Two recent essays have explored  a specific form of nonviolent civil disobedience --  "embodying the future in the present." The US Sit-in/ Freedom Ride movement of 50 years ago, the Israeli settler movement, and recently the "Freedom Flotillas" sail-ins to Gaza, very different from each other in many ways, all won success by using that approach.

Now we intend to explore an upcoming nonviolent civil-disobedience campaign in Washington DC, during the last two weeks of August 2011.

Bill McKibben and several other leaders of the US and world-wide movement to prevent climate disaster have called for a wave of nonviolent civil disobedience at the White House gates between August 20 and Labor Day.

The action will focus on convincing President Obama to withhold permits for the  so-called 'Keystone XL Pipeline' from Canada's tar sands to flow to Texas refineries, thence to add enormously to planet-scorching CO2.  Below you will find McKibben's letter.

More than 1100 people have signed up already. I am intending (God willing & the creeks don't rise, or even if they do!) to take part in the tar-sands nonviolent CD action in DC in August. If you think you might want to be a part of this action, please sign up here: http:www.tarsandsaction.org/

   And please forward this letter to your friends, co-workers, and co-congregants.

Plans are under way for a multireligious contingent (to  be trained late Sunday, Aug 28 and to take action on Monday, Aug 29) to express our spiritual commitment to the Earth and its human communities, and to focus the attention of the various faith communities on this issue and the larger climate crisis of which this is a part. 

If you are interested in this multireligious aspect of the event, please drop a note to me at Awaskow@theshalomcenter.org, Tim Kumfer at  telltheworddc@gmail.com,   and Rose Berger  at rberger@sojo.net to be added to the email list for this religious “affinity group.”

Please note -- these action plans are NOT an example of "embodying the future in the present." To do that with the climate issue as the sit-ins did 50 years ago about racial segregation would require creating an alternative approach to energy, or transport, or food, etc. -- and then acting it out in such a way as to interrupt and challenge the conventional habits. For instance, imagine thousands of bike-riders filling the streets of a major city and preventing auto traffic.

Yet this planned action is a crucial step forward for eco-sanity.  

^^^^^^^^^^^^

From: Bill McKibben,  3 July 2011 

Subject: Fwd: civil disobedience this summer

Dear Friends,

This will be a slightly longer letter than common for the internet age-it's serious stuff.

The short version is we want you to consider doing something hard: coming to Washington in the hottest and stickiest weeks of the summer and engaging in civil disobedience that will quite possibly get you arrested.

The full version goes like this:

As you know, the planet is steadily warming: 2010 was the warmest year on record, and we've seen the resulting chaos in almost every corner of the earth.

And as you also know, our democracy is increasingly controlled by special interests interested only in their short-term profit.

These two trends collide this summer in Washington, where the State Department and the White House have to decide whether to grant a  certificate of 'national interest' to some of the biggest fossil fuel players on earth. These corporations want to build the so-called 'Keystone XL Pipeline' from Canada's tar sands to Texas refineries.

To call this project a horror is serious understatement. The tar sands have wrecked huge parts of Alberta, disrupting ways of life in indigenous communities-First Nations communities in Canada, and tribes along the pipeline route in the U.S. have demanded the destruction cease.

The pipeline crosses crucial areas like the Oglalla Aquifer where a spill would be disastrous-and though the pipeline companies insist they are using 'state of the art' technologies that should leak only once every 7 years, the precursor pipeline and its pumping stations have leaked a dozen times in the past year. These  local impacts alone would be cause enough to block such a plan.

But the Keystone Pipeline would also be a fifteen hundred mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent, a way to make it easier and faster to trigger the final overheating of our planet, the one place to which we are all indigenous.

How much carbon lies in the recoverable tar sands of Alberta? A recent calculation from some of our foremost scientists puts the figure at about 200 parts per million.  Even with the new pipeline they won't be able to burn that much overnight-but each development like this makes it easier to get more oil out.  

As the climatologist Jim Hansen (one of the signatories to this letter) explained, if we have any chance of getting back to a stable climate "the principal requirement is that coal emissions must be phased out by 2030 and unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands, must be left in the ground." In other words, he added, "if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over."

The Keystone pipeline is an essential part of the game. "Unless we get increased market access, like with Keystone XL, we're going to be stuck," said Ralph Glass, an economist and vice-president at AJM Petroleum Consultants in Calgary, told a Canadian newspaper last week.

