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Rocking Out To Our Demise
It’ll take more than outdoor concerts to stop global warming
Last week, with the thermometer surpassing "miserable" here in Massachusetts, people hauled out hulking air conditioners and implanted them in windows. The hum of the machines spread out across town sounded like a buzzing swarm of locust to me.
Outside, the smog index rose, and the hills in the distance looked like a fuzzy Polaroid.
"Ah," a friend said sardonically, "at least we know that global warming is working." What isn't working, it appears, is our commitment to cut our carbon footprint.
Wasn't it less than three months ago that thousands of people across the United States gathered in town commons, on beaches, in fields and on sidewalks to give the Earth one large promise ring? We were "stepping it up" for a goal of 80 percent emissions reductions by 2050, and so, as the theory went, would our pressured politicians.
But as July begins, it's clear that many of us have gotten cold feet. And while we wait for another organized day of action where we can proudly wave our homemade banners and recommit to saving the planet, many of us are doing nothing on a daily basis to help right this ship; and that ship, it seems, is sailing directly toward one of the rapidly diminishing icebergs.
In this month's issue of Harper's magazine, environmentalist and author Bill McKibben has an ominous message: "The Kyoto Protocol we didn't sign will expire in 2012, and negotiations are beginning for whatever will succeed it. Unless there's a U.S.-led effort to produce something truly dramatic, the world might as well not bother."
Journalist George Monbiot, currently traveling the United States to promote his book Heat—possibly for the last time, as he's sworn-off flying—told In These Times last month that governments are quietly pushing back the "2 degrees" emissions target.
That is, if they're even talking about the target. Laboring in Congress right now is an energy bill so devoid of real action on global warming that Democratic leaders are already assuring they will push for separate climate change legislation later this year. Uh … so what's in this bill?
It's obvious a people-led shove is in order to get the U.S. government to act. But three months after we "stepped it up," momentum on the part of our bumbling, bought-out bureaucrats seems to be slow.
Jennifer Krill, a program director with the Rainforest Action Network, tells me that the climate change movement has "ebbs and flows," particularly because students are on summer break. She assures me the climate change momentum has not died down.
Of course, that might be true only if you consider Al Gore's Live Earth concerts, the Climb A Presidential Peak campaign, and innocuous petition drives "momentum."
With so many environmentalists and scientists waving their hands and screaming, "This is an emergency," can we really afford to rock out to John Mayer? And "momentum" seems to imply that we're building on to something that was already powerful, but really, we've only "stepped up" our recycling, "stepped up" our Prius driving, and "stepped up" our sweater wearing—one of Al Gore's famous instructions for combating climate change.
Left out of the plan is any understanding that our entire energy system (and economic way of life) has to be completely restructured in order to truly thwart global warming. But instead of talking about how we can bring corporate polluters to their knees, oust our lying leaders and undermine a system that favors profit over people—which leads inexorably to the destruction of the planet, no matter how warm your sweater—we're told to clap along at feel-good concerts, sponsored by the likes of Chevy and Phillips.
Krill says the climate change movement is gearing up for the fall, when a new coalition called "No War, No Warming" is planning a "National Intervention" in Washington, D.C. in October. Great, I'll see you there. But if we're serious about combating global warming, we need to face the fact that actions like this give people the illusion that protests alone are enough to prompt social change.
Such events do not rock the boat, do not challenge the global economic system, do not hold our elected officials accountable and certainly do not move people to act in any radical way after the event is over. Rather, they allow us to return to our homes, put our posters away and turn on the A/C with just a twinge of guilt. Oh what the heck, we can repent in October.
Or, we can seek out actions that approach the problem for what it is: the most dangerous we face. To quote activist and author Peter Gelderloos, "If a movement is not a threat, it cannot change a system."
Author and environmentalist Derrick Jensen told me, "This culture is killing the planet, and the response is things like this: 'Folks all over will be gathering for parties, solidarity concerts, and to view the global concerts together on TV.' That is the sort of response? That is pathetic."
Instead, Jensen says, "We need to act with a passion and decisiveness to match the situation, and to match the danger this culture has created. The world will not be saved from this culture by parties and concerts, and it is harmful and absurd to pretend it will be. What we must do to stop this culture from killing the planet: we must deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the poor, and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet."
