weather related articles appeared. We could create a small smattering of quick paragraph length templates to adjust for use in quick responses to extreme weather events and to typical denier comments that often arise from climate related articles. The result would be that sober, thoughtful, consistent comments of climate hawks would begin showing up everywhere and we’d be accountable. We could use a log-in and check in each week on this site or another to help keep track and hold ourselves accountable.
Joe, here is a link to my Grist article:
Time for Clean Energy Party?
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-03-new-year-new-idea-for-climate-the-american-clean-energy-party
Here is an excerpt:
So what’s the plan? How can we build a powerful clean energy majority in Washington, a stronger majority than the one that didn’t get the job done in 2010?
ACE: the American Clean Energy party
Only a mobilized public has the power to break through the deadly gridlock in Washington. Leading up to 2010, a number of groups tried to build this people power. Grassroots coalitions and organizations including 350.org, Energy Action, 1-Sky, The National Teach-in, and faith-based organizers worked to inspire and mobilize large numbers of Americans. Al Gore’s Alliance pursued media campaigns, signing up over 2 million people onto their listserv. The Green Groups pursued their own efforts to engage their memberships.
These initiatives, successful in staging one-day educational events, did build a wave of momentum. Coupled with the Environmental Defense Fund/U.S. Climate Action Partnership inside game, the movement crested in the summer of 2009, with the passage of the Waxman-Markey bill. However, the national grassroots effort ultimately had little real political traction. Since 2009, the collapsing economy and the rise of the Tea Party moved the debate backwards, with the Republican Party completely abandoning what had been a tentative openness to climate policy.
The national climate movement faced many challenges, but in large measure, it failed at mobilizing Americans behind clean energy politics because it didn’t do politics — it did education. By contrast, what can excite Americans and create sustained grassroots energy is participation in political campaigns. Obama demonstrated this in 2008, building an unprecedented grassroots tidal wave. Obama has since been criticized for squandering the people power he unleashed: Imagine if, in 2009, he had mobilized his army with a call for clean energy legislation?
A clean energy party can move beyond the Obama phenomenon, and broadly tap this grassroots energy. There are millions of Americans — so-called climate hawks — who understand the seriousness and depth of the climate crisis. Climate hawks want to work for political leaders with a commitment to changing the future. They want to do more than participate in C-3 educational campaigns, and email their congressperson. They are looking for a vehicle that can make a real difference. They are ready to give time and money to spreading the gospel of clean energy through participation in dozens of Congressional and Senate campaigns in 2012, 2014, and beyond.
How would ACE work? Simply. Run ACE-endorsed candidates in Democratic and Republican congressional and U.S. Senate primary elections. Most ACE races would be in swing districts — challenging especially dirty energy Democrats in primaries, but also creating space for a clean energy Republican voice.
ACE would be a “single focus” party, endorsing only candidates who pledged to run and govern as “moderate” D’s or R’s (as defined by their district or state) in all areas excepting one. For economic revitalization, jobs, national security, rural development, energy independence, clean air for our kids, climate stabilization, we need a revolution: clean energy!
Why moderate elsewhere? Because clean energy is the defining issue of our time. On all other issues there is time to debate, and room to compromise. But on energy, time has run out. Addiction to fossil fuels is strangling our economy, and impoverishing the planet, and we have only a few short years to act before the window for action will close, forever.
Single focus does not mean single issue. As the battle over Prop 23 showed last fall, clean energy is a winning political formula across the political spectrum, with an extraordinarily positive message and economic vision of the future. By running single focus candidates — otherwise pledging to govern as “moderates” for their state or district — we can prove the power of the clean energy message. We can force Democrats to become leaders, and Republicans to become, once again, open to clean energy policy.
What ACE stands for …
CAIRNS received a lashing of heavy rain with more than 150 millimetres falling in the region in the past 24 hours.
And more heavy rain, strong winds and possible flash flooding is on the way with a monsoonal low likely to turn into a cyclone in the coming days.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/heavy-rain-has-cairns-on-alert/story-e6freoof-1225992965473
First you need a clear workable strategy (with flexibility) but it would be like a political campaign and the goal is to win.
1) Take inventory of who is in and who is not; the starting point (who’s in are climate hawks who are ready for action. Who’s not is everybody else, including environmentalists who are distracted by other issues.)
2) Identify what you want to accomplish clear and specific.
3) Figure out who you want to get (or can get) in your movement and figure out what they need in order to cross the line to participation. In order to be successful you must find common ground among a variety of interests.
4) Develop a broad, focused, flexible strategy that has a clear goal and yield desired results.
5) Create a team to handle different aspects of implementation and ongoing evaluation. This is a challenge of leading and following at the same time.
6) Etc…
Accept money only from individuals in the movement, etc…. Be totally and unquestionable “Grassroots”.
CP with its 40,000 readers ought to be able to help to get something going. Though, I think if it is orchestrated by CAP or CP it could be viewed as just another think tank trying to dress in grass clothing.
There are millions of ideas. We need a few good, appropriate ones that can be projected into something much bigger. And, we all have to agree to get on board.
First you need a clear workable strategy (with flexibility) but it would be like a political campaign and the goal is to win.
1) Take inventory of who is in and who is not; the starting point (who’s in are climate hawks who are ready for action. Who’s not is everybody else, including environmentalists who are distracted by other issues.)
2) Identify what you want to accomplish clear and specific.
3) Figure out who you want to get (or can get) in your movement and figure out what they need in order to cross the line to participation. In order to be successful you must find common ground among a variety of interests.
4) Develop a broad, focused, flexible strategy that has a clear goal and yield desired results.
5) Create a team to handle different aspects of implementation and ongoing evaluation. This is a challenge of leading and following at the same time.
6) Etc…
Accept money only from individuals in the movement, etc…. Be totally and unquestionable “Grassroots”.
CP with its 40,000 readers ought to be able to help to get something going. Though, I think if it is orchestrated by CAP or CP it could be viewed as just another think tank trying to dress in grass clothing.
There are millions of ideas. We need a few good, appropriate ones that can be projected into something much bigger. And, we all have to agree to get on board.
Reefs reeling from Queensland floods
Dr Alison Jones, from Central Queensland University in Rockhampton, has seen first-hand the impact of the floods on corals in Keppel Bay.
“You can’t see anything at all from above,” she said.
“As you take the camera down, it looks like a big brown soupy mess.
“Deeper down the water is a bit clearer and you can see bleached white [coral] colonies appearing out of the gloom.”
Dr Jones checked five islands and found stressed coral around all of them.
“Halfway Island was much worse than North Keppel. It was just dead coral, killed by the fresh water,” she said.
“There wasn’t really a single thing alive.
“There also seems to be some temperature bleaching, believe it or not, from the ocean being warm, which is completely unrelated to the flooding.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/21/3118234.htm
18 dive sites closed to save coral reefs
Up to 90% of coral in the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea has been bleached.
The department chief said he could not say how long the dive sites would be closed but diving activities probably would be banned until the end of the monsoon season in October.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/217417/18-dive-sites-closed-to-save-coral-reefs
Colorado Bob, reading the transcript:
Ira Flatow sounds a little panicky:
“We’re talking about oceans this hour in Washington. And a lot of people are interested, and people just don’t seem to know how to – it’s a large subject to grasp. It’s a big project.
Are we able to handle a big project like this? Or are we just – is this something just beyond us – beyond our abilities? I mean, our abilities to handle a giant project. Let’s – we’ll ask that question to our audience.”
Question from and educator:
“…I’m concerned about creating a generation of eco fatalists. And I’m wondering what message of hope and change the panel would have for students interested in the study of the natural world.”
Eco fatalists?
That’s a new one for me!
This is a question I’ve been obsessed with for months. I suspect the same is true of many people here.
I’ve grudgingly come to the conclusion that the absolute best we can do right now is engage in the info-trench war of combating the lying deniers and wait for The Big Event to happen that scares the spit out of enough people.
I’ve said many times online, including here, that I have no confidence that a “Climate 9/11″ or “Climate Pearl Harbor” would do the trick, and I still stand by that. We’ve already had those events — the 2003 EU heat wave, New Orleans in 2005, Russia and Pakistan in 2010, and now Queensland. We’ll tsk tsk about it, send the IRC a feel-good donation, and never connect the dots as we shop for a new SUV or a home much larger than we need or simply ignore the numerous, obvious, and free conservation steps that surround us.
We need a Climate Hiroshima, something that we can’t ignore, that we won’t let ourselves be fooled by the deniers into thinking was just another “act of God”. It has to be big enough to completely take over the news cycle for weeks to months, with a very high body count, a devastating economic impact, and ongoing human suffering (because that’s what draws the media). Right now, the prime candidate seems to be a collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Shelf, causing a 3.3 meter rise in sea levels, according to the latest estimate. As best I can tell from my reading on the subject, there are signs this is getting closer to happening (movement of the grounding line, etc.), but no one knows if it will cut loose tomorrow or in 100 years. (Watching the current status in Antarctica, it seems we’re getting a little more melt than normal this season. See http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png )
I’ll get hammered for saying this, as I always do, but I’ve concluded that it’s the only thing that will make us change course dramatically and permanently enough to make a difference 50 or 75 years from now. Taking into consideration all the horrible climate news we’ve had lately, including the Hansen-Sato paper, everything else is rounding error.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The female polar bear swam 370 nautical miles for nine days through the open water in the Beaufort Sea. After that, she alternately swam and walked on sea ice for another 970 miles.
By the time the bear returned to the coast near Kaktovik, she had lost her cub and about 22 percent of her weight. Her travails were recorded by scientists who captured the bear after her August-October 2008 journey and published their findings in a peer-reviewed journal in December.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/22/2028178/workshop-addresses-polar-bears.html#ixzz1BmIC9ZKi
This sounds potentially like Transition with Teeth!
Something we are finding with some Transition Initiatives is thatthey are not reaching out beyond the usual suspects i.e. people who already grasp the issues. What is required is ever-more-effective communication of the science. CP does a great job of that, but there need to be similar organisations in all nations. I guess funding is the tricky bit, but that’s always the case – it’s why people do fundraising for a living!
Over here, I’ve added a new post about flooding, both recently and in the late Mesolithic when the last 20m of postglacial sea-level rise occurred. Was this the root of the ancient Welsh legend of Cantre’r Gwaelod, the lost fertile plain beneath Cardigan Bay? No harm in musing….
http://www.geologywales.co.uk/storms/winter1011c.htm
Cheers – John
A good strategy must deal with structural issues.
For example; it is not surprising that a science oriented group would describe the opposition as deniers, because part of the strategy of the opposition is to deny and discredit the science. However, I do not believe that the term denier really represents the core effort of the opposition. A more representative term, and possibly one with broader appeal might be “BURNERS”. This is in line with 1) the intent of the opposition to continue the burning of fossil fuels with as little regulation as possible without regard for the impacts, 2) the effect of such activity in heating the planet to the point where life becomes difficult or impossible, 3) it casts a broader net to maybe include those who by doing nothing are helping to maintain the status quo of the burning and warming, to name a few of its possible meanings.
After reading “Hell and High Water”, I had a kind of revelation about how much damage was caused by Michael Crichton’s book “State of Fear”. It hit me that most of the people I knew who denied AGW got a lot of their misinformation from reading this one bestselling novel that reached an audience of millions.
As a way to counter that, I think a Hollywood blockbuster with a great story that is realistic about the threats of climate change can really get a lot of people on board a grassroots movement. There’s a lot of top movie stars who are really well informed and passionate about environmental issues, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton, Ellen Page, Scarlett Johannson, Harrison Ford, January Jones, etc. I think great storytelling mixed with accurate science and top star power could make a big difference.
I for one don’t like the term ‘renewable energy’ – it’s just not accurate. Windmills, hydro and solar plants etc deliver ‘infinite energy’ (eg, you build one and over time an endless supply of power comes out. So lets use ‘infinite energy’ or ‘endless energy’ or ‘limitless energy’ instead of ‘renewable’.
As for grassroots, we need an umbrella organization with local chapters. Perhaps modeled on Obama’s campaign organization. And it should be focused very specifically.
For now, people can find local orgs if they look. Anyone in Loudoun County VA check out sustainableloudoun.org or ccan.org (which covers the whole chesapeake area). Go to a local meeting and meet actual people and then start doing stuff – not just reading blogs.
Also a couple of billionaire benefactors wouldn’t hurt to offset the Koch brothers!
I’ve seen posts something along the lines of “Real liberals don’t condemn children to death by CO2 and should be relieved that climate change was a hoax…” posted in many blogs, I think by the same person. It’s getting very annoying because he also pretends to be a liberal. How should I deal with this?
[JR: Fundamentally, you can always tell the deniers and the right-wingers because they always frame this as what "liberal" say or what "environmentalists" say or "Al Gore." This is strictly about what the science says. When you understand the science, you understand that it is an established fact that the climate is warming and humans are probably the main cause. It is conservatives who are condemning our children and grandchildren and countless future generations to unnecessary suffering. Always go back to the science. Direct people here or to Skeptical Science.]
Darth, no. Infinite energy would be too easily confused with the theoretical perpetual motion machines that create energy forever with one input of energy. Clean energy is the best word.
Wit’s End @ 14 -
” …I’m concerned about creating a generation of eco fatalists.”
That would be me Me & Lovelock .
Ziyu #19,
Copy & paste their entire post into Google, with inverted commas around it to seek exact matches. If you get multiple results, post the search URL, thereby calling them out for others to see. I had a case some time back where a familiar-looking talking point, over 15 lines long, returned dozens of matches all over the web. The parroting-merchants are especially tiresome.
Cheers – John
To have a meanngful effect, any climate grassroots movement must rapidly grow to critical mass. Given the prevalence of climate denialism, this will be difficult to do organically. I suggest establishing symbiotic relationships with existing organizations that already have critical mass. Two examples are Sierra Club and The Church(es).
The Sierra Club is primarily outdoor activity enthusiasts, with a few who also engage in political activism. While Sierra Club has taken on climate change issues, it has been woefully inadequate. I think Sierra Club is afraid to alienate it’s “moderate” members. A grassroots climate movement can take the bold climate advocacy steps that Sierra Club will not.
A grassroots climate movement should strive to be the NRA of climate issues, without the falsehoods, of course. The NRA is bold and unrelenting in its gun rights advocacy. The Sierra Club is nowhere near the NRA in political effectiveness. A grassroots climate mvement must be as bold and unrelenting as the NRA.
If such a group does arise, it can court Sierra Club members to take stronger political action, hopefully with the full cooperation of the Sierra Club.
The limitation is the Sierra Club’s relatively small membership (700,000 to NRA’s 4 million). To remedy this, the grassroots movement must gain the support of non-climate activists. One way to do this is by becoming climate change missionaries. We know there is, and will continue to be, climate refugees. The Church is well equipped to do missionary work for religious ends. If we can team up with the Church, or mimic the Church’s missionary role. We can be climate change missionaries.
One specific way to do this is to offer a national or global climate refugee support network, providing homes for climate refugees. Again, we can do this at various degrees of cooperation from churches.
Ziyu,
TOO funny, this comment at the NPR story Colorado Bob linked to – when I read it I was quite perplexed, until I saw your question #23!
David Nutzuki (mememine69) wrote:
A Plea From A Former Believer. The planet is not dead.
Continued belief in Climate Change’s “death threat of unstoppable warming” is dividing environmentalism, if not all of progressivism too. I can’t look my kids in the eyes anymore and tell them they won’t have kids of their own if they don’t’ start turning the lights off more often and help to SAVE THE PLANET! Issuing CO2 death warrants to our children means we have become the neocons of fear mongering with our Iraq War of lies called Climate Change. Call it a mistake if you like but it isn’t sustainable in voter consensus anymore. We all know it was just an exaggeration that got away on us. I know, it’s hard to let it go. But we have to face reality and know that support is lost and cant’ possibly come back because that would have people hanging onto THE END OF THE WORLD for another 25 years? Let’s remove the CO2 and start anew. Pollution is real. We get it now. Let’s all grow some and face the future challenges of over population, pollution, energy and waste with courage, and not lead environmentalism down the wrong road any further. DROP THE CO2 AND NOTHING CHANGES, except the fear. Let’s stop the fear and stop the lies. System Change, not Climate Change. Signed, Former Believer.
[JR: Yes, the concern troll.]
darth @17 I like sustainable energy
The world’s economies are largely weak right now. Oil prices will be going up… due to peak oil. We’re already facing the economic impacts of climate change. There is no way to get to a sustainable, carbon free economy without money to rebuild the infrastructure. And time.
Power plants have dumped their waste into our atmosphere for free for decades. We got cheap electricity at the expense of our planet.
Every way I look at it is painful. Tax the carbon and require we all pay more for carbon based energy… when people are still losing their jobs and homes? Hard sell, that.
We need a climate hawk government.
We could put together a vocal grass roots movement, but in the end the voters rule. And they vote on what they perceive to be their own best interests… and they rarely have a long view of things.
Collapse. It has happened before, and will happen again. Perhaps we need an organization to take over as systems start to fail?
A thought that I have been playing with is a “Bring Light to Africa” project. Take a chunk of the Fossil fuel subsidies for one year, ($50 billion?), design and build small scale “point of use solar”, (PoU) power system for LED lights and cell phone charging under the Dept. of Defense to be distributed to rural Africa. FREE. All work to be accomplished under War Powers Act. Profits strictly controlled. Military distributed. Construction done in house in America. At ~$500 each, $45 billion, (save $5-billion? for distribution) would put 90 million unites into the hands of the people of Africa and $50 billion into the pockets of America. Not the well lined pockets of BIG MONEY and Swiss bank accounts. Besides that would still leave ~ $20 billion for the Fat Cats to keep them from starving.
This effort would jump start PoU Solar tech, possibly even bring down costs to where I could afford to purchase home power myself. Cell phone coverage in Africa would also go along way to curb African Violence IMO.
Export cohesion, not guns.
I think that at the national level CP should work with other organizations to help remove the institutional barriers to passing climate legislation. We had huge majorities in both the House and the Senate and yet a small minority was able to derail our efforts to pass legislation due to the filibuster and other institutional barriers.
If CP could work to modify or eliminate the filibuster and also work towards reducing corporate influence in politics it would increase our chance to pass national legislation in the future.
In addition I feel that CP should also do what it can to encourage local community efforts. Local level efforts can help build a foundation that will provide support for national efforts when the time comes in the future. We can’t afford to wait and keep pushing only for national and even state level change while ignoring local community efforts. All politics is local and its that level that we can put real pressure on individual representatives and senators to push them to making the right choice when legislation comes for a vote.
2010 Saw Record Greenland Melt
http://climatecrocks.com/2011/01/22/2010-saw-record-greenland-melt/
“It was just an exaggeration that got away on us”
Whew! I’ll go tell my sycamore and pine trees they can stop dying now. What a relief!
BREAKING NEWS:
Canadian Free Press apologize and retract slanderous statements made against Dr. Andrew Weaver by prominent AGW denier Tim Ball:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/32322
Could this mark a turning point in Canadian media coverage?
