How Can We Reach Our Goals of Peace, Justice, Equality, and Sustainability?

Max Wilbert is on the board of birectors of Fertile Ground and is a graduate of Huxley College of the Environment. He has worked against police brutality, militarism, and environmental destruction for nearly a decade. In June 2010 he traveled to the Russian Arctic with a team of scientists studying climate change. This is the third and final article in the series.

Part 3

How can we reach our goals of peace, justice, equality, and sustainability? Ideally, change would be swift and broad: governments and people begin to understand the destructiveness of industrialism and civilization, realize the error of their ways, and begin massive programs of voluntary and humane population reduction (through birth control and family planning), re-localization of food supplies, weaning people off electricity and other industrial products, removing power from corporations, rehabilitating ecosystems and land-based peoples around the world

Brainwashed Populations

This sounds like a dream. We are not very optimistic about the general political climate of our time. The majority of the US population does not believe in anthropogenic climate change (despite overwhelming evidence), let alone agree with our critiques of civilization as a way of life. The zeitgeist is not on our side, for the moment.

We must confront the reality of the situation, not what we wish was true. And the reality is that fossil fuel emissions are rising, not falling. Forests are falling, not rising. Toxins levels are rising, not falling. Biodiversity is falling, not rising.

The environmental movement is growing, but without victories. More people are waking up to the crisis, but we are still a tiny minority. We are hopeful about the increasing seriousness of the movement – civil disobedience and other time-tested tactics are becoming more common, more acceptable. We need this, and so much more.

Environmentalists on the Defensive

One problem is that we are on the defensive. Here in Whatcom County, the coal terminal and gravel mine proposals keep local activists so busy they can’t even think about the pipelines beneath the city, the refineries on the horizon, the failing salmon runs, the tar sands, or the river of oil known as I-5. The natural world is being assaulted on all sides, and we are only able to defend a few.

Most of the environmental movement still seems focused on “petitioning the king” — working for government legislation. This is not a very effective political strategy when our opponents have essentially unlimited money and access to government. Thus we must revert to traditional direct democracy: grassroots organizing and a serious campaign of organized political resistance.

Our first goal is simple: to shut down the production and distribution of fossil fuels. Accomplishing this through regulatory means seems impossible at this point, given the political situation. However, there are many ways this goal could be accomplished by a serious movement: massive public pressure, broad civil disobedience, or even sabotage. We must consider all means available to us. The situation is that serious.

The consequences of a campaign to shut down fossil fuels would be huge – after all, coal, oil, and natural gas are artificially supporting the life of millions of people around the world, including myself. That is why alongside this campaign, we need a massive campaign of food localization and a resurgence of feminism (education and empowerment of women being the most effective means of reducing population growth).

Community Builders Required

This is not a position we have come to lightly. We come to it after a sober assessment of the political situation. This is, after all, the most pressing task facing the human species at this moment - if we fail, the planet (and all of us) will face the full consequences of global warming and ecosystem collapse. Regardless of the means, it will require organization, community, and support structures. We, and many others, are working to build this movement.

We also need to recognize the primary importance of indigenous people in this process – they are the people who know how to live sustainably, and they have offered to help us learn (see the Indigenous People’s Global Summit on Climate Change). The wisdom held by indigenous people, who have inhabited the land continuously for many thousands of years without destroying it, is the only sort of wisdom that will lead us out of this mess.

Many people say that this is unrealistic. We say, what is your alternative? We have seen the lack of action from governments and corporations. We have seen the ineffectiveness of personal lifestyle changes. We have seen failure and delay, while the world burns. What other choice do we have?

We believe that such a movement truly has the chance to disable the infrastructure of global capitalism and pave the way for survival and justice. This would put an end to the running retreat that has characterized environmentalism, and allow the natural world to flourish once again.

And when the salmon run thick in the streams again, when the air vibrates with the thrum of millions of wings beating, when the buffalo return to their homelands and turn the plains black again, then we will know that we have made the world a better place.

Anyone who is interested in learning more about this growing movement should contact us by email at deepgreenfertileground@gmail.com or via our website at http://www.dgfg.org.