How Does the People's Climate March Stack Up Against the Largest Protest Rallies in U.S. History?

• What impact do you think the People’s Climate March will have on American or global climate politics and policy?

None.

•  Where to next for the movement to confront climate change?

The climate movement will continue with these sort of irrelevant activities and will not achieve much outside of the current model where big business and big government is pushing alternative energy, insulation and increased efficiency. for example did the Shard exercise do anything in the UK, no.

• Are mass protests sufficient to galvinize political action on climate change? If not, what is your theory of change?

No as the main problem is that they politicize the issue and blame the big corporate players. Furthermore they oversimplify the issue and remove the need for personal change from the equation. If only big bad companies did not exist they say.

The problem is that most people still want to drive and take cross continental holidays and do not want to see that significantly reduced unless they have no choice. Thus we get the ludicrous image of me for example being the only person turning up to a local environmental meetings by bicycle/public transport.

I keep rabbiting on about this but this was neatly illustrated for the UK in the UKERC study (Transforming the UK Energy System: Public Values, Attitudes and Acceptability). This evaluated (‘0000) people’s perceptions of energy with respect to climate change and put a false positive spin on the results.

What is mentioned in the report is that people place the burden of change on governments and not on personal actions. Because the feel that they themselves cannot do much (Page14), thus they do not have to (P19). This is also highlighted in the waste section (P19) where these initiatives are focused more on supply from the government rather than demand.

Yet when asked about driving less (transport is 41% of our energy use) and using less air flights, deep resistance was met (P15). Personal responsibility in giving up leisure flights was resisted but business flights were the ones to be reduced. So even though the report says that 81% of respondents want to reduce their energy use, it is clear that very few actually will. This sentiment is repeated throughout the report.

Further with regard to electrification of cars and heating, generally only half the respondents would use these services and this only increases if the ability of these services to be cheaper than gas (heating P14), and increase performance against petrol (P15). In other words as is commented many times in excerpts from the people, compromise seems to be very short on the ground. Etc.

The problem with many of these reports and rallies is they highlight perception rather than action. In short people are against addressing climate change as when asked if they would do things to help, the pushed responsibility elsewhere. 

We need to start honestly describing the problem that we are up against and the personal sacrifices that are required. However I hold little hope. In the book The Gods Themselves by Asimov, we see that even though there is a possibility that the new found energy source could end up destroying the world, the people who have to power to allow investigations that could result in the power source being turned off, reject critism out of hand. Because they are not measuring the issue and not allowing the problem to be defined correctly, they miss a potentially devestating flaw. Because of the way the environmental issue has been phrased (it is all big business fault but big business will solve it), we are on the same trajectory.

Well stated comment by Donough.

What is notable about the various demonstrations Jesse lists is how little impact they had.

Not mentioned by Jesse is that big turnouts tend to be correlated with favorable weather. Rarely are such events organized during winter months.

A notable exception is the annual March for Life, an anti-abortion rally which takes place in Washington in January on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade SCOTUS decision. Wikipedia reports: “The march has previously drawn around 250,000 people annually since 2003,[2] though estimates put both the 2011 and 2012 attendances at 400,000 each.[3] The 2013 March for Life drew an estimated 650,000 people.[4]“

“Furthermore they oversimplify the issue and remove the need for personal change from the equation.”

There is no need for personal change. Energy use and population growth has clearly peaked in developed countries. What needs to be done is nurture the development of all countries to that final state, so that the energy usage and population growth of each country peaks in turn. This will allow a workable Steady State Economy and a permanent end to global population growth and energy consumption growth. This will make environmental problems manageable and solvable. Nothing else can.

The energy needed to maintain a global steady state must be polution-free and cheaper than coal. It must be in the form of both electricity and liquid fuels. All this can exclusively be realised by using nuclear power technology, because nuclear fuel is denser, cheaper and more abundant than fossil fuel.

Hence, the conclusion is that the Climate Marchers need to carry banners which say things like:

“Stop the fearmongering about nuclear power now!”

“Nuclear energy is cheaper, cleaner and safer than everything else!”

“Nuclear energy puts an end to energy imports dependence and resource wars!”

“Nuclear energy puts an end to air and water pollution!”

“Nuclear energy is the only solution to greenhouse gas emissions and energy poverty!”

“Nuclear energy for sustainable development!”

Etc.

I disagree on the personal need part. If the second and third world countries want to drive like the first world for example, this will mean an agressive expansion of our petroleum use to fill that need. Electricity use is another such example.

I could give many more examples like this but lets just take the UK. A study in 2006* suggested that direct action from individuals account for above 40% of all carbon emissions. We could run these numbers again and get very similar results for the modern day. Further much of the ‘everything else’ is the emissions associated with the things being used by people i.e. infastructure, the emissions inherent in the car, food. Saying that non of this has to change is not correct even when using the lower number.

