How did the green movement start and where is it headed? DeSmog UK previewed the new documentary How To Change The World, which depicts a group of idealistic hippies ready to take on the world. In this long-read we speak with Emily Hunter,  environmental activist and daughter of 'eco-hero' Robert Hunter, about today's environmental activism.

As Richard Nixon announced plans to test nuclear bombs in Alaskan waters in the midst of the Vietnam War, Bob Hunter stood on the steps of his high school, burning his college acceptance letter and choosing, instead, to “set off to change the world”.

So begins the film How To Change The World, which tells the story of the young activists who set sail from Vancouver, Canada in 1971 in an old fishing boat to stop the atomic bomb tests, and who would quickly evolve into a passionate and courageous group devoted to saving the whales.

This was the start of the modern environmental movement and the formation of a now global organisation known as Greenpeace.

Written and directed by Jerry Rothwell, the documentary is based on the late Bob Hunter’s writings and chronicles his journey as the leading force behind the group. Kodachrome footage from the time features throughout the film, interspersed with interviews with Greenpeace’s founding members, capturing the highs and lows of their early eco-activism: the struggles and rewards that come with creating a global movement.

Bob Hunter aboard the Greenpeace ship in the 1970s. Photo: Greenpeace

The group of young activists. Photo: Greenpeace

Hunter, who began as a journalist, understood the importance of images in awakening people’s consciousness to the issues facing our world. What we would now call ‘going viral’ Hunter coined as ‘mind bombs’ – messages that resonate around the world.

From Russian whaling harpoons flying over the activists floating in inflatable zodiacs to seal pups being clubbed to death in Newfoundland, the startling and sometimes graphic images give the audience a sense of what it means to ‘bear witness’.

Today, Greenpeace has returned to Alaska in an effort to stop Shell drilling for Arctic oil. Saving the whales is also on the agenda as the NGO seeks to raise awareness of the impacts of seismic testing for oil reserves on Arctic marine mammals.

Surely, though, we can't be right back where we began? Just as the group questioned how best to make a difference, as viewers, we’re left asking how the green movement has evolved since the 1970s and what difference it has made.

To answer these questions and more, DeSmog UK spoke with Emily Hunter, Bob’s daughter and environmental media activist, about the film and today’s modern environmental movement.

KM: As viewers watching the film, or young people trying to get involved, how do you hope this film speaks to them as we move towards the Paris climate conference which, many people are hoping, will put us on the path to ‘changing the world’?

EH: I feel this film is as relevant in the ‘60s and ‘70s as it is today and even more important because our generation needs an inspiring story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things for our planet, now more than ever.

We are facing multiple, multiple crises left, right, and centre. We are facing a political system that is, quite frankly, failing us, failing our generation and our climate future that, now, more than ever we need to be able to see inspiring examples of other young people… who went out there and did change the world. And, in my view, the story isn’t that different because it really just shows our human capacity for trying to effect change and that story is not unique to my father, it’s not unique to Greenpeace, it’s not unique to the ‘70s, it is happening repeatedly again and again today.

In many ways I think the circumstances are similar as what’s shown in the film. It was a young generation then, the youth culture of the ‘70s, that were up against huge, huge political, economic and military interests, for having a pro-arms race, for having nuclear arms in different countries, and facing the huge oppressive policies that were also [creating] this apocalyptic-like scenario for that generation; it seemed impossible, it seemed like an impossible feat to do anything about, but young people didn’t give up and they kept building a movement – and they built a movement, I think, more than just around protesting, it was about having these ‘mind-bomb moments’ as my father would say. Creating these moments that shifted people’s perspectives, that we weren’t just human dominators of the planet but we were human stewards of the planet, and that was the switch in people’s minds.

And today, we face similar circumstances with our climate crisis and again, quite frankly, oppressive policies that are continuing our fossil fuel regime. And again, we feel powerless against it, but I do think we are collectively building our movement, our generation’s movement and now more than ever we need our own mind-bombs to tell us we can still do it, and this is one of those mind-bombs.

KM: So we need more big and powerful mind-bombs to catalyse action?

EH: Absolutely, we need those, but I think those are happening. I think those stories are being told. We have a different medium of course, we’re telling them through digital media, but the stories are getting out there. For example, the 13 activists in Portland on St John’s bridge who hung off the bridge [in August] and were able to push back Shell’s ship [which] is part of their sensitive equipment needed for Arctic oil drilling. That was a mind-bomb moment to me, and that news went around the world.

