What do we want? When do we want it? We want climate action. And we want it now. Right?
Well, what DO we want?
Do we want action to halt climate change? Or action on mitigation plans? Or do we want both? Do we want to crush capitalism, as Naomi Klein and “rustyrockets” are advocating? Or are we scared to say that – or even want it, for real – because that’s too hard, or too scary, or too impossible?
Or do we just want to comment and add our shrill hysteria to the rising tide of voices that are TALKING and not DOING? Do we want to FEEL like we're making a difference without actually putting anything at all on the line? That’s the question I am asking myself more and more as I tweet and blog and feel like I’m accomplishing something… because it’s too hard to admit to myself that I am probably…. NOT.
It seems appallingly apparent that we aren't going to get any action out of Washington DC - with the exception of some Executive Orders from President Obama - if we don't raise a holy stink.
But where is that holy stink coming from? Who is out there aggregating the disparate strands of action and the plethora of single-issue groups and focusing us all on the meat of the matter (which, per my questions above, we haven’t even defined yet)? Where's the mass action in the streets? If there’s an issue that demands mass action – that is urgent enough to convince folks to get up from their desks and walk away from their workstations and leave class and put down the mop and give the morning meeting the old heave-ho - it has GOT to be climate change, right?
I "took to Twitter" (gawd I hate that phrase) again this morning and had my usual grumpy epiphany about how it’s just an echo chamber in there. Me sending passionate, earnest tweets about climate change refugees. You sending passionate, urgent tweets about reframing the issue as one of food scarcity, or poverty, or global conflict. (And the occasional troll, demanding answers.)
Of course we did just have Earth Hour. And then Earth Day. And there was a utterly GLORIOUS march last September. So that’s something. That’s even a lot!
But where is the concerted, mass action? Where are the protesters? Where are the people chaining themselves to the White House fence? Where’s our Occupy the Climate movement? Are we ever going to have one? Will failure at Paris 2015 kick us in our collective butt, so we take mass action then? Would failure there bring us the laser beam focus we need?
Here in Seattle there’s lots of activity at the moment, with protesters in kayaks agitating for the #ShellNo campaign.
There was a march in London a couple of months ago, and it seemed pretty big – although I missed the flood of mainstream media coverage that surely accompanied it. (Wry wink.)
I blog – you blog – he tweets – we tweet – Al Gore tweets (and attends conferences at swank resorts in the Alps).
Are we all going to be thumb typing as the toxic bilge waters rise and the fires rage and the storms batter down our sea walls and people die in the streets of Peoria of malaria and dengue fever?
Part of me waits in breathless anticipation to see how this disaster movie plays out. Most of me is watching the inaction with utter horror.
Because it’s me, too. I’m not out in the street. I’m not camped in front of Jim Inhofe’s door. I’m sitting at my desk. Where are you?