It’s a cold fall evening in Columbus, Ohio, but nearly a thousand people are ready to contemplate the consequences of man-made global warming. A tall, slender man strolls on stage and the crowd instantly rises, applauding for nearly two minutes, much to the discomfort of the humble speaker. Dressed casually in running shoes and slacks, with an unpretentious digital watch on his wrist, stands Bill McKibben, a man who has declared war on the most profitable industry “in the history of money.”
McKibben, known as “the nation’s leading environmentalist,” came to Columbus on Tuesday as part of a 21-city, 26-day tour called Do the Math. Organized by the global environmental group 350.org, the tour is an extension of McKibben’s phenomenally popular article “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” which appeared in the July issue of Rolling Stone (the same one, McKibben jokes, with Justin Bieber on the cover). Earning over 124,000 Facebook likes and 13,400 related tweets, the article was described by one journalist as “among the most widely read single articles on climate change…ever.”
The tour has been riding this momentum, selling over 24,000 tickets and performing 17 sold-out shows with a number of special guests, including author Naomi Klein, filmmaker Josh Fox, and musical acts like DJ Spooky. It may be more than you’d expect for something that’s got “math” in the title, but McKibben isn’t talking about just any numbers; he’s talking about the three most important numbers of the climate crisis and using them to launch a campaign that might just save the world.
The first number, 2 degrees Celsius, is thought to be the maximum temperature increase permissible without causing runaway climate change. The second number, 565 gigatons, is the amount of carbon scientists say humanity can burn without exceeding the 2 degrees Celsius limit. And the final, perhaps most terrifying number — 2,795 gigatons — is the amount of fossil fuel that companies possess in their known reserves and plan on burning.
Simply knowing these numbers, however, isn’t going to stop climate change. That hope died a long time ago with people like McKibben, who in 1989 wrote the first book on climate change for a general audience. As he noted during his talk, McKibben has rejected the idea that people would “read my book, then change.” Admitting he would “rather be home typing,” McKibben has nevertheless transcended his hesitancy and emerged to spearhead a millions-strong global grassroots organization.
That’s why the real aim of the tour is to ignite a movement that “will send shockwaves” through the fossil fuel industry. “We need to make the case, quickly, that the fossil fuel companies should lose their social license,” McKibben said. To accomplish this, 350.org has initiated a nationwide fossil fuel divestment campaign to focus on the endowments of colleges and universities. As the group’s “Fossil Free” activist guide explains, divestment “means getting rid of stocks, bonds, or investment funds that are unethical or morally ambiguous.” The demands for universities are simple and unequivocal: “freeze new fossil fuel investment immediately” and “full fossil fuel divestment within five years.”
Since fossil fuel companies have “bought the silence of our politicians and filled our airwaves with misinformation,” McKibben contends activists need to pressure society by nontraditional means. Higher education has over $400 billion invested in endowments and nearly every university today is, at least nominally, committed to sustainability. Divesting from unethical energy sources forces institutions to be honest. Who better than students to hold universities accountable? Students are among the most informed about climate change and their future is directly threatened. Campuses are prime environments for educating, organizing and translating ideals into action.
Yet higher education is just one part of the catalyst for a broader offensive against fossil fuels. 350.org is also pressuring religious institutions, foundations and state and private pension funds. The aim is to make investing in fossil fuels socially reprehensible, which may lead to significant political action. Successful divestment campaigns will send a clear message to Wall Street and society that fossil fuel companies are unsustainable “risky investments.” As anti-apartheid hero Desmond Tutu explained in a video for the crowd, “The corporations understand the logic of money, even when they aren’t swayed by the dictates of morality.”
Much like the present political impasse for climate activists, anti-apartheid activists in the 1980s could gain little traction in Washington, D.C., so they developed alternative strategies. Tens of thousands of students successfully pressured 155 American universities to divest their endowments from companies supporting South Africa’s apartheid regime. Fearful of billions in lost revenue, by 1987 roughly 200 companies had withdrawn from South Africa (the same number of publicly-traded companies, coincidentally, that hold the majority of the world’s fossil fuel reserves). Student pressure also precipitated legislative action. By 1991, 28 states, 24 counties and 92 cities had adopted legislation imposing sanctions on South Africa. The campaign played a crucial role in destabilizing the apartheid regime and the transitioning to a democratic South Africa. “A similar strategy,” 350.org advises, “can help us topple the fossil fuel regime.”
Fossil fuel divestment organizations have emerged at over 130 different universities and already two colleges — Unity and Hampshire — have committed to divestment and started to shed their portfolios of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the city of Seattle is formulating a comprehensive divestment plan and the undergraduate student body at Harvard also passed a resolution to divest with an impressive 72 percent of the vote. Yet the Board of Trustees quickly commented that they have no such plans. As McKibben notes, no one said it would be easy to defeat the most profitable industry in the history of money.
