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Call for Mass Civil Disobedience Against Coal
Dear Friends,
There are moments in a nation's-and a planet's-history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.
We will be there to make several points:
- Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level-below 350 parts per million co2-lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
- Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.
- Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.
- Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.
The industry claim that there is something called "clean coal" is, put simply, a lie. But it's a lie told with tens of millions of dollars, which we do not have. We have our bodies, and we are willing to use them to make our point. We don't come to such a step lightly. We have written and testified and organized politically to make this point for many years, and while in recent months there has been real progress against new coal-fired power plants, the daily business of providing half our electricity from coal continues unabated. It's time to make clear that we can't safely run this planet on coal at all. So we feel the time has come to do more--we hear President Barack Obama's call for a movement for change that continues past election day, and we hear Nobel Laureate Al Gore's call for creative non-violence outside coal plants. As part of the international negotiations now underway on global warming, our nation will be asking China, India, and others to limit their use of coal in the future to help save the planet's atmosphere. This is a hard thing to ask, because it's their cheapest fuel. Part of our witness in March will be to say that we're willing to make some sacrifices ourselves, even if it's only a trip to the jail.
With any luck, this will be the largest such protest yet, large enough that it may provide a real spark. If you want to participate with us, you need to go through a short course of non-violence training. This will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you. There will be young people, people from faith communities, people from the coal fields of Appalachia, and from the neighborhoods in Washington that get to breathe the smoke from the plant.
We will cross the legal boundary of the power plant, and we expect to be arrested. After that we have no certainty what will happen, but lawyers and such will be on hand. Our goal is not to shut the plant down for the day-it is but one of many, and anyway its operation for a day is not the point. The worldwide daily reliance on coal is the danger; this is one small step to raise awareness of that ruinous habit and hence help to break it.
Needless to say, we're not handling the logistics of this day. All the credit goes to a variety of groups, especially EnergyAction (which is bringing thousands of young people to Washington that weekend), Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, and Rainforest Action Network. For more information: www.capitolclimateaction.org
Thank you,
Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben
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33 Comments so far
Show AllNO COAL, NO NUKES!!!
There might be a lot of marching this summer.
I believe clean coal is a lie, one of the many we have been blessed with from our government over the years. Sonic booms? The sound of freedom. Radiation? It won't hurt you. Ditto for coal dust, asbestos, and anything else that makes a buck for corporations.
If you missed McKibben's post from Wednesday, you might want to take note whether all the Ruckus Society will acede to McKibben's request to wear business dress attire, and hide the fact that they have another secret life as hippies or anarchists, the presence of which he doesn't want to see. And, meine kinder, there will be no mention of Wendell Berry's tobacco farm or tobacco subsidy lobbying. That's a different kind of pollution altogether. Equally deadly, more ugly, less defensible, but different.
jonabark
So Wendell Berry doesn't come up to J H Christ's standards of purity. Tough living in a world of people who don't attain to your moral standards, maybe you would be more comfortable protesting with Jehovah's witnesses or the Taliban who have very strict moral codes. I don't think McKibben is concerned about what he sees; he's tying to make the event harder for the MSM to dismiss.
You are partially right on one point. Trying to get the government to subsidize the sale of an addictive and deadly carcinogen so that you will personally reap larger profits as a merchant of death does fall below my standards. Not of purity, but of basic conscience.
As for McKibben's concerns, there is no need for you to interpret that for him. His pretentious Wednesday rant on "crazy hippies and hardcore anarchists" speaks for itself. He is a buffoonish and ineffectual glory hound trying to control the very clothing other people wear at events that are out of his ivy league. If the MSM get distracted by punks like that, they'll just get the story late, like they did in Seattle.
I would hope the global warming coalition calculates the carbon footprint of massacring people around the world.
Production of bombs and hardware, transport to there and when there,both material and troops, explosions, and medical care and burials and return transport of dead and alive.
Just spent a weekend in a mountain cabin reachable only by snowshoe or ski. There was a woodbox full of wood brought in at great expense by helicopter. We kept our fire small, thinking of the next hikers and the ones after them.
Earth is an isolated cabin. We are having nonstop bonfires a mile high. And the windows don't open. Where is it written that we have to use up all of the planet's easily available fuel as quickly as possible? Is it reasonable to suppose that future generations of humans might want some fuel for their own endeavors? What loyalty do we owe to Humanity's future?
I've been arrested for protesting in the past. It has a reverse hangover effect. The more time passes, the better you feel about having done it. I urge anyone with the means to join the civil disobedience near Capitol Hill. As my wife (the Goddess) says: "Civil disobedience is not a crime. It's a civic duty."
(And JHC If more people listened to Wendell Berry twenty years ago we wouldn't be in so deep today. And I'd rather people killed themselves with tobacco than killed everything else with CO2.)
If more people listened to the "merchant of death", Wendell Berry twenty years ago, he'd be even richer from tobacco profits, and they they would be dead, cancerous or racked with addiction from smoking it.
Glenn Ford - I read on this site somewhere that the US Military uses as much oil annually as Sweden. Sweden produces gorgeous blonde furniture and women. What exactly does the US Military produce?
Death and misery---at grossly inflated prices.
I fail to see how these protests are going to have the slightest impact. The US depends on coal for about 70% of it's electricity. How can you protest a corporation and expect any change in their behavior when you GIVE THEM LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY? That's like lecturing a drug addict while handing them another fix. Sure, maybe it "raises awareness" and all that crap, but the utter lack of logic here is just mind-boggling.
Just wondering. After all the coal plants get turned off in the USA, who is gonna shut down China's coal plants? And what about all the good paying union jobs attached to the coal industry? What will those workers do?
That's a decent analysis but please consider a possible refinement: Consuming the elites' opiates while demanding changes is less like lecturing an addict while supplying his opiates, and more like lecturing a pusher while taking his opiates. The difference is the pusher risks losing the power/control he values above all else.
McKibbens and Berry and all of the protesters deserve our support for their efforts. At the very least they will have logged another important piece of evidence of a corrupt capitalist media, more justification for comprehensive revolution. They will have set anoher great example of public sacrifice for the betterment of society. And at most, may actually cause the elites to squirm away from their orgy of greed and actually serve the public interests.
But progressives on the far left take a much more principled, long term approach. We don't try to tempt, bribe or threaten the pusher elites with disruptions of the opiate pipeline. We simply refuse their opiates. We shift our demands in the markets to benefit the people instead of the elites.
During the days when we were giving the elites a chance, we said to our local farmers: "If you can't beat Peabody's price per BTU of energy, I'm buying Peabody coal." But now that the elites have spectacularly irreversibly blown it, we say: "If you don't want to produce 100 gal/year biodiesel for me via permaculture methods, that's fine. I will find one of your neighbors who will, or produce it myself."
You might have noticed that such local "wheeling and dealing" offers both meaningful human interaction AND self-determination for both parties. Elite domination destroys in all dimensions.
rtdrury, your comment about the ironies in 'lecturing a pusher while taking his opiates' is very worth amplifying. I recall last year attending a community gathering about carbon issues and people afterwards muttering how such subsidized, cheap electric costs (from coal) sure didn't offer much incentive to turn off the lights and don a sweater a la Jimmy Carter and about how Al Gore's contribution to the global dialogue about such stuff could carry so much more credibility were his personal lifestyle to match up with his impressive presentations and books. Walking your talk in a culture of tremendous and relentless enabling is no mean feat. As you say, simply refusing their opiates is an essential piece that often gets short shrift in these discussions. I am currently reading Miguel De La Torre's 2008 book, "The Hope of Liberation in World Religions" where he makes a very good case for wresting back the social justice piece in the world's spiritual traditions from the neoliberal "entertainment culture" and money god which for decades now has supplanted the solidarity with the poor affirmed by (for instance) the 2nd Vatican Council in the 60s which was part and parcel of the Liberation Theology movement in Latin America. De La Torre quotes Gustavo Gutierrez as saying that "the oppressed of the world (thereby) cease to be objects to be used by a neoliberal means of production, instead, the nonperson is recognized as having worth and dignity." Having emerged from under the weight of a neoliberal agenda on steroids with the last administration, and facing the economic disaster in its wake, the cavalier, extractive economy that has fueled humanity's SEEMINGLY limitless capacity for over-the-top consumption is at long last being noticed as the crumbling empire it is. It is true, as the famous line in 'American Beauty' put it, that one can "never underestimate the power of denial", but we as a species are coming up against the limits of the denial as we slowly wake up from our collective trance to the fact that these resources we blaze through with such profligate waste are, in fact, finite. I think such acts as McKibben & Berry intend DO contribute something valuable to the movement out of our gargantuan cultural addictions, but I also think it's high time that, for instance, some Oscar nominees show up at Oscar night in gear from 2nd hand stores, arriving, not in limos and symbols of the empire's excess, but on bikes or on foot. Anybody remember that film with Robin Williams, "Moscow on the Hudson"...Remember the scene in the supermarket where his character gets totally wigged out looking at the row upon row upon row of endless product choices? What would happen if all the Hollywood darlings started living within normal human means, as in approx. 6K/yr? Just as an experiment. Maybe even turn up at those Oscars with a "350" tatoo on one of those arms. Maybe they could even telecommute. Just an idea.
Bang on! It's ridiculous how accustomed we find ourselves to the lifestyles of the american royalty. thousand dollar dresses, red carpet affairs...good grief. of course all that needs to be done is to make it 'cool' to, do like you say and arrive on bike in thrift store outfits.. why are luxury cars and trucks still not considered a heinous faux pas?
This isn't about celebrities. What they do is almost wholly irrelevant. Don't look to them as the key to victory.
It's about if people actually learn how to do real organizing instead of charging windmills to express their alienation.
Ask yourself where do the environmental groups get their money? Dues from members represent an average of 50 percent of the income of most groups; most of the rest of the income comes from foundation grants, corporate contributions, and especially U.S. government funds. Almost every one of today's land-trust, environmental, animal-rights, and population-control groups was created with grants from one of the elite foundations, like the Ford foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. These "seed grants" enable the radical groups to become established and start their own fundraising operations. These grants are also a seal-of-approval for the other foundations to follow suit.
In April 1991, a newsletter of the Capital Research Center which monitors trends in corporate giving, stated that oil companies "are heavy financial supporters of the very advocacy groups which oppose activities essential to their ability to meet consumer needs". It reported, "The Nature Conservancy's 1990 report reflects contributions of over $1,000,000 from Amoco, over $135,000 from Arco, over 4,100,000 from BP Exploration and BP Oil, more than $3,200,000 (in real estate) from Chevron, over $10,000 from Conoco and Phillips Petroleum and over $260,000 from Exxon". These numbers are harder to get now since they are a bit smarter about disguisning their donations.
David Rockefeller of Exxon was the connection and influence to the Earth Charter and Maurice Strong of Canada. In 1972 Strong was Secretary General of the first Earth Summit in Stockholm. This led to the creation of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) in 1972. Strong was UNEP's first Exec. Director. At the same time Strong served as the Director of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN was accredited by the UN in 1946 to become its "scientific advisor" and was made up of various government scientists. Within the IUCN, the EPA, USFWS (who administers The US Endangered Species Act), Nat. Park Service, US Forest Service, and Nat. Ocean and Atmosphere Adm. huddle behind closed doors with the Sierra Club, National Audubon, National Wildlife Federation, Nature Conservancy, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environ. Defense Fund, etc. to plan and implement this global agenda and the new global ethics.
The IUCN wrote the Convention on Biodiversity 42 and created the pantheistic pseudoscience called "conservation biology" to "prove" earth's ecosystems were being mortally wounded by human use. The IUCN also founded the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) which pass the banner back and fourth in developing and promoting treaties and agreements which inhibit 3rd world nations from developing and escaping poverty which is in accordance with their neo-malthusian philisophy. The foundations and Rockefellers funded the worlds Eugenics movement before WW II, which gave Hitler many of his ideas. After WW II, the name was not very popular so they use names like mentioned above to conceal their eugenics program.
It's all about Global Government and reducing population and life expectancy of inferior races with famine and disease, and reducing living standards in the developed world, while pretending to be doing good.
Funny how nobody funds protests against nations who commit war crimes like in Iraq and Gaza, although there were protests organized against Tibet (guess who funded them).
Also, it's not very well known today that the Esso group (now Exxon) financed the anti-war protests in the 60's, not because they wanted to stop the war, but they wanted to promote civil disobedience to divide the country, and as intended it led to many older Americans who outnumbered the youth in the voting booths to support a war they orginally did not support out of anger about the flag burning, etc. During the war, the oil companies did a lot of drilling off the coast of Vietnam under protection of the Navy, but the results were disappointing so we ended the war and left.
