The Occupy protests and what they mean for environmentalists
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been fascinated by the Occupy Wall Street protests. They’ve received a lot of negative press, but when you read first-person accounts of people who’ve been there, it seems like a great place to be: people are creating libraries, sharing tents and food, giving away their excess clothes to people who need it, and watching out for each others’ safety.
The Occupy protests haven’t been as popular or well-attended in Australia. I think this is because our situation is better overall than in the USA. Our two-speed economy caused by the mining industry has got problems for sure, but our unemployment rates are ok and we have a better safety net in the form of Medicare and legal redress for employment issues, and our rising higher education costs are nowhere near the obscene levels they are in the US. Still, our political and corporate leaders are racing to make our legislation more like America’s, so we shouldn’t be complacent about income equality here.
Some people feel like the Occupy Wall Street protests are vague – the protesters haven’t issued a list of demands or proposed any legislation. But I think they’re working at a much more fundamental level than that. They’ve looked at the devastating effects of corporate greed, and decided that they’re fed up with it. They’re not going to quietly put up with it anymore, and they’re letting the stockbrokers and CEOs know that things have got to change or else the 99% will change things for them.
As Matt Taibbi put it in his excellent article How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the OWS protests, it’s
…much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It’s about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one’s own culture, this is it.
Meanwhile, back at the eco-friendly headquarters…
For decades now environmentalists have been trying to save the world with hardly any resources and very little support. This has led to most campaigns being last-minute rescues: save the whales, protect the Franklin River, Lock the Gate.
I’ve never met a single eco-activist who hasn’t been keen for more time, more money and more public support for their cause. And I’ve never met one who hasn’t known that achieving their goal would be no more than a tiny band-aid on the great damage being done to our planet. They all believe that the real solution for the long-term is in changing the way we think about our natural resources. We can’t save the world one bit at a time: it’s too hard. What we need is a sustainability culture.
What’s this got to do with the OWS protests?
For the first time in a long time, many people are looking at the culture we’ve created with economic ‘rationalism’ and deciding that they don’t like it. They’re hungry for new ideas and better suggestions on how we can live happily, take care of people who are struggling, and still be able to earn a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.
I believe the environmental movement has the answers the OWS protesters are seeking. Ditching consumer culture and quarry vision in favour of new ways of thinking like collaborative consumption, clean and distributed energy, community-supported agriculture, walkable communities, and so on have made us healthier, wealthier (in terms of what’s important, not sheer volume of cash), and maybe even a little bit wiser. And we’ve still got time to stop and smell the native roses and pat the wombats.
If ever you’ve wanted to speak up about your big ideas on how to save the planet, the time is ripe right now. Mainstream people are looking for something new, something more fulfilling than the endless round of working and shopping. If we stay quiet, we might miss our chance. Brag about your simple green lifestyle; invite people to your group meetings; write a book or a poem or a letter to a newspaper or whatever forum you have a voice in. I think people are more ready to hear it than they’ve ever been before…
Quote of the Day
Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.
~ William Ruckelshaus, first Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Authority
Photo credit: Sarah Illenberger (click image to visit her site).
How can we have carbon-free cities?
This is a great TED talk from one of my favourite bright green thinkers, Alex Steffen. It’s about how there’s more to solving climate change than just cleaning up our coal-fired power plants, and that the cities we live in right now can be part of this new way of living. He touches on ideas like urban density, collaborative consumption and cradle to cradle products. It’s a great introduction to those concepts if you haven’t come across them before, and inspiring for those of us who have.
It’s just 10 minutes long (just right to watch with a cuppa as a quick break) so give it a whirl. There’s a transcript on the site if you prefer to read instead of watching the video.
Quote of the day
Photo credit: Michael P Kube-McDowell
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.
~ unknown
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