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Civil Disobedience Needed to Win Action on Climate Change, New Greenpeace Chief Says
LONDON - Getting world leaders to move from rhetoric to action on climate change will require peaceful civil disobedience "on a scale that we have not seen before," says Greenpeace International's new executive director.
On 3 February 2009 2,500 people encircled Canberra's Parliament House in a riveting conclusion of a weekend of outspoken and highly informed dissent with the Rudd government's carbon reduction targets, by more than 150 NGO's, groups and organisations. The upcoming Copenhagen summit will see the global climate action movement converge. (Image from the Climate Action Summit website: www.climatesummit.org.au/) Kumi Naidoo, a former South African anti-apartheid activist and long-time campaigner on human rights, poverty and climate issues, took the reins of Greenpeace last month and aims to get even former U.S. Vice President Al Gore out on the streets.
AlertNet spoke with him in the lead-up to next week's climate summit in Copenhagen, which aims to build a new global treaty to cut climate-changing emissions and adapt to already inevitable climate shifts.
Q: Why is it so difficult to get people and politicians to take action on climate change?
A: Unlike a human rights violation or something like poverty, where you can see a physical image of what's happening there and then, climate change is a slow-burning issue. The physical presentation of the problem in an accessible way people can understand is more difficult with something that's happening slowly but surely.
The science is another problem. I know very educated people who say to me, 'You'll never win the climate change debate until you can talk in a way that's more accessible.' When we go into 350 parts per million (of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) or percentages by 2050, it becomes difficult for ordinary people to get their head around.
Q: Given those problems, what will it take to spur people to understanding and action on climate change?
A: We have to recognise that leaders will not act until they are pushed. They have shown the complete inability - particularly the most powerful ones - to move from rhetoric to implementation.
It would be better if these politicians honestly said, 'We don't think climate change is such a problem.' Now everyone acknowledges it's a problem but their actions are not in line with what they say publicly.
You have to look at history and what it teaches. That's that we have only managed to reverse major injustices and win struggles - take the civil rights movement, or the anti-apartheid movement - when decent men and women are willing to say, 'Enough is enough,' and put their lives on the line, go to prison if necessary.
Right now what is needed is peaceful civil disobedience on a scale that we have not seen before.
Q: You've talked Al Gore into joining in?
A: At a meeting last year I told him that I could go and get arrested but who would care if I did? Isn't it time for you to engage in civil disobedience? Gore's response was that nobody had ever put that to him, and that he'd have to check it out with Tipper (his wife). But subsequent to that, he's been talking up the importance of civil disobedience.
One thing we have to recognise is that politicians have a chronic hearing problem on climate change. They can't hear what the science is saying, what people are saying.
Q: But are people really saying they want action on climate change? Look at what's just happened in Australia, where a new climate sceptic opposition leader was just chosen, or in the United States where polls show a declining number of people believe human behaviour is influencing the world's climate.
A: I find taxi drivers a good source of information. They're noting to me the number of natural disasters, saying we only need to watch the news to see that climate change is happening.
If you look at U.S. politics, given how divided the country is, having 54 percent of people on your side (a Nature Conservancy study recently found that 90 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of Republicans believe in man-made climate change) is not too bad. Especially in a context where the financial crisis has hit the lower middle class and middle class people quite hard. When you put the numbers in context, I'm not too worried.
But we're quite disappointed with President (Barack) Obama. We feel he should be using some of his political capital to have a public conversation with the people in the United States on climate change. If he did, with a joint sitting of Congress, public meetings and so on, I think he could shift the politics as he did around health care.
Q: So should we expect civil disobedience at Copenhagen?
A: My guess is there will certainly be activities in Copenhagen and an escalation of activities post-Copenhagen, especially if nothing of substance is delivered.
But we still hold out hope we might get movement in Copenhagen. The Bali conference taught us that (when the U.S. negotiating team agreed at the last moment to withdraw some of its objections and let a proposed action plan move ahead). I don't think we should underestimate what might actually happen at Copenhagen.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllSorry, here in America we can only spend trillions of dollars on oil pipelines through Afghanistan. Its in our Constitution.
"I think he could shift the politics as he did around health care." Ha-Ha-Ha-He-He-Heh-Heh-Ha-Ha-Ha-He-He-Heh-Heh
Thank you, Mr. Naidoo. I needed that laugh. Now I also know that the entire planet as well as the US is doomed. "...as he did around health care..." Ha-Ha-Ha-He-He-Heh-Heh
Greenpeace is a joke. Ever since they forced out their founder Paul Watson for his actions with the Sea Shepard against the Japanese whale slaughter, and Dave Garrick resigned in protest to their creation of an international financial steering commitee, Greenpeace has settled down to a comfortable life of seeking donations and petition writing.
If Greenpeace is leading the fight against climate change, I truly fear for the earth.
it is very difficult to protest what provides one's necessities...even if I hate my company, I can't afford to quit my job if it means I lose my residence...interestingly, many will lose their jobs, and, potentially, their residences, in the near future, but not due to any civil disobedience...due to local economic collapse...
civil disobedience, if other conditions remain such that disobedience is even possible or relevant, must go hand-in-hand with reform in the financing of water, food and shelter...the ownership of property...
civil disobedience is also not a good idea if the most likely outcome is a violent, responsive attack...
I endorse the idea of civil disobedience this way: a global effort, involving all the world's citizens, unanimously rejecting the current societal, and financial, structure...this will require a new, collaborative view of the world's resources, and preparation in the form of universal planting of local, edible vegetation...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...
"Massive disobedience" in America amounts to fat people loudly demanding extra pickles on their double Whoppers with cheese and bacon.
Let's start small - how about, ANY disobedience (beyond angry blogging about the need for massive disobedience, that is...)
I think you're onto something here.
Let's start with a "rudeness" campaign.
Assertively standing against any imposition is seen as rude.
So let's be assertive, but let's do it politely.
Mass marches got ignored, first by the rightwing media, then by the mainstream media. Then mass marches became an excuse for police to torture citizens, to put them in makeshift wire cages, prisons so to speak, far away from anything.
Warning: Civil disobedience will tend to be ignored, first by the increasingly wingnut variety of media (NBC was just bought by a wingnut, not that A-bomb maker GE was much better) and then ignored by the rest of the media.
The actual definition of civil disobedience is "willingness to endure suffering for a purpose". Keep this in mind, and create 100 new ways of being willing to suffer for what you believe in. Long vigils with placards (gigantic ones with all-black lettering that car drivers can see from 1000 feet away) and 1000 mile environmental walks are equivalent methods of being willing to suffer. Building something solar on your property (or on Exxon's property for that matter, or beside the interstate highway) says something.
Smashing a junkyard Hummer in the town square with sledgehammers (Auction off each of the first 10 swings, $10 a swing for the 11th-20th swings, $1 for the later swings?) is fun. Wear goggles and work gloves. Every type of event is good.
Build your own billboard and change the message every day. Reach average people.
If you want to commit a collective civil disobedience, have a small committee set some retired person up to have no assets whatsoever, have her/him write something really provocative on the billboard, and let the company sue his tail off. No assets! Wally Nelson incurred a $500 fine from the IRS every day of his life, for years, until he finally died one year, and then the IRS earned nothing but heartache. It's a strange kind of civil disobedience but it speaks fairly loudly.
Civil disobedience works only when it becomes disruptive and shames the oppresor into change. Energy corporations such as Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Chevron are not easily shamed as they have total control over the government, the newsmedia and unfortunatley a lot of the so-called Christian churches.
When civil rights activists used civil disobedience in the 60's it was met with violence. This same brutal violence was broadcast across the world and helped shame the U.S. government into agreeing to the Civil Rights Act.
Today too many activists do not dare sacrifice pain, being jailed or even photographed by the news media because they have far too much to lose. Our cushy way of life has ruined our potential to doing what needs to be done to force change. The end result is we get a wimp democrat in the White House who willingly kow tows to the right wing and corporate class every chance he gets! So much for CHANGE!
Civil disobedience necessary, and so is defending and supporting those who've already committed civil disobedience.
http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/11/monkeywrench-prank-interview-tim-dechristopher
Action should be taken to help the charges against Tim DeCristopher get dropped. As more people become aware of his actions, and the success that came from them, others will be creative in thinking of new ways to use civil disobedience in the environmental effort.
