YouthClimate.org » clean coal

‘Yes We Can’ Obama says ‘No we can’t’ to renewable energy

annackeenan — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:11:16 +0000

Check out 0:18 and 0:56

Two questions:

1- Who is advising this man and where is their information coming from?

2- When JFK said the following, did they have the technology required to get to the moon?

“We will go to the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

Filed under: global warming

PolluterHarmony: A Match Made In Washington

Brendan Demelle — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:55:11 +0000

SuccessStory-Murkowski.png

Congressmembers, are you too busy being indentured servants to corporations to find love?

Lobbyists, did that pickup line about healthcare flop with your beloved Senator? Well, have you heard the one about “clean coal” yet?

Polluters, are you too shy to admit the things you’d like to do to Rep. Joe Barton?

Well, you are all in luck. Today marks the launch of PolluterHarmony.com, a new online matchmaking service designed to help dirty polluters and their lobbyists find that perfect politician to live forever in holy mmm…

Forget Citizens United, PolluterHarmony knows all about uniting citizens, like the match made in heaven between Koch Industries and Sen. James Inhofe.

Speaking of below the Beltway… PolluterHarmony knows that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Rrrow!-AK) likes it dirty, as dirty as it gets in fact. She’s on the receiving end of $111,296 in contributions from coal interests in the 111th Congress.

Kert Davies, director of PolluterWatch.org, the masterminds behind PolluterHarmony, notes in his blog on Huffington Post that PolluterHarmony.com is “a dating service dedicated to helping polluter industry lobbyists, CEO's and propagandists match up with willing public officials, making it even easier to buy and sell influence, sabotage global warming solutions and derail our clean energy future.”

Wow, I never imagined that such connections could be made any easier than they already are.

PolluterHarmony proves that anything is possible!

So, all you D.C. polluticians, why wait for all that snow to melt? “Start your long-term collusion today!”

ACCCE Hires New PR Firm With Bush Ties To Push Coal

Brendan Demelle — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:19:03 +0000

Clean-Coal-Mine.jpg

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) has hired two new public relations firms to hock its message in the wake of the disastrous job done by Bonner & Associates.

ACCCE has retained HDMK, a PR firm with very strong ties to former President George W. Bush and the Republican Party, to manage its national media efforts, while Dan Ronayne, a managing director of the Howard Consulting Group, was retained to work with regional reporters.

HDMK is run by Terry Holt, the national campaign spokesperson for George W. Bush in the 2004 election and the former spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner. Other HDMK partners include Trent Duffy, a former deputy press secretary to President George W. Bush, Jim Morrell, former deputy chief of staff to the House Republican Conference and a speechwriter for former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL), and Chad Kolton, another long-time Republican communications operative who served in the Bush administration as press secretary at the OMB and FEMA.

HDMK’s other clients include the Republic of Panama, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association and the Real Estate Roundtable.

Holt told the National Journal that HDMK will be "part of the strategy team on message development" for ACCCE. ACCCE is no doubt hopeful that HDMK will play a more traditional, behind-the-scenes role in promoting the coal industry’s message.

ACCCE had no such luck with one of the key players in its 2009 PR campaign, Bonner & Associates, the Astroturf shop embroiled in a highly embarrassing scandal when it was caught sending at least a dozen forged letters to Congressmembers urging them to vote against clean energy and climate legislation.

Luckily for ACCCE, HDMK specializes in crisis communications and crisis prevention, which could come in handy for the coal industry if 2010 turns out to be anything like last year.

Time video report on clean coal – It still sounds a bit dirty

Graham_Land — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:09:47 +0000

Here is some more news from Time Magazine on coal power generation with carbon capture and sequestration, also known as so-called ‘clean coal’ technology. The idea definitely has its appeal: power is generated not by the conventional burning of plain coal, but rather after it is converted it into hydrogen and then the resultant CO2 is buried somewhere in the …

Viva La Resolution: Wash U Senate Urges University to Change Name of “Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization”

Juliana Williams — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:44:16 +0000

Written by Will Fischer, student leader at Washington University in St. Louis

The students have spoken!

In response to demonstrated student outcry over the naming of the “Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization” and with momentum from last week’s flash mob protest, on Wednesday the Wash U Student Union Senate unanimously passed a resolution urging the administration to change the Consortium’s name. More details in the Wash U student newspaper Student Life article.

The vote came after a week of intense lobbying by students, during which senators received an extraordinary number of emails from constituents in support of the resolution. The resolution originated in last week’s session, but the vote was postponed until after a drafting session could be held to address senators’ concerns. Wednesday’s senate session was packed with supportive students who applauded after the resolution was passed in the first 15 minutes of the meeting.

A truncated version of the resolution reads (full version available here):

“Whereas, The term “Clean Coal” is an industry marketing term intended to obscure the negative effects of coal extraction, combustion, and disposal;

Whereas, The use of said term may invite doubt regarding the integrity of the research the Consortium conducts;

…

Whereas, The Student Union supports the research being done by the Consortium to develop safer and more effective coal utilization technology; and therefore be it

Resolved, That the Student Union strongly urges the Washington University administration to change the name of the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization; and be it further

…

Resolved, That the Student Union urges that the Consortium’s research into future uses of coal include studies of the social and environmental effects of its extraction, combustion, and disposal.”

We look forward to open dialogue with the administration and invite any concerns and comments.

Viva la Resolution!

Posted in Campuses, Coal, Coal Campaign, global warming, Political Participation, Renewable Energy, United States, Youth Leaders

VIDEO: WashU flashmob confronts Coal Executives

Juliana Williams — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:02:34 +0000

Written by Will Fischer, student leader at Washington University in St. Louis.

Something loud is afoot on our sleepy campus in St. Louis. Washington University students are beginning to re-discover what connects them. Students that have never worked together before have just executed the largest direct action on our campus. The target: big coal’s influence on our institution.

At the end of this summer, Washington University appointed two new members to its board of trustees, Gregory Boyce, CEO of Peabody Energy, and Steven F. Leer, CEO of Arch Coal. As you most likely know, they are the one-two of coal mining who together preside over 13 billion tons of proven coal reserves. They are both deeply involved in mountaintop coal mining, destroying communities and ecosystems across Appalachia. For years they have lobbied against positive protective legislation, including the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. Now, they check our chancellor’s every action and shape the future of our institution. This comes in the wake of the formation of the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization (CCCU) last December. This research group, funded by (guess) Peabody, Arch Coal, and the local utility Ameren, plans to build a 1 megawatt demonstration carbon capture & sequestration plant on our campus.

And this last Monday, our administration organized “America’s Energy Future,” a symposium to which Steven F. Leer of Arch Coal and Fred Palmer of Peabody Energy, among others, were invited to discuss our energy “future.” It was a five-hour-long symposium culminating in a reception in the new student center (to see a program description, see here). We saw presentations on “Green Coal” where earth movers the size of houses were depicted moseying through fields. There were a couple champions of reality, but the overarching theme was deceit. There was nearly zero representation from renewable energy companies. What is the “future” according to our administration? Well, it looks a lot like our present: coal, oil, and nuclear. This is not OUR Energy Future.

To coincide with the conference, we held a rally, a press conference, an alternate symposium titled “OUR Energy Future,” and executed a silent flash mob and banner-drop to challenge Big Coal on campus!

We had unsuccessfully lobbied to change the name of the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization and remained silent since the appointing of the trustees. We really couldn’t take it anymore. We saw an opportunity- and they just made it so easy.

A coalition of student groups, including the student-run farm The Burning Kumquat, Students for Endowment Transparency, and Green Action planned a direct action to challenge our university’s failure to recognize the legitimacy of renewable energy. During their plush reception in our student center, over 100 students entered the building and dispersed themselves among the assembled crowd. Along the balconies lining the reception were five two-person banner drop teams. On a signal, four teams dropped their banners over the balcony, baring messages including “Coal Is Never Clean” and “Our Energy Future.” At the same time, the 100 assembled students raised their fists to display yellow wristbands made of global warming crime scene tape and held up yellow signs with the “Beyond Coal” logo. The final banner was dropped over the main staircase bearing the words “Power Beyond Coal” painted among students’ signatures. A student addressed the silent crowd with a megaphone, “We present to you a banner bearing our signatures as a petition on behalf of this and future generations. We will not stand aside while executives from Arch Coal and Peabody paint a dirty energy future for our school and our nation. We believe that America’s real energy future uses renewable, socially responsible energy sources,” and invited them to our alternate symposium. It was fantastic- ethereal- and it’s all on tape.

Where do we go now? Our Student Union Senate plans to pass a resolution denouncing Washington University’s use of the “clean coal” marketing slogan, supporting Monday’s direct action, and demanding the university change the name of the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization. We will maintain the alliances we have developed and work on involving more students to feed off of the energy we have created. We will push forward, gaining momentum in our rally against the unjust actions and policies of our administration. This is the beginning- AND WE WILL CONTINUE TO KICK ASH!

Posted in Campuses, Coal, Coal Campaign, Corporate Responsibility, Corruption, Direct Action, Dirty Energy, greenwashing, Renewable Energy, Youth Leaders

“Show me State” Steps it up at Power Shift!

Alisha Fowler — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:02:55 +0000

By AshEl Eldridge, Educator – ACE. Cross-posted from the ACE Blog.

I just returned from Missouri Power Shift and I can report that the movement for clean energy, green jobs and climate justice is alive and well amongst the students of the “Show Me State.”

Missouri, though home of the headquarters of Peabody Coal, is also is home to Rockport, MO — one of the first towns in the U.S that is %100 powered by wind energy! Plus, organizations like Greening Missouri Youth are focusing their newly acquired stimulus money on green training programs for 18-24 year olds. They are expanding to include training for displaced workers from the automotive and coal industry in the wind power industry.

I’m a Green For All Academy Fellow and Hip Hop artist — and I was able to present and perform as an ACE rep at the event. I arrived early last week, visited several MO high schools and presented to students about climate science and the upcoming event. With the support of EAC, we teamed up and ensured high school youth feel included in this movement.

One senior from the ACE/Power Shift workshop talked about how she previously felt alone in her school, up against her own administration in trying to get water bottles banned in her school. She left feeling inspired that there were many other high-schoolers that have not only changed their schools, but their communities.

The St. Louis youth are smart, passionate and unstoppable. They understand we are up against the mighty forces of the oil and mining companies and their multi-million dollar lobbies. Workshops were filled with students who understand that time is running out for us to drastically reduce our carbon output, as already, global warming is causing floods, deserts and climate refugees.

They also understand that many Americans have been left out of the pollution-based economy and want to make sure that the green economy is truly inclusive. Their activism is focused on encouraging their representative, Senator McCaskill to help pass a strong clean energy jobs bill.

Check out ACE’s Flickr page for more pictures!

Posted in global warming

Be there: October 24th

John Deans — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:46:32 +0000

SHARE THIS VIDEO: Join @GreenpeaceUSA and @350 for a day of Action on October 24 http://ow.ly/tXId

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/getinvolved/102409

All over the country and world on October 24th, people will be taking action to demonstrate our global collective desire to see a change in the politics and see urgent action to rescue the climate. We need world leaders to go to the international negotiations and achieve a treaty that is fair ambitious and binding, and we need out local leaders to help spur on our clean energy future and end fossil-fuel-based energy. Here in the US we need to send a strong message to president Obama to be our leader and fulfill the hope of the world that the US will lead the fight to save the climate. Join us, or register your own event.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/getinvolved/102409

Posted in Act Locally, Campuses, Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Coal, Coal Campaign, Direct Action, Dirty Energy, Events, global warming, Government, Political Participation, Politics, United States, Youth Leaders

Climate Justice and Coal’s Funeral Procession

Joshua Kahn Russell — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:35:34 +0000

I wrote a movement strategy piece that is the cover story for the May issue of Z Magazine.

Climate Justice and Coal’s Funeral Procession
Learning from the Capitol Climate Action

The snow was 4.5 inches deep and it was 23 degrees out when our action started at 1pm. We could already hear the Fox News commentators making the usual absurd statements: “A global warming protest in the snow?! Maybe this climate change stuff isn’t real after all, ha ha ha.” But by the end of the day, even Fox News gave positive coverage to the largest protest in history demanding solutions to the climate crisis.

On March 2nd, around 4,000 people came to the Capitol Power Plant in Washington DC, over 2,000 of whom risked arrest through civil disobedience. The vast majority had never been to a demonstration of any kind before, let alone engaged in non-violent direct action. People from communities most directly impacted by coal’s lifecycle — from Navajo reservations in the Southwest to Appalachian towns in the Southeast — led the march. With vibrant multicolored flags depicting windmills, people planting gardens, waves crashing, and captions like “community,” “security,” “change” and “power,” we sat-in to blockade five entrances to the power plant that literally fuels Congress. We called the whole thing the “Capitol Climate Action” (CCA).

The belching smoke stacks just two blocks from the Capitol building made a fitting target for a national flashpoint. They symbolize the stranglehold that the dirty fossil fuel industry – and coal industry in particular – has on our government, economy, and future. Burning coal is the single biggest contributor to global warming. We will not be able to solve the climate crisis or build a clean energy economy without breaking its hold.

Notable people of all kinds joined our demonstration, legitimizing the tactic of civil disobedience for a mainstream audience. From the scientific community, Dr. James Hansen (the world’s foremost climatologist) and Gus Speth (former environment advisor to Jimmy Carter) risked arrest. Writers like Wendell Berry joined them. Environmental advocates like Dr. Vandana Shiva and Bill McKibben, religious leaders of all stripes, DC’s Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, and celebrities such as Daryl Hannah participated.

At the end of the day it was clear that the police had been overwhelmed by our numbers and were not going to arrest anyone unless we escalated to felony charges, which we were unwilling to do (though the image of Dr. Hansen scaling a fence is pretty romantic). Instead, we declared victory after shutting the plant down for the afternoon. Thousands of us exited on our own terms and committed to use the experience to build our local movements stronger in what has become a defining year for the climate.

Photo by Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist

We cannot win the battle on climate change without immediate, binding, science-based federal legislation. 2009 is crucial, and not just because of the terrifying tipping points that scientists describe. It’s our year because the political window to pass this legislation is growing increasingly urgent as we march toward the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen this December. In the U.S., the fossil fuel industry employs over 2,340 corporate lobbyists and is throwing over $90 million at pushing false solutions (nuclear, “clean” coal, industrial agrofuels, and others) that devastate communities. In response, people’s movements need to create political space for progressives in office to write bolder policy (and push them do to so) in the short and mid-term. For the long-term, we need to continue to build community-based solutions, like wind farms, urban gardens, and other projects that localize our economies. This calls for an aligned “inside / outside” movement strategy that honors the different roles that a broad spectrum of organizations, networks, and activists must take.

CCA sought to anchor an outside action-arm of this spectrum. The role of such an anchor is to help shift the center of political conversation in the U.S. further to the left. This must happen within the context of building the broad-based progressive majoritarian coalition currently coalescing in the United States, offering a holistic narrative and program of solutions to intersecting crises (ecological, economic, political etc).

The mistakes and successes of CCA are instructive for building a movement that is both broad-based and politically savvy, as well as bold in demanding genuine solutions. Evaluations of actions like CCA must always be measured against this objective.

Context
The pace of direct actions against coal has sharply increased since 2004. These campaigns have been organized and carried out by a polycentric global network of student organizers, “frontline” communities (those most directly affected by injustice), radical environmentalists, and traditional non-profits. In the United States, communities have been using non-violent direct action to confront coal at all stages of its lifecycle (finance, extraction, “cleaning” and transport, burning, and energy consumption). This trajectory began gaining momentum on November 10, 2004 with a blockade of Maryland’s Dickerson Power Plant, grew to three major direct actions in 2005, two more in 2006, six in 2007, shot up to 18 actions in 2008, and 15 actions within the first two and a half months of 2009 alone.

Similar to the Anti-Nuclear movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Anti-Coal movement has targeted specific mines and plants while challenging the overall legitimacy of fossil-fuel-based economies.

We organized the Capitol Climate Action because we saw an opening to connect these struggles more publicly, help build momentum around them, and “supercharge” the energy to keep the exponential increase rising.

This struggle has transcended single-issue organizing. The varied efforts to stop coal have brought diverse stakeholders together. Stemming from the people of color, working class, and women-led Environmental Justice movement, Climate Justice has become a political banner for the climate crisis’ intersecting racial justice, economic equity, community health, and environmental quality issues, of which elements of “no coal struggles” are a part. It is useful to think of campaigns against coal as one strand of a robust frontline-led Climate Justice movement.

At CCA, marginalized communities impacted by mountain-top removal mining in Appalachia mobilized their bases to travel to DC. Indigenous communities resisting strip mining and resource theft from the Southwest United States and from Canada joined them. Folks suffering from asthma and pollution caused by coal-burning plants in the inner city also played a role, and were joined and supported by thousands of other folks (primarily white youth and students, but also religious congregations, families, teachers, and others) new to this movement.

Organizers from four national/regional non-profit organizations (Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and the Ruckus Society) comprised the CCA organizing core. These were not community-based organizations, but rather sought to act in solidarity with frontline groups. CCA organizers consulted such communities throughout the build-up, and we invited these groups to lead the march and become spokespeople for the action.

CCA Goals and Outcomes
We had three “big picture” goals with the Capitol Climate Action:

1) Change the national conversation on climate.
We wanted to get sympathetic mainstream media coverage, with a climate justice framework that highlighted coal as a driver of global warming. Within a single media cycle, we had positive pieces in the Associated Press (AP), TIME Magazine, CNN, USA Today, New York Times blogs, Democracy Now!, The Nation, and a host of others. The action generated over 700 media stories.

We wanted the message to be specific enough to be impactful (no more coal!), but also solution-oriented and visionary. Great care was taken to make sure the media reflected concerns ranging from public health to economic sustainability, weaving them together to make a political statement that was quite radical. While media outlets ignored the specifics around “2009 climate policy”, the general receptiveness of media to our broader message reflects an opportunity to continue to build and shape a new progressive narrative around climate and the economy.

2) Press the new administration and Congress for bolder climate policy in 2009.
This “mid-term” goal is difficult to evaluate just a month after the action, but we are already seeing indications of some success. Three days before our action, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that the Capitol Power Plant would be “greened” by switching from coal to natural gas. Our action objectives went well beyond this specific plant, and natural gas is certainly not the solution (it’s an industry-backed false solution), but it’s a meaningful step forward that was clearly the direct result of the threat of protest. While Pelosi’s move seemed aimed at taking the wind out of our sails, it had the opposite effect, publicly validating the power and efficacy of grassroots popular pressure. It demonstrated that people-power can open the political window we have with a new Congress and administration…and that we need to push harder.

We timed our action within the “first 100 days” of the new administration to communicate that regular people are offering leadership and not waiting around to have change legislated for them. More specifically, CCA coincided with the largest lobby day on climate in history. Thousands of young people who attended the Power Shift 09 youth summit on the climate crisis (occurring that same weekend) demanded clean energy policy inside Congress. Various reasons prevented us from working explicitly with the Power Shift conference to have a publicly unified approach, which was a missed opportunity to integrate strategies and do thorough political education with participants about the value of outside friction creating inside momentum.

3) Build the climate justice movement and legitimize non-violent direct action and civil disobedience.
We believe that we will solve the intersecting crises of our time through a mass movement of millions. As such we must to be relevant to, and help build our “anchor” as part of, our country’s progressive majority. We therefore did not focus on mobilizing seasoned activists. We primarily engaged “passive allies” – people who care about the issue but have not yet taken action. We wanted CCA to be a vehicle through which new people had a transformational first experience and joined the movement.

The breadth of endorsing organizations is one indicator of success. More than 100 groups publicly endorsed the action, ranging from public health organizations, religious groups, and clean-energy businesses, to grassroots environmental networks, labor groups, and racial justice organizations. These groups helped mobilize a base of mostly first-time activists, (many of whom also came from Power Shift) who participated in a build-up that trained more than 2,000 people in civil disobedience, growing the capacity of our movement.

We also measure success by how well this action served to “supercharge” the movement against coal across the country. Three days after the CCA, there was another civil disobedience action at Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. Six days later there was a mass-action in Belgium blockading EU Finance Ministers, with over 350 arrests, citing CCA as a big inspiration for their recruitment. On March 14, there was an action in Knoxville protesting the Tennessee Valley Authority around the recent coal ash sludge spill. The Same day, 80 activists inspired by CCA marched in Palm Springs, CA as part of the Power Past Coal campaign. Three CCA inspired actions happened that week in Massachusetts. Decentralized “Fossil Fools Day” actions targeting coal happened across the continent on April 1. On April 20, there is a mass-action called the “Cliffside Climate Action” in North Carolina to stop Duke Energy’s proposed coal plant.

Manufacturing Victory? Arrest and Escalation.
CCA navigated new challenges: we wanted to be good organizers and “meet people where they were at” – which meant “baby steps” for brand new folks. After CCA, some of the more seasoned activists critiqued that we did too much controlled hand-holding of new activists and should have escalated further.

Photo by Elizabeth Lane

We likely could not have escalated this action without some incurring felony charges and potentially endangering others unprepared for it. While escalating to achieve some arrests may have attracted more media attention, it is likely it would have been lower quality. Such coverage would likely focus on a handful of arrests rather than 4,000+ courageous people braving the freezing cold in an unpermitted march and illegal action. Regardless, participant expectations lost alignment at the exit: depending on one’s perception of action goals, this move was either strategic, or a fabricated victory declaration.

A “decision dilemma” is a direct action term that refers to a certain kind of escalation. It means that we create a situation, through non-violent action, where the target is forced to either negotiate with the activists, or react with force (including arrests). Mistake number one was that CCA lacked a real decision dilemma from the beginning, putting us in a difficult spot on the day-of. The lack of demands around this specific plant (and defaulting to national policy-related demands being advanced by the students lobbying that day) undercut the possibility for one. There was no specific response we were demanding on that day, other than the prevention of movement in and out of the plant. In freezing weather and police who were determined to wait us out, we had no tricks up our sleeve. We made the right decision for our circumstance, though questions about whether we could (or should) have shaped the action differently beforehand are valid.

Tactical circumstances (blizzards and all) aside, escalation must be in service of larger movement strategy – would pushing harder have been a service to the goal of bringing along the general public and pulling the conversation further left? Perhaps.

There are two kinds of direct action: “instrumental” and “expressive.”

Expressive actions communicate an idea. They are like a big exclamation point. They help shape popular discourse by influencing public debate. In these kinds of actions, arrests can help raise a profile, attract attention, and can give activists a moral higher ground. They can also, however, marginalize change-agents and distract from core messages, instead focusing on the tactic rather than the issue. Context is important.

Instrumental actions have an immediate concrete goal, directly stopping something from happening (for example, blockading a port deploying weapons to Iraq). In such actions, arrests are not the goal, but often an unfortunate byproduct. As friends have humorously noted, in any struggle throughout history, getting captured is usually seen as a bad thing.

The Capitol Climate Action was a mix of both of these things, leading to differences in perspective among participants about the role of arrests, and a lack of clarity about the utility of focusing on this specific plant, versus the stated symbolic action objectives. This action was an opportunity for us to flex our muscle; it served as a great “gateway,” though it didn’t fully test our limits.

Ninjas playing Chess
While there were over 100 organizations endorsing CCA, the core organizing was convened by four non-profits. The resources and time from these groups helped this action be detail-oriented and well coordinated. The front-line community groups we consulted said they did not have the capacity to help in the organizing, but requested input on the message as well as clear roles up-front in the action itself. Tactical decisions were made on-the-ground by a group of folks prioritizing safety of the group, empowering participants, and getting wide media coverage. Toward that end, we encouraged participants to form affinity groups (small groups of people who support one another). Unlike mass-actions of the Global Justice movement era, these affinity groups did not have decision-making power during the action itself. This organizational model was appropriate for the goals of this particular action, though there is still a crucial role for mass-actions that are rooted in street-level democracy and horizontal decision-making. As a symbolic action, CCA sought to stoke the wildfire of local instrumental actions across the country against the coal industry. Such instrumental actions must be community-led and part of ongoing strategic campaigns.

If we hope to have a sophisticated action-arm of a broader progressive coalition we must be precise about the roles of different organizing models as well as the roles of various organizations within them: “insider” non-profits who have a seat at the government table, direct-action-oriented non-profits, radical grassroots networks, community-based organizations, frontline communities, progressive politicians and green business.
Those of us who play the outside game must increasingly learn to be like ninjas – using exactly as much force as required to reach our objectives, but not more. We must be surgical in our interventions and have a strategic plan for how it helps shape the inside game. As such, movement strategy looks a lot more like a game of chess than one of checkers. Checkers are black and white (or black and red, as it were), and lend themselves to homogenous plowing forward without forethought. Chess is not just a game of strategy, but one that has a team of players each with differentiated roles and abilities. This is our current political moment.

Moving forward
Our political landscape is shifting, as is the nature of the “environmental” movement. Three out of the four White House environmental “heavy hitters” are people of color. Environmental leaders with racial justice organizing backgrounds like Van Jones are becoming Obama’s advisors. This signals a meaningful opening.

Until now, struggles against the coal industry have primarily centered on preventing the construction of new coal-burning plants. We now need to go after existing coal plants across the country. Here, lessons from the Anti-Nuclear movement are instructive. Direct actions at plants across the country did not decommission individual nuclear facilities, but cumulatively helped create moratorium on nuclear plant construction that lasted decades.

The seeds are planted for decentralized actions against coal across the United States, integrated with varied campaigning tactics on multiple fronts. Should we be successful at networking efforts, this network must weave itself into a broader Climate Justice movement (whether or not it uses that name). If we hope to win, the movement must be relevant enough to relate to, and help create, a broad-based progressive majority that is unafraid to build unlikely alliances across the political spectrum, while maintaining a principled anchor of its left wing.

Groups helping anchor the left wing of this formation are tying conditions to participation. These conditions currently center around economic empowerment and social uplift for communities of color and other impacted peoples, led by a compelling, if potentially co-opt-able, call for green jobs. Climate Justice organizers can build their leverage in this new political terrain through increased demonstrations of power. The Capitol Climate Action sought to test our limits, and found that we’re ready for more. So let’s push further.

For photos, video, and other multimedia from the Capitol Climate Action, see www.capitolclimateaction.org.

Joshua Kahn Russell is the Grassroots Actions Manager at Rainforest Action Network and was a lead organizer on the Capitol Climate Action.

Photo by Elizabeth Lane

IN CONTEXT – capitol climate action victory

Joshua Kahn Russell — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:55:48 +0000

Yesterday thousands of people converged on the Capitol Power Plant to engage in mass civil disobedience, shutting it down for the afternoon to demand clean energy solutions to our economic and climate crises.

Check out the recent media coverage in Associated Press (AP), TIME Magazine, CNN, Huffington Post, The Hill, Alternet, and USA Today.

See lots of pictures here.

There is already a lot being written about how this action achieved our goals in building outside pressure, political will, and urgency to change the national conversation around the climate crisis and get bold policy in 2009. The announcement three days prior to our action that the Capitol Power Plant would be switched off coal validates the power of mass pressure and people power, as we push on to fight for truly clean energy. The amazing media (over 400 stories) we have already gotten have helped shape the national conversation.

I want to talk about another goal we had: movement building - and how we can make the most of it.

Through organizing this action, nearly 2,000 people were trained in non-violent direct action. Hundreds of people stepped into roles like peacekeepers, contingent leaders, artists, trainers, media runners, tablers, scouts, chant leaders, media wranglers, technical communications, police liaisons, worker liaisons, trash clean up, medics, support (bringing people food, water, blankets, and hot chocolate), online support, photographers and videographers, spokespeople, and many many others. Our resolve and determination not only brought many to risk arrest, but all of us to brave harsh weather. Speakers ranging from Dr. Vandana Shiva, to Bobby Kennedy, to DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, to Dr. James Hansen took the mic to support this movement and action.

We certainly surpassed our expectation of 3,000 people participating, some are estimating thousands more than that.

But here’s the inside scoop: it’s important to be real about this action, what it is, and what it isn’t.

This action was a national flashpoint to get together and help move our country forward on a federal level. It was also an “outside strategy” that gave leverage to the thousands who were inside Congress lobbying for clear and specific policy.

But we all know that civil disobedience and non-violent direct action is just one tool of many – sometimes it’s strategic, sometimes its not. We are honored and excited that so many thousands of people have had a transformational experience yesterday and are energized to go home and use these tactics. That was a goal.

But to get excited about tactics for their own sake – devoid of strategic context and community accountability – would be to take the wrong lesson home.

We believe in direct action that is community led, and part of ongoing campaigns where directly affected people are in leadership positions and making decisions. These kinds of direct actions are often smaller and much less “sexy” and “flashy” than national convergences like Capitol Climate Action. The role of national convergences like CCA is specific and rare – and the real work happens when we go back home.

While yesterday’s action was endorsed by over 100 organizations, including many from impacted regions throughout the continent, the convening organizations who made up our organizing group (along with allies) – Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and the Ruckus Society – are justice-minded organizations that are national or regional in scope, but are not community-based groups. We want to be transparent about that. We believe in supporting such groups and their leadership in our movement. We were honored to be able to support Native, Appalachian, and urban communities affected by the life cycle of coal in leading our march and being spokespeople for the action. But people wanting to engage in tactics like this should seek local community support and build with one another to craft a smart, thoughtful intervention and escalation with people who live in the impacted area.

A MAJOR VICTORY WAS WON YESTERDAY. But this victory will be powerful when all of us who have been transformed by this action go home to our communities and engage responsibly and strategically. Yesterday’s action is not a model for a community or local action, it was a vehicle to accelerate the national debate and help push our movement forward.

We have talked a lot about how this was the largest mass action on global warming in history – and it was. We should be proud. It is also important for us to think of this as a first step – movements across the globe have been doing this kind of work for ages, and the youth climate movement is very new at it. Let’s celebrate our own power, but do so with humility, knowing we have a lot to learn – not just from the movements that came before us, but from those who are currently pulsing across our planet alongside us. I’ve started to compile a short list of resources on social movements and organizing here. Also see great training organizations like School of Unity and Liberation, Training for Change, Ruckus, SmartMeme, Highlander Center, and Catalyst Project. Check out some tools for inclusive organizing here.

WHAT’S NEXT? – CCA organizers will be compiling a list of next steps, including local campaigns and actions across the country, for folks to plug into as is appropriate. LETS KEEP OUR MOMENTUM GOING!

Posted in Act Locally, Americas, global warming