Yesterday, I was arrested along with 11 other Greenpeace activists for hanging a 2300 square foot banner on the face of Mount Rushmore. We hung this banner on the opening day of the G8 meetings in Italy, and while the Senate looks to debate the Waxman-Markey bill - the first piece of comprehensive climate legislation in the US (and industry and many Democrats have rendered the bill more harmful than helpful).
The banner was hung just to the side of Lincoln’s head – and read “America Honors Leaders – Not Politicians: Stop Global Warming”. Concurrently in Italy, over 100 Greenpeace activists currently occupied FIVE coal-fired power plants across the country. At least one of these Italian actions is from aa US/Canadian team – and activists from 18 countries are involved in the protests that intend to last the duration of the G8 meeting.
With our best scientists stressing the urgency of the climate crisis – we cannot afford compromises or pandering to dirty industries – we need dramatic action that reflects the best climate science - not political convenience. This is the type of bold action that is needed to bring about real action to solve the climate crisis. Whether you believe him or not – Obama often has good rhetoric around the need to address climate change. But we need to take heed from the famous words of Franklin Roosevelt – “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”
At the disappointing G8 summit in Italy, an announcement was made of a new commitment to keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius – a target already endorsed by over 100 nations. While this is certainly a worthy goal, President Obama and the other G8 leaders did not commit to short-term greenhouse gas emissions reductions necessary to achieving this long-term target. Despite promising to “restore science to its rightful place” in the administration – Obama has been conveniently sliding around emissions targets, and arbitrarily pushing baseline dates for emissions reductions from 1990 levels (where most climate science has been based) to 2005 levels. The G8 statement for emissions targets read a fuzzy….“of 1990 or more later years”.
The actions at Rushmore and across Italy are meant to put some heat on Obama and world leaders – and create political space and broader awareness to the urgency and seriousness of the climate crisis. Already, we were the #4 story on CNN, the lead story on Yahoo.com, and featured in Newsweek, Guardian UK, Fox, NBC, Washington Post, ABC, Daily Kos, Huffington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and hundreds of more major media outlets. In addition to doing traditional media work – we also had streaming video and photos from multiple perspectives being watched live on the Greenpeace website – with thousands of viewers watching the action in real time. (Yes, we had helmet cams). We were live-blogging while on the ropes, as well as using Twitter and other social networking forums to make sure the world saw our message. All of you were vital in helping this story gain such a huge audience – from posting it on Facebook, telling your friends, and re-Tweeting the story.
You can see further photos, video, and press release on the action at Greenpeace.org More updates still to come!
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Excellent media draw!
Please take this as a friendly critique:
The use of “America” to refer the United States, combined with capitalizing on the image of Mt. Rushmore as a monument to great leaders, reinforces a destructive narrative that places white U.S. citizens at the center of the world.
“Mt Rushmore” is a desecration that was carved out of stolen, sacred native land. “America,” rather than being the name of the United States, more properly refers to a vast continent (or two, if you prefer) containing 35 countries with people from hundreds of indigenous and non-indigenous ethnic groups speaking dozens of languages.
Look, I know this might seem like a minor quibble, but ultimately actions like this further serve to enshrine a narrative that simply disappears the peoples of 34 countries and the indigenous peoples of this one. Just something to keep in mind for next time.
I saw a picture of your group on Yahoo.com, and then on the BBC website. I am so glad to see the attention you drew. I was also very glad to see that you used already existing metal stakes to hang the banner. Great job bringing global attention to a global issue while taking care not to harm the monument. It’s things like this that help undo some of the negative PR that Greenpeace has gained.
great post, Matt, great action, great clarity on the issue – right on. Thanks.
If this counterproductive shortsightedness continues I will be too ashamed to wear my getting-hot-in-here T-shirt.
http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fclimateprogress.org%2F2009%2F07%2F12%2Fhow-sharper-than-a-serpents-tooth-energy-action-coalition-its-getting-hot-in-here-the-breakthrough-institutes-anti-climate-disinformation%2F%23more-9033#more-9033
Nick, I am disappointed to see your reference to Romm’s divisive blog entry on ClimateProgress.org. His post is decidedly anti-youth, a consistent theme it seems on his blog and among the commenters that seem to frequent his site. ACES needs strengthening, it is our job to push for the strongest bill possible. Romm is a habitual enabler. I still can’t seem to figure out what the beef is with the youth movement on that blog…
His beef is with Breakthrough, currently we feature some of the fellows and youth staff as writers and editors. I find them honestly engaged in working on solutions. Joe disagrees.
His attack is over the top and both misreads what Jessy Tolkan said and Jesse’s role at It’s Getting Hot in Here.
Sure wish we had some funding for dedicated staff for this site.
Tupac: The Arikaras were decimated by the Lakota in this area long before the White Man came along. They were not necessarily nice peace-loving vegans and were quite territorial. Other civilizations were there prior to the Arikaras and vanished. It may behoove your discussion to approach history objectively and not subjectively to further your cause.
But then, again, this board is censored so you will not see this message.
I appreciate Tupac’s critique of this action. I agree that with actions in general, and especially with actions that are mostly about publicity, we need to start finding ways to build our own narratives, rather than simply using the pre-existing narratives of the state that are often (like this one) built on racism and oppression. I think we have the ability to be more creative than this.
Also I have to say that I feel it’s pretty disturbing that commenters after Tupac (unitl John) seemed to have decided to pretend Tupac’s critique didn’t exist.
And to John: what the hell are you talking about? Tupac doesn’t mention any specific indigenous groups in their post, and is critiquing the narrative that actions like this create.
So I don’t exactly get what you’re trying to say by accusing Tupac of idealizing any indigenous groups (an accusation that seems to have no basis in anything Tupac said in their post). The only way that your post makes sense to me is if you’re trying to say that it doesn’t matter that the land mt.rushmore is built on was stolen because “hey those other people weren’t perfect either”. And that I would say is a pretty weak and morally indefensible argument – maybe that’s why you weren’t more clear about what you were saying.
So there you go, someone brings up a critique involving racism and 9 out of 10 pretend they didn’t hear anything while the 10th person goes off on a racist ramble. Sounds like a bad joke.