A couple years ago, the White House sent a clear message to Bill McKibben: President Obama can't do what needs to be done within the current political forces. Obama needs us to pressure DC to take the action needed for environmental change and reform. The WH message was that WE need to build the movement that gives Obama the room to do what needs to be done.
Bill McKibben explains why our environmental bloggers at DK are so important to this movement:
Here's the truth--environmentalists are badly outgunned in the fight over climate change, up against the biggest and most profitable industry on earth. We've got to make smart use of the few wild cards in our hand, the most important of which is our newfound ability to communicate our message through the net.
There's no way that even ten years ago we could have ever built 350.org into a huge grassroots operation, on the ground in every country but North Korea. And we've done it without becoming an "organization," and staying instead a campaign--one that operates like a potluck supper, where people lend their expertise.
Those people crucially include the community of green bloggers, including the folks at dailykos. Ever since Kossacks built the most interesting and comprehensive energy plan in the country, I've been aware of what a powerful bunch they are. But it's now--as we begin to organize with an ever -stronger political bent, that we need them most. We can't buy ads; we have to work with what we've got. But since I grew up in Lexington, Mass, giving tours of the Battle Green as my summer job, I have some confidence that insurgents can carry the day against great empires. Our Minutemen today work, among other things, behind the keyboard.
(This "comprehensive energy plan" or Energize America, is available here.)
As the best progressive/liberal online community in the world, Daily Kos is a key part of building the movement described by Bill McKibben. Our environmental community has worked hard over the past years, but now DK4 provides tools to make issue advocacy, take action and coalition building easier.
Over the past couple years, our eco community has created the structures we need for political advocacy and coalition building. In 2009, Meteor Blades, Land of Enchantment and I organized Eco Week to highlight environmental issues. Our logo for Eco Week was designed by LOE. LOE and I started with 14 diarists, and that number grew to 64 diarists and 80 diaries published during Eco Week that focused on how environmental issues were intertwined with issues not considered environmental. As Meteor Blades stated:
Ties were found to health care, jobs, the economy, labor, political stability, family, equal justice, human rights and poverty. Our diaries explained these linkages and the need for sustainability.
One of the exciting aspects of Eco Week is illustrated in our schedule for Eco Week where our entire community came together, not just environmental writers.
While Eco Week showed community interest in environmental matters, Meteor Blades noted how "no vehicle existed in which to explore mutual interests and do the kind of political organizing and networking that Daily Kos was instrumental in inventing." So, a DK GreenRoots Google Group was created to work with DailyKos Environmentalists on the discussion and advocacy of environmental issues. There are over 1,600 members in both groups of both kossacks and nonkossacks. A DK GreenRoots diary series was created and hosted several nights each week, not just by eco writers, but our entire community. I remember when our resident historian, Unitary Moonbat, wrote about: History for Kossacks/Greenroots Special: Long-Distance Hiking Trails. We also worked on a DK GreenRoots website, which was designed to provide another part of our progressive organizational structure, but we ran into platform issues.
Finally, Meteor Blades, in addition to being co-founder of DK GreenRoots, leader and an invaluable and wise advisor, each week provides essentially a magazine of our environmental writings with Green Diary Rescue.
With structures in place, DK GreenRoots members then organized a number of blogathons, including DK participation in Bill McKibben's 350.org Blog Action Today and another for International Day of Climate Action.
DK GreenRoots then reached out beyond kossacks for a Climate Change Reality blogathon that was a mini-coalition of scientists, lawmakers, activists, eco NGOS and bloggers, including: top climate scientists Prof. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele (the IPCC Vice-chair) and Michael MacCracken, who has advised Al Gore; Senators John Kerry and Jeff Merkley, Daniel Kessler of Greenpeace, Carl Pope of Sierra Club, Pete Altman of NRDC, Keith Schneider from CAN (U.S. Climate Action Network) and a number of environmental DK bloggers.
DK4 now provides the tools we need to make advocacy and organizing projects easier. DK GreenRoots will continue organizing projects with lawmakers, environmental organizations, scientists and activists on a variety of issues. DK GreenRoots works on building coalitions with Eco NGOs, environmental justice organizations, non-environmental groups and political organizations that are aligned with our interests on projects.
Today, I'd like to highlight a few of the talented members of Eco NGOs, who are members of DK, and whose contribution to environmental advocacy is so vital. (Please note that this is my first diary in a new series (DK Eco Writers) that will be highlighting environmental writers at Daily Kos, whether they are with eco NGOs, other organizations, or individual bloggers.)
The background, experience, activism and leadership skills of these Eco NGO kossacks add such richness to our existing outstanding pool of diarists from many different backgrounds. Supporting each other more in diary discussions and working cooperatively together can help build a coalition for the movement Bill described.
