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As climate crime continues, who are we sending to jail? Tim DeChristopher?
Bill McKibben, Grist
Let’s consider for a moment the targets the federal government chooses to make an example of. So far, no bankers have been charged, despite the unmitigated greed that nearly brought the world economy down. No coal or oil execs have been charged, despite fouling the entire atmosphere and putting civilization as we know it at risk.
But engage in creative protest that mildly disrupts the efficient sell-off of our landscape to oil and gas barons? As Tim DeChristopher found out on Thursday, that’ll get you not just a week in court, but potentially a long stretch in the pen.
Tim is a hero not because he knew what he was getting into. As his testimony made clear this week, he had no idea at all; his decision to become Bidder No. 70 was about as spontaneous an action as we’ve ever seen.
And that’s what we need more of. More willingness to jump. Not blindly — if were going to do civil disobedience on a mass scale, and I think we’re going to have to, then some careful planning is necessary. But when you get right down to it, there’s always going to be a moment when you have to say: time to jump. Time to leave behind the world you’ve known and take a chance. The furniture of power — from stone-faced cops to imposing courthouses — is all designed to make you turn back from that edge.
Tim took that leap. The government is going to try and make an example of him. It will be harder for them if there are more of us.
(3 March 2011)
Republicans attack Obama’s environmental protection from all sides
Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian/UK
It started on a sultry day in Houston when hundreds of protesters, mostly oil company employees, were bussed to a concert hall in their lunch hour to rally against a historic first step by Congress to reduce the pollution that causes climate change.
The event marked the start of a backlash by wealthy industry owners and conservative activists against Barack Obama’s green agenda. Now it has snowballed into what green campaigners say is the greatest assault on environmental protection that America has ever seen.
Eighteen months after that Houston rally, the green agenda is under assault on multiple fronts, from cutbacks in recycling in Wisconsin to the loosening of regulations governing coal mining in West Virginia and a challenge to the authority of the White House and federal government to act on climate change.
“This is almost unprecedented in environmental history, in that they are moving in so many directions and in so many ways to effect the same results that even if they are only partly successful, it will still have a serious outcome,” said Bill Becker, secretary of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which monitors air pollution.
(4 March 2011)
My life as a communist
Bill McKibben, Washington Post
My life as a communist actually began without me knowing it, on Friday evening, when Glenn Beck spent his program explaining about a “communistic” conspiracy that included 10 groups in America. One was 350.org, a global campaign to fight climate change that I helped found three years ago. He even put our logo up on his whiteboard – and next to it a hammer and sickle.
Since I don’t actually watch Mr. Beck, I didn’t know about it until e-mails began to arrive, informing me that indeed I was a communist. My first reaction was: I’m not a communist. I’m a Methodist.
… I turned 50 last fall – that’s half a century not understanding who I really was. There’s something liberating about finding out. After all, it was Marx who said that above 350 parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we can’t have a planet “similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted.” No, wait, those were NASA scientists. The same people who faked the moon landing. This is a complicated world; I’m going back to the baseball game.
Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College and a co-founder of 350.org.
(1 March 2011)
Barack Obama May Be Forced to Delay US Climate Action
Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian/UK
Barack Obama may be forced to order a two-year delay in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action on climate change to try to avoid a complete government shutdown, an environmental conference has been warned.
President Obama faces the prospect of a government shutdown by 4 March, with a funding gap leading to federal employees being sent home and government services temporarily closing down, unless he can reach a deal with Congress Republicans who are demanding a crippling $61bn (£38bn) in budget cuts.
The Republican plan would destroy Obama’s capacity to pursue his green agenda, cutting the budget of the EPA by 30%, and stripping funds for projects he has championed such as clean energy research and high-speed rail.
Obama may be forced to sacrifice the EPA’s efforts to take the first steps this year towards regulating greenhouse gas emissions if it means he can continue funding the federal government for the next seven months.
(28 February 2011)
Who’s Blocking U.S. Action on Climate Change?
Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone names the top 12 most powerful opponents of restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions …
12. Rep. Fred Upton Republican, Michigan
11. Bjørn Lomborg Author, “Cool It”
10. Rep. Darrell Issa Republican, California
9. Sen. Jay Rockefeller Democrat, West Virginia
8. Ken Cuccinelli Attorney general, Virginia
7. Tim Phillips President, Americans for Prosperity
6. Rex Tillerson CEO, ExxonMobil
5. Tom Donahue President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
4. Gregory Boyce CEO, Peabody Energy
3. Sarah Palin Retired half-term governor, Alaska
2. Charles and David Koch CEO and Executive VP, Koch Industries
1. Rupert Murdoch CEO, News Corporation
Read their profiles, here
(3 February 2011)
Hat tip to Climate & Capitalism. -BA
