Not for forty years has there been such a stretch of bad news for environmentalists in Washington.
Last month in the House, the newly empowered GOP majority voted down a resolution stating simply that global warming was real: they’ve apparently decided to go with their own versions of physics and chemistry.
This week in the Senate, the biggest environmental groups were reduced to a noble, bare-knuckles fight merely to keep the body from gutting the Clean Air Act, the proudest achievement of the green movement. The outcome is still unclear; even several prominent Democrats are trying to keep the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
And at the White House? The president who boasted that his election marked the moment when ‘the oceans begin to recede’ instead introduced an energy plan heavy on precisely the carbon fuels driving global warming. He focused on ‘energy independence,’ a theme underscored by his decision to open 750 million tons of Wyoming coal to new mining leases. That’s the equivalent of running 3,000 new power plants for a year.
Here’s what we think is going on, in the broadest terms.
The modern environmental movement was born on Earth Day 1970, in an unprecedented burst of mass organizing—by some estimates 20 million Americans, a tenth of the population, took to the streets. It was a young movement, at a time when large numbers of people were serious about not just cleaning the air but stopping wars and ending official discrimination. That popular base inspired—or, more likely, cowed—Washington: the next four years saw the passage of virtually all the environmental legislation that still forms the core of green law.
It also saw the birth or rebirth of many of the organizations we think of when we think of environmentalism. Powered by that initial burst of mass support, they were able to make real headway in DC, and so they concentrated on important and professional tasks: patient lobbying of subcommittees, careful report-writing. And they kept making substantial gains: Superfund toxic cleanups, acid-rain control.
But in recent years two things have happened. One, that battery wound up on the first Earth Day has finally wound down: congressmen, it turns out, can tell the difference between an aging membership list and a vibrant political movement. As the DC political bible Politico put it last month: “green groups are being forced to play defense in a world where D.C. pols aren’t scared of them.”
Second, the key issue has changed. Forget acid rain and Superfund; these were important but relatively easy fights that didn’t directly confront anyone’s business model. You could clean up acid rain by putting a filter on your power plant. But global warming is different—you’d have to shut down that power plant, and replace it with a windmill or a solar panel.
And so the full power of the fossil fuel industry—the most profitable business in the planet’s history—has been brought to bear on the fight, and they play hard and dirty. The Koch Brothers spend huge sums to underwrite the network of global warming skeptics; the US Chamber of Commerce emerged as the biggest campaign funder of them all, shuttling 94% of its donations to climate deniers. This kind of clout carried the day: the biggest dream of DC Washington groups was the so-called ‘cap-and-trade’ bill, behind which they mustered every insider technique they’d spent the last four decades perfecting. But in the end they didn’t come close: Harry Reid refused to even schedule a floor vote, knowing that he was far short of the votes needed to pass the bill. The White House stayed on the sidelines.
To us, the lesson is pretty clear.
Since we’re never going to have as much money as the fossil fuel industry, we need to rebuild the kind of mass movement that marked 1970: bodies, passion, and creativity are the currencies we can compete in. It’s not impossible. Working with next to no money, the fledgling campaign at 350.org managed over the last three years to coordinate 15,000 rallies in 189 countries—every nation on earth save North Korea. It’s been active in every US state and Congressional district. And this week, it combined forces with another important American grass roots climate campaign, 1Sky, for extra reach.
1Sky was founded in the same spirit, and at the same time, as 350.org, and has worked to develop leaders around the country and help build a base of hundreds allies. Together, we'll be smarter, bolder, faster, and more creative than we were before.
This new and expanded 350.org will mobilize on a large scale—circle Sept. 24 on your calendar for a worldwide day of bike-based action. But it’s also going aggressively after the backroom money, with a far-reaching new campaign that tackles the US Chamber of Commerce for its climate stance.
This youth-based campaign is linking up with labor, with faith communities, with frontline communities who have the most experience trying to shut down dirty power plants in their backyards. Most of all it’s actually out in the streets, organizing new blood. The idea is not to supplant the Washington green groups, but instead to give the whole movement new clout—enough clout to withstand the crushing power of oil money. And enough energy to let us get off defense and back on the attack.
We don’t know if we’ll win in the end: the science of climate change grows darker by the day, and the window for effective action is swiftly closing. But any chance requires people power replacing corporate power. In the year of Tunisia and Egypt and Wisconsin, it’s worth a try
Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben are board members of 350.org.
This post originally appeared on Alternet.
Follow Bill McKibben on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billmckibben
See Green Light at www.aesopinstitute.org for outlines of some suggestions for approaches that might get the job done.
