theClimateers

Cross posted from It’s Getting Hot in Here

As 27 of my fellow SustainUSers are in Copenhagen are attending plenary sessions and planning actions with international youth from around the world, I’m holding down the fort in Washington, DC by bridging the news from Denmark to actions at home.

A friend of mine earnestly remarked today that he thought grassroots and youth organizing for COP15 was a lost cause because the real negotiating at Copenhagen, and that legislative change in the U.S. Senate happens behind closed doors between high-level decisionmakers and powerful lobbyists; that protests, petitions, and rallies are tiny blips on the political radar. And I suppose he has a point – the COP15 outcome depends highly upon decisions of key leaders, and the deep pocketbooks of special interest groups and corporations resonate at higher decibels than kids with hand-painted banners and street actions.

But he’s wrong to conclude that it’s a waste of our time. After a brief afternoon existential crisis of the importance of our collective work, I stopped to look around at all the inspiring work coming from delegates in Copenhagen and my friends all over the country. It’s easy to become apathetic or discouraged, but it takes a lot more to keep fighting the fight.

Don’t underestimate the value of expressing your two cents to your leaders – it’s money well spent! We’ve already seen a positive change in political climate from our tireless campaigns – from Obama’s willingness to engage with youth climate leaders to the growing support for 350 ppm as our new global CO2 stabilization target – and though our gains may seem incremental, they are certainly pointing in clear direction: forward.

“I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world,” writes poet Adrienne Rich. We may not have money or extraordinary power on our side, but we have our youth, creativity, energy, enthusiasm, and dedication, and no astroturf effort can buy that kind of genuine passion. Sure, even a visible Ark on the National Mall isn’t alone going to convince my Senator to vote for the Climate Bill, but it’s the combined effect of all sorts of actions happening worldwide that show our collective force.

As youth delegate Caroline points out in her dispatch from Copenhagen, it’s important for us at home to build on the momentum from our friends in Denmark to push for domestic action.  Join a rapid response team! Call your senators to voice your support for the Climate Bill!  Talk to your friends and neighbors to raise awareness about these issues to people who might not otherwise know about them! Attend a 12/12 candlelight vigil!

Tomorrow, youth activists in Copenhagen are holding a Bed-In to commemorate the assassination of John Lennon by singing a climate-adapted version of “Give Peace a Chance.” The message? Give youth a chance.

Dear President Obama,

The science on climate change is overwhelming, and the momentum from the climate movement is at full speed. Don’t resign to postponing climate action just yet! We’re not just asking you to attend Copenhagen in person, we’re asking you to be at Copenhagen with all the dedication, energy, and diplomatic grace that you have demonstrated so many times before.  We want to see you come home  having made progress — real progress! — on climate negotiations, not pat yourselves on the backs and say, ‘The timing wasn’t right, but let’s certainly do this again later.’

Time is running out! It’s true; we may not feel the repercussions of unabated climate change in the same way we feel the backlash of this economic recession right now, but we have already made irreversible damages to our earth and it is imperative that we act now to prevent too many more from happening.

In solidarity,

Your friendly, neighborhood Climateers

____________________________________________

Dear all,

Most of us are not as lucky as Valida and hundreds of other youth to be able to voice our opinions at Copenhagen in person, so here are a few things we can do at home to make sure we let President Obama and the Senate know we don’t intend to let them off the hook on this one.

1. CALL YOUR SENATORS! You have two of them, and while sometimes it might not seem like it, they work for YOU, so let ‘em know what you want!

2. Attend a climate justice action on November 30: http://www.actforclimatejustice.org/ – happening all over!

3. If you are in DC, help 1Sky and CCAN deliver art to the White House on Dec. 4!

4. It’s not all petitions and protests! Think of something creative! Valida and I wrote 350 songs; Berlin held a silent climate parade; DC released dozens of beautiful, floating lanterns at the White House during Obama’s trip to China — what can you come up with?

5. Send Obama a message or sign a petition – no worries about sending two, or three, or four! The larger the volume the better!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/live |  www.itsgametimeobama.org |  www.climatecountdown.org

Here’s a possible list of things to ask him to do:

- Attend Copenhagen in person

- Put pressure on the Senate to pass a strong climate bill — no watery bills wanted

- Meet with the youth leaders who have been working so hard at the grassroots level on environmental issues

- Address the country with a public, televised speech on the importance of climate and energy legislation so to tell the world that this is a top priority on his agenda

Louise

Things have been busy here in DC (and in 170 other countries!) in preparation for the International Day of Climate Action on October 24th!

