It takes effort to suit up in the quasi-business/academic garb of the professional environmentalist and enter the lion's den of DC politics or the state houses. Our beliefs are so fundamentally at odds with the very fabric of civic life that it requires an effort of will, particularly in the early years, not to scream bloody murder and run for the door.
Over decades, layers of accommodation and polite behavior have built up by accretion, while our rough edges have been worn down. The net result is a worldview -- we may call it the "Climate Policy Paradigm" -- that is so universally accepted that it goes unnoticed, yet its power is so great that we have abandoned the precautionary principle, environmentalism's central guide for action, with barely a murmur when the two came in conflict.
Two hundred people turned out to hear Ross Gelbspan speak at the Jamaica Plain Forum a couple months ago. He gave us an hour of unvarnished truth, summarized recent climate science, and drove home the reality that nothing short of immediate, transformative, global action is sufficient.
Climate campaign staff followed up at a "Global Warming Café," presenting our standard three-part story:
- first, we can turn things around, indeed we are already starting to do so;
- second, sound energy policy is good for America, because it will reduce dependence on foreign oil and create green jobs; and
- third, there are two things individuals can do: urge members of Congress to support emissions reduction bills and reduce our own carbon footprints.
The audience joined in small group discussions, contributing their own tips on mulching and insulating hot water pipes, but the disparity between the terrible picture Ross painted and the flimsy action activists were invited to take left a palpable pall in the auditorium.
If the purpose of campaigning is to raise hope, spirits, and courage in the face of long odds, and channel that energy into productive political change, then we are failing. Participants in the reduce-your-carbon-footprint workshops were not joined to some larger purpose and few appeared to leave more energized then they arrived.
To the growing and increasingly sophisticated climate core -- anxious individuals responding directly to climate scientists, who now address them directly via op-eds in The New York Times -- our invitation to lobby Congress for tepid legislation is un-galvanizing, to put it mildly. Gifted with 200 potential activists in a national election year, our best idea is to engage them in private carbon-emissions navel gazing.
Common sense and organizing experience ought to tell us that we are beginning to lose touch with our base, but we no longer think much in terms of building the environmental core. In the long, strange trip between Earth Day 1970 and the Global Warming Café, the transformative vision of environmentalism -- which spoke to people's fears (as well as their hopes), sketched a vision in broad strokes of society rebuilt (in addition to lobbying for reforms), thought in terms of movement and belief (not just organization and policy), and saw environmentalism as outside the left/right spectrum, equally appealing and equally challenging to all traditional politics (and not just one of the progressive herd) -- has morphed into something cramped, Balkanized, and self-conscious.
Our eco-fundamentalist vision is still there, but it is buried. The way we see the world, on a day-to-day basis, is through the lens of our Climate Policy Paradigm, an internally consistent body of beliefs which guides and structures our actions. U.S. environmentalists, from self-avowed critics to the most mainstream, agree on three things, the cornerstones of the Paradigm:
- our most important work is to advance climate policy;
- we must be optimistic, and;
- climate must be put in terms other than environmental interests.
Policy is our business
Most of our time and creative energy is bent toward policy. Books on climate, organizational manifestos, and Gristmill posts argue the finer points of carbon taxes versus cap-and-trade and other, often arcane, details. Little of our thinking or resources goes into social change theory, political strategy (aside from elections), organizing and campaigning, applying lessons from U.S. history, public communications, or insights from cognitive psychology, sociology, theology, economics, or any number of other arts and sciences.
We elevate climate policy above other avenues because we believe that it is the primary responsibility of environmentalists to craft the climate change solution.
Why so? Because we think that if we hit upon just the right formula -- the perfect blend of incentives, quasi-free market trappings, tax breaks, and so on -- we can accomplish the political equivalent of changing lead into gold, and pass effective climate legislation without major opposition.
But political power is immutable and we are not alchemists.
Policy -- a plan of governmental action -- is an outcome of power, not a means of achieving it. We do not have enough power to win functional climate policy in the U.S., and until we do so, there will be no global climate solution.
For twenty years we have approached the problem by pre-negotiating with ourselves on behalf of our opposition. We don't think about it in those terms, but that is what climate policy is all about. We calculate what concessions are necessary to placate whichever interest, power, or nation it is thought must be mollified, and then devise a scheme to fit within those limits.
There are powerful arguments against the anything-is-better-than-nothing philosophy, but there is an even more basic problem with our "policy-first" approach. The world can only draw back from the climate tipping point by transformative political action. The details (i.e. policy) of that action are unknowable to us because we are unaware of, and cannot predict, the conditions, resources, and timetable that will dictate the terms of action when America does accept responsibility for global leadership.
It is possible for us to talk about what America can do when we mobilize to face a global threat, by drawing on U.S. history. The Marshall Plan and post-WWII reconstruction are often used as analogies for a climate solution, but the U.S. gear-up for war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor is more useful example of the potential speed and scale of American mobilization.
