Respecting the Laws (of Nature)

If [the law] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. — Thoreau

Wen Stephenson’s timely new book, What We’re Fighting for Now is Each Other, opens with the spine-tingling second sentence of the Thoreau quote above, but the first sentence is what informs its spirit. The book documents the journey of a mainstream editor and “centrist independent” suburban father to an understanding of our current historical moment that makes him — somewhat nervously — throw his lot in with the “abolitionists” of the climate justice movement: people like Bill McKibben, Tim DeChristopher, and many, many less renowned but equally passionate and dedicated climate justice and community activists. Acting singly or (far more often) together, defying laws inadequate to reality or (often harder) defying the law of inertia, the people Stephenson describes are united most of all by their possession of a dire sense of mission regarding climate change, and their willingness to put themselves on the line in service of that mission, even to the point of going to prison.

It’s not hard to understand why. If we listen to James Hansen — and we certainly should — then we know that there’s a better-than-even chance that we’ve radically underestimated the speed of sea-level rise, and that our coastal cities may be largely under water in less than fifty years. If we listen to what other scientists are saying about ocean warming and acidification — and we certainly should — then we understand that it’s possible that a radical collapse of ocean ecosystems might happen in as little as ten years (a collapse that would last for centuries even if we were to invent a flawless carbon-vacuuming technology within decades). The repercussions of such an occurrence, it should go without saying, are hardly even fathomable. And those are simply two terrible possibilities among many — and far too many certainties: the fires, droughts, typhoons, floods, and upheavals have already begun.

If we think about the fact that we’ve walked into this more or less knowingly — for the last twenty years, at least — it humbles everything we have believed of ourselves or of “progress”, and challenges us to seize this moment to change — because the alternative is likely what philosopher Nick Bostrum has called “the Great Filter”: that what happens to technologically advanced civilizations — the reason we don’t see any others — is self-destruction[1].

In a recent article in Rolling Stone, Eric Holthaus points out that Hansen himself is surprisingly optimistic “because climate change has a straightforward solution: End fossil-fuel use as quickly as possible.” To those outside of the climate movement — and to some within it — such a statement might seem unhinged: we’re so used to seeing ourselves (or other people, at least) as dependent on fossil fuels. But in many of us, there remains at least a suspicion that when we finally understand that the choice is between the near-to-middle-term annihilation of all that we love and conversion to a deep new appreciation of ecological interdependence, there’s at least a fighting chance we’ll find ourselves (real) converts. We did just fine without fossil fuels for nearly all of history, after all, and if intelligence means anything, then surely it means that when it matters most, an awareness of complex systems will lead us to act in accordance with that awareness: a big brain isn’t much use if awareness leads only to paralysis (or more feverish tinkering).

Stephenson spends the first portion of the book talking about some of his own shift in perspective; reminding us of Thoreau’s real legacy (think: radical abolitionist, not tree-hugger — though he makes it clear that Thoreau was, richly, both[2]); and weaving in some background on — and his reactions to — McKibben, DeChristopher, and Naomi Klein. These are good stories about extraordinary people, but the narrative comes most alive when he starts talking to those on the frontlines: in the first few pages about Hilton Kelley, we see him in a closed-down café on the forlorn “downtown thoroughfare” of rundown buildings and vacant lots in the refinery town of Port Arthur, Texas — where he grew up, to which he returned, and where he runs a vital grassroots environmental justice organization that has successfully pressured a local refinery to fund a community health clinic, to help support the sky-high rates of respiratory disease and cancer in the area. Adding injury to injury, the town is also low and on the Gulf, which means it’s extremely vulnerable to hurricanes, and fared badly in Ike: suffering from both the immediate (pollutant-based) threats of fossil fuel and the longer-term threats of climate change, it’s a poster child for the unfairness of resource extraction, and Kelley’s struggle is especially moving; it might seem quixotic for a moment, but then its real-world impacts become clear: people get healthcare who otherwise wouldn’t.

Intersections like this one draw a red line under some hard truths about the world, and the conventional (mostly white) environmental community has finally begun to metabolize them. Those who were once focused on seemingly abstract threats (like avoiding a 2°C temperature rise) have come to understand that they’re part of the same struggle as people who are focused on immediate caretaking (like healthcare for people with asthma). Those doing the caretaking also understand that there’s nothing the slightest bit abstract about the impacts of 2°C of warming. One way or the other, it’s about survival. People in refinery towns know a lot about what’s at stake: the immediate pollution makes them sick, the heat and humidity of their changing climate makes them sicker, and extreme weather wipes out their houses or their jobs.

