It’s Getting Hot In Here

By Tim DeChristopher, cross-posted from Peaceful Uprising

A disturbing amount of the climate justice movement’s “action” is taken alone, within our own homes.  We sit at our computers and post, Tweet, comment and write op-eds.  We call our Senators and legislators. We change our light bulbs and insulate our homes (literally and figuratively.) The picture that naturally develops in our minds is of little me, sitting here fighting the world’s biggest corporations and their political stooges.  That’s a pretty discouraging picture.

Despite all the attempts of social media to build “community,” everyone is still sitting alone at computers. We did not evolve to develop powerful relationships with an avatar, sending us an instant message.  That’s why a million screen names out there somewhere don’t help us deeply internalize the truth that we are part of something large and powerful.  We evolved to connect with human beings that we can see, hear, smell and feel, and it is that kind of connection that empowers us on a deep level.

One of the biggest hesitations that seem to stop people from taking strong political action to fight climate change is a lack of empowerment.  Nobody wants to put his or her ass on the line for something that won’t make any difference, and we all know that the actions of a lone, isolated individual seldom make much of a difference.  Many brilliant writers have commented on how our hyper-individualized society exacerbates our biggest problems.  In the case of the climate movement, hyper-individualism causes potential activists to feel alienated from the incredibly powerful force of a united movement.

Continue reading ‘The Need for Mass Mobilizations’

Recently I was talking with a friend who does really inspiring social change work with athlete volunteers.  He remarked that one of the great things about working with athletes is their innate competitiveness:  athletes plan and play to win– whether it’s on the playing field or towards their goals for social change. Which got me thinking about the climate community… Are we playing to win? Do we expect to win? What, and when? And are we planning backwards from those goals?  And who are “we,” anyway?  Comments, please!

Co-written with Maryam Adrangi

Last week saw the culmination of the Quebec Climate Action Camp, the most recent in a series of similar events around the world. Climate Camps look different in different places, but the general idea is to bring together like-minded people from around a region to build common strategies, share skills, and take ACTION!

The Tar Sands have been a focal point this year; in the UK Climate Camp brought together activists challenging the Royal Bank of Scottland’s investments in the Canadian gigaproject. Here in Dunham, Quebec, climate camp was set up to challenge a pipeline coming through this community. The proposed pipeline is called the Enbridge Trailbreaker project, and would bring dirty tar sands bitumen to Montreal and then down to Maine, eventually ending on tankers heading to refineries in the Gulf Coast.

The camp brought together activists from across Quebec, Ontario, the Northeastern US, and beyond, to learn about the intersections of climate and social justice issues, and plan out how to best work together in the coming year. Participants cooked, fed, and set up camp outside and were able to build lasting relationships between various communities to talk about how to build a climate movement.

Resistance to tar sands projects has been growing in Canada and people are taking action locally to end the addiction to fossil fuels and the injustices facing communities because of the dirty industry.

The two-week climate camp ended with a march to the proposed pumping station for the pipeline. Local community member and climate camp participants rallied at the proposed site. “Our objective is to unite in order to act on the root causes of climate change. It is the right time to denounce and block the Trailbreaker project. Local communities and ecosystems cannot afford more oil spills, like that in the Gulf of Mexico.” says Pierre-Olivier Parent, a Climate Action Camp organizer.

Check out some of the media stories about the camp here, and stay up on Quebec action from Climate Justice Montreal

Moments like this are just another signal of increasingly mobilized action-oriented groups who are supporting communities resisting point-source fossil fuel destruction. A couple days ago in the Bay Area, 150 people took action on BP, Chevron, and the EPA, with 26 participating in civil disobedience. Its an exciting moment – lets keep building.

It looks like a headline from The Onion, but it is entirely true:

Hundreds of Millions Remain Peaceful In Face of Annihilation

As the story of the Discovery Channel hostage-taker makes it’s way through the media, those opposed to the sane management of the earth’s remaining resources will undoubtedly take the opportunity   to disparage all of the millions of environmentalists around the world and their ideas. [Update: they already are] However, I will argue that the opposite interpretation is more appropriate.

Organized by 350.org, October 24th 2009 was "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history," according to CNN, with 5200 actions in 181 countries. No incidents were reported.

There have always been poor, misguided souls whose mental afflictions have led them to take as their own the cause of some group or another and turn it into something violent. No great effort of people, no movement for justice has ever become large without trapping in it’s gravity the occasional lunatic.

It is not surprising, then, that on Wednesday, one such man did something crazy in the name of environmental stewardship. James J. Lee, strapped with explosives, stormed into the Discovery Channel’s headquarters, took 3 people hostage, and was eventually killed by police. Injuries were limited to the hostage-taker and the types of  ideas he claimed to stand for.

What is surprising, is how starkly Lee’s actions stand out against the backdrop of the efforts of the worldwide environmental movement. Continue reading ‘Lone wacko reminds us how sane the environmental movement really is’

Ready for a road trip? Now, I know, traditionally a road trips is the type of thing us fossil-fuel saving climate advocates are supposed to avoid, but this one is for a good cause, I swear. Starting next week, Bill McKibben and a group of Unity College students will drive one of Jimmy Carter’s original White House solar panels from its current home in Maine back to the White House. Better yet, the van they’re driving it runs on bio-diesel, so emissions won’t be as high as they could be.

But here’s why we think those extra carbon emissions are worth it: the Carter panel is a potent symbol of a road not taken in American history. Carter put solar panels on the White House roof in 1979 only to have them taken down by President Reagan just seven years later. Now, we’re challenging Obama to put solar back on the White House — I mean, seriously, if we could do it 31 years ago when bell bottoms were in style, we should definitely be able to do it now.

Last night, Bill was on the David Letterman show (score!) to kick off the trip in style. Check it out:

You can stay up to speed with the road trip by visiting our Put Solar On It website. Putting up panels on the White House is just a small step, but it comes with a clear message for Obama: now’s the time to show some real leadership on clean energy and get to work solving the climate crisis.

Written by Dea Goblirsch and Kim Huynh. Photos by Ben Droz.

“President Obama, join me in my kitchen at 4 p.m. any day of the week and learn first-hand what you are allowing to happen in Appalachia and its mountain communities,” said Bo Webb, a ninth-generation resident of Naoma W.Va. in the Coal River Valley, “You’d hear and feel blasts coming from both sides of the valley, and if it rains, you might see water flowing black down river. The mountain behind my home is destroyed – gone forever – and across the valley Massey Energy is beginning mountaintop removal mining on Coal River Mountain. Will your administration continue to sanction the whole-sale destruction of our mountains and communities or will you respect the human rights and abolish mountaintop removal and strip mining?”

Webb is a central organizer for Appalachia Rising, the largest mobilization against mountaintop removal and surface mining in United States history. On September 25th-27th, 2010, thousands of Appalachians and their allies from across the nation will work together in the weekend movement summit, Voices from the Mountains, and on Monday we will march on the White House to demand an end to the flattening of Appalachia’s ancient peaks, the poisoning of its waters and the destruction of its communities. Organizers are committed to supporting people who choose to engage in non-violent civil disobedience.

It is time for the national climate and social justice movements to converge side by side with the movement for justice in Appalachia, join us at Appalachia Rising.

Continue reading ‘Appalachia Rising: Join the Mobilization to Abolish Mountaintop Removal!’

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
-Gandhi

Don Blankenship’s empire is crumbling, rapidly.  Mountaintop removal coal mining may well be on it’s way out.  The money’s drying up.  Appalachia is rising in Washington D.C.  And we’re seeing some VERY interesting developments on Wall Street and in Washington.

The New York Times reported yesterday (A1 in the print edition) that some of the biggest Wall Street banks (Citi, Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse) were moving away from the financing of mountaintop removal and other environmental disasters.  After years of work NGOs like RAN, Appalachian groups and grassroots activists, have shifted the banking sector away from mountaintop removal.

The four biggest banks in the U.S. –Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo and Chase– have all also stopped funding “the poster child of mountaintop removal” Massey Energy.  Massey’s PR aces, on the game as always, have tried to brush off the story about the money drying up, but we all know it’s for real.  In the Times article, Massey’s Roger S. Hendriksen, the vice president for investor relations response was ““While some banks no longer provide financing for companies conducting surface mining, there are many who will. We have and will continue to replace their services with alternate bank providers with little difficulty.”

Yeah Roger, we’ll see about that. Continue reading ‘Cracks in Big Coal’s Empire’

Monday I watched as over 150 people marched through downtown San Francisco on the 5^th anniversary on one of our country’s most devastating natural disasters, Hurricane Katrina. The energy, if not anger, of the crowd was palpable. Many in the march were asking the same question: why does it seem, five years later, we are calling for the same solutions we were calling for five days after Katrina? The answer is because Big Oil has continues business as usual, and it’s booming.  In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a most sobering example of what climate change can produce, Big Oil has only increased their record profits and decreased renewable energy investments (or in BP’s case stops it all together).

When speaking to marchers, protesters, and business folks passing by on their lunch break about big oil’s responsibilities’ in the Gulf -and around the world- two climate culprits came up more than any other, Chevron and BP.  People weren’t surprised that Chevron was the largest off-shore leaseholder in the Gulf and folks certainly knew of BP’s oil spill. People knew who is responsible, and they wanted to hold them accountable, But they struggled with how.

Continue reading ‘The Audacity of Oil, and What We Can to Learn From It.’