After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government told Detroit to stop manufacturing automobiles for private use and start building tanks and other war materiel. Automobile production was 162,000 in 1941, and zero in 1942. Tank production was <300 in 1940, and 25,000 by 1942.
When the U.S. does act decisively on climate, our government will tell the private sector to stop burning coal and start getting power from renewables within one year, and they will do it, because it feasible. The U.S. can't solve the climate crisis unilaterally, so we will pay for China to go solar in exchange for shutting down its coal mines (the two nations control 40% of the worlds coal reserves), just as we couldn't win the war alone, and paid the Soviet Union to keep the second front open.
Our agenda must aim for that level of action. Nothing short of it is sufficient, and the details will not be worked out beforehand. Our present agenda, focused on U.S. domestic emissions and anything-is-better-than-nothing, has more in common with the pre-war policies of isolationism and appeasement.
The people sitting on folding chairs in low-carbon-footprint workshops are much more sophisticated than they were a few years back, and they're not easily snowed by charts and graphs peppered with labels -- "wedges" this and RPS that -- purporting to show how emissions can go down without our power first going up.
What we have going for us is truth and righteousness. What we need is a disciplined, committed climate core. Both are compromised if we keep flogging flimsy policy that cannot solve the problem.
We must be upbeat
Every day we we receive communications from our organizations enthusing about this or that victory. Here's one:
Great news. Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a strong renewable energy standard requiring utilities to provide 12.5% of the state's electricity from clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2025.
If the world must immediately shut down coal plants to get below 350 ppm, as Hansen advises, then the utilities mentioned in the blurb above have just won themselves a great victory.
We can't have it both ways. If we are on the fast road to cataclysm and nothing short of massive, global transformation is meaningful, then we must stop seeking and celebrating dinky achievements. At the very least, we must rephrase how they are trumpeted:
Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a renewable energy standard requiring utilities to provide 12.5% of the state's electricity from renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2025. That is 1/6 of total cuts utilities must make in coal emissions to pull back from the climate "point of no return." We believe it is crucial to get the renewable standard language onto the books, and have accepted the low percentage. [Our campaign] is pledged to immediately return to the legislature to speed up the transfer from coal to solar and wind.
Climate must be pitched to other interests
Climate programs spanning the gamut from Rising Tide to Apollo and NWF assume that people won't respond to direct calls for climate action.
Whether this mass communications approach is advisable is neither here nor there, because it is certainly a disaster for the climate core -- and it is a terrible bargain to trade a small but deeply committed base for a supposed majority that is paper thin.
The folks at the Global Warming Café heard two different stories. Ross talked about the end of the world, yet managed to encourage hope in the face of darkness. The gist of our story is that we don't believe climate change is nearly the problem Ross and the scientists say it is.
We convey our skepticism in two ways. First, we blur our descriptions of the problem so as not to be too alarmist, and second, we put the primary case for climate action in terms other than avoiding disaster.
To cry catastrophe! and then list benefits like green jobs and reduced oil imports to be gained if we take preventative measures is odd and confusing behavior, like running into a crowded movie theater and shouting "Fire! ... and don't forget to buy popcorn on the way out; with all the unexpected traffic, it's on sale!"
Unmoored from principle
We are in crisis because the Climate Policy Paradigm has demonstrably failed to solve the problem. It also prevents us from perceiving that we are in crisis. One unambiguous signal that we have sailed into murky waters is our abandonment of the precautionary principle -- environmentalism's central assumption -- without debate.
Environmentalists won inclusion of precautionary language in the Rio Declaration on the Environment and the Kyoto Protocol. Climate scientists consistently refer to this language as the benchmark for deciding are necessary and appropriate responses to climate change.
In 2005, Jim Hansen published "On A Slippery Slope" (PDF), laying out the case for a 450 ppm "bright line" and outlining a scenario of glacier surface ice melt leading to ice shelf break-up and rapid sea level rise. Hansen's position was significantly more conservative -- that is, precautionary -- than the 550 ppm Kyoto target, and was not endorsed by any major U.S. environmental organization for several years (even, ironically, as U.S. environmentalists rushed to support Hansen when the Bush administration sought to gag him).
Three years later, Hansen has circulated a paper making the precautionary case for a swift return below 350 ppm atmospheric carbon. Once again, nothing is heard from U.S. environmentalists but a deafening silence. As a matter of intellectual honesty, we have two options: endorse or refute. As a matter of environmental principle, there is no option, and the longer we remain silent, the greater the moral burden, the tighter our grip on the familiar, and more impossible the task that can commence only when the way is cleared.
A second unambiguous example that our thinking is out of whack is that we have yet to take even the simplest of steps to join forces. The Paradigm evolved from decisions of energy advocates and program officers, whose calculus of environmental power was organizational, rarely coalitional, not institutional, and never movement-based.