Not every community that’s at immediate risk of climate change is on the frontlines of fossil fuel development — to my knowledge, there are no refineries in the Maldives or Haiti — but the communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel development — i.e. near refineries, pipelines, export terminals, or extraction sites (with all their associated waste) — are generally on the frontlines of climate change, because they are either coastal and poor (like the Niger Delta or Gulf Coast Louisiana) or remote and poor (like Appalachia or the Athabascan tar sands region): many of the latter are in regions extremely vulnerable to drought, and all of them are extremely vulnerable to infrastructure failures and economic upheaval.[3]

So you can’t think for long about who suffers first and most from climate change without stumbling on the fact that it’s often exactly the people who have already suffered the most from fossil fuel development. The good news is that if you’re idealistic (and most environmentalists are: empathy for other people correlates with environmental concerns), this tends to be both enlightening and enraging. And if you’re young (and it’s your own future down the barrel of that gun) or not so young (and have less to lose), it also has a striking tendency to make you willing to do strange things: chain yourself in the office of a major fossil fuel corporation, for example, or live in a tree to fend off bulldozers for a pipeline, or hang from a bridge for days to stop an icebreaker for Shell’s Arctic fleet. Because none of these things, the people in the book make clear, is anywhere near as scary or as uncomfortable as the future we’re hurtling towards — and they might just make a difference to that future, making it less horrifying, and possibly more attentive and compassionate, because these activists are not just out to stop new fossil fuel projects, they also want to reform the culture that let this happen — that saw ecosystems as something to plunder heedlessly, and nearby humans as expendable.

Direct action is the scene-stealer of political movements: a lot of the most important work is slow, difficult, and invisible. But the more dramatic moments, and the people brave enough to hang from trees and stare down bulldozers, can have a meaningful impact on companies’ bottom lines, and they are invaluable as inspiration. As one older activist in Nacogdoches says after the Tar Sands Blockade activists have been through, “this has been such an intense time…They really grabbed people’s hearts. They changed people. And we’re not going to change back, because we’re aware now of things that we never were…People who didn’t used to ask questions are asking questions.” When those people are those whose back yards are being fracked, or whose drinking water is at risk from pipelines, that inspiration can be a game-changer — and a deep sense of solidarity from the connections made can fuel people long after the drama is over. To know that you’re not alone, that there are people who see your battle as valiant and connected to similar battles worldwide, is no small thing, Stephenson makes clear: it gives people stamina and a sense of purpose.

If [the law] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. This certainly seem to be what behaving normally requires, at the moment: as we behave in a way that’s normal, terrible and unnecessary things are happening to many people, and to other species, because the juggernaut that is business-as-usual is poised to extinguish us all (beginning with those least to blame). This is not hyperbole. We know that Arctic drilling means climate disaster; so does more tar sands development (beginning now in Utah); so does anything but aiming for economy-wide decarbonization as quickly as possible. We know what “climate disaster” means: we’ve started to see the droughts, fires, storms, and floods. And we know — nearly every person who will read this article understands, though many will try to stop thinking about it as soon as they can — that this is only the beginning.

So: yes, being a law-abiding citizen — not standing in the way of the juggernaut of fossil fuel business — causes us to be the agents of injustice to others. To all others, but most especially to poor people, children, and other species (because they bear little or no blame).

Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.

Conventional and legal means have failed resoundingly: this year’s UN “Conference of the Parties” is the twenty-first annual global meeting on climate change, and they have achieved almost nothing (if you want a taste of what that feels like for some delegates, read Yeb Saño’s speech from two years ago, in the midst of Typhoon Haiyan). With the new CAFÉ standards and power plant regulations, President Obama has done more than any other president — but not anything like enough: not even like the beginning of enough. As Hansen has made clear, even a few more years of our current patterns may doom us to a terrible future. And again, none of this is necessary: Stanford professor Mark Jacobson has sketched out a plan for each of the fifty states to run entirely on renewables by 2050. With a real commitment to a more humane future, we can do it sooner than that, and we can — we must — help other countries to do the same. Even mainstream economists agree: the costs of not doing so are vastly higher.

As I write this, my throat is swollen, and the air opaque: across the Cascades, there are record-breaking firestorms blazing. Again. For the second summer running, retired friends of mine have had to leave their house on the other side; last year, all but one of the houses on the road behind them burned to the ground, but theirs was unharmed. This year, who knows? They moved here from New Zealand, and hope to return. I don’t know whether they will be able to sell their house for anything like what it cost them to build (which they did with their own hands) — or whether, if they can’t, they’ll still be able to move. Choices like this are by no means the hardest ones that are coming, but they’re my friends, and they’re the first people I know to be affected in such an immediate way.

The activists in Stephenson’s book are profoundly focused not only on their sense of outrage and then agency in these strange times, but also on finding ways to work with and for each other, even when there are deep differences in experience or philosophy. You may have heard of some of them, or their exploits, but most of them — probably not. And though every movement needs passionate and articulate leaders to help inspire people and bring them together, Stephenson implies that that’s as it should be, because we all need to be a “counter-friction” now in much the same way that we’ve been part of the machine: more or less anonymous, among friends and family, just working and living, being as good to one another as we possibly can…while steadfastly refusing to accept a future of ever-worsening disasters. In many cases, this will involve civil disobedience; it’s the only thing that sends such a strong signal, and it’s one of the few things that shakes people out of their lethargy and inspires them to see other possibilities.

Does it work? Does aggressive action like civil disobedience do anything substantive?

In the fall of 2011 — after the White House civil disobedience — 91% of industry insiders said that Keystone XL was a done deal; 71% said it would be approved within months. But as that (exceedingly mild and choreographed) action helped to galvanize awareness and momentum, so very many people grew determined to do what they could to stop it: students, ranchers, Native Americans, middle-aged writers, evangelical Christians, anarchists, and many more. No matter where people looked, there was opposition — which also meant that it was impossible to dismiss the opposition as merely the usual suspects[4]. Few of these people, it’s safe to say, expected all the others to come on board: few of us had enough faith to believe in August 2011 that the northern portion of the pipeline would still be a phantom in August 2015. But we did what we could anyway, because it was better than not doing something.

There’s every reason to believe that the fight for a stable climate will inspire support even broader and deeper than this. It has to.

History provides many examples of civil disobedience influencing the process of change, most of all in the civil rights struggle; in fact, you’d be hard-pressed to name a single major social change that came about without civil disobedience. Given that this major change involves the richest companies in history, and given what we know of the limits of our political system in an era when those companies are considered “people” with a right to spend fortunes protected as “speech”, the odds that we can accomplish what we need to accomplish, in the time frame in which we need to accomplish it, without resolute resistance to what’s currently seen as “normal”…well, we shouldn’t bet the planet on it. Which is exactly what we’re doing[5].

So much must be done, at every level: stopping “extreme energy” projects like Arctic drilling, profoundly changing our relationship to consumption, demanding the most stringent possible legislation — locally, nationally, and globally — to start to move the economy to clean energy. All of these things must happen in exceedingly short order: the atmosphere won’t respond to earnest people living modestly if the leaders we’ve elected don’t overhaul our systems so they foster sustainability worldwide, and if the businesses we buy from don’t feel intense legal and economic pressure to change too.

But if the goals are crystal clear, the means are less so — because leaders have not set us on that path.

Stephenson’s discomfort with climate “abolitionism” is rooted in his knowledge that Thoreau — one of our first prophets of civil disobedience — was a heartfelt supporter of John Brown, even after Harper’s Ferry. But even once we dispatch with the fear of violence — there has never been a threat of violence from climate activists, and I’d venture that as a whole we are greatly less inclined to violence than just about any other group of humans — at its root, this discomfort is broader, and very human: we live in a moment when we must suspend our accustomed judgments — “normal” behavior has the most extreme consequences (it will destroy all that we love), and radical change is necessary to preserve the world. Once we accept that, an awful lot about our assumptions and self-images might be up for grabs, and that’s painful. Also liberating.

It may resonate uncomfortably with many readers that just as most otherwise kind and decent people averted their gazes from a real awareness of the conditions and meanings of human enslavement (even as they bought the sugar and the cotton), most of us are, as yet, averting our gazes from the conditions and meanings of climate change impacts. It’s worth asking explicitly: what does it mean to be a decent person in such a time? What does it mean to love each other, and our children?

These are Stephenson’s central concerns, and those of the activists he portrays, and there are no clear answers. Neither are they coy about what’s possible: they’re entirely uncertain that they’re fighting for anything other than a lesser tragedy at this point. But that’s quite a lot: the difference between a greater tragedy and a lesser tragedy may well be a billion human lives, and whole ecosystems. As McKibben says of the difference between 2° and 4°C temperature rise, it’s “a difference very much worth fighting for”.

All of which leads to more questions: if we must end fossil fuel use as soon as possible, and scientists have told us that fossil fuel use threatens our very survival, then isn’t “possible” more or less right now? What will it take to get us there as smoothly as we can — yet also as quickly as we can? How does it change smoothly or quickly to know that people are already dying — in fires, in typhoons, in floods, in migrations from droughts — or that the oceans might be one tipping point away from collapse? If we’re on the brink of losing whales from the face of the earth, should we occupy every office connected in any way with tar sands exploitation? Rent buses to send thousands to swarm the Mordor of the tar sands extraction sites, and hold a vigil for the planet? Sugar the engines of fracking operations? If not, why not? With these kinds of stakes, surely those are not extreme measures; the question is not what’s reasonable — it’s all more reasonable than standing idly by — but rather what will change hearts as quickly as possible, and whether that will be enough to make us finally hold politicians, corporations, and ourselves accountable. The man who promised to slow the rise of the seas just gave the final permits for Shell to drill in the Arctic; the entire field of Republican presidential candidates consists of flat-earthers; and the best possible outcomes at the Paris COP next month — outcomes by no means guaranteed — will be deeply inadequate even to the agreed-upon 2°C goal, let alone the 1.5°C target that Hansen says is necessary to avoid catastrophe.

None of these are comfortable questions; these are not comfortable times. One difficulty is that while we know for sure that doing “nothing” (i.e., continuing on as usual, which is very much more destructive than nothing) is utterly untenable, which tactics will “work” is unknowable — some may fail in the short run, but provide essential inspiration in the long run. To win the fight for a planet on which we can thrive, pressure will have to come at all levels: many will have to risk arrest (particularly those seen to be less likely to do so); many more will have to join them to demand change — in the streets, at work, in conversations with friends, in social media, and in every other context; and many will need to do the work of organizing their communities so that they too are “not going to change back” because they’re “aware of things” they never were before: most of all, so that they’re aware that they can change things that seem utterly overwhelming — and that without them, that change is impossible. Many will also need to fight and care for the refugees, the sick, the jobless, the orphaned, and the elderly: they will be legion. If we want a decent future — any future, quite possibly — no one can sit this one out.

That, fundamentally, is what’s most moving about the book: everyone in it understands that if they love anyone or anything, now is the time to step up. And so they do.

One thing is clear: hope is possible only if there is truly a broad and deep movement both demanding and embodying radical changes in the way we relate to our world and each other. So the salient question the book leaves us with may not be: why are some people willing to dedicate years of their lives and/or risk prison to trying to slow climate change? The salient question, just possibly, is are you? Because there is no threat, no war, no risk to loved ones and self, that has ever loomed like this, over every man, woman, and child on earth — and every other living creature as well.

In a time like this, what does it mean to love each other? Look around you — the pictures on the computer or the wall, the trees out the window, the family in the next room. Not one thing you see will remain untouched by the terrible forces we’ve unleashed. Are you willing to try to save some of it?

Now, it seems, would be a good time to ask.

[1] It’s not hard to see how this might be true: to this writer, at least, it seems quite possible that we’re intelligent enough to tinker — to useful and sometimes thrilling result — but not intelligent enough to know when to respect life’s unimaginable complexity, and refrain from tinkering.

[2] For Thoreau, he says, “to live in harmony with nature is to act in solidarity with one’s fellow human beings.” As Wendell Berry said, “It is impossible to care for each other more or differently than we care for the earth.”

[3] Of course, climate change is hydra-headed, and will affect us all. In my beautiful Northwest, fossil-fuel transport puts some of us (again, mostly poor communities) at immediate risk of air pollution and explosions, and all of us face the longer-term risks of catastrophic wildfires (which have already begun), drought (ditto), and changing ocean chemistry (ditto). If it were built, the route of the Keystone XL pipeline would be at (immediate) risk of catastrophic tar sands spills, and it also passes through regions likely to suffer (somewhat less immediate) deep droughts. The degree matters, of course, but to some extent, very soon, we will all be frontline communities.

[4] Which I say with the utmost respect: the “usual suspects”, after all, are people who have put themselves on the line even when the whole planet isn’t at stake.

[5] In the words of Yale’s Gus Speth, “all we have to do to leave a ruined world to our children is just keep doing what we’re doing today.”