Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
All agree we need to take action for climate change, but some environmentalists find the Extinction Rebellion’s tactics difficult to get behind. Environmental campaigners Chay Harwood and Marc Hudson provide the arguments for and against them.
The latest environmental and human catastrophe involving Brazilian mining giant Vale occurred on the 25th January 2019 when a mine-tailings dam in Minas Gerais state ruptured. Mining waste and sludge engulfed the town of Brumadinho, with over a hundred people confirmed dead and more than 200 missing.
Environmental activism is meaningless if it does not grapple with issues of injustice and expose the links between environmental devastation, colonial history, and the exploitative relationships of the North and the South. But does this mean that campaigns focused on our connections to the natural world and the suffering of non-human animals are irrelevant?
350 not only networks people together at the grassroots level, but connects fellow climate change activist groups and unites them for major conglomerate projects and demonstrations. It helps smaller organizations make big changes together. There may not be a more significant presence in climate change activism than 350.
“It has been a disappointment to me that so many people, including all too many environmentalists, thought the spirit of liberation of the 1960s was and is dispensable.” — Jan Lundberg (1952-2018)
Global Witness, an international human rights and natural resources group, tallied 207 killings of activists in 2017, the most since the group began compiling data in 2002. Killings occurred in 22 countries, primarily in Latin America.
I encourage you to join me in plogging or plalking. First off, plogging and plalking is good for you! I’ve written many times before about the benefits of walking and walkable neighborhoods.
If we ourselves move away from tacitly reinforcing the assumption of self-interest, and build our work outwards from the potent insight that most people prioritise ‘compassionate’ values, we can open vast possibilities for ambitious – and durable – responses to environmental challenges.
DeChristohper emphasizes that simply getting rid of Trump as first priority will not solve the environmental crisis. If the system wasn’t sufficiently self-correcting before, and if the status quo is irreparably broken, then it’s clear that some other change in strategy is needed.
Since June we have been compiling monthly bulletins which highlight the reality of current climate change―impacts such as storms, droughts, floods, and scorching heat. We call it “The World at 1°C” to acknowledge the terrible fact that the global average temperature is already 1°C warmer than it was before the industrial revolution. In fact, it is now already 1.2°C warmer.
Optimism is alive in a new generation of environmentally aware and astute African American young people who “get it.”
From Mandela to MLK to McKibben, history offers lessons aplenty for climate activists