Krill says actions like the Step It Up campaign increase awareness of global warming, and have prompted more people to take actions like switching to compact-fluorescent light bulbs in their homes.
Good. But this ship is going under, and "doing something truly dramatic" needs to include a lot more than tossing out light bulbs.
Megan Tady is a National Political Reporter for InTheseTimes.com. Previously, she worked as a reporter for the NewStandard, where she published nearly 100 articles in one year. Megan has also written for Clamor, CommonDreams, E Magazine, Maisonneuve, PopandPolitics, and Reuters.
© 2007 In These Times
14 Comments so far
Show AllLike THIS on our homes' and ELECTRIC CARS' solar surfaces:
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml !
The writer misses the point. The first step in curing our addiction to fossil fuels is general awareness that we have a problem. Live Earth is on target in generating this awareness.
Let's make 7/7/07 a very special day and a call to action.
No War, No Warming is right on. Think of what the neocon's nuclear war would do to global climate.
What I see is this vast disconnect everywhere.
There is the the reality and then there are the actions that continue on this disassociated, unrelated, unintegrated, dysfunctional path avoiding reality. There is the reality of the Iraq invasion and then there is this fog of talking points and deflections that permeates both parties. Everything is based on propped-up statistical ploys or downright arrogant deception. The area I live in, like many other areas, has become increasingly prone to flooding, but even when people acknowledge the impact of global warming and impose development restrictions on the floodplain, they predictably create loopholes for "economic reasons". That old economic argument--the one that prolonged slavery- will still be shouted from the rooftops while the walls come tumbling down.
I don't really think that it is fair to blame that on gore--certainly he has done his bit.
Here's the "disconnect" in full bloom. Let's put down Gore and others for trying to use the entertainment media to activate young people (and a few old rockers) to take the issue seriously. Much of this piece is about how we don't, yet Gore's efforts to build awareness among those who might be prompted to act, are sadly in the view of this author, not enough.
Boo! To this piece and its author! Boo to those who find fault with Hillary and Obama and Edwards because they are not radical enough. Find another website. Find another medium. The future of the planet really is at stake and you pontificate.
Bush-Cheney Inc has put us in a really bad position. Forget that the rest of the world is starting to hate us. We're starting to hate ourselves. For our inaction. For our passivity. For our self indulgence. Boo to those who blame the Pres for doing these very things that we ourselves are doing. Boo to those who just frankly refuse to wake up and see the reality of our precarious situation. We won't repair the damage to our planet any faster than we will extricate ourselves from Iraq. Both – like it or not – will take a long time. These calamities have taken place not on just George Bush's watch, but ours. That's the downside of democarcy. Don't like what's become of your society? Look in the mirror boy.
We partied under the illusions that Bush really was a compassionate conservative. We invested in a market that was really out of control. And we supported - by not passionately opposing it - a war that we thought really could make us more powerful even while we knew - deep down - it was criminally wrong.
Pogo said it and no truth has been more devastatingly valid. We have seen the enemy. And it is us.
I dread the upcoming elections in which the liberal-progressive-- who cares what you call it-movement, will self-destruct in its search for the ideal candidate that flatters out inflated egos. I dread the thought of Nader - the most insufferable asshole ego of all - entering this race and leading his lemmings on some fantasy of elitist vanguard party ascendance. I dread the egos of our very politicians who will fail to listen to the common will (or bend to the common good) and refuse to share tickets that might most certainly win. Because I dread the fact that so many fail to see that at this time in our history, winning is everything.
We will indulge our vanities and ourselves; we will split hairs and coalitions and hand the White House to a fool like Giuliani. And make no mistake; eight or even four more years of Republican madness will take America to a place from which we may never return.
Remember the poor. Remember the uninsured. Remember the weak and unprotected. They will be the victims of our self-indulgence. Like third world nations will pay the price for our failures to address Kyoto and its successor, the third world demographic in our nation will pay the price for our foolishness.
Frankly if we don't come together and support a candidate who can win, rather than one that flatters our egos, we will fade as a nation and slip intractably into the irrelevance that awaits us.
Screw writers like this. Every little bit matters. Every inch we move will make miles of difference in the long game. This is about those who can't fight for themselves. This is about those who are perhaps too distracted or ill educated (or well propagandized by Bush's sycophantic media) to see the reality of our awaiting peril.
