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In this conversation, the Climate Disobedience Center’s Tim DeChristopher looks at how the progressive movement’s strategies need to change in now that climate change’s real impacts are more obvious to the American public. He addresses the focus on carbon mitigation (policies for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions) in light of the now very evident need for climate adaptation (adjusting how we live to deal with the changes that come with a warming planet), and the resulting suffering (the human, material, and environmental costs of warming).

Adaptation and Human Rights

Suren:

Recently you challenged our community organizations and environmental movements to stop acting as if we’re able to forestall climate change and that all we must do is reduce carbon emissions. What’s your general take on this mindset?

Tim:

Yeah. Well, that’s definitely been the focus of the climate movement for a long time, has been mitigating climate change, and there has been increasing discussion in some sort of policy circles about the need to also adapt and deal with impacts that will likely be inevitable at this point. One of the great contributions to the climate discourse that I think John Holdren, Obama’s science advisor, made was emphasizing this point that there are three responses to climate change, mitigation, adaptation and suffering, and that it’ll be some combination of those three that will make our full response to it, and the less mitigation we do, the more of the others we will do.

At this point in 2017, we’ve gone far enough down that road that we know that there’s going to be a significant amount of adaptation and suffering that will need to happen, because we’ve fallen short in a lot of ways on the mitigation front.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mid-Sized Meditations #11: Thoughts on Localism and Resilience

February 17, 2016

Mid-Sized Meditations #11: Thoughts on Localism and Resilience

[Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak to the “Resilience Group,” an informal gathering of environmentalists, activists, and interested others that meet regularly at the home of Wes Jackson, in Salina, KS. My short remarks–which were mostly inspired by the material in this post–gave rise to a robust and enlightening discussion, or so I thought. Here are a few take-aways, for whatever they’re worth.

1) The growth-centric paradigm which dominates so much economic activity around the world isn’t really the result of politically powerful actors; it’s the consequence of a worldview. Thus fulminating against the defenders of–in some ways undeniably beneficial, but also socially and culturally harmful, not to mention ecologically unsustainable–globalism, whether their motivations are libertarian like the Koch brothers (whose influence is omnipresent in Kansas) or statist like the Davos bunch(whose influence around here doesn’t really exist beyond the paranoid fears of a few black-helicopter-watching Tea Party types in our legislature), is to mistake symptoms for the disease. That’s not to say particular actions by particular actors shouldn’t be organized against; they should be. But we need to recognize that, as important as, say, an overturning of Citizens United might be to getting the message for local and economic democracy out there, simply accomplishing that, without a paradigm-changing language to explain why it’s important to do so, probably won’t change much.

2) The language that defenders of steady-state economies and local democracy need probably won’t be political in nature, and probably won’t emerge from the major cities or the state-based political entities of the world, despite those locations and polities being the site of so many productive nodes of intellectual input.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Liberty Activists And ISIS Will Soon Be Treated As Identical Threats

February 10, 2016

Liberty Activists And ISIS Will Soon Be Treated As Identical Threats

Many of us saw it coming a long time ago — increasing confrontation between liberty proponents and the corrupt federal establishment leading to increasing calls by political elites and bureaucrats to apply to American citizens the terrorism countermeasures designed for foreign combatants. It was only a matter of time and timing.

My stance has always been that the elites would wait until there was ample social and political distraction; a fog of fear allowing them to move more aggressively against anti-globalists. We are not quite there yet, but the ground is clearly being prepared.

Economic uncertainty looms large over our fiscal structure today, more so even than in 2008. Global instability is rampant, with Europe at the forefront as mass migrations of “refugees” invade wholesale. At best, most of them intend to leach off of the EU’s already failing socialist welfare structure while refusing to integrate or respect western social principles. At worst, a percentage of these migrants are members of ISIS with the goals of infiltration, disruption and coordinated destruction.

With similar immigration and transplantation measures being applied to the U.S. on a smaller scale (for now) the ISIS plague will inevitably hit our shores in a manner that will undoubtedly strike panic in the masses. I believe 2016 will be dubbed the “year of the terrorist,” and ISIS will not be the only “terrorists” in the spotlight.

