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Global Warming and Civil Disobedience: Does Gore Have the Guts?
If Gore Were Arrested...
by Mark Hertsgaard Fresh from winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his climate change evangelism, Al Gore is apparently considering an invitation from a prominent environmental group to engage in civil disobedience against the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
Rainforest Action Network issued the invitation to the former Vice President, according to RAN executive director Michael Brune. The San Francisco-based group has a twenty-year history of protesting against destructive logging practices and other causes of climate change; it specializes in targeting corporations as much as governments.
[republished at PFP with Agence Global permission.]
As carbon emissions push planetary temperatures higher, an
environmental group has asked Al Gore to engage in civil disobedience
to block construction of coal-fired plants. Will he do it?
"We came across a quote from Gore in an interview with [New York
Times] columnist Nicholas Kristof back in August, saying he didn't
understand, quote, 'Why there aren't rings of young people blocking
bulldozers and preventing them constructing new coal-fired power
plants,'" said Brune. "We thought, 'Great idea!' That's the kind of
activism we do at RAN. So we decided to invite Gore to join us."
Gore's
office confirmed that the former Vice President had received RAN's
invitation and was considering it, though no decision has been made.
"He
has not accepted any of their offers to date," Kalee Kreider, a
spokeswoman for Gore, said of the RAN offer. Kreider did not deny that
this phrasing leaves open the possibility of Gore saying yes down the
road.
RAN plans a national day of protest against coal on November 16, according to Brune.
If
Gore did end up getting arrested during a protest against a coal-fired
power plant, it would make front-page news throughout the world and put
a spotlight on what some climate scientists and activists consider the
single most important priority in the fight against climate change:
halting the use of coal as the world's top source of electricity
production. Coal is the most carbon-intensive of the three major fossil
fuels (the others are oil and natural gas) whose combustion produces
most of the carbon dioxide that is helping to raise temperatures and
change climatic patterns on earth.
NASA scientist James
Hansen, the man who first warned during testimony before the US Senate
in 1988 that man-made greenhouse gas emissions were warming the planet,
has called for a complete ban on new coal-fired power plants "until we
have the technology to capture and sequester the CO2." That technology,
Hansen estimates, is "probably five or ten years away." Any plants
built without that technology "are going to have to be bulldozed,"
argues Hansen, if the earth is to avoid "dramatic climate changes that
produce what I would call a different planet."
John McCain,
the Arizona senator and Republican presidential candidate, reportedly
told a crowd in New Hampshire this week that he would consider
supporting a ban on new coal-fired power plants if he could be shown
possible alternatives. McCain was responding to a question from
activists with Step It Up, a grassroots organization pushing for bolder
federal action against climate change, including a total ban on coal.
Step It Up plans a national day of demonstrations on November 3,
exactly one year before the 2008 presidential election.
The
State of Kansas recently denied a permit for construction of a
coal-fired power plant due to concern over the plant's CO2 emissions.
"I believe it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information
about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to
climate change and the potential harm to our environment if we do
nothing," said Roderick Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of
Health and the Environment, in explaining his rejection of the permit
for the Sunflower Electric Power company.
In neighboring
Iowa, Hansen is offering expert testimony in a lawsuit aiming to halt
construction of the Sutherland Generating Station Unit 4 coal-fired
plant. "Coal will determine whether we continue to increase climate
change or slow the human impact," Hansen testified.
A native
of Iowa, Hansen contended that a decision by his state to reject
coal-fired power plants could be an important tipping point that would
trigger broader shifts in public opinion and institutional behavior.
"If the public begins to stand up in a few places and successfully
oppose the construction of power plants that burn coal without
capturing the CO2, this may begin to have a snowballing effect, helping
utilities and politicians to realize that the public prefers a
different path, one that respects all life on the planet."
Asked
why he is focusing on Iowa when China is building many more coal-fired
power plants, Hansen replied that China and other developing nations
"must be part of the solution to global warming, and surely they will
be, if developed nations take the appropriate first steps." The United
States, Hansen noted, is responsible for three times as much of the
excess CO2 in the atmosphere as any other nation.
True
enough. But if China keeps building new coal plants at a rate of one
every ten days, it won't much matter if US companies turn away from
coal. The campaign against coal must be global if it is to succeed.
Al
Gore could launch this campaign with a bang if he joined activists in
facing down the bulldozers. But a word of advice, Mr. Gore: Make a US
power plant your first target, but don't leave out China and the rest
of the world. Carbon is a climate killer, wherever it originates.
Mark
Hertsgaard is The Nation magazine's environment correspondent and the
author of five books that have been translated into sixteen languages,
including Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our
Environmental Future. His next book is Living Through the Storm: Our
Future Under Global Warming.
Agence
Global is the exclusive syndication agency for The Nation, Le Monde
diplomatique, as well as expert commentary by Richard Bulliet, Mark
Hertsgaard, Rami G. Khouri, Peter Kwong,Tom Porteous, Patrick Seale and
Immanuel Wallerstein.
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Released: 25 October 2007
Word Count: 876
Rights & Permissions Contact: Agence Global, 1.336.686.9002, rights@agenceglobal.com
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Writings 
Fresh from winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his climate change evangelism, Al Gore is apparently considering an invitation from a prominent environmental group to engage in civil disobedience against the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
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