Voting!

This article is the latest iteration of my now-traditional pre-election post. I’ve updated the information and rewritten some passages.

This blog is apolitical in the sense of being neutral on all issues except climate change (I don’t count issues of morality, such as the principle the black lives matter, as political, even if politicians do argue about it). I have my own political opinions on all sorts of issues, but here I am non-partizan.

That means encouraging you to vote for whichever climate-sane candidate you like, but vote. If you are part of the American electorate (and I’m aware many of you are not–hello, international readers!), your vote in November is among the most important things you can do for the climate, and arguably one of the most important things you will ever do.

Why Vote

Because it’s your Constitutional right and people died so you could, that’s why!

But you know that already. If you can vote in the upcoming election and are seriously considering not doing so, it’s probably because you’re feeling discouraged, thinking that your vote doesn’t matter or that you don’t really like either Donald Trump or Joe Biden. And my jumping up and down about your civic duty and the efforts of the patriots of yesteryear is not really going to help.

Maybe something else I can say can help? Because I understand that discouragement, and while I personally like Joe (I’m from Delaware; to me he will always be “Joe”) I can appreciate that not everybody does. So if you’re reluctant to vote, I don’t think you’re dumb. I just hope you’ll change your mind. Here’s why:

Your Vote Does Matter

If your vote didn’t matter, candidates and their super-pac proxies would not spend oodles of money to try to get your vote. Nor would certain entities attempt to suppress your vote, as does appear to happen with disturbing regularity.

I know some of you are in situations where it seems your vote matters very little, either because you expect to be the only one voting for your candidates (especially galling in the presidential race where the Electoral College comes into play) or because you expect that everybody will vote for your candidate–there isn’t going to be a tie, so you won’t be the tie-breaker.

Except that if everybody used that logic and stayed home, the election would turn out very differently. It’s always a good idea to act in the way that you believe everybody should–because most of us are really not that unusual, and most people will make more or less the same decisions we do for more or less the same reasons.

Be the change.

Your Non-Vote Does Not Matter

Some people refrain from voting as a form of protest. Frankly, I don’t see that as a good form of protest, because I don’t see that anyone cares. Political campaigns typically court “likely voters,” and while some focus on increasing turn-out, that’s turn-out among their supporters. I can’t imagine that anybody in politics is going to say “Jane Doe didn’t vote this year! OMG! We’ve got to change everything!”

Can you?

The reality is that to win, a candidate only needs to get more votes than the other candidates got, not majority support of the citizenry. Votes for the other guy can cost a candidate an election, but non-votes can’t. That means if you plan to vote for one candidate, the other candidates see you as a problem, one they can attempt to solve by courting you–but if you plan not to vote, you’re not a problem so you don’t need to be solved. No courtship for you.

Inspire courtship.

No, All Politicians Are Not the Same

Yes, I, too, once thought Democrats and Republicans are the same and not worth choosing between. I’ve written about this part before here and here, but let me touch on the issue here. The argument is usually that it’s not worth choosing between two candidates because both

–are the same on most major issues

–have different shortcomings that seem equally grievous

–are both embedded in a system that itself needs to change radically

Whether each of these statements is true of our current major-party presidential contenders is beyond the scope of this blog; they do differ radically on climate change. But I’ve heard these ideas put forth both in this race and in previous races, and all three are fallacies.

Candidates may be the same on most major issues, and yet the few differences between them still matter. Candidates may be equally icky for different reasons, but while that makes the choice between them difficult, it does not mean the choice doesn’t matter. Candidates may be part of a system that hurts you and needs to change, but not voting won’t bring the revolution, and in the meantime which candidate wins still makes a difference, even if the difference is small.

If you want a revolution, make a revolution–but in the meantime, vote.

As for Third Parties….

Most of the above arguments for not voting also seem to work in favor of voting for independent or third-party candidates–and indeed, I’m all for such votes on state or local elections where outsiders have a real shot at success. The career of Bernie Sanders is a perfect example of the principle, whether you happen to like him or not.

The problem is that presidential campaigns require too much in the way of resources for such a thing to work, and the latest passionate outsider is not going to change a pattern that has held steady for over two hundred years, now: America’s is not a two-party system because the right outsider hasn’t come along yet but because it is structured that way. Until that structure is changed, it will remain a two-party system.

It’s important to recognize that voting is not about stating a preference; it’s about directing support. It’s about forming a coalition, something that is routinely done by the multiple power blocs in other countries. It’s done in the US, too, except that our coalitions usually have the same two names. It’s about working with other people, directing your support to where it will do some good because it will be joined by the support of others.