Ten years ago, that kind of thinking might be excused, but today? Where is the gathering of Green Group leadership to plan strategy? Where is the national training conference for our core? Where is the proposal to create infrastructure (communications center, training academy, fundraising, technology, etc.)?
An organization or foundation that represents itself as addressing climate change based on its own resources and program alone has not accepted reality.
Easing out from under the paradigm
We can keep plodding down the dark road of deepening despair, rigid defense of inadequate policy, and preservation of organizational power at the expense of common purpose until our base disintegrates and/or an internal flash point is reached.
Or, we can acknowledge that our Climate Policy Paradigm has failed, experiment with new program and campaigning, and craft a more robust approach. (I have argued that we might bridge the gap by creating an in-house, experimenting campaigns center to germinate and test new ideas.) Even small steps in this direction will be instantly rewarded, as a new atmosphere of creative ferment supplants sterile labor. When reality -- however terrible -- is accepted in place of false optimism, we will tap a wellspring of courage, joy, and hope.
How we choose to act at this critical juncture determines whether environmental principles and our institution will survive; whether a just and sustainable climate solution will be put before the world; and whether America will be mobilized to lead a last-minute global drive to avert collapse of civilization and eco-cataclysm. To achieve these things -- to save the world -- we must do what may be the hardest thing humans are ever called upon to do: give up deeply held beliefs of which we are barely even aware. In our case, the challenge is made easy because we have merely to unearth the values and principles we already hold but have held too long in secrecy.
Which vision will go over best at the next Global Warming Café? Two years back it would have been a tough call whether the climate core preferred terrible truth + long odds but functional global solution, or buffered truth + personal action and comfortable but ineffective politics. Now, if offered an alternative to civics by pre-packaged constituent email and activism defined as refusing junk mail, there is little doubt they would seize it, because they have accepted reality, and it terrifies them.
Calling all radicals: Unite for Kerry-Boxer
Dispassion as the world ends: The absent heart of the great climate affair
Comments
View as Flat
Jon Rynn Posted 1:12 am
20 May 2008
I'm interested in the "cognitive dissonance" that occurred, or maybe didn't occur, at that conference. One of the things that has been driving me crazy has been the juxtaposition of "the world is going to end" and "change your lightbulbs". It always seemed to me that that was a great way to deflate any emotions -- even anger. On the other hand, we keep getting this mantra of "If we start everyone out with small things they will get to the big things". So were the participants aware of this contradiction?
I hate to say it, and I hope I'm not being sectarian, but Gelbspan seems to be a good example of the problem you're talking about. Last I looked, he was proud of the fact that he had consulted with lots of economists and world leaders and came up with a plan of bringing down carbon by so-many-percent per year ( JMG, I don't mean to criticize what you're doing). Why isn't he calling for World War II type action, globally? (and by the way, that was an great metaphor, that helping China would be like helping an ally during war, and doing nothing is like appeasement).
I think you're calling for a mass movement (strangely enough, I think Gore was calling for a global movement in his last TED speech, although I don't know what he meant by that). But here's the thing -- I don't see a mass movement happening until global warming is linked integrally with other struggles -- and I think that the key issue is economics, because that links to all of the progressive communities, such as African-American, Latino, women, unions, etc. So the idea of transforming the economy into something sustainable, that yields, not just millions of good jobs, but an entire economy that yields good jobs, becomes imperative, in order to bring millions of people in as a mass base.
Is your solution a World-War-II type transformation, complete with most (or a significant amount) of the Federal budget devoted to an economic/environmental transformation? That sounds reasonable to me, just asking.
So I'll stop right there for now, great essay.
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BlackBear Posted 1:38 am
20 May 2008
In each of the great mobilizations of the american people, they had something to work FOR. They had a goal and a purpose and it was an idea that they could rally around.
Environmentalists have often been accused of being utopian and to a certain degree I think that the label is deserved. Scientists are very good at telling people What's Wrong, but as of yet have not been great at the Now What.
If we are going to save ourselves and our planet then we need a principled discussion of Now What. I agree with Mr. Ward that we have gotten bogged down with short term goals and tiny victories. We need a well thought out vision of what an Eco-Society would look, smell, and feel like. How would we make decisions about what is good or bad? What guidelines would we use for choosing leaders, businesses, homes, etc?
We need this kind of vision more than we need the sad wrangling of politicians trying to get us to shut up already. :)
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kmp Posted 3:34 am
20 May 2008
I think there is a disconnect in the analogies to the Marshall Plan and the WWII mobilization of Americans. In those scenarios, we were protecting our way of life; yes, people died at Pearl Harbor, and yes, had the Nazis won the war, many, many Americans would have died. But it does not seem that life was the primary driver of the threat against us, as much as liberty - the freedom to chooose how we want to live. Therefore, the sacrifices were acceptable, noble even, because we were protecting our way of life. Environmentalists are not interested in protecting our way of life; in fact, we say that our way of life must change in order to save the planet. America, the Great Teenager, responds "you're not the boss over me" and digs its heels in - I will drive my SUV until hell freezes over simply because you tell me I can't.