More here:
http://www.desmogblog.com/canadafreepress-apology-weaver
Scientists are starting to link natural disasters to rising greenhouse gases.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/brazil/110120/climate-change-floods-natural-disasters?page=0,0
Probably? Aren’t you convinced Joe? I am. It’s a simple matter of physics and chemistry. In fact, Dr.Willard Libby (of carbon-dating fame) laid out the case in a straightforward and convincing manner during the very first lecture I attended at university in 1973. 1973! Probably is a weasel word and weasel words put people off. Human beings seem programmed to respond negatively to arguments loaded with caveats and weasel words. Subtlety will not win the day. The accumulated evidence that human activity is responsible for recent warming trends is overwhelming. I’m sure you agree. Overwhelming. That’s what I tell people.
[JR: Just trying to get the original quote accurate.]
Creating a grass roots climate and clean energy movement is one objective I support.
Turning out combative climate and clean energy candidates to run against repugs or do nothing dems is a recipe for disaster.
We can’t divide the dem votes and thereby elect repugs. Third party-three way races are not what we need going into the 2012 election. 22 Democratic Senators are up for reelection (Senator Dorgan announced his retirement)and 10 repug senators are up for reelection.
Our objective between now and Nov 2012 is to HOLD ON TO THE SENATE. Any effort to run Green Party or third party candidates is bordering on political suicide at this dark moment in American politics. We have not begun to take the full measure of what a repug House and Senate would do to our nation.
Lets never forget how Ralph Nader changed the hope that our children might have a future!
John McCormick
What you see is what you get…
What you save is what your kids get…
What you do, counts…
Good news! EPA boiler rules won’t be delayed until 2012!
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70K0VO20110121?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Senior Environment Corp (SEC)! Tap the many retired executives, engineers, etc. who love the environment and still want to use their skills and experience. Design a volunteer program SPECIFICALLY for them such as SCORE for business. http://www.score.org/explore_score.html
Often, the organizing efforts of environmental groups are led by bushy-tailed 24 year olds who want their volunteers to dress up as polar bears and chant “stop global warming” in front of a local Exxon station. (I exaggerate.)
I know at least 6 high level retirees (Yale Law, MBAs in marketing, finance) with years of experience. I think they might join an organization of mostly similar people and work on somewhat challenging higher level tasks (lobbing, media, EE, RE). But, an official organization, well organized, local and national, started or led by a well known senior top dog – Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, etc.
People like a feel good story. Climate Progress’s facebook strategy should be to call for acts from “Sustainable USA” and post them… There are tens of thousand stories of people, communities, gardens, businesses, and towns that are already engaged in solving this problem. Be positive about the advantages that a low carbon and low energy life can produce and be a conduit for those stories. Build the grassroots movement by showing how many are engaged in it already.
I would love to see more social media applications built on generating climate change awareness… Clicktivism is not the panacea answer but I seems like some low hanging fruit that’s not being picked. Like a site that enabled a competition of sorts for the most letters written to editors, media, politicians where people share the letters they’ve written or upload photos of themselves meeting their congressman. This could even be a facebook app, people could have a running point total and it could also provide a checklist of actions and see how their friends (or random others) are doing in friendly competition. The site could serve as a clearing house for flyers and other collateral that people could print out and distribute for points. I actually did some flowcharts with the idea of building this, but alas, I think it’s probably beyond my abilities. One of the ideas is that people would audit each others point generating activity (reading letters, viewing photos) and thereby expose themselves to more info and motivation.
Dear Friends,
The call is for a grassroots movement with “teeth.” I agree and want to add the “teeth” of values articulation. I was deeply moved by a speech by Kathleen Dean Moore recently. She and Michael Nelson edited a book, “Moral Ground, Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril.” Many good, practical ideas there. But key among them was to address issues from the moral ground.
The moral values that apply are values held by all of us, so that people will relate…more easily than to scientific evidence which is also necessary. Thus we must be persistent in bringing values to the debate…in addition to effectively communicating the science. The values approach also can be a more positive, unifying approach.
Moore and Nelson state that the answer to the question “Do we have a moral obligation to take action to protect the future of a planet in peril?” includes these responses:
1. Yes, for the survival of humankind.
2. Yes, for the sake of the children.
3. Yes, for the sake of the Earth itself.
4. Yes, for the sake of all forms of life on the planet.
5. Yes, to honor our duties of gratitude and reciprocity.
6. Yes, for the full expression of human virtue.
7. Yes, because all flourishing is mutual.
8. Yes, for the stewardship of God’s creation.
9. Yes, because compassion requires it.
10. Yes, because justice requires it.
11. Yes, because the world is beautiful.
12. Yes, because we love the world.
13. Yes, to honor and celebrate the Earth and Earth systems.
14. Yes, because our moral integrity requires us to do what is right.
In fact, Joe…. I think you need a trip to Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Vancouver. There are people all over these cities that are envisioning a green city and doing themselves from a grassroots perspective with bikes, community gardens, tool libraries, permaculture, light rail, local food economics, cohousing. I realize this blog is mostly about DC and the politics of big-level solutions, but grassroots is inherently NOT DC. Give some credit to those who have already taken the matter into their own hands.
[JR: Been to all of those places. Local action isn't a grassroots movement -- let alone one with “teeth.”]
Mark Kirk is the new Republican Senator from Illinois. He voted for HR 2454 when he was in the House, but he has not spoken up about climate change lately. Anyone out there in Illinois interested in forming a loose “let’s press Mark Kirk to take a stand for climate change mitigation” network? Look me up in the Math Dept at SIUC or mike_62901 at yahoo.
Here is a letter I just sent him.
Dear Senator Mark Kirk,
I am writing to you about climate change. I understand you voted in favor of HR 2454 the Waxman-Markey Climate Change Bill. I think it commendable that you did so especially considering some of the attitudes in your Party. I hope that as a Senator you will stand up and play a leading role in the Senate and your Party advocating for a science based approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation. You are in a unique position to help set the tone and tenor of the national discussion we need to be having of this and interrelated environmental issues.
I see that you are only on four committees and that these do not include committees that deal with science, energy, or the environment. I hope you will try to get on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, or the Environment and Public Works Committee.
Sincerly,…
—
Here is a link to Senate committees: http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/committees/d_three_sections_with_teasers/committees_home.htm
I think some others hinted at this here already but there are SO MANY DIFFERENT CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS! The fractured nature of this singular cause was not around when I was withe the beginnings of Earth Day.
Look at all of them we have today:
http://www.nrdc.org/reference/environgroups.asp
We need ONE GROUP, to stay focused and directed. Abolish the Sierra Club, and Greenpeace, and this blog, and put it all under one name with one purpose.
And enough writing! We need more action! People like to do stuff, but none of these groups are offering any outlet besides commenting on blog posts or donating money. We have all the information we need so let’s stop posting articles on studies and posting days, dates, and times for protests.
We do not need more funding! How much funds do you need for a web page?
And we do not need a new political party. What the heck do you people think the Green Party has been doing all these years?
A simple platform would start with agreeing WHAT WE NEED TO DO to stop climate change, and there you have your platform.
Some ideas for platform points:
1) An Termination of subsidies to Fossil Fuel Producers and a direct reinvestment of those subsidies to retrofit homes and businesses for energy efficiency.
2) Socialize power companies.
3) Setting a fixed higher price for fossil fuels to make them uncompetitive.
The dire truth, our message, needs to be framed in terms the average person can relate to. If there is one thing every living human cares about it is one’s own health. That is why I use the tobacco/cancer and medical doctor/climate scientist analogies with some success. Even a child can understand the doctor is his friend when he’s sick. When the doctors come back with bad news only a moron would dismiss them as liberals or alarmist scaremongers. I flipped my brother-in-law over the holidays whith such tactical logic and he was a tough nut to crack.
We can cement our knowledge of the scientific inevitability of a destabilizing climate. When more floods come, stronger storms, heat waves and droughts – we will not be surprised, they are predicted and fit the models. The insurance industry knows. Military knows. Serious investors know. And I suspect that even the carbon fuel industry knows. Who is left living in the fantasy world?
In the future, we need to recall that we knew. And we need to remember that specific individuals and corporations and industry sectors and elected officials were willfully ignorant. And today, we need not respect them. And we certainly should do nothing to enable them.
And today we may engage with those who are ignorant, but we must not waste time with those who are willfully ignorant. They are dangerous and crazy. Denialism is a normal psychological reaction to the horrors. It is a response that helps one cope. But with a progressive, worsening situation – it becomes more crazy or it is dropped.
I expect that grass roots realization will happen naturally with change. We need only hold on to the science and history.
In the UK earlier this week we launched the new report on Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs). Invented by the late Dr David Fleming, they are our best hope to produce an equable distribution of fuel as we manage the energy decent to a low carbon future in the face of declining fossil fuel production and global warming. Read more at http://teqs.net/report/
the answer to the question is the same however many times you ask it.
you organize, you train, you fund.
you treat the clean energy economy & the stuff revolution as though they were as important as electing the next bozo in line for a machine-guaranteed seat in the legislature.
bake sales don’t change the world.
—
john mccormick: “Lets never forget how Ralph Nader changed the hope that our children might have a future!”
that’s interesting. i notice that senate democrats effectively blocked the passage of climate action, and the fallback was old laws championed way back when by some lawyer guy.…
The not-so-secret weapon might be to use open and crowd source development, social media and other techniques for dramatic social & civic change, innovation, and entrepreneurship facing climate change head on.
In New York City we are fortunate having Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith who wrote the well-received book “The Power of Social Innovation,” with a foreword by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
Twitter: http://twitter.com/powerofsocinnov
Website: http://www.powerofsocialinnovation.com/
Recently, New York City has been in the process of updating PlaNYC to PlaNYC2030 with 30% emissions reductions by 2030.
This is not nearly enough and an urgent request for a netzeroPlaNYC2020 has been filed with the mayor’s office. The New York Metropolitan region contains 16 million people and is central to the world’s third largest economy.
Achieving netzeroNYC2020 http://twitpic.com/3rsocu will make history http://twitpic.com/3mq7tr & advance civilization!
This has the potential to provide ideas, encouragement, and replicable models for broad dissemination on the city-state scale including many millions of people at a time.
Yes, consolidate or better coordinate environmental groups. #45 CFB has a good point.
Could a few groups merge in order to cut administrative costs, allocate more resources to ground work and gain a higher profile and clot?
Could more groups coordinate their efforts on a specific topic with research, consistent messaging, joint statements (like the EPA letter) and advertising?
In Michigan we have the MEC which coordinates (at least shares communications with) 80 state environmental groups. Our joint anti-coal plant activities are well coordinated with consistent messaging and joint actions.
When last I checked, a friend and I own “greenteaparties.net”
I’ll also email Joe about that.
Dear Joe,
Thank you for suggesting this timely topic. Yes, the movement needs effective teeth! And, yes, Climate Progress can play a huge role in making this happen, for all our sakes.
This topic is far too important and complex to effectively fully cover in one comment, so let me offer some initial thoughts now, then elaborate as appropriate during the remainder of the weekend. Feedback and questions from CP readers are most welcome.
Human nature is not kind to us in dealing with climate change. Climate change is too new to our entire way of processing problems for us to be able to cope effectively—as we’ve painfully seen. As just one example, there’s little inherent sense of urgency to dealing with climate change—it seems so far in the future, and (we hope) far away in terms of impacts. By comparison, humans react most effectively to threats that are clearly life threatening NOW. So let’s try to bridge that gap with what we do.
We in the climate movement need an approach that can be more effective, given the relatively small number of people who understand the reality and urgency of the situation. This is not like the civil rights movement in that sense. At the same time, we need an approach that is as visible, and as hard to ignore, as the marches of the civil rights era. IDEA: Fighting fire with fire, let’s update the idea of the march and make it a DRIVE.
Here’s a brief thumbnail sketch of how it could work, in one very simple variation on an infinitely variable theme: The next time you need to drive somewhere, put a sign in the back window of your car saying something like “Going the Limit for…(fill in the blank with anything, ranging from ‘Eaarth’ to ‘Sane Energy’ to ‘our Troops’).” Next to that sign, or under it, add the message: “ More at http://www.gothelimit.info.” Then, while driving to your destination, drive at about the posted speed limit–always keeping “safety first” in mind for yourself and others.
Now here’s the interesting part. Imagine doing the above on a larger, coordinated basis across the US and around the world, such as 350.org has done on both October 24, 2009, and on 10-10-10 of last year. Imagine the cars being decorated with a variety of colorful messages, always safely displayed, always with “going the limit” as a theme, and always with the central message revealed on the above website. Can you see or feel the teeth?
What would the central message be, as revealed on the “Go the Limit” website, and to the media, and to the key recipient of the message? My message suggestion would be along these lines:
“ President Obama, please break the US energy and climate change gridlock in Washington. We citizens of the world ask that you immediately do everything in your power to develop and implement US energy and climate change policies that are responsive to the science, and to the best interests of citizens, not to the best interests of the fossil fuel industry. We are willing to “go the limit” until you do.”
Clearly the role for CP would be one of greater advocacy for effective implementation of this, or any other, climate movement strategy. Science shows that focus multiplies power. History shows that cooperation multiples effectiveness. Let’s all together now “Go the Limit” to save ourselves from hell and high water.
That’s the basic idea. I’d love to hear constructive criticism, either on CP or offline. You can find contact information, plus a petition to President Obama, at http://www.gwenet.org.
I agree, CFB. There are far too many fragmented groups, with too many paid employees more concerned with hanging on to their own funding base than consolidating and getting something accomplished.
Back when the concern was an endangered species here or there, it was great that different NGO’s got volunteers and did research, but now the entire population of every species on the globe is facing an existential threat so we DO need a global movement.
Of course, to have that, we would probably need a genuine charismatic and selfless leader – a Ghandi, or a MLK, or a Tutu. I had thought that would be the perfect role for Obama, but not so far.
“Personally i dont think it even viable to make a difference this way sure you can make a personal difference but not a major one that has any bearing on the worlds future.”
i disagree. Julian Assange (GLOBAL GUERRILLA: Julian Assange – http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/08/global-guerrilla-julian-assange.html), and Henry Okah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Okah – “Henry Okah is a Nigerian guerrilla leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).[1] MEND has claimed responsibility for attacks on oil companies operating in the Niger Delta, often through the use of sabotage, guerrilla warfare or kidnapping of foreign oil workers…”) provide a couple of examples of how super-empowered individuals who adopt open-source insurgency and systems disruption are able to effect huge global change. a grassroots climate movement may be more effective if it explores some of the emerging tactics of 21st century warfare…
“I’m wondering what that might look like. What sort of action would provide a platform for prosecuting those responsible for confusion and delay? Perhaps its blockading coal deliveries.”
this may help:
JOURNAL: More Thoughts on Coercing Organizational Hierarchies – http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/06/journal-more-thoughts-on-coercing-organizational-hierarchies.html
“Shame (public pressure) and guilt (traditional morality) are useless as tools for regulating behavior within the modern context. A market-based morality dominates in the commercial sector: if you make money doing something, it is good to do. Within non-commercial organizations the vulnerability is more often the concept of a career. Career advancement and continuity dominates all thinking. Methods of correction: Taint the career. Destroy the value derived from financial rewards.”
also:
EMP/HERF devices could be used to simply turn off coal plants or disrupt fossil fuel infrastructure without drawing the attention of conventional improvised munitions/explosives.
“Complete EMP Systems Crated With All Setup Instructions
Sold only to qualified research companies and personnel” EMP150 – 150 Joules, 15 KV, 20 KA (Instructions, by Download – $1.00)……….$8000.00
Qualified researchers may rent (with option to buy) at $2000 + shipping for 60 days — please call or Email us for details.
http://www.amazing1.com/emp.htm
Might be useful rebranding deniers as climate cranks http://bit.ly/hd5zD8
@ climateprogress “the movement will come to be defined — and discredited — by its noisiest cranks and conspiracists” http://bit.ly/bSHl56
There already is a clean energy and environmental party. It’s the Green Party of the United State. Scoff if you want. But, you all know that the Democratic Party is far from progressive. What’s worse, they are dominated by the very same corporate special interests that oppose clean energy and environmental preservation.
So the next time you vote ‘Democrat’ – don’t act surprised when you end up with little or no progress in new energy technologies, and environmental quality.
A Few Concrete Thoughts
More and more people need to become comfortable talking to their friends, families, neighbors, and acquaintances – and just do it, even though it might feel uncomfortable at first. We need to ENABLE such conversations: make them easy and do-able. One or two things would be very helpful for people to have in order to provide moral support and confidence, to give them something to point to, and to give them something that they could actually give to whomever they talk to. One of them is this:
It would be GREAT to have a small paperback book that consists of a full collection of the Position Statements and notable letters from all of the world’s bona fide scientific organizations. You know all of those Position Statements and well-written joint letters (the ones The New York Times never manages to cover!)? They are on the web, but fragmented all over the place. PUT THEM ALL TOGETHER IN A SIMPLE BOOK, Thank You, and distribute the book for free (with the help of funding from concerned organizations, the scientific groups themselves, private donors, and the distribution horsepower of large environmental and political organizations). If I had one of those books for myself, and then five others to give away to friends and neighbors, I’d talk to those friends and neighbors in a heartbeat, with more confidence and with something to actually point to – a prop, so to speak – and part of the “gift” to the person would be the book, to have and keep and (hopefully) read in part. A leave-behind. Having such a book – simple but credible and compelling – would greatly facilitate the willingness of people to have such conversations and would greatly facilitate the effectiveness of such conversations. The collection of scientific organizations is immensely impressive and credible. Worldwide. And the Position Statements and joint letters themselves are reasonably short and (mostly) easy to read. Readers would “get the idea” right away. Each reader could read the statements of the organizations she/he trusts the most. The NAS? The AAAS? The Royal Society? The ACS? Others? Take your pick. The world’s scientists have spoken and are speaking! Here’s a book, with a collection of all of those statements, to prove it.
To be clear, this book doesn’t need – and shouldn’t have – a complete discussion of the science (how global warming works). It should only consist of the Position Statements and joint letters. Also, it doesn’t need – and shouldn’t have – a lengthy showcase introduction by any particular individual. It should get right to the point: the collection. Nor should it be “sponsored” and hyped by any single climate or environmental organization. It’s not about the branding or ego or fundraising of any particular organization. It’s a joint effort – a common effort, an “anyone can do this and help” effort. Anything having to do with branding, or personal hype, or fundraising, or etc. should be banished from this book! The book should simply be the compelling collection of Position Statements and joint letters from all of the world’s leading bona fide scientific organizations.
Perhaps it should simply be dedicated to the people of the world, children, all future generations, all the animals and plants, and to a stable, healthy, and beautiful world.
Starbucks should certainly be one of the organizations to help fund and to distribute this book: at every Starbucks, for free! They say that one of their key aims is to help spread the word about climate change. Well then, this is a great and entirely credible way for them to do it!
More suggestions to come … (later today, or tomorrow).
Be Well,
Jeff
Creating a grassroots movement: Turn religiosity to advantage
Go to:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Special:SeaLevel
Zoom in on Israel.
50 meters of sea level rise puts the Jordan valley under the deep blue sea. Flowing water carves the channel deeper.
The weight of the water causes the East African Rift Valley to resume its activity. [The Jordan river valley is an extension of the East African Rift system.] The Jordan Valley sinks and spreads amid giant earthquakes. Jerusalem is on high ground, but the earthquakes will shake all of the “holy” places to pieces.