Phil Radford – GreenPeace Executive Director and was on an NN panel this year: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce: How Corporate Front Groups are Corrupting our Democracy.
As the Executive Director of Greenpeace, Phil Radford is at the helm of one of the largest and most influential environmental organizations in the country. Radford leads a national team of 500 highly-skilled environmental leaders working in 23 cities across the U.S. on national and global campaigns to protect our planet’s oceans, forests, and climate.
Radford began his environmental career as a student organizing to shut down incinerators on the West Side of Chicago. Radford spent the next five years running door-to-door fundraising and campaign offices for PIRG, the Sierra Club, and the Human Rights Campaign. With his roots in local organizing and fundraising, Radford has always specialized in mobilizing people to raise their voices for the right to clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet for our children.
Over the past decade, Radford has managed several high-impact, national campaigns on global warming, including Global Warming 2000, which convinced Senator McCain to take leadership on global warming; The Global Climate Coalition Campaign, where he managed the national field work that forced Ford, GM, Texaco, and other companies to stop funding the Global Climate Coalition, the industry front-group funding global warming skeptics; persuading Citigroup to increase investments in clean energy; and working with over a dozen communities to make significant investments in clean energy.
Radford is a regular contributor to Huffington Post and has appeared on CNN, Fox News, NBC, and ABC News.
Pete Altman - Climate Campaign Director for NRDC
Pete is responsible for developing and managing NRDC’s campaigns to address global warming.
Over the years, Pete has been involved in a number of successful campaigns. He was campaign director for one organization that successfully exposed and highlighted efforts by the Bush administration and key officials to promote destructive public and wild lands policies. As Executive Director for another organization, he led a coalition that was instrumental in winning passage on Governor George W. Bush’s watch of a landmark bill forcing the clean-up of dirty power plants and establishing Texas’ first ever statewide renewable energy and energy efficiency standards.
Pete also led another campaign -- a coalition of faith, investor and environmental investors -- that succeeded in persuading record numbers of ExxonMobil shareholders to vote against the company’s recalcitrant position on global warming.
Rob Perks - Deputy Director of Programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council
ROB PERKS is Deputy Director of Programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in Washington, DC. Prior to that Rob served as Director of NRDC's Center for Advocacy Campaigns, leading a team of campaign managers who guide our policy experts in shaping and executing strategic campaigns on the institution's strategic priorities. Rob is a committed generalist when it comes to environmental issues but is considered a national expert on mountaintop removal coal mining and created NRDC’s successful initiative to organize musical artists for the cause: www.MusicSavesMountains.org.
For two decades Rob has led campaigns for nonprofit advocacy organizations including: U.S. Public Interest Research Group,Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), and American Rivers. He was the youngest ever executive director of the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation (PTRF) in North Carolina. He also served on the staff of U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT).
Apollo Gonzales - NRDC’s Director of Social Advocacy
Born and raised in the heart of the Texas oil industry, Houston, it took a while for me to come around to loving the environment. I spent the first 10 years of my post high school life working for companies that supplied the industry. My father was a migrant worker as a child, and shared his love of the earth with me, and now at the NRDC I'm hoping to make up for lost time. I am a technology geek through and through, whether it is learning a new social networking tool, or building a bowdrill fire, I'm fascinated with innovation. I spend my life trying to balance technology with my passion for the wilderness, and as NRDC’s Director of Social Advocacy I get to find that balance nearly every day.
Mary Anne Hitt - Director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign and was on two NN panels this year: "The Last Mountain" (full-length screening and discussion) and Dirty Energy: The Fight Against Coal, Oil, Natural Gas and Nuclear Power.
Mary Anne Hitt is director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, which is working to eliminate coal’s contribution to global warming and repower the nation with clean energy. She previously served as executive director of Appalachian Voices, where she was one of the creators of iLoveMountains.org, an online campaign to end mountaintop removal coal mining that received national recognition for innovation and impact. She was also previously the executive director of the Ecology Center and the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project. Mary Anne grew up in the mountains of east Tennessee and now lives in West Virginia.
Ann Mesnikoff - Director of the Sierra Club's Green Transportation Campaign
Ann Mesnikoff directs Sierra Club's Green Transportation Campaign, which is working to strengthen vehicle standards, increase transportation choices, and achieve livable communities that will help America move beyond oil. She's been with the Sierra Club since 1995 and has also consulted for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
If you are interested in environmental advocacy, coalition building, or a movement to achieve needed reforms, please join DK GreenRoots by sending me a private message or posting a comment. If you would like to follow us, this is our profile page.
DK GreenRoots is a group covering all environmental issues:
DK GR is a forum for advocacy, education and discussion of environmental issues, including climate change, conservation of natural resources and wildlife, energy, environmental degradation, environmental justice, human health, pollution, water resources, resource depletion and biodiversity.