Growing a Grassroots Movement
July 14th, 2009
Grassroots organizing is often the key to true political change. The term implies that the creation of the movement come, not from the top down, but instead from the rising up of a group of like-minded average people.
Today on Earthbeat we’re going to focus on three groups that are tapping their roots to press politicians into true action on climate change. Joining host Daphne Wysham in our Washington, DC studios is Steven Biel of MoveOn’s Political Action team and Whit Jones, the action field director for the campus climate group Energy Action. On the telephone, fresh from his direct action at Mount Rushmore is Matt Leonard, an actions campaigner with Greenpeace.
Then, a wake-up call for coastal and riverfront communities. A new report by the National Wildlife Federation shows how climate change in greatly increasing flooding across the U.S. Joining us to discuss the problem, and some solutions that communities can take to protect themselves, is NWF climate scientist Amanda Staudt.
At the recent G8 meeting, the world’s major industrialized democracies failed, yet again, to identify a way that the developed world could help poorer countries cope with the effects of climate change. Soon there will be the meeting of the G20 – the world’s 20 leading economies and of course the U.N. continues to hold ongoing climate meetings leading up to the Copenhagen meeting in December.
Joining us to discuss if any of these meetings will result in strong action in providing financial assistance to countries that will be most affected by climate change is Ilana Solomon, a policy analyst for ActionAid, an international group whose aim is to fight poverty worldwide, and Janet Redman, the co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Music for this edition of Earthbeat comes from the album Planet Passion.
Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.
Image used courtesy of Greenpeace, all rights reserved.
If you’d like to hear this edition of Earthbeat – please send us an e-mail
July 17th, 2009 at 12:41 am
Great discussion, especially when you brought in Ilana Solomon and Janet Redman. It is refreshing to hear people discuss historic responsibility, who also mention per capita emissions.
However, it isn’t just the historic “climate debt” issue that is not being taken into account by the rich countries, reporters, and many observers, as the rich countries and their backers attempt to frame the issue as the poor won’t do anything.
There is something fundamental that is being missed in the reporting and discussion I’ve heard so far.
The offer of the G8 was fundamentally unfair, even if history is ignored. Take the 80% cut by 2050 the G8 offered to commit to if the rest of the world would cooperate in holding total global emissions to 50% of what they are today, dig out the population and emission figures and do the math. The result is that each G8 citizen in 2050 would have the right to emit 2.5 tonnes of CO2, while each non-G8 citizen would have the right to emit 1.45 tonnes of CO2.
The NYTimes editorialized that “it was not immediately clear why” the G8 proposal was rejected. When you look at the offer in per capita terms, even if you leave aside the historic emissions, what is happening is crystal clear.
Here’s what Pradipto Ghosh, former environment secretary of India, explaining India’s position during the leadup to the 2007 G8 meeting:
“This is our challenge to the West. ‘You do the best you can, and we’ll match it’. If the West thinks that India will subscribe to any long-term solution that is not based on per capita emissions then it is very misguided.”
Would US negotiators entertain for an instant a Chinese offer that amounted to each Chinese having the right to emit 70% more than each American by 2050?
This 2007 offer from India forgives the history, but demands long term equality per capita. Its something the G8 or the U.S. could work with, and it is being blithely ignored by most.
P.S.
One way activists can critique what’s been done by the House so far, i.e. Waxman-Markey, is to ask Mr. Waxman why he has apparently abandoned all his previous experience as he championed this legislation. For instance, quoting Waxman from his recent book, “The Waxman Report” Section 1 “The Art of Making Laws”, Chapter 5 “The Clean Air Act”:
“The greatest misconception about making laws is the assumption that most problems have clear solutions, and reaching compromise mainly entails splitting the difference between partisan extremes. This is rarely the case, and legislation crafted this way usually fails. ‘Meeting in the middle’ doesn’t work for the simple reason that it invariably neglects to solve whatever problem raised the issue in the first place. Take the problem of smog. If 200 million tons of pollution must be eliminated to clean the air, and industry wants to emit 100 million more, any splitting of the difference would effectively make things worse: The offending industry would wind up being saddled with additional costs, and the air wouldn’t be noticeably cleaner. Nobody wins. Successful legislation, on the other hand would find a way to solve the problem and clean the air without putting anyone out of business or costing anyone a job.” – page 77, The Waxman Report
So, by Waxman’s own definition of what successful legislation is, Waxman-Markey is an abject failure. For those who say pass anything, just get a law on the books, it can be improved later, Waxman has this to say, speaking about some of what happened after the “Orphan Drug Act” which he championed, was passed:
“The episode serves as a stark reminder of the industry’s tremendous power, and why it is important, when crafting legislation, never to give too much away. In all my years as a legislator, I can’t recall a single example of a law where, when drug companies were granted excessive government concessions, we ever managed to scale them back later”
- page 73 The Waxman Report
Perhaps Waxman believes coal companies are different than drug companies, but I doubt it. After reading this, I felt like throwing the book at Waxman. Maybe some demonstrators who live near D.C. might consider this as an idea. Fill up his office with copies of his own book, by throwing them in as if his office was a dumpster, with the passages I’ve quoted underlined.
As Bill Maher says, I kid Mr Waxman….