Of all the amazing stories that emerged from last month’s historic International Day of Climate Action, the one that really caught my eye (and made my jaw drop in disbelief and admiration) was that of 15,000 Ethiopian students swarming though the streets of Addis Ababa brandishing 350 signs and whooping it up big time in support of bold global climate solutions.
If you haven’t seen the video yet, check it out. It’s definitely something to behold.
Less jaw-dropping was the turnout at our action in D.C. which topped out at less than a thousand. Considering the massive outreach and buzz-building effort my fellow organizers and I invested in the event, that number should have been much closer to what they got in Addis Ababa. But somehow we didn’t even come close. So what exactly did the Ethiopians have going for them that we didn’t?
Sunny weather, sans monsoon-style rain was certainly one factor. But there had to be more to it than that. After all, this was supposed to be the mother of all climate actions, our last big change before Copenhagen, before one of the most vitally important meetings in human history to give our leaders the kind of big grassroots push they need to really do something. With so much at stake how could anyone who cares about this issue have let a little rain keep them away from marching with us? Why wasn’t everyone there?
Roz Savage asked the same question about the turnout at her Oct. 24 rally in London, and she suggested a pretty good answer: global warming is a downer. People just don’t want to think about it. They’ve got enough problems to deal with in their everyday lives. And, you know, she’s absolutely right. The real reason for American activist apathy is that to most Americans, climate change is just another problem—one of a million things to worry about instead of the ultimate crisis. Worse, for most of us it actually sits pretty low on the totem pole of problems. In polls Americans consistently rank the economy, war, and health care well above climate change in the triage of issues to worry about. And this isn’t because people don’t appreciate how serious climate change is. It’s just that we only appreciate it intellectually. We don’t yet feel it in our everyday lives with the same kind of visceral immediacy with which we feel economic or health care problems, and for that reason most people just aren’t ready to take to the streets for it, rain or shine.
Photo courtesy 350.org via Flickr And this brings us back to those kids in Ethiopia. Sunny
weather and good organizing aside, I’d wager that what really drove them to the
streets was the one thing that the climate movement in America (and most of
the industrialized world) is missing: a sense of urgency, a visceral
appreciation of the problem. The kind of urgency and visceral appreciation that
comes from experience with the kinds of hardships that catastrophic climate
change will impose: drought and famine, political, social, and economic instability. Ethiopia’s
effort to escape such miseries has been slow and arduous, and the fall
back into their grip wouldn’t be very far. The country ranks at 171 out
of 182 countries on the U.N. human development index, making it one of the
most vulnerable countries in the world to the catastrophic impacts of runaway climate change. Such vulnerability has
a way of inspiring serious street stomping action on the scale that we just saw
in Addis Ababa.
So does this mean Americans may have to experience a few climate induced disasters like an agricultural collapse or a string of additional Katrinas before our climate movement can reach the kind of scale that we really need right now? Maybe, but I certainly hope not. I hope the movement expands along the lines suggested by my colleague Ted Glick—not as an explosive reaction to a national trauma, but as a kind of outgrowth and blossoming of the many seeds climate activists have been planting recently via the mounting anti-coal demonstrations and big days of action like the 24th. But however that growth occurs, one thing is for certain: if it’s going to have any serious impact on policy in the time frame that we need, it has to happen fast. And to make that happen we’re going to have to somehow quickly shake off our remaining climate complacency and start feeling the kind of visceral urgency that seems to be inspiring the Ethiopian climate movement.
That’s right, America: In order to help save the world, we’ve got to wake up and start thinking and acting a lot more like Ethiopians.
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Comments
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Rip Van Winkle Posted 4:12 pm
03 Nov 2009
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Rip Van Winkle Posted 4:13 pm
03 Nov 2009
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Billhook Posted 5:26 am
04 Nov 2009
The really potent driver as far as I've seen over the decades is people having a sense of solidarity with some vulnerable community who are being threatened by some malign or callous policy.