Okay, so voting did not work out. What's next?
"Special interests have spent millions of dollars making the case that we must choose the economy or the environment, attacking everything from removing lead in gasoline to cleaning up acid rain. They have consistently exaggerated the cost and scope of EPA actions, and in 40 years their predictions have not come true."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704594804575648673952756954.html?KEYWORDS=lisa+jackson
Even an API economist had to admit the truth: "Felmy recognized that the report concluded that you would get four times as many clean energy jobs as oil jobs from the same investment, because “green technology is more labor-intensive and less capital-intensive.” He admitted that if you invest money in clean energy instead of oil and gas:
“I have no doubts you can get a lot more jobs.”
In other words, tax hikes improve the economy." http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/08/17/api-taxes-create-jobs/
Yeah. Quaint, but not terribly factual. Or honest.
Wow. Collosally unaware.
This is our fight.
Look at what they are doing in Bolivia:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/10/bolivia-enshrines-natural-worlds-rights
During the subsequent protests, a young man was shot to dea/th by the police for basically asking for his right to drinking water without having to pay for it. This led to the rise of Evo Morales. Bolivia may never be a corportate paradise with paved sidewalks and shining glass buildings, but at least its people will be able to drink and eat.
That means you have to enlist U.S. manufacturers who are currently with the fossil fuel industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And why is that? Why would manufactures be on the same side as fossil fuels? Manufactures here competing on the manufacturing of energy intensive products feel they are at a competitive disadvantage competing with the fast developing nations using coal energy with no equivalent EPA restrictions. That's why they are against the regulations concerning green house gases!
They ask themselves at different manufacturing conventions, "why are our green house gases so much worse than the fast developing nations green house gases if it is really GLOBAL warming? This is the greatest cause of CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS, THIS QUESTION!
Since most of these manufactures truly feel they are way ahead of the fast developing nations in terms of efficiency, and clean use of energy largely because of the EPA; USE THIS!
Propose an environmental tax or tariff based on the environmental impact concerning the manufacturing, transportation, and sustainability of products sold here!
If it is a GLOBAL PROBLEM this approach forces changes not only here but all the way down the supply chain to the fast developing nations!
And reduces the Chamber's impact!
"Skyrocketing food and fuel prices should be met by Kentucky nullifying federal prohibition of industrial hemp cultivation"
http://deadlinelive.info/2011/03/10/nullification-will-help-kentucky-farmers-who-will-grow-hemp/
Hemp as fuel alternative:
"Despite the historical records and facts, the environmentally sustainable direction dictated by Hemp is not pursued by modern industry or university faculty courses. The only obvious reason for this is pure ignorance due to lack of Hemp education, and also the threat to financial self-interests – of people whose industries would be, over-night, made redundant by Hemp production."
http://panacea-bocaf.org/hempproduction.htm
The Republican party has deregulated or refused to enforce regulations for years.
That is why we had:
The Massey coal mine disaster.
The BP oil spill in the Gulf .
The massive melt down on Wall Street.
Hows that deregulation stuff working out for you?
Now they want to defund the EPA. Give me a break.
People seem to forget that the federal government was running a budget surplus until Republican George Bush came into office. We were doing a good job of starting to pay down the national debt.
Then he decided to give all his rich friends a trillion dollar tax break and fight 2 wars without figuring out how to pay for them. He ran the country into a ditch and on his way out the door threw the keys to the next guy and said I hope you fail.
We are in this mess because of the policies of the Republican party. They say they want to cut the deficit but first they need to give the top 2% a tax cut. What a bunch of hypocrites .
When will the 98% wake up from the cool aid they have been drinking and see what these people are doing to the country?
Why is this not a message that Democrats can articulate ?
One guess as to the problem right now. The issue is that a "free market" is an impossibility. There will always be internal and external limits (controls) on economies. The question is, do we shape these to our advantage collectively, or do we let the market "decide"?
"The top ten contributing corporate entities – including four oil and gas companies and six companies heavily invested in coal – have contributed over $2,000,000 since 1999. Koch Industries and Southern Co. top the charts with over $4 million each in campaign contributions. Exxon Mobil is not far behind with $3.9 million. American Electric Power, Valero Energy, Chevron, Dominion Resources, Edison International, Duke Energy and Entergy Corp have all contributed more than $2 million since 1999."
http://dirtyenergymoney.com/
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/
Interesting how they use astroturf front groups to spread their disinformation when they are not buying congressmen...
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-big-money-pulling-strings-pr
The results over the last few decades of research are just plain awesome.