“God” will “forsake” us if we allow such a thing to happen. We must stop GW before it happens.
Hey Wit’s End,
No politician can be expected to act on this issue without pressure from the masses. We do not need a leader, we need to all be leaders. How many of you have are willing to make the sacrifices like the satyagraha? Maybe that is what we need, a “green satyagraha”. Or I can picture a massive walk from all points in the United States to D.C.. How many of you are willing to risk your jobs for this issue and take three or four month of to walk?
But the difference between the climate issue and civil rights issues is that there is no law we are protesting against which makes protest ambiguous. In other words, we need to be against something. That is how the deniers win, they are against the Al Gore’s, the Liberals. What are we against? The capitalists? Industrialization? Fossil Fuel companies We NEED an opponent. Who marches FOR thing? People march AGAINST things. Always. Civil rights marches were AGAINST the current laws, not FOR freedom.
The theme here also is non-participation, a boycott against fossil fuel, against the political parties and companies that do not act on the climate change issue.
I was browsing Rosling’s excellent Gapminder World (google it), and discovered an interesting fact. In the mid-70s “energy crisis”, the US’s CO2 emissions dropped by 10%. Sweden’s dropped in HALF! And stayed that way! They are still at less than 1/3 CO2 emissions per capita in spite of being a more northern country needing more heat in winter. So it IS possible. It just requires will. Both are democracies; in a sense, everyone in Sweden votes “greener” than in the US. Why?
btw the three most unsustainable things in our politics today are (1) reckless ecological endangerment, (2) health care prices, and (3) multinational corporate influence. if you go after only one the other two with drag you down.
A new word for this new world we’re making -
‘hypertropical’
Coral marches to the poles
Sammarco is convinced that a new ‘hypertropical’ region will develop in the middle of today’s tropical oceans, in which higher temperatures will bring a new ecology. “I’m predicting pretty much total extinction of corals in that zone,” he says. The fact that corals have been spotted moving house isn’t unexpected, he says, and gives hope for their survival. But the moves are still likely to be disruptive, says Yamano. “For corals it is good news, but for ecosystems, maybe not.”
http://www.nature.com/ news/ 2011/ 110121/ full/ news.2011.33.html
“including a Facebook strategy?” and only two comments mentioning Facebook?
I had to check my watch to see what year it was………
CFB -
Agreed, we should definitely all be marching, against corporate influence in politics – which must be eradicated. That’s why I am going to Rancho Mirage next week to protest against Koch Industries, who will be having their wretched semi-annual conference to plot how to further deprive the public of the value of their votes.
If you want to be against something, the Koch brothers are perfect, because the embody all that is reprehensible in our current social and economic construct.
Here’s a link to the “blood money” handout from the last climate zombie protest, on 10/10/10 in DC.
http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2010/10/wonkette.html
Should be fun! Also, Common Cause is expecting a big turnout for an “alternate conference” in the hotel across the street on Sunday, the 30th. They have busses running from LA and San Diego. If anybody wants to participate, google it or ask me for contact info.
john mccormich #36: the u.s. supreme court gave us pres. bush, not ralph nader, as the nyt proved in its fla. recount.
CFB #45: i agree 100%. but cooperation is so difficult. i was an lowly organizer for 1sky/clean water action and got enthusiastic agreement from 150+ contributors who said they’d actively push our senators to endorse the collins/cantwell CLEAR senate bill. but the state organizer would not let me go ahead with it because it did not go as far as 1sky/clean water’s written position. sierra club is even more rigid. but we could infiltrate those groups, get their membership lists and call them on our own–or on behalf of 350.org. don’t sell 350.org short–they offer so much support, have no rigid oversight, and young people sign up for it! it’s the best group by far, and clearly the most successful. i believe it’s our only hope, and i don’t have a hopeful personality.
[JR: Been to all of those places. Local action isn't a grassroots movement -- let alone one with “teeth.”]
I hate to have to admit it, but as things currently are, Joe is correct.
If the entire populace (or even a noisy majority) is shouting out for some leadership, something to be done, then the game changes radically.
The challenge is to explain the slow (geologically @ breakneck speed) but nevertheless slow in terms of human reference – which works between one and three generations depending on the individual concerned and where they live – process that drops Mankind deep further and further in it as the decades pass by.
Localisation is excellent, but it’s just one iron in the fire. We need many.
Cheers – John
We Already Have the Movement Now!
After reading dozens of responses it is interesting to notice both narrow-based responses and despair were, no matter how passionate, loving and well thought out they were.
As far as the “movement,” it is already here! We have been seeing a rising tide of EcoVillages and small-house living. Why? Because those who live that way find it leads to a better quality of life!
Let me interject here that the “We” refers to our tiny virtual business that spends part of its time researching the effects of human induced Global Warming Climate Change and the psychology behind why climate deniers hold fast to their beliefs. We research this through a wide range of resources including the invaluable CP.
We have observed that many people, particularly in the United States are not really satisfied with how they are living. This was made graphic to us when during the rash of home foreclosures; people would abandon their homes with all of their possessions inside, including personal photographs and children’s toys.
People want a better, more satisfying quality of life. Americans, in particular have been on an induced consumerism “treadmill” since the fifties and the rest of the world is also becoming “addicted” to it. It has been a “treadmill” of work our asses off so we can buy more stuff to satisfy that “addiction” then go home exhausted only to sit in front of the TV only to hear how we are not good enough (substitute have the latest, most hip, gadget, car, looks, connections, health item etc.) – see the wonderful film, The Story Of Stuff.
Not only have we observed that Americans are reluctant to give up their TVs, they also, as was mentioned in this blog, do not want to give up their cars. Well, let me tell you, growing up in Chicago and living for decades in Tucson and having, and being able to afford, all kinds of cars including a Lincoln Mark and an Aston Marten, I do not miss having one now. I live and have my business on the small island of St. John, US Virgin Islands and have no problem of taking our modest but reliable public transportation when I have to go into the town of Cruz Bay (about two miles away) to do shopping etc. I have other successful friends in Iowa who gave up their Mercedes SUVs for bicycles.
As far as my business, it is mostly done from my home office via the internet where everything from proposals, invoices, research, voice and video is done over the internet or phone. And also speaking of TV, we do not have one, per se. However we have a cable hook up through the computer system, even though we do not watch it much (of course for some of the reruns of Seinfeld and particularly good football games etc.) The other video we deem important, which include Jay Leno’s monologue and some guest segments. we get over the internet.
Another observation of ours is more and more businesses, large and small, are realizing doing business sustainably is the future. As we have tried to implement Kaizen (lean thinking) business practices with other companies, we realize that they are looking at their “bottom line” and hence being a sustainable business that will continue into the future. They look at running their businesses efficiently through energy-saving and other cost cutting methods will make their businesses successful and continue into perpetuity. The recent announcement of Jeffery Immelt, CEO of GE will be appointed as chair of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness says a lot for businesses’ interest in seeking a sustainable future.
Government entities are also leading the way of the climate and clean energy movement. While the US Federal government is woefully behind other than the Climate Bill the House of Representatives past last year, other cities, regions and and states, particularly California, have been making remarkable progress. As most CP readers know California has kept its energy consumption per capita flat for the last thirty years. They also have a very astute constituency that understands the links between clean energy, climate change, jobs, a strong state economy and fiscally strong state government. While I feel Governor Schwarzenegger had a lot to do with that, perhaps it was through his conveyance of that message, but Californians got it
.
As to why the US Congress “doesn’t get it,“ it just boils down to the will of the people Most of these congress people are not statesmen (those who will do what is truly right, but what is politically expedient and will get them re-elected). As we saw in the last election in November 2010, the people, who were focused on their own problems – being out of work, or knowing a family member or friend who was; worried about taxes or what seems to be out-of-control government spending; or worried about the new health care plan which was not adequately explained to them voted for who they felt could address those concerns. It will take the majority of the American people to get congress to act.
How will that happen when many Americans refuse to accept that man-made Global Warming and climate change exist. After careful analysis of these climate deniers/delayers/Flat Earthers who simply do not want to change because it takes them out of their comfort zones – the only thing that will get them to change is pain! We believe, through our research, that this is already happening and will continue in an ever-increasing extent. While we follow the increasingly frequent extreme weather events in the US and globally on a daily basis and our little St. John where through the US National Park Service here on St. John, we had last year over 173% of our normal rainfall in 2010 since records began being kept by the NPS in 1989 and reliable St. John old-timers noted that it is more than they ever recall (4% more moisture in the atmosphere in recent decades – do you make the connection?).
We believe that they will start changing their beliefs when they get tired of the extreme rain, snow, droughts, heat-waves, tornadoes, tropical storms or hurricanes in the areas in which they live. If that is not enough, increasing costs of everything – food, energy (electricity, fuel oil, gasoline, diesel and related past-on charges in shipping rates). Also insurers and re-insurers, including Munch-RE are boosting their rates 50% or more. The military, which I am proud to have served, gets it in that energy independence makes them better at doing their job and being less vulnerable to fuel supply ambushes and a lower propensity for “global warming/climate change” caused conflicts. And for the “untouchable” rich, they are going to see their investments tumble along with their “all important” net worth. The unsustainable industries they have invested in, oil, coal, old-school business and even old-school financial crumble. Yes, they will all finally get it or be left on the sidelines.
Those who do finally get it will be left with a new and better, happier lifestyle and direct economy.
Yes the “movement” has already begun! It is up to each of us to partake in it and thus spread the word the best way we can, which is mostly by living it – it will catch on, as it is in every human being’s nature to better himself, although it may take a while to determine exactly what “better” means.
How can CP help. Well, perhaps in adding a category called “Sustainable Earth” in addition to its “Solutions” category. One of our long/short term goals is to do so with one of the top internet service providers whereby the latest on sustainable existence would be available and even critiqued/evaluated/peer reviewed openly to the world over the internet. Please do not lock in the idea, because we do want it available to the world to answer their most immediate and pressing ideas regarding individual, NGO, business, and government needs. Good, up-to-date reliable information is the answer. CP has helped provide that to us and we would like to see that provided to the world.
“Build it and they will come,” quoted from the movie Field of Dreams says it all. We already have the “movement”, all we have to do now is to help build it, with the help of Mother Nature, who we believe is going to help a lot through (unfortunately) negative-reinforcement.
John
One grass roots area that is well established is the “Creation Care” branch. They have however been taught by their handlers that we on the left are a bunch of Atheistic Baby Killers and to be feared worse than death itself. Perhaps an effort of conciliation on that front can be productive. I strongly believe mutual survival should supersede religious differences.
Should we send an emissary?
It would make good press.
Before we start a grassroots movement, we need to understand what it is that we are trying to solve. Far too often, the numerous crises that we face are being cast as a “production” problem, based on a “if only the energy sources for our activities were clean, we wouldn’t be having these crises” type of analysis. Meanwhile, 20% of humans consume 86% of the world’s resources while the bottom 20% consume just 1.3% and are constantly told that they too can aspire to an ever-increasing, gargantuan footprint on the planet, just like those at the top. And, Life is being snuffed out on the planet already as a result of humanity’s collective footprint. Which, by Mathis Wackernagel’s calculations, has already exceeded the regenerative capacity of the planet by 50%!
Given our technological prowess, complex life can only survive on this planet if we choose to respect it in all its forms. It is not enough to be compassionate to our fellow humans, while treating other species as inferior and disposable. Such an attitude leads one to consume high up in the food web leaving enormous footprints for our existence. And, it is the size of the footprint that mainly determines sustainability, not whether that footprint is planted on “sustainable” grass-fed cattle.
True compassion is not compartmentalized. It shines on all Creation without prejudice. And that includes the creatures that are being made to suffer today for our culinary enjoyment. Whether it is the baby chicks that are thrown into a grinder for the sin being born male in the Egg industry or the male calves that are fattened in paddock prisons for veal in the dairy industry, they all deserve our compassion. For they too deserve to experience a mother-child bond of unconditional love that we systematically break in our factory farms.
It seems to me that we need to look within and change ourselves. (But, as I change myself, I watch my circle of friends change with me!) If there is sufficient interest, I’d be happy to conduct free online meditation classes that could help. Please let me know.
If I were a rich man, I would pay for a workshop to which I would invite: (1) the best of the scientists who’s research has definitely shown how global warming/climate change is real and cannot be denied; (2) the best of the communicators of the aforementioned scientific research (both academic specialists in environmental communications and informed journalists); (3) the most knowledgeable persons about U.S. and international policy options to level off, eventually reduce, and mitigate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, and (4) selected persons who are neither recognized scientists or communicators but (like me) have read a lot of the best books and some articles and blogs (such as Joe Romm, the Climate Skeptic, Bill McKibben, etc. and who the basics of GW/CC know the points the deniers make that need to be challenged) –the purpose of this conference to be to come up with a series of no more than five two-newspaper-size pages of information that, for instance could be published in the science section of many city newspapers, given to local and national news outlets, put on the many blogs that reach many people etc. These science-section-like brief articles would have to pass the test of being understandable to the average person who can understand the rudiments of science and public policy and international affairs/the world situation from a good high-school education or personal studies. These articles would explain how the greenhouse works and how we know that it is carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels that is the major forcing agent. I think you can get my point. IN SUM, I BELIEVE IT IS TIME TO BRING TOGETHER ALL OF THE INFORMATION WE HAVE IN A CONVINCING, AS-BRIEF-AS-POSSIBLE MANNER ABOUT THE DILEMMA WE ARE IN, AND ALSO BE AS POSITIVE AS POSSIBLE ABOUT THE MANY WAYS THAT, AS JOE GIVES ON HIS GREAT BLOG, MANY OF THE WAYS TO MOVE TOWARD ALLEVIATING THESE GW/CC PROBLEMS ARE HERE OR CAN BE FORTHCOMING GIVEN THE ADEQUATE FUNDS AND INCENTIVES FOR THEM, AND THAT THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION IS NOT HOPELESS (WITNESS SOME PROGRESS BEING MADE VIA COPENHAGEN AND CANCUN, CHINA NOW OUTSPENDING THE U.S. ON GREEN INNOVATIONS, ETC. — BUT, OF COURSE, THE NEED TO STOP BUILDING COAL-FIRED ELECTRIC-POWER PLANTS STILL REMAINS AS A MAJOR CHALLENGE HERE AND IN CHINA AND INDIA AND ELSEWHERE.
Rambling, off-the-top of my head, in need of much revision, but at least I got this down for a “first draft”.
I believe a weekly half-hour television show regarding climate change would, over time and if developed properly, be highly effective in building and sustaining a grassroots movement. No doom and gloom, but solid information regarding the current state of the world’s climate and what the trends indicate. You could have segments on clean energy developments, interviews with climate scientists and celebrities that understand the issues, and much more.
Probably best suited for PBS or American Public Television since cable networks and mainstream media have their peculiar outlooks on the issues, which reflect the concerns of their advertisers.
Lots of details involved in such a project on the technical side but it’s doable. You would need a funding source (underwriters) and a panel of experts to review the scripts to make sure the message remains focused on the issues.
For whatever reason, people tend to respond to what they see and hear on their television sets.
I have always wondered if the idea of a third party involvement in the climate change issue will every have a chance on this site as long as it is operated as part of Center for American Progress. It would seem that anything that challenges the role of the Democratic Party as the savior of this country would be challenged at every opportunity.
The Idea of a Clean Energy Party makes sense. The comment by Daryl (#57) that this should be the Green Party also makes sense, but comes with the idea that it would not be neutral on other issues. However, it would work to devolve power to be as close to local control as is practical.
I also know that the Green Party US has more than a few whose hot button issue is on the far end of the progressive spectrum. However, when I was CoChair of the EcoAction Committee, Green Party US, we managed to get near unanimous agreement of the National Committee to a new Water Policy statement that would really work and which provides a mechanism to achieve the adaptations that climate change will require.
Work within your local community, do what you can, plant trees, isolate housees, better lightning, recycle, reuse, buy renewable energy etc.
Hopefully such initiatives will get people to vote for politicians that understand what we need to do and to avoid being fooled by the greenwash of the current media environment.
Education first, action will follow, unfortunately the inertia of the climate system makes education difficult
Direct Action.
Picket, disrupt and sabotage the fossil fuel infrastructure.
Picket, disrupt and sabotage the lifestyles of the oligarchy/aristocracy.
Think about PETA’s use of red paint for a little inspriration.
Deny the deniers.
Make available via sites like this one, a software program that runs organized, sustained “denial of service” attacks against fox news and the like. The combined computing power of climateprogress.org readers alone would be formidable. Add to that, the readers of 350.org, greenpeace etc and we have a powerful weapon at our disposal.
At the very least it would become a news story in itself, attracting new eyeballs to sites like climateprogress. At worst it could backfire and make us look like a bunch of hackers and bullies.
Three ideas come quickly to mind:
1) Empower those directly affected by GW, victims of Katrina, the Gulf blowout, the recent Superstorms, who know in their bones the truth of global warming. The stories they alone can tell have the power to cut through the fear and ignorance stoked by the “tea party” Kochocracy.
2) Expose the Kochocracy/global warming “deniers” through a rigorous PR campaign.
3) Learn from Germany who ignited the world’s most successful grassroots clean energy campaign. According to Hermann Scheer, the 3 keys were, (1) investment autonomy, (2) guaranteed return (through a high enough FIT), and (3) no cap. Uniting the issues of energy and democracy and having visionaries in Congress capable of moving legislation forward (Sanders and Udall may be our champions), were also important. Find out more how Germany did it here: http://slvrenewablecommunities.blogspot.com/2010/10/solar-energy-of-people.html. CP’s greatest “blind spot” is a naive view of the established utility industry. It’s critical to understand how the old energy utility industry has stepped in to control the “renewables” market in this country. Despite all the rhetoric, its not the environmentalists who are filing lawsuits on Big Solar, its the utilities who are quietly but firmly and effectively OPPOSING UTILITY REFORM in order to maintain a monopoly over ALL energy resources, that is really keeping us back. Scheer understood this and because they took on the gov/industry energy complex, they were able to succeed. Until we do the same, we will NEVER make the real gains we need to avert GW.
In reading these comments, I’ve noted a number of mentions of the Sierra Club. Please note that the Sierra Club in now launching a very organized “Beyond Coal” campaign, which will be targetting and supporting the EPA. I think their strategy makes sense in that if we are not going to get a climate bill, we must preserve the EPA’s ability to regulate. Greenpeace is also focusing on coal. I imagine that there’s either a GP or Sierra Club chapter close enough to most commentators that they could join in.
However, having said that, I’m discouraged with “little” actions, and by “little” I’m actually talking big: from holding a rally with 50 people outside Senator Scott Brown’s office, to a 10/10/10 rally near the White House with 350 people, to walking across the state of MA for the climate.
We need something really big. “Go the Limit” will get attention. A huge march on Washington would get attention. Actually, I think all the climate movements should send people to DC, and we’ll camp out on the Mall and refuse to leave until there’s a strong climate bill. If there’s enough of us, the police won’t be able to act!
As the climate took many years to change
and that change would last for many more
years, it makes since thar it will take many
years for the atmosphere to be clean again.