If you want an outsider to win, get that outsider in a position to win. If you didn’t or couldn’t do that by now, throw your support to someone who is in position, and try again next time.

How to Vote

Maybe this is your first time voting (welcome aboard!) or maybe you’re an old hand but still have some questions (“what does the Judge of the Orphan’s Court do?” or “how do I make sure my vote counts?”). That’s OK, when I sat down to write the first version of this post some years ago, I didn’t know a lot of those things, either, now was I sure how to find out. I figured it out so that I could tell you.

I do that a lot. You are unbelievably helpful to me as a motivation to sit down and learn stuff.

The Questions

Here are my major questions about the process this year. I imagine they might also be yours:

1. How Do I Learn About Candidates?
2. What About Those Local Offices I’ve Never Heard of? What Do They Even Do?
3. Am I registered?
4. Should I Vote by Mail? How?
5. If I Vote in Person, Do I Need to Bring my ID?
6. Can I Change My Mind About Voting in Person?
7. Who Can Help Me Exercise my Right to Vote?

Getting answers to many of the above questions begins, if you’re a Maryland voter, by visiting the handy-dandy Maryland Voter Services website. Every other state I’ve tried has some version of this site, though they are not all equally useful and not all feature exactly the same information, but generally if you do an Internet search on “how to vote in [your state]” you’ll get your choice of websites at your service.

I go to the Maryland site, type in my name, birthdate, and zip code, and the results show me the following information:

• Whether I’m registered (I am)
• What my party affiliation is (I’m not telling you)
• Where my voting center is, when it’s going to be open, and how and where and when I can vote early if I want to)
• Whether I need to show my ID to vote in person (I do not)
• What voting districts I’m part of (different races have different districts)
• Who my current legislators are at both the state and Federal levels
• Who is running and will be on my ballot (social media links for most candidates are also included)
• What referendum questions will be on my ballot
• The name and contact information for our Board of Elections official and directions to her office
• What the status of my mail-in ballot is (“sent”)
• A PDF link to a sample ballot

See? Very handy-dandy. I can use the same site to register to vote, change my voter information (as long as it’s at least three weeks before the election), request a duplicate registration card, and request a mail-in ballot.

There is a phone number and email at the bottom for questions. I called with a few questions a while back and the person I spoke to was friendly, patient, and professional, and did a good job of explaining things to a confused person.

But that still leaves a few questions unanswered.

What Are Those Local Offices I’ve Never Heard of? What Do They Even Do?

My ballot this year is not going to list a lot of positions–just president, vice-president, representative in Congress, Board of Education member, and three different kinds of judge, each of whom faces a “vote yes or no for continuance in office.” I mostly know what all those positions involve. But there have been years there were lots of unfamiliar positions (Orphan’s Court Judge? I hadn’t even known there was an Orphan’s Court!), and even so I’m not sure what the difference is between the Court of Appeals and the Court of Special Appeals.

My first decade or so as an adult, I’m embarrassed to say, I ignored these positions, either not voting in those races or voting randomly. The temptation is to regard them as unimportant because they don’t make the news.

But these positions are important. These are people who have a big impact on my day-to-day life–and can sometimes find themselves in position to have a big impact on much bigger fields, too. For example, district attorneys (a position not on my ballot this year, but certainly a local race that rarely gets much press) can decide whether to go after polluters and whether to drop charges against environmentalist protestors. Local, unsung positions can also function as springboards to launch influential political careers. I remember once going to a very small “meet the candidates” event and meeting a likeable, mostly bald man running for some county-level position I’d never heard of. He won, and has since become a powerful US Senator–Chris Coons. By voting for who gets to jump on the springboard, we can help decide who gets launched.

So, what are these positions? Frankly, this is where a search engine is your friend. It may take a few tries to get an answer that makes sense and feels complete, but the answers are out there.

How Do I Learn About Candidates?

We’re concerned here with candidates’ environmental records.

The simplest way to check on the climate credentials of anyone who has ever been in Congress is to check out their score with the League of Conservation Voters. Each score reflects the number of pro-environmental votes (as defined by a large panel of environmental experts), plus the number of co-sponsored bills that didn’t reach the floor. The League divides “environmental votes” into several categories–“climate” is one of those categories, but so are “clean energy,” “dirty energy,” “drilling,” “air pollution,” and “transportation,” all of which are obviously part of the climate issue as well. If there is any way to subdivide an individual’s score by category, I have not yet found it, but it is clear that climate-related issues contribute significantly to the overall score and that an individual’s climate score cannot be larger than his or her overall environmental score.

The LCV is a great source of information both on incumbents running for Congressional seats and for candidates for other positions who used to be in Congress. For example, Hilary Clinton’s score (quite good, by the way) was very useful information when she ran for President.

