Some 10,000 young people will be descending on Washington, D.C., from Feb. 27 to March 2 for the Power Shift 2009 conference, where they’ll be organizing to put pressure on political leaders to take action on climate change.
On the last day of the event, they’re the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace* are planning a massive protest at the coal-fired plant that provides power to the U.S. Capitol, and organizers are hoping it will be the largest display of civil disobedience against global warming in United States history.
To promote the action, Greenpeace and James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, have put out this video:
*UPDATE: Sorry, original version attributed the protest to Power Shift. The events coincide, but the protest is being organized by Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace.
Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success
Comments
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amazingdrx Posted 5:02 am
18 Feb 2009
I think Sasha and Malia need to lobby for us this time around, "Mom and Dad if you don't come with us on the march we are going anyway."
Secret Service would have to march too, excellent!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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GRLCowan Posted 7:41 am
18 Feb 2009
I hope he hates to link up with those people as much as I hate agreeing with Romm.
Why can't we cool the globe by letting the cold black slime out of Greenpeacers' circulatory systems?
--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)
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amazingdrx Posted 8:51 am
18 Feb 2009
Maybe just put them to work raking up boron oxide gravel that collects (can't find this excerpt on your site anymore, please post it!) at street intersections from your marvelous boron burning auto engines, right GRL? Hehey.
That'll show them dagnab green peaceniks. Consarn it!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Ted Clayton Posted 11:45 am
18 Feb 2009
I can't do the video, and a quick Goog-News search didn't bring up anything that looked like the Hansen-Greenpeace link-up, so it's hard to get a feel for how 'into it' Hansen really is.
If Hansen experiences real success 'on the street' - big, captivating street-action and big worked-up headlines - it could turn into political wildfire.
Two weeks from Monday. Hmm.
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christophersj Posted 12:57 pm
18 Feb 2009
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Ted Clayton Posted 2:14 pm
18 Feb 2009
On Canada Free Press' True Green Report: GREENPEACE AT VIOLENT WTO MEETINGS, for example.
Or, "When I helped create Greenpeace in 1971," reflects Dr. Moore, "I had no idea it would evolve into a band of scientific illiterates who use Gestapo tactics to silence people who wish to express their views in a civilized forum. ..."
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Christopher, I believe that consistently well-mannered, smiling & hand-shaking street demonstrations can basically proceed until the known Universe freezes over, without necessarily altering the status quo. And I think many who aim to use demonstations professionally see it that way too.
There pretty much has to be something 'primally captivating' about a pattern of demonstrations (and it generally has to be an on-going pattern), for the activism to gain the kind of 'involved' media-audience attention that is the actual lever that ultimately pries loose the status quo.
It is in the organizers' interest to present a planned event as 'all sweetness & light', and then if things become raucous & heated, clasp their cheeks like McCauley Caukins and exclaim, "NO!! Oh my goodness!"
Do Greenpeace think this is the moment to mix it up some? Is Dr. Hansen ready to jack it up another notch? Who are these other entities in the event, and what do they want? Be sure to tune-in 12 days from now, March 2, to find out!
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christophersj Posted 2:28 pm
18 Feb 2009
And if you dont know, you should know, that 99% of the time provocateurs cause violence at demonstrations, its from the anarchist crowd. Please dont confuse that with the planners of the event.
Ted, what is your role here? How weak of a climate regulation do you wish to see? What is your plan for a strong and heavy price on carbon?
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Ted Clayton Posted 4:51 pm
18 Feb 2009
Under our current economic duress, the consumption of electricity has fallen, along with most other forms of consumption & economic activity. Existing coal-fired generating plants are therefore more than adequate to meet the currently-depressed demand: The incentive & rationale to build addition coal plants at this time is thus weak, simply because the market for electricity doesn't warrant it.
That makes it easy for leaders to appear to be blocking coal-usage in order to satisfy the preference of some constituents, when actually the real reason for not building any more right now is that we don't need any more right now.
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There were a lot of people who were seriously at odds with the decision & actions of Pres. Bush in Iraq. There were a number of demonstrations, some kind of big. But there was nothing "primally captivating" about these gatherings. They failed to inspire or motivate viewers, and soon they simply failed, period.
There has to be some sort of fire in it, Christopher, to build a fire under more people, and get it to grow. Someone watching GWB on TV has to jump up off their couch, yell "Goddamn it to hell!" ... then tomorrow go pull $800 out of the bank that they had planned to use for something else, and instead buy plane tickets with it and fly their ass to the next demonstration.
As the crowd shuffles pleasantly up the asphalt, one demonstrator asks our guy with the plane ticket, "So how did you end up here?", and he laughs and shakes his head, "I was so fricken' pissed, watching that A-hole on TV, I jumped up shouting Goddamn it to hell!", and he pumps his fist in the air, for a little extra effect.
The new friends grin at each other, shout Goddamn it to hell! in unison, pumping their fists, and others around them smile, pick up the cadence ... and it what seems like a flash, 18,000 aging baby-boomers are thundering out GODDAMN IT TO HELL, their fists making the crowd look like a pulsating beast on TV screens, the plate glass in skyscrapers reverberating with the roar.
Then reporters on assignment come alive - Holy crap, what's goin' on? The hair starts standing up on their neck, adrenaline hits their blood ... and when coverage goes on the air tonight it is HOT, the anchor is tweakin', and it all comes through loud & clear, with 10s of thousands more raiding their bank account for ticket-money. Days later, 180,000 hold another city spell-bound, and it snowballs across the nation.
Not a month later, George W. Bush is on TV in prime time, sweating profusely with a visible tremor. He announces that the invasion plan is going to reassessed ... and it's the last we ever heard of it.
It didn't happen that way, of course. The demonstration were duds. Nobody pumped their fists and shouted out curses.
Crowd-management is less a science that an art, though it can be quite highly developed and include techniques such as provocateurs ... but there has to be some essential emotional & psychological factors present 'in the air' for the managers to work with. They can't create passion out of nothing.
Without the fire - and something primal - the Washington coal-plant protest will just be another trite little 20 second filler on the evening news. Is there any real spark in the people that will show up? Are the crowd-managers ready to stir it up and run with whatever they can get going?
Maybe ... but if so, it'll be the first we've seen of this sort of thing in quite awhile.
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christophersj Posted 5:01 pm
18 Feb 2009
1.) Well my fist was pumping and I was cursing. In the street. Over, and over again. And you know what? An election caught fire!
2.) Oops. Look out Ted. NY Times just posted this story.
THE EPA WILL REGULATE CO2.
Its not adequate or perfect, but this is the beginning of the end of fossil fuel use.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/science/earth/19epa.htm ...
This will be the top story here on Grist tomorrow.
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David Roberts Posted 5:38 pm
18 Feb 2009
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/2/17/101435/037
And me with some analysis:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/2/17/2041/00608
As for the rest, blaming the tens of millions of people worldwide who protested against the Iraq war for ... what? not protesting hard enough? ... seems rather daft. Seems like certain power dynamics involving the media and the government probably had something to do with it.
As long as people have been getting pissed and demonstrating, other people have been sniffing condescendingly and lecturing them on how they're doing it wrong. I find it's better for my soul and a more accurate predictor of the arc of history to side with the protesters.
grist.org
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Ted Clayton Posted 5:48 pm
18 Feb 2009
Yes, all eyes will now be on the new EPA announcement. I'm sure Grist will give it a thorough going-over!
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