Those of us who are, by now, truly scared about the future of our planet and our very species survival, are fed mixed messages, conflicting advice and a big helping of doom & gloom with no action items to galvanize change. Change your lightbulbs! But realize that individual action won't change anything and we won't save the world by changing our lightbulbs. Lower your carbon footprint! But understand that nothing you do personally has any effect, that any change you do make is not enough, that someone is always less carbon intensive than you (and ready to ridicule you for it) and that it doesn't matter anyway, because political action is the only way to affect real change. Offset your carbon! No, don't offsets are at the best pointless, at worst fradulent. Plant trees! No don't, trees actually warm the globe. So what we are left with as advice from the environmentalists is the annoying vague "political action." Well, elections come around only so often. For those of us who do not actually work in an environmental field, there is only so much time and/or money we can donate to environmentalist NGOs. So we are left with a vague and persistent nausea - we know (and cannot forget, as we are constantly reminded) that the lifestyle changes we have made and the paltry efforts at poliitcal action (email petitions, voting, sending the occasional check) are not nearly enough to stop the devastation of global climate change. But what do we do? What is the plan? What should we be striving towards?
I recently re-read the Chronicles of Narnia (inspired by the release of the 2nd movie in the series). I hadn't read them since I was a kid (the books in my box set were marked $1.95; remember those days?). In the last book of the series, The Last Battle, I remember a part that resonated with me: the Last King of Narnia, along with two of the children and a small band of talking beasts, were headed into a desperate battle against an enemy that far outweighed them in strength and numbers. The statement was something along the lines of (paraphrasing) "And the band walked a little taller, stepped a little livelier, there was even a whistle or two to be heard, because people with a plan, even a desperate plan, likely to fail, feel better than those with no plan at all."
We need a plan. And we need to couch it in terms that Americans understand - protecting our way of life. Not our SUVs, our lawns, our three-times-a-day meat habit, but our liberty; our right to choose what our life will look like, even in a carbon-free world. Instead of environmentalists being the dreaded parent, telling the teenaged Americans "clean up your carbon, stop eating meat, don't drive so much" we should make global climate change itself the enemy, and not because it will kill off the polar bears or raise sea level in the Phillipines, but because eventually, global climate change will tell us what to do. Always wanted to travel to Asia? Sorry, air travel is now illegal, and the rioting over lack of food, fresh water and energy make that entire region unsafe. Want your kids to go to soccer camp? Well, you can't drive them there, because gas is $30/gallon. The soccer fields have turned to dust because there is no water for irrigation, chemical fertilzers have been outlawed, and increasingly violent weather has eroded the topsoil. Want to bake Grandma a birthday cake? Well, sugar and eggs are pretty hard to come by, not to mention flour, and chocolate is a luxury for the very rich. Fossil-fueled ovens are a thing of the past, but maybe you could figure out how to bake in a solar oven.
You get the picture. The thing is, most Americans perceive that it is environmentalists who want to dictate how we live, and environmentalists who want our lives to look like the above scenarios. What we fail to communicate, is that it is global warming that threatens our way of life; not just our very survival, but our ability to choose how we live. Environmentalists are just the messenger - but so far, we have not been able to avoid being shot.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 5:25 am
20 May 2008
The great mobilizations were also knee-jerk reactions to emotional events.
The CCC and the NRA (the National Reform Act- not the gun-totin' hillbilly association) was founded in response to the stock market crash.
America didn't enter WW2 until after Pearl Harbor.
America didn't care much 'bout terrorism or Afghanistan until after the New York terrorist attacks.
America didn't see communist Russia as much of threat until they started testing atomic weapons.
With global climate change, it's a bit different beacuse there's not a singular, defining, spectacular, explosive event which can be instantly concrete-linked to it. It happens quickly, but not instantly, and it doesn't include any big explosions or great balls of fire from a giant airplane labeled "global warming".
If it did, then they'd be much more passionate 'bout it.
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David Roberts Posted 6:39 am
20 May 2008
grist.org
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Steve Bloom Posted 6:40 am
20 May 2008
In Washington DC, with the focus on electing Democrats, after which what those Democrats are willing to do will be defined as sufficient progress.
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kmp Posted 6:43 am
20 May 2008
Look at the outpouring of support in the days & weeks following September 11th: blood banks were overflowing, volunteer lines were jammed, most everyone I knew was desperate to do something, anything to help.