Boo! Boo! And Boo! Megan Tady. I'm too polite to tell you what to do with yourself.
Hey Walt,
No one is criticizing Clinton or Obama for not being radical enough--they are condemned for their complicity.
There are discussion sites for Democratic partisans aplenty, who are you to suggest that the progressives on CommonDreams need to go elsewhere? And no, we are NOT to blame because we stood up and opposed from the start only to be called unpatriotic or un-American or not supporting the troops by the likes of you, still wallowing in your ignorance--and we are still called far left wing wackos like we are some fringe special interest group when the majority of the rest of the country has reached the same conclusion.
"We partied under the illusions that Bush really was a compassionate conservative. We invested in a market that was really out of control. And we supported - by not passionately opposing it - a war that we thought really could make us more powerful even while we knew - deep down - it was criminally wrong"
Speak for yourself and don't come on here lecturing us for your own continued blindness to the fact that the Democrats are just as complicit, criminally corrupt and tethered to the same corporate taskmakers as the Republicans. Maybe someday you will come to that realization as well:
"Remember the poor. Remember the uninsured. Remember the weak and unprotected. They will be the victims of our self-indulgence. Like third world nations will pay the price for our failures to address Kyoto and its successor, the third world demographic in our nation will pay the price for our foolishness"
Tell it to the Democrats and get off the backs of the progressives--it is the progressives and has ALWAYS been the progressives who push for civil rights to the environmental movement to improve life for all.
no, walt, here's the disconnect: putting all your efforts into electing a shameless corporate whore like hillary in the vain hope that anything will change. she and obama and edwards are rolling in campaign money, a few hard-earned dollars donated by desperate people sloshing around in a tank with hundreds of thousands of dollars from big pharma, big oil, big insurance/banking/brokerage houses, and our always-interested military-industrial complex. are you seriously suggesting the "moderate" democrats will hear our voices above theirs?
it will take the collective deeds of millions of us---some switching to hybrids or compact fluorescent bulbs, some refusing to buy at wal-mart, some staging protests, and yes, some organizing third-party electoral effforts, all committed to concrete action in the here-and-now---to generate sufficient momentum to overcome the inertia of the corporate goliath and get its jackboot off our necks.
i won't presume to tell you what action to take, but i will tell you that electing a democrat, even kucinich, will not by itself be anywhere near sufficient to effect change without the grassroots having created uneasiness, even palpable fear, in the minds of the ownership class. "if the people lead, eventually the leaders will follow"---a bumpersticker slogan that is nonetheless operationally true.
I disagree with Ms. Tady. Concerts may be the most effective way to reach young people.Firing them up with music has the potential to lead to more direct action.Their seniors have messed the world up for them-it will be a long fight and an uphill battle at best to improve things.Attending concerts and stronger political action are not mutually exclusive.Dare we dismiss the impact of Woodstock for instance?
A previous poster elaborated on the detrimental effect of egos on the progressive movement.That's a killer from the onset.How do we overcome the advantage of the far right in this regard-they rally easily around the issue of greed.The only answer is to sublimate our inclination to trash anyone holding even slightly different views and trust the honorable intentions of others in the movement.We need to win and NOW-or the planet may never recover.And sadly so much damage has been done that the psychic hurt of the current adults will never go away.
Perhaps replacing fireworks displays with free concerts could be a step forward.Here in Madison,Wis. they combine a massive display with martial music-up to 300 thousand attend.This in what many consider a progressive city.We are such a militaristic nation that serious change may be impossible. But avoiding rancor towards each other should be priority number one.
[Covering my ears and trying not to jump out of my skin in this my least favorite time of the year-kind thoughts to all of us.]
Transplanted Mountaineer.
Anybody else read Derrick Jensen's Endgame and EndgameII? The solution is revolution. Good, honest, people cannot work from within a corrupt system. Evil never sleeps. Greed never blinks. Saying "please" and "thank you," clapping hands and singing may make us feel good about ourselves and it may help raise the conciousness of those who've been in zombieland, but in the horrific future we have built for ourselves we need to get off out butts and work at creating the world we want.
The revolution we really needed should have taken place just about exactly 40 years ago this summer. Remember the slogans in those days: "If not now, when? If not you, who?"