Given all that, you'd suspect that there's no way the Obama administration would ever permit this pipeline. But in the last few months the administration has signed pieces of paper opening much of Alaska to oil drilling, and permitting coal-mining on federal land in Wyoming that will produce as much CO2 as 300 powerplants operating at full bore.

And Secretary of State Clinton has already said she's 'inclined' to recommend the pipeline go forward. Partly it's because of the political commotion over high gas prices, though more tar sands oil would do nothing to change that picture.

But it's also because of intense pressure from industry. The US Chamber of Commerce-a bigger funder of political campaigns than the RNC and DNC combined-has demanded that the administration "move quickly to approve the Keystone XL pipeline," which is not so surprising-they've also told the U.S. EPA that if the planet warms that will be okay because humans can 'adapt their physiology' to cope. The Koch Brothers, needless to say, are also backing the plan, and may reap huge profits from it.

So we're pretty sure that without serious pressure the Keystone Pipeline will get its permit from Washington.  A wonderful coalition of environmental groups has built a strong campaign across the continent --  from Cree and Dene indigenous leaders to Nebraska farmers, they've spoken out strongly against the destruction of their land. We need to join them, and to say even if our own homes won't be crossed by this pipeline, our joint home -- the earth -- will be wrecked by the carbon that pours down it.

And we need to say something else, too: it's time to stop letting corporate power make the most important decisions our planet faces. We don't have the money to compete with those corporations, but we do have our bodies, and beginning in mid August many of us will use them. We will, each day, march on the White House, risking arrest with our trespass. We will do it in dignified fashion, demonstrating that in this case we are the conservatives, and that our foes-who would change the composition of the atmosphere are dangerous radicals. Come dressed as if for a business meeting -- this is, in fact, serious business

And another sartorial tip-if you wore an Obama button during the 2008 campaign, why not wear it again? We very much still want to believe in the promise of that young Senator who told us that with his election the 'rise of the oceans would begin to slow and the planet start to heal.' We don't understand what combination of bureaucratic obstinacy and insider dealing has derailed those efforts, but we remember his request that his supporters continue on after the election to pressure his government for change. We'll do what we can.

And one more thing: we don't just want college kids to be the participants in this fight. They've led the way so far on climate change-10,000 came to DC for the Powershift gathering earlier this spring. They've marched this month in West Virginia to protest mountaintop removal; a young man named Tim DeChristopher faces sentencing this summer in Utah for his creative protest.

Now it's time for people who've spent their lives pouring carbon into the atmosphere to step up too, just as many of us did in earlier battles for civil rights or for peace. Most of us signing this letter are veterans of this work, and we think it's past time for elders to behave like elders. One thing we don't want is a smash up: if you can't control your passions, this action is not for you.

This won't be a one-shot day of action. We plan for it to continue for several weeks, till the administration understands we won't go away.

Not all of us can actually get arrested-half the signatories to this letter live in Canada, and might well find our entry into the U.S. barred. But we will be making plans for sympathy demonstrations outside Canadian consulates in the U.S., and U.S. consulates in Canada-the decision-makers need to know they're being watched.

Twenty years of patiently explaining the climate crisis to our leaders hasn't worked. Maybe moral witness will help. You have to start somewhere, and we choose here and now.

If you think you might want to be a part of this action, we need you to sign up here. 

As plans solidify,  we'll be in touch with you to arrange nonviolence training; our colleagues at a variety of environmental and democracy campaigns will be coordinating the actual arrangements.

We know we're asking a lot. You should think long and hard on it, and pray if you're the praying type. But to us, it's as much privilege as burden to get to join this fight in the most serious possible way. We hope you'll join us.

Maude Barlow – Chair, Council of Canadians

Wendell Berry – Author and Farmer

Tom Goldtooth – Director, Indigenous Environmental Network

Danny Glover – Actor

James Hansen – Climate Scientist

Wes Jackson – Agronomist, President of the Land Insitute

Naomi Klein – Author and Journalist

Bill McKibben – Writer and Environmentalist

George Poitras – Mikisew Cree Indigenous First Nation

Gus Speth – Environmental Lawyer and Activist

David Suzuki – Scientist, Environmentalist and Broadcaster

P.S. Please pass this message on to anyone else you think might be interested. We realize that what we're asking isn't easy, and we're very grateful that you're willing even to consider it. See you in Washington!

Bill McKibben