For those of you just tuning in, over the past two weeks, there’s been #NoDAPL, an apparent victory that isn’t really one because DAPL is continuing to lay pipe. And then there’s the Pretender-Elect picking the foe of Obama climate agenda to run EPA. Oh, and this: Trump advisors aim to privatize oil-rich Indian reservations. I’m sure you can check the #climatechange tag here to see plenty of terrifying news about what we’re facing, even if we act fast. And from the way the Repubs are going (because this isn’t just one guy), the only fast act we’ll be doing is to destroy the earth even faster than we already are.
Over on twitter, a thread by @rossalincoln got me thinking about how HRC’s popular votes demonstrate our numbers. Mixed in with post-thread thoughts, I kept seeing commentary about how Repubs are determined to basically use up the planet, get theirs, and leave millions to die. That’s not exaggeration. Millions will die, and all DAPL and Kinder Morgen care about is making money, and to hell with the rest of us. And to hell with our planet.
The only reason to invest (in anything) is to make money. We can’t wait for Federal (or even State) clean air/water/power laws, since those would just get tied up in court like all the rest. We need to make carbon-producing investments cost more than any profit. The average amoral businessperson doesn’t give a damn what they’re selling; they only care about the profit margin. If the profit margin in solar power, wind power, or anything else suddenly jumps while oil/coal plummets, hell yeah they’d switch over in a heartbeat.
I don’t have the answers. But I figured, with all the various posts, we needed at least one where we could figure out a few other ways to tackle this. So I’m just going to toss a few things out there, and maybe we can brainstorm some additional strategies.
1. Figure out the investors behind the biggest carbon-producing companies, like the ones behind DAPL, Kinder Morgen, etc. I know there’s been action going on against DAPL investors, but we need to find a way to step it up, and then expand to include other pipelines/companies.
2. While #NoDAPL has been valuable for showing people are against dirty energy sources, we need to find/promote examples of clean energy sources. Pummel the media with it, not just in the big news (WaPo, NYT, LA Times, etc) but in the smaller newspapers. Stories like the RECLAIM Act or rural wind farms. Something that makes people say there’s money for the average person, too, and it’s greedy (Repub) politicians who are standing in the way.
3. If we can go door-to-door to GOTV, couldn’t we do the same to educate people about the source of their city’s energy? Sixty-five million something people were willing to vote for HRC’s vision. Can we find a way to tap into those numbers to push local energy utilities into switching to alternate power sources?
4. Push/shame/boycott/picket office buildings (on the local levels) into using carbon offsets, like Google's plan to be carbon-neutral by 2017. No matter the size of a company, they want to get along with their neighbors. At the corporate level, a lot of companies do NFP giving, for the community goodwill. Why not make going carbon-neutral what gains the most goodwill?
It’s been a long day, so my brain isn’t working as well. Can anyone else think of other ideas? Something we could do/duplicate nationally, but act on locally?