Duff’s Parting Words

Sep 22nd, 2009 in Newswire, Tour Blog

Kudos to all for embracing the centrality of NVCD to SOS. I love Rachel’s language: “…unabashedly stating our intent to employ NVCD in service of our demands for real climate legislation.”

Which brings me to the just-completed Heartland Tour. I write this from Cleveland, head home on the train starting at 3:45am tomorrow (Sat.).

TOUR SUCCEEDS! TOUR FAILS!

The Tour succeeded beyond my expectations in engaging folks close to key senate decision-makers, decision-makers who will determine if the U.S. starts to lead the world in climate laws and behavior or continues our wanton ways. We made strong local connections with activists in Arkansas and Ohio. For two weeks, we have been right where we need to be. I’m glad we did the Tour.

But…

The Tour failed to close the vast distance between political expediency and the planet’s laws that govern all life on earth. If we fail to close this distance, we are doomed.

Jobs. Agriculture. Coal.

Whatever the local name, political expediency is the game. Meaning, what will it take to re-elect Senator XYZ? This is a recipe for climate ‘cataclysm’ about which Jim Hansen warns us.

What if Sherrod Brown or Blanche Lincoln or Mark Pryor or Evan Bayh or Richard Lugar or Kent Conrad or Byron Dorgan or Ben Nelson said, “I’m not running again. I’m following my conscience and the science. I’m doing what I know the planet needs now.”?

It’s not impossible.

Look at Richard Lugar’s career. For more than 25 years, Lugar has championed nuclear disarmament. The conference room in his Indy office is festooned with blown-up photos of Lugar in the Soviet Union (from the 1980s) and Russia negotiating mutual reductions of nuclear weapons between the U.S. and Russia. Every creature on Earth owes Lugar a debt of gratitude for this visionary work.

But Lugar is the same man who promotes global ruin by tirelessly pushing biomass and biofuels. “The Lugar Energy Initiative” is his group shilling biomass and biofuels.

What gives?

Corn as King in Indiana is what gives.

Corn (ethanol) means jobs. Corn means money. Corn means happy farmers driving their corn ethanol-fueled tractors. Corn means votes.

And if so much money can be made and so many votes can be bought is such a short time with biofuels, why let’s keep right on rolling with biomass, another Lugar favorite.

Lugar wins. The Earth loses.

Lugar as world-saver is made possible by Indiana voters not making a lot of money from nuclear weapons manufacture. Lugar is freed to follow his conscience.

Lugar as planet-ruiner is brought to you by huge amounts of money being made from biofuels and (soon) from biomass.

So, non-oppositional Touring can be strong and effective–but alone will never roust the business-as-usual set. But SOS teams this  friendly approach with NVCD and other oppositional tactics. These strategies shout “We are in climate emergency! The time for business-as-usual is past!”

Now, maybe, maybe, maybe, we have a shot at bringing about the sea-change we needed yesterday.

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