This film is another mind-bomb moment. I think Paris could potentially be a mind-bomb moment, but even more of a mind-bomb moment if we don’t just make it Paris alone. It has to be beyond Paris. It has to be a moment that continues to fuel our movement and build the transitions we need, not just one that is a make-it-or-break-it moment. We can’t put everything on just Paris alone.

KM: How has the environmental movement changed or stayed the same since it began in the ‘70s with your father?

EH: I think the movement has evolved quite a bit and it’s taken some hard hits, it’s had a couple identity crises along the way. Back in the day, you could galvanise on these singular issues, you could galvanise the populous and effect policy change. Today, I think the traditional tactics of lobbying, focusing on sound science, and some of these traditional tactics that won us the Montreal Protocol, and so forth, aren’t winning us the same fights.

When it comes to climate change we are at a cross-roads in our movement. This requires systemic change and systemic solutions. We can no longer continue on with the fossil fuel-based economy and think that we’re going to shift anything on this issue. So that really requires a massive overhaul, and one that frankly doesn’t benefit short-term politicians or the economic elite, and so that’s really where we need a ground-swell of people who are being the most affected, who are facing the greatest impacts, and actually rise up and start making some of these transitions.

I’m not asking for some massive anarchism. It may sound very leftist but I’m not talking about communism, I’m not talking about any of these things, I’m talking about the economic policies in place and that right now these economies are fundamentally insane and are only benefiting a few, trashing our future – so I do think there are switches that can be made in the short term and long term, such as getting off of dirty fossil fuels, such as switching on to renewables, but also starting to have an economy that isn’t based on fossil fuels and not having political leaders that are very much backing these fossil fuel industries like [Canada’s Prime Minister] Stephen Harper.

Greenpeace zodiac and whaling ships. Photo: Greenpeace

KM: What are the biggest challenges for today’s green movement when it comes to creating this systemic change?

EH: For one, we’re starting to see more and more economies that are going towards more co-operative models, we call that the sharing economy, you can look at it as sustainable growth rather than the infinite growth model. We’re seeing that in terms of, not just car sharing and Airbnb, those are the ones that get all the [attention] for sure, I’m talking about more co-operative living… you see food co-ops, you see housing co-ops, you see places where communities are sharing resources, reducing our impact on the planet and it’s not based on an infinite growth model. Those are part of the short-term [solutions] I see to get us off of fossil fuels and gets our economy running on people.

KM: When it comes to environmental issues, yes you have climate change, but there are many others which Greenpeace and other NGOs are working on, from the Arctic, oceans and forests to pesticides and wildlife. Does the green movement suffer from the fact there are so many things to address? Does it need more unity?

EH: Yeah, previously you could focus on these single issues and policy changes on them and that would effect change. Today, like climate change, I do think we have to have a more interconnected movement because if you look at it from a more macro, birds-eye view, it’s not just all these single issues… if you look at it from a larger perspective it’s the fact that people aren’t happy with where the world has gone, the fact that we do see all these costs, or externalities, of the economy that animals, forests, the air, people, are suffering…

We see all these issues and we’re concerned about all these issues, we’re aware, we’re working on them, we’re trying to find solutions but at the end of the day it is the system change [that’s needed] and we need to start working towards it and transitioning ourselves off of this system that isn’t working for us.

And for young people especially who have a lack of jobs, who are seeing a climate-doomed scenario approaching, who don’t believe in our political system, this system really is not working for us anymore. So I do think those kinds of transitions can be made, but they can be made in small ways. It doesn’t need to be taking on the entire system I’m talking about, it can be taking on smaller community projects.

KM: In the movie, it describes how they wanted to create a movement on the scale of the civil rights movement. Do you think the green movement has become that in itself or is it entirely different?

EH: I do think the environmental movement has become as big as the civil rights or feminism movements, and in some ways I’d say even bigger because it’s integrated into all of our lives, in many, many ways. It’s integrated in terms of our health, it’s integrated in terms of behaviour choices, how much energy we’re using, it’s on all of our minds one way or another, whether people think of themselves as environmentalists or activists or not, the reality is that it has affected almost every sector of society, whether people realise that or not.

We’ve still got a long way to go. As one of my dad’s quotes says ‘it’s a 200-year mop-up operation’, there’s still certainly a long clean-up to go but I think even in the last one or two generations, depending how you look at it, from my parents’ time to my time there’s already been a huge shift in terms of it being on our minds, on our consciousness and [on] some of our behaviours.