In fact, James Simon Kunen book called The Strawberry Statement wrote about a student who reported on a SDS convention.
". . . men from Business International Roundtables . . . tried to buy up a few radicals. Those men are the world's industrialists and they convene to decide how our lives are going to go. They're the left wing of the ruling class. They offered to finance our demonstrations in Chicago. We were also offered ESSO (Rockefeller) money."
Shutting down a coal plant using violence will lead to more folks supporting coal and nuclear, not to mention coastal drilling, but it will also get more support for carbon caps and trading schemes which will be sold as a way to limit these plants from doing too much damage (it will just make the energy more expensive), which is the real agenda since those who control the credits and trading (the banks that are too big to fail) will make a killing during the next bubble, followed by another crisis in which we get to bail them out again, and if we are too bankrupt to bail them out, then it will lead to the big prize, a Global Central Bank and Global Currency, and the beginning of an official Global Government.
Oh, shutup. Civil disobedience is not violence. What is violent about them is the typical reaction by police to civil disobedience.
Oy. Sooo predictable.
Joe
I am not sure what this "civil disobedience" will achieve. The only way to stop burning coal is by phasing it out - by building up alternative power sources while simultaneously embarking on a massive conservation program. And the only way to bring about these is through an enabling legislative framework - through incentives and disincentives: incentives for better alternatives and disincentives for older technologies with a larger carbon footprint. And by having this legislation in such a way that it will force beneficial changes on all fronts. Otherwise we will be fighting one-off battles that go nowhere, that will only distract people from real solutions and needlessly alienate the people who need to be on board with everyone else.
I am also not sure about the priority that this protest assigns to coal power at this time when the US has not even signed on to the Kyoto Protocol (even Australia signed on, as a latecomer, after their last elections), and already countries are negotiating for a post-Kyoto treaty. Unless there are binding regulations that address the total emissions of a nation, it is pointless to target individual industries. I cannot stress this enough - only by fixing the total emissions for the nation as a whole in a given year can you even begin to focus on areas for the greatest and quickest reduction.
By putting a realistic and effective price on carbon, any activity that has to burn a fuel - whether it's power generation, driving, flying or whatever - will then be evaluated for its real worth. Some needless activities that are done in the name of entertainment or due to artificially created 'systems' will start dropping out. It can be argued that coal power plants are needed for the moment until alternative arrangements are made. But there are other activities that can be safely stopped forthwith - you just need to look around. They include monstrous vehicles, certain recreational activities that use lots of fuel and electricity, and the most hideous of all - development of commercial space tourism! How vain can you get that you are ready to burn so much fuel just so you can tell your social circle that you experienced weightlessness?
And don't forget that these things need to be approached on a national level, making sure that those who depend on such industries for no fault of theirs - the employees, I mean - are helped to find alternative employment or livelihood, instead of just told to get lost. That means a vast majority needs to be convinced of the need to make changes - at the very least, there needs to be a large enough majority to bring in new legislation.
George Monbiot, in his book "Heat - How to Stop the Planet from Burning" talks of rationing carbon emissions - wherein each individual will get a certain quota of emissions for the whole year - based on scientifically assessed limits for the whole planet. If an individual or a country uses less than their quota, they are free to sell the surplus to those who want to use more. This way, every person will get his fair share, and will force those who consume more than their fair share to cut down. Again, what we need is a comprehensive legislation - not individual battles. Even Monbiot does not touch one area at all, leading me to suspect he is another hypocrite - read below:
Google "Livestock's Long Shadow".
One area that most environmentalists do not touch is meat production and consumption. According to "Livestock's Long Shadow - Environmental Issues and Options", a report, by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that came out in November 2006, "that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport". That's right folks - meat, dairy and poultry/egg production is responsible for emissions that are greater than from all the cars, trucks, ships and airplanes combined. I would like to know how many of these protesters will be willing to go vegetarian or vegan to protect the earth's future (and their own health too). Now, that will be "an inconvenient truth", indeed, no?
It's good to focus on the legislative stuff. And then get more specific. And the method is in each congressional district. More could have been said to point people specifically there. And how to be effective.
