Civil Disobedience
Oct 29th, 2007 at 8:52 pm by Susie
This would be really interesting:
Fresh from winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his climate change evangelism, Al Gore is apparently considering an invitation from a prominent environmental group to engage in civil disobedience against the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
Rainforest Action Network issued the invitation to the former Vice President, according to RAN executive director Michael Brune. The San Francisco-based group has a twenty-year history of protesting against destructive logging practices and other causes of climate change; it specializes in targeting corporations as much as governments. “We came across a quote from Gore in an interview with columnist Nicholas Kristof back in August, saying he didn’t understand, quote, ‘Why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them constructing new coal-fired power plants,’” said Brune. “We thought, ‘Great idea!’ That’s the kind of activism we do at RAN. So we decided to invite Gore to join us.”
Gore’s office confirmed that the former Vice President had received RAN’s invitation and was considering it, though no decision has been made.
[...] If Gore did end up getting arrested during a protest against a coal-fired power plant, it would make front-page news throughout the world and put a spotlight on what some climate scientists and activists consider the single most important priority in the fight against climate change: halting the use of coal as the world’s top source of electricity production. Coal is the most carbon-intensive of the three major fossil fuels (the others are oil and natural gas) whose combustion produces most of the carbon dioxide that is helping to raise temperatures and change climatic patterns on earth.
It looks like there’s only one choice Gore can make if he wishes
to be intellectually and morally consistent.
Why should this sort of activism be limited to just young people?
WWGD?
(What would Gandhi do?)
RAN is, of course, one of the organizations set up by John Perkins, of “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” fame. A truly excellent organization worthy of support.
More power to ‘em!
–mf