NICK ENGELFRIED – As student dissent faces widespread crackdowns, a victory over fossil fuel influence at the University of Toronto offers hope and inspiration.
Tag: climate change
Five Ways to Approach the Election with a Movement Mindset
RAE ABILEAH and ANDREW BOYD – Distilling hard-earned lessons from election dilemmas faced by earlier social movements, here are five key insights to consider.
To address the climate emergency, foundations must spend big on movements
MARGARET KLEIN SALAMON – Philanthropy has a unique and critical role to play in addressing the climate emergency. By acknowledging the calamity we face and adjusting their operations, philanthropies can lead society into the “emergency mode” necessary to avert disaster. The time for half-measures, white papers and panel discussions is over. Philanthropy must act now, boldly and decisively, to help save our planet for future generations.
Eastern Europe’s purchase of US nuclear reactors is primarily about military ties, not climate change
MAHA SIDDIQUI and M.V. RAMANA – Investments in nuclear power in Eastern Europe hide geopolitical and military motivations behind a smoke screen of fighting climate change. When these motivations result in the massive acquisition of military equipment, manufacturing and operating them will increase carbon dioxide emissions. Worse, military buildups will also increase the risk of conflict, potentially leading to a catastrophic war that could involve nuclear weapons.
Air Pollution Is Killing Millions and Rising Exponentially—A Shift in Agriculture Can Solve It
JIMMY VIDELE – Today’s biggest epidemic is the exponential rise of CO2-equivalent atmospheric emissions. With COVID-19, the world changed protocols within weeks of the outbreak. This shows that we can change today to stop the harm inflicted on the planet, the more than 8 billion humans, and countless other Earthlings. We need to realize that there is no bigger threat facing us currently.
The GOP’s Stalinesque Plan 2025 to Shape the Future of U.S. Food and Agriculture
ELIZABETH HENDERSON – The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation wants to rid the USDA
of sustainability, climate change mitigation, and racial equity.
We Must Face Down the Expanding Anti-Reality Industry
BRYN NELSON – Exposing the antiscience playbook reveals the antiregulatory motives of its deep-pocketed bankrollers
NOW is the Time for Action to Counter Two Existential Threats
WINSLOW MYERS – Everything has changed in our world; we have begun to become aware that everything I do affects you and vice versa. The nuclear deterrence system and George Will-Donald Trump-style climate denial leaves out too much of our reality.
Climate activists in New England can finally celebrate ‘the end of coal’
SIOBHAN SENIER – With the last of New England’s coal plants now set to close, the No Coal No Gas campaign is reflecting on the power of fighting together.
Climate movement elders revive monkey wrench tactics to save an old forest
NICK ENGELFRIED – Earlier this year, seven activists entered the site of a proposed timber sale in Washington State, intent on halting — or at least delaying — the destruction of trees with immense carbon storage potential. Over the course of several hours, they hiked off-trail through the dense understory, removing signs and flagging tape marking the boundaries of the controversial Carrot timber sale. The creative nonviolent direct action seemed to pay off, as a couple days later Washington’s Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, announced it was cancelling the Carrot sale for the time being. The timing seems striking, even though the announcement did not acknowledge the protest. Now, the nonviolent saboteurs hope their actions have bought enough precious time to permanently protect the area.
Imperiling Climate Goals, Global Resource Extraction Set to Surge 60% by 2060
THOR BENSON – Wealthy nations are responsible for most of the consumption of natural resources, according to a new United Nations report.
Climate Change and Energy Transition: The 2023 Scorecard
RICHARD HEINBERG and J. DAVID HUGHES – The numbers are in, and it doesn’t look good.
How to Make Recyclable Plastics Out of CO2 to Slow Climate Change
ANN LESLIE DAVIS – Chemists are manipulating carbon dioxide to make clothing, mattresses, shoes, and more. These products are already on the market around the world. And others are in the process of being developed. They’re part of a growing effort by academia and industry to reduce the damage caused by centuries of human activity that has sent CO2 and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.
Bernie Sanders: This is Our Future
BERNIE SANDERS – Failure to act in response to the climate emergency will doom future generations to a very uncertain future. For the sake of our common humanity we cannot allow that to happen.
Over 5,000 actions were organized for Campaign Nonviolence Action Days 2023
RIVERA SUN – During the 10th annual Campaign Nonviolence Action Days from Sept. 21 to Oct. 2, hundreds of local, national and international groups organized actions and events to build a culture of peace and active nonviolence, free from war, poverty, racism and environmental destruction. In 2023, a staggering 5,057 actions were planned across the United States and 20 countries. Over 60,000 people took part in these actions and events.
A major win against factory farming points to a powerful new direction for the climate movement
NICK ENGELFRIED – Small farmers in Oregon, backed by a coalition of animal rights and climate activists, secured a big legislative victory over industrial factory farms, providing inspiration for wider action. “Part of our philosophy is you cannot only oppose or restrict the bad actors, although that is important,” Alice Morrison said. “You also have to lift up folks doing things that align with good stewardship of the land. Any solution to factory farming will be more viable if it puts forward that kind of positive vision.”
Ecuador Just Showed the World What It Means To Take Climate Change Seriously
NICK GOTTLIEB – Ecuador just showed the world what it means to take climate change, biodiversity loss, and Indigenous sovereignty seriously, all with one national referendum, and at significant cost in a country wrestling with the challenging reality of being a resource producer in the Global South.
Wildfires Aren’t Just a Threat to People-They’re Killing Off Earth’s Biodiversity
REYNARD LOKI – In September 2022, climate journalist and native Oregonian Emma Pattee wrote in the New York Times that “[c]limate scientists estimate that the frequency of large wildfires could increase by over 30 percent in the next 30 years and over 50 percent in the next 80 years, thanks in large part to drought and extreme heat caused by climate change.” That is a frightening prospect not just for humans but for the countless nonhuman animals with whom we share this planet.
The climate movement has a recruiting and retention problem – here’s how we fix it
CHARLIE WOOD – Bringing more people into the climate struggle starts with transforming movement culture and opening diverse paths to entry.
How Workers in the South Are Defying History
TOM CONWAY – Workers at Blue Bird Corporation in Fort Valley, Georgia, launched a union drive to secure better wages, work-life balance, and a voice on the job. The company resisted them. History defied them. Geography worked against them. But they stood together, believed in themselves, and achieved a historic victory that’s reverberating throughout the South.
Nature Corrects Itself … Through Us
RIVERA SUN – Nature’s way of correcting itself right now is embodied by the students walking out of school on Fridays, pleading with older generations to take action to ensure their future. Nature is correcting itself through climate scientists publishing well-documented facts about this crisis. Or through activists blocking pipelines or pushing universities and retirement funds to divest from fossil fuels. Earth is speaking through city councils declaring climate emergencies, churches switching to solar and wind, businesses cleaning up their act, and much more.
As we confront the climate crisis, is bigger and faster always better?
CHARLIE WOOD – By prioritizing large-scale climate responses we might be missing out on the kind of bottom-up solutions most aligned with bringing the world back within its limits.
Why Movements Need to Revive Song Culture
PAUL ENGLER – Music is making a comeback in movement spaces, as organizers rediscover how song culture strengthens the capacity to create social change.
The Renewable Energy Transition Is Failing
RICHARD HEINBERG – We need a realistic plan for energy descent, instead of foolish dreams of eternal consumer abundance by means other than fossil fuels. Currently, politically rooted insistence on continued economic growth is discouraging truth-telling and serious planning for how to live well with less.
There’s No Place for Burnout in a Burning World
CHARLIE WOOD – Climate activists can start to build a stronger culture of care by taking burnout seriously and understanding its root causes.