Whereas before, in their time, the word 'ecology' didn’t even mean anything, nobody even understood what that meant, so that’s a huge shift. You first have to work at the consciousness shift and behaviour shift before we start to get to the larger things. But I do think we’re in a real period of transitioning. I may be idealistic, but I do think we’re at the beginning of a transition and we need to start working to reset consciousness.

KM: What’s the best way to deal with those opposing the movement, be it fossil fuel companies or climate deniers?

EH: In terms of climate denial, it has brought up a whole other level of psychology that I don’t think we’ve fully faced yet. Climate denial is, at its core, you’re really trying to shift people’s entire world-views, and that’s really not easy work to do. And I do think film and storytelling is a window into which we can start to do some of that work and shift people’s world views and consciousness. And it’s where it’s so essential because in the fight against climate change there are still so many, I mean, some of the politicians in the US are known climate deniers and for a country that still holds a lot of weight in these climate negotiations, that’s really, really dangerous for the rest of us.

That’s where I think there’s still a lot of work to be done, I don’t know if we’ve done all the work in shifting people’s world views as much as we have worked on policy and protesting, we haven’t done the piece of consciousness shifting, at least to our opponents. And that’s really hard work and something we’re struggling with and it’s about psychology.

KM: Greenpeace began in Canada, and as a Canadian you’re aware of the country’s climate track record. Canada is doing very little to tackle climate change, yet it can feel as though this isn't talked about as much as it maybe should be. Do you agree?

EH: Canada, and Australia, are huge pieces of the climate puzzle that are being ignored or given less attention to. When we talk about keeping fossil fuels in the ground, a big portion of that includes not just American coal but includes Australian coal… and most of the Canadian tar sands need to be kept in the ground if we have any chance of facing two degrees Celsius [of global warming].

So, as we keep negotiating these two degrees, the reality is we’re not putting force on these countries to ensure that that happens by keeping their fossil fuel reserves in the ground. They play such instrumental pieces of our climate future and the pressure needs to be put on at an international level right now; [these] two countries are acting like two climate enemies of humanity rather than the nature lovers that we still project them to be. I do live in Canada and we have a 10-year-old reputation as though we’re protecting the environment when we do anything but that. The world needs to know that.

KM: Canada’s federal election is coming up in October. What would you say to Canadians looking for change?

EH: A very easy step to take when it comes to our climate future is this next Canadian election in October. We have a real chance now, an opportunity to get one of the biggest enemies of the climate future, the Harper regime, out of politics. He has not only done huge damage to our environment, forced us into becoming a fossil fuel based economy, but he’s also done tremendous harm to our democracy and our civil liberties to even being an activist anymore and having certain freedoms of speech, having certain internet access. If he had his full way, it would look more like a dictatorship than it would a democracy, I know that sounds drastic but it’s true.

Honestly, we have a chance here. I don’t think voting is everything and all of our democratic participation, I do think we need to be involved much more than that, but we have a real shot here and it’s a very simple step to take as Canadians to actually be involved in this next election, if we care anything about our future.

KM: Finally, where do you see the green movement heading now, what’s the way forward?

EH: The way I see forward is, I see that the movement is becoming much more interconnected, we are connecting with the justice movement, we’re connecting the dots with the First Nations movement. And I think we are becoming a stronger force in the world and connecting our issues and seeing it’s much more systemic.

To me though, the missing piece that we’re still not feeling comfortable addressing is that economic piece. The reality is that these negotiations are not just politically driven, they’re economically driven. Until we really start tackling the economic system, that is the core issue to me in all of our fights, and frankly capitalism is at the core of a lot of this, and I know we’re beginning to talk about that more with Naomi Klein’s book and others, but we’re not really doing it in terms of our activism, even Occupy, most people talk about it very dismissively, and to me there was a core there of addressing our economic centre of all of our issues that I think we need to do more of. That, to me, is where we need to connect our movements to and begin to unravel and transition ourselves off of a capitalist state which frankly isn’t supporting us or the climate anymore.

How To Change The World premiered on September 9 and is currently playing in cinemas in the UK and US.

All photos credited to Greenpeace  

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

When former environment minister Jim Prentice held his introductory lunch with U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson in November 2009, Prentice described to Jacobson how he had been shocked during a visit to Norway to find heated opposition to the Alberta oilsands during a public debate over state-owned StatOil ASA’s investment there.

This information was contained in a cable from Jacobson, which was obtained by WikiLeaks and posted by a Norwegian paper.

Prentice was clearly feeling the heat from a global campaign by environmental organizations to frame oilsands oil as “dirty” because of its energy-intensive extraction, which make for Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.

“The public sentiment in Norway shocked him and has heightened his awareness of the negative consequences to Canada’s historically ‘green’ standing on the world stage,” the cable reported.