But what about people who haven’t been in Congress?

Then we have to fall back on media coverage of their prior elected positions (if any), in some cases their non-political professional or volunteer work, and information supplied by their campaigns. It sounds difficult, but really all it takes is a couple of minutes poking around online. It’s true that campaign promises are easily and often broken, but someone who doesn’t bother to make environmental campaign promises is unlikely to prioritize those issues when in office.

It’s important, too, that you understand environmental issues, especially local environmental issues, so you know what positions actually are pro-environment (and which might have genuine environmentalists on both sides) and can sort out real positions from green-washing or political spin.

Should I Vote by Mail? How?

This year an unusually large number of people are voting by mail in order to avoid the threat of COVID-19 at polling places. Unfortunately, there are also questions this year about the ability of the Postal Service to handle all of those ballots, as well as a somewhat greater risk of mail-in ballots being excluded because they were improperly filled out or because of other problems. The current advice I’ve heard is to vote in person unless you have a definite reason not to (such as a medical condition that puts you at higher risk for COVID-19), and if you do choose a mail-in ballot to submit it in person if possible (many areas have drop-boxes for this purpose), rather than actually mailing it.

A majority of states had “no-excuse absentee voting” (meaning you don’t need to explain why you can’t come to the polling place on Election Day) even before COVID-19. Most of those that didn’t have temporarily changed the rules, either to full no-excuse or by allowing anyone to claim either illness or concern about COVID-19 as an excuse. To find out whether your state is one of these and what the rule actually is, click here.

For more information on absentee/mail-in voting in general, click here. If you’re not sure what the procedure is for your voting district and your state doesn’t have as handy-dandy a website on the subject as mine, go ahead and call your election officials and ask.

Can I Change My Mind About Voting by Mail?

No.

Well, at least not easily. If you’ve been planning to vote in person and have now decided to vote by mail you can go ahead and request a ballot according to your state’s procedure, but time is getting tight–it can take a while for ballots to arrive, and states vary as to the deadline by which your completed ballot must be received in order to count.

But if you have already requested an absentee/mail-in ballot, you may be committed. This is what I learned when I called and asked–your state may have a different policy, and you should feel free to call and ask. What I was told was that having requested a mail-in ballot, election officials now assume I’m going to get such a ballot and will thus be capable of submitting that ballot–it’s as though my polling place is now my own mail box. If I show up and attempt to vote in person, I will be barred from doing so because the assumption will be that I’ve already voted. If I tell them I didn’t (perhaps my ballot didn’t arrive), I will be allowed to fill out a provisional ballot that will only be counted once it’s confirmed that I didn’t vote by mail–and since processing provisional ballots is labor-intensive, voters are discouraged from filling them out “just in case” lest we clog up the system. Only use a provisional ballot if you have definite reason to believe your attempt to vote by mail has failed.

Frankly, I’d rather vote in person now, as it seems much more secure, and the risk from COVID-19 is no worse than from going shopping. But I’m stuck.

Who Can Help Me Exercise my Right to Vote?

For information on your rights at the polling place and what to do if those rights are challenged or infringed, click here. The site also includes links to resources for voters with various disabilities or who do not understand English well.

As for how to get to the polls, if you’re going there in person and anticipate trouble with transportation, you may be able to find organizations in your area offering free rides with volunteers. In 2018, both Lyft and Uber offered free or discounted rides for riders who “face significant obstacles getting to the polls.” I have not been able to find such offers this year, but then I have not spent very long looking. You may get better results.

But Vote

 

Poetry

Balance-Day

September 22, and it’s been a day for dirges.

Nuni, my friend’s small white cat, felled by fleas,

lies dead beneath a heart-shaped row of stones

while Kendra’s dog plays host to tumors,

and Kofi Amman invokes the specter of a world 9 billion strong

by 2060.

I don’t know what will become of us.

I don’t know what blood

stains the momentum of our innocence.

But

there must be half a dozen PhD’s in this room tonight

and just as many guitars.

These are people who should know better

than to seek comfort in laughter, drink, and song

but these are also people who know we do not know

enough.

Joni Mitchell, Dave Carter, Bob Dylan,

voices thrown in familiar elegy,

the scientists invoke the sacred

the tapping foot becomes the thumping shaman’s drum.

Though rage and grief and fear may be implicit,

this yellow room is safe tonight.

If the Earth has a temple, we sing its hymns

and offer the ground our local-beer libations

with goofy, rag-tag grace.

In this puddle of life and light and laughter

in the exposed and urban night

this open, objective eye offers

the world

its care-worn, fierce

regard.

