Our Politicians Failed......... Now What

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Our political leaders failed to do the right thing: now it's up to us to push them into action or get on with it without them.......OR IS IT?

What did the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen achieve? Our governments failed to agree a deal which might have avoided a global catastrophe. They did nothing but take yet another "important first step". We've had nearly two decades of those.

It's likely that Copenhagen is a long-term disaster for the planet and its people, but it might have another, more immediate consequence for you right now. Your moral obligations might have just changed dramatically. In situations like the one we're in now, the demand for action shifts from our leaders to us. They missed what might have been our last chance to take to take concerted, worldwide action on climate change, so the rest of us have to do something about it. Their failure means that we're all eco-warriors now.

When things go smoothly, you do your civic duty by casting a vote, paying your taxes, and generally keeping out of trouble. It's enough to leave it to the ones in power to think things through and make certain choices for you. In rare circumstances, though, our obligations enlarge, and it's up to us to do the right thing when no one else will.

When the state perpetuates injustice and human suffering, when there's real urgency, when other avenues of protest have done no good at all, your civic duty becomes something very substantial. You have to bring change into the world, and a vote is not enough. Anything less ties you to an ongoing wrong. Civil disobedience and other direct efforts to bring about change are the only options you have.

It's no longer any good just hoping that the men in suits will come up with a decent solution. They messed it up. It's not enough to click a link and send a message to your representative or even go on a march. None of it is enough when the people you petition fail again and again to do the right thing. Perhaps it's now up to us to make trouble for them, to leave our governments no choice but to act, to get in the way, make business as usual impossible, and force real action against climate change. Think of all the usual examples, large and small, of human beings at their finest: the end of slavery in America, the civil rights movement, suffrage, India, the velvet revolution, the poll tax protests and on and on. When human beings see that something is wrong we almost always change for the better. Sometimes we need our noses rubbed in it, but we do the right thing in the end.

We have to realize several things in this situation that are cucial.  While there are clearly fossil fuel and corporate interests that have the government in-hand, there are too few of us who are willing to take direct action and too many who have their lifestyles at stake (as Toles great cartoon above notes).  For many, even for many who will listen to us and agree that the situation is an approaching disaster, their effort---like squiggily light bulbs and a petition, even joining us on a candlelight vigil if it is convenient, is far from the scale of what is needed in order to leverage change.

We must organize.

The developed and developing worlds are doing something wrong – we're all causing suffering to people alive right now and to great numbers of those who will come after us. If civil disobedience was warranted to stop past injustices, isn't it warranted right now to stop what is probably the greatest amount of harm any group of human beings ever inflicted on any other?