An Oilsands PR Makeover[view:in_this_series=block_1]

Given the dismal reputation of the oilsands, the government had three options: (a) clean them up by bringing in environmental legislation; (b) discredit the people creating the negative image; or (c) set up front groups to promote the industry, however dirty it may be.

In his discussion with Jacobson, Prentice suggested he would do (a): “impose new rules on oil sands.” But he never did. The federal government — which has promised to deliver oil and gas regulations since 2007 — offered no help.

Instead Prentice, along with the government of Alberta, got to work changing the oilsands’ image. The campaign began behind-the-scenes with intensive international lobbying focused on fighting the European Union’s proposed ‘dirty’ label for Albertan crude.

While those backroom meetings were taking place, another public strategy was being deployed to revive the image of the oilsands: demean those exposing the environmental disaster unfolding in Northern Alberta.

Shoot the messenger and undermine the message.

A Brief Chronology of the Anti-Enviro Movement  

Enter Vivian Krause.

When Jacobson wrote his cable, Vivian Krause — a former PR specialist for the aquaculture industry — was beavering away in relative obscurity investigating critics of farmed salmon.

Krause had previously worked as a nutritionist for the aquaculture industry, which routinely recruits nutritionists to tout the benefits of all salmon, farmed or wild.

She began attacking critics of aquaculture when she “unexpectedly came across a grant for an ‘antifarming campaign’ with ‘science messages’ and ‘earned media.’”

Within a year of the Prentice-Jacobson lunch, Krause switched to researching the funding of oilsands critics. She says the switch occurred “while going through the tax returns of American charitable foundations to try and figure out who was funding the campaign against salmon farming [when she] happened to notice many grants for a ‘Tar Sands campaign.’”

“That’s when I started to write about the campaign against Alberta oil,” Krause wrote on her blog, Fair Questions.

These claims may be true — “unexpectedly came across,” “happened to notice” — but the timing was fortuitous. It was a message Prentice and his replacements as environment minister, John Baird and Peter Kent, as well as the Harper government and the oilsands industry, all desperately needed, especially as opposition to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline — a major thoroughfare for oilsands crude destined for Asian markets — was growing to unprecedented levels.

Krause was given a podium for her revelations in the pages of the National Post, where she wrote eighteen columns on the subject, magnifying her voice many times over. The Post featured her as “the girl who played with tax data.”

Repetition over the following year established the frame that because Canadian environmental charities are funded by American money, they are not acting in the interests of Canadians or the environment, but for American oil. The message dissolves on close examination, but few outside the environmental community were examining it closely.

Other, Fairer Questions

Some of the questions not being asked were just how Canadian is Enbridge, or the other proponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline? Or, more broadly, just how Canadian are the oilsands?

Enbridge is one of the largest energy transportation and distribution companies in North America. Its head office may be in Calgary, but its operations span the continent — 61 per cent of revenues are earned from American operations. Forty-four per cent of Enbridge’s shares are owned in the U.S.

Three major Chinese corporations, Petro-China, Sinopec and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, are all backers of the Northern Gateway pipeline and, since the project’s delay, have all become major investors in the oilsands.

A 2012 analysis calculated that 71 per cent of oilsands production was owned by foreign shareholders. Even ostensibly Canadian companies — such as Suncor or Canadian Oil Sands — are majority foreign owned.

The Canadian-versus-American oil interest frame just doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny.

Krause’s research was not difficult to carry out. Many Canadian environmental organizations have obtained charitable status so they can receive grants from philanthropic foundations. These foundations must disclose all the grants they make and this information is assembled in easily accessed web sites where it can be inspected.

Krause herself is not a registered charitable organization so she cannot receive grants from foundations — grants that would be publicly accessible. The money she does receive from corporations and individuals can stay anonymous.

A year after Krause launched her National Post commentaries, she burst onto the political scene. In November 2011, Prime Minister Harper gave an interview with Global TV in Vancouver in which he parroted Krause’s frame, warning that “significant American interests” would be “trying to line up against the Northern Gateway project” which would allow oil companies to export oilsands oil to Asia.

“They’ll funnel money through environmental groups and others in order to try to slow it down but, as I say, we’ll make sure that the best interests of Canada are protected.”

Later in the month, Jim Prentice, by then a vice-chairman at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, echoed this sentiment by telling the National Post that he thought “environmental organizations based outside the country [should] be required to reveal who gives them funding when they participate in Canada’s regulatory process to influence [Canada’s] internal decisions.”