 

Note: I wrote this poem almost ten years ago, back when I attended parties with scientists more regularly–hence the reference to Kofi Annan, who was Secretary-General of the UN at the time. That year, the equinox was on the 23rd, but I changed the date just now to match this year.-C.

Mustang Sally?

Photo by Siednji Leon on Unsplash

Yeah, there’s a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico right now named Sally. It’s been about 15 inches away from making landfall for approximately 4 1/5 years, now, which I imagine is wearing on the nerves of people who live there, among other problems. And, naturally, it keeps reminding me of that song.

Given that Sally already seems to have slowed down plenty, the song may be quite appropriate.

“Slow,” here refers not to windspeed (which is not slow) but to forward movement. Although we categorize these storms by their maximum sustained windspeed, that’s only one part of what makes a storm dangerous, and it’s not necessarily the most important part; case in point, a storm that sits in one place and rains heavily for several days can do more damage than a windier storm that moves through quickly and drops only a moderate about of rain. And as I alluded to by hyperbole a moment ago, Sally is a slow, rainy storm.

So, let’s check in with Sally, shall we?

Introducing Sally

Late on September 11, a storm just to the east of southern Florida received recognition as a tropical depression, meaning it derived its energy from evaporating hot water (not air masses of different temperatures) and had an eye, but did not yet have sustained surface winds over 38 mph. The next day, September 12, it crossed the southern tip of Florida, dropped a huge amount of rain, moved into the Gulf of Mexico, and intensified over 38mph, qualifying for tropical storm status and the name “Sally.” On September 14, it intensified enough to qualify as a Category 1 hurricane, briefly became a category 2, weakened again, and commenced to lurking just off the coast of Alabama. It’s there right now, as of this writing.

That sort of sounds like the storm hasn’t actually struck anything yet (except Florida) right? Well, these storms are very big, and while the convention is to treat the location of the eye as the location of the storm, Sally currently covers most of the Southeast and has for most of the day. Florida has been under now for about three days. That’s a very long time to be under a storm. And because the eye is still over water, Sally can still get stronger–and at least as of an hour ago, it was doing so.

What’s Sally Doing?

So, what’s going on under that big pinwheel of cloud?

That’s frustratingly hard to say. Or at least, it’s hard for ME to say. I can look up a nearly current radar image of the storm online, but apparently reading weather radar images is one of those things non-experts like me really ought not to do (we’re bad at it). I could tell you the pressure at the storm’s center, its forward speed, and a few other numbers (accurate as of 10 PM), those numbers are easily available online, but they don’t mean anything to me, and I doubt they mean anything to you. I want to know how much rain has fallen where. I want to know know if flooding (either storm-surge or rain-driven) has begun. I’m sure at least some of that information is being collected, but nobody’s putting it in any of the places I’ve looked so far. Mostly news sites are talking about what the storm will be. They’re saying it will be bad.

Frankly, I think the problem is it’s dark out, things are happening quickly, and half a story right now is not nearly so good as a whole story later.

One of the reasons I delayed writing this post until the middle of the night is that I was really hoping there would be a story to tell by now. Apparently, there isn’t yet.

Climate Change?

OK, if the question is climate change, the answer is nearly always yes. There’s some nuance to that “yes,” but basically it’s everywhere. The reason I decided to post about Sally (aside from the fact that it’s shaping up to be the kind of story I usually cover), is that this is one of those stories that just seems so disturbingly weird.

Operative word here is “seems.” I’m not a meteorologist, so I’m not qualified to assess the bizarreness of a given weather event in any rational way. Take this for what it’s worth.

But when this storm hit Florida, it didn’t even have a name yet, and two days later it was a Cat 2 hurricane. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Like, the sort of odd the reminds you the rules have changed?

I may return to this topic next week, when there is more of a story to tell, but I strongly suspect that by then it will be time to talk about fire again.

About That Revolution…

Published in the Extinction Rebellion Newsletter, used by permission.

I wrote rather sympathetically last week about the activities of Extinction Rebellion in the UK. This week, I am pleased to hear there is also a “rebellion” underway in New York City and in other cities in many countries around the world.

I am less happy that I had to learn about the New York activity from a Brit.

Why Can’t I Hear You?

I am unhappy that Extinction Rebellion isn’t making the American news, at least not the PBS Newshour, which I watched last night. You’d think that organized street protests, including civil disobedience, in one of our largest cities would be an important story. You’d also think that semi-coordinated protests in multiple countries, including the UK, Poland, and Sweden would be considered important, too. Apparently not.

The failure to cover this sort of thing has, intentionally or otherwise, direct practical results; those of us who care about climate change end up thinking we’re alone. And we all know how hard it is to stand up when nobody else does.