Anyway on first reading I thought he said
that we need a budget in place for pulling
Carbon from the atmosphere.
There’s no point me repeating what has already been said above, but I have an idea I wish to share.
I’m in Australia, not the US, but I have noticed here that a group of people see action on ACC as an end to capitalism and the start of some kind of communist world order. I find this perplexing as, being rather fond of free markets (mixed economoy to be precise), I see ACC as the biggest threat to their continued existence. There are too many people failing to understand the action they see as a threat to their ideology is actually the only chance they have to preserve it. ACC is not the only cause here, of course. Resource depletion is as much a threat to our way of life as anything else. Action on ACC is only one required mechanism to preserve society as we know it. Those who see ACC action as a threat to their way of life need to see the opposite is the case, as ideologies triumph over evidence and common sense time after time.
On the chance that there are a few truly serious people reading this thread, here’s a basic template for the United States. Pick a target group that currently enables conservative politicians to block substantive climate & energy legislation; ideally it’s a group you understand, a group where you already know how to “speak the language.” (For example, conservative Christians or local Chambers of Commerce or retired military.) Then form a new non-profit based on the NRA model. Your objective is to make climate change denial completely toxic within your target group – which, depending on your particular situation, can be either local, regional or national.
Take a good, hard look at the NRA. We need successful models to emulate and they’ve done an outstanding job of making gun control a political impossibility. By using a similar style of targeted messaging and modern media techniques, combined with the latest scientific information on climate change, we can drive wedges between our target groups and their representatives in D.C. The basic idea is to take a group of citizens and turn them into single issue voters. Politicians will have to pay attention, especially when we threaten to peel off large chunks of their base.
I’m currently setting up a national organization based on this model. If it’s effective, I’ll update the Climate Progress community this summer.
As for Climate Progress itself, here’s a thought. Put my idea under a microscope. If it stands up to the scrutiny, CP can act as an incubation chamber, offering help, advice & support to a fledgling industry of climate NRAs.
One word of caution. Stick to groups you know and understand. If you don’t speak southern Baptist, then leave the southern Baptists alone. Nothing will make things worse right now than a bunch of “climate missionaries” descending on groups they don’t understand and can’t relate to.
It would really be nice to hear from the “leaders” of the environmental movement on this topic. They are employed full time by our contributions to do just this. What are their thoughts and how are they putting them into action???
The Great Famine has begun. Famine has begun in the natural environment in countless ways and will sweep over the human environment. If we stopped burning fossil fuel today, the famine is likely to continue for centuries.
Climate change means famine for most living things. Famine is simply when a region cannot produce enough food locally for its inhabitants. Everyone and every living thing knows what hunger feels like. We’ve manage to break an incredibly complex system that was feeding many trillions of mouths of all descriptions. The weakened by hunger will become easy prey. The predators will thrive for a while with such sudden abundance, and then they too will starve.
We, and the rest of the living world, are all in this together. It’s a lottery where only the lucky survive: Lucky individuals and lucky species.
Love life!
For those in Utah – PeacefulUprising.org
And again, Joe, ClimateProgress format request – could we please separate the Weekend Open Thread from the Weekend Focused Thread?
A CP bug report: on this comment form, the Preview button isn’t working for me.
And if you’re serious about using the Climate Progress community for brainstorming, you need to make the brainstorming threads persistently visible – right now, someone coming to Climate Progress can’t find them collected anywhere – which is ok if they’re just bloviation, but not ok if they’re to be a resource.
And each should have a summation, or a filter for quality. Otherwise, again, the best stuff gets buried.
Annafilter from others’ comments above:
____
Might be useful rebranding deniers as climate cranks http://bit.ly/hd5zD8
___________
It would be GREAT to have a small paperback book that consists of a full collection of the Position Statements and notable letters from all of the world’s bona fide scientific organizations. You know all of those Position Statements and well-written joint letters (the ones The New York Times never manages to cover!)? They are on the web, but fragmented
[Actually, see logicalscience.com's Consensus page (link) - anna]
More and more people need to become comfortable talking to their friends, families, neighbors, and acquaintances – and just do it, even though it might feel uncomfortable at first.
___________
Pick a target group that currently enables conservative politicians to block substantive climate & energy legislation; ideally it’s a group you understand, a group where you already know how to “speak the language.” (For example, conservative Christians or local Chambers of Commerce or retired military.) Then form a new non-profit based on the NRA model. Your objective is to make climate change denial completely toxic within your target group
___________
It would really be nice to hear from the “leaders” of the environmental movement on this topic. They are employed full time by our contributions to do just this. What are their thoughts and how are they putting them into action???
___________
too many paid employees more concerned with hanging on to their own funding base than consolidating and getting something accomplished.
———–
This will go out in Monday’s surface mail.
Committee on Environment and Public Works
Majority Office
410 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-6175
Dear Senator and Chairman Boxer,
I hope that your Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold hearings on the impacts of human emissions of CO2 and other GHG this year. However, I think the format for such hearings should be markedly different than those held in the past. Past hearings focused on prominent personalities and often asked experts to comment outside their fields. Future hearings should be organized around issues as the IPCC reports are instead of personalities.
I suggest four or five panels of five persons each be formed around different topics. The N.A.S. would be asked to select three members for each panel and each Party would select one member. Each panel would take a day and they would be spaced out over a few weeks, perhaps once per week. The first panel would be on climatology. Climatologists would be asked to explain what is known and unknown about human and nonhuman factors changing Earth’s climate. They should not be asked to speculate on economic or energy policy as these are not what they study professionally. The next panel would focus on ecological impacts. There should be a separate panel on oceans: acidification, temperature change, coral reefs, aquaculture and sea level rise. Anther would be on agriculture and other expected economic impacts as well as national security and public health. And of course a panel on energy policy and perhaps an additional panel on adaptation and geo-engineering. These should all be televised as part of a national teach-in.
Sincerely,
…
Hi Joe and all.
This may be one of the more important questions you’ve posed – how to create a grassroots movement with teeth. Our organizational approach (Winneshiek Energy District) is an attempt to create a replicable model for just that purpose, so I’d like to share our perspective, and would much appreciate your reaction. I think our approach fits the three important words in your question: “grassroots” means local leadership – it *must* be locally led in every county/community; “movement” means networked, coordinated, momentum-building across geographic areas; and “teeth” means (to us) local action, local change, *making things happen*, not just talking about things, campaigning about things, even just educating about things – but boots on the ground, at the kitchen table, at the diner, at City Hall.
After a couple years of discussion among local leaders and “hawks”, we realized we needed a local organizational structure, as none of the individuals or their organizations/employers had the time or mission to create a local sustainable energy movement, though they were all taking important steps on their own. We turned towards the soil and water conservation district movement of the 1930s and 40s as a model of a major national issue that was addressed in large part through the building of “a local movement with teeth”. The Dust Bowl and great depression formed the catalyst for this movement that was both ecological and economic perfect storm, just as climate change and energy costs are (or will be) creating a similar pefect storm for local households, businesses, and communities today. The District movement and parallels aren’t perfect but there is much to learn, and rather than continue that story I’ll direct those interested to a paper we wrote here: http://energydistrict.org/images/uploads/The%20Power%20of%20Local%203-16-10.pdf.
The upshot is that Energy Districts, like Soil and Water Conservation Districts, could be an organizational structure replicated in every county in the country within 5-10 years. A new organizational structure yes, b/c unlike many suggestions here about uniting the existing enviro’s and local sustainability initiatives, we’ve learned from experience that they aren’t typically focused enough on energy to create a movement with teeth. Also unlike a great many comments on this thread, a local movement needs to be as apolitical as possible, b/c if you’re really bent on building momentum in your community towards the tipping point of energy ethics and major change, you can’t start by alienating half the population.
A few key characteristics of Energy Districts (discussed more on our web site http://energydistrict.org)
• At the local level, a focus on economics of energy is just as galvanizing and usually more so than talking climate change, in part b/c of the politics involved in CC but also b/c it is a language all can agree on, and the economic impact is greater *in the hear and now where we live*, to most households and businesses and communities, than the climate impact.
• Paraphrasing Carville, a fundamental underpinning of Energy Districts is that when it comes to ee/re at the household and local business level, “it’s the delivery system, stupid”. Universial technical assistance programs of energy analysis (auditing) and energy imrovement planning are abolutely essential to making steady and rapid progress on the low-hanging fruit that is building energy efficiency, but also on distributed renewable implementation and so many other areas.
• Funding and multi-level partnership (state-federal) will clearly be important over time, for supporting those boots on the ground providing tech assistance, and for providing the IT, training, software, performance/accounatability, and related infrastructure to be used by Districts throughout a state or country, providing tremendous efficiencies and economies of scale. Funding is critical but not impossible: look at Iowa for example, where we have a $100+ million rate-payer funded EE program, which mostly goes to rebates and incentives that are of questionable benefit when it comes to additionality or market transformation. If we just took half that money we could have Energy Districts with serious staff in every county in Iowa, and Iowa is not a wealthy state. Once rolling, the leverage that can come from local-state-federal partnership is great.
• Beyond the tech assistance, local mobilization and momentum-building can be a testing ground for effectiveness of education/awareness programs; social psycological approaches along the lines of Opower but also athe community level (communities/counties are VERY competitive); truly *local* carbon offsets (we’re doing it: http://energydistrict.org/projects/oneota-tag-offsets/) and green power programs; green building and stretch codes; distributed renewable utilities; and so many other promising local approaches – create a universal structure for experimentation!
• An Energy Ethic: Energy Districts cannot be about a bit of insulation here, a solar panel or hybrid-electric car there. They must be the true preachers of the gospel of sustainable energy, from main street to the cornfield, from the coffeeshop to the schools and city hall. Too often communities and societies act only when crisis hits, or even when it’s too late – the Dust Bowl is prime example. As energy districts we must create enough local engagement and momentum that we cross the tipping point of near-universal persuasion and action, as we wrote in our 2007 DesMoines Register oped.
How would CP help build an Energy District movement, with TEETH? Ideally, by spreading the concept of Energy Districts and encouraging their creation following a recognizable model. Social media won’t be the foundation of most local organizations (a tool, but not *the* tool, which is people working with people), but a CP social media initiative could certainly be the catalyst creating national action to be part of an energy district movement. There is certainly power in individual and local efforts of all kinds, but only by creating a local movement with teeth will that local power build momentum to cross the tipping point of driving major rapid change at local level. And once it crosses that tipping point, it will also become a dominant driver of national change that we all work for, and dream about.
Thanks Joe for your tireless work, we’d love to hear your (and all your readers’) thoughts. On On, from Decorah, Iowa, and the Winneshiek Energy District.
Andy Johnson
andy@energydistrict.org
asking green orgs to contribute is one thing. drawing your pool of trainers organizers & envisioneers only from those staffers is not good thinking.
listen to how people describe this: the largest market failure ever; an epochal shift; a paradigm shift; a new industrial revolution.
is that work for a handful of legal specialists?
no, it’s for all humanity.
but the society is specialized, the ambition is narrow. most don’t know where new answers come from, only that they do and it’s good. we’re helpless when politics keeps the answer from propagating.
2030 needs permanent staff in the present, turning us into 21st century citizens.
W/ great respect, I fear the goal of “a genuine sustainable grassroots movement — with teeth”, tho noble, is both misplaced and, well, wrong. The crisis is too great to admit of anything other than _the most effective possible movement_, however that may need to be constructed, fueled, and implemented in the present context.
It seems pretty likely the max effective movement will be a mass movement. Given who US climate hawks are, I take it as a given that the movement will be democratic in culture, but I expect it to be pragmatic in practice. It will pretty likely include elements of many historic and recent movements. It’ll need all the institutions we’ve got, like CP, and more, and be networked thru many parallel layers of social organization (schools, churches, service clubs thru zombie rollerball clubs). We just can’t afford to get hung up on the ‘grassrootsness’ of it, because some degree of coordination, specialization, and even centralization of some functions is likely to be essential to effective mobilization on the scale necessary.
At the big level, we need a road-map, a rough game plan up on the wall. Then catalytic action, specific, strategic, and engaging. That’s where the grassroots comes in: taking those catalytic actions, building the mass movement. If successful, it becomes the kind of movement remembered as grassroots because it is the collective expression of so many people’s united focus.
I think brainstorming (idea aggregation) and Truly Great Idea promotion are two things CP could do even more. Joe, you could conduct some really good crowdsourcing if you were to call for submissions for, say, Action Options for Small Groups or Mobilization Apps Needed (I jest, but only just).
26 Wonhyo and 4 Terry Gallagher: The problem with the religion thing is that there are so many people who say that “”God” won’t let that happen. Therefore, we don’t have to worry.”
5 Alteredstory: The type of geothermal that generates electricity is not the type that heats houses. You have to find a hot dry pluton to get geothermal heat to make electricity. A pluton is a geological thing you need to look up. Otherwise, you would have to drill deeper than is possible, as in more than 10 miles down. Pressure inevitably squeezes your bore casing to zero size before you get deep enough. That is miles below any aquifer.
19 David Smith: Somebody on dotearth objected to being called a “denier” because he thought that that is too much like being called a holocaust denier. I answered: “The holocaust that GW will cause will be far worse than the Nazi holocaust. It will be Billions rather than mere Millions of deaths. That is why we want strong action to stop GW and that is why the term “denialist” or “denier” is appropriate. Mother Nature is far better than the Nazis were at killing, so don’t anger Mother Nature. 99% of all species that ever lived are extinct. Homo Sap is no exception.”
There are a lot of excellent ideas in this thread, but it seems to me that the readers of this blog (and the commenters) are sort of disconnected from the rest of the world.
There are lots of efforts going on at the grassroots level and in the blogosphere to work on issues related to AGW. What appears to be lacking are leadership, coordination, and political savvy (not necessarily in that order).
There needs to be political leadership focused on the issue. It needs to function both within the existing major political parties (probably not much hope for the Republicans) by infiltration in the same way that the Tea Party movement has taken over the R’s; and in the Green Party as well.
There needs to be more education and coordination among the growing movement organizations like 350.org. and the existing establishment orgs like the Sierra club. In the 70′s I was a member of an informal “Washington Committee for Mammoth Cave” that coordinated and plotted together to fight for issues related thereto. We need something like that for AGW in the US.
There needs to be a larger movement in the blogosphere focusing on AGW and AGW politics. More blogs, more blogrolls interconnecting them, and more interchange of information. I know this is hard, because I haven’t been able to find time to post on my own blog recently, but somehow we need to get to it. After all, all these other petty issues that we blog about may seem important, but are hardly important at all if AGW wrecks human civilization, or returns us to the dark ages.
We could use a Media Matters that focuses directly on dealing with climate denial.
The key to all of this, of course, is MONEY. We need a George Soros or some other super rich people to understand that they aren’t going to be very happy in the the new world that will result from doing nothing about AGW, and understand that they need to get active, and become the “anti-Koch Brothers.”
Here are some resources that might be useful in formulating a plan to proceed:
Various science fiction novels that use global warming as a plot feature, especially including Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy about the politics of it.
Environmental activists in the left blogosphere, including those on Daily Kos. For awhile KOS had an Environmental “caucus” and I used to be on their mailing list.
Progressive talk show hosts like Thom Hartmann, author of “The Last Days of Ancient Sunlight”, and Norman Goldman. They could bring Joe and others on to talk about the issues, and both of them are very adamant about people getting involved. Norman is currently encouraging people to run for office and providing resources and training on how to do that.
Books by Marcos Moulitsos (founder of Daily Kos) encouraging people to break into politics,including “Crashing the Gates.”
The “Netroots Nation” conference, held annually. This has become the progressive movement’s major event.
I leave it to the reader to Google the above for more information.
In practical terms, we need 3 near-term tactical victories on the way to a final strategic victory. I would say the number 1 priority should be to shut down the coal industry, replacing it with energy efficiency, renewables and as the source of last resort, natural gas. The points of attack are the board rooms of the major power utilities, and the tools are litigation and shareholder activism. The number 2 tactical victory is very aggressive fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. We must simply stop making gas guzzlers for sale, and encourage everyone who can use an electric vehicle to do so. In parallel, re-develop rail transport for humans as the coal business dies (it uses about 70% of the overall rail industry capacity). This is primarily the task of legislators and regulators and big engineering like GE. The 3rd tactical victory is to shrink the industrial meat industry to about 10-20% of what it is today. This is a much tougher nut to crack. But in fact as much 30-40% of our GHG emissions are from industrial meat production, so fixing this is unavoidable. Once these 3 tactical victories are within reach, the momentum of further action will be unstoppable.
Have you seen the “Coalition of the Willing”? This is a climate movement with a brilliant vision and media strategy (the animated film which launched the movement has won prizes) and it aims to work with efforts already underway, helping these to work together better.
Emphasis is on interoperability, helping people to find the facts, ideas and partners/support they need, to enable a “swarm response” to climate change. The main site is http://cotw.cc
I had a lot of questions, but talking to Tim Rayner convinced me that they really did have a collaborative approach (not just another project claiming that they have The Answer) and I decided to get involved.
After 14 years bashing on about climate change to a mostly unheeding community, I feel the big thing missing has always been a worthy agenda. (The deniers have the prime choice here – “don’t let ‘em do nothing.”)
Explaining climate change & bashing any deniers in local media is easy enough. It’s the next step that’s difficult. Most folk don’t want to campaign – they have lives to live. More would do carbon-footprint-reduction stuff if it were meaningful or easier or less dour. (Don’t fly, drive less, turn heating down, insulate houses, buy local, don’t leave on standby.) Attractive eco-steps that make sense (even for a denier’s wallet?) would be good. I struggle to see any of them yet emerging.
To turn the tide on AGW national agendas surely need energy economy at a personal level as well as many unpleasant impositions from government. It will not be painless and there lies the problem, there lies the real positive feedback loop that will accelerate climate change past its tipping points. Problem don’t look urgent>>Public reluctant to accept change>>Politicians don’t act>> Nothing gets done>> Problem can’t be urgent. That’s the loop we need to break before individual nations start thinking up Fascist solutions to AGW.
A blog like Climate Progress does good work informing on the scientific. It also considers the political & less so the technical (ie energy technology, use, efficiency etc). Perhaps to be all things to all men is not good & that Climate Progress could have separate blog streams for different subjects.
There is a grassroots movement. 350.org is doing what is being discussed here. They are bringing people from all over the planet into the movement through grassroots actions. This effort needs to be supported and expanded.
I agree with John McCormick @36. Trying to run a 3rd Party at this time is too big a mouthful to chew on, given the time frame. I remember someone, somewhere coining the name “Green Tea Party”. I know, the name might be somewhat awkward, but the intent is clear: get the truth out and push hard for real solutions, fast.
Edward @ 88 – I am familiar with the holocaust reference in “Denier”. My point is that denial of AGW and AGW science is a strategy of the opposition and not the intent or overriding objective which is business as usual and the continued burning of fossil fuels with minimal regulation. “Burners” gets closer to the core of the problem and includes the broader group that is standing in the way of implementation of AGW solutions. This group includes Deniers, Avoiders, do nothings and people who don’t want to pay attention. The deniers are the most vocal, but the others, while silent, represent most of the enertia that is causing the effort to stagnate. Focusing only on the “Deniers” missed 80% of the problem and lets a lot of people off the hook.