In December, Enbridge president Patrick Daniel joined Harper and Prentice by wondering out loud why “U.S. foundations feel they need to come here to fund opposition to a project that is obviously not in the U.S. national best interest.”

And in the second week of January 2012, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver released his infamous letter warning of “environmental and other radical groups” seeking to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda,” referring to the many groups lining up to speak against the Northern Gateway project at the National Energy Board’s Joint Review Panel hearings.

Oliver’s letter was followed by a slew of ads attacking Canadian environmental organizations mounted by Ethical Oil, the oil industry advocacy group established by conservative gadfly Ezra Levant and Conservative party apparatchik Alykhan Velshi. Ethical Oil acknowledged Krause’s research as a source of information used in their ads as well as the inspiration for several complaint letters submitted to the Canada Revenue Agency questioning the charitable tax status of prominent environmental organizations. Following those complaints, the federal government launched a $13.4 million investigation into charities receiving foreign funding.

On the top of her resume, Krause credits herself for prompting the revenue agency’s audit of charities, which included seven of Canada’s top environmental groups. And a recent investigation by the National Observer argues Krause was given a leg-up by disgraced Senator Mike Duffy, who appears to have played a critical role in advancing Krause’s research in the political arena and connecting her to lucrative sources of industry funding (Krause maintains this is untrue).

Not bad for someone who just “happened to notice many grants for a Tar Sands Campaign.”

Krause insists her work is not funded: “I haven’t been funded by any industry, any company, any political party, any entity of any kind.” She does disclose honoraria she received for speaking to organizations such as the Association of Mineral Exploration in BC, Canadian Energy Pipelines Association and Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Same goes for 2013 & 2014 (so far) "@Garossino: @FairQuestions conceded >90% of her 2012 income comes from resource sector speaking fees."

— Vivian Krause (@FairQuestions) April 27, 2014

Yes. “@Garossino: Are you saying speaking fees to industry also exceeds 90% of your 2013 + '14 income to date? Details?”

— Vivian Krause (@FairQuestions) April 27, 2014

Krause officially closed down her blog, Fair Questions, in June 2012 and wrote what seems to be her last National Post column in 2014. Krause continues to speak at industry-sponsored events.

The Snowball Effect

With Krause’s rise to prominance the work to discredit Canada’s environmental movement was far from over. Since her humble beginnings in 2011, several other organizations stepped in to carry on the “foreign-funded” attack on environmental groups.

One website named “Our Decision” went online the same week Joe Oliver came gunning after “radical” environmentalists who were trying to stop the Northern Gateway pipeline. The site provides no information about the people behind it although donations go to the Ethical Oil Institute, whose directors are Levant and Thomas Ross, an employer-side labour lawyer whose Calgary firm, McLennan Ross, boasts of a relationship with the oilsands industry that goes back to its origins in the 1960s.

The purpose of “Our Decision” is to collect donations to be marshalled in the war against environmentalists: “Will you help us fight against foreign-funded and controlled lobbyists interfering in Canadian affairs?”

“Follow the Money Trail” is a second web site that promotes the Krause conspiracy theory. The site went online in mid-2014 and is sponsored by British Columbians for Prosperity, a new organization which, like Ethical Oil, provides no information about its financial backers, directors, members or advisers. The site helps us to “follow the money trail and explore the U.S. foundation funding hypocrisy that’s impacting Canada’s sovereignty.”

The organization hired one journalist to do the research and another to disseminate the findings. The findings, such as they are, had already been found by Krause.

And on it goes. Repeat this message: American billionaires back Canadian environmental organizations opposed to oilsands expansion and pipeline construction, not because oilsands developments threaten the environment or add to global warming, but because they are detrimental to American oil interests.

A perfect bait-and-switch strategy.

Meanwhile, little light has being shed on the funding of citizen groups defending oil production and export.

Unlike environmental groups, whose spokespeople have a clear public profile and whose organizations have long-standing missions, publicly-known board members and financial records, the same cannot be said of pop-up defenders of oil interests such as the Ethical Oil Institute and British Columbians for Prosperity.

Their activities remain shrouded in secrecy.

Image Credit: Vivian Krause speaks at She Talks Resources. Photo by Mychaylo Prystupa

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Ken Wu is executive director of Majority for a Sustainable Society (MASS) and co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance. 

For Part 1 of this article, click here.

In the first part of this article, I described what specific challenges the climate movement faces when confronting its own limiting tendencies as well as industry funded public relations campaigns. In this second part I outline what I think are four essential ways the climate movement must evolve in order to overcome these obstacles.

