[Part 8 of the Beyond the Underpants Gnomes series, a response to Bill McKibben]
There’s a lot more I was going to write about in this series: how to build a bigger base of supporters, media strategy, the importance of tackling race and class head-on, et cetera. But my energy is flagging a little — and let’s face it, there are lots of places online to get great advice about the nuts and bolts of running campaigns and movement building. But none of it matters for Enviros like McKibben — a smart, talented, dedicated man I respect, even if I’ve been a little snarky towards him — until they’ve made some more fundamental decisions:
- If the DC/Copenhagen boards are stacked against us, does it really make sense to focus our play there? Or should we focus on boards where we’ve got a better chance of winning?
- Are we willing to play to win? Are we willing to do what’s effective instead of what’s easy or comfortable?
These are the fundamental questions folks like McKibbon need to start asking themselves if they’re going to have a chance of stopping global warming.
In case there’s any doubt about the need to move beyond the Underpants Gnomes’ strategy, here’s Exhibit A. After a year of Enviro efforts leading up to Copenhagen, a Pew survey found enviros had lost a lot of ground:
[Fewer Americans] see global warming as a very serious problem – 35% say that today [October 2009] , down from 44% in April 2008…. 57% think there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In April 2008, 71% said there was solid evidence of rising global temperatures. … there has been a comparable decline in the proportion of Americans who say global temperatures are rising as a result of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels. Just 36% say that currently, down from 47% last year….[The drop] has been particularly pronounced among independents. Just 53% of independents now see solid evidence of global warming, compared with 75% who did so in April 2008…. Fewer Democrats also express this view – 75% today compared with 83% last year….
Opinions about global warming changed little between 2006 and 2008. In August 2006 and January 2007, 77% said there was solid evidence that the earth’s temperatures were increasing; that figure fell modestly to 71% in April of last year.
Yes, many corporations and Republican have been viciously attacking global warming as a hoax. And yes, given how terrible the economy was last year you’d expect fewer folks would say global warming was a top priority. But last year was also a year when scientific evidence for global warming got scarily stronger. And it was a year after McKibben’s efforts got off the ground, after several years of efforts building up to it. According to 350.org’s site,
350.org was founded by U.S. author Bill McKibben, who wrote one of the first books on global warming for the general public, and a team of university friends. Together, they ran a campaign in 2007 called Step It Up that organized over 2,000 rallies at iconic places in all 50 of the United States.
If after all those efforts fewer folks are on our side, it’s time to stop digging and figure out a new strategy for getting out of the hole.
