What the Climate Movement Can Learn From Bernie Sanders’s Political Revolution

[demmiblue]

Source: The Nation

A few months ago, I woke up with a “berning” need to join the Bernie Sanders campaign. I had followed the evolution of the revolution because of Bernie’s outstanding climate platform, and I wanted to do more. I canvased in New Hampshire ahead of the primary and interned with the campaign, immersing myself in the “Feel the Bern” movement’s theory of change.

As Bernie’s campaign marched into my life, I could not help but compare its strategies to those of the other cause that dominates my world: the climate movement. Climate organizers have worked for decades to build a mass movement, an effort that produced the largest climate event in US history when 400,000 people marched in 2014 in New York City. Yet within six months of launching his campaign, Bernie had drawn that many people to his rallies. As the climate movement struggles to build electoral power, Bernie has inspired more people than ever to vote and engage with the political process. Up close and personal, I learned that America’s new political uprising and its leader offer invaluable lessons for climate activists.

1. Shared vision: The Sanders campaign revolves around a unified, concrete, and identifiable vision defined in the platforms on Bernie’s website. People can easily understand the values and objectives of Bernie’s political revolution. When it comes to climate change, for example, the senator envisions a country in which we “reclaim our democracy from the billionaire fossil fuel lobby.”

In contrast, the climate movement does not have a unified vision for the future other than a general imperative to avoid climate catastrophe. This makes it confusing for outsiders and even those within the movement to understand exactly what we are fighting for. Some organizations, including a few of the “Big Greens,” support natural gas as a bridge fuel. Yet more and more groups reject natural gas, citing health and environmental risks. Each approach represents different values and futures. Can the climate movement create clarity by rallying around a common vision?

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/article/what-the-climate-movement-can-learn-from-bernie-sanderss-political-revolution/

[lapfog_1]

1. There isn't any unity because there is no solution

that doesn't drastically change human life as we know it.

[zalinda]

2. It's because there are too many groups

wanting a piece of the funding pie.

Z

[lapfog_1]

3. funding pie?

seriously?

you think there is a lot of government money floating around to either

a)study global climate change

or

b)plan to either prevent or adapt to it?

From a republican controlled congress?

[zalinda]

4. Have you looked at all the funding?

There are charities, corporations, private families etc, it doesn't mean all government funding.

Z

[lapfog_1]

6. I worked for NASA for years on collecting date for MTPE

EOSDIS, etc.

They were NOT well funded then... and I don't think things have changed.

The big issue is that right this instant, there isn't even a good concept of what we can do to stop much less reverse climate change.

Stop using all fossil fuels? possible, but it would throw us into utter chaos... even if planned as a ten year "moonshot".

Invent a technology to reverse climate change, pulling both CO2 and NH4 out of the atmosphere? Not likely on a geo-engineering scale (or even modest scale).

Please tell me about all the private funds available for either converting us away from fossil fuels (versus the money spent by big oil and coal on either exploration or extraction)???

We need $100 Billion to $10 Trillion to be spent on climate change... and over a very short period of time (5 year). There is no political will to do this. And that would be just a start.

[zalinda]

7. We are looking at this from two different view points

The point was climate movement and how there is no agreement on the facts. That is because there are too many small groups who are all clamoring for the funding to study one certain aspect of the problem. Not one of these groups can affect the change as they are too small.

What you are talking about is affecting a change on a large scale. That can only be done with government mandate. I had high hopes with Carter, but then Reagan was elected. Nothing will change in this country unless something happens and it is forced to change. Vermont may be doing that with GMO labeling. Other states may do that with $15 minimum wage. But, as yet, there is no state that has done away with fossil fuels, or even close to it.

This is the reason I will vote for Bernie, he is a Carter do over, but a President that KNOWS what politicians can and will do to get their way.

Z

[Blue_Tires]

5. Yeah, because a global environmental movement

and a national political campaign are totally comparable