I am also unhappy that I didn’t hear about the New York rebellion ahead of time from organizers. It’s true I’m not part of the US branch of XR. It’s also true that I have not gone looking for this sort of news in the last few weeks. But time was that I didn’t have to look–I didn’t have to be on the right lists. Invitations to upcoming marches circulated freely through the more liberal corners of Facebook or arrived through aggressive SPAM emails. That time appears to be over.

XR is a little different that the People’s Climate March, of course in that XR is all about civil disobedience, which requires careful organizing, special training, and at least some degree of secrecy from the authorities before hand. I wouldn’t expect an XR action to be widely publicized ahead of time, nor would I expect open invitations to go out to just everybody.

But why is XR acting alone?

Why isn’t 360.org, or other similar organizations, organizing conventional demonstrations simultaneously as a form of signal boosting? Why aren’t we all out in the streets–and why aren’t the people with the ability to call for mass demonstrations not doing so? Do we want our leaders and our neighbors to believe Americans don’t care about climate?

Can You Hear Me?

I’m not an organizer, OK? I don’t have the gift for that sort of leadership. But I do have a blog. I can say a few things, and I might be heard.

And what I have to say is we are not using all our available tools to the fullest.

Mass Demonstrations

There are those who say mass demonstrations, such as protest marches, don’t change anything. Well, they don’t change anything all by themselves, no, but historically they’ve been a big part of the Civil Rights movement, the LGBT rights movement (hello? Pride!), the Arab Spring, and the successful Estonian bid for independence from the Soviet Union. Somewhat less sympathetically (from the perspective of most readers of this blog, I suspect), public marches have been a time-honored tool in the arsenal of terror of the Ku Klux Klan, and public rallies played a role in the later electoral success of the Tea Party.

Simply put, the proposition that “marches don’t matter” is not supported by the evidence.

Mass demonstration serves to show political will to leaders, offer encouragement to participants and sympathizers, and create networking opportunities for participants. After the People’s Climate March, the American news media started taking climate change much more seriously, presumably because journalists realized people really wanted to know about climate.

But for some reason, there are no more big climate marches. There have been a few events in DC that were not well publicized and whose leaders clearly did not expect large turn-outs. And there have been a number of distributed events consisting of hundreds of small, local events–with the result that each local news program treated its local event as an isolated story while ignoring the existence of the others.

Even those stopped with COVID-19. Black Lives Matter did not stop, but that’s because BLM is seen as a matter of life and death.

Climate change is a matter of life and death, too.

Civil Disobedience

The term “civil disobedience” is applied to any non-violent political action that involves deliberate risk of arrest,  but there are actually two kinds and they are very different.

Upping the Ante, Upping the Volume

Two people could stand in front of a business and accuse it of “greenwashing” (performing a few pro-environment actions to distract from deeply anti-environmental policy) without anyone really noticing–or caring. Now, if those two people instead get almost naked and bathe in a tub of green water in front of said business, they will make the news (weird naked people usually do) and probably get arrested. Folks will notice. Folks may even care.

Photo published in the Extinction Rebellion newsletter, used by permission

Such a bath occurred this past week as part of the UK’s Rebellion.

Public protest is all about getting attention, and a small number of people can get a lot of attention through what amounts to street theater. Getting arrested, or risking arrest, is simply a way of forcing the authorities to join in the show and further amplify the signal. If legal peaceful protest can work, then so can can illegal peaceful protest.

But it’s important to recognize that they are basically the same strategy.

Defeating the Empire by Ignoring It

“We will defeat the British Empire by ignoring it” is a quote from the movie, Michael Collins, in which it is written by Eamon DeValera from prison. Whether DeValera actually originated the quote I have not been able to confirm–there are people online who think he did, but I don’t know whether any are authoritative. Anyway, it’s a great quote.

DeValera (the character, if not also the real man) didn’t mean peaceful civil disobedience; Ireland fought for independence quite violently. What he meant was that he and his colleagues would act with the authority of a real government over a sovereign nation regardless of whether the British government considered them such.

In a very similar way, Rosa Parks acted like a human being when she refused to give up her bus seat, as did John Lewis and his colleagues who sat down at segregated lunch counters and waited to be served. They did not wait for the white power structure to acknowledge their humanity, they just acted on it.

To defeat by ignoring means to act as though one has already won, and to keep doing so regardless of how violently your enemy objects. Whether you are violent or non-violent in the process makes a difference morally and perhaps strategically, but John Lewis had more in common with Michael Collins than with the public bathers I mentioned earlier.