Climate Change: If you want to know who changed Manchin’s mind–you did
BILL MCKIBBEN – For decades now, when asked about the point of one climate protest or another, I’ve usually said something to the effect of: we fight to change the zeitgeist, people’s sense of what is normal and natural and obvious. Yes, we fight to block this pipeline or divest that pension fund, and each of those is important: but they add up to something more, a slowly moving weight that eventually shifts from one side to the other. That’s what happened last night when Joe Manchin caved. Now the Senate finally—for the first time in more than three decades—seems set to pass actual serious climate legislation.
Global Elites in Davos Pretend to Care About Inequality
SONALI KOLHATKAR – Billionaires and the politicians who enable their wealth gathered for several days at a luxury resort in Switzerland to offer their puzzled concerns about why they keep getting richer at everyone else’s expense.
It’s Time for Charles Koch to Testify About His Climate Disinformation Campaign
ELLIOT NEGIN – For more than two decades, Koch-controlled foundations spent more than $160 million to stymie government action on climate change
Ukrainians took to the streets to avert a nuclear disaster. Will Americans do the same?
PAUL GUNTER and LINDA PENTZ GUNTER – The near disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant shows why activists fought for decades to end these risks — and why mass action is needed once again.
Digging for Peace – Resisting Nuclear Weapons
BRIAN TERRELL – NATO boasts of “Steadfast Noon,†betraying the arrogant conviction of the Allied Heads of State and Government that despite a “deteriorating security environment,†through annual displays of brute force and profligate waste of fossil fuel, the darkness can be held at bay forever and the exploiters of the earth and its people will bask in the everlasting light of noon. The scholars at The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists who have kept a “Doomsday Clock†since 1947, propose instead that the planet is actually closer to midnight, the hypothetical global catastrophe. The Bulletin’s Clock is now at 100 seconds before midnight and humanity is closer to its destruction than ever before, because “the dangerous rivalry and hostility among the superpowers increases the likelihood of nuclear blunder… Climate change just compounds the crisis.â€
Don’t Blame Government Benefits for Inflation—Blame the Modern Economy
SONALI KOLHATKAR – A better takeaway from our current economic situation is that there is nothing natural about being at the mercy and whims of an economy designed by corporate profiteers for corporate profiteers.
We Are Surrounded by Local Solutions to Global Economic Challenges—Festival Brings Together Sustainable Leaders
APRIL M. SHORT – The free access event, Festival of What Works (November 2-7), highlighted solutions for communities to adopt.
Why Activism Needs to be Part of any Meaningful Climate Education
NICK ENGELFRIED – Simply teaching kids about the science of the climate crisis isn’t enough. To prevent feelings of disempowerment, they need to see how they can make a meaningful impact.
Are We Getting the National Security We Are Paying For?
MICHAEL CARRIGAN and PETER BERGEL – Our country continues to expend nearly half its discretionary budget on its military might. That leaves only half for everything else. The perennial explanation given to defend this lopsided priority is that the military guards our national security. If only that were true!
Like Biden’s Bold Moves on Government Spending? Thank Social Movements.
MARK ENGLER and PAUL ENGLER – The importance of grassroots organizing is still being underestimated.
There’s Another Pandemic under Our Noses, and It Kills 8.7m People a Year
REBECCA SOLNIT – While Covid ravaged across the world, air pollution killed about three times as many people. We must fight the climate crisis with the same urgency with which we confronted coronavirus.
Maine Farm Girl & Kansas Grain Farmer Talk Climate on The Train
RIVERA SUN – If a conservative Kansas grain farmer and a potato-picking farm girl from Maine can see eye-to-eye on the climate crisis, maybe there’s hope for the rest of the country. The future of humanity depends on it.
Climate Activists Mount Utility Strike to Urge the Shutdown of New England Coal Plant
BARBARA PETERSON – The Strike Down Coal campaign provides a COVID-safe form of disobedience, building on more than a year of direct actions to shut down Merrimack Station. Activists protest the continued burning of coal in New England by refusing to pay utility bills, and mailing coal to the utility company instead. (Facebook/No Coal No Gas)
An Open Letter on DAPL
JOHN EAGLE SR. – “Our experience is that the U.S. does not honor the treaties of their grandfathers,†writes the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s historic preservation officer.