On my campus, Ohio University, we began organizing a month ago. With several like-minded individuals, we formed a steering committee with the aim of bringing as many students as possible to the “Do the Math” tour in Columbus. 350.org provided assistance by sending a representative to help us, designing flyers, organizing materials and offering free tickets for students. To raise funds, we asked for junk food donations outside of university convenience stores and then sold the food in front of the bars. We succeeded in providing free transportation and free tickets for dozens of interested students.
Next week we are meeting to form a permanent campus organization, Fossil Free OU, and begin the hard work of building a strong base of allies on campus. With 350.org’s continued support, we have already started circulating a campus-wide petition and look forward to hosting debates, screening movies and inviting informed professors to lecture. Eventually, our aim is to meet with university officials, deliver our petition to the university president, publish editorials in the local newspapers and begin holding creative demonstrations.
While the campaign draws much support and energy from college students, we want to utilize the talents of a diverse coalition. Because alumni play an important fiscal role for universities (as McKibben noted, colleges have a “special affection” for them), we will invite prominent alumni to speak out by writing letters, publishing ads in our alumni magazine and even withholding gifts. Gaining support from tenured professors will also be essential (as McKibben quipped, this is “what tenure was made for”).
Hopefully our coalition building, consciousness raising and pressure will succeed in convincing our Board of Trustees, but most likely we will have to escalate our tactics to involve nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience. As McKibben explained with grim honesty at the end of his lecture, some of us “may need to go to jail before this is all over.”
For some that is still a tough reality to swallow, but we must remember, as McKibben noted, “There is nothing radical about what we’re asking for. What is radical is the fossil fuel industry irrevocably changing the climate of Earth.” Ultimately, he concluded, “our vision is deeply conservative and our only job is to check that radicalism.” But we can’t do it working alone. We have to “fight shoulder to shoulder” if we want to win.
Thanks for this, Philip. This article actually makes me think about leadership–I am interested in McKibben as a “charismatic leader”–do you think he represents the new form of leadership that people are exploring in Occupy and beyond, or do you think that he represents not the old but something different nonetheless? Or do you think that some people are turned off by his leadership in this campaign? Just some questions…
Stephanie,
Thank you for your comment! You raise several important questions here.
I see McKibben mostly as an intellectual, who only since roughly 2007 has emerged as an activist-intellectual. Of course he has always been passionate about climate change and “The End of Nature” was intended to spur the audience to action—but neither of these points made McKibben the “nation’s leading environmentalist.” But his kind of behind-the-scenes and scholarly activism wasn’t enough. His students helped to push him into the spotlight. I think he also stepped up because there was a void—who else was going to form a grassroots global environmental organization and initiate perhaps the largest international day of environmental action?
I don’t see him as part of the new leadership which Occupy embodies, which I would characterize as decentralized, ad-hoc, and grassroots. I think McKibben comes from an older tradition of activist intellectuals that goes back at least to the New Left. Many of these thinkers like C. Wright Mills and Arnold Kaufman tried to balance disinterested role of the academic with the desire for social change and to be involved in social movements. Since 2007, McKibben has really emerged from the ivory tower and leveraged his long-held position as a public moralist to greater effect by rallying millions of people around his call for public action. But I think 350.org has been successful because it isn’t so centralized like the traditional environmental organizations. They provide good resources and an important framework, but don’t limit the actions of local and affiliate groups.
Lastly, as many people have noted, McKibben certainly has an odd leadership style. He’s really an academic journalist, not a public speaker. In his recent debate with Epstein, I know I wished he would be more aggressive and vocal. Others have criticized him in regards to some strategic decisions (like not speaking near the Tar Sands Blockade, which Bryan Farrell recently covered in his excellent article). But McKibben never intended to be a national or international leader. His bookish mannerisms and scholarly style might not be ideal, but as a public moralist, McKibben is living up to a long tradition of activist-intellectuals who fueled movements with their ethical energies.
Great article. THe role of Bill Mckibben has little to do with the organizing style, organization, and tradition that 350.org uses. Granted he is a good speaker, and leader. I would say beyond all else 350 are a primarily online organization, that uses standard online organzing techniques, and they had added a great model of mass moblization in recent years starting with the Climate Coal action, and Keystone pipeline mass CD. THey also have been experimenting with more decentralized models for moblizing from the beginning with their days of actions. Now they are putting it all together in a new mix for the divestment campaign, some more centralized moblizations, some online, and offline support for decentralized actions, and standard online strategies to capitalize on momentum. The best campaign strategy and design I have seen in a decade. I predict this will explode in the spring.