While scanning the pages of mainstream propaganda machines like Reuters, I came across this little gem of an article, which outlines plans by the U.S. Justice Department to apply existing enemy combatant laws used against ISIS terrorists and their supporters to “domestic extremists,” specifically mentioning the Bundy takeover of the federal refuge in Burns, Oregon as an example.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Activists Announce Global Campaign of Civil Disobedience to “Break Free From Fossil Fuels”

December 11, 2015

Climate Activists Announce Global Campaign of Civil Disobedience to “Break Free From Fossil Fuels”

Climate justice and environmental campaigners announced plans today at COP21 in Paris to escalate the number of non-violent civil disobedience actions against fossil fuel projects over the next year.

The groups are planning a concentrated week of global actions in May of 2016. So far, events are being planned in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and the United States. Additional countries under consideration include Ecuador, India, and the UK.

Activists also plan several peaceful actions in Paris this Saturday, despite the French government’s ban on protest in the wake of the November 13 terrorist attacks here.

“The science is clear: we need to keep at least 80%, if not more, of fossil fuels in the ground,” said Payal Parekh, the global managing director of 350.org. “It’s up to us to break free from fossil fuels and accelerate the shift towards a just transition to 100% renewable energy. It’s in our hands to close the ambition gap.”

“Governments aren’t getting the job done. It’s up to civil society to do it,” she concluded.

Nnimmo Bassey, a Nigerian activist from the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, also spoke today in Paris about the need for negotiators to talking about global warming but without stopping the dependence on ff – this is hypocrisy at best.

“A 1.5 degree ceiling does not mean anything if a complete fossil fuel freeze is not on the table. How can you achieve this while investments are still going on in the fossil fuel sector?”

He chastised the negotiations for talking about global warming action without discussing the need to end global dependence on fossil fuels . “This is hypocrisy at best,” Bassey said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

200+ detained, tear gas & scuffles at banned Global March for Climate in Paris (VIDEO)

November 30, 2015

200+ detained, tear gas & scuffles at banned Global March for Climate in Paris (VIDEO)

Crowds gathered in the French capital on Sunday to attend a global march for the climate, despite the ban on gatherings enforced by French authorities. When one of the groups charged a police cordon, tear gas was deployed to push them back.

“Huge amounts” of tear gas were fired at protesters near Place de la Republique in central Paris, according to witnesses’ reports on Twitter, with objects flying in the direction of security forces.

The march, which was set to take place in dozens of cities around the world, was restricted in the French capital falling under the ban on gatherings introduced after the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris.

La Republique metro station, closest to the scene, has been closed by authorities, citing security measures.

The riot police repeatedly attempted to push back the activists, spraying the crowds with tear gas. Ahead of the summit, 24 green activists were put under house arrest, with police saying they were suspected of planning violent protests, according to Reuters.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Protest ban? What protest ban?

November 30, 2015

Protest ban? What protest ban?

Crowds celebrate in PdlR.jpg [Related Image]

The crowd celebrates in Place de la Republique. by Danny Chivers/New Internationalist

The French government’s attempts to crack down on climate protesters have only made their voices louder, reports Danny Chivers.

Protest is currently banned in Paris. Any outdoor gathering of more than two people with a political message has been strictly prohibited under ‘state of emergency” government powers, following the 13 November terror attacks. Anyone taking part in an illegal demonstration could face fines of $3,972 or up to two months in prison.

The French government imposed the protest ban supposedly in the name of public safety, and yet – as campaigners have pointed out – large gatherings such as football matches and Christmas markets have been allowed to go ahead. Groups of people, it seems, only become hazardous when they have a political point to make. The government has seemed determined to use these powers freely, putting a number of climate campaigners under house arrest, raiding activist squats and attempting to prevent two separate bicycle convoys from reaching Paris.

So protest has been banned, which means if you thought you saw a protest today, you must have been mistaken. If you were at the park opposite the Bataclan at 9 o’clock this morning, where Indigenous peoples from North America and the South Pacific led songs, prayers and blessings for the lives lost in the Paris attacks, and also for the defence of Mother Earth against the extractive industries – well, that wasn’t a protest. It was a ceremony, so no problem there.

Then, at noon, if you happened to see ten thousand people forming a human chain along the pavement from Place de la République to Nation, holding banners and placards demanding climate justice – well, that can’t have been a protest either. Because, you know, protest is banned.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

France Arrests 24 Climate Activists Using New “State Of Emergency” Laws, As Clashes Break Out In Paris – Live Feed

November 29, 2015

France Arrests 24 Climate Activists Using New “State Of Emergency” Laws, As Clashes Break Out In Paris – Live Feed

As Intellihub’s Shepard Ambellas writes, one-hundred and fifty heads of government, a.k.a. the elite, are gathering over the course of the next few weeks for a massive climate summit that’s anticipated to attract and indoctrinate over 40,000 visitors from around the globe. The summit, dubbed COP21, is sponsored by the United Nations (UN) and will reportedly focus on combating climate change. However it’s doubtful that geoengineering, which ironically is mostly to blame for current climate patterns, will even be a topic of interest to scheduled speakers. To boot any chance of that information making it out to the general public is limited as 24 activists have already been placed under house arrest.”

He further observes that “emergency powers” declared in the wake of the recent Paris attacks – in the name of terrorism – and adopted virtually overnight, were extended for a period of up to 90-days by the country’s leadership allowing for such activists to be jailed in advance of the summit or at anytime within period.

France 24 confirms the “pre-crime” arrests, writing that twenty-four environmental activists have been placed under house arrest ahead of the Paris climate summit, using France’s state of emergency laws. Two of them slammed an attack on civil liberties. The order ends on December 12, the day the Paris climate summit draws to a close.

French security forces have been on edge since Islamist gunmen killed 130 people in a deadly rampage across Paris on November 13, in the country’s worst ever terrorist attacks.

The ensuing state of emergency, declared by President François Hollande and extended by lawmakers for three months, has given police sweeping powers to search homes, handcuff residents and place people under house arrest, without judicial oversight.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Beyond Keystone: Why Climate Movement Must Keep Heat On

November 12, 2015

Beyond Keystone: Why Climate Movement Must Keep Heat On

It took a committed coalition and the increasingly harsh reality of climate change to push President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. But sustained public pressure will now be needed to force politicians to take the next critical actions on climate.

The key passage — the forward-looking passage — of President Obama’s speech last week rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline came right at the end, after he rehashed all the arguments about jobs and gas prices that had been litigated endlessly over the last few years.

“Ultimately,” he said, “if we’re going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we’re going to have keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky.”

Chesapeake Climate/Flickr

Demonstators protest the Keystone XL pipeline at the White House in November 2012.

This is a remarkable evolution for the president. He came into office with “Drill Baby Drill” ringing in his ears from the 2008 Republican convention, and baby did he drill. Before his first term was out, he gave a speech in front a stack of oil pipe in Oklahoma in which he laid out his accomplishments:

“Now, under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. That’s important to know. Over the last three years, I’ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some. So we are drilling all over the place.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Left should embrace degrowth

November 11, 2015

The Left should embrace degrowth

Only if we stop the cycle of endless growth will our planet prosper, argue Degrowthers. Jenny Downing under a Creative Commons Licence

Degrowth is a frontal attack on the ideology of economic growth. Some call it a critique: a slogan or a ‘missile word’. Others talk of the ‘theory of’ – or the ‘literature on’ – degrowth; or of degrowth policies’. Many see themselves as the ‘degrowth movement’ or claim they live ‘the degrowth way’. What is degrowth and where did it come from?

Origins

Intellectually, the origins of degrowth are found in the Continental écologie politique of the 1970s. Andre Gorz spoke of ‘décroissance’ in 1972, questioning the compatibility of capitalism with earth’s balance ‘for which … degrowth of material production is a necessary condition’. Unless we consider ‘equality without growth’, Gorz argued, we reduce socialism to nothing but ‘the continuation of capitalism by other means – an extension of middle-class values, lifestyles and social patterns’.

‘Demain la décroissance’ (‘tomorrow, degrowth’) was the title of a 1979 translated collection of essays of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, a Romanian émigré teaching in the US and a proto ecological economist who argued that economic growth accelerates entropy. These were the times of the oil crisis and the Club of Rome. For continental ‘red-green’ thinkers, however, the question of limits to growth was first and foremost a political one. Unlike Malthusian concerns with resource depletion, overpopulation and collapse of the system, theirs was a desire for pulling the emergency brake on the train of capitalism, or, to quote Ursula Le Guin, ‘put a pig in the tracks of a one-way future consisting only of growth’.

The slogan ‘décroissance’ was revived in the early 2000s by activists in the city of Lyon in direct actions against mega-infrastructures and advertising. Serge Latouche, a professor of economic anthropology and vocal critic of development programmes in Africa, popularized it with his books, calling for an ‘End to sustainable development’ and ‘a long life to convivial degrowth’.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ranking the Peasants – China Introduces Orwellian “Citizen Scores”

October 9, 2015

Ranking the Peasants – China Introduces Orwellian “Citizen Scores”

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 2.03.24 PM

The following is extraordinarily creepy and disturbing. It’s also extremely clever, from a jackbooted, fascist thug perspective. When massive censorship itself isn’t enough…

TechDirt reports:

China’s plan to control the hearts, minds and internet connections of its citizens continues unimpeded. That’s the great thing about authoritarian regimes: rollout of mandatory programs is usually only a problem of logistics, not opposition.

The Chinese government has mandated a rating system for all of its connected citizens. It looks like a credit rating but goes much deeper than just tying a measurement of financial risk to a number. It’s a way of defining who someone in terms of the government’s desires and aims. And its desires aren’t all that honorable.

Everybody is measured by a score between 350 and 950, which is linked to their national identity card. While currently supposedly voluntary, the government has announced that it will be mandatory by 2020…

In addition to measuring your ability to pay, as in the United States, the scores serve as a measure of political compliance.Among the things that will hurt a citizen’s score are posting political opinions without prior permission, or posting information that the regime does not like, such as about the Tiananmen Square massacre that the government carried out to hold on to power, or the Shanghai stock market collapse.

This is where all the government’s moves towards greater control of the internet comes to fruition. To keep “score,” the government needs to tie IDs to online activity. Keeping the internet within the government’s walls makes it that much easier. But it’s not just online activity that will affect “citizen scores.” It’s almost every aspect of their lives.

Most disheartening is the fact that many citizens seem to view higher scores as status symbols.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Op Nimr: Anonymous targets Saudi websites as teen awaits crucifixion for ‘anti-govt activities’

September 27, 2015

Op Nimr: Anonymous targets Saudi websites as teen awaits crucifixion for ‘anti-govt activities’

How the Media Shapes Public Response to Climate Change

September 15, 2015

How the Media Shapes Public Response to Climate Change

Windmill ribbon cutting

Climate change stories that give local information and emphasize positive achievements are more likely to encourage people to become active participants in climate change action than stories of political failures, a newstudy by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has found .

Researchers worked with focus groups made up of 53 people from the Metro Vancouver area who were concerned about climate change, but had little involvement with climate politics, causes or organizations. After reviewing news stories with the groups, researchers found that the overwhelming response to news about climate politics was cynicism.

“While there was a strong desire for more aggressive political action to address climate change, virtually all expressed considerable skepticism that governments, corporations or their fellow citizens could be convinced of the need to address the problem,” the paper says.

“Even more troubling was the tendency of many participants to dismiss collective action and political engagement as irrelevant.”

Those taking part in the study were hopeful about the possibilities offered by collective political action, but were discouraged by the power that corporate interests exercise over the political process and the lack of political will to act.

However, when participants read success stories about climate politics, were given information about local “everyday heroes” showing initiative in their communities and were told about the local causes and consequences of climate change, they were more likely to become engaged.

“While many remained skeptical of the broader potential of climate politics, there was much greater willingness to consider the positive impacts of different forms of political activism,” according to the study.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

RCMP planning mass arrests at pipeline protest camp, northern B.C chiefs fear

August 29, 2015

RCMP planning mass arrests at pipeline protest camp, northern B.C chiefs fear

RCMP say they are just working to keep the peace

A dispute over energy projects and aboriginal rights is heating up at a pipeline protest camp in northern B.C. where First Nations leaders fear police are planning mass arrests.

Since 2009, Wet’suwet’en people, activists and environmentalists have been building a remote camp in northern B.C. to block several major pipeline projects. They include:

Chevron’s Pacific Trail Pipeline.
Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project.
Shell’s TransCanada Coastal GasLink pipeline project.

Shell plans to build a 650-kilometre pipeline from B.C.’s gas-fracking region to a proposed LNG site in Kitimat.

Spokeswoman Shela Shapiro told CBC News the company supports the right to peaceful protest, but called the RCMP after Unist’ot’en protesters prevented workers from using a public road on Thursday.

The camp is about a two-hour drive southwest of Houston, B.C. on rough forest roads.

Shapiro said Unist’ot’en protesters have told TransCanada staff to leave the area “on a number of occasions.”

Yesterday afternoon, the Unist’ot’en Camp posted a message on its Facebook page.

“Coastal Gaslink crews showed up at Chisolm checkpoint. Threatened checkpoint crew that a police report will be filed as they do not have consent to enter the territory.”

‘Non-violent occupation’

Shapiro told CBC that TransCanada is “absolutely willing” to work with camp leaders, saying the company has made more than 90 attempts to speak with the hereditary chief and Unist’ot’en spokesperson.

The Unist’ot’en camp calls itself a “non-violent occupation” of traditional aboriginal land. Unist’ot’en camp protesters routinely stop traffic on remote forest service roads near the camp and turn back oil and gas crews.

Companies trying to use the area say they’re trying to use public roads to access Crown land, and some have ferried their crews to nearby worksites by helicopter.

Now, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs says top RCMP officials have told them a major police crackdown is imminent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Civil Disobedience Isn’t Helping Your Cause

July 13, 2015

Civil Disobedience Isn’t Helping Your Cause

Last week, activists protesting the climate summit blocked off a street near where I live. Not a big inconvenience for me since my schedule for the day only included binge watching Shark Week, but it was met with a fair amount of negativity from those I share a building with.

Having spent most of my adult life working with environmental organizations I was aware of what the protesters were blockading the street over, but those around me were not, nor did they care to be.

In the lobby somebody asked someone else what the protesters were protesting, and the words chosen to answer that question have stuck with me for the last few days: “I don’t f’n know or care”

Was this a case of one person’s apathy, or a symptom of a culture of activism in Canada that frequently employs tactics which ceased to be effective decades ago?

There have been times and places where civil disobedience has changed the world for the better, there can be no doubt about that. Civil disobedience has ended wars, given women and people of colour the right to vote, and on a personal note once got me one-third off my cell phone bill for a period of a year.

I can’t help noticing however that the years I spent protesting pipelines and angrily shouting about tar sands developments didn’t actually yield any tangible results, in fact we are in a worse place now than we were when I started all that yelling. So what do you do when nothing seems to be working?

A study from the University of Toronto recommends that a change in tactics is long overdue for Canada’s culture of activism, one that does not include civil disobedience, shouting, or getting angry at all.

University of Toronto psychologist Nadia Bashir studied the ability of certain types of activists to have influence over the opinions of the general public. The results were considered “troubling” to some, but were confirmation for me of long held suspicions over the work I had been involved with.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Spain in Transition?: Answers from the grassroots facing a collapsing country

July 1, 2015

Spain in Transition?: Answers from the grassroots facing a collapsing country

Introduction

Some months ago, I had a conversation with a friend which seemed meaningful to me as an anthropologist. My friend –an old-school activist with a lot of experience in social struggle- said: “Curiously, during these years of crisis I sometimes feel it’s the worst time of my life, but other times I feel it’s the best”. Since 2007, the Spanish economic collapse has thrown thousands of people into a spiral of massive deprivation, lost political rights, reduced standard of living and increased social suffering. At the same time, these are also days of connection with other people, and with possibilities of collective actions; days of riot and rebellion, a vital state that excites the heart; days of dignity and small victories; bad days, but also days of hope.

This article aims to describe the current crisis in Spain and some of the popular reactions that have arisen in response, a sort of cartography of the socio-economical hits that this country has taken. Above all, it is about how people are responding to the crisis from the grassroots—the struggle not only for lost rights but also for the construction of self-organized social alternatives. The idea is to give readers outside Spain a panoramic view of what’s been happening here—with one eye on the general reality of the country and the other on the reality I’m participating in as an activist.[1] I’ve also aimed to not give my personal opinions about this beautiful but difficult and complex process, and instead be objective and give real facts.

Spain against the wall: between economic cracking and social looting

“This isn’t a crisis, it’s a con!” This is one of the cries frequently heard in the massive demonstrations that have shaken Spain like an earthquake since 2011. There is an unquestionable truth in that rallying cry: crisis is not a natural disaster, but a reality influenced by political decisions serving specific interests.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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