Mass
environmental protests are gaining strength. If governments won't take the lead
on an imperiled planet, someone will
 |
| Anti-nuclear demonstrators march in Cologne, Germany, in March 2011. Photograph: Roberto Pfeil/AP |
A week
after the most powerful "super typhoon" ever recorded pummeled the
Philippines, killing thousands in a single province, and three weeks after the
northern Chinese city of Harbin suffered a devastating
"airpocalypse", suffocating the city with coal-plant pollution,
government leaders beware!
Although
individual events like these cannot be attributed with absolute certainty to
increased fossil fuel use and climate change, they are the type of disasters
that, scientists tell us, will become a pervasive part of life on a planet
being transformed by the massive consumption of carbon-based fuels. If, as is
now the case, governments across the planet back an extension of the carbon age
and ever increasing reliance on "unconventional" fossil fuels like
tar sands and shale gas, we should all expect trouble. In fact, we should
expect mass upheavals leading to a green energy revolution.
None of us
can predict the future, but when it comes to a mass rebellion against the
perpetrators of global destruction, we can see a glimmer of the coming upheaval
in events of the present moment. Take a look and you will see that the assorted
environmental protests that have long bedeviled politicians are gaining in
strength and support. With an awareness of climate change growing and as
intensifying floods, fires, droughts, and storms become an inescapable feature
of daily life across the planet, more people are joining environmental groups
and engaging in increasingly bold protest actions. Sooner or later, government
leaders are likely to face multiple eruptions of mass public anger and may, in
the end, be forced to make radical adjustments in energy policy or risk being
swept aside.
In fact, it
is possible to imagine such a green energy revolution erupting in one part of
the world and spreading like wildfire to others. Because climate change is
going to inflict increasingly severe harm on human populations, the impulse to
rebel is only likely to gain in strength across the planet. While circumstances
may vary, the ultimate goal of these uprisings will be to terminate the reign
of fossil fuels while emphasizing investment in and reliance upon renewable
forms of energy. And a success in any one location is bound to invite imitation
in others.
A
"green revolution" is unlikely to arise from a highly structured
political campaign with clearly identified leaders. In all likelihood, it will
erupt spontaneously, after a cascade of climate-change induced disasters
provokes an outpouring of public fury. Once ignited, however, it will undoubtedly
ratchet up the pressure for governments to seek broad-ranging, systemic
transformations of their energy and climate policies. In this sense, any such
upheaval – whatever form it takes – will prove "revolutionary" by
seeking policy shifts of such magnitude as to challenge the survival of
incumbent governments or force them to enact measures with transformative
implications.
What recent
episodes such as the mass environmental protests in Turkey last June, farmers
and students blocking the construction of a petrochemical facility in Ningbo,
China, and post-Fukushima anti-nuclear demonstrations tell us is that people
around the world are becoming ever more concerned about energy policy as it
affects their lives and are prepared – often on short notice – to engage in
mass protests. At the same time, governments globally, with rare exceptions,
are deeply wedded to existing energy policies. These almost invariably turn
them into targets, no matter what the original spark for mass opposition. As
the results of climate change become ever more disruptive, government officials
will find themselves repeatedly choosing between long-held energy plans and the
possibility of losing their grip on power.
Because few
governments are as yet prepared to launch the sorts of efforts that might even
begin to effectively address the peril of climate change, they will
increasingly be seen as obstacles to essential action and so as entities that
need to be removed. In short, climate rebellion – spontaneous protests that may
at any moment evolve into unquenchable mass movements – is on the horizon.
Faced with such rebellions, recalcitrant governments will respond with some
combination of accommodation to popular demands and harsh repression.
Many
governments will be at risk from such developments, but the Chinese leadership
appears to be especially vulnerable. The ruling party has staked its future
viability on an endless carbon-fueled growth agenda that is steadily destroying
the country's environment. It has already faced half-a-dozen environmental
upheavals like the one in Ningbo, and has responded to them by agreeing to
protestors' demands or by employing brute force. The question is: How long can
this go on?
Environmental
conditions are bound to worsen, especially as China continues to rely on coal
for home heating and electrical power, and yet there is no indication that the
ruling Communist Party is prepared to take the radical steps required to
significantly reduce domestic coal consumption. This translates into the possibility
of mass protests erupting at any time and on a potentially unprecedented scale.
And these, in turn, could bring the Party's very survival into question – a
scenario guaranteed to produce immense anxiety among the country's top leaders.
And what
about the United States? At this point, it would be ludicrous to say that, as a
result of popular disturbances, the nation's political leadership is at any
risk of being swept away or even forced to take serious steps to scale back
reliance on fossil fuels. There are, however, certainly signs of a growing
nationwide campaign against aspects of fossil fuel reliance, including vigorous
protests against hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and the Keystone XL tar sands
pipeline.
For
environmental activist and writer Bill McKibben, all this adds up to an
incipient mass movement against the continued consumption of fossil fuels.
"In the last few years", he has written, this movement "has
blocked the construction of dozens of coal-fired power plants, fought the oil
industry to a draw on the Keystone pipeline, convinced a wide swath of American
institutions to divest themselves of their fossil fuel stocks, and challenged
practices like mountaintop-removal coal mining and fracking for natural
gas". It may not have achieved the success of the drive for gay marriage,
he observed, but it "continues to grow quickly, and it's starting to claim
some victories".
If it's
still too early to gauge the future of this anti-carbon movement, it does seem,
at least, to be gaining momentum. In the 2013 elections, for example, three
cities in energy-rich Colorado – Boulder, Fort Collins, and Lafayette –voted to
ban or place moratoriums on fracking within their boundaries, while protests
against Keystone XL and similar projects are on the rise.
Nobody can
say that a green energy revolution is a sure thing, but who can deny that
energy-oriented environmental protests in the US and elsewhere have the
potential to expand into something far greater? Like China, the United States
will experience genuine damage from climate change and its unwavering
commitment to fossil fuels in the years ahead. Americans are not, for the most
part, passive people. Expect them, like the Chinese, to respond to these perils
with increased ire and a determination to alter government policy.
So don't be
surprised if that green energy revolution erupts in your neighborhood as part
of humanity's response to the greatest danger we've ever faced. If governments
won't take the lead on an imperiled planet, someone will.
• This
commentary is an excerpt of an article that was originally published 17
November 2013 at TomDispatch
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