When somebody like DeChristopher does something, unlike most of us who just talk, we should all follow suit, and we should also do what we can to keep him from being locked up.
"leaders will not act until they are pushed"
Heh heh. Why call them leaders then? Why not use the official term: servant? Ehh?
Ooops! cuz he's a leader himself! How clumsy of me!
Is "leadership" all it's cracked up to be?
I have tons more respect for peasants.
Monkey suits - sure indications of untrustworthiness.
Civil disobedience: deny "leaders" the respect they crave! Throw pies in their faces!
"Kumi Naidoo, a former South African anti-apartheid activist and long-time campaigner on human rights, poverty and climate issues, took the reins of Greenpeace last month and aims to get even former U.S. Vice President Al Gore out on the streets."
With all due respect....Kumi Naidoo will have to throw money on the streets in order to get Al Gore to jump into the demonstration. Gore is AWASH in more than 32 million dollars in a hedge fund windfall!!! And let us not forget the Occidental Petroleum dollars that he owns or used to own. FRAUD!!!
People need to get the truth about these wankers like Al Gore and the non-profit...for-self-profit industry....IT IS ALL THERE....FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!!
It isn't money or the GREEN ECONOMY that will save this world...it is a rejection of a GROSS Domestic Product and the quest for technology to make our lives lazier and easier that will save us all.....get down and get dirty....live a little LESS comfortably and feel what it is like to L I V E
IT IS FUN!!! REALLY!!!
There is a growing body of evidence against CO2 being a cause of global warming. If anything, the honest data shows us going into a period of declining temperature, with the possibility of another minor "cold-age" a strong possibility.
There is also much speculation that global warming is promoted by those who stand to benefit from it financially.
This then raises a great question mark over Greenpeace. It appears to me that Greenpeace has lost its direction, and has possibly been taken over by the very people it was created to oppose.
I have lost my faith in this organisation.
This is all very amusing.
Members of the leading energy consuming nations want to protest those companies that promptly and cheaply deliver energy to them. The "bite the hand that feeds you" syndrome.
Might I suggest to these people that they do the following:
1. Stop reproducing
2. Stop using electricity.
3. Shut up.
GreenPeace leaders, Al Gore, et.al.:
BE CAREFUL! Use of civil disobedience can be very dangerous to health and safety of protestors. For example, peaceful peace & justice demonstrators have been brutalized/tortured by 'spook' directed local authorities and rogue cops in super fusion center Colorado Springs, and, unfortunately, in other of the nation's seventy plus fusion centers. Consequences for such criminal behavior by authorities? Minimal and/or none so far.
Here's a couple of suggestions:
1. With each strong message re. most urgent need to address global warming, environmental trashing, etc. let's include a plea to return democracy and civil rights in the U.S. and all supposedly 'democratic nations, particularly the right to safely exercise free speech and assembly and to vote and have the vote counted here in the U.S. and worldwide. Legislation should be encouraged which mandatory sentencing, etc. for disallowing said civil rights. Let's repeat these entertaining but hard hitting messages over and over and over again (a la Advertising 101)and aim the messages at ten to eleven year old minds.
2. Mandate early instruction at grade and middle schools in critical thinking (i.e. early teaching of how to question vs. being spun and manipulated), constitutional rights (particularly the right to safely assemble/demonstrate and speak freely and vote and have the vote counted), and, last but certainly not least, ongoing instruction in need for global environmental protection. Federal funding to states must be withheld for failure to so educate.
Sounds tough, but it's going to be a hard battle to:
UNDO THE (military/industrial/corporate/'terrorism') COUP!
My view is that we are in a natural cycle, heavily juiced by anthropogenic carbon which could turn a survivable cycle into a planetary catastrophe.
Also, people, esp "leaders", will do nothing that disturbs the status quo. So, I propose:
Maybe the reactionary powers could get together to agree on a stepped reaction to climate change...
1. At the collapse of 1000 sq miles of an ice sheet/shelf, or a 1" rise in sealevel (measured at the equator)---mandatory, verifiable carbon reductions of 25% for everybody.
2. After two earthquake/tsunami episodes within a week, another 25%.
3. After an ice storm sits on a location at least 300 miles across for 5 or more days and deposits at least 12" of ice, another 25%.
etc.
None of the above? Business as usual.