Climate Change Fatigue and Hope

I produce monthly news and entertainment audio show called GDAE Podcast. I recently received the following comment on Episode 23, to which I responded in late-December (Episode 24).

Alas I fear we are beginning to suffer from Climate Change fatigue. This of course plays into the hands of those who don't believe global warming is real or who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Reports from the Copenhagen meeting on the subject make it seem like just another big corporate sponsored conference rather than a gathering to find a way to prevent a global disaster. Now there are some "experts" who say that no matter what we do we're doomed unless we deal with the population exponential growth problem. When I heard that I of course flashed back to my early environmental action days in 1968 when Paul Ehrlich's famous book, "The Population Bomb" was published. It's been some 40 years since then and nothing seems to have changed. Until Times Square starts to fill up with sea water I fear nothing will change. Sorry to be so pessimistic. I hope I'm wrong and suddenly the majority of people in the world become intelligent.

My Response: I'm not sure that a majority of people would make a difference, after watching the US Senate water down the healthcare legislation in order to secure 60 of 100 votes to pass a bill without a public option. That's inspite a solid majority of American people being intelligent enough to want a public option.

AH! but not all is lost, as we are reminded by Margaret Meade who said:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Meade

"Hope" means feeling that the effort that you put into a cause has a real prospect of making a positive change.

Sources:

GDAE Podcast

Hope in a Broad Based Backlash

Another in the series on "hope" for changing the aristocratic system.

The corrupt US health care system enriches an elite minority. They use their power and wealth to co-opt both Democratic and Republican parties, thereby securing and expanding their wealth and power. The same thing occurs with other major American industries, most notorious being the ballooning defense and security industries.

These two examples have been exposed in the documentaries "Sicko," by Michael Moore, and "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers," by Robert Greenwald.

So, where's the hope?

In both cases these corrupt industries are harming, even killing, common people of all political persuasions. I repeat, people of all political persuasions are getting the shaft. Broad based harm translates into potential for a broad based backlash, and this broad based backlash translates into a high probability for changing the aristocratic system.

Therein lies the hope.

Hope: An Awakening Among the Inside Crowd

For some reason, powerful people turn to author and activist Paul Hawken for advice. Still shivering from being pepper sprayed during the 1999 Battle in Seattle, Hawken received a phone call from President Clinton. Clinton asked what he should say when he came into Seattle the next day.

According to DemocracyNow, "Hawken is a best-selling author and one of the leading architects and proponents of corporate environmental reform." He networks a lot, and is consulted by the powerful, giving him an rare perspective. He shared the following insight, which should give some hope:

...in terms of CEOs, I do know them. And what I do know, in the last twenty months -- I don’t know why they call me, because I’m very outspoken in my criticism. So for them to call me means that they’re desperate. And in the last twenty to twenty-four months, the conversations have changed, which is, it used to be they would call and say, "How do we get this monkey off our back? How do we deal with this problem?” Now, they're calling and saying, “What do we do about the problem?” “We” means we, it means everybody. It doesn’t mean the corporation. It means we have a problem, and there is that recognition now. And that is a big sea change.

I think it’s been brought about by Katrina and climate change. I think the Gore movie made it OK to talk about it. I don’t think it was the cause so much as it legitimized it as a conversational thing that, you know, white charismatic vertebrates could have in conferences with other CEOs. But I do think that there is a real change, that that is, they can see the whites of the eyes of the enemy, and the enemy is themselves. And “themselves” is their business practices, carbon, how the supply chains, what they make, how they make it, and the future. And there is an awakening here.

Sources:

DemocracyNow, May 23, 2007, Interview with Paul Hawken.

Hawkins, Hawkin

Michael Albert on the Importance of Hope in Social Movements

Michael Albert recently shared an insight on Robert McChesney's radio program Media Matters. Albert is the co-founder of South End Press, Z Magazine and ZNet. He is the author, most recently, of Remembering Tomorrow: A Memoir, and is well known for the book Parecon: Life After Capitalism.

Albert began by discussing the difference between today's social movement and that of the 1960s. Back in the 1960s people were outraged when discovering the institutionally corrupt Government/Corporate power system. But, people believed that they could do something to change it.

Today, people are far more aware that government/corporate imperialism is not an accident. In fact, they have become cynical and have evolved to assume its just the way things are, its inevitable, that you can't do anything about it. So, naturally, people don't want to waste their time forming a movement they perceive would be a waste of time.

A key role of social movement activists is to communicate to people that there is an alternative to injustice and indignity, a different way to organize society and its institutions. Activists need to lay out that vision, and identify reasonable steps in that direction so people have hope.

The key is to give people hope that a better future is possible. People need to believe that being part of today's social movement is not a waste of time. It's also helpful to recognize Martin Luther King's selfless operating principle; the means are as important as the ends. King captured this principle in his famous quote:

I am convinced that we shall overcome because the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.

Sources:

Media Matters, April 8, 2007, Interview with Michael Albert.