Lest you all think, that with my recent calls for collective action, that I have abandoned individual action, please read my post at WorldChanging about how the two are in separable. Leave your comments there but leave them here too! A continuing debate erupts within the environmental movement about the relative merits of individual versus collective […]
Activism and Social Change
How does a society effect rapid change?
I posted the last couple of days about the occupation of the Capital Power Plant, spearheaded by Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry. Why were there so few comments? How come, when we talk about how to compost, we get a huge discussion, but when we mention civil disobedience, there is quiet? Do we all agree […]
Why civil disobedience may be necessary on climate change
A couple of days ago, I posted an invitation from environmental activists Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry to participate in the occupation of the Capital Power Plant in March. Some commenters on this blog responded favorably. Some were concerned. Susan Och wrote: Civil disobedience is supposed to be a last resort, after you have exhausted […]
Individual action and the number of children we have
Somebody emailed me an article by Joanna Benn on the BBC’s website: “Baby Decisions–Adding the World’s Woes?” Click through to read the whole article if you want, but basically, Benn poses the two sides of the argument like this: When I see babies, not only do I see the beauty, joy and miracle of life, I […]
About just doing our best to make a change
Jen from Brooklyn once left, as a comment, the story of Nachshon, who was the first of the Jews to enter the Red Sea when fleeing from Egypt. Nachshon, she wrote, was just this guy, not a leader or anything like that. Nachshon didn’t have the slightest idea how he was going to get across […]
Because our backs aren’t against the wall
Sorry for the swearing, but I was at an exhibition of activist art from the 1960s and I saw this poster. I believe the boy in the picture is burning his draft card. What struck me is the fact that this boy doesn’t look like a hippie or an activist or anyone at all who […]
In praise of making a spectacle of living green
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to decide to go against the cultural flow in the way that one lives and even more if you decide to advertise the fact. But I’m thinking that, of the many ways to assess which environmental lifestyle measures make the biggest difference, one way is to decide which […]
The cultural barriers to environmental change
Here’s an alternative title for this post: nasty neighbors and mean people you meet in the street. But that would just be bile and silliness and bitterness and not addressing myself to the real obstacles to social and environmental change which are at play, which are important to understand. Because what’s happened is that a […]