On July 11, Nick Berning, from Friends of the Earth, wrote a diary here, "Progressive Block Needed on Clean Energy Legislation in Senate". In it, he argued for the need to create a progressive block of Senators who demand a set of bottom-line objectives be met by any energy/climate legislation:
Because of the dire threat climate destabilization poses to our economy and quality of life, as well as global security and stability, we simply must do better than the House bill that puts a hard-to-change, ill-advised system in place. At a minimum, any bill the Senate passes should:
1. Maintain the EPA's existing authority to use the Clean Air Act to regulate coal-fired power plants, which the House-passed bill undermines. (Coal is the #1 source of global warming pollution in the world.)
2. Bring about a true transition to clean energy. One current Senate proposal (the bill that passed the Senate Energy Committee) would produce no more clean energy than business-as-usual scenarios. That's a disaster that must be fixed.
3. Prevent gaming by Wall Street. There's a reason Wall Street has 130 lobbyists working full time on climate change. Within years, the carbon trading system created by the House bill could become the biggest derivatives market in the world, subject to "subprime carbon" and speculation. This needs to be remedied.
4. Lay the groundwork for an international solution to global warming. A key phase of international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is slated to culminate in December in Copenhagen. The emissions reduction targets in the House-passed bill are so weak (and are further undermined by offset loopholes), and the bill's funding for international solutions is so meager, that the bill is incompatible with a fair, effective global agreement. Developing countries are rightly rejecting these proposals, which is why the G8 failed to agree on emissions reductions targets in Italy this week.
While I agree whole-heartedly with what Nick wrote, in writing an article for Random Lengths News, two other strategies emerged as compatible with and reinforcing this approach. The first is already well under way, the campaign for a global day of action on October 24 by 350.org. The second is only the germ of an idea, based on some comments, and some of the work done on working with local officials raising awareness and starting to shape policies below state level. I'll discuss both these strategies a little more fully on the flip.
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| 350.org's Global Day Of Action
"Steal from the best," I always say. And if you can't do that, then steal from yourself. At least you won't get sued. And so, in that spirit, here's the sidebar from the story I wrote, explaining something about 350.org and their strategy:
Although there are other gases that contribute to global warming, carbon dioxide, CO2, is by far the most significant. The upper limit of atmospheric carbon considered safe in the long run is 350 parts per million (ppm)-and the first goal of 350.org is just to start driving that number home in order to begin moving the climate debate into a more realistic direction. The point of raising that awareness, 350.org explains, is to create "an equitable global climate treaty that lowers carbon dioxide below 350 parts per million."
To understand where we are compared to where we need to be, the current level of atmospheric carbon is 387 ppm, up from 320 ppm in 1958, and around 280 ppm from the time of ancient Greece until the start of the Industial Revolution. Prior to that, it had been stable at around 260 ppm for thousands of years, before taking 3,000 years to rise 20 ppm.
Using a decentralized web-based organizing structure, 350.org aims to generate thousands of "350"-themed events in over 100 countries around the world on October 24 to pressure elected officials to take significant action at the UN Climate Climate Summit in Copenhagen in early December.
Each event organizer is asked to take and upload an action photo that visibly displays the number 350. Everything else is up to them. Some events won't be easily photographed, though. McKibben was recently in Britain, where he met with church leaders, resulting in a commitment from thousands of churches to ring their bells 350 times during the day-an action reminiscent of the use of church bells in WWII to warn of invasion.
"It's a pot-luck supper," 350.org founder Bill McKibben told The Ecologist, a premier British publication now online. "We are saying, 'Here is the date, here is the theme, and you have to do the cooking, to self-organise'".
McKibben is a best-selling author-turned activist. His 1989 book, The End of Nature, was one of the earliest warnings of dangerous out-of-balance our relationship with nature had become. As an activist, McKibben began modestly with a statewide anti-global warming march in Vermont-the largest climate change demonstration ever seen at the time. He then went national with the Step It Up campaign, which generated 1400 local demonstrations across the country on April 14, 2007.