"Lead, follow, or get out of the way!" "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."
No matter how you look at it, we're still talking out, acting out,(and rocking out) to our own demise. 40 years of broken dreams and promises, 2 generations of waste and gluttony and war. Call it what you will, collective guilt, responsibility, karma, retribution, we can't undo two hundred million wasted lifetimes in less than ten years. Face the reality, it's over!
first the planet warms then carbon increases this is how it works not the opposite.
Look into the solar activity and wait a few years you will be screaming about cooling then and it too will be part of normal cycles of the planet. The temperature is not regulated by what id good got humans. And there are guarantees the climate will favor our species.
Of course it is a good way to get people off the more immediate problems and also helps to bring the reaction to oil depletion in through the back door.
Yes it will get ugly. Yes people will have to adjust in many ways. No we do not have control over our weather and we did not change it. We simply are not that important.
As for oil depletion, over population and the current resource wars, these items should ne on the agenda. If we do not find an alternative to power at least part of the grid and soon the temperature will be the least of your worries.
Methane is a more potent green house gas than CO2. Approximately 1 liter of methane is equivalent to 100 liters of CO2 in terms of its heat trapping potential.
We are all methane emitters. In our culture, when we emit methane we never say "Excuse me!" nor do we laugh if we have any breeding at all. We remain stoic and adopt a poker face and hope the elevator does not stall between floors.
This is wrong. We must put an end to this Victorian hypocrisy. People fart. Cows fart. Elephants fart. All God's creatures fart.
This is no laughing matter because a single human flatulence may yield as much as a liter of highly potent green house gas, the equivalant of driving your car from Baltimore to Washington, DC.
Friends, WE ARE THE PROBLEM, since we are the most numerous, though elephants, cows, pigs, and so on, are not exonerated.
Instead of tacitly condoning flatulence by ignoring it, as though it is not happening, as though it will cease to happen, we need to take action.
No more inane rhetoric, no more throwing up the hands in despair!
Methane burns readily. Combustion of methane reduces this potent greenhouse gas to heat, water vapor, and a small amount of less dangerous CO2.
Whether we are smokers or not, we should each carry a good butane lighter or similar small torch that can be produced quickly when flatulence threatens.
Each of us should take responsibility for global warming and ignite our own farts at the opportune moment when they are emitted. In most cases this will not cause an explosion, but a pleasant bluish specter of flame, which will be admired by others in the vicinity.
Caution - some fabrics may be singed. But what is more important, a stable global environment, or your stupid mohair skirt?
Global rock concert events provide an excellent teaching platform to educated the public about the methane conversion option, MCO.
Though animals are too dumb to implement the MCO themselves, we can organize communities to oversee most domestic animals, thus creating millions of meaningful jobs, which we can fund with the peace dividend when we withdraw from Iraq.
Rock concerts and such create familiarity with the issue for many who could approach it in no other way. Call it speaking the local idiom? But the author seems to be making one assumption. That things will proceed without incident and the citizen will lull themselves to sleep etc. I think not. I think there will be more big storms like Katrina, a continuing series of diasters world wide that will cause people to react. That is when an issue needs to be familiar to people so that they can speak with a more cohesive if multicultural voice on it. So rock concerts help spread the word... the effects of climate will ramp up the responses. At least people know others think the same that things need to change. If there were no rock concerts on the issue would that be helpful? Or would it help the issue slide under the radar? Many hands doing different things ...gets a lot of things done.
I'm with you, Megan. A radical restructuring of our society is what's needed--and not only to combat global warming and the environment, but in the interests of social and economic justice, personal freedom and individual rights, sustainability--and on an on.
We need to begin building sustainable, self-sustaining communities. We need to demand land for people willing to commit to building such communities.
We could also use people willing to make such a commitment--people who would like to commit to living simply, sustainably, and modestly, as opposed to being committed to forging careers within the existing power structure so as to get their own piece of the corporate pie, along with the attendant perks of big houses, hot cars, plenty of A/C, a plethora of gadgets and wardrobes produced by third-world slave labor, and all the rest.
This is really the choice that is before us: Are we willing to live modestly, gently, even humbly--or do we insist on having it all, even if it means complicity in a system of slave-labor, war-mongering imperialism?
What'll it be?