FIRST, we must become a lot more political, in the sense that it’s fundamentally the laws, policies, and agreements that shape our greater society and economy. And it’s our society and economy which are the foundations of our personal lifestyles. What is available, affordable, practical, and possible in our lifestyles is largely a product of the society in which we live – what clean energy sources exist at what price relative to dirty energy, how available public transit is, how well or poorly our cities are designed for walking, cycling, and accessing our needs, how energy efficient our buildings are, and so on.  

No individual is an island unto himself; the way we live is fundamentally shaped by the economy and society in which our lifestyles are nested.  

Western individualism sees each person as an island divorced from society and economic circumstances. As a result, many North American environmentalists instinctively emphasize efforts towards personal lifestyle purity as a fundamental remedy to environmental problems despite being in a system that, at this time, is based on fossil fuels in almost every regard (hence the need for larger societal change). Needless to say this is a virtually impossible task that plays well into the hands of fossil fuel advocates who are bound to find “inconsistencies” and “hypocrisy” in the personal lifestyles of all those who care about the fate of the planet![view:in_this_series=block_1]   Government regulations that shift our energy choices at their sources, that is, at the point of resource extraction or energy production, from dirty to clean energy, or from low to high energy efficiency in our technologies, will automatically be incorporated into the lifestyles of all consumers, whether or not they are environmental idealists.   In addition, studies show that voluntary or “non-compulsory” methods to reduce carbon emissions have a minor impact and real progress occurs through regulations and tax shifting. If we want to change both corporate and individual behaviour, putting an escalating price on carbon, banning coal-fired plants, and strengthening regulations and standards are vital.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t pursue personal lifestyle reforms – just that if the goal is to actually change the outcome for the climate, the major leaps forward will come through regulations, government policies, and political action.   SECOND, as much as the climate change movement emphasizes the problems, we must also emphasize the solutions and a positive vision of a sustainable, low carbon society. That is, how a low carbon society would support ramped-up green businesses and jobs, create more livable cities, foster greater community, improve our health, support global peace and stability, and sustain the natural diversity and beauty of the planet.    After repeatedly hearing about impending disaster, many people tune out. We can’t psychologically stay in emergency mode forever.  If the “inconvenient truth” is always a negative crisis message, it’ll be easier to hear the “reassuring lies” over the long run. However, if the truth is also a positive alternative vision – that we can have a better quality of life in a sustainable society based on clean energy, efficiency, smart planning and liveable communities – it’s a message most people can stay with and promote. That’s not to downplay the need to get the facts out about the real crisis – just that we must lead our message with positive solutions more often.   THIRD, our positive solutions must emphasize the economy, on how people can make a living. The economy is usually the top concern in public opinion polls, with the environment often lagging far behind except in limited “peak years” like 1990 and 2006. As long as the environmental movement fails to emphasize how people can realistically make a living in lieu of stopping destructive industries, it will stay in the margins, always too weak to transform the status quo. Publicly emphasizing the viability of a clean and efficient economy will help expose the falsehood that there is no practical alternative to fossil fuels, a “fact” often assumed to be true due to the alternative’s lack of exposure.   The basic fact also remains that if we don’t significantly shift our economy towards efficiency and renewables, the factors causing the problems will only continue – that is, our huge appetite for energy and jobs in the absence of clean energy alternatives will ensure that burning fossil fuels will always have the popular support to continue until it triggers runaway global warming.   LASTLY, the climate movement must become broader-based, aiming to mobilize the mainstream public, not just progressives and environmental activists – that is, we must actively engage green businesses, unions, faith groups, scientists, farmers, First Nations, and a larger diversity of ethnic communities, among many others. Small groups of angry “activist superheroes” will not save the planet – only an informed, large-scale movement that represents a majority cross-section of society will have the power to fundamentally change it. This will naturally undermine the fossil fuel advocates’ PR claims that the movement consists primarily of “others” who are different from regular Canadians.   The current climate resurgence will be different than the previous surge in 2006. Movements naturally evolve, and hopefully in a way that allows them to make sufficient inroads to change the fundamental outcomes. In 2013, I believe that we’ll see the return of hope.

For Part 1 of this article, click here.

Image Credit: Ken Wu at McLaughlin Ridge by TJ Watts from Ancient Forest Alliance.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Ken Wu is executive director of Majority for a Sustainable Society (MASS) and co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance. Read Part 2 of this series here.

After years of apathy and political inertia, North America’s climate sustainability movement has found itself in the midst of a timely resurgence, as is evident by the recent massive expansion of Bill Mckibben's 350.org movement against the Keystone XL pipeline.