It’s not that such strategic ignoring will always win. It won’t. In fact, people who engage in it tend to be beaten bloody and/or shot to death. Sometimes they win anyway, sometimes not, and historically the wins have often been mixed–only part of Ireland won its independence, and the success of the American Civil Rights movement is still incomplete.

But demonstration is all about getting attention. If you can’t, then you lose. But when you ignore the Empire, if it ignores you back, you win.

Lifestyle Changes

The 50 simple things YOU can do are not going to save the Earth, although they may help. But large-scale or deep efforts to ignore the Empire also involve lifestyle change. Rosa Parks not getting up was a lifestyle change on her part. The transition towns are another example of lifestyle change.

A transition town is, ideally, a community that has made whatever changes are necessary to get off fossil fuel entirely. In practice, it is a community that has an active movement working to make those changes.

For an individual or a family to get off fossil fuel usually requires money–money to buy land, money to purchase food and other resources through alternative sources at premium prices, money to avoid most kinds of paying work. And such individuals end up becoming oddities whose lifestyles don’t spread very far. The power of the transition town concept is that it creates a new world that everyone can participate in, including the powerless and disenfranchised. A fully-realized transition town would be a place where a low-carbon lifestyle is simply the default option, the simplest, easiest, cheapest way for residents to get through the day.

I don’t think there are any fully-realized transition towns yet. I think that the minute a community of any size does fully transition, the Empire will notice and will act.

Electoral and Legislative Politics

The end game for climate action requires government leadership. There are indeed people, in multiple countries, working both to both elect real climate hawks and to usher meaningful climate legislation through the system. We have had some successes. We have had some failures. The best demonstrations and “ignorings of the Empire” have worked to support such efforts.

Coordinated, Multi-Pronged Effort

A coordinated, multipronged effort–the use of all the tools together–is the real tool I don’t see in use.

What I’d like to see, personally, is a widespread, insistent transition town movement, defended and furthered by civil disobedience of both kinds–including actions to shut down pipelines, mines, propaganda machines, and other examples of that which we ought not to tolerate. I’d also like to see mass demonstrations providing political cover for both their less-than-legal colleagues and pushing for meaningful climate legislation.

I’d like to see more active cooperation between environmentalism and other movements, in recognition that virtually all other causes (human rights, healthcare, the economy, national security, world peace, etc.) depend on a stable climate for ultimate success.

I’d like to see the same kind of disciplined, organized long game played by our adversaries, frankly. The Nazis and the Climate Denialists have together made amazing strides to normalize the previously unthinkable and to cast doubt on the previously obvious until the future of American democracy and even life on Earth are in serious doubt.

Why are they beating us?

 

You Say You Want a Revolution

A march in Cardiff. Photo by David France, published in the Extinction Rebellion newsletter, used by permission.

News reports (like this one and this one) are beginning to trickle in to the effect that rebels have taken to the streets in the UK. I can’t say I’m surprised, as I happen to know some of the participants—anyway, the plans for the major demonstrations have been public for some weeks, now. Most of it is legal, or not very illegal, anyway. They aren’t rebels in the sense of Guy Fawkes.

More like V for Vendetta, maybe.

It’s not what they want to change that’s the issue. It’s what they want left unchanged; the climate of Planet Earth.

The Who, What, Where, When, and Why the Hell Not

This is Extinction Rebellion, and the language of rebellion, the practice of referring to participants not as activists or protesters but as rebels both is and is not meant to be taken literally. Yes, the group’s primary tactic is a form of non-violent civil disobedience. As of the publication of that BBC article I linked to earlier, 90 people had been arrested by the end of the first day. More will follow. For some rebels, especially in earlier actions last year, getting arrested was part of the point, a deliberate tactic. And it’s true that they are attempting to dictate policy to Parliament, something that would indeed have been considered rebellious in a less-democratic age. But this is not a revolution in the traditional sense of the word; it’s not the British government these people are rebelling against.

They are rebelling against extinction. Quite simply, these are people who don’t want to die of climate change.

Do you?

Photo by Marina Illiara, published in the Extinction Rebellion newsletter, used by permission

The History of XR

There is a wonderful article on the history of Extinction Rebellion (fondly referred to as XR by its members and friends) here. I recommend reading it. In the meantime, here is my somewhat shorter version of the story—unless otherwise stated, my sources are that article and the individual rebels I know.

XR grew out of conversations within a loose group of experienced British environmental activists who had been winning small victories but were frustrated by the lack of overall progress. They felt the need to scale up. In 2017, those conversations created a loose network of activists interested in non-violent civil disobedience—the group called itself Rise Up (the same name belongs to a Ugandan-based group, and I am currently unclear as to what the relationship between the two is. They may or may not be the same. I need to do more research, but not today). Early in 2018, members of Rise Up created Extinction Rebellion as a decentralized movement fighting climate change that would appeal to people across the political spectrum.

XR invested itself heavily in outreach, and very quickly got very big.

In October and November of 2018, brief, largely symbolic actions drew thousands of participants to block roads and bridges, briefly shutting down parts of London in support of meaningful climate action. In April of 2019, XR declared its first “rebellion,” demonstrating across London for two weeks. The rebellion was quite successful, inspiring wide-spread public support and the ear of government officials, who began talking about the climate crisis in a way they hadn’t before.

A second period of rebellion occurred in October, but problems occurred. Some of the actions interfered with working people’s lives a bit too much, triggering backlash. Also, many people of color felt excluded from XR by strategies that centered around provoking mass arrests; while white, middle-class people can get arrested for minor issues (such as disturbing the peace) without serious long-term consequences, non-white people usually can’t. The perception that XR was for and by those with a certain privilege further cost the movement public goodwill. Meanwhile, serious internal disagreements over strategy cost the movement some of its focus.

Over the following months, XR continued to cope with internal disagreements but tried to learn from its mistakes and honor the criticism it had been given. A third rebellion was planned for May, 2020, but COVID-19 happened, instead.

The current rebellion has as its stated aim to force Parliament (which began its new term yesterday) to consider certain demands–essentially, meaningful climate action immediately. COVID-19 hasn’t gone away, but organizers are encouraging everybody to wear masks, practice social distancing, and stay safe. Anyway, since climate change is still here, too, the general feeling seems to be it’s time to get back in the saddle and ride.

Identity and Structure

XR isn’t an organization, it’s a movement.

One doesn’t join XR in the sense that one can join, say, the ACLU or the Democratic Party. There are no membership lists. There are no authority figures—if you and a few friends want to stage an XR action you can go ahead and do so, provided you operate within certain ethical precepts. You do not need permission, and there is no one to ask permission of.

At the same time, XR obviously is an organization, because it organizes things.

An action in Manchester. Photo published in Extinction Rebellions newsletter. Used by permission.

Thousands of people do not all suddenly begin a series of coordinated events across multiple British cities without some group decision-making process. These are not simply public gatherings, either. Many actions are complex performances of street theater, complete with costumes, props, and choreography. Others are sophisticated non-violent attacks on infrastructure, temporarily shutting down roads, airports, meetings, and other instances of business-as-usual (these tend to also include street theater). Big actions come complete with medical staff, food service, toilet facilities, and internal but serious journalism. There is a helm, and somebody is at it.

This paradoxical organization/non-organization is because while XR lacks the kind of top-down control structure many of us take for granted, there are other ways to organize things.

XR is a network of interacting cells or groups, some of which further subdivide into smaller groups. Each group has its area of focus (such as maintaining the website or providing legal help), and each is run by consensus through one or more coordinators who serve rather than govern. Although the groups themselves are autonomous and sometimes rather isolated (to the point that some members of one group might not know another group even exists), people move fluidly from group to group as their interests and abilities shift. Information and resources flow, too, with each group working with and serving the needs of those other groups with related tasks. For example, groups charged with drafting strategy pass guidance along to action organizers, who in turn pass information about their actions on to groups charged with creating newsletters and blog.

Cutting across this network of networks is the fact that XR is, as rebels put it, a “movement of movements.” Many countries all over the worlds have their own XR groups, plus there are local XR chapters, a youth wing (for young adults and teens), a family wing (for families with young children), and semi-distinct XR movements with more specialized concerns, such as the environmental health of oceans. And there are allied groups, such as Black Lives Matter, the school strike movement, Beyond Politics, and others that do not use the XR name but do share similar tactics, philosophies, and at least some goals. All of these groups both work independently and cooperate on actions. Or don’t cooperate. Sometimes they argue, split, merge, inspire each other, cause problems….

Photo by Gareth Morris, published in the Extinction Rebellion Newsletter, used by permission.

XR is not really a movement—it is an iteration of, or a corner of the activist wing of the environmental movement itself (an earlier generation of which founded such groups as Green Peace, Sea Shepherd, and Earth First!), which in turn has ties to the Civil Rights movement, the Labor Movement, and others. There are no hard boundaries, and little that is radically new–only new approaches to older ideas and concerns. 

What all this suggests to me is what my grad school professors would call a self-organized, complex system. That is, it’s structure is close to that of an organism or an ecosystem–and thus able to grow, repair, and direct itself, of itself. As such, it could prove both more stable and more resilient than simpler systems with the command-and-control structures we’re more used to.

Issues

There are issues, of course.

XR must have broad support to hope to succeed, and that means tackling not just climate change but all of the other causes that rebels and potential rebels consider important, such as social justice and biodiversity conservation. The catch is that the more causes a movement includes, the more opportunities there are for internal disagreements or external backlash–trying to be universal risks throwing existing disagreements into even sharper relief.

In XR’s case, the major division is between those who want to work within existing governmental and economic systems, and those who want to tear down what they see as inherently problematic structures and rebuild fresh. Both agree on the importance of climate action, but each tends to want to undermine the strategies of the other.

Another issue is that not having institutionalized authority roles doesn’t prevent individuals from amassing power, it just makes it virtually impossible to hold such individuals accountable. The problem is nicely illustrated by Ursula K. LeGuin’s book, The Dispossessed, which largely takes place in a (fictional) peaceful anarchic society—the society mostly works quite well, but a few people do amass and abuse power on a small scale, and there is no way to deal with them. They can’t be fired since there are no bosses, can’t be arrested because there are no police, and can’t even be publicly called out for abusing their power because officially they don’t have any. I’m not saying that anyone within XR is abusing power, but there are certainly those who hold power, and they do so with an almost total lack of transparency. There are dedicated rebels, seasoned hands (or as close to seasoned as anyone can get in an organization barely two years old!) who don’t know what XR’s underlying strategies are, why those strategies have been chosen, or even who chose them.

And, honestly, sometimes I question those strategies. Given the marvelous opportunity XR has made for itself—the wonderful momentum it has built—I very much hope that its energies are being directed by top-notch strategic thinkers.

The fact that I don’t personally know that the thinking behind the rebellion is sound is not, in itself, a bad sign; top-notch thinkers need not prove themselves to sympathetic bloggers in order to be real. But I’d feel a lot better if some of them did prove themselves, frankly.

And yet not all issues are problems. My favorite XR issue is embodied by the individual rebels I have met. Put simply, they’re good people. They don’t come off like radicals–which is to say they show no sign of retreating into a self-referential counterculture, as many of the radicals I’ve met over the years do (and I say this as someone who sometimes identifies as a radical and tends to enjoy the countercultures radicals create). They seldom discuss ideology or visions (stirring or otherwise), but instead quietly go about their work, one foot ahead of the other. They are less likely to shout “strike for God and Country!” and more likely to remind each other to wear sunblock and carry a water bottle while protesting in the streets. And they do not waste time or energy on hatred—I have never heard a rebel mock or denigrate any polluter or climate denier by name.

They are kind. Every rebel I have met—not a large sample size, I admit, but still—will begin every interaction by asking “how are you?” and listening to the answer.

None of this is by accident, for it is precisely these values of kindness, acceptance, and pragmatic positivity that XR’s published materials emphasize. This is a group that seems to genuinely walk some excellent talk.

These people must be doing something right.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

I chose to write about XR for two reasons. One is that when thousands of people take over parts of three UK cities in the name of climate action, I kind of have to cover the story, just as I couldn’t let Hurricane Laura blow by without some kind of acknowledgment. But the other reason is that there will doubtless be people in the press and elsewhere attempting to paint the rebels as pointlessly lawless, as fringe-group radicals, as something less than serious shapers of their country’s future—and that’s to the extent that they make the news at all. In recent years I’ve seen even widespread climate demonstrations buried well behind the headlines, at least in the US.

And that’s not fair. These people deserve to be heard and listened to, if not uncritically that at least sympathetically and honestly.

I am not convinced that XR is going to fulfill its potential. I’m not convinced that it is the movement we’ve been waiting for, the one that will save us by offering us the strategies, resources, and leadership to save ourselves. But I am convinced that someone needs to be taking to the streets for climate, and no one else is at the moment. Massive marches with the proper permits might be better, who knows, but there aren’t any, not for some years, now, and none on the horizon. Well-organized, fully intersectional efforts to get climate hawks into office would certainly be excellent, but no one seems to be doing that, at least not in the United States–climate is being treated as a secondary issue mentioned occasionally by candidates running largely on social justice and economic reform (as if either were really separate from climate). Somebody has to do something—and XR is doing something.

I’ll tell you what I think.

I think it’s possible that XR, together with the various other assertive, confrontational branches of the modern environmental movement, may or may not be able to drive the change it seeks—but it may nonetheless be the change it seeks.

Kind, practically-minded people self-organizing into a society willing to care for each other and the planet at whatever cost? If that gets big enough, it may not need to persuade anybody or force anything, it may simply become the world.

And then we win.

Originally published in the newsletter of Extinction Rebellion. Used by permission.