After 4 Decades of Plowshares Actions, It’s Nuclear Warfare That Should Be On Trial – Not Activists
FRIDA BERRIGAN – Forty years ago, the Plowshares Eight sparked a movement of nuclear disarmers that continues to take responsibility for weapons of mass destruction.
Humans Are an Endangered Species: Will They Act to Save Themselves?
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Although there is not much time left before the world succumbs to one or more catastrophes, human beings have been able to alter their behavior and institutions. Let’s hope they will rouse themselves and do so again.
The Established Order Has Never Been Weaker – Movements Need to get to Work
CAM FENTON – All around the globe, governments are starting to move forward with reopening plans that lift some degree of COVID-19 social distancing. With that comes talk of recovery and rebuilding. While some of the attention is on green stimulus and a range of progressive demands for just and equitable recoveries, the only way we can win any such advances is through movements that are prepared to take on the fight.
How can Nations Best Prepare to Face a Pandemic or Climate Crisis?
GEORGE LAKEY – People trust a system that reliably supports security, solidarity and individual freedom to make major life choices. They learn that trust — or don’t — through how well the system comes through for them. The contrast between Nordics and Americans these days reveals their contrasting systems.
Can Civil Disobedience be seen as ‘Good Behavior’ in a Time of Climate Crisis?
ARNIE ALPERT – While New Hampshire seeks to prosecute #NoCoalNoGas campaigners for “bad behavior,†activists continue their struggle against the region’s worst offender.
Blocking Trains and Removing Coal, Climate Activists Fight to Close One of New England’s Largest Power Plants
SARAH FREEMAN-WOOLPERT and ARNIE ALPERT – By escalating from symbolic actions to obstruction, the #NoCoalNoGas campaign is mounting a serious challenge to the fossil fuel industry with a growing network of climate activists.
How the Youth-led Climate Strikes Became a Global Mass Movement
NICK ENGELFRIED – It began as a call to action from a group of youth activists scattered across the globe, and soon became what is shaping up to be the largest planet-wide protest for the climate the world has ever seen. The Global Climate Strike is the result of a whole new generation taking bold action and could be the turning point for grassroots resistance to fossil fuels.
Sanders Spells Out a Progressive Prescription
NORMAN SOLOMON – Bernie Sanders wrapped up a weekend campaign swing through California with a Sunday afternoon speech to 16,000 of us a few miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. News coverage seemed unlikely to convey much about the event. The multiracial crowd reflected the latest polling that shows great diversity of support for Bernie, contrary to corporate media spin. High energy for basic social change was in the air.
How to Fight Fascism from a Position of Strength
GEORGE LAKEY – The growth of white supremacy and fascism has been noticeable in a number of countries lately, prompting the question: What can we learn from each other? Each country might find “best practices†elsewhere that could be applied at home, in addition to learning from its own past successes.
What the Bernie Sanders 2020 Campaign Means for Progressives
NORMAN SOLOMON – In the obvious contrasts with Kamala Harris and in the less obvious yet significant contrasts with Elizabeth Warren on matters of economic justice as well as on foreign policy, Bernie Sanders represents a different approach to the root causes of — and possible solutions to — extreme economic inequality, systemic injustice and a dire shortage of democracy.
A Mandate for Left Leadership
KATE ARONOFF – Democratic socialism will be defined by what its most public adherents—people like Sanders, Tlaib, and Ocasio-Cortez—are able to accomplish once they have the opportunity. At least in the short term, turning their ambitious bills into law will mean prying open the Overton window in policy debates to accommodate what might elsewhere be considered fairly basic social-democratic demands. But with just 12 years left to prevent a total climate catastrophe, time is a luxury that progressives simply don’t have.