With climate change regaining its footing as a central political issue, now is the time to pressure governments to enact the needed laws, policies, and agreements required to curtail runaway global warming. But unless the moment is seized right, climate action will be stymied again – and there is no time to wait for another opportunity.

During his State of the Union address on February 12, 2013, US President Barack Obama stated:

"For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change…We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science – and act before it’s too late."   Recent studies project that the Earth’s average temperature is on course to rise over four degrees this century, far beyond the two degree rise when “runaway” global warming kicks-in due to positive feedbacks that make it extremely difficult to halt.

The question now is if the climate movement will grow strong enough, fast enough, to ensure sufficient government regulations, carbon pricing, policies, and international agreements to stop runaway global warming.

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The climate movement faces two likely obstacles when tackling global warming issues today: PR pushback from the fossil fuels industry and the movement’s own internal shortcomings. Addressing these issues simultaneously will require a broad-based response that coordinates political action, positive solutions and a smart economic emphasis.

Understanding the Obstacles   It’s important to recognize that the climate movement will have to face up to the influence of industry profit. Highly coordinated campaigns designed by Big Oil and their political backers are crafted to influence both public understanding of complex issues as well as policy creation.

Recent research, for example, has uncovered the efforts of the Koch brothers, US oil industry billionaires, to deny the scientific legitimacy of global warming, to dismantle regulatory bodies like the US Environmental Protection Agency, and to paralyze action on climate change at the international level.   In Canada, campaigns like Ethical Oil and the federal government’s depiction of environmentalists as ‘foreign funded’ ‘extremists’ both operate like the larger climate denial machine, which distracts and detracts from fact-based arguments by calling the credibility of environmental organizations, or individuals, into question.

But you’ll also hear a number of other arguments that seem to be becoming standard fare in climate denial or pro-fossil fuel talking points. You’ll hear, for example:

• that fossil fuels are indispensable for a flourishing economy flush with employment opportunities
• that alternative energy, while a worthy ideal, is just not viable
• that putting a price on pollution through mechanisms like a carbon tax would dismantle the economy
• that even the dirtiest fossil fuels in North America, like Alberta's tar sands, are more environmentally and morally superior than conventional oil from other nations with poorer human rights records
• that emerging technologies will make all fossil fuels clean and safe, including coal and bitumen

 

It's along this last point's line of thought, or wishful thinking, that you see the emergence of "clean coal" and "ethical oil," all of which rely more on rhetorical constructions than breakthrough technologies.

Room for Improvement

While the public relations campaigns launched by fossil fuel funds are undermining progress for climate sustainability, the environmental movement’s own entrenched tendencies might be partially to blame.

Some of these limiting tendencies are, for example:

• An underlying emphasis on voluntary, personal lifestyle reforms instead of the primacy of societal change through politics, laws, regulations and policies that reshape our economy, land-use, cities, and infrastructure.
• Being the movement of “no” or “stop”, that is, too much negative emphasis with proportionately less attention to solutions and alternatives.
• An insufficient focus on the economy, on how businesses can flourish and people can have jobs when destructive industries are restricted or phased-out.
• Aiming to mobilize the “same old, same old” minority, the 20% of strong progressives and environmentalists in society – or the minuscule fraction of activists among them.

  Seeing the Way Forward

By surmounting its own limiting tendencies, the movement can counteract many of the fossil fuel industry's PR attacks and also move out of the margins, beyond the turf of mainly environmental idealists and activists, into a force that moves the much larger mainstream public with the power to change the status quo.

To read Ken's thoughts on how the climate movement might evolve to overcome these challenges, stay tuned for Part 2 of this article.

Image Credit: Ken Wu beside a fallen redcedar near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island by TJ Watts from Ancient Forest Alliance.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

By Jeffrey Monaghan, researcher with the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University and Kevin Walby, Assistant Professor, Sociology, University of Victoria.

A recent example of RCMP surveillance of environmental activists was reported last month by the Montreal Gazette.  According to documents released under the Access to Information Act, it appears that a branch of the expansive RCMP national security apparatus – the Critical Infrastructure Intelligence Team – has been monitoring a group of Quebec residents opposed to shale gas development.  The group under surveillance – la Regroupement Interrégional sur le gaz de schiste de la Vallée du St-Laurent – represents more than 100 anti-shale gas citizen committees in Quebec. 

Surveillance practices targeting the environmental movement should not be surprising given recent trends toward an increasing allocation of resources to counter-terrorism programs across the country.