Great discussion! Thanks for posing these questions and responses.
When I was arrested with McKibben on the first day of Tar Sands Action, we had some great conversations about what he was studying and being influenced by. They included Taylor Branch’s trilogy on the civil rights movement, Gene Sharp, Otpor, and the Clamshell Alliance. So really, it’s a diverse collection encompassing all the major styles and models of organizing. As such, I don’t think he nor 350 should be pegged as following in the footsteps of any one direction, but rather forging a hybrid that takes the best elements of each, as Paul notes.
If McKibben has rubbed anyone the wrong way, it seems to me that it is mostly a consequence of how much hope/expectation has been instilled in him. The woman I interviewed in Texas, who was upset that he hadn’t come to the blockade, was nevertheless firm in her continuing admiration of McKibben. He and 350 have done more than anyone to push this issue forward and they are now at the point, where perhaps more is being expected of them than they can physically accomplish. It comes with the territory of success and inasmuch as they are able to deal with these issues gracefully, I think respect will continue to underline the criticisms.
I handed out a thousand of the following fliers a t the event in DC
We Climate Change Activists Are Not Serious Enough!
Our culture is the ultimate in superficiality.
We seek to maximize public support. Such is the way of most political activism.
Beyond the breadth of support, we should also be concerned with the depth of our commitment to the cause.
Most political people are just concerned with marshalling their supporters. Gandhi felt it was important to suffer in jail to touch the heart of his adversaries.
Our sisters and brothers known as “climate change deniers” need our attention. They need to be made aware that they are not acting on their own interests. And they won’t pay any attention to our evidence unless we touch their hearts.
We actually have a lot in common with them. We are both comfortable with our ignorance. Just as they are comfortably ignorant about evidence of human-made climate change, we are comfortable with our ignorance of Gandhi’s approach to nonviolent resistance.
350.org fears that they would lose your support if they were to ask you to make the sacrifices that are needed.
Gandhi hated cowardice. We should too.
Gandhi’s suffering to touch the hearts of his adversaries is not even discussed in “the land of the [not so] free and the home of the [not so] brave.”
So when do you think the tide will turn, at 450 ppm? 550 ppm?
Contact me, Dave Slesinger, at: 410-499-5403 or dslesinger@alum.mit.edu
As an old investor in companies that seem ethical and socially valuable it still seems to me a great path to harniessing the work engine of our world for the common good. Because we will all be affected by global warming the key will be to help people understand the great benefits they gain by investing in companies focused on being good stewards and seeing the future hold great promise for our children. Profiting and rewarding the good companies and shaming the bad ones to change direction can compliment divestment only. Right now there still is too much indiscriminate investing by too many remote banks, funds etc. that do not have our best interests at heart. Nobody will watch your money like you will and you will be rewarded in several ways by taking control and investing like I have if we can wrestle control of our money back or demand the funds/banks better focus on common good. Government seems all but lost in indiscriminate feeding at the publc trough.
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions, or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions (i.e., more or fewer extreme weather events). Climate change is caused by factors that include oceanic processes (such as oceanic circulation), biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics and volcanic eruptions, and human-induced alterations of the natural world..
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I`m fighting solar panel and windmill development in Vt and am posting the following on several sites. (as have other posts) My aim is to encourage a broad movement that circumvents petroleum based orgs (like 350) by working from within them, and from orgs like WNV
check out disclosureproject.org
Rep.Tony Klein: 90% Renewables by 2050
TK, chair, House natural resources and energy committee.
Rep Klein, I applaud many of your efforts at the state house and you may well think you are steering VT on the correct environmental course. But 90% by 2050? We dont have the luxury of 36 years to reverse climate warming, and relying on billboard law offender solar panels,and greenwashed industrial wind, will fill the pockets of the connected and lead the remaining into economic decline.
Wall street/Rockefeller funded, distraction for the masses Mckibben, and the governmental, trade association, nonprofit industrial complex, self-servingly wants us to think it is necessary to defile ridge-lines and cover our agricultural resources with bulky, primitive technologies in order to save them.
But, there is a “pie in the sky” renewable energy solution. (At that, I ask church going preacher McKibben, is the belief in the existence of God pie in the sky?). A solution that is truly clean, incredibly cheap to harness, and never requires a power company or grid.
Collectively we need to wake up to that we are not alone,(and it is probable we never have been alone. What is the greater conceptual leap, from nothing to “God”, or from “God” to extraterrestrial/interdimensional beings?) and that the shadow government, noted by Eisenhower, JFK, Inouye, and the big oil/big bank owned main stream media are hiding that fact, and the reality that is Zeropoint, so called, the energy source that will free us, when we choose, from wars for oil, nation building and the petrofascists kleptocracy.
Remember, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised