To Beat Big Oil All You Gotta Do is Remove Their Sources of Power!

Watch video at: http://youtu.be/wRy6JXZPrKs

If you’re concerned about climate change, you’ve probably thought “How do you take on the fossil fuel industry?!  They have all that money! They have all that power!  All the Republicans in Washington vote their way every time!  It’s IMPOSSIBLE!”

Oh, stop that!  Nothing’s impossible.  Yes, all those things are true, BUT, the people who are stopping climate solutions are not giant ogres with titanic strength.  They’re mostly a bunch of old guys with bad cholesterol.  

Their “power” comes from the people who cooperate with them!  Fossil fuel employees cooperate because they get their paychecks from them. Congressmen and Senators cooperate because they afraid of getting primaried—that’s a new verb—means they’re afraid they’ll seem too reasonable!  And the people who watch Fox News cooperate because they’ll do anything Fox News tells ‘em! “This is Sean Hannity saying “Touch my loins”, “Okay Sean!” “This is Megyn Kelly saying…”  

I’m not listening!  Even I’d  probably what Megyn Kelly asked me!  She’s too pretty I can’t stand it!

And yet, global warming is, literally, destroying the world!  Not just the ice pack that I roam in search of an honest meal, but the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD! 

Texas: Check. 

Oklahoma: Check. 

Wall Street: Check.

Everyone who denies climate change cannot expect to run off to a blissful kingdom where gentle rains fall and abundant crops grow and rivers run full.  They cannot all escape to some giant Koch Brothers’ Survival Cave under Cheyenne Mountain.  

There’s no refuge!  Climate change is gonna clock them all upside the head forever and always if we don’t stand up and do something about it SOON.

That would qualify as incentive!  The banking CEO who gets Republican lawmakers to vote his way may decide they need to do something about climate change.  The rancher, who loves Fox News, may tell his senator that he and his neighbors are losing everything to the heat. the fossil fuel employee may decide that his paycheck pails in comparison with a livable planet for his kids! 

But how do we get those people riled up enough to help?

Gee, let’s see….If only there was some way we could get them all to realize climate change is not some hoax.   Hmmm…. 

Duh!  It’s gonna be HOT again next summer!  We’ll have more disastrous storms!  Hell, New York City may get hit with ANOTHER hurricane.  It’s happened two years in a row, why stop there?!

But listen, humans, the real challenge is not to change the hearts and minds of the people who DON’T believe.   What’s gonna make all the difference is when the people who DO believe change THEIR hearts and minds.  We need to be strong!  Brave!  Determined!  Active, not passive!  Committed to removing your consent from a system that's slowly but surely killing everything we cherish about the world. 

You need to be more like POLAR BEARS goddamnit!  And I don’t mean nice, gentle coca-cola polar bears, but Pissed-off polar bears!  Nonviolent pissed-off polar bears.  

Alright!  Now, we’re talkin’!

Groouumph! 

Nonviolent Method #9: Leaflets, Pamphlets, & Books

Today we’re gonna look at Method number 9: Leaflets, Pamphlets, and Books.

And I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking “Oh, leaflets are so 1700’s”.

And I’ve been there, you’re walkin’ down the street and some yahoo gives you a leaflet and you’re like “Ah, dude, no thanks,” and he’s like “Oh, come on take one”, and even if you take one, you’re like “Okay, where’s the next trashcan”, right?

Leaflets are, by and large, bullshit.  You gotta have a repressive regime or something where it’s really daring to hand out leaflets, otherwise people don’t want a leaflet.

I mean, if you’re gonna do a leaflet, it better be eye-catching, it better be funny right from the get-go.

When the Nazis invaded Poland they distributed a bunch of leaflets saying “Oh, the Germans are so great, look at all we’ve achieved.”  So the Poles took that leaflet, and using the same exact design they created a biting satire.  So the Germans thought it was their leaflets people were reading!  “Oh, look, there’s our leaflet again,” but they didn’t realize that what people were reading was “Oh, Germans are dorks!”

If I was gonna use leaflets, I would hand ‘em out to people who were walkin’ into fossil fuel companies or Koch brothers think tanks or, even the network news organizations or their local affiliates – they need to know how bad climate change could really be.  All most people have heard about climate change is “Oh, in a hundred years it could be 3 degrees warmer.”  Big whoop!  Why not try “In a hundred years it could be 18 degrees warmer.  In 20 years it could be 3, 4, 5 degrees warmer!”  No one knows, this has never happened before, people don’t know how fast it’ll unfold.  Scientists are giving their cautious best guesses.  Cautious!  And more and more evidence shows scientists have been underestimating this.  Besides, what if you were 5 degrees warmer and had a temperature of 103.6 degrees and people were all “Big whoop”, and you’d be all “YEAH, big whoop, get me to the hospital, bitch!” 

So the news organizations need to report on what’s really happening because no one knows it, people are seriously uninformed!  Therefore you hand out fliers outside news organizations, you get the oil employees to understand who they’re aiding and abetting, you get the think tank secretaries to realize they’re working for a bunch of the ideologue jerks who are essentially destroying to the world for her kids…or his kids. There are plenty of rugged guys who work as secretaries.  No disrespect.

Also, you could leaflet government bureaucrats at the Department of the Interior or the State Department, people who can green light or slow down fossil fuel requests, and leaflet state government bureaucrats who approve things like fracking permits too!  Let ‘em have it with how bad climate change could be, but always be sure point out that practically all the climate scientists got your back!

Another example is about books, which are quasi worthless because a lot of people have written a lot of books about climate change, “It’s happening!”  “It’s a hoax!”  Whatever!  Books take a long time to read so you’re basically only gonna get people who agree with you to make that time commitment.

The book example I like was in the 18th Century this Russian guy N.G. Chernyshevsky wrote this book in prison called What Is To Be Done, and the censor thought it had already been approved by other censors so he just green-lit it and it got published and then became a blueprint for how to do a revolution.  Very cool, right?

Well, just so happens that I’m hoping this blog kinda helps the climate movement that way.  I mean, in my own humble polar bear way, this is why I’m doing this! 

So, there ya go, that’s method number 9, Leaflets, Pamphlets and Books.  Tomorrow we’ll do method number 10: Newspapers and Journals.

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Nonviolent Method #5 : Declarations of Indictment and Intention

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to save EVERYONE from untoward catastrophe, it becomes incumbent upon us to form a more perfect movement!

Most of these examples in this book are things you never even heard of, right?  You know, like the Botswana Union of Ministers Rally for Independence, or whatever. 

But here, this is something everybody’s heard of:  The American Declaration of Independence, right?  “When in the course of human events”, baby!  That gives you an idea of just how powerful nonviolent actions can be, I mean, you know that catalyzed people.  It’s like “Wohh!  A Declaration of Independence, that’s heavy duty!”

In South Africa they did this thing called a Freedom Charter, right?  It was essentially a Declaration of Intention, and it talked about how apartheid had to be abolished and then they finished with “These freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty.”

Wow!  I love that!  We’re gonna keep at this until we get it done!  And, you know, with climate change it’s not something where you can be like “Aw, fuck it.  I give up.  It’s not worth the effort”.  I mean you’re talkin’ about the destruction of the world, everything’s pretty much worth the effort!  Everything needs to be done, you can’t quit. 

Anyway we should have a Declaration of Intention like that, so you don’t settle with lame, weak solutions and we get the whole planet on board.  That’s how this is gonna work!  You really can’t solve climate change half-way it’s gotta be all the way.  Nature doesn’t care, they’re not gonna be like “Oh, well, you tried hard enough.  That’s fine."  You know, the pack ice won’t melt just because we made an effort.  Right?  The tundra won’t stop thawing just because some of us got it and were able to create modest emission reductions. 

You can’t reason with nature!  Right?  I mean that’s like when that tsunami hit Japan.  You know they built a sea wall that was 30 feet tall.  But they didn’t count on the whole coastline dropping 6 feet below sea level.  So the sea wall wasn’t tall enough!  But the sea didn’t care.  It just went over the wall and just destroyed everything.

That’s the thing about nature and science: it plays by hard, fast rules.  There’s no wiggle room.

So anyway, we need to make such a declaration.  Have it on my desk by Thursday morning.  Or at least, in the comments, post your suggestion of what it should be.

And let’s not forget about the Declarations of Indictment part of the equation.  I mean the fossil fuel industry and the think tanks that spew out all their misinformation, and the politicians that always vote against climate solutions – these guys are guilty of putting all of humanity at risk, right? 

These guys are putting their own ideology and personal wealth above common sense, a staggering amount of scientific evidence, and the well-being of everyone on the planet!  I mean a Declaration of Indictment of these guys is long overdue! 

Instead they get richer and richer and do everything they can to cloud the issue, make people think this isn’t such a big deal, I mean these are high crimes!  Everybody’s gonna look at them like the greatest villains that ever lived!  Climate change is gonna kill way more people than any war ever did.  They’re gonna make Stalin look like an underachiever. 

Anyway, I guess I just did my own Declaration of Indictment.  Dirtbags.

But, you know, since my pack ice is already melted it’s like I come from the future.  I know how bad this is gonna be.  I know who the bad guys are. 

And let’s not give the media a pass either, I mean they could stand a little Declaration of Indictment of their own. 

Future generations (if there are future generations) are gonna look back at today’s newscasts and think “They hardly ever talk about climate change!  What the hey?!”

I mean people tell me that reporters actually want to cover stories but it’s their editors who say “Oh, we did a story about that last year!”  So they continually ignore the biggest crisis in the history of humanity!  And, when they do talk about it, they talk about it like “It’s not gonna be that bad.  I mean, you know, maybe in a hundred years…Oh I’m sorry we have breaking news, there’s a hurricane coming our way. Not that that has anything to do with climate change.”  It’s ridiculous.  So, yeah, these guys deserve a Declaration of Indictment also. 

Students could do a Declaration of Indictment against their administrators saying “Why do you pretend to care about our futures when you’re not making any stand against the greatest threat to our futures?” 

Alright.  Clearly I could go on ad infinitum about this, but Declarations of Indictment and Intention can be effective, and should be considered. 

Alright, gotta go!

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Pete Knows Nonviolent Struggle!

Watch the video on Youtube!

As a polar bear, I want to clear up some misconceptions about nonviolent struggle. 

People say to me “Pete!  You’re a hypocrite.  You claim to believe in nonviolence, and yet, you’re a carnivore!”

Indeed I am.  I eat seals, not salads.  But I’m am a disciplined advocate of Nonviolent Struggle. 

Perhaps I can explain best by illustrating what Nonviolent Struggle is not.

Nonviolent struggle has nothing to do with passivity.  We do not believe people should sit back and say “Gosh, I wish they’d do something about climate change!”  First of all, what’s this “They”?  WE.  We’re going to do something about climate change.  THEY are gonna follow. Capice?

Nonviolent action is a means of conflict where you conduct a struggle on your terms.  Those in power WANT you to use violence because they can easily trounce you with the police and the military.  But with nonviolence you emphasize your strengths, which puts them at a disadvantage.  You use people power, or, polar bear power.

Nonviolent struggle does not depend the assumption people are good.  And I can tell you right now people are not always good. Sometimes they’ve even been known to shoot polar bears just to put our heads on their walls!  Gawd!!!

Also, people think to do nonviolent struggle right, you need to be a saint, like Gandhi, or the Reverend Martin Luther King.  How many people are like THAT?!  Not bloody many!   We’ll be waitin’ forever for another guy like that to come around, and climate change needs to be dealt with NOW!

Take me, I’m a polar bear.  I sneak up on seals, maul them, and eat them.  Then with blood staining my face and dripping from my muzzle, I go out and try to seduce lady polar bears.  This disqualifies me from being Gandhi, who never ever mauled a seal or tried to seduce a lady polar bear!  But, hell!  My Arctic is melting!  I’m gonna do the smartest, fastest thing possible to stop that.  Just so happens that smartest, fastest thing is Nonviolent Struggle!

Here’s the main ingredient of nonviolent struggle:  Stubbornness.  “Massive stubbornness can have powerful political consequences”. Well, I, for one, am stubborn.  Once, I even fought off a pack of wolves who were trying to steal a narwhal kill.  You have any idea how hard it is to catch a narwhal?  It’s like wrestling a unicorn!  I wasn’t about to give that thing up.  And I’m not about to sit meekly by as my Arctic melts away and the rest of the world heats up to catastrophic levels, and neither should you!

No one knows how bad climate change’ll be, but if the permafrost melts it could trigger the sixth Mass Extinction Event EVER!  On the planet!  And the collapse of civilization.  Other than that, it’s not such a big deal!

Compromises and mild solutions aren’t gonna save us!  Nature is spinning out of control faster than anyone ever expected.  We need drastic solutions now! 

But the fossil fuel industry and their allies are gonna use every means at their disposal to keep things the way they are.  They don’t want to hurt their profit margins.  They don’t mind putting the entire world on the precipice, but nothing must touch their precious profit margins!

But ya know what?  As powerful as they are, they depend on lots and lots of people to supply them with lots and lots of things.  If we can make it uncool and unacceptable for those people to do that, we can strip away the power of the fossil fuel industry, and save the world from catastrophe.

Which, I would say, is even better than a nice, juicy narwhal.

Groouumph!

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