In a recent Nation article, Bill McKibben reviews Al Gore’s new book, Our Choice. McKibben likes the book, but he’s got one major problem with it:
Gore, I think, has reasonably answered … the good-faith (as opposed to talk-radio) objections of anyone wondering if the world really could exist without fossil fuels. The answer is, not easily, but it’s well within the realm of technical possibility. If we followed his advice, we’d make it. What’s lacking, of course, is the political will to really do it.And if there’s one weakness this time around, it’s that Gore could have devoted a little space to figuring out how we should build that political will….
Simply adding a few thousand more tons of scientific reports to the environmental side of the scale won’t tip the debate, not when Exxon can afford to buy the necessary coterie of Congress members. The only thing that will suffice is to build a movement strong enough in some other currency (bodies in the street, votes in the ballot box) to provide serious counterpressure.
That’s why McKibben helped found 350.org, an attempt to build a grassroots movement to stop global warming. In October, it organized an incredible number of people around the globe who held thousands of vigils. It was a good first step, says McKibben.
But this kind of movement will need to continue and grow. We’ll need civil disobedience, of the kind that blockaded Congress’s coal-fired power plant last spring; we’ll need symbolic witness, like 350.org; we’ll need old-fashioned lobbying.
McKibben ends his review with a quote from the end of Gore’s book, an imaginary speech from the future about how the US and the world have become prosperous because of their fight to stop global warming. It’s a great dream, says McKibben.
[But] making it real will depend on how hard we push the system. There’s no question it’s capable of responding, and no question that left to its own devices it won’t.
Sounds good to me. But what exactly are McKibben and 350.org going to try to do? Since McKibben’s article didn’t provide details, I went to 350.org to find out. What I found was… more vigils!
The weekend for these vigils falls smack in the middle of the two-week Copenhagen talks. President Obama just announced that he will visit Copenhagen on December 9th–and there’s no doubt that he’ll deliver a rousing and eloquent speech. The following day, December 10th, he’ll go on from Copenhagen to Norway to collect his Nobel prize. We need to send a signal to say that speeches and prizes are good, but action is what’s really required–enough action to head us back towards 350 parts per million….
The United States now holds a big key to unlock this process, and we need Obama and the U.S. Congress to turn that key–which is why many of the candlelight vigils will take place at U.S. senate offices, and at U.S. embassies and consulates around the world.
Candlelight vigils to try to move the Senate?? Good luck with that.
I’m not looking for a 50 page strategy document (okay, I personally am, but I’m an activist geek). But this? This is not a recipe for success.
A friend of mine calls this the Underpants Gnomes strategy. It’s from South Park; AllExperts explains:
The Underpants Gnomes are a community of underground gnomes who steal underpants, notably from Tweek.The Underpants Gnomes have a three-phase business plan, consisting of:
Collect underpants
???
Profit!
Although Silicon Valley folks see it as a parody of dot com business plans, it works just as well as a description of our side’s typical organizing plan. When this plan — surprise, surprise! — doesn’t succeed, we blame the politicians and big corporations. Then we move onto the next big fight. And once again stealing underpants somehow doesn’t produce victory.
Bottom line: if you want to change the rules of the game, you’ve gotta know the rules for change.
UPDATE: I am not implying that McKibben isn’t very smart or extremely dedicated. This isn’t about him, it’s about a structural problem on our side. We’ve yet to build a progressive culture that really understands what movement building is all about. The reason I get this isn’t because I’m smarter than McKibben — I’m not. It’s because I’ve been lucky enough to have worked in parts of the progressive world where I got schooled the hard way (and because I have friends who smack me upside the head when I start forgetting those lessons).