@Edward – my concern was avoiding aquifers on the way down. Saying that it’s below them means essentially nothing if you’re concerned with damaging them. The hydrofracing people make the same argument.
@the general thread, I think that there’s plenty of effort on education, and there IS a grassroots movement on THAT front, but what we need not is direct action. We need to couple the educational efforts with actual progress, both because waiting isn’t an option, and also because we need to SHOW people who are on the fence that it IS possible to address this issue. Right now it’s easy to feel hopeless, and that can lead to denial or despair.
We aren’t willing to give up, and we aren’t willing to accept the cop out that “nothing can be done”, and we need to show that with actions.
MARodger — “More would do carbon-footprint-reduction stuff if it were meaningful or easier or less dour.”
Not going off topic too much I hope, and it’s definitely not intended as a commercial plug, but UK readers may like to know the likes Marks & Spencer (M&S Energy) are replacing their customer energy use from the national grid with hydro renewable. At least it’s a move in the right direction, and sends the right message to other energy suppliers if they, and the others like them, increase market share.
http://www.consumerfocus.org.uk/get-advice/energy/households/energy-tariffs-explained/green-tariffs/scottish-and-southern-energy
Hope you don’t mind, Joe, and it’s seriously not a commercial plug; I just swapped recently having not known about it before (my bad), and I think knowing there are options out there in the UK deserve more exposure.
Hi. William James here. Was a Harvard prof back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Wrote a pioneer text in psychology in the 1800s, then switched to philosophy. Along with John Dewey and a few others, I helped create the uniquely American (United States) philosophy known as pragmatism. Basically, we pragmatists said that instead of looking for that elusive thing called “truth” as what, in our to-date findings and beliefs about what is true corresponds to “the real world that is out there”, we should recognize that we, the seekers, should recognize that we have a role in creating truth when we are faced with urgent problem situations, such as you folks are now with global warming/climate change. Now, whereas my friend John Dewey was an institutional pragmatist, and as a believer in democracy and public education, sought workable solutions to problems and changes in our public education and other institutions to move toward solving problems, I was more of an individualist, and building upon my psychology, thought and taught that what we accept as true is what works by being accepted as an addition to what we already think to be true. (This does not leave out the possible radical changes in our thoughts if we come to realize that new findings should change our preconceived notions.)
Basically my notion of individual, psychology-based pragmatism came to be known as Ameliorism (or Meliorism). The bottom line is that individuals working as individual persons or in groups (through the institutions they create) can make face problems and move toward resolving them (ameliorating them). If you want to get the gist of my argument, read my “The Will to Believe”, which you can find in a compilation of other works by me in a book entitled “The Will to Believe” — or check out these and other works by me in a book entitled “Essays in Pragmatism”. (As I have said, I wish I had called “The Will to Believe” “The Right to Believe”.)
My basic metaphor is the gap metaphor. Picture yourself (or your group of other persons concerned about how to move toward the solution of a problem, such as GW/CC). If you and your colleagues stand before the gap (or chasm that needs to be jumped over) as a pessimists, and that the problem is too big to solve or to alleviate (ameliorate), then that will be what happens — pessimism is a self-fullfiling prophecy. On the other hand, the optimistic hand, you have to realize that there are two basic forms of it: (1) sensual (or blind) optimism, and (2) moral optimism. The sensual (or blind) form was present back in the 1800s when, in the United States, many problems began to come forth with overuse or pollution of natural resources. Some people had this form of false optimism by saying nothing really had to be done to correct the problems, because “technology will bail us out” or “God is in his heavens, all’s right with the world” or “the frontier is never ending”, etc. BUT MORAL OPTIMISM IS WHAT WAS NEEDED WHEN I WAS ALIVE, AND THAT IS WHAT WE NEED NOW. THE PROVEN BELIEF THAT WOMEN AND MEN, WORKING AS INDIVIDUALS AND THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS THEY CREATE, CAN AMELIORATE PROBLEMS. Why is this moral: because to not face up to these major real world problems will result in much anguish — even destruction in the long run — of the human and natural world. (To be sure, pragmatism via ameliorism and other sub-types) has to look to something “on higher ground” to ultimately serve truly moral ends — and that is where religion comes in. But, folks, you who are trying to come up with ways to mobilize the public in your country and around the world to ameliorate the GW/CC crisis that you folks know exists from your concerned experience and study, DO HAVE THE MORAL HIGH GROUND, SO ACT UPON IT AS MELIORISTS, AS MORAL OPTIMISTS!
I wrote this because I sense your need for some philosophic (even somewhat ecumenical religious) underpinnings to your getting a movement underway — a movement that is somewhat analogous to the Progressive Movement that persons like John Dewey and I provided underpinnings for back in the late 1800s and early 1900s (with a shadow of this movement still with you even today). If what I say gets some rigorous thinking about the philosophy (and even ecumenical religion) that might serve to support your much needed efforts, then my purpose has been served!
I was able to get a rebuttal posted as an Op-ed piece in the moderately conservative newspaper in my North Texas hometown.
It was a response to a Texas Republican legislator’s (Myra Crownover) Op-ed piece two weeks earlier feigning support for renewable energy but not to the detriment of our oil and coal industry sources.
Push Energy Research
Ms. Crownover’s Op-ed piece can be found here
[JR: Didn't get first link.]
CP,
For what it’s worth, the last of Hudson Bay froze over on ~Jan. 20, 2011 as highlighted in these satellite images:
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/ARCHIVE/USA/2011/ims2011020_usa.gif
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/ARCHIVE/USA/2011/ims2011021_usa.gif
You might say it’s unusually late for the last of the ice to form.
Roger Blanchard
Sault Ste. Marie, MI
CP could run a series of posts over a finite period of time, say 2 months; open threads on topics that explore the question of this open thread for the purpose of defining and launching the mother of all grassroots movements, “How can we create a grassroots climate and clean energy movement” is replaced by an action plan for such a movement.
Create a new post every few days focusing on different aspects of the question and related issues; high intensity. Advertise to the blogosphere that this is going on, attract attention. Set up small working groups from the readers and commentors at climate Progress to review synthesize, maybe add to, the content of each of the posts, one group for each post. Each group reports to a staff member at CP. CP would coordinate the whole thing
At the beginning of the process, people commit to the process and commit to participate in the resulting action like our lives depended on it, focused unity. This should include all participants at CP who have any stones and actual commitment to the cause. We are not asking for life and treasure commitments, only action. Actions speak louder than words.
Put on our thinking caps. Go for unity. Temper our egos. What the group decides, that’s what we do.
This is all do-able and the only cost is some staff time by CAP employees
Ideas for creating a grassroots climate and clean energy movement are likely similar to ideas given in other recent open threads here, such as “What is the Call to Action on Climate?”
At the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, we like to suggest climate hawks to get informed, get connected, get organized and get active.
We will all need to get more connected, organized, and active if we are going to solve this problem. There are many groups throughout the country and world working on this and you can start your own if you can’t find one local to you! Utilizing the internet more will certainly be helpful for each of these actions.
Yesterday, over 200 climate hawks participated in CCAN’s 6th Annual Polar Bear Plunge into the Potomac River National Harbor. Amazing Congresswoman Donna Edwards also took the plunge and gave a great speech at the start about the need for solving the climate crisis. She brought along a contingent from her Maryland district where the plunge took place, including Navorro Bowman, a San Francisco 49ers linebacker who grew up in her district and came out to support climate action. A Franciscan friar of St. Camillus Catholic Church in Silver Spring, MD also took the dip and spoke.
It was a truly festive and beautiful day. Local musician Anastasia Shestakova (http://www.AnastasiaNow.com)sang fitting songs such as “Talkin’ bout a Revolution”, “If I had a hammer,” and “Take me to the river.” After diving into the ice rimmed river, it didn’t even take too long for my toes to regain feeling. :)
Here’s to a great day and activists staying informed, connected, organized, and active so that we can bring offshore windmills to Maryland and eventually win a national carbon cap and renewable energy plan!
Ideas for creating a grassroots climate and clean energy movement are likely similar to ideas given in other recent open threads here, such as “What is the Call to Action on Climate?”
At the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, we like to suggest climate hawks to get informed, get connected, get organized and get active.
We will all need to get more connected, organized, and active if we are going to solve this problem. There are many groups throughout the country and world working on this and you can start your own if you can’t find one local to you! Utilizing the internet more will certainly be helpful for each of these actions.
Yesterday, over 200 climate hawks participated in CCAN’s 6th Annual Polar Bear Plunge into the Potomac River at National Harbor. Amazing Congresswoman Donna Edwards also took the plunge and gave a great speech at the start about the need for solving the climate crisis. She brought along a contingent from her Maryland district where the plunge took place, including Navorro Bowman, a San Francisco 49ers linebacker who grew up in her district and came out to support climate action. A Franciscan friar of St. Camillus Catholic Church in Silver Spring, MD also took the dip and spoke.
It was a truly festive and beautiful day. Local musician Anastasia Shestakova ( http://www.AnastasiaNow.com ) sang fitting songs such as “Talkin’ bout a Revolution”, “If I had a hammer,” and “Take me to the river.” After diving into the ice rimmed river, it didn’t even take too long for my toes to regain feeling. :)
Here’s to a great day and activists staying informed, connected, organized, and active so that we can bring offshore windmills to Maryland and eventually win a national carbon cap and renewable energy plan!
I wonder if making ethical declarations is helpful to the movement. Ethics, by definition is somewhat personal and in confrontation is sometimes viewed by the receiver as some highbrow form of manipulation resulting from self interest. Instead it should be replaced by arguments of practicality. What is more PRACTICAL than taking thoughtful steps to secure and prolong the life of our species?
Fascinating as the discussion has been (and I’ve had to skip a lot as I don’t have all afternoon to read them), there are several points here which must be identified and addresses.
Grass roots with “Teeth”. You know what that sounds like? It sounds like every IT department in the world wishing for a “killer app”. Or the Segway which was going to change the world, or every other attempt to design the “next great thing”
Things don’t happen that way. Almost every Killer App in IT has happened because it was useful to many, many people. They were not designed to take over the world, they were designed to be useful.
Ditto in the whole Grass Roots thing. When people see and feel that AGW is an issue which is going to change their lives, they will get on board and start working with everyone else to make changes. To do that you have to get in the face of these people and literally show them that they need to act.
As for “Teeth”, the single most powerful weapon of any grass roots movement is the ballot box. However to get them motivated to use that in order to protect themselves from Climate Change, they must be convinced that to vote any other way than for a party who will enact legislation to curb Climate Change; will be to seriously damage themselves, their children and their country.
Today, with the focus on the “here and now”, that is a tall order.
There are many ways of motivating people. Germany has found one. Give them 200% of the value of the electricity pushed back into the grid and people will invest in Solar to push that electricity back. Even if it takes 10 years to pay that back. Note, the German citizens are confident that the subsidy which is paying for their investment will continue for a Decade. Care to bet who will believe that of the US? And if it takes 20 years? Then many of them will be in the position of having to replace panels, eroding any gain other than inflationary wins.
So if you want a grass roots movement, you need to be useful, you need to educate without patronising and you need to get people to believe that their actions today will significantly impact their children, grandchildren and their country in decades to come.
So how do you do that??? After all, Joe, you asked how Climate Progress could help.
OK so here’s my take on this:
The ClimateProgress site. Today it’s a one way information tool with feedback, good or bad, from a segment of the community. OK this is good, but if I’m thinking of putting in Solar power, how does Climate Progress help me??? In short it doesn’t.
If you want to help you need to make yourself a clearinghouse of information, not only on the science of climate change but also on the ways in which people can reduce their carbon footprint. In order to do that, you need to do what most major news institutions have done. You need to build a forum in Climate Progress where people can come and talk. Come and share information. Come and ask questions and get good quality answers.
phpBBS is free, reasonable quality and can be managed to stop spam and other abuses. OK it will be managed, but when I type in “What can I do about global warming” into Google, I want the Climate Progress forum to be in the top 5 hits and I want it to have real solid information for me.
It can be a rallying point, it can be a discussion point. You can plan meets in it and have rooms for every aspect of Climate awareness and action. Including a sin bin for the liars and the avaricious.
OK so that’s part one.
Part two.
Some very clear thinking needs to be done here.
Today people hear “cap and trade” and they hear “jobs to china”. This is not as wayward as you might think. People are not stupid, if cap and trade forces the cost of manufacturing up then the jobs go where pollution is cheaper to create. What is really needed is “enable and produce”, where the financial incentive is to remove CO2 from the entire process and invest in jobs for manufacturing of goods with clean energy and a low footprint. It is a focus change.
Next up is the reality that clean tech and clean energy can’t be free forever. In fact, far from subsidising it, governments are going to have to start taxing it. This is reality.
consider this:
Should I, tomorrow, design a gravity engine which develops 10kw (24×7), for a 2 sq yd footprint in your garden, could a government allow me to sell it to every person and business in the land??? The answer is “of course not”. Because every energy company in the country would fold, along with the jobs they hold down and the taxes they pay. A government could never allow that. So we have to accept that whilst green energy is cheap/free after investment payback, today, it will come back to a neutral cost in the future.
If we accept such a situation up front, then we can also target the message correctly today.
The way we deal with people has to change. So that they feel part of what we are doing instead of the “pig in the middle” between companies, governments and activists. They should feel that they are working towards something positive for “Them”, rather than just for “US”. In that way it will be easier to get everyone on board. Except the major business losers that is.
OK, so Community rather than communicate. A message we can buy into personally with realistic targets and a realistic end game. What next?
OK so Facebook.
As someone who has recently deleted his Facebook, you’ll find I’m a sceptic. OK so what about Facebook?
Well, Facebook should really be called MEBook. Because that’s what it is about, mememememememememe Looook at memememememem. Not for everyone really. Everything about it is geared to the extrovert. Hardly the message for a solid climate debate. OK you can push out the information you want on there, but you’ll need an army of people to sanitise the excrement that gets thrown on the wall……
However Facebook has one massive advantage. Reach. You can, quite literally, reach 1 Billion people with Facebook. OK so if you don’t want to engage in an eternal slanging match, what can you do?
Recently Facebook shipped it’s application API. Which means you can make an application and then market it to 1 billion people. OK so what app do you want? CO2 calculator? Boooorrrrriiiiinnnnngggg.
I’d say Sim Climate. Get your earth as it is today, take the viable actions which can be taken and guide your planet through the next century. Drought, fires, flood, or: Improvement, harvest, etc. Be the president of the US, fight with congress and the Senate. Be the general secretary of the UN, make policy, be ignored. The possibilities are endless. However there is only one way to ensure your children and grandchildren have a viable life; cut CO2 and cut it fast.
I think a free game like that could do wonders for the visibility of the problem and the understanding of people to whom actions like “cap and trade” are just abstracts.
So, anyway, that’s my analysis.
@#97
Are you saying that there is unharnessed hydro-power going begging somewhere up in the Scottish highlands that S&SE require a few quid from me to get working? Or is this like medeaeval indulgences – pay us more cash & we’ll allocate our green energy to you so you’ll feel like you’re doing your bit? Schemes like this don’t build hydro plants. And they don’t build confidence in the green movement!!
Re. 108 MARodger
My energy is 100% replaced with renewable, it’s cheaper than my old supplier, it’s a 100% UK company unlike my previous supplier who has my country’s title in its name, with further incentives from the new supplier to reduce consumption. If it becomes more popular with consumers then how do you know it won’t build more hydro plants? “Supply and demand” can’t be any more apt.
BTW, I’m not in the green movement so I’d appreciate you skipping the straw men, thanks.
The problem right now is messaging. The vast majority of the American public has an attention span of about 7 seconds. Anything more than that and you’ve lost them. The minute you have to explain the difference between weather and climate, you’ve lost the bulk of your audience. What’s needed most of all is pithy, easily remembered statements that are repeated like a mantra again and again. I hate to say this, but perhaps it’s time to steal a page from the Karl Rove playbook. Use people’s anger and frustration. Exploit visual images. Use marketing to communicate with the vast majority of people who only read headlines. One oil spill picture is worth a thousand words. Equate the use of foreign oil to putting a bomb in your gas tank. Know your target audience and KISS.
How to create a grassroots climate movement ? That is just what we have been trying in Bordeaux (France) for nearly 3 years with friends in the taca association. Our results are between good and bad. I give you the main features of taca, expecting your remarks for improving our approach and effectiveness.
I don’t feel like a climate hawk (don’t like Rumsfeld); I prefer the climate bee making its honey browsing the Climate Progress flowers. (it is a great help, thanks to the variety and quality of the articles, and also thanks to the comments, usefully expurged from the pollution of the denialists)
Our web site, all in French, can be improved thanks to your remarks (please write at j.sireyjol@yahoo.fr)
Taca means in French phonetic ‘just do it’, it also means Tax Carbon. So the association has got 2 legs (usefull to walk our talk):
*the individual commitment: just reduce your carbon footprint
*the collective purpose of setting a price on carbon (a carbon tax with redistribution sounds as the fairest and clearest solution, as supported by Hansen and al)
The main “features” of the association are the following:
• the “strategy” to expose that global warming is here and now
• using a sensible unit of measure: the carbon kilo (equivalent to using 1 litre of petrol), instead of the phony CO2 ton (what is in a CO2 ton?). (this is a very important point, and I feel really alone about it, and please don’t dismiss it for this reason: is the today people awareness about carbon an example of achievement?)
• proposing a simple and clear Excel sheet as Carbon Foot Print calculator (MICMAC; as My Impact Carbon, My Actions Concrete)
• gathering supporters (grassroots movement:)
• organising carbon free picnic
• a play wright called “The factor 4”
• the proposition of a World Wide Climate Contribution (Clearly, I don’t understand why such basic principles are not on the table of negociation!)
• The connection with world wide association as 350.org and also Climate Justice Fast (the no1 in ethical approach)
• The financial sobriety (o resources except the subscriber fee)
Thank you for your remarks and ideas (I don’t know how to put hyperttext link on CP comment: this remark could be usefull).
Another short comment: thank you comment 100 (the onlooking ghost of William James): your psychology of communication is clear and fun.
To foster consumer-oriented alternatives for daily choices, links (repeated regularly) to sites that give “greenest” consumer choices. To foster dialogue, rebuttals to propaganda, including Faux News disseminations, greenwashing PR, etc. To foster improved employment, links to green-job training & openings. To foster an informed electorate, a “League of Women’s Voters”-type voting summary of local, state and federal candidate positions & records. Two special categories to be addressed: the low-income constituency who would like to be a positive factor and don’t have the financial means to contribute, and the time-challenged who need quick and easy things to do to make cumulative changes, with recognition that these categories overlap. For every “stop doing”, a “start doing” alternative.
@#109
The capacity for hydro-power is finite & small, UK-wide, worldwide. The only new significant hydro in UK is Glendoe which came on stream (briefly http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1943216) in 2008. It was the first scheme of any size in 50 years (100MW if the rain does its stuff & if they can clear the rock fall that’s stopped it running for the last 18 months). It was built by the company in question S&SE which is great but I’ve not heard of any new schemes being planned. I spend 4 months a year in the highlands so I’d be surprised to have missed the news. (There is the extra 5MW at Kinlochleven which is increasing output from an existing dam.) The big renewables that feature in Scotland are wind, tide & soon wave. Sorry but I cannot see any link between increasing hydro-power capacity & your energy tariff.
Enabling, Supporting, Tooling-Up, and Motivating a Growing Person-to-Person Mass Movement
We need to get PEOPLE “out there” talking to each other, neighbors, friends, family, and acquaintances. A number of things can help them to do so — and help make that happen. I’ll mention just a few: some things that would be very helpful, I think, but not sufficient. (In other words, more things than these will be needed, but these would help get more people motivated, supported, and tooled up.)
First, as I mentioned in my earlier comment in more detail, there should be a compact book, as described in my comment 58 (as they are presently numbered). Please see that comment. That book should be widely distributed — given away — so that people can have their own, point to them, and give them to others they talk to.
Second, as many people as possible should have and read (at least in part) the truly excellent book “Moral Ground: Ethical Action For A Planet In Peril”, edited by Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson. It’s not a normal book, as if having or reading one book by one author could play this role. Instead, it’s a collection of short statements, “testimonies”, essays, appeals, poems (in some cases) and so forth from an amazing collection of about 80 folks, including E. O. Wilson, the Dalai Lama, Pope John Paul II, Paul Hawken, Bill McKibben, Peter Singer, Wendell Berry, Barack Obama, James Gustave Speth, and an amazing assortment of others — biologists, ecologists, humanists, spiritual leaders, Native American leaders, and etc. It is compelling. Something for everyone. So, this book, combined with the other one (of the collection of all the Position Statements and important joint letters from all the scientific organizations, which could be a free and widely distributed book), would make a great combination for any person who will talk to her/his neighbors, friends, family members, and so forth. They are two books to have, to refer to, to show, to use as tools, to provide credibility and support, and (at least in the one case) to actually give away to people you talk to. (It would be great to be able to give both books away, but doing so will likely be more possible with the compact paper-back collection of Position Statements (from the scientific organizations) than in the case of the other book, which might not be easy to get on a mass “for free” basis.)
The idea here is NOT that actually reading two books from cover-to-cover will do the trick Instead, these are both “reference” books, and credibility books, and networking tools, and movement tools. The one would contain the full collection of Position Statements from the scientific organizations, providing that sort of immense credibility, while the other contains every sort of compelling moral/ethical/human “case” and appeal that anyone could ask for. They make a great combination.
Moving on, I agree with Robert Brulle’s comment above (presently numbered 81). That’s an important comment, and I too am interested in hearing more — much more — from the leaders of the various organizations about what they think and what they may be planning.
Also, a massive grass-roots movement will be important, and can be created and enabled and supported, but doing so will also REQUIRE the organizations that should be doing things TO DO THOSE THINGS. In other words, what about the idea (that I explained in an earlier post, weeks ago) about the major scientific organizations cooperating (with help from private donors) to develop and offer an in-person full-day presentation and discussion, to be given to every single member of Congress, in small groups or even individually, for free, offered in a way that Congresspersons will be seen as irresponsible, evasive, ill motivated, and uninformed if they don’t attend? Offer the program in such a way (i.e., for free, at the date of the Congressperson’s choosing, at the location of the Congressperson’s choice, any time over the next nine months, etc.) that it would be embarrassing and credibility-killing to say “no”. It should be offered jointly by the top scientific organizations, working together, and each delivery (each session) should be given by three or four highly credible and excellently prepared experts, covering the breadth and depth of the subjects involved. Consider: IF the formal organizations are not doing their utmost in these sorts of ways, how do we expect massive numbers of citizens to get motivated, excited, and involved. It’s too easy (these days) for people to say to themselves, “If the scientific organizations aren’t doing all that much, and if the formal environmental organizations aren’t making much headway, and if the politicians are dysfunctional, and if the universities and their students aren’t really ‘fighting the good fight’ (or at least not very hard, as far as I can see from my vantage point), and if the media are a mess, then what good will it do for little-me, personally, to go out and try to talk to neighbors and friends and family, and why the heck should I do it, if all of the formal organizations, with people who are actually PAID to do something, are NOT doing their jobs as far as I can tell?” So, although a massive movement is necessary, there is a bit of a chicken and egg problem, because it will be that much harder to start and motivate a mass movement IF the formal organizations that are supposed to be “on our side” are not doing everything they possibly can do, and EFFECTIVELY, so that we can all start to see real fruits of our efforts.
In any case, I hope these are a few helpful thoughts.
Cheers,
Jeff
The idea of a Climate Progress online group/forum keeps coming to mind – so we can interact directly. Is there a fatal flaw in this that I’m missing?
[JR: May be doable. Just needs staffing.]
If you want to change things, there is no substitute for politics. In the UK the Green Party is small and prejudiced by the system, but the main democratic parties are in a pretty woeful state with less than a quarter of a million members each. 100,000 people joining any one of them would have a massive effect. Personally I am a member of the Labour Party, and I could do with a few more allies.
We are working on a large scale grass roots campaign in NYC centered around a world expo: http://www.e3nyc.com. Please also note the ONEPRIZE competition calling on the world’s best and brightest to address NYC’s water (eg East River, Gowanus Canal): http://www.oneprize.org
The only way to deal with climate change are large scale, grass-roots driven efforts.
How do we make progress?
Use business models that incentivize energy reduction and CO2 reduction.
We need more entrepreneurs working on ways to microfince micro savings.
I think we need a combination of strategies. I like McKibben’s call for peaceful “civil disobedience”. I like the ACE Party idea. We need to keep educating ourselves – book clubs focused on climate change? I like the proposal for a rapid response group to dispel the false information wherever and whenever it occurs. And we need to be role models for the change we advocate. (hanging laundry on the line, riding the bus, community gardening, etc). Although it might be more comfortable and organized if we undertook all these actions in a coordinated fashion under a single organization, I think the power of having many, many groups all focused on the same goal (350) can send a very powerful message. I’m so glad that I happen to live at this time in history and can make a difference.
Lora in Albuquerque, NM
I believe that moving toward a grassroots climate & clean energy movement requires working toward a shift of the current prevailing economic/ social paradigm in our society. Currently, our economic model (mainstream, stock exchange etc) appears to be very much based on corporate exploitation & profit taking. It is not so much about the common good. I think in striving for a clean energy future, we need to look at the environmental issues more holistically & not be sucked into the current economic paradigm. Sustainability requires addressing the social issues alongside the environmental issues. Closed loop systems (self-sustaining), focus on local initiatives (not sabataged by government & big business interests) are very much part of the equation. Can we move toward an alternative (grassroots driven) economic system which allows people to invest in the common good?
1. Change your political alliance to a local and global political party that does not take corporate dollars…The Green Party. We’ve been pushing for the changes people are just starting to talk about now in the main-stream for 30 years. We do not take any corporate funding. THIS IS SO ABSOLUTELY KEY. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY.
http://www.gpus.org / http://www.gpca.org
2. Educate yourself and others about the ridiculousness of “corporate personhood”, which is at the crux of most environmental and social ills here in the U.S. and across the planet. When profit for the few becomes less of an imperative than the very future of humanity, we will see some real change. There is a legal way the U.S. can reverse corporate personhood altogether, AND every U.S. state’s Attorney General has the legal right to reverse a corporations charter to do business when they behave badly. Check out http://www.movetoamend.org.
3.I finally just recently saw ONE main-stream network here in the U.S…ABC, do a piece connecting all of our wild weather across the world to climate change. ONE network doing ONE piece?. I’m sure I’ve missed a few others, but that is the point..a FEW. We need to inundate our “main-stream” with demands to start connecting the dots like the rest of the world has. Check out http://www.350.org.
4) Email, call, write CNN, ABC, and others similar..send in letters to the editor, make phone calls, contact your local news stations. Demand, Demand, Demand that our news outlets start facing the fact that climate change is real, it is here NOW, and our Earth is a different place then it was just 30 years ago and will be WILDLY different very soon if we don’t put the brakes on. We need to figure out how to share with those that just don’t get it yet, how severe things are without scaring them into further denial. People need to know that every single thing they do, purchase, use, and waste makes a difference.
“THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY”
5) If you have a local climate change non-profit doing some work, support them and get involved. If you don’t, then start one!. Anyone in Ventura County, California – we have one!. http://www.vccool.org
6) Do the same Demand process of our news outlets with political leaders, all the way from your city council to the Obama Administration. This administration, in particular, right now can do so much more. Use every means at your disposal to communicate your displeasure and make sure to ASK FOR WHAT YOU DO WANT.
There is one. It’s an emerging global movement with a clearly and beautifully articulated manifesto.
And in my opinion, it needs to be joined, strengthened and expanded by any
serious individual or group that wants to protect and preserve our planet and its species.
350.org needs to get behind it as well:
Peoples Agreement from the World People’s Conference on Climate Change
and the Rights of Mother Earth, April 22nd, Cochabamba, Bolivia:
http://pwccc.wordpress.com/support/
Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth
http://pwccc.wordpress.com/programa/
The indigenous peoples of the world have been living in harmony with Mother Nature for thousands of years. All the “developed” (read “destructive”) world needs to do is pay attention.
Thinking about this post, while cross country skiing on our 20 inches of fluff, and with not much time until the grandkids arrive, let me post a positive idea.
In MA, we have a loose network, the MA Climate Action Network, or MCAN, comprised of groups in around 50 towns or collections of towns. We hold individual meetings within our towns, focusing on whatever we want, and also have the opportunity to attend other towns’ events, or the yearly MCAN conference or monthly meeting. Focuses include the gammit: energy useage within the town or individually, local food, awareness campaigns through talks and movie-showing, waste removal, etc. I don’t believe this concept exist widely elsewhere.
Here in MA we were able to pass numerous environmental bills, including the Global Warming Solutions Act, which sets a short-term target as well as long-term one. MCAN member calls, lobbying, and conversations with our law-makers helped get these passed.
So, form a group within you town, wherever you are. Arrange a meeting place and time, put up notices around town, in the local paper, and in churches, and gather your climate cognoscenti together to agree on some worthwhile local initiatves. Encourage your friends in the next town to do so also. Don’t waste your time on deniers. We’ve got to band all the climate hawks together.
If all the states passed bills like MA and CA, and a few others, we’d be there by now.
To add to the quote at the top of this discussion….. If not I then who…. I believe that the way to make a difference is not through protests. Yes it is true that ‘development’ is happening and will continue and yes I propose an alternative to fighting it. I encourage , and lead by example, to plant a tree(or any other plant) whenever I can. and the word is spreading and the action is following. 5 of ny immediate neighbours are each planting 5 trees this week, OUTSIDE there properties. I believe we should through small practical steps like this counter and repair the damage.. It can and will become a groundswell…
Make the right allies:
1. Social activists (justice, women’s rights, human rights, human health, animal rights, etc.)
2. Key energy and technology companies
3. Key municipalities
4. Celebrities
5. Progressive Countries (Scandinavians and NW Europeans)
Get the right messengers:
1. see above
2. get the non-usual, preferably right-wing suspects (ex. hunters, farmers, business men, soldiers, cowboys, nascar drivers, etc.)
Get the right message:
1. Yes communicate the problem, but AT LEAST half the time talk solutions. If not more.
2. Focus on how to empower people.
3. Focus on how these solutions solve many other problems.
If we really want to make a difference in the US we all need to get behind PACE which is property assessed clean energy.
PACE removes the upfront cost obstacle to wide spread adoption of energy conservation.
What PACE does is allow for any homeowner to have an energy audit and follow through with appropriate energy conservation and energy efficient upgrades to thier property.
These improvements are paid for by a “special improvement district” or clean energy assesment district which is typically administered by a local municipality.
The improvements have to result in the properties energy bills being reduced so that the savings from the improvements exceed the cost of the assessment. This is easy to determine in advance and results in a net reduction in the cost of living in the home while making it more comfortable and reducing emmissions.
PACE increases the value of the property, reduces the risk of default and enabling legislation has been adopted in 24 states and the Dist of Columbia.
PACE would create millions of jobs.
Who does not want to live in a warmer home, where the bills have gone down and the property value has gone up?
ANYBODY?
ANYWHERE?
PACE IS currently blocked by the FHFA which has stated that they will not make loans in any locality that adopts a residential PACE program.
In doing this the FHFA has wheeled out discriminatory redlining to prevent a public good.
The public comment period is coming up pending the disposition of lawsuits filed in California (California v Federal Housing Finance Agency, N.D. Cal 10-3084.
Don’t be fooled by the name the FHFA in not really “FEDERAL” so a non governmental agency has effectivly and arbitrarily brought a program that will dramitically enhance the greater public good, create jobs, and improve our environment to a screeching halt as of JUNE 2010.
If you want to live in a energy efficient home, reduce dependence on foreign fossil fuels, lower your bills and be more comfortable look at PACENOW.ORG and insist that your congress and senate make PACE happen.
The FHFA has an enormous amount of responsibility for the current mortgage and finance problemns that exist in our country and are continuing to dictate without valid reason how we live in our homes.
We are being dictated to without representation. Where are your elected representatives on this? If they say they are in support of PACE what are they doing to enact it. The FHFA is just a bank, not the government.
Who elected the FHFA? Who is lobbying for the policies they enforce.
Take some action and study PACE
Patrick Gallagher
Warwick,NY
gallagrr@warwick.net
The other angle is to focus on taking control of the physical and economic power base a lot too. I mean, much of the political and social power of opponents on action on climate change stems from their control over physical power and energy and from their economic clout.
So focus on the politicians, media, laws, companies, pundits and all that for sure. But also have a huge arm of the movement focusing usurping their monopoly on physical power. That is, ramp up a lot of actual, on-the-ground projects that reduce emissions and that physically empower people. And have a huge arm of the movement focusing on helping people use their collective economic influence to vote with their dollars. (Green “Groupons”, investment vehicles, people’s cooperatives, etc.)
It’s a power struggle. Rationality and words, laws and politics and so on only have so much impact. The best way to create change is to bring about the change in ways that they can’t stop and that reduce their power at the same time.
It’s like the battle of the sexes: women had all the right arguments and had truth and justice on their side. But that’s not the main way they won. The main way they won was because men couldn’t stop them. With the advent of technologies, the world no longer selected for might and muscle. Woman could survive on their own in jobs that required the other, and many skills woman have in abundance. Men had no choice but to concede.
Finally, get religious activists involved. The Pope is already on board. As are the heads of other denominations. It’s a no brainer and a big thing that might actually make a dent in certain factions of society.
This is a good effort to invite ideas through a green way. My ideas are available at http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/miliband/entry/act_on_copenhagen#comments, http://mynature-myfuture.blogspot.com/2009/10/climate-change-httpwwwblogactiondayorg.html, http://redtapemovementcommunity.blogspot.com/2009/08/red-tape-movement.html, http://www.350.org/red-tape-movement and http://www.facebook.com/prabhat.lovepeaceunity. Thanks and regards.
Kendra Gonzales, #122
You are right. We have a political umbrella party, there is no need to create another. I just downloaded the form to switch from Democrat and register as a member of the Green Party in New Jersey and I’m going to mail it tomorrow. As a member of the Green Party, I’m going to be making it more clear to candidates that my vote in the general elections will be based primarily on energy/climate change/environmental issues.
Here’s the link to where you can click on your own state: http://www.gp.org/states.shtml
the movement will have to have a grassroots element, but corporate money will be a big plus. support and PR from the plethora of companies, old and new, ready to capitalize on clean energy (or at least greening of their product lines) will be what validates this struggle for the general public.
The public has largely forgotten about the bp spill. they need to be reminded that every fossil fuel disaster, from the spill to the upper big branch mine explosion to the $700b we send overseas yearly for oil, has been a kidney punch to america. They need to know what a grave threat sea level rise and all the other dangers posed by global warming will be to this country. Lastly, they need to know that american capitalism will be what puts up wind turbines and solar panels, not some socialist scheme.
In hungary when Private Enterprise messes up it seemingly getes nationalized. Some sludge for thought…
Lives still in ruin after Hungarian toxic sludge spill
Nearly four months after toxic sludge covered the Hungarian village of Kolantar, the locals have yet to rebuild their lives. Emma Hayward reports from Hungary. http://www.newslook.com/videos/285362-lives-still-in-ruin-after-hungarian-toxic-sludge-spill?autoplay=true
I started my own consulting business on ecological sustainability because I wanted to go down fighting, and most of my time is currently spent on public education projects trying to spread the word. I agree that political movement in the right direction would be the most expedient solution, but as a realist I consider that pretty unlikely without significant growing mainstream awareness building pressure first, as a counter to the enormous inertia the current paradigm has. Our entire system of economics, law, and politics currently encourages short-term thinking and the utilization of all our planet’s resources at an ever-increasing rate. Of course I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Likewise, I agree that an ethical billionaire or two backing sustainable initiatives would be delightful (if living as sustainably as possible didn’t already slash my household budget enormously I couldn’t remotely afford to be doing what I do), but we can hardly afford to wait around for them. I learned a little about what seemed to be effective strategies while canvassing for Greenpeace over a few years, and applying that is steadily growing my audience.
You’re all here because once you become aware of the issues it’s hard NOT to become engaged. Most people avoid the first foot through the door as a defence against pessimism – the fact that our environment is already in trouble is already a widely held belief, but many avoid learning details because they’re sure it’s just going to depress them. I focus increasingly on playing up the upsides of sustainable living – reducing expenses, more time with family or other things that matter to you, improved health, positive human connections, and so on. It shouldn’t have to be a sales job getting people to act in what’s ultimately their best interest, but in the current social climate it is, so take a page from sales and focus on telling people what’s in it for them. The list of benefits is as long as your arm, so that’s not as hard as we sometimes think.
Don’t focus as much on rebutting deniers as on engaging fence sitters. It’s nice to work with many like minded people, and tempting to tilt at windmills of morally abhorrent destructive attitudes, but it’s minds that are dipping tentative toes into the pool already that are easiest to push in and engage. Simple and brief works magic (only the already converted are that interested in hearing me lecture for an hour), and I find nothing feels as much like striking gold as a good analogy. Toyota recalled many vehicles because their gas pedals would stick, so when I talk about climate tipping points I talk Toyotas; “There’s a moment where the whole thing lurches forward and the brakes don’t help anymore, so you’re white knuckled at the wheel with all sorts of obstacles growing in the windshield desperate to avoid them.” When I see the light go on in someone’s eye and they understand the principle based on the analogy, that’s a good day.
Identify ‘solutions’ that are trivial, and when you do reference the bleak side, don’t pull your punches. I rarely talk about climate change without also mentioning peak oil, peak soil, peak water, peak phosphates, biodiversity decline – remember that it all ties together. Anyone under the age of 25 today has a shorter life expectancy than their parents for the first time since the dark ages. Recycling and new light bulbs are nice, but they’re the tiniest drop in the bucket and sure as hell not going to save us. Only a few simple things genuinely make a big difference: buy less, buy local, eat local and lower on the food chain, don’t fly, don’t drive, and think low tech. Again, brief is best, a sound bite: here’s an issue, here’s a partial solution, and here’s the up side. I’m working to create as many one minute long scripts as I can. An example:
Two hectares of old growth boreal forest are clearcut every minute. Trees resist erosion, secure watersheds, support biodiversity, sequester carbon, and improve air quality, all for free. Half of those we cut down are used to make disposable paper products. This was my favorite T-shirt. When it died, I cut out the part I like. My comforting handkerchief is soft, free, and reusable. I never buy paper tissues. I tore the rest into rags, which live in a bucket under my sink. My rag bucket is absorbent and practical; why waste a dime on paper towels? Being green saves me money. It wasn’t a huge change to my way of life, doesn’t add significantly to my laundry, and I made myself a new favorite T-shirt. We save money, and trees, and get a greener, more optimistic future. (of course, that works better with the visuals – you have to imagine my shirt and hankie)
Use humour wherever possible. I sing at all of my public talks, and I’m premiering “Sustainability: the Musical!” at a local fringe theatre festival in July. Although I write and speak and more, I actually get more and stronger responses to short comics (I publish a monthly graphic column in a local small press newspaper). You can see examples here:
http://www.yourgreenfeat.com/Green_Feat/Comics/Comics.html
I’m currently working on a ‘home sustainability guide’ comic which you can theoretically take apart and spread through your home – a page about water use for the bathroom, one about local food for the fridge, another about garments for the closet door, and so on – practical accessible ways to bring suggestions and solutions into people’s homes are crucial.
I think the biggest beachhead for change is going to be expanding beyond occasional (okay, rare, and often dangerously slanted) mentions in the news into spreading the message of a sustainable future into our advertising time/space, and our entertainment. I also say that we need a SIM Climate game (kudos to whomever mentioned it above – I greatly agree) and that sort of thing. As long as it’s easy to dismiss us as the dour fun police in the corner, we’ll continue to be marginalized, but if we can present our message engagingly some people will become themselves engaged ‘by accident’. The poster I’m using for my February lecture at McMaster university is an example:
http://www.yourgreenfeat.com/Green_Feat/Events.html
Thank you, every single one of you, for doing your part here. Diverse tactics work, so if you are doing something completely different than I, it’s also to the good. And for anyone who’s read this typically long winded note in its entirety, I hope my words find you in good health and spirits on a day that brings unexpected good news.
Michael Nabert
Green Feat
Obsessed with improving tomorrow. You’re welcome.
brooks bridges: “The idea of a Climate Progress online group/forum keeps coming to mind – so we can interact directly.”
joe romm: “May be doable. Just needs staffing.”
please let the project focus be updating good-gov meliorist thinking for the new world, not painting donkeys green.
WE must start in our own neighborhoods, getting to know our neighbors, and breaking down the barriers to interaction. In the summer, I flier the block, inviting my neighbors to a “10 minute” walk around the block. The purpose is not to walk for exercise, but to interact. The walks usually last 20-30 minutes, and are a lot of fun.
I have yet to put this into practice, but the folks in the Methow Valley in Washington have used Emergency Preparedness (aka disaster preparedness) as a foot in the door to many homes and places that wouldn’t give them the time of day otherwise. Their next step, after organizing neighborhoods around community preparedness, will be to address other issues more dear to the sustainability community’s heart, like the economy. There is a wealth of great information on how to do it on their website, as well as the L2020 website.
http://www.mvcommunitypreparedness.org/index.html
http://www.l2020.org/index.php?page=emergency-preparedness-menu
There are many excellent and necessary ideas for actions to take… We should be doing them all.
But due to the built-in time constraints that this crisis dictates, it is imperative to take bold, comprehensive action that can have immediate global impact. Thus, (in addition to all the fine localized work that is being done) I think it is critical to build a force that can push President Obama and others to take necessary and dramatic action.
This show of might can only come from a very unified consortium of ALL environmental groups along with the faith community, labor, business, peace groups, any and all groups that work to insure people’s well-being. (even the military understands how essential it is to address climate change NOW).
We will only be able to make our message heard and have impact if it is amplified with the power and passion of millions of us – COMING TOGETHER – all groups in UNISON – with the unmistakable demand to save our future and cut carbon NOW!
Aside from the core notion of needing to have a unified show of force… there is much to be done in terms of how to make this unified movement more visible… more cohesive. This is where we need to tap all kinds of creative ideas.
I think there was value in having symbols such as the peace sign – as well as the finger peace “V” – as a very simplistic and immediate way of demonstrating solidarity. It almost became infectious – with people enjoying ‘belonging’ to something. There would be huge value in developing musical themes that help to immediately identify and promote this movement… the same is true of artwork. (I’ve had some specific thoughts along this line).
We need huge numbers of mothers, grandmothers and children to speak from their hearts about the sickness of a society that shirks it’s responsibility to provide a future for it’s children…. We need celebrities to come together and be most visible…. Scientists should be finding ways to consolidate and amplify their warnings…..
….How about starting an immense visible action among those attending a football game? If you were successful at just one game, with media attention, it’s the kind of thing that I could see spreading. The number of people who watch sporting events I would think eclipses those who watch the evening news. It’s time to GET NOTICED!
The bottom line is there are a lot of us doing many great things …. and many others who are simply worried about the future. It’s time we ALL CAME TOGETHER. It is the responsibility of the groups working on this issue to put aside egos, and any differences for the good the movement…. For if we are unsuccessful,
who will give a damn which group garnered the most media attention or swelled their membership?
We’re running out of time. We need big, effective actions and solutions NOW!
perry stahlsis was moved to say: “The indigenous peoples of the world have been living in harmony with Mother Nature for thousands of years.”
they were disenfranchised before big industry really got started. forced to live marginally. i think if the encounter with the europeans had been peaceful, the more urban peoples of the americas could easily have gone the imperial-industrial route. (mostly taking the example of japan for this.)
Suggestion for social media strategy. One of my U.S. Senators is a climate skeptic, and wants to limit EPAs regulation of greenhouse gases. After he was featured on NPR as one of the new senators using Facebook, I looked him up. Every time he makes a climate-skeptic post on his Facebook page it is followed mostly by support. I let him know that I disagree and support strong climate legislation and support EPA efforts. As difficult as it was to do, I had to “like” his Facebook page to post. I’m hopeful it will be more productive than a letter, because all the page visitors will see it. Problem is, I see few climate supportive posts.
Well, I’d say the best thing to do is to find a local group of like-minded people, pick a big, but do-able project, and make it happen.
If everybody here got a project started in their region, that would be a big step.
Part of this is – we need to stop talking about how much we need to do stuff, and we need to start DOING STUFF.
What do you think the biggest problem is that you can make progress on?
Food security?
Water security?
Power sources?
Pick a general topic, and then from there, zoom in on a subset, and repeat until you have something manageable but significant, and do that. Then start on the next one. And the next one.
Tell people about what you’re doing – get them involved. Help other people start other projects.
We need politics, but we also can’t afford to do nothing but wait on politicians.
Please support and pass on….
“Addressing Global Warming, I vow to eliminate all my non-essential flying. It’s a moral issue…”
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ClimateFlightAction/165484890164497?v=info
By signing up to reducing your non-essential flying you make a big impact on emissions reduction in multiple ways.
>Your emissions are substantially reduce.
>Your resolution highlights and focus the urgency of the issue and the sort of effort that will be required to address the problem with your peers.
>You reenforce and provide suport to consolidate action in tackling global warming.
Its a moral issue….
http://moralground.com/mission/
The Guardian has a good piece. I think considering things we are at a stage where we need to switch to a state of emergency footing to get things going….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/jan/20/home-front-war-climate-change
Mobilising the ‘home front’ to fight climate change
When it comes to tackling climate change, there are many lessons we can learn from the wartime generation
Why? Two reasons. First, climate change is one of the greatest threats to our country since the last world war. It’s not only environmentalists who are saying this. Business leaders, prime ministers, major charities and generals have all recognised the level of risk.
Second, if we are to overcome this threat – and the alternative is simply too awful to contemplate – then we need to mobilise as a nation in a way we haven’t seen since 1945.
From above, the report…
The new home front
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/reports/the_new_home_front_FINAL.pdf
“People put up with so much disruption and deprivation because they knew there was no alternative, and because they believed society would emerge stronger at the end of the war.”
“People put up with so much disruption and deprivation because they knew there was no alternative, and because they believed society would emerge stronger at the end of the war.”
This is one of the main issues with why the general public is ignoring action on Climate Warming. They just dont realize there is no alternative.
Things are going to have to get tough.
And that is discounting the impacts of warming which are coming much faster that the scientist envisaged and the consequences of peak oil.
We are not going to find a effective replacement for oil in the near future. And everyone is going to have to buckle down and hustle through this.
The sooner everyone realizes this, the better.
Here’s an interesting piece from Agence France-Presse about climate-related lawsuits. Seems it’s becoming big business for some law firms.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/49rgh7x
Water Water every wear not a drop to drink.
Dear Sir or Madam, I hope you are well. Please take a few moments to read this email, you my find it of some intrest. If you would like more details on this idea please contact me on my home email address colinspringthorpe@hotmail.co.uk.
I have been working on a climate idea for some time, I have spent most of my working life working on some form of Mechanical object. I started in the English textile trade in 1969, as a Mechanical Engineer on Knitting Machines. Do to the English textile trade finishing, I change direction. I worked as a Building Maintenance Engineer, I got interested in Green Energy. I have been working on this idea for some time. I am hoping that you may know some one that may be interested, please take a few moment to read this email and looking at drawings. I have also look on the web for information on this idea, I have found a similar device made in 1742 by Nicolo Ghezzi of Italy, and also use by Charles Wilson in 1872 in Las Salinas Chile. I have also found a company on the internet called Solaqua, http://WWW.solaqua.com , the ideas are similar. One of the main points with my idea, is to reduce the sea level. I still do not know were the idea came from, I have sent my idea to some will known parties. I did place this info on Face Book (Act on Co 2), I did receive a reply from Carbon Trust. I also placed details on Face book walls (Get it Green and Planeta Urgente)I have just returned from Egypt, I am now trying to find funding for this Idea. If any would like any details please contact me, I have sent the details around the World twice. I will keep sending details around the world. Thank you for reading this email.
Regards Colin.
Re: Post #60 | CFB says:
January 22, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Hi, CFB. I’m still reading through all of the comments but yours reflects rather closely some of what I’ve been thinking about lately and I wanted to respond:
CFB: Hey Wit’s End,
No politician can be expected to act on this issue without pressure from the masses. We do not need a leader, we need to all be leaders. How many of you have are willing to make the sacrifices like the satyagraha? Maybe that is what we need, a “green satyagraha”. Or I can picture a massive walk from all points in the United States to D.C. How many of you are willing to risk your jobs for this issue and take three or four month off to walk?
Almost without exception, all of the “think tank” documents on climate change that I have hard-copy archived conclude with a reference to “public pressure” being the only force that will, in the end, be truly effective in catalyzing substantive political progress (i.e. action) on this matter. I would have to check but I believe I have documents dating back as far as 1972. So, I think you are quite right as regards “pressure from the masses.” Also, I agree that we all need to be “leaders.” On the matter of risk, I, too envision a massive “people’s walk” to D.C. from all parts of the US. There is nothing I would like more at this point than to be able to give up my job to participate in such a project. The problem is that I need to support myself and, at 62, would not be likely to find another job. If I could make living expenses working exclusively on climate change issues I wouldn’t think twice about leaving my current job. It has been my observation that many people feel this way and would like to be in a position to walk the talk.
CFB: But the difference between the climate issue and civil rights issues is that there is no law we are protesting against which makes protest ambiguous. In other words, we need to be against something. That is how the deniers win, they are against the Al Gore’s, the Liberals. What are we against? The capitalists? Industrialization? Fossil Fuel companies? We NEED an opponent. Who marches FOR things? People march AGAINST things. Always. Civil rights marches were AGAINST the current laws, not FOR freedom.
This is interesting. I do understand your point from a strategic perspective but I am not so sure that protesting against something automatically precludes protesting for something. This is making me think. If it is true that people always march against things, is that because it is written somewhere that people never march for things? If yes, where is it written? What about simply standing and marching for our lives and for the protection of the support systems upon which we and all living things depend for our survival? It seems to me that standing for something is more empowering and ultimately less debilitating than standing against. Also, I think it is harder for people to manipulate those who are standing for. What do you think?
CFB: The theme here also is non-participation, a boycott against fossil fuel, against the political parties and companies that do not act on the climate change issue.
Non-participation is in my observation a very powerful force. I would love to see this force amplified via individual decisions made by a steadily-increasing number of people. I think there is a great deal of potential here.
I spent this afternoon at a birthday party for a one-year old. Most of the grownups were watching football on the flat-screen teevee. What a pity, I thought, looking at the crowd in the stadium, willingly shivering for hours, and we can’t get a tiny fraction of that number protesting on the Washington Mall to demand government action on climate change, and an end to corporate control.
Then I thought, that’s it!!! A Climate Hawk All-Star v. Climate Ostrich Game! On one side, the activists and scientists – Joe Romm, Hansen, McKibben, Mann, Gavin from Real Climate, Cook et al. On the other side, Inhofe, Watts, George Will, Singer etc. We challenge them to a televised game, and the commercials can come half from Koch Industries and Massey Energy and the other half from Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and the Center for Biological Diversity.
No matter who wins, at least we get Americans paying attention for a change.
Per Gail D.s post:
There is no “one thing” that will work, but a thousand different actions by millions of people will make a difference.
A few ideas I like:
Symbols do have power. We have been purchasing the “Planet Earth from Space” image on flags and giving them as gifts. This is a tangible action that many can do now. It’s a gift that can be shared with everyone withing sight.
Why don’t we make Earth Day (April 22) the biggest holiday in the world? Maximizing the possibilities of Earth Day is one of the most underutilized opportunites we have for reaching out and expressing an inspiring message.
Using Earth Day for Climate Activism gives us a focal point and a dateline.
We need some grassroots leadership to coordinate action on this. Here is a place for retiring babyboomers to show their stuff. A community ad hoc team of Earth Day promoters can take the initiative to “bring everyone to the dance” The goal is to make Earth Day the most fun, notable and meaningful event in our community. Do it well once, and it will start to grow itself.
Kudos to Larry Beck #101 (“I was able to get a rebuttal posted as an Op-ed piece (link) in the moderately conservative newspaper in my North Texas hometown.”)
Also gulo #87.
And a quote from the site of Chris Watkins #93′s Coalition of the Willing:
“…[One] step towards successful online collaboration is to demonstrate stewardship…an important prerequisite for successful collaboration. To grow a collaborative ecosystem, it is necessary to create a space of sharing and engagement. Transparency, flexibility, and generosity are all important here. It is also important that someone (or perhaps a rotating group of people) assume the task of stewardship, watching over the evolving discussion and steering it by providing perspectives on where the discussion is at, in the sense of what has been achieved, and what needs to be achieved, to complete the project…”
After reading through the various comments in this thread, it’s obvious that most of the progressives, liberals and environmentalists here are more comfortable working with, and reaching out to, like-minded people. That’s understandable, but it’s really hard to see how preaching to the choir is going to create anything approaching substantive change on climate and energy.
Here’s a fact. A relatively small percentage of the U.S. population enables Red State politicians to block any possibility of climate & energy legislation. Unless we can split off various elements of their base, those same Republican politicians will continue to make it impossible for the U.S. to address global warming for the foreseeable future.
I offered some thoughts on this a little earlier. Does anyone else have suggestions on how to move the Republican base away from the deniers and toward the realists? Because we’ve proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that our current approach is an abject failure. It would be great to have some specific proposals that would actually move the climate needle on Red State public opinion. If we can’t do that, then we’re wasting our time.
Meta suggestion: Is there any way to reconfigure ClimateProgress so a comment containing two paragraphs of text and a single link doesn’t get stuck in moderation?
[JR: No because it doesn't always happen, but in any case, moderation is probably going to stay about where it is.]
tst,
Agreed, the current strategy of warning people that CO2 levels are going to produce climate change, and even current extreme weather, ISN’T WORKING. Exactly no progress is being made, whatsoever. Emissions are climbing, despite the economic slump.
So, the question becomes, how to engage the average ignorer, who isn’t particularly scientifically oriented?
My response is, forget about the emissions of CO2 affecting climate, and talk instead about the “other” greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere, like volatile organic compounds that eventually form toxic tropospheric ozone, which is poisonous to vegetation.
Why?
Because, those emissions are now, in real time, impacting people.
One, they are causing cancers, emphysema, diabetes, autism, allergies and asthma.
Two, they are killing plants – trees, shrubs, and annual crops.
Who doesn’t care about having food to eat? The atmospheric physicists and oceanographers are all brilliant and essential. But somebody needs to make this real.
One of the problems is, that foresters, and employees of the US Dept of Agriculture, are in as much of a revolving door and complicit with industry as the bankers who benefited obscenely from the bailout.
It’s a sickening cycle.
Forget it:
1) Too late. (If the tipping point isn’t now, it is too close to evade.)
2) Who doesn’t get it now will never get. (After all, we are g*d’s crown of creation…)
3) Change in the U.S.? A third party? (In a sclerotic and demented 2-party sytem with a pre telegraph age election system? You sure a kidding…)
It is time for a grass-roots survival movement. A movement to uphold basic ethics informed by natural philosophy. Get away from them late hominids! They are mostly doomed, necessarily so for evolutionistic and epistemilogic reasons. Get serious, face the inevitable imperatives
a) Live CO2 negative
b) Do not multiply
And try to have fun thus.
First: Personal actions are WAY not enough, and people understand this at some intuitive level. But most of the noise has been directed at individual actions, which won’t be enough if every single one of us does them. Most of the energy consumption, waste, and carbon emissions credited to us are actually from industry (with tax breaks) and government including war. We need to stop them. We also need to drastically change our expectations about how we are going to live. Some of that corporate and government energy use actually creates our lifestyle. (Some of it, like electronic billboards, is just noise that we’d be happier without.)
Second: Present laws subsidize the destructive actions of giant corporations. There’s a reason: mostly they were written by corporations, for the purpose of protecting them from citizens’ wrath. A new Boston Tea Party would be appropriate. (Read your history: corporate abuse was a major factor in the American Revolution.) A change in the laws would be the goal of this action – which might well also require ending corporate personhood and a few other small items. Since the media is corporate-owned, this is a problem.
Third: I’d be delighted to walk across the country on behalf of stopping climate change. I’d even lead the walk. (Somebody else has to do the Internet stuff.) I just retired early (62) and started taking my Social Security so I could do this stuff instead. The walk I envision would include a lot of things:
**education on climate change
**trainings in how to live sustainably, and actual hands-on implementation – insulating houses, gardening, chickens, water collection – all that permaculture stuff. Something like the Sarvodaya movement in SE Asia.
**spirituality. Coming to terms with what we have done is massive. That we could already have gone too far, have destroyed the planet for all future generations – is unthinkable. Therefore denial. The most important aspect of this walk would be gatherings in every willing community about what we can do, and allowing space for mourning of what we have done. We are all culpable at some level. We need to forgive ourselves and move on.
**establishing follow-ups, including more practical trainings in the Transition Town style, analysis such as that offered by Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, and more to create a network of communities along the path of the walk – and eventually beyond.
