Over 300,000 turned out in NYC yesterday:
Bill McKibben isn’t holding his breath for an international climate deal:
The collapse of the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 was a signal event in diplomatic history, calling into question the ability of our societies to act cooperatively in the face of clear scientific warnings. There is no prospect of anything much happening next week at the climate summit, either. As Mark Bittman memorably put it in the New York Times: “The summit is a little like a professional wrestling match: There appears to be action but it’s fake, and the winner is predetermined. The loser will be anyone who expects serious government movement dictating industry reductions in emissions.”
Which is why McKibben helped organize Sunday’s climate march. His reasons for marching:
As individuals, there’s not much we can do. We can change our light bulbs—and we should—but doing so won’t change global warming. It’s a structural, systemic problem that needs to be addressed structurally and systemically. The most important rule for an individual in this fight is to figure out how not to remain an individual, how to join a movement big enough to change the politics. There’s no guarantee that we’re going to win, because it’s a timed test. In this case, if we don’t win pretty soon, it’s going to be a moot point.
Amy Davidson asks, “Whom did the march change?” She figures this is possibly “a more enduring question than what it changed, which, on an immediate policy level, might not be so much”:
Though the march was big, the coverage was fairly muted. Maybe it will still be effective; perhaps the numbers will persuade some politicians that more people care than they thought. But its less predictable legacy might be helping some people who were in the crowd, or who saw pictures of it, realize that they care more than they thought. Some might even become leaders, or—stranger things have happened—politicians. Marches like this may not be the planet’s last hope, but they may be a last chance to persuade a generation that the profession of politics is not entirely disconnected from the planet’s great problem.
Ronald Bailey takes issue with the marchers’ opposition to biotech, fracking, and nuclear. And with their hostility to capitalism:
[T]here is one placard with which I wholeheartedly agreed, “Enough, For All, Forever.” Sadly, many of the marchers oppose the only system that has ever enabled hundreds of millions of people to rise above humanity’s natural state of abject poverty.
Byron York also puts a negative spin on the march:
[T]he People’s Climate March was one long, loud, loosely organized demand that vast sums of money be taken from the wealthy and given to the clients of the coalitions and alliances and networks and task forces that make up today’s environmental justice movement. They’ve had enough of debating climate models. They want to start taking — now.
Juan Cole admires the marchers. But:
I just do have to point out that holding large rallies doesn’t always result in political change. It is by organizing at the district level, walking neighborhoods, and putting pressure on those running for Congress that we would get real legislative change. Some activists are such purists that they sniff at giving political contributions. Likewise, disinvestment from oil and gas companies is a great symbolic gesture but it doesn’t stop global warming.
He argues that “a single-issue Climate PAC, if well-funded, would make far more difference than standing in the street.” Sally Cohn is more upbeat:
The big greens “have to shift the way they do business, from being large top-down institutions to being accountable to democratic bases and practicing democratic decision-making,” said Ananda Lee Tan, representing the Climate Justice Alliance as a lead organizer behind the march. There are also still political rifts; the grassroots groups oppose big green support for corporate-backed cap-and-trade, and the big green groups refused to officially support the Flood Wall Street action the day after the march that will connect climate change with structural inequalities in capitalism.
These rifts may not be resolved any time soon. But for the first time in recent memory, grassroots organizations have been equal partners at the table with national groups, working in coordination, cross-racially, to organize a massive event. Whatever the outcome of the march, this process — and the relationships built as a result — will hopefully transform and strengthen the movement for the future.
The Dish 