Thanks to a recent poll from ABC News and the Washington Post, we know that nearly two-thirds of American adults think global warming is “a serious problem facing the country.”

And now, thanks to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change (full study available at this link), we know exactly how many people are out there taking money from dirty energy interests to try and confuse Americans about climate changeto derail overdue action and protect the fossil fuel industries' profits.

Justin Farrell, a professor of sociology at Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the author of the report, studied both the institutional and social network structure of the climate denier movement and found that there are some 4,556 individuals with ties to 164 organizations that are involved in pushing anti-climate science views on the public.

“The individuals in this bipartite network include interlocking board members, as well as many more informal and overlapping social, political, economic and scientific ties,” Farrell wrote in the report. “The organizations include a complex network of think tanks, foundations, public relations firms, trade associations, and ad hoc groups.”

Farrell notes that while funding from ExxonMobil and the Koch family foundations have notoriously played a part in building the climate denial movement, there was very little empirical evidence demonstrating exactly how much influence these corporate benefactors had on the actual output of climate deniers and, in turn, how much they affected what politicians and other decisionmakers were saying about climate change.

So Farrell studied all of the written and verbal texts relating to climate change produced between 1993 and 2013 by climate denial organizations (40,785 documents comprising nearly 40 million words), as well as any mention of global warming and climate science by three major news channels (14,943 documents), every US president (1,930 documents) and the US Congress (7,786 documents).

He focused on Exxon and the Koch Brothers’ family foundations because, he writes, they are “reliable indicators of a much larger effort of corporate lobbying in the climate change counter-movement."

What Farrell found was that organizations taking funds from “elite” corporate funders of climate denial like Exxon and the Koch Brothers — groups like the CATO Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Heartland Institute — “have greater influence over flows of resources, communication, and the production of contrarian information” than other denial groups.

After performing a sophisticated semantic analysis, Farrell was able to show that climate denial organizations with ties to those two major funders were more successful at getting their viewpoint echoed in national news media. Presidential speeches and debate on the floor of Congress showed less of an impact.

According to Bloomberg, Robert Brulle, a sociology professor at Drexel University who has conducted similar research but was not involved in the Nature Climate Change study, said that Farrell’s findings beg a very obvious question:

"Why is the media picking up and promulgating the central themes of climate misinformation?”  

That is very similar to the questions posed by DeSmog's executive director Brendan DeMelle in his coverage of Justin Farrell's other recent study on this issue: Research Confirms ExxonMobil, Koch-funded Climate Denial Echo Chamber Polluted Mainstream Media. DeMelle listed three questions for media outlets to ponder: 

Will this study, published in a highly authoritative journal, finally compel the newsrooms and boardrooms of the traditional media to take responsibility to undo some of the damage done by their complicity in spreading fossil fuel industry-funded misinformation?

Will false balance — quoting a distinguished climate scientist and then speed-dialing Pat Michaels at the Cato Institute for an opposing quote — finally stop?

Will editors commit to serving as referees to ensure the same industry PR pollution isn’t published any longer?

Image credit: P.WOLMUTH/REPORT DIGITAL-REA/Redux

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This is a guest post by David Suzuki.

Brothers Charles and David Koch run Koch Industries, the second-largest privately owned company in the U.S., behind Cargill. They’ve given close to US$70 million to climate change denial front groups, some of which they helped start, including Americans for Prosperity, founded by David Koch and a major force behind the Tea Party movement.

Through their companies, the Kochs are the largest U.S. leaseholder in the Alberta oilsands. They’ve provided funding to Canada’s pro-oil Fraser Institute and are known to fuel the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory, which claims a 1992 UN non-binding sustainable development proposal is a plot to remove property rights and other freedoms.

Researchers reveal they’re also behind many anti-transit initiatives in the U.S., in cities and states including Nashville, Indianapolis, Boston, Virginia, Florida and Los Angeles. They spend large amounts of money on campaigns to discredit climate science and the need to reduce greenhouse gases, and they fund sympathetic politicians.

In late January, 50 U.S. anti-government and pro-oil groups — including some tied to the Kochs and the pro-oil, pro-tobacco Heartland Institute — sent Congress a letter opposing a gas tax increase that would help fund public transit, in part because “Washington continues to spend federal dollars on projects that have nothing to do with roads like bike paths and transit.”

The letter says “transportation infrastructure has a spending problem, not a revenue problem,” an argument similar to one used by opponents of the transportation plan Metro Vancouver residents are currently voting on. Vancouver’s anti-transit campaign is led by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation — a group that doesn’t reveal its funding sources and is on record as denying the existence of human-caused climate change — along with Hamish Marshall, a conservative strategist with ties to Ethical Oil.

American and Canadian transit opponents paint themselves as populist supporters of the common people, a tactic also used against carbon pricing. Marshall told Business in Vancouver, “I love the idea of working on a campaign where we can stand up for the little guy.” The U.S. letter claims the gas tax increase “would disproportionately hurt lower income Americans already hurt by trying times in our economy.” Both fail to note that poor and middle class families will benefit most from public transit and other sustainable transportation options.

Although many organizations that promote the fossil fuel industry and reject the need to address climate change — including the Heartland Institute, International Climate Science Coalition, Ethical Oil and Friends of Science — are secretive about their funding sources, a bit of digging often turns up oil, gas and coal money, often from the Kochs in the U.S. And most of their claims are easily debunked. In the case of the U.S. Heartland Institute, arguments stray into the absurd, like comparing climate researchers and those who accept the science to terrorists and murderers like the Unabomber and Charles Manson!

In some ways, it’s understandable why fossil fuel advocates would reject clean energy, conservation and sustainable transportation. Business people protect their interests — which isn’t necessarily bad. But anything that encourages people to drive less and conserve energy cuts into the fossil fuel industry’s massive profits. It’s unfortunate that greed trumps the ethical need to reduce pollution, limit climate change and conserve non-renewable resources.

It’s also poor economic strategy on a societal level. Besides contributing to pollution and global warming, fossil fuels are becoming increasingly difficult, dangerous and expensive to exploit as easily accessible sources are depleted — and markets are volatile, as we’ve recently seen. It’s crazy to go on wastefully burning these precious resources when they can be used more wisely, and when we have better options. Clean energy technology, transit improvements and conservation also create more jobs and economic activity and contribute to greater well-being and a more stable economy than fossil fuel industries.

To reduce pollution and address global warming, we must do everything we can, from conserving energy to shifting to cleaner energy sources. Improving transportation and transit infrastructure is one of the easiest ways to do so while providing more options for people to get around.

Those who profit from our continued reliance on fossil fuels will do what they can to convince us to stay on their expensive, destructive road. It’s up to all of us to help change course.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

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Today marks five years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the wrong way on the Citizens United case, allowing unlimited spending by corporations in elections. Protesters in Washington spent the morning disrupting the Supreme Court to register their frustration with the ruling, yelling “overturn Citizens United!” from the back of the courtroom.

In case you haven't seen the documentary film "Koch Brothers Exposed," Brave New Films is offering the film free online for anyone to view.

I asked Mike Damanskis, a comedian, filmmaker and social media manager at Brave New Films, about the decision and what they hope to achieve by doing it. Read on for our Q&A.

Q: Why is Brave New Films making this documentary available to the general public?

A: We are releasing this documentary free to the public so more people understand how the political activities of the Koch brothers have reshaped the political landscape. Since Citizens United was ruled on 5 years ago, anonymous donors (including the Kochs) have been able to pour limitless funds into our political system, and that has far-reaching consequences for our society. 

Money does not equal free speech, and Citizens United needs to be overturned in the interest of preserving Democracy.

Q: What do people really need to know about the Koch Brothers? Is it enough to be just vaguely aware that they're 'bad guys' or is there more to it?

A: They now own the Republican party.

Even this weekend, they are hosting secret meetings with Republican presidential hopefuls – it’s like "The Bachelor," but with Republican candidates. They fund everything from voter suppression efforts to re-segregating our schools, to eliminating social security. They've poured at least $67 million into groups that deny climate change – as they profit from dirty fossil fuels and the lack of regulations around them. The film shows just how deep their influence goes.

Q: Do you have a happy birthday wish for Citizens United?

A: That everybody watch the film and share it with their friends… and most importantly, REGISTER TO VOTE. Make their friends and family register to vote. Start mobilizing early. 

We'll never be able to match the big money poured into our elections, so we'll need to stand together and fight for what we want. Somehow it became fashionable in the last election to say that voting doesn't make a difference. We had lower turnout in this election than any election since World War 2. But not voting is – is by default – a vote for the Koch brothers and the politicians that serve them.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot -OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED!

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After using Detroit as a toxic waste dumping ground, the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers are now piling their petroleum coke from tar sands oil refineries in Chicago.

Kiley Kroh of ThinkProgress writes that petroleum coke, or petcoke, "is building up along Chicago's Calumet River and alarming residents." The Chicago petcoke piles are owned by KCBX, an affiliate of Koch Carbon, which is a subsidiary of Koch Industries.

Petcoke is a high-carbon, high-sulfur byproduct of coking, a refining process that extracts oil from tar sands bitumen crude. The petcoke owned by Charles and David Koch is a byproduct of bitumen crude shipped to US refineries from the Alberta tar sands.

Midwest Energy News reports that "a mile and a half of the Calumet River shoreline holds big black piles," some of which rise "about five stories high." Locals say that the piles have grown recently, even as the BP Whiting refinery across the border in Indiana nears completion of a $3.8 billion upgrade to process more tar sands crude.

Detroit Mayor David Bing ordered the removal of the petcoke piles from his city in August, after protests by residents and local politicians concerned about the health and environmental impacts. Residents complained of "respiratory problems as the thick, black dust was blowing off the piles and into their apartments," reports ThinkProgress. The Detroit petcoke is being moved to Ohio.

A January 2013 report by Lorne Stockman of Oil Change International estimates that taking petcoke into consideration would raise annual Keystone XL GHG emissions "13% above the State Department's calculations" for the pipeline.

While petcoke can't be used as fuel in Canada and the US because of its high GHG emissions, the waste can be sold as a cheaper, more polluting alternative to low-grade coal in countries with looser environmental and health regulations. There is high demand for petcoke in countries like Mexico, China and India, where its emissions further exacerbate the effects of tar sands production on climate change.

The waste piles accumulating in the U.S. Midwest are only the beginning, should Keystone XL be approved. As this infographic from Oil Change International shows, if the pipeline is built, "the tar sands oil flowing through it would result in massive amounts of this dirty byproduct."

Credit: Oilchange International

Stockman's report calculates that diluted bitumen delivered to the US via Keystone XL would produce about 15,000 tons of petcoke a day, all waiting to be exported as dirty fuel in piles like the ones plaguing Detroit and Chicago.

Petcoke produces 10 to 15 per cent more CO2 than coal, bringing its additional emissions to "50,000 tons of CO2 every day or over 18.3 million tons (16.6 million metric tons) of CO2 a year."

"The Petcoke piles in Chicago are another symptom of Obama's flawed "All of the Above" energy strategy. It's time we actually made choices about the kind of energy we want rather than taking anything we can get," Stockman told DeSmog Canada.

Chicago can choose to follow Detroit's lead, fighting back against the Koch brothers' dumping of petcoke. But the fact remains that petcoke is a growing environmental threat directly related to tar sands production and expansion, and remains a dangerously overlooked threat when considering the full consequences of the Keystone XL pipeline.

President Obama would be wise to sit up and take notice of the petcoke piles already threatening health in US cities when weighing whether to approve the pipeline. 

Image Credit: Josh Mogerman / Flickr

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It seems Koch Carbon, who own the mound of petroleum coke waste piling up on the side of the Detroit River, need to look no further than Canada to sell their high-polluting industrial waste as fuel. Of course, the irony here is that the petcoke is itself a byproduct of imported Canadian tar sands crude being refined in a Marathon Petroleum plant down the river.

Ian Austen writes in the New York Times, that a "Canadian electrical power plant, owned by Nova Scotia Power…is burning the high-carbon, high-sulfur waste product because it is cheaper than natural gas."  

Residents have reported "regular visits to the coke pile by two self-unloading, oceangoing bulk carriers owned by Canada Steamship Lines of Montreal." Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) is owned by former Prime Minister Paul Martin's sons, Paul Jr., David and James.

Tracking websites confirmed that one of the CSL ships, Atlantic Huron, "made several trips this year from Detroit to a coal terminal in Sydney, Nova Scotia" which services two petcoke-burning Nova Scotia Power plants.

Austen quotes Neeta Ritcey, spokeswoman for Nova Scotia Power, as confirming that the company bought fuel from the Detroit stockpile for "competitive reasons."

North American petcoke is often sold to countries like China, India and Mexico, where emissions regulations are relatively lax. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not allow the burning of petcoke in the US.

While Nova Scotia Power does burn cleaner fuel like natural gas from offshore fields, Austen notes that "the company produced 59 percent of its power from coal and petroleum coke [in 2012], an increase of two percentage points from 2011."

In a blog post, Wayne O'Connor, Nova Scotia Power's executive vice president for operations said that because of rising natural gas prices, "the switch to coal help save our customers money over continuing to use gas, while still allowing us to meet emissions requirements." His phrasing lumps petcoke in with coal, and fails to mention that the former is even more polluting.

A report by Lorne Stockman for environmental group Oil Change International found that a "ton of petcoke yields on average 53.6 percent more CO2 than a ton of coal." Stockman also notes that petcoke emissions are "not included in most assessments of the climate impact of tar sands or conventional oil production and consumption."

This means that petcoke isn't taken into account when assessing the impact of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Should the Obama administration approve Keystone XL, the increased imports of tar sands bitumen crude into US refineries will only replicate the Detroit stockpile in various locations around the country. And with fresh petcoke waste waiting to be sold and shipped by industrialists like the Koch brothers and the Martin family, this carbon-rich, dirty fuel could end up right back in coal-fired power plants all over Canada.

In the meanwhile, even without Keystone XL boosting petcoke production, the Detroit pile shows no signs of disappearing. As Austen observes, despite the petcoke being shipped away regularly, "the oil sands bitumen refinery there is producing the material at a rate which means the waterfront pile continues to grow."

Image Credit: Suncor Energy / Flickr

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A black mound of solid waste is piling up in Detroit, making visualizing the environmental impact of the Canadian tar sands boom a little easier for everyone.

The waste, which is carbon-rich petroleum coke, is a direct result of the Albertan tar sands. Ian Austen writes in the New York Times, that the "three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the…side of the Detroit River" is the "long overlooked byproduct of Canada's oil sands boom."

The coke is waste from a refinery down the river, owned by Marathon Petroleum, which started processing exported Canadian oil from the tar sands as recently as November. The plant refines 28,000 barrels of bitumen crude a day from the tar sands. Already, the results are showing. But even this mountain of what is essentially sulphur and carbon-infused industrial refuse is less a concern than another way to make money for some. The petroleum coke is bought and owned by Koch Carbon.

Koch Carbon is run by brothers Charles and David Koch, industrialists who back "activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change." Their company sells the coke as cheap fuel, usually overseas, where it releases more pollution into the atmosphere.

Petroleum coke, or petcoke, is a byproduct of coking, a refining process that releases oil from thick bitumen crude from the tar sands. Canada reportedly has 78.9 million tons stockpiled, some "dumped in open-pit oil sands mines and tailing ponds in Alberta." As the Detroit stockpile demonstrates, the petcoke travels further afield as well.

Austen observes that "Detroit's pile will not be the only one," since the Harper government is putting all its support behind expanding the tar sands oil industry via exports to the US. Part of this push is its championing of the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.

If Keystone XL is approved by the Obama administration, even more petcoke will be produced by refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast, which will receive diluted bitumen straight from the tar sands via the pipeline. These refineries will probably ship it to Mexico and China as fuel. There is also a high demand for petcoke in India, where it's used as fuel for cement-making kilns. Petcoke is used as an alternative to low-grade coal.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not allow the burning of petcoke in the US.

Austen quotes Tony McCallum, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), as insisting that most Canadian oil exports to the US Gulf Coast will "replace declining heavy oil imports from Mexico and Venezuela that produces the same amount of petcoke, so it doesn't create a new issue."

A study on petcoke by Lorne Stockman for environmental group Oil Change International reports that "a ton of petcoke yields on average 53.6 percent more CO2 than a ton of coal."

Stockman also mentions that the "proven tar sands reserves of Canada will yield roughly 5 billion tons of petcoke — enough to fully fuel 111 U.S. coal plants to 2050." This will boost the coal-fired power industry while also making it cheaper and more polluting. Emissions from petcoke byproducts have been excluded from the US State Department's emissions estimates for Keystone XL. Taking petcoke into account, Stockman notes, would raise annual Keystone XL emissions "13% above the State Department's calculations."

Because petcoke is in high demand in other countries as well, this excess waste will also help raise CO2 emissions globally. The Detroit stockpile is one more reminder that Canada's plans for the tar sands are looking more short-sighted by the day.

Image Credit: Oil Change International report Petroleum Coke: The Coal Hiding in the Tar Sands

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.

[view:in_this_series=block_1]

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.

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