What if we'd had a President at the time that told Americans that the attacks were directly related to our Middle East foreign policy, and that our Middle East foreign policy was directly related to our dependence on oil? What if, instead of the War on Terror, we declared War on Oil? What if, instead of slapping magnetic flag decals on our SUVs to show our patriotism, our President told us that the most patriotic thing we could do was not drive? What if, instead of launching a war against Iraq, we had invested those billions on dollars into our War on Oil and funneled that money into renewable energy, efficiency standards and transit infrastructure? What if, when millions upon millions of Americans asked "what can we do to help?" our President said "Bike to work. Insulate your home. Buy a hybrid. Plant a garden. Buy organic. Let's do everything in our power to stop funneling money, through our oil consumption, to these terrorist groups."
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Anna Haynes Posted 11:33 am
20 May 2008
For the record I agree 100% with this from Ken's 2007 The chasm between our agenda and climate science: The problem statement -
"Why do we [environmental organizations] continue, in our materials and on our web sites, to present climate as one of any number of apparently equally important issues? Why, if we really believe that the fate of the world will be decided within a few years, haven't our organizations liquidated assets, shut down non-essential program and invested everything in one final effort? Why, given the crushing circumstances, is there essentially no internal debate or challenge to our inadequate course of action?"
I used to belong to every group under the sun, but I'm no longer supporting any environmental organization, for this very reason - their actions and communications don't evince good judgment.
But coming back to the level of personal actions, what about the Cafe attendees in the folding chairs, what should they do, what role do you envision for them - is their only outlet still going to be "give money, write letters and vote"?
(we have the web now, we want freedom, not discipline)
- Anna, still reading through last year's Bright Lines series
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F James Handley Posted 12:48 pm
20 May 2008
What would it take to shift the entire economy (and those of our trading partners) briskly away from fossil fuels (especially carbon-intensive coal) towards conservation and renewables and make that shift quickly and efficiently as possible?
That signal is the price of carbon. Climate scientists have reached near-unanimity on the problem. Economists are converging on the first necessary step in the solution: PRICE CARBON EMISSIONS OR DIE!
The simplest and clearest price signal: A GRADUALLY-INCREASING CARBON TAX, revenue-neutral, with revenues paid in equal dividends to everyone. That would make EVERYONE who spends money a GHG reductions enteprenuer by rewarding those who reduce emissions.
Yale Prof. Nordhaus offers this test: Proposals to change light bulbs, raise fuel efficiency standards and ethanol subsidies miss the fundamental economic lesson: "RAISING THE PRICE OF CARBON IS A NECESSARY STEP FOR TACKLING GLOBAL WARMING." The rest, he says, is "largely fluff."
For more on revenue-neutral carbon taxes, see http://www.carbontax.org.
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hapa Posted 3:52 pm
20 May 2008
draw up a national grid proposal, with pretty maps, that plays to the distributed strengths of renewable energy. even if it's the european super-grid proposal traced onto a kids' wooden USA puzzle it would be better than "our target should be 20-60% in no less than 25 years, if practical." it's practical. the obstacles, as ralph nader recently put it, are "non-technical."
stop talking about climate as though it were separate from groundwater supplies, fisheries, credit shortages, falling wages, and anything else big going on now. this is all part of one big resource-management screwup and no part alone can be fixed without the others drawing it back into the red.
yes to jon rynn. the fact that this changes the economic picture for billions of people -- for the bad if we quit, for the good of we try -- shows that it's a real story worth telling. A WORLD-ROUND MOBILIZATION MEANS THERE WILL BE TONS OF WORK. some will work in bad faith and screw things up. that will take watching. some will work on whatever, not caring why. that's totally okay. you need to take a step back if you think of this as saving souls. the first business of any good religion is to help with the daily chores.
stop harshing on the lightbulb message -- we all know it's huge -- one of the biggest changes we can make. worthy of law, including practical disposal preparations. instead, go get mad at the "check your tire pressure" people. driving with a lighter, steadier foot, closer to the speed limit, would get most people 20-30% better gas mileage. part of being serious means we scrub out the tips that don't work and concentrate on the good ones. (i'd give a kidney if this otherwise wasted election eon could be used to teach people about embodied energy and the other core concepts of smartening up our equipment buys.)
start talking about complications of implementation. say, "okay, we're working on building our wind power, and that's good, but we're already outgrowing the grid we have and we may have some raw materials problems -- the answer to which is probably recycling more of our current deadweight, faster. let's figure out what we'll be tossing and see if deconstructing it gets us closer to our materials needs."
never show fear to a camera. tell people what will happen. a contraction of one industry, growth in others. tell them washington's job now is not to tell nature what to do or legislate science, it's to divide the work effectively, thoughtfully, attentively, and fairly. we can save our dirty industries from getting beat by the new and clean, or we can save our beloved planet. people know polluting businesses have been living on borrowed time and political favoritism. they just need to know they have a way out that isn't marked "bankruptcy."
for luck, because we need it, and that's actually an optimistic point of view.
work from a plan. if you don't like lester brown's numbers, say why. if they're okay, show them to people, talk about how they're practical, how they are economical and create wealth and opportunities while blowing the doors off the polluters' estimates of how fast we can afford to change.
get used to saying the word "trillion." it's a big number because there are a lot of us and together we make a big economy. but the money all shifts from other places. we can afford to be amazing.
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bill mckibben Posted 10:41 pm
20 May 2008
One slight correction. Jim Hansen's announcement that 350 is the new number has not been met with an entirely deafening silence. Those of us who ran the domestic StepItUp effort last year have now started a global campaign, 350.org, which will officially launch next month but has already organized actions in a dozen states and a dozen countries, and been widely discussed in major articles in the LA Times and Washington Post. If I was better at linking, I'd send you to the piece that originated last week at tomdispatch.com, and was carried widely around the blogosphere, including in Grist. In any event, you can check out the website at 350.org, and more to the point you can help join in the battle. Not easy to do, a global movement, but at least we're trying (and in 14 languages!).
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lorna salzman Posted 10:47 pm
20 May 2008
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Ken Ward Posted 3:54 am
21 May 2008
In no particular order:
re: Bill MicKibben's post. Definitely didn't mean to imply that there has been no response to Hansen. Bill's eloquent and dogged effort to draw attention to the 350 benchmark is the most visible and effective. But I think that Bill's organizing in Step it Up and 350 prove the point. Climate activists groping for some point of certainty in the welter of partial goals and small-scale solutions (nicely described by kmp) must look to new efforts like 350, because there is no clarity in major environmental organizations' and foundations' program.
re: John Ryan #1. Cognitive dissonance, as I understand it in reference to climate, has several overlapping meanings: 1. The state of anxiety felt by an individual confronted by evidence which conflicts with belief; thus, the uncomfortable feelings of participants in low carbon footprint workshops who who believe that personal action is important and will rank household recycling and purchase of a Prius high on a list of climate action activities, but are also fully aware that carbon emissions reductions through their own, and like-minded peoples' efforts are essentially meaningless; 2. Sub-conscious processes the mind employs to resolve such conflict, particularly screening out or downplaying information which conflicts with belief. This, I think, describes the state of most professional staff working on climate, who are fully aware of the latest science, but unconsciously screen out, or do not access that information as they go about their day-to-day work), and; 3. Taking action that is contrary to belief and/or conforming one's beliefs to fit with actions one is unwilling or unable to change. This, it seems to me, describes the condition of many knowledgeable people working in the private sector, particularly oil, gas and coal companies.
In my view, our greatest problem is #2., because it is the continuing ability of of environmental staff and leaders to suit up and keep plugging away at an ineffectual agenda that prevents us from rewriting the environmentalist climate story and refocusing our climate agenda, to offer activists in #1 a way out and put the folks in #3 under increasing strain. Cognitive dissonance, in other worlds, is our stumbling block and also our best tool.
That's the theory. What actually goes through an individual's mind is, of course, idiosyncratic, but I have listened to many people, from senior staff attorneys to my dentist, describe strikingly similar experiences of existential panic. These intense, mildly dissociative states seem to occur most frequently during commutes, on waking or attempting to fall asleep, and sometimes in breaks during the work day - lulls in the stream of orderly thought. The trigger may be a stray piece of information, an image, or (for a lot of people) a sudden burst of anxiety over the future of their kids or grandchildren. The feeling is difficult to describe - one friend said she felt as though her body was suddenly empty, an echoing hollow between her hips and shoulders. Most people also experience shortness of breath.
I think what's going on is that our fight-or-flight reflexes are kicking in at odd moments, and the problem with our climate agenda - at this very primal level - is that we neither address the feeling, nor offer an opportunity to fight or flee.
In the unfolding WWII analogy, our story speaks in the language of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, whose response to Hitler was...
... by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and goodwill,"
To break free of our own cognitive dissonance and energize our core, we must rally and fight (flight is not an option), as Winston Churchill did for Britain...
...we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
re: John Ryan #2. Neither Ross Gelbspan, nor Bill McKibben, nor any of several other outstanding efforts to draw a bright line and craft a functional solution - see, especially, David Merrill's work at StopGlobalWarming.org and Tom Athan ___ - should be compared to our major organizations and foundations. The difference in resources is gargantuan - a handful of hardworking people, with little or no funding, entirely reliant on volunteer action by individuals and coalitions versus $1 billion in assets dedicated to climate, memberships in the millions, and professional staff in the thousands. The fact that Ross's work is seen in the same terms as, say, the Pew Climate Center, demonstrates a huge disparity in cost-effectiveness, but the bottom line is that Ross and others similarly positioned have limited options if they want to advance a pragmatic solution. McKibben's campaigns aim to shift the balance of power, and in my opinion, the 350 effort will be more useful, because it advances Hansen's bright line, than Step it Up, which called for US domestic emissions reductions alone.
re: John Ryan #3. Gore's thinking remains an enigma. On the one hand, as John notes, he does speak in terms of a movement and has called for direction action, but when it comes to spending money, he invests in "We" commercials which are almost the antithesis. Movements and protest are launched by small groups of deeply committed people who crystallize a moral question and polarize options between black and white.
This forces the majority, who will otherwise be perfectly content with shades of grey, to make a choice.
I keep turning to the example of slavery in the early half of the `19th century as the best example of how an issue that is accommodated within pluralistic politics can be pole-vaulted to the defining question before the nation. Northern abolitionist groups of the era, like environmentalists now, were large, well financed and able to move limited-aim bills in Congress. They were also committed to incremental change, split into many competing organizations, and spent a good deal of time and energy debating alternative policies - slaves should be returned o Africa, freed, but not made citizens, given their own territory/reservation, and so on. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry failed raise a slave rebellion, but Brown's moral absolutism, brilliantly publicized by Emerson and Thoreau, put both Southern slavers and Northern abolitionists on the road to emancipation and rebellion.
re: John Ryan #4. Sure, I don't see how we avert catastrophe otherwise, and I have an optimistic view of America and Americans, that in clutch, we will do the right and pragmatic thing. The fact that we are not now willing to come to grips with the crisis is consistent with how Americans have always acted, but our nation as a unique ability to shift gears very quickly, and will do so again on climate. Don't get me wrong, this is not an argument to sit on our hands and wait for some future political crisis. But it does argue that our present focus on convincing the majority that we have a problem, while being careful not to scare them too much, is misguided. Rather, we should be focusing on building the base of flat-out committed climate activists, heightening conflict, and polarizing climate between two mutually exclusive visions.
re:kmp. I agree completely. I thought the most dispiriting aspect of the debate over Cape Wind was the fact that all arguments, pro and con, were in the abstract. The bottom line question - is Nantucket Sound so unique an environmental and aesthetic treasure that it trumps climate action? - can only be answered if we have some idea, even a guesstimate, of how much wind power we must generate and where, to meet this objective, Nantucket Sound falls on the list of sites.
re: lifestyle. I'm not convinced that Americans must make significant changes in lifestyle - at least to reduce fossil fuel use, we may well be forced to make major changes to deal with climate change impacts. It's all a matter of scale and power. If the US government, acting with the same alacrity and pragmatism of post-Pearl Harbor, simply mandated 60 mpg vehicles, phase-down of fossil fuel electricity generation, and required solar retrofits for building heating, we would be in striking distance of self-sufficiency, without any cultural change of significance.
The idea that environmentalism is only about setting limits and our image as crabby meddlers, intent on making life less fun, is not one we should accept or perpetuate. Somewhere along the line we stopped thinking and talking about environmentalism in terms of freedom from want, intelligent design, and simple-but-elegant solutions. Remember Amory Lovins describing nuclear power as "cutting butter with a chainsaw"?
Shellenberger and Nordhaus are half right in arguing that we must celebrate the vision of sustainability. After all, the rest of the world is fighting to become what we are. They are naive, I think, in arguing that emphasizing the positive alone is sufficient.
8. re: Tasermons Partner. I don't think we should discount the possibility of one galvanizing climate impact or a sequence. Part of our problem is that in describing climate change as a host of impacts without differentiation, we make is difficult to grasp the problem as something we can fix. But there is one big problem - the ice shelves and sea level rise - that will be "spectacular."
It already is, but we're not doing much to draw attention to it. The breakup of the Wilkins ice shelf in March of this year, 30 years earlier than the leading expert predicted, is very sobering and ought to have been banner line news in our communications.
9. re: Anna, Lorna, hapa, Handley on what do we do? Good suggestions all. I feel that the key issue here, though, is how our organizations and the foundations which support us, define the agenda. I don't see that there is time to construct an alternative. This is nettlesome, in that there is little to offer frustrated activists, and at the same time relatively straightforward. It is our institution and if we cannot imagine reworking our own approach, why should we hold out any hope of changing America?
Ken Ward
ken[at]brightlines.org
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:16 am
21 May 2008
As for how much Americans will have to change if we want to reverse global warming, I think the problem falls into two general groupings:
1) I think the change in transportation and where people live may require large-scale changes, and I think this is the biggest problem, at least with the general public. A lot of this depends, I think, on how the electric car develops. I would much prefer if everybody lived in walkable town and city centers; but (obviously) I would prefer to mitigate global warming if that can be achieved while preserving sprawl, because that would be much easier to accomplish.
So will it be necessary for Americans to live in (nice) apartments in town and city centers, with mostly train, bike, and walking?
On the other hand, changing the way electricity is generated and distributed could conceivably not involve much in the way of culture change -- although I think buildings will have to become much more efficient and generate much of their own energy, because that's not a big culture change -- but it leads to the next big problem
2) taking on power centers. Big coal is obviously not going to like a switch to renewables, and utilities won't like distributed renewable generation (probably), and the military will want to keep its huge budget, and the rich and powerful will not want their taxes raised to a fair level, and car companies will not like a switch to trains (or even electric cars), and Republicans will want to preserve suburbia (and scream bloody murder if people argue against it).
Which brings us back to your original idea, Ken, of building alternative power centers, without which the pressure to transform the society -- much less undertake World War -style programs -- probably won't take place.
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tboggia Posted 6:08 am
21 May 2008
Anyways, there is a movement growing, with a strong stance, that goes beyond the numbers and addresses all issues of justice mentioned above. This is the Energy Action Coalition with or new Youth Climate Pledge [http://action.energyactioncoalition.org//o/614/t/5737/sig ...]
Focus the Nation on January 31st 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:33 am
21 May 2008
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RisingTideNA Posted 3:12 pm
25 May 2008
Were you were saying that our "program" [sic!] is too removed from "climate 24-7" because we believe that the environment can not be viewed in isolation of human oppression - especially when fossil fuel extraction and burning is involved?
It would suprise me to hear that conflicts with your argument, but it's all I can think of...
I just not sure what you were getting and and was genuinely curious.
thanks for the article...
www.RisingTideNorthAmerica.org
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bobclive Posted 12:29 am
28 May 2008
What do warmers such as Hanson/Giss do, well, they use station pairs and compare data from a highly UHI contaminated urban city weather station with CLEAN data from a neighbouring RURAL station. They then Use some secret algorithm put all the data through a computer which then gives them the result in degrees C. The odd thing is that the result always shows a steep rising temperature trend when the neighbouring RURAL CLEAN data shows only a flat or a slightly rising temperature trend.
Would it not have been more logical to have discarded the contaminated data from the Urban stations and used only the clean data from the Rural sites. I believe the answer to this is that this method would not allow the easy fiddling of data.
The Hanson method,
Bad data + good data = very good data because it shows rising temperatures, this is called Hansonisation.
Good data from RURAL weather stations = NO link between CO2 and temperature rise and we don`t want that do we.
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Ken Ward Posted 2:17 am
09 Jun 2008
Ken Ward
ken[at]brightlines.org
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CHANGEpartner Posted 4:05 am
02 Jul 2008
Your post reminded me of Werbach's recent Blue speech. You're both saying that we've been working on "saving" the environment for 30+ years, and we're worse off now than when we started. We have to change, and fast, if we're going to get to 350 or 450 ppm.
At heart, I think you're talking about leverage and scale. If we have to take significant action soon to avoid the climate change "tipping point" then we need to focus on those few actions that will produce the most meaningful change in the shortest time...leverage. And we need to figure out how to engage a critical mass of key people who can facilitate true change...scale.
Experts and laypeople both have thoughts about how to achieve leverage and scale. For example, Vinod Khosla, a green VC guru, says we've got to address "Oil, Coal, Cement and Steel" . And the US Energy Information Administration has reams of data about the largest (US) sources of greenhouse gases. We know the technical aspects of the climate change problem we have to address to get leverage.
What we need to do a much better job of, as you point out, is identifying the how to gain leverage on the social side, i.e. how we can cause massive, quick behavior and attitude change.
The good news is that we in the Organizational Development community have been doing this for years in organizations. And there are many fields of research and practice, such as Community Based Social Marketing, which can inform our efforts to go to scale with consumers, business people, politicians, etc., What's needed is a focus on these factors, as opposed to the technical aspects of climate change.
Your post is starting to point us in the right direction, in focusing on these non-technical aspects of the environmental movement. I think the real question is, how to we get some key organizations/people to work on this stuff?
CHANGEpartner
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david lewis Posted 5:13 pm
28 Aug 2008
No scientist at that time was advocating that civilization stablize the composition of the atmosphere and remove some of the greenhouse gases it contained to restore it anywhere near the preindustrial, so all I had to back up my position was that I could state that I had met a few top flight climatologists and I knew they would support what I was saying even though they would not call for it themselves. I eventually despaired of this getting anywhere and I've not done that much, until recently when I heard Hansen was saying 350 ppm.
Now, finally, after twenty years, there are some scientists calling for action commensurate with the level of threat they've been describing all this time. They've always been precise and unrestrained when describing what level of threat global warming represents: in 1988 the Toronto Changing Atmosphere conference of 400 high level delegates had no trouble agreeing on describing the threat as one that could only be exceeded "by global nuclear war", whereas their call for action would be laughable today.
So I would say that I found myself isolated and powerless in the past doing exactly what you are calling for now, but that there are new possibilities now that some scientists are on board in this way. I never saw the point in saying anything other than the truth as I saw it. The truth just might start working for people now.
david lewis
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