Readers of this blog may have noticed my extended absence. Contrary to how it may appear, I have not slackened in my dedication to the climate fight! Rather, I have been totally engrossed in the formation of the group The Climate Mobilization, and writing our introductory document, Rising to the Challenge of Our Time, Together.
I am extremely excited to share this with you, in part because I hope that readers might want to join The Climate Mobilization, and help us launch the Pledge to Mobilize! Please checkout our “Launching Soon” Page at TheClimateMobilization.org
All questions, comments, and reactions are very welcome. I will now let the document speak for itself!
I support the Climate Mobilization project. The logic and the intent are excellent. I have three comments. First, if this project is to recruit via in-person induction, it needs a physical context. That means meeting places, which brings to mind school organizations: schools have meeting places (and young people). The point isn’t that schools are a good and obvious place to start. It’s literally that they have physical spaces. Second, the manifesto should have a short version. It should also have a slogan, a phrase that defines both perception and intent. Suggestion: “Future Theft!” You need a concept, so cut to the chase: “future theft.” The future is being stolen. It’s scalable to the logical conclusion, which is extinction: the future of the human race is being stolen. And you get all the spin-offs like Stop thief!, etc. Third, you need link buttons on everything you publish. I’d link your post to FB if I could. Probably there’s some way to do that without a link button, but I don’t know it.
Something like what you’re proposing will certainly get going in the near future, and not just because concerned citizens can agree that there’s a need for it. The main reason it will happen is oceanic anger. We already have latent anger; most everybody at some level knows that we’re fucked. The theme pervades popular culture. But meantime we’re getting confirmation on a daily basis that it’s not just geek phantasmagoria. What happens when people realize that their grandchildren right this minute REALLY ARE getting dumped into Mad-Max world? It’s a safe bet that they’re going to be pissed off. They already are, notwithstanding poll data that show fitful interest in climate issues. The polling is missing a deep sense of hurt, in the sense of betrayal. I think it’s about to explode.
The truly flabbergasting thing about this, at least in terms of the immediate here & now? The Obama Administration is evidently clueless about the politics. They don’t understand that revolt is brewing. To the degree that the future sponsors historians, is able to do so, there will be a historical judgment about the Obama era: what James Buchanan was to the Civil War, Barack Obama is to climate catastrophe, with the proviso that Obama’s incompetence will bring incalculably worse consequences.
It’s not too late. Luckily, the enemies are visible and they go out of their way to be odious. They even brag about being odious (see recent comments from Rex “T. Rex” Tillerson of ExxonMobil, to the effect that he’ll continue and even speed his manic carbon extraction no matter what the UN says).
Yours in Stop Future Theft,
Lewis Gannett
Margaret and friends, grand work. Seriously. Positives ;The sentence “The arrangements that we rely on are unraveling” Freaking perfect! “Leadership failure”, has to be done; and you did, and you did.
The mobilization imperative is where it gets tough for the average person who will be hot, hungry, confused and unled by his government,.as they WERE led in ww2.. we have to provide some guarantee of loyality, some way to show this loyality may save your life or the planet . better create the tribe….of which I am a member
I am of course with you and working in small ways to get away from fossil fuels in all aspects of my life.
Your comrade
Barb Coddington
Firstly, I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to you for providing such a wonderful resource! In all honesty, I feel great uncertainty about the future, and it has only been a few days now since I revived my curiosity and desire to know more about climate change. I was not in denial, but I felt indifferent. I think, perhaps, the real trouble will be to restore a sense solidarity, and belief that we can effectively change the direction of the future. I feel/ felt troubled by the lack of attention we have given this issue, but I feel a greater sense of comfort knowing we can change the outcome by education and radicalizing our efforts. Now, I am just trying to learn as much as I can, and hope to help encourage a dialogue amongst my peers and community.
Brilliant and bold !! (see Time To Be Bold). The target that matters is zero carbon industrial emissions (onyzerocarbon.com). To get to zero and have a chance of avoiding planetary catastrophic runaway climate change your 25% US cut rate accords with the science. It is pointless demanding less than what we need for future survival. The IPCC Working Group 2 leaves no doubt our risks of world agricultural collapse and of multiple amplifying feedback runaway climate change are extreme – see image (climateemergecyinstitute,com). In 2009 Hans Schellnhuber (director Potsdam Climate Institute) proposed to the German govt a budget amongst nations in which the US would reach zero carbon emissions by 2019 and Germany by 2031.
Thank you all for your thoughtful comments! Would you please consider also posting your comments on TheClimateMobilization.org ? (I just figured out how to display a comment box on the front page!)
Your ally,
Margaret