On a personal note, it’s been really gratifying and energizing to have been helping to plan the rally. Between phone banking, petitioning, and mobilizing other DC volunteers, climate change action has been monopolizing my free time, but it’s great to see all the different environmental groups come together for this.  And, it’s been so interesting to see all the different types of events that people have come up with, which, I guess, is the beauty of the 350 grassroots-based campaign. From the big march in DC and regional campus PowerShifts to protests at coal plants and bike rides, I’m so happy to see people getting involved in all sorts of ways.

I think the best part of this whole process is that it’s been a good platform to talk about climate change with people (both friends and strangers) who did not think about taking action otherwise.  My friend at UC Davis just told me that she signed up for a big climate bike ride after seeing all my 350.org plugs on facebook, and I’ve gotten several other people to volunteer. Even just getting climate issues on people’s radar is great.

For our U.S. readers, here are the details for two 350 events in DC and Chicago.  Unfortunately, it looks like possible rain on Saturday in DC, but at least the forecast won’t be too cold!

Chicago:

1-4 pm at Fisk Coal Plant in Pilsen (1111 W. Cermak)

Speakers and performers will include Alderman Joe Moore, Executive Director of Greenpeace Phil Radford

DC:

Malcom X/Meridian Hill Park, 12-3: Rally at Malcolm X; 3-5: March down 16^th Street to the White House

Speakers and Performers will include:
Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Hip Hop Caucus
Friis Arne Petersen, Danish Ambassador to US
Steve Ma, Live Green
Joe Uehlein, former director, AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Campaigns

For folks interested in marching as part of an MTR contingent, see this!

Last month at the UN Climate Summit in New York, President of China Hu Jintao announced a promise to reduce the rate of carbon intensity, marking the first time that China has directly addressed carbon emissions policy. Keep in mind that this still means total CO2 will continue to increase, but still, a bigger commitment than we’ve seen from China so far.

There’s always a lot of debate about how much China (and other developing countries) should be putting into carbon mitigation efforts.  The traditional arguments, briefly:

• Developed countries have contributed to the majority of cumulative CO2 in the atmosphere from decades of industrialization. China is still developing, can’t afford to take a hardline stance on climate change, and deserves the chance to raise the standard of living so that its people can enjoy the same quality of life as we do in North America and Europe. Plus, as the Central Party likes to emphasize, China’s per capita emissions are significantly lower than America’s.

• As of 2006, China surpassed the U.S. in total yearly CO2 emissions, and now stands as the number one emitter of CO2. Climate change requires global cooperation and China has a responsibility to be a part of those efforts. Without China’s participation, the rest of the world will probably not be able to stabilize the concentration of CO2 at a safe level (which is now generally agreed to be 350 ppm; see James Hansen.)

Both of those are valid points, but I am always hesitant to take too much of a comparative attitude when it comes to climate policy. That often leads to finger-pointing and inaction until someone else does something, which is the kind of atmosphere we have right now. I think it’s more important – and productive – to look at what each country can do given its own set of parameters.

So let’s just look at China for a second:

It’s in China’s best interest to act on climate change now.

Aside from general world doom if we let global warming go on unabated, there are a lot of economic and security issues at stake. Domestically, desertification is rapidly reducing the availability of quality land for agriculture and development.  Disputes over loss of livelihood, land use, and land distribution already comprise a sizable percentage of Chinese incidents of social unrest, and are only predicted to increase in the future because of global warming’s effect on the land. Effectively dealing with social unrest is a major weakness of local governments and a sore spot for high-level officials.   The potential threat that such social conflicts pose to domestic security would be an unwanted burden.

Internationally, water rights issues between China and its neighbors pose potential national security problems. Pretty much all of China and Southeast Asia’s freshwater sources originate in the Himalayas. China places high importance on maintaining absolute autonomy over its internal affairs.  Because climate change issues are transnational, however, surrounding countries may place increasing demands on the country’s domestic resource management, which may lead to regional tensions.

It’s true, China has several great things going for it now: solar heaters are pretty widespread and wind is taking off in the northwest. The city of Beijing has a program to replace coal stoves with electric heaters in old hutong houses in Beijing. The CCP announced new electric car subsidies earlier this year. I don’t need to itemize everything.