It's nonsense that "most environmentalists do not touch ... meat production." That's widely known.
What's wrong here is that there is nothing about sustainable alternatives to industrial meat production. All meat is lumped together. There is no suggestion to invest (since we all eat) in buying the alternative meats.
There is plenty of potential in the soil to store carbon and it does tons of good in the soil. Grass based farming is an excellent method for getting that carbon back into the soil, and that means livestock spread out on many farms across the land, not crammed into feedlots and animal factories, where row crops are industrially produced and brought to them. We can stop a lot of buying manufactured fertilzers and machinery and planting row crops. The livestock can do most of the harvesting of perennial grasses. Ruminants like cows are especially good at transforming grass, because they are ruminants. Livestock can spread most of the fertilizer as they graze.
I assume these oversights, oversimplifying of the issues, is done for ideological or religious reasons.
>>>Brad Wilson wrote: I assume these oversights, oversimplifying of the issues, is done for ideological or religious reasons.
And I assume you keep harping on "grass based farming" because you simply have NO CLUE about resource accounting - about how much land, feed and water it takes to produce one pound of beef - whether it's factory farmed or 'natural' farmed. And you have a vested interest in meat production by talking about a fictitious "sustainable" model - there is no such thing as a "sustainable" meat production for today's world population. And there is not enough grassland to grow your magic grass all over the world - unless you happen to live in a country where vast tracts of land were taken from the natives. And lots of water, too. Yes, such countries do exist - but that 'model' is not universally applicable. Meat production and consumption, at best, can only be for special occasions, and that too, only if NOT ENOUGH people insist on eating meat. And speaking of ideology, you seem to be of the conviction that meat consumption is somehow NECESSARY to live a healthy and productive life, instead of viewing it as a 'cultural' holdover from the past. And, finally, "getting that carbon back into the soil" by grazing cows on grassland is a total nonsense. In terms of bioproductivity (which is directly related to how much carbon can be absorbed by plants), croplands are the most productive, followed by forests. Pastures/grasslands are at the BOTTOM - with LESS THAN HALF the productivity of the 'global average', and about 1/4th productive as croplands and 1/3rd as forests - in terms of global average, and national averages are not too far off.
You complained that "All meat is lumped together." Well, actually I didn't mean to - because I happen to know the relative amounts of inputs (estimates) for beef, pork, chicken, as well dairy (milk, cheese), and beef stands at the top. I'll be happy to point you to some internet references. Here are a couple, if you are interested:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/40934/title/AAAS_Climate-friendly_dining_%E2%80%A6_meats
(If the link doesn't work, please search for "AAAS: Climate-friendly dining … meats)
And here's another - this one's on water footprint:
http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/productgallery&product=beef
(Of course, this assumes factory farming - I don't have numbers for free range grazing cows - but the first reference above actually says that from a climate perspective, grass-fed beef is perhaps worse. “We do see significant differences in the GHG intensities [of grass vs grain finishing]. It’s roughly on the order of 50 percent higher in grass-finished systems,” according to the researcher quoted in that article).
I would recommend that you please educate yourself about concepts such as 'ecological footprint', 'carbon footprint' and 'water footprint'. And while you are at it, also Google "Livestock's Long Shadow". I understand your predicament as a person used to eating meat, producing meat, and having a conviction that somehow this can be sustained and will be applicable for all people, all over the world, if only we could get rid of the evil factory farms. Unfortunately, you are right only on the last point - namely, that the factory farms are evil. And since you otherwise sound like a reasonable person, it is all the more unfortunate because you don't seem ready to move out of your convictions and start looking at facts and figures.
The way to stop coal is to stop sprawl, stop the electric car.
.
http://freepublictransit.org
Unfortunately many people fail to appreciate that alternatives to burning coal such as burning wood or peat usually are worse for the climate (produce more carbon) than burning coal. Stopping coal burning is not the solution.
Lawrence A. Welsch
lwelsch@gmail.com
Jesus H. Where is the man pure enough to do good? Does Mr Berry still sell tobacco? Does he sell it to minors? Did he ever look at porn or eat a burger? Maybe he shouldn't be allowed to protest with all the other 'pure' people. Let's burn his excellent books on soil conservation. Tobacconist! Unclean!
