Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Uh oh: Bad-weather-preventer Bill McKibben gloats "we were doing genuine financial damage to the pipeline companies by slowing their construction schedules and inflating their carrying costs"

How A Leaderless Climate Change Movement Can Survive
We actually had a charismatic leader in Al Gore, but he was almost the exception that proved the rule. For one thing, a politician makes a problematic leader for a grassroots movement because boldness is hard when you still envision higher office; for another, even as he won the Nobel Prize for his remarkable work in spreading climate science, the other side used every trick and every dollar at their disposal to bring him down. He remains a vital figure in the rest of the world (partly because there he is perceived less as a politician than as a prophet), but at home his power to shape the fight has been diminished.
...Van Jones may be the most articulate and engaging environmental advocate ever. [Too bad about that whole "self-described communist" thing.]
...I explained that I believed in nonviolent action, that we were doing genuine financial damage to the pipeline companies by slowing their construction schedules and inflating their carrying costs, and that in my estimation wrecking bulldozers would play into their hands.
Flashback: National Journal: “Pipes Worth $200 Million Sit as Washington Fights Over Keystone XL” | Energy & Commerce Committee

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