Being There

I am inspired by my friend Josée’s report­ing from the Copen­hagen Cli­mate Sum­mit, so I thought this would be a good time to focus on issues of envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. For too long, we have lied and exter­nal­ized the true costs of doing busi­ness. That loan is now being called in. It will be poor peo­ple who pay our debts, in dete­ri­o­rat­ing health, longer com­mutes, higher food prices, or the erad­i­ca­tion of fer­tile soil and potable water. There really are too many ways to list how the sit­u­a­tion fac­ing poor peo­ple is unjust. A lot must be done.

Mass action has for a long time been the only real tool for reg­u­lar peo­ple to change things. So too for cli­mate jus­tice. I believe that mass action is an impor­tant part of polit­i­cal and eco­nomic sup­port of envi­ron­men­tal change. On that note, I share with you doc­u­men­ta­tion of two mass-actions that make a call for rad­i­cal, but rea­son­able, changes in the way we con­duct our daily lives.

The fol­low­ing are videos of two protests on either side of the United States involv­ing cyclist rid­ing with cars. They share a sim­i­lar mes­sage about the unsus­tain­able design of the a car-based city, but that is where the sim­i­lar­ity ends. The videos use two dif­fer­ent styles (so do, as you will see, the actions), but their mes­sage is equally strong. The first for it’s clas­sic call for jus­tice and sol­i­dar­ity, the sec­ond for it’s insanity.

Enjoy:

High School Bike Bus from Keri Caf­frey on Vimeo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNZSe8Q8-Iw

P.S.  While mass action, cul­ture, and an afford­able press have long been tools avail­able to work­ing and poor peo­ple, acces­si­ble broad­cast media is new. The abil­ity for nor­mal lay peo­ple to pro­duce qual­ity pro­pa­ganda like the above is a novel and excit­ing devel­op­ment. What this access will actu­ally mean is anyone’s guess.