Klimaforandringer i Guds eget land? – I en tid, hvor midt-amerikanske landskaber er truet af svulmende floder og fræsende tornadoer stiller Bill McKibben i dag i en kommentar i Washington Post skarpt på de amerikanske fortrængningsmekanismer, som har sat en egentlig klimalovgivning langt tilbage.

Bill McKibben: A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never!, Washington Post 24.05.2011.

NASA releases latest pictures of Mississippi River Flooding from Space (luftfotografier).

Wow. That was fast.

Apologies for sending multiple emails in one day, but I didn’t want to keep the good news to myself.

About 15 minutes minutes ago, Biljana from Serbia registered an event for her local community in Belgrade.  On 10/10/10, at 10:10 AM, they will take 2nd and 4th graders on an “eco field trip” to volunteer at an sustainable farm, participate in green workshops, and do a trash clean-up.  Of course, they’ll be finishing up their event by forming a big “350″ for a group photo that they will send into 350.org after their event.

Biljana’s event in Serbia was the 5249th event registered for 10/10/10, and it officially broke last year’s record! 

To give you a sense of just how diverse this day promises to be, I’ve pasted a list of a few event highlights assembled by our grassroots media team just below this email.

The next 10 days will be a whirlwind of activity as friends from all over the world focus on making 10/10/10 as widespread, beautiful, and powerful as possible.  If you don’t yet know how you’re plugging into 10/10/10, there’s still lots of time to join or start an event in your community.

Me, I’ll be giving everything I’ve got in this final push.  I’m a bit tired, but am feeling completely recharged by today’s milestone.  It sure is nice to know that this movement is growing bigger all the time.

So many thanks,

Bill McKibben for the 350.org Team

10/10/10 Event Highlights

Funniest: Sumo wrestlers cycling to practice in downtown Tokyo.

Most remote: An education center in the Namib Desert in Namibia installing six solar panels.

Smallest country taking part: Divers on the smallest island nation of the world, Nauru (8.1 square miles) will plunge into their coral reefs for an underwater clean-up.

Most presidential: President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives is installing solar panels on his roof.

Most tipsy: Partiers in Edinburgh will be throwing a “Joycott” (a reverse boycott) at a local bar that agreed to put 20% of its extra revenues on 10/10/10 to making the bar more energy efficient. Attendees will try and drink as much as possible to raise money. Cheers!

Most poignant: In San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico, students will hand out solar-powered lights to families who are still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Alex this June, 2010.

Most cross-cultural: Over 100 cyclists from Jordan, Israel and Palestine taking part in a 3-day bicycle relay to carry water from the Yarmouk River and the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea to symbolize the need for cooperation to stop climate change and save precious water resources.

Most educational: 850 universities in China, India, and the United States are joining 10/10/10 as part of the Great Power Race campaign, a clean energy competition.

Most carbon cut: On 10/10/10 the Mayor of Mexico City will sign a commitment to reduce the city’s emissions 10% in a single year. The city government will be directly responsible for 5% of the reductions and lead a public campaign to get citizens to cut the remaining 5%.

Most futuristic: Young people in Barbados will be demonstrating the viability of fuel cell technology in a hovercraft they have built themselves.

Most ?????: We want to know what’s the most fascinating thing about your event. My more web-savvy colleagues tell me you can feature it as a comment on this popular Facebook post.

PS: Thanks to your help, there are only 14 countries currently missing from the wonderfully crowded map of 10/10/10 events!

Do you have any friends in: Cape Verde, Dominica, East Timor, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Micronesia, Monaco, Myanmar/Burma, Sao Tome and Principe, San Marino, or Suriname?

If you do know anyone in these countries, please try your best to recruit them to sign up an event at 350.org! There’s a quick letter you can send at 350.org/missing.

I don’t quite believe it.

I’ve been double-checking our numbers, and it’s beginning to look like we might shoot past the total of events from last year’s International Day of Climate Action.  As I type this message, the counter is at 5203 events.

You might remember that there were 5248 events in 181 countries last year, and you can watch the compilation video from that day for a reminder of just how beautiful it was.  And how massive it was: CNN said that it was “most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.” I was worried we couldn’t top that for the Global Work Party on 10/10/10–in part because “experts” kept saying people were too discouraged after the failure of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen.

But it’s looking like “experts” were wrong, and this movement is more energized than ever. When we see our leaders failing, we want to show them how it’s done. We want to get to work. We’ll let you know the minute we set a new record–you could help by emailing friends far and near to encourage them to take part.  

And in case you needed a tiny bit more motivation to spread the word, this video just arrived from a friend of ours–Ellen Page.

Ellen is not only a great actress (you may have seen her in “Inception” or “Juno”), she’s also a devoted student of permaculture and sustainability. She wrote me the other day to say that Los Angeles had just set a new all-time temperature record, 113 degrees. From Los Angeles to Laos, it seems that we’re all in this together.

We’ll be in touch soon, but I have the feeling the next bit of news I send will be very, very good indeed.

Onwards,

Bill McKibben for the 350.org Team

Try to fit these facts together:

• According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months, and the warmest April, May, and June on record.
• A “staggering” new study from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40% since 1950.
• Nine nations have so far set their all-time temperature records in 2010, including Russia (111 degrees), Niger (118), Sudan (121), Saudi Arabia and Iraq (126 apiece), and Pakistan, which also set the new all-time Asia record in May: a hair under 130 degrees. I can turn my oven to 130 degrees.
• And then, in late July, the U.S. Senate decided to do exactly nothing about climate change. They didn’t do less than they could have — they did nothing, preserving a perfect two-decade bipartisan record of no action. Senate majority leader Harry Reid decided not even to schedule a vote on legislation that would have capped carbon emissions.

I wrote the first book for a general audience on global warming back in 1989, and I’ve spent the subsequent 21 years working on the issue. I’m a mild-mannered guy, a Methodist Sunday School teacher. Not quick to anger. So what I want to say is: this is fucked up. The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy.

For many years, the lobbying fight for climate legislation on Capitol Hill has been led by a collection of the most corporate and moderate environmental groups, outfits like the Environmental Defense Fund. We owe them a great debt, and not just for their hard work. We owe them a debt because they did everything the way you’re supposed to: they wore nice clothes, lobbied tirelessly, and compromised at every turn.

By the time they were done, they had a bill that only capped carbon emissions from electric utilities (not factories or cars) and was so laden with gifts for industry that if you listened closely you could actually hear the oinking. They bent over backwards like Soviet gymnasts.  Senator John Kerry, the legislator they worked most closely with, issued this rallying cry as the final negotiations began: “We believe we have compromised significantly, and we’re prepared to compromise further.”

And even that was not enough.  They were left out to dry by everyone — not just Reid, not just the Republicans. Even President Obama wouldn’t lend a hand, investing not a penny of his political capital in the fight.

The result: total defeat, no moral victories.

Now What?

So now we know what we didn’t before: making nice doesn’t work. It was worth a try, and I’m completely serious when I say I’m grateful they made the effort, but it didn’t even come close to working. So we better try something else.

Step one involves actually talking about global warming.  For years now, the accepted wisdom in the best green circles was: talk about anything else — energy independence, oil security, beating the Chinese to renewable technology. I was at a session convened by the White House early in the Obama administration where some polling guru solemnly explained that “green jobs” polled better than “cutting carbon.”

No, really?  In the end, though, all these focus-group favorites are secondary.  The task at hand is keeping the planet from melting. We need everyone — beginning with the president — to start explaining that basic fact at every turn.

It is the heat, and also the humidity.  Since warm air holds more water than cold, the atmosphere is about 5% moister than it was 40 years ago, which explains the freak downpours that seem to happen someplace on this continent every few days.

It is the carbon — that’s why the seas are turning acid, a point Obama could have made with ease while standing on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. “It’s bad that it’s black out there,” he might have said, “but even if that oil had made it safely ashore and been burned in our cars, it would still be wrecking the oceans.” Energy independence is nice, but you need a planet to be energy independent on.

Mysteriously enough, this seems to be a particularly hard point for smart people to grasp. Even in the wake of the disastrous Senate non-vote, the Nature Conservancy’s climate expert told New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, “We have to take climate change out of the atmosphere, bring it down to earth, and show how it matters in people’s everyday lives.” Translation: ordinary average people can’t possibly recognize the real stakes here, so let’s put it in language they can understand, which is about their most immediate interests. It’s both untrue, as I’ll show below, and incredibly patronizing. It is, however, exactly what we’ve been doing for a decade and clearly, It Does Not Work.

Step two, we have to ask for what we actually need, not what we calculate we might possibly be able to get. If we’re going to slow global warming in the very short time available to us, then we don’t actually need an incredibly complicated legislative scheme that gives door prizes to every interested industry and turns the whole operation over to Goldman Sachs to run.  We need a stiff price on carbon, set by the scientific understanding that we can’t still be burning black rocks a couple of decades hence. That undoubtedly means upending the future business plans of Exxon and BP, Peabody Coal and Duke Energy, not to speak of everyone else who’s made a fortune by treating the atmosphere as an open sewer for the byproducts of their main business.

Instead they should pay through the nose for that sewer, and here’s the crucial thing: most of the money raised in the process should be returned directly to American pockets. The monthly check sent to Americans would help fortify us against the rise in energy costs, and we’d still be getting the price signal at the pump to stop driving that SUV and start insulating the house. We also need to make real federal investments in energy research and development, to help drive down the price of alternatives — the Breakthrough Institute points out, quite rightly, that we’re crazy to spend more of our tax dollars on research into new drone aircraft and Mars orbiters than we do on photovoltaics.

Yes, these things are politically hard, but they’re not impossible. A politician who really cared could certainly use, say, the platform offered by the White House to sell a plan that taxed BP and actually gave the money to ordinary Americans. (So far they haven’t even used the platform offered by the White House to reinstall the rooftop solar panels that Jimmy Carter put there in the 1970s and Ronald Reagan took down in his term.)

Asking for what you need doesn’t mean you’ll get all of it.  Compromise still happens. But as David Brower, the greatest environmentalist of the late twentieth century, explained amid the fight to save the Grand Canyon: “We are to hold fast to what we believe is right, fight for it, and find allies and adduce all possible arguments for our cause. If we cannot find enough vigor in us or them to win, then let someone else propose the compromise. We thereupon work hard to coax it our way. We become a nucleus around which the strongest force can build and function.”

Which leads to the third step in this process. If we’re going to get any of this done, we’re going to need a movement, the one thing we haven’t had. For 20 years environmentalists have operated on the notion that we’d get action if we simply had scientists explain to politicians and CEOs that our current ways were ending the Holocene, the current geological epoch. That turns out, quite conclusively, not to work. We need to be able to explain that their current ways will end something they actually care about, i.e. their careers. And since we’ll never have the cash to compete with Exxon, we better work in the currencies we can muster: bodies, spirit, passion.

Movement Time

As Tom Friedman put it in a strong column the day after the Senate punt, the problem was that the public “never got mobilized.” Is it possible to get people out in the streets demanding action about climate change? Last year, with almost no money, our scruffy little outfit, 350.org, managed to organize what Foreign Policy called  the “largest ever coordinated global rally of any kind” on any issue — 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries, 2,000 of them in the U.S.A.

People were rallying not just about climate change, but around a remarkably wonky scientific data point, 350 parts per million carbon dioxide, which NASA’s James Hansen and his colleagues have demonstrated is the most we can have in the atmosphere if we want a planet “similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.” Which, come to think of it, we do. And the “we,” in this case, was not rich white folks. If you look at the 25,000 pictures in our Flickr account, you’ll see that most of them were poor, black, brown, Asian, and young — because that’s what most of the world is. No need for vice-presidents of big conservation groups to patronize them: shrimpers in Louisiana and women in burqas and priests in Orthodox churches and slumdwellers in Mombasa turned out to be completely capable of understanding the threat to the future.

Those demonstrations were just a start (one we should have made long ago). We’re following up in October—on 10-10-10—with a Global Work Party. All around the country and the world people will be putting up solar panels and digging community gardens and laying out bike paths. Not because we can stop climate change one bike path at a time, but because we need to make a sharp political point to our leaders: we’re getting to work, what about you?

We need to shame them, starting now. And we need everyone working together. This movement is starting to emerge on many fronts. In September, for instance, opponents of mountaintop removal are converging on DC to demand an end to the coal trade. That same month, Tim DeChristopher goes on trial in Salt Lake City for monkey-wrenching oil and gas auctions by submitting phony bids.  (Naomi Klein and Terry Tempest Williams have called for folks to gather at the courthouse.)

The big environmental groups are starting to wake up, too.  The Sierra Club has a dynamic new leader, Mike Brune, who’s working hard with stalwarts like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. (Note to enviro groups: working together is fun and useful). Churches are getting involved, as well as mosques and synagogues. Kids are leading the fight, all over the world—they have to live on this planet for another 70 years or so, and they have every right to be pissed off.

But no one will come out to fight for watered down and weak legislation.  That’s not how it works. You don’t get a movement unless you take the other two steps I’ve described.

And in any event it won’t work overnight.  We’re not going to get the Senate to act next week, or maybe even next year. It took a decade after the Montgomery bus boycott to get the Voting Rights Act. But if there hadn’t been a movement, then the Voting Rights Act would have passed in… never. We may need to get arrested.  We definitely need art, and music, and disciplined, nonviolent, but very real anger.

Mostly, we need to tell the truth, resolutely and constantly. Fossil fuel is wrecking the one earth we’ve got. It’s not going to go away because we ask politely. If we want a world that works, we’re going to have to raise our voices.

Have comments?  Join the debate at Grist.org or TomDispatch.com

Bill McKibben is founder of 350.org and the author, most recently, of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. Earlier this year the Boston Globe called him “probably the country’s leading environmentalist” and Time described him as “the planet’s best green journalist.” He’s a scholar in residence at Middlebury College.

Bill: Vi vil tage dette tal: 350, som er verdens vigtigste tal og gøre det til det mest kendte tal i verden. Den 24. oktober på den globale aktionsdag vil der være tusinvis af begivenheder over hele verden; alle designede til at banke dette nummer fast; dybt i den menneskelige bevidsthed, og når det sker, vil det direkte påvirke forhandlingerne i København, fordi vi endeligt har fået et mål at gå efter, endelig har fået en bundlinie for hvad vi vil acceptere og hvad vi ikke vil acceptere.

Niels-Holger: Hvad vil være de vigtigste målsætninger for en succesfuld aftale i København?

Bill: København er nødt til at præstere to ting: En stærk videnskabelig begrundet begrænsning af CO2-udledninger, det er det vigtigste, og for at det skal blive muligt, må vi have en stærk aftale om hvordan udviklingslandene skal hjælpes til udvikling uden at være nødt til at afbrænde kul. Hvis vi kan løse problemerne med at overføre teknologi og ressourcer fra den rige verden til den fattige verden, så er der en reel mulighed for at nå en virkelig global begrænsning af CO2.

Niels-Holger: Vil det være muligt at nå en aftale med store udledere som USA, Australien, Japan, Canada og andre som bagtrop? Kan der lægges pres på disse stater, eller vil de trække alle med sig i dybet?

Bill: Vi er nødt til at lægge et alvorligt pres på alle disse lande, ellers vil de trække alle andre ned eller tilbage. Vi kan gøre det, hvis vi organiserer over hele verden. Kina vil forstå, at de ikke kan være aftalebryder, USA vil forstå, at de ikke kan være den slemme fyr internationalt. Hvis det ikke er nok, så må vi alle vegne fra lægge pres på disse spillere, det er derfor vi må bruge global organisering.

Niels-Holger: Hvad mener du er de vigtigste ting at fortælle folk om 350 for at øge presset?

Bill: 350 betyder, at dette ikke længere er et problem for fremtiden. Vi er allerede godt forbi 350 med 389 ppm, alt for meget CO2 allerede – det handler ikke om fremtiden, det handler om nu. Det betyder, at vi må ændre retning nu, der er ikke tid til små gradvise ændringer, situationen kræver radikale ændringer. Det er det vigtigste ved 350 – at vi haster med at reagere.

Niels-Holger: Anser du 350.org for at være en organisation der kæmper for solidaritet mellem rige og fattige lande?

Bill: Den vigtigste del af vores organisering foregår, på mange måder, i verdens fattige lande i Asien, Latinamerika og Afrika, fordi disse lande har været i stand til at spille en rolle i denne debat og fordi disse lande vil blive ramt hårdest og først. Disse lande har krav på at blive hørt. Det er derfor 350.org har kontorer bemandet med unge mennesker i Congo, i Johannesburg, i Delhi, i Kina, i Equador og alle slags steder hvor man vil komme til at bære de største byrder, og hvor man har den mindste andel i skabelsen af dette problem.

Niels-Holger: Hvordan ser du på tiden efter december for 350.org?

Bill: Jeg synes, at det er svært at vide hvad fremtiden bringer så længe vi ikke kender resultatet fra København, men det er helt klart nu,at København ikke kan blive endestationen for denne proces. Det er i bedste fald snarere en slags begyndelsen med hensyn til reel handling for at tage meget stærkere skridt end vi har taget hidtil. Derfor vil kampangen fortsætte, men det er nødvendigt at 24. oktober bliver en virkelig succes. For virkeligt at gøre en forskel er vi nødt til at bringe tallet (350, nh) helt frem i den menneskelige bevidsthed.

Niels-Holger: Du er af Post Carbon Institute blevet udnævnt til at være rådgiver/medarbejder om lokalisering (lokal udvikling i modsætning til globalisering, nh). Frygter du at peak oil kunne skabe vanskeligheder i kampen for at nå målet 350 ppm?

Bill: Det frygter jeg virkeligt. Selvom det betyder, at vi bliver nødt til at standse afbrændingen af olie, vil det sandsynligvis føre til at man vil forsøge at erstatte olie med kul for at drive vores samfund, og kul er endnu mere beskidt end olie. Vi kan ikke forlade os på, at det faktum, at vi løber tør for olie, vil hjælpe os. Vi er nødt til at skabe en politik som sikrer at vi erstatter olie med sol og vind – ikke med kul.

Niels-Holger: Kommer du til København til december?

Bill: Jeg kommer til København til december. Det bliver kaotisk og vildt, men jeg kommer! Men det vigtigste arbejde ligger i ugerne op til København, hvor det stadig er muligt at blive hørt i tumulten.

Niels-Holger: Tror du, at præsident Obama dukker op?

Bill: Jeg håber han dukker op, og jeg tror på at han dukker op. Hvis han kommer er det et godt tegn, der betyder at USA og Kina har nået en eller anden form for overbevisende aftale, så vi i det mindste har et håb om en reel aftale i København. Præsident Obama kan ikke gøre disse ting alene, han behøver en bevægelse bag sig. Det Hvide Hus har gjort det klart for os ved at sige: “Vi ønsker forandring. Få os til at gøre det!” De behøver en forenet bevægelse hvor du og jeg arbejder sammen for at skabe 350.org.

Niels-Holger: Skal du have en god lang ferie efter COP15?

Bill: Ha, ha, ja det er skal jeg! Jeg er fanatisk langrendløber, så min plan er at tage hjem til bjergene, hvor jeg bor (Vermont, USA, nh). Og jeg håber at den gode Gud vil belønne mig for års arbejde med et rigtigt stort og tykt tæppe af sne, så jeg kan fordrive en måned med bare at gå ud af min havedør og stå på ski i skovene. Hvis det sker vil jeg snart være udhvilet og parat til at klø på igen!

/nh

Ikke fordi der er noget nyt i at opfordre til civil ulydighed rettet mod kulafbrænding.

Greenpeace har længe, med en vis succes, praktiseret denne form for civil ulydighed. Senest gjorde de det i forrige uge, hvor de rettede opmærksomheden mod Danmarks store kulforbrug ved en aktion mod et af de to transportbånd på Enstedværket i Aabenraa; og et par dage tidligere ved en af de velkendte gummibådsaktioner, denne gang rettet mod kultransportskibet Hanjin Imbari i Storebælt ud for Nyborg. Det var på vej til Enstedværket med en megaladning kul; læs CO2 til atmosfæren.

Men fordi vi, over en bred front, er nødt til at tage skærpede midler i brug for at forhindre, at næste års COP15 i København bliver en lige så stor fiasko, som den nys afsluttede COP14 i Poznan, rent beslutningsmæssigt altså, for der skete jo også store ting i forbindelse med Poznan, se fx. her på Strøtanker. Det går ikke længere an at overlade scenen alene til Greenpeace. Det gør det alt for nemt for kullobbyen at udpege modstanden mod kulsvineriet som værende uden egentlig folkelig opbakning[1]. Vi må vise, at vi er flere og flere, der slutter op om en mere radikal og stedse mere nødvendig klimapolitik.

Tiden er knap, og vi må skærpe midlerne, hvis vi vil nå i hus. Klimaet retter sig ikke efter vores fromme ønsker, men efter vores praksis.

James Hansen opfordrede faktisk også for nylig til civil ulydighed ved i retten at forsvare de engelske greenpeace-aktivister, der havde besat det kulfyrede kraftværk i Kingsnorth, Skotland – og som blev frikendt! Læs mere herom på Strøtanker. Civil ulydighed er helt klart blandt de midler, der skal overvejes i klimakampen frem mod COP15. Aldrig har civil ulydighed været mere legitim.

Berrys og McKibbens åbne brev, udsendt, og bragt bragt i The Huffington Post, den 12. december 2008:

Kære venner

Der findes øjeblikke i en nations – og i en planets – historie, hvor det kan være nødvendigt, at nogen bryder loven for at gøre opmærksom på et onde, bringe viden om det ud til en større offentlighed, og presse på for dets afskaffelse. Vi mener at et sådant tidspunkt er nået nu, og vi skriver dette for at sige, at det er vores håb, at nogle af jer vil være sammen med os i Washington den 2. marts for at tage del i en civil ulydighedshandling mod et kulfyret kraftværk beliggende tæt på Capitol Hill (Kongressen, nh).

Vi vil være at finde der for at gøre opmærksom på flere pointer:

- Kulfyrede kraftværker forårsager klimaændringer. Vores mest fremtrædende klimatolog, NASAs James Hansen, har vist, at vores eneste håb for at bringe atmosfæren tilbage til et sikkert niveau – under 350 milliontedele CO2 – ligger i at holde op med at bruge kul til elektricitetsfremstilling.

- Selv hvis klimaforandringerne ikke var den presserende krise, som de er, ville vi stadig afbrænde de fossile brændstoffer for hurtigt, spilde for meget energi, og udlede for meget gift til luften og havet. Vi ville stadig have behov for at drosle ned og genopfinde den økonomiske dyd sparsommelighed.

- Kul er beskidt ved kilden. Det meste kul, anvendt i dette land, kommer fra West Virginia og Kentucky, hvor mineselskaber engagerer sig i “mountaintop removal”[2] for at skaffe sig adgang til stoffet; de efterlader sig udjævnede ørkenlandskaber og forarmede lokalsamfund. Ingen teknologi eksemplificerer bedre, at menneskets forhold til resten af skabelsen er ude af kontrol.

- Kulrøg gør børn syge. Astmaforekomsten i byområder tæt på kulfyrede kraftværker er høj. Luftforureningen fra afbrænding af kul er også sundhedsskadelig for voksne og for, herunder skove, alt der ånders eksistens.[3]

Kulindustrien hævder, at der findes noget, som de kalder for “rent kul”. Det er, sagt ligeud, en løgn. Men det er en løgn fortalt med millioner af dollars i ryggen, hvilket vi ikke har. Vi har vores kroppe og er villige til at bruge dem for at fastslå vores mening. Et sådant skridt er ikke let at tage. Vi har i mange år skrevet, vidnet og organiseret os politisk for at få vores mening frem, og mens der i de seneste måneder har været reel fremgang i modstanden imod kulfyrede kraftværker, så er den sædvanlige praksis med at producere halvdelen af vores elektricitet på basis af kul fortsat uantastet. Det er på tide at gøre det klart, at vi ikke kan drive denne planet på kul overhovedet. Derfor føler vi, at tiden er moden til en optrapning – vi hører at præsident Barak Obama taler for en bevægelse for forandring, som fortsætter ud over valgdagen, og vi hører at nobelprismodtager Al Gore advokere for kreativ ikkevold ved kulkraftværkerne. Som en del af de internationale forhandlinger, der snart vil finde sted, vil vores nation bede Kina, Indien og andre om i fremtiden at begrænse deres anvendelse af kul for at redde planetens atmosfære. Det er en barsk ting at bede om, fordi det er deres billigste brændsel. En del af vores bekendelse til marts vil være at sige, at vi selv er villige til at bringe nogle ofre, selv hvis det kun bliver en tur i spjældet.

Med lidt held vil dette blive den hidtil største protest, stor nok til at levere en virksom gnist. Hvis du ønsker at deltage sammen med os, har du behov for at gennemgå et kort kursus i ikkevold. Demonstrationen vil, i den udstrækning det står til os, blive fuldstændig fredelig og udført i håbets og ikke hadets ånd. Vi vil møde op i vores pæne tøj og bede dig om at gøre det samme. Der vil komme unge mennesker, folk fra trossamfund, folk fra kulfelterne i Appalacherne og fra omegnen af Washington, de som kommmer til at indånde røgen fra værket.

Vi vil krydse grænsen til kraftværkets grund og forventer at blive arresteret. Hvad der sker herefter, kan vi ikke sige med sikkerhed, men advokater og lignende vil være for hånden. Vores mål er ikke at lukke værket resten af dagen, som kun bliver en af mange. Under alle omstændigheder er værkets drift i en enkelt dag ikke vores pointe. Faren er den verdensomspændende daglige afhængighed af kul; dette er et lille skridt til at rejse bevidstheden om denne ruinerende last og siden bidrage til at bryde den.

Det er selvfølgeligt overflødig at sige, at vi ikke står i spidsen og leder på denne dag. Hele æren tilfalder forskellige grupper, specielt Energiaktionen (som bringer tusindvis af unge mennesker til Washington denne weekend), Greenpeace, Ruckussamfundet, og Regnskovsnetværket. Et website under sidstnævnte organisation tjener som et foreløbigt aktionscenter. Hvis du besøger det, vil du finde et sted at tilmelde dig, så vi ved at du vil deltage sammen med os.

Tak skal I have

Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben

P.S. Dette er vigtigt: Vær så venlig at videresende dette brev til enhver, som du tror er interesseret.

Oversættelse af Niels-Holger Nielsen

Oversætterens noter

[1] DONG har dog valgt en anden taktik, idet de har indbudt Greenpeace til offentlig dialog. Læs her på jp.dk. Greenpeace er trods alt – og heldigvis – ikke til at komme udenom, en anerkendt diskussionspartner.

[2] Stripmining, enorme åbne miner, se Information fra i lørdags og/eller besøg hjemmesiden: Jeg elsker bjerge (ilovemountains.org) for mere information om disse uhyrligheder.

[3] Barry og McKibben er i sandhed venlige ved kulindustrien, som har langt flere synder på samvittigheden, end de nævner her. Umiddelbart kan jeg komme på to. For det første forurener kulbrydningen i stor målestok, tilsigtet eller utilsigtet, grundvandsressourcer, floder og søer. For det andet er kulafbrænding den største og dominerende enkeltkilde til den verdensomspændende kviksølvforurening, som gør det farligt at fortære fisk og havpattedyr øverst i fødekæden. For så vidt held i uheld, da mange af disse dyrearter er truet af udryddelse på grund af rovdrift fra menneskets side. Et eklatant eksempel på kviksølv som miljøgift er Minematakatastrofen i Japan, som opbyggedes fra 1932 til 1968 som en følge af industriel forurening af et fabriks-, bonde- og fiskersamfund med kviksølvholdige stoffer fra petrokemisk produktion. Muligvis den hidtil største forgiftningsulykke på det tidspunkt, hvor den blev opdaget. Kviksølvforgiftning af jorden og havet anses bla. for at være kilde til mange tilfælde af Parkinsons sygdom.

Friends,

We’re celebrating a new holiday around the office today: it’s the 350th day of the year, and since we’re numerologists, we pretty much have to mark the occasion.

Actually, it’s most appropriate, because we have more to celebrate today than any time since our campaign began a year ago. Thanks to all of your hard work in the last year, the news that this is the most important number in the world has begun to spread.

We saw just how far on Friday, in Poznan, Poland.  At the end of otherwise dreary UN Climate Talks, Al Gore gave a big speech to everyone there. It was well-received–but by far the longest and loudest applause came when he announced that he too has joined the 350 bandwagon. “Even a goal of 450 parts per million, which seems so difficult today, is inadequate,” said Gore, adding we “need to toughen that goal to 350 parts per million.”

Those few words changed the course of the climate debate. We now have the most important political figure in the global warming world agreeing with the most important scientific figure, James Hansen, that 350 has got to be the target. It was a brave thing for Gore to do–it would have been far easier not to upset the process, even though its sleepwalking towards a treaty too tame to do any good. Instead, Al Gore told the truth.

Telling the truth–it’s what we all need to do for the year to come. We’re more excited than ever about our plans for a a big mobilization in 2009, and we’ll be in touch soon to make sure you’re ready to go.

But not today. Today, no links to click, or e-mails to send. Just a well-deserved moment of celebration. You’ve helped start the process of changing the world.

Thanks for all you do,

Bill McKibben, for the 350.org crew

P.S. One more reason to celebrate: thanks in part to many of you signing on, over 80 countries endorsed the “Survival Pledge” last week, securing its inclusion in a key UN summary document.  This is no small milestone–the survival principle offers the most vulnerable countries in the world a solid platform moving forward.  Many thanks for doing your part.