SOLUTIONS
Why Isn't the Climate Movement Massive?
An urgent clean energy transition has to be at the center of anti-corporate campaigning.
by Ted Glick
Eve Mosher: Insert Climate Solutions Here
Eight years ago, the European heat wave drove me to serious personal study about climate and energy. I became convinced that the climate crisis was much more serious and imminent than I had thought. Ever since, work in support of a renewable energy revolution has been my top priority.
There’s no question but that today, compared to eight years ago, there is much more consciousness about and work on this most overarching and urgent of issues. As the climate crisis has led to stronger, more frequent and more destructive weather impacts—droughts, floods, powerful winds, rain and snow deluges, deadly hurricanes, huge tornadoes and more—so has it led to a stronger international climate movement. In 2010 there were 7,300 local actions in 188 countries around the world on the same 10/10/10 day of action organized by 350.org.
But the truth is that in the United States there is a disconnect between the urgency of this civilizational crisis and the response to it on the part of the broad progressive citizenry, those tens of millions of people who believe generally in human rights and fact-based decision-making. One recent example is the late summer and fall campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline. Although this was a victorious campaign, temporarily, the fact is that there were no more than 12,000 people at the biggest event of the campaign, the November 6th encircle-the-White-House demonstration.
This was a very big action, the largest climate-focused street demonstration ever in the U.S. However, it cannot be compared to the multiple demonstrations of hundreds of thousands against the Iraq war from 2003 to 2008.The movement against the pipeline DID mobilize half a million people, but not into the streets. This number of people registered their opposition to the pipeline through official government channels, primarily via online comments. This should not be discounted.
Is it realistic to believe we can break the power of Big Oil, Coal and Gas to determine government energy policy, without large numbers of people engaging in direct action and mass mobilization? I believe there is no way we will turn this crisis around unless much larger numbers of people take visible action in support of a clean energy revolution.
Why is it that this urgent threat to civilization-as-we-know-it and the possibility of a just human civilization in the future, has failed so far to generate the breadth and depth of action required? I see four main reasons:
• Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, while playing a major role in educating millions about the urgency of the crisis, presented a problematic answer to what people should do about it--change your shopping habits, buy green products like lightbulbs, a hybrid car, etc. There was very little said about the essential need for a mass political movement to overcome the power of entrenched fossil fuel interests. Gore wasn’t the only one giving this “shopping” answer--many mainstream environmental groups did the same.
• Although Barack Obama was elected in 2008 following an election campaign in which he spoke regularly about the need for strong action on the climate crisis, he failed to follow through seriously when elected. This contributed to problematic climate legislation in the House, heavily influenced by the coal industry. By the time that died in the Senate in 2010, the process had demoralized many and strengthened climate deniers in both parties.
• Human society’s dependence upon fossil fuels is wide and deep. A clean energy revolution will have economic impacts throughout all levels of society, from farms to homes to businesses to the way we travel. This reality has been used by the fossil fuelers to undercut political support for the desperately needed shift to energy efficiency and a renewable energy-based economy.
• From an organizing standpoint, the demand for clean energy is not as immediate an issue on a daily basis as demand for jobs, labor rights, ending wars, access to education or medical care, etc. This is why the climate movement connects a clean energy revolution with demands for jobs or to stop toxic pollution. But it is also why many progressive groups organizing on those issues have not taken up the less visible climate issue.
Some people question the assertion that the progressive movement should prioritize the climate crisis in 2012. Their view, understandably, is that the issue to be prioritized is corporate domination of our economy and government. And its true that the 99% vs. 1% message of the Occupy movement has had a big political impact, connecting a potentially powerful alliance of constituencies and groups. Some believe there is no way we can deal effectively with climate catastrophe without first (or at least simultaneously) confronting global corporatism.
If it’s not “simultaneous,” as opposed to “first,” I see little to no chance to solve the climate crisis. And if we don’t solve the climate crisis, the sobering truth is that it really doesn’t matter what other progressive changes we make. They’ll all be swept away by a rising tide of crop failures, stronger storms, droughts and spreading desertification, floods, sea level rise, etc.
We are already in great danger of hitting climate “tipping points”—like the release of huge amounts of methane from the melting of northern latitudes permafrost, or massive methane releases from a warming ocean—that will make it extremely difficult to ever pull ourselves back from an escalating series of climate catastrophes. These will hit those in Africa and Asia and the world’s poor first and hardest but, in time, they will overwhelm us all.
At the same time, a worldwide commitment—with the U.S. giving leadership, something which definitely isn’t happening now, just the opposite—to a rapid transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy sources has the potential to create huge numbers of jobs and spur economic development. Technology advances already make this completely possible.
It has to be “simultaneous,” not “first,” and the urgent clean energy transition has to be right at the center of anti-corporate campaigning. After all, three of the top 5 corporations in the U.S. are oil companies, and 5 of the top 10 in the world are. Big Oil is the epitome of the 1%.
As we enter the critical political year of 2012, I hope and pray that many more people in the U.S. and around the world will make a new year’s resolution to speak up and take action on the biggest threat to our common future that human society has ever faced.
Ted Glick has devoted 4 decades to the progressive social change movement. For the last six years he has worked extensively to stabilize our climate and for a clean energy revolution. His writing includes the book Future Hope: A Winning Strategy for a Just Society (2000) & a column, Future Hope, distributed nationally in the U.S.