But there is ample room for China to tackle climate issues beyond the more direct and obvious steps, such as making coal plants more efficient and mandating more energy from renewables. Like China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, which initiated several economic reforms, climate security might serve as a catalyst for restructuring China’s energy sector or for expanding policy  implementation and enforcement at the local and provincial level. Structurally, China’s government and tax systems reward regions based on the revenue they generate. Enforcement mechanisms are weak; local officials turn the other cheek if industry isn’t following the rules, so long as it boosts GDP. Establishing a firm rule of law and mainstreaming environmental protection and other qualitative requirements into evaluation criteria of government officials is one way to take the emphasis off of profit alone.

Let’s hope that climate change can be a platform to ease ever-growing tensions between China and the U.S. I hope that China will embrace these climate talks positively, using them as a forum to engage in more international cooperation to do more to be green at home.

By Keith Harrington of CCAN, with whom I’ve been working to do 350 outreach.

Want A Strong Climate Bill? Then Pay Up! | Grist

“We the American people have far deeper pockets than all of the big oil and coal companies combined. While most of us fail to realize it, each one of us, by right of being a democratic citizen, has access to inexhaustible stores of a currency far more potent than the dollar. This currency is one which our leaders ultimately depend upon to hold office, run the country, and pass laws that truly reflect the public interest – political capital.”

I’ve been watching and reading about everything happening in Pittsburgh all week, and it’s been a little disconcerting to hear what various people have been saying about it around here in DC.  I’ve got a few friends there protesting for climate action and have been hearing firsthand reports of the police crackdowns.

I’ve heard a lot of offhand remarks about the protesters from various people this week, about how the protesters are totally missing the point of the G20, how it’s stupid and useless to be out there, how the protesters don’t even know what’s going on, and so on.  It makes me glad I know people there—smart people who care about issues—so that I can (hopefully) change their minds about the types of people who are down there.

This kind of mentality worries me: where’s the optimistic spirit and desire to effect change? Protests have been on the vanguard of so many important historic social movements, and as long as there are still issues to fight for, protests are still relevant.

I read a wonderful interview with Jim Hansen (the first scientist to back the 350 ppm target), and felt re-inspired.  He talked about civil resistance as an integral part of the democratic process when voting and traditional means of influencing politics fail.  Check out the article.  Jim Hansen embodies the kind of involvement and leadership that the climate movement needs: someone who understands the scientific facts, but is not afraid to do advocacy work, and has no qualms with working both within and outside of the political machine.

Around the same time that Valida was moving into her new home Berlin, I was packing my own suitcase to move to Washington, DC where I would be working for an environmental think tank.  Despite general apprehensions about returning to my old college stomping grounds, I am excited to be in the capitol during such a fury of environmental action.

Moving around so much has gotten me thinking about the relationships I’ve had with the environmental movement in each place: I’ve worked or volunteered for think tanks, advocacy groups, activists, and a Department of Energy lab. In addition to that, I was also a regular old concerned human being living in Beijing, trying to breathe through the smog just like everyone else.

Throughout these experiences, it’s been interesting to see how people relate to the environmental movement based on the type of work they do, whether it involves working in law or policy, grassroots organizing, or doing field work outside. For a lot of my friends, environmentalism is also a way of life that includes personal commitments, like being vegetarian, or biking, or buying locally grown produce.

For others, it’s just a day job. Not to knock the DOE lab (they produce great things!), but I left there feeling a little numb. The two departments in which I was involved wrote environmental impact statements for proposed nuclear power and researched various carbon emissions issues…two topics that lend themselves to a lot of involvement from NGOs and activists. I think the people at the lab take pride in being completely objective and neutral, which is, of course, not a bad thing, but it also seemed to correspond to a lack of personal enthusiasm for non-work-related environmental topics. Just the lab structure alone, where everything was broken down into Directorates and Departments, contributed to the segregation and compartmentalization of what should have been overlapping energy and environmental issues.

Isn’t caring about the environment all-encompassing by nature? And doesn’t that also lend itself to caring about a whole host of related issues like social justice and public health?

This weekend, Valida and I were discussing different types of involvement with the movement, and the balance between activism, which can be creative, emotional, and passionate, and “procedure”-based ways of effecting change. Maybe what’s so appealing to me about the 350.org campaign is that it’s an amalgam of both: a creative expression of scientific policy.

Anyway, I guess that balance is still something I’m trying to figure out for myself as well. Is it possible to work within the system while pushing for change from the outside?

I’ll leave you unresolved, but with a video of an action on Sept. 8, welcoming the Senate back: