Along with my older daughter, I spent yesterday at the Climate Rally in Washington D.C.
We drove from Richmond VA in the morning, took the Metro in from northern Virginia, and arrived with the early arrivals at 11:00 a.m. When the program started at noon, We were only around 200 feel from the stage, so we got to see speeches from Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Bill McKibben, and Van Jones. We followed that with a walk up to the White House. Barack was not there of course; he was vacationing.
I suppose it was a lot of people. I heard the figure 35,000. I figure I will knock off 5000 and call it 30,000. I think it was a fairly impressive achievement to get that kind of a turnout considering that it was 35 degrees fahrenheit with a strong breeze. I was dressed for it but I was still uncomfortable for the first two hours of standing in the shivering crowd.
Why were we there? We were trying to remind the current president that he made some very high flying language on climate change in his state of the union chat. He now has a chance to back up that language by refusing to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to come down from the Canadian tar sands to the gulf coast. Van Jones noted, quite rightly, that the first thing the pipeline will run over will be Obama's credibility.
THe attitude of Obama's supporters has often been described by conservatives as hero worship, a slobbering love affair. But that's not what it looks like when you attend one of these large environmental demonstrations. One of the chants during the march on Sunday was "hey Obama, we don't want no climate drama." In other words, please match your words with action. Nice to hear from you that global warming exists. But if it exists, it makes no sense for you to permit the construction of the pipeline.
In the big picture, it occurred to me that many of the college and high school students marching with me yesterday had not been born yet in 1989, when James Hansen spoke to a Congressional Committee, explaining global warming to them and stating that it could be expected to become much worse. I date my commitment to fighting global warming from that event. Over the following 24 years, it has indeed gotten worse, closely following Hansen's predicted temperature curve.
Like the fight for civil rights, this is a long term, slow motion struggle. But it is even more important. That fight, which took many decades, was about equality, as one of yesterday's speakers stated. Today's fight is about continued existence, as he also reminded us. It is hard to get American voters engaged in a struggle that promises them no immediate benefit. The only benefit to slowing and reversing climate change over the course of this century would not be for us, but will be for our great grandchildren. it's a tough sell! since global warming is not going away, it is however a struggle that will inevitably result in a political win for the team of which I am a member.
But the question is, will that victory come too late to mean anything?
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Comments: 29
Until we are willing to say NO to extreme cases of carbon emission, we are not really ready to come to grips with global warming, just as in 1830, we were not willing to come to grips with slavery. We deplored it, sure. But tell somebody he cannot buy or sell a human? Of course not. It would be too mean spirited to stand in the way of somebody making $, right?
The nerve of that charlatan not to have been there at the White House to Award you with..well...something.
He was busy...playing Golf on one of those waste-of-space, environmental disasters known as a Golf Course, and waxing payola with his Oil Buddies. ;]
I'm running out but will be back later to comment.
Of course, since Obama never has to run for public office again, he may not be worried about that. BUT at the same time, he would have to write off environmental voters from his list of supporters for many other political challenges- and that might not look good to him, because he is now embarking on trying to create his "legacy" as a President.
I think most people in the crowd would be realistic and would understand that Obama cannot enact a carbon tax, because the votes are not there. So I think they were looking for SOME signs of determination on dealing with climate change, but not a grand bargain or even major legislation yet.
I hope so. As you note, Congress is the one that has to act and there are powerful lobbying forces currently at work to influence them. We've seen ho the Republican party is willing to sacrifice the American people for purely partisan gain, which means they will hold up other legislation for spite of an Obama administration denial of Keystone.
So it would seem that Obama has a tough road ahead. He must keep talking to the people to get them - us - to be realistic about what can be achieved. At the same time, the people - still us - need to help inform others of the realities of climate change. It will be the people that will drive the ability to get things done.
I came across this article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy does a good job communicating the options and issues of the tar sands and of Keystone.
"One of the chants during the march on Sunday was "hey Obama, we don't want no climate drama." In other words, please match your words with action."
Chris, just imagine being President Obama. He has his hands full. It's up to us to represent his and our wishes and desires. He will listen. However he cannot do it all on his own.
But again, the law grants Obama the power to end the XL with a stroke of his pen. Any many will be watching.
The long-term decision is clear. The short-term decisions may be less clear. That is the dilemma that is facing Obama right now. That, and the reality of having a dysfunctional Congress with one party having completely given up any pretense of governing, and the other also influenced by very powerful lobbies. It's easy to be partisan and effect no action. It's harder to be responsible and take the right action, even if that action doesn't necessarily accomplish all goals at once.
http://vimeo.com/25563376
Great post Chris.