The RCMP’s rationale behind their surveillance of shale gas opponents relies on the potential threat of ‘homegrown extremism.’ As an increasingly visible ploy (particular since Minister Joe Oliver’s polemic regarding opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline), references to domestic extremism represents a shift in the working definition of terrorism where groups like al-Qaida or the Taliban are no longer the central antagonists.

Instead, national security agencies have presented a conflated threat of terrorism and extremism to castigate a host of groups and causes, including pacifists that organize petitions against shale gas development.

While troubling, these practices have become the norm within national security agencies.

We have recently published an academic report on security preparations for the 2010 Winter Olympics using access to information requests with the RCMP and CSIS. Examining threat assessments from 2005 and 2010, our findings show how terminology of ‘extremism’ was used as a code word to describe critics of the Games.

As the Games approached, the category of ‘extremism’ was used to refer to a surprising range of actors but mostly as a catch-all for a host of left wing groups, particularly those associated with the global justice movement, environmentalists, anti-capitalists, and animal rights activists. Groups like Greenpeace, PETA, and Sea Shepherd were frequently mentioned in these threat assessments.

Groups that are catalogued in these surveillance campaigns cannot challenge such accusations, nor can they see the substantive materials that gathered by state surveillance practices. Labels like ‘extremist’ cannot be challenged.

What is important to understand about the category of ‘extremism’ is that almost any activity or communication contrary to the government can get you labeled this way.

Looking at primary documents from the RCMP and CSIS, it appears that a range of innocuous low-level political activities (i.e. riding on a bus to a protest, attending an environmental rally, advocating maple syrup boycotts) can get you lumped under this label. Further, there is a troubling association between this category and threats of violence.

RCMP and CSIS view a number of activist activities – particularly civil disobedience – as forms of attack.  Blocking access to roads or buildings are framed as violence, depicting pacifists as national security threats. In the lead up to the Olympics in Vancouver, national security agencies also used the label in association with private property destruction, specifically the property of corporate sponsors. During this time period, the label of extremism allowed national security resources to be mobilized for the protection of tarsands companies and other sponsors. 

Expanded categories for policing and surveillance practices can have a number of ripple effects. Namely, these practices can lead to the criminalization of public advocates and a broad ‘chilling effect’ on participatory democratic practices.

This is entirely consistent with the Conservative agenda on security and crime that aims to neutralize and invalidate those who challenge their policy positions. This approach is troubling given their support for controversial projects like the Northern Gateway pipeline and the groundswell of political opposition that it has garnered.

This all begs a larger question: what exactly does the government mean when it conflates ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ in their counter-terrorism policies?

It is no longer clear whom the RCMP, Stephen Harper or Vic Toews count as terrorists. If almost any dissent can get one’s actions classified as ‘extremism’ how much more does it take to be labeled and prosecuted as a terrorist in Harper’s Canada? 

Notably, one shale gas opponent has been charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act because of allegations concerning threatening letters. Likewise, student activists from Quebec are facing terrorism-related criminal charges for allegedly releasing smoke bombs during last year’s student strike.

These prosecutions point to a significant expansion of criminal liability for ‘terrorism activities.’ Coupled with efforts to include damage to, or disruption of, private property as acts of terrorism, the environmental movement should take note of the changing field of struggle – and the resources that are being amassed against it.  


Expanding the definition of terrorism allows for national security agencies to broaden their scope of operations and cast their surveillance net upon a larger spectrum of groups and activities. In an era where Canada increasingly resembles a petro-state, surveillance agencies are regularly caricaturizing activists as threats to national security. With an appetite for larger budgets and greater resources, Canada’s counter-terrorism strategies seem to be making up new threats that are used to justify further surveillance.

But what the RCMP will rarely disclose is that the threat of terrorism attacks in Canada is very low and Canadian spending on national security issues is completely incommensurate with these risks.

A much larger threat – the RCMP won’t mention – are the impacts of these surveillance campaigns on social movements: suspicion, paranoia, stress, internal divisiveness, and the potential for significant ‘chilling effects’ on supposedly protected activities like speech, association, and rights to organize. Part of contesting these mega environmental catastrophes in-the-making must also be ongoing critique of state attempts to categorize, frame, slander and maim dissent.

Looking at the flipside to these surveillance projects reveals another important dynamic at-play: the strength of ecological movements is being acknowledged.

While government would like to dismiss opposition to the current growth-at-any-cost model as a threat to national security, the PR-games associated with labeling environmental groups as terrorists might just backfire. This is likely only the beginning of a long standoff. 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.