Thus I think that what the climate movement needs very urgently is to waken a sense of SOLIDARITY ! with the Ethiopians and others who are right in the path of the genocide-by-famine that American policy is advancing. Nothing less will do the job.
Regards,
Billhook
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LoriP Posted 12:23 pm
04 Nov 2009
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randino Posted 5:22 pm
04 Nov 2009
Randy Cunningham
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HealthyHiker Posted 6:23 pm
04 Nov 2009
There needs to be more organizing training so that people know how to lead and respond in this way.
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HealthyHiker Posted 6:18 pm
04 Nov 2009
If you are interested in my perspective, I don't take part in climate action events because I believe it will take change in many areas of environmental policy to achieve climate change carbon reduction goals.
So, I push for policy that will shift our manufacturing to producing products that are durable and non-toxic. I support sustainable land use so that natural resources are used efficiently. This also includes advocating the preservation of forests- which provide enormous carbon capture.
I also commit to efforts that will ensure our electoral system is reformed so that we can elect candidates who truly represent our concerns and will work for the policies we want implemented.
Regarding marketing for your event, I only recently learned what 350 even meant. For your average American, they probably had no idea.
Best of luck with turnout for your future events.
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Billhook Posted 6:29 am
08 Nov 2009
"I don't take part in climate action events because I believe it will take change in many areas of environmental policy to achieve climate change carbon reduction goals.
So, I push for policy that will shift our manufacturing to producing products that are durable and non-toxic. I support sustainable land use so that natural resources are used efficiently. This also includes advocating the preservation of forests- which provide enormous carbon capture."
While campaigning on climate policy is not everyones' idea of a happy way of life, I wonder if you recognize that without success at the global and national policy levels then all other actions for the sustainable integration of society within the natural ecology are critically undermined ?
There is also the issue of displacement arising from well meant conservation efforts in one place simply causing greater extraction of resources elsewhere - forestry being a case in point. Where I live in Wales much of the woodland is preserved, meaning that even mighty oaks must be left to go past their prime, age, fall and rot, and that local hardwood demand is then met by imports of rainforest hardwoods or of the yields from the ongoing rape of the Russian temperate forest cover.
For this reason I wonder if you might be persuaded to support sustainable productive forestry, as opposed to mere preservationism ?
With regard to the received wisdom of forests providing "enormous carbon capture" it would be helpful to describe how this occurs. I see of course that forests hold huge volumes of carbon as standing 'Carbon Banks', but, the world's great natural forests are essentially static in their scale and carbon capacity, so where is the sink ? The soils of both Boreal and Tropical forest tend to be similarly stable - e.g. the Amazon rainforest, at about 60 million years old, has an average of a foot of topsoil under it - Some temperate forests can develop substantial soil depths, but they are a very minor part of global forest cover, and so have little effect on the average carbon sequestration rate per hectare of forestry globally.
So can you say where this enormous carbon capture is occuring ? Or could it actually be a myth propagated by the rainforest-preservation lobby attempting to get its special interest loaded onto the climate bandwagon ?
Regards,
Billhook
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Des Emery Posted 10:56 pm
04 Nov 2009
We find it too comfortable using what we already possess before we have to start thinking about what the future might hold - except for the good things, like more money, another car, a quieter air conditioner, a louder video game.
When Marie Antoinette was told that the crowd outside was screaming because "there was no bread" she famously said "Well then, let them eat cake!" But she wasn't being facetious nor insulting. She really had no comprehension of what it meant to be hungry since the concept was so totally foreign to her, living in her castle all her life, with her every need or want or whim promptly met.
Until there is no gas to pump into your car or your lights brown-out when you adjust the thermostat or your kid starts crying because there is no new video game to plug into the TV, then Ethiopians will have to march alone.
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randino Posted 5:51 am
05 Nov 2009
Randy Cunningham
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