Unfortunately, the small fields of tobacco allotted to them by the state are the only way a lot of small farmers in the Kentucky Bluegrass (where Berry is from) can earn a living. The only alternative is cattle - cattle prices have crashed. The rocky clay soils aren't good for much else.
---USAn---
Mass civil disobedience against coal? I would prefer mass civil disobedience against the US government and global corporations surveilling my banking, credit card transactions, e-mail, and telephone calls. For Pete’s sake, people, it is We the People who need to be surveilling the crooks and liars in government, not the other way around. You and I know we are not terrorists. But can we say the same about the characters on TV telling us they are keeping us safe from Global Terror, Global Climate Change, Global Peak Oil, and Global Financial Collapse? Oh, please. They are the progenitors of all that fearmongering. Now they are going to save us? Sure, and Santa’s gonna slide down the chimney one more time come this Christmas...Or add some unburnt coal to your stocking!
The focus needs to be on those who actually make the decisions, and on specific decisions they make, not on demonstrating out into the media. Media and police who show up to arrest people are never the important decision makers. Civil disobedience is great, if people do their preparation first, and don't waste it on ineffective uses.
Ok, here are some specific thoughts on what's effective and what's not: http://www dot zcommunications.org/blog/view/2639
At the same time how's about a mass uprising in favor of nationalizing banking & finance? That way, with vox populi in charge of the money vaults, what's collected in taxes can be used for the common good, not private gain.
thanks for the information
www.wahmgiftstore.com
www.wahmgiftstore.com
I can't travel,but if any of y'all get slapped with serious jailtime.I'll gladly be a "pen pal" [Pun anavoidable}.I have a sister who works under the aegis of the Kennedy Center,she may be able to help spread the word among that glitzy crowd. [We"re Wheeling W.V.. natives.]
Now this word of caution,in case you don't already know it,those coal cos. and their lawinforcement friends are nasty folks,and as with any demo.against the Overlords,there WILL be provocateurs,but this particular
group of dingleberries won't hesitate to do serious harm if they see fit.
RLKlevins-klevins42@hotmail.com. Montani Semper Liberi
Ok, here's another general essay about an important issue. Good.
Here's also a call to do something about it, something sort of specific. Even better. Yes, read but also act.
Let people know about a specific place and time. Good.
There will be a lot of people in town, so do something specific to get in the media. OK.
On the other hand, I don't see where there's much focus on specific decisions by specific decision makers. What specific "yesable" decisions are wanted by whom. Then what's the history of it that leads to a need for civil disobedience at this time and place.
Ok, there will be preparation, training in civil disobedience. I'm sorry but in my experience many of these trainers themselves fail on the questions I'm raising, they don't actually know how to organize, and they're very confident in their methods anyway.
Is there any evidence that McKibben and Berry know how to organize? I find nothing at 350.org that indicates knowledge of what has been successful (real organizing). I've been working on farm issues a good while. I don't see where Wendell Berry, a farm issue writer, has demonstrated knowledge of organizing or written about it.
When ineffective methods are used massively, we teach ineffectiveness to the movement. Ineffective methods become "what's done" and crowd out the possibility of learning that there really are effective methods. All to often the problem is that movement leaders themselves don't know about effective methods (in my experience) and lead confidently, even aggressively, in the failed methods of the past.
We have work to do! We need to learn (as a movement) how to be effective. Effectiveness is the best mobilization, and it is a a great fundraiser. It is the antidote to futility and despair.
I recommend using Roger Fisher's methods with your local, regional or national group, ("Getting Ready to Negotiate," (copy and fill out the worksheets) "Beyond Machiavelli" or go here online (http://www dot pon.harvard.edu/hnp/writing/books/internationalconflict.shtml & see chart p. 48) for starters. And then add "Currently Perceived Choice" (http://www dot pon.harvard.edu/hnp/theory/tools/cpc.shtml) and Target Future Choice (same but for the future choice of the decisionmaker) planning charts.
But do it as a group, not as an individual so get Shel Trapp, "Dynamics of Organizing" (http://www dot tenant.net/Organize/orgdyn.html) and "Basics of Organizing" (http://www dot tenant.net/Organize/orgbas.html).
You may have to use these methods (ie. yesable propositions) with your own leaders.