I personally believe that with present knowledge and technology we could alter our lifestyles to live on this planet (without stealing from the rest of the world as we do now) AND we could restore much of the damage done to land, water, etc. We could partially reverse climate change. But we need to be willing.
Holey-Moley!
What’s everyone doing with their weekend!?!
If all 155 of us (assuming the folks who posted more than once brought friends) stood in front of a coal train, or blocked a power plant, or delayed construction on a pipeline… that might help jump start the climate rights movement we so badly need. We need to inspire others through action. I don’t want to introspect and analyze, I want to make sure my kids get to grow up!
For those of you in beautiful British Columbia, check out http://stopcoal.ca, take the action pledge, and join us in Victoria on Tuesday Jan 25th for direct action 101.
Whenever I need to start an insurrection I start with a good graphic! Right now the most important thing we can do is support the EPA in acting to stop climate polluters. We need to make it a patriotic (I prefer matriotic, but patriotic will do for now) imperative to support our American EPA in saving a livable planet for our children and grandchildren. OK, so here’s the graphic – recycled from the old WWII Uncle Sam “I Want You.”
http://www.greenyourhead.com/2010/11/i-want-you-to-help-epa.html
Please distribute freely and widely.
Here is an excellent Rollingstone article on the 12 people most responsible for threatening our future by blocking progress on a clean energy policy with their money and influence…..
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/lists/whos-to-blame-12-politicians-and-execs-blocking-progress-on-global-warming-20110119/rupert-murdochceo-news-corporation-19691231
Let’s look at things from a different perspective. Imagine for a second that conservatives were the climate hawks and that progressives & liberals were the deniers holding back climate legislation in the House and filibustering in the Senate. What do you think would happen?
I’ll tell you what. Everything else being equal, the Right would go absolutely nuts. They’d paint skeptics as traitors, as suicide bombers, as genocidal maniacs who hate America. You’d see interviews with conservative mothers holding their children, looking into the camera and saying, “They’re trying to kill my babies!” You’d have riots, marches on the National Mall, Glenn Beck screaming for the president’s head on a platter. And here’s the thing that we honestly don’t seem to understand. They would be within their rights. Climate change is that important, and the looming threat is that real.
Where’s our outrage, our passion, our people saying, “Over my dead body!!!”? We’d have that kind of social explosion if conservatives thought that global warming was a real danger to the United States. But instead of anger and indignation and a rising chorus of “Not on my watch!”, we have – and I quote – “forget about the emissions of CO2 affecting climate, and talk instead about the ‘other’ greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere, like volatile organic compounds that eventually form toxic tropospheric ozone” and then, simply, “Forget it.” (Comments 153 & 154.)
Is this an intellectual exercise? Are most of us so busy, or so indifferent, or so unmoved by the actual facts, that we’ll make a comment on a web site, fire off an e-mail or two, wear our “climate hawk” pins to the grocery store and then call it good? Is it fear that holds us back, or perhaps the sense that “I’m just one person.”, or simply the rapidly fading hope that the cavalry – whoever that is – is going to ride to our rescue? Are we sheep, intent on not standing up and rocking the boat, or are we human beings?
Here’s the truth of it. We need to help progressives and moderates break through the mind-numbing cultural clutter that blinds us to this oncoming disaster. And we need to enlist conservatives to our cause, not only because they’ll make it impossible for Republican politicians to filibuster real action, but because we need passion and heart and a sense of immediacy on our side.
Our choices are simple. We can either become leaders and voices for sanity, or we can whine from the sidelines as the status quo slowly destroys every single thing we care about. Is that a hard call for anyone here?
@tst #151: Spot on.
@Joe: There is a tremendous amount of collective wisdom on this thread. I think the diversity and intelligence embodied in the overwhelming majority of responses is a testament to how good a job you are doing at raising consciousness and creating community with ClimateProgress. I know I have made some comments on previous threads asking for this/that with respect to coverage, but the bottom line is that I just want you to keep on posting. We need the best damn analysis of climate science and climate politics we can get, and you’re delivering like no one else. Just keep it coming. The rest WILL happen.
@Group: I read these comments to indicate four main themes. Following is my enumeration and response to each.
1. Avoid the formation of a new political party (going Green is fine, but not essential).
The last thing we need to do in 2011 and 2012 is throw the Obama administration a major political curve ball, and that’s what a new party would be. We need to respond with hard messaging to the middle. The Koch brothers and allied interests have pushed the Hill too far to the right. The result is a serious fracture in the Republican base. If we drive a four-part wedge into that fracture, we will shear off the extremists that have co-opted the Republican base, and the moderate Republican counter-reaction will consolidate the Hill around a politically achievable center. The first wedge is national security. This means continuing to hold firm on the extreme gravity of the scientific picture, while championing the handful of moderate Republicans who have maintained some scientific integrity. The fissure between moderate and anti-scientific Republicanism is an enormous and untenable national security contradiction. This crack is further highlighted by the national security implications of peak oil and a climate-exacerbated global food crisis. Joe has done a great job making these connections, and I think we need to bump it up a notch. We need to repeatedly hammer away at the relationship between scientific integrity and national security. There is no shortage of analysts in the U.S. intelligence and defense industry who will testify that opposition to a cap on carbon is a clear and present danger to U.S. national security interests. There is also no shortage of analysts who will tell us that opposition to peak oil mitigation is a clear and present danger to U.S. national security interests. The fact that the hard right has aligned itself in such an overwhelming contradiction with U.S. military intelligence is political wedge number one, and it is a wedge that all true reds, blues, and greens can unite around.
2. Reintroduce cap and dividend, i.e., Collins-Cantwell.
Responses on this thread show a mix of support for cap and trade, cap and dividend, and tax and dividend. Remembering the principle of accentuating the middle and driving a wedge between extreme and moderate Republicans, I think we need to push for a reintroduction of the Collins-Cantwell cap and dividend. Cap and dividend is not ideal from a cap and trade perspective, or from a tax and dividend perspective, but it’s far and away our best middle-ground rallying point for debate, and with tweaking, it’s a workable interim solution that all carbon cap advocates should be willing to live with. The wedge I see here is the distinction between the wisdom and courage of women in government who show real bipartisan leadership, versus the partisan extremism that is so obvious among both men and women on the Republican hard right. Collins and Cantwell are models of bipartisan leadership. The Republicans who turn against Collins and Cantwell will be turning against women in leadership, against competitiveness in American scientific education, against bipartisan cooperation, and against this country’s agriculture and forestry sectors. If the 25% retained by the government under Collins and Cantwell goes to state governments, this will add to its immediate political viability. I think cap and dividend, tightly coupled with respect for bipartisan leadership and the centrality of women to effective governance, is political wedge number two.
3. Preach Creation Care and Promote the Evangelical Environmental Network.
Creation Care is our third wedge. The importance of the evangelical environmental movement, which has rallied around a Creation Care banner, must not be underestimated. Moderate Republicans support Creation Care. Republican extremists oppose it. I am heartened to see so much emphasis in these comments on a moral and God-centered response to global warming. Whether ClimateProgress readers are sympathetic to evangelical Christianity or not, they should read the Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation so that they will better understand how to engage in interfaith dialogue with ALL Christians about our common responsibilities as stewards of God’s human and non-human Creation. The point is that we need to support and promote the evangelicals who speak up for Creation Care, and use their declaration as a litmus test to distinguish those in the moral majority who are truly in conformity with Scripture, from those who are just wolves in sheep’s clothing. As someone who has a deep family connection to both the Baptist and evangelical communities, lives in Bible country, and is well described as a born-again “vegangelical,” I can tell you that this is not a political issue for Christians. Driving home the Creation Care wedge is about saving souls. If we don’t rally the churches from the grassroots up, we don’t have a prayer of changing this country’s direction. An interfaith approach to Creation Care is a rallying point we should all be able to agree upon.
4. Leadership Through Example: Boycott Factory Farming
I am also very heartened to see so many comments on this thread about leadership not just by example, but by joyful, healthy lifestyle example. At the same time, I see a repeated call for a mass action that has symbolic power to awaken and unify the heart and soul of this nation. I am tempted, however, to poll for the average age of the respondents to this thread, because I don’t see much emphasis on awakening the leadership capacity of the younger generation. In case you haven’t been listening to young people lately, plant-based nutrition, vegetarianism, and veganism are going viral – with GOOD REASON. There is nearly unanimous public support among moderates – red, green, and blue – to close down factory farms, and to eat lower on the food chain. Now if we really want to start talking about satyagraha, we need to start talking about a factory farming boycott. The key is to couple the boycott with a demand for cap and dividend. Students will get behind this in a heartbeat, if they just start to see some serious grassroots and national leadership on the issue. In contrast to demonstrations against coal companies – which are important, don’t get me wrong – but in contrast to these kinds of demonstrations, a boycott against factory farming is immediately EMPOWERING. It is a demonsration students and other activists can directly control, and they can use their influence to improve the healthy lifestyle behavior of EACH OTHER, not some distant fossil fuels conglomerate. In other words, it is a form of positive, prosocial demonstration that delivers an immediate yield. Obviously, this is not the most critical issue we need to address over the long haul. That is renewable energy. But I don’t think that is where we should start if we are looking for a grassroots campaign that can be rolled out virally, using the Web, tomorrow. If we want to spend the next two years on a grassroots campaign with real “teeth,” I say let’s start with our TEETH. Let’s focus on an achievable goal that will galvanize enormous youth support, profoundly empower a next generation of youth climate activists, have an immediate impact on our carbon emissions, and reinforce the larger goal of a cap on carbon. We have a troop of top media personalities in California and New York ready and waiting to help lead the charge on this. If we can get Jim Hansen, Lester Brown, Bill McKibben, and a number of other environmental luminaries to join forces with the plant-based nutrition luminaries, religious luminaries, and Hollywood luminaries who all support both an end to factory farming and a mass transition to a more reasonable consumption of animal products, I guarantee you that Congress will listen.
The whole world will listen.
Thank you for your consideration of these recommendations.
If 150+ of us writing here actually organized big actions in our communities that reduces carbon emissions, that’s a start. We need more actions, less wondering what to do. The time is now, the planet is calling for our help. I’m going to help ban plastic bags in my town for starters. WE need big actions along with personal actions…let’s do community projects that get communities making changes, not just individuals…if that makes sense. I like 350.org as an international motivator for action generation…let’s keep that up and get our projects listed there so that people can get bigger ideas into action. Thanks for the weekend open thread.
that reduce carbon emissions…if my spelling error can be fixed. Thank you.
First, let the youth speak. There are some very powerful youth-based organizations (Kids vs. Global Warming, to name one) with some powerful arguments for action on climate change NOW. They talk about a moral obligation to act, a moral obligation to take care of their future. Kids can speak much more clearly about simple reasons to protect our environment – why can’t we just have clean air & water, for example? Next, let’s have a powerful unified action every month. 350 should organize something visible every single month. Not just once a year – that’s not enough. Third, let’s focus on Transition Towns, one of the most effective way to organize towns around becoming more resilient around the realities of peak oil & climate change.
I think that it is time for us all to stand up and be counted, start using our real names on the blog comments,I started learning the science a few years ago so i might answer the hail of climate sceptic letters to the editor in a few regional newspapers, have had over fifty of my replies printed in the past seven months, could not see any sense in remaining incognito on the blogs,
tst, seeing that you misinterpreted my comment at 153, I thank you for the opportunity to clarify. I did not intend for anyone to take away the idea that I do not perceive climate change from CO2 as an existential threat. I absolutely do.
However, the emphasis on curbing CO2 emissions is a FAILED STRATEGY. It hasn’t accomplished any reductions at all, to the contrary, global emissions are continuing to rise. Copenhagen was a failure, cap and trade legislation was a failure, Cancun was a failure, and so is the Year of Biodiversity.
My point is that we have nothing to lose by shifting the emphasis to the “other” greenhouse gases, since
1. The only way to stop emitting them is to stop burning fuel and switch to clean energy – so that will automatically fix the CO2 emissions as well; and
2. People will be far more willing to make the requisite sacrifices (yes, it is going to take what is perceived as major sacrifices) if they understand that the entire ecosystem upon which they depend for food is threatened by invisible, toxic gases that form tropospheric ozone, which not only destroys vegetation but causes lethal disease in people.
Note that the recent campaign in California to defeat the proposition (23) to suspend air pollution controls was successful running ads like this, that don’t mention CO2 or climate change at all, but do mention health issues, like kids and asthma.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eEmXlJ-Gts
Here are a few more TOOTHSOME points, adding to my earlier ones, currently @ 53, relating to reintroducing the use of trucks and cars as effective vehicles for social change.
In the 1970s, following the first Arab oil embargo, the US adopted a national speed limit of 55 mph in order to help conserve gasoline. According to various studies, this is close to the optimal speed in terms of fuel efficiency. (I don’t recall the exact numbers, but I believe that each 5 mph above this speed increases fuel consumption by about 7%.)
To protest this limit, several rebellious students drove side by side at 55 mph for some time on their way back school to Ohio State University in Columbus. It was all perfectly legal, but caused quite a national stir since most drivers we’re ignoring the national law.
Truck drivers have also been known to go slow as a means of drawing attention to, and protesting, high gas prices. A key point is that a very few people can have a very big impact that, unlike a traditional, sign-holding protest, is difficult to ignore by others, including the media, and our elected representatives in the capitols.
Well, with our national energy policies leading us directly towards rising gas prices, rising food prices (due to increasing rates of disaster-damaged crops), rising global temperatures, rising sea levels, and rising rates of plant and animal extinction, perhaps those of us who know where we are headed would be doing our fellow citizens a huge favor by drawing their attention, kicking and screaming, to AGW, the mother of all problems. Wouldn’t YOU rather know, and have time to change course before the S hits the F—even if your were inconvenienced a bit on the way to somewhere one day?
Admittedly, some will say forcing folks to go the speed limit is a draconian prospect, even if done to preserve a livable climate for billions of people! But drastic times call for drastic measures, and I for one think that it is a reasonable trade off, all things considered.
Needless to say, safety is a key consideration, and so is proper messaging. Certainly there are people more expert that I who could figure out the proper safety rules and messaging. But consider the potential. This is something that climate hawks can go out and do today, using equipment at hand, at a small cost, and having a large, visible impact.
Since any such protest will have a bigger impact if widespread and coordinated events are involved, it would be a perfect vehicle for large, established climate organizations such as 1Sky, 350.org, or others to implement. Best of all, all climate groups should cooperate.
There do seem to be good possibilities for message imagery that such organizations could employ. Expressions such as “Going the LIMIT for…(fill in the blank), or “Join the DRIVE for…(fill in the blank), or “Stop energy GRIDLOCK” come to mind. Message experts…? Also, safety rules can and should be developed. Safety experts…?
A minor point, ‘going the limit’ becomes carbon neutral as soon as a few cars are slowed down to the speed limit by the lead cars, due to the multiplied fuel efficiency of the slowed cars offsetting the fuel consumption of the leaders. Math-inclined CP readers can figure out the numbers, but they aren’t high—especially with hybrids or Volts in the lead!
Thanks again for doing this thread, Joe. CP can help in many ways. For one thing, grow to be more than a record of our path to self-destruction, and a place for us to vent our frustration (a possible disservice). As a husband and a father, you like many of us, have more than just a passing interest in the outcome of this giant ‘experiment’ in social behavioral political economics. We also have families and friends who we love.
Please help us help ourselves by using your expertise, your contacts, and your bully pulpit to ‘mine’ the best ideas from this and similar threads, to amplify them, and to help them come to life. Let us know what you think we can best do to help. Cooperation is key. Again, thank you for all you do.
Warm regards,
Roger
Starts with a small panel of strategic thinkers and a website; plus a growing list of concerned folks; each day specific asks; specific action items; real things to do challenging those that block progress, promoting solutions; reports back; broadcast of actions taken and progress achieved (or not); new action items and reports every single day. The grassroots have something to see, something to do every single day. The progress and accomplishments are recorded and posted every day.
Terry, #4, according to the book, “Climate Wars”, changing little things in our every day life will not really be relevant. What we need, according to the author, is the whole sale transfomation of our energy systems and we need to do it within the next 20 yrs… 100% reduction by 2050 and preferably 80% reduction by 2030. In other words, we need massive transformation– convince our governments.
Related, The Hero Project
get behind the constitutional amendment movement to get corporate moneyspeech out of our political system. i’m a long-time environmental activist, but i can see that the world has changed here since citizens united, and all the issue groups need to unite on this or nothing will go well for any of our causes. remember: it’s not just the right to speak but the right to be heard!
Vermont has made some interesting progress by starting at the bottom: creating local energy committees. There’s now one in most towns. Most are town chartered entities, with the goal of reducing the energy costs of running town infrastructure. As successes happen, and trust is created within the community, other projects are easier to pursue – including home weatherization programs, reassessment of street lighting, and so on. There’s an annual conference at which energy committees share info about what they’re doing, roadblocks encountered, and accomplishments. There are also training sessions on a variety of energy and climate topics.
Also, the state has a public utility, called Efficiency Vermont, whose role is to “create” energy in the form of “negawatts.”
We’re a small state, but are on the way to being one of the greenest, despite some of the oldest, least efficient housing stock in the country and a transportation infrastructure so marginal it could make you weep.
Extending the model nationally might make quite a difference.
I think it is really important to understand that the real movement can be brought right from our very own houses,schools and colleges.Though the support of big shot people like ministers and industrialists would act like a cherry on the cake,the real change that is indeed needed is in the carefree attitude of people towards the issue. A nice way to carry this out is to create awareness and plant trees and make it huge just like some grand town fest. One can try collaborating with some famous personality like Bryan Adams,Shakira,etc. who can perform and can attract public so as to create awareness and ask people to help in the movement. The financial inflow with such shows can be further used to strengthen the movement. Another way to do it is to find sponsors for the same and do it. College students can do it in the most amazing way by creating awareness in their college fests about this issue and asking people to plant more trees,use less non-biodegradable stuff,etc. The finance collected can be used to take the movement to another level with the help of college management, buy some land and use it to plant more trees. Also, it should be brought to the notice of respective governments repeatedly and appeal them constantly for support and action.
an associate suggests CP focus on white roofs in the now-term, independent of government & political parties.
1. raise money to fix and paint roofs white.
2. put up a sign by every jobsite.
3. arrange visits from joe to answer questions.
not enough, obviously, but necessary, useful, job-creating, and visible.
We are teaching kids to take informed and effective action in middle school science classes. Action seems the antidote to despair for me and for them. It’s what I can do with the set of talents and interests I have. I’m not naive enough to think they will really save the world, but I do want to send them out there with the skills to make their projects happen, the ability to know what is scientific evidence and what isn’t, and the understanding of causes and effects of actions. Long term vision, maybe the basis of wisdom.
We don’t use tear-jerker environmental movies to start with, we let them come to conclusions themselves with carefully presented information, then help them link what they love to do anyway, with making a difference to a problem they really care about.
The curriculum is available online at http://www.takeactioncurriculum.org and “The Problems with Oil Project” is in development right now. I’m recording how it’s going right now in the blog below.
Hope to hear from you – together, we have to try and we can perhaps at least avoid the worst of the transition to a post oil economy.
Sue Boudreau