"We didn't need a march on Washington anymore, if we could have 1,400 marches wherever and, at the end of the day, bring all the images of them together in one place. Also, it's odd to tell people to drive across America to protest climate change," McKibben said.
Already, 350.org has 1134 actions registered at its website in 75 countries. These include several in Los Angeles, including a demonstration at the Westwood Federal Building and a "Climate Action Festival" at Del Rey Lagoon Park in Playa del Rey, but nothing yet is listed for the Harbor Area or Long Beach.
The 350 ppm target is significantly lower than most environmental organizations are currently aiming. "Most U.S. environmental organizations endorse the Waxman-Markey climate bill with the stated goal of keeping atmospheric greenhouse gases below 450 parts per million," climate activist Bill Ward wrote in a recent article at Grist.org. "The two numbers are not staging points on a gradual curve of escalating climate impacts.... Each goal is the product of an entirely different calculus. 300-350 ppm is derived by climate scientists working backwards from a definition of the problem. 450 ppm represents a consensus of U.S. environmentalists on what may feasibly be advanced within present political conditions."
350.org aims to change those political conditions. On October 24, you can help do that.
The idea of an global day of grassroots activism around a common, well-defined theme is a powerful one, and one well worth supporting. I expect to write more about this as October 24 approaches.
Think Globally, Act Locally: This Time It's Personal
My third line of strategy was suggested by the words and work of Bob Doppelt, director of the Climate Leadership Initiative at University of Oregon. Doppelt is a social scientist working on climate change. He caught my attention with a couple of comments in the discussion of a post at the RealClimate blog, "A warning from Copenhagen".
In his first comment, Bob wrote:
Bottom line: we must rapidly mitigate emissions but the world must now equally prioritize rapidly preparing for the consequences of rising temperatures. The term adaptation should thus be used much judiciously than in the past. Its not likely that most societies can adapt to 2 C in one century or less, unless you call constant crisis management adaptation. We can, however, prepare for the consequences much like we now prepare for natural disasters. My experience in the U.S. is that by focusing on preparation people become more interested in mitigation-which is quite the opposite of what was first thought. {Emphasis added]
In his second comment, he wrote:
We have long know that information alone-no matter how credible- is not sufficient to motivate fundamental change. In fact, too much information without the other keys to successful change (which I think can be summarized as sufficient tension, efficacy and benefits) often triggers the reverse-people deny, ignore, or rationalize away a problem. If we are to make significant progress in addressing climate change we need to make a major investment in cognitive, behavioral, economic and other factors that motivate change. This does not mean that the biophysical sciences are less important-of course they remain essential. However, I think today that the emphasis is out of balance given the challenges we face. {Emphasis added]
I followed up and did a brief phone interview with him for the piece I wrote, and I looked some of his work documented on his website, particularly the report, "Preparing for Climate Change in the Rogue River Basin" (pdf). The end result of all this is that I came away with the impression that if we could engage local officials in processes similar to the Rogue River Basin study all across the nation, we could make huge progress in changing how people think about the problem, and create the foundations for a bottom-up strategy within the structures of government, as well as making the realities of climate change very concrete for people in terms of what it will mean for their immediate communities and way of life.
As progressives, we all know that we have not paid enough attention to politics at the state and local level. This is a clear example of how we can bring about significant global change by focusing more attention at the local level. I believe that it can play an absolutely crucial role in changing the political climate around climate change, and I think that Doppelt is absolutely right about the importance in changing how people think in order to solve this problem.
Conclusion
These three strategies are all conceptually independent from one another, and focus on different levels and modalities of action. Each is powerful on its on. Combining them together holds real promise of creating the sort of major shift that all knowledgeable participant observers know is necessary if we are to avoid the worst of what is staring us in the face. I'd like to know what you think. |
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