*http://labspace.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=444948

“Energy use and population growth has clearly peaked in developed countries.” 

Population growth yes, but I doubt very much that energy use per capita will peak while the OECD countries remain committed to growth based financial capitalism as the primary organizational principle of society. The great recession has put a crimp in our energy consumption patterns, but we have a huge debt we need to grow out to prevent the collapse of financial markets. The potential of robotics for increasing the labor efficiency of manufacturing has by no means been exhausted. With plentiful supplies of reasonably priced energy and other resources there is every reason to believe that per capita energy use will rise for a long time into the future in a culture which regularly employs metaphors of disease and death to describe ecconomic growth rates that are below a couple of percent per year.

By the way let me point out that I am not suggesting the under developed parts of the world should be frozen into their current patterns of consumption. I mention this fact in passing because an accusation of such a desire generally follows any attempt to question the long term stability of financial capitalism

I happen to agree with you. But all the problems you note are all far easier to deal with if energy is cheap. For example if you want to improve energy efficiency, just put more tax on energy use. Don’t overdo it of course, because efficiency is *not* an inexhaustible resource. Its a technical matter. Energy tax policy should be decided by experts who have a good idea of the limits which can be economically achieved. The mantra that “efficiency is the cheapest way to reduce emissions” is mostly just propaganda intended to distract away from the nuclear option. This is wasting time and stimulating fossil fuel hegemony.

Cheap energy does not automatically mean more energy will be wasted, while expensive energy strains all human activities, including things like recycling and the building of energy efficient goods, which tend to have more upfront energy costs.

We can stimulate people to use energy more efficiently by raising energy taxes. And we do. But if we allow energy to become a luxury good by not making sure it’s cost stays low, then we are simply increasing inequality and putting a strain on human affairs, including bona fide affairs.

Expensive energy isn’t good for anybody except people who like to see other people struggle.

Cheap energy would make solving our ecological problems easier if the social will to use that energy intelligently existed. Unfortunately, while a substantial amount of good will with respect to living within ecological limits exists, it is incompatible with the even stronger will to keep the flow of dollars/euros/yen etc. increasing forever. Developing and maintaining reasonable standards of consumption requires a major reformation in our system of creating and maintaining industrial infrastructure and in our methods of acquiring personal long term economic security. Without such a reformation, no energy source, no matter how cheap, is going to solve our ecological problems.

Fair enough, but the point is that fossil energy use clearly presents the largest challenge in ecological protection, primarily via the mechanism of greenhouse gas emissions and hence extraordinarily rapid climate change.

By implementing energy cheaper than fossils – which can only credibly be done using nuclear energy technology – not only is this great challenge of fossil fuel addiction solved permanently and globally, but energy cost are kept so low that peoples can advance as quickly as possible to a standard of living which is naturally conducive to the achievement of concern for the environment.

Economic growth is not indefinite, because people will not strive for very much more than they can consume. Developed countries gradual economic stagnation proves this to be true. Economic growth begets environmentalism. It’s a matter of pushing through the period of destructive growth quickly in order to arrive at the end phase of stagnation and stewardship. Cheap clean energy speeds up this proces and mitigates much of the damage of the destructive phase, imo.

I think you are a lot better off apealing to the rise of environmental sentiment than you are appealing to natural consumption limits. I think that Adam Smith’s comments on this issue are still largely applicable:

The rich man consumes no more food than his poor neighbour. In quality it may be very different, and to select and prepare it may require more labour and art; but in quantity it is very nearly the same. But compare the spacious palace and great wardrobe of the one, with the hovel and the few rags of the other, and you will be sensible that the difference between their cloathing, lodging, and houshold furniture, is almost as great in quantity as it is in quality. The desire of food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; but the desire of the conveniencies and ornaments of building, dress, equipage, and houshold furniture, seems to have no limit or certain boundary.

The only things that will prevent everyone from owning mansions, vacation homes, stables of sport cars, etc. will be deliberate restraint or cold hard limits of resources and productivity. I doubt that sentiment alone will bring about the necessary restraint. In the revolutionary era in France, anti-monarchical sentiment, and slogans about liberty, equality and fraternity, were not sufficient to bring about stable democratic government. A long hard process of institution building was required. I think that the same necessity lies before us with regard to creating an ecological sound system of governance.

“...this can exclusively be realised by using nuclear power technology, because nuclear fuel is denser, cheaper and more abundant than fossil fuel.”

As noted in this paper, for a given annual energy output, nuclear plants use half the concrete and steel compared to coal-fired plants, whereas wind uses  roughly 5 times more concrete and steel than coal (wind also has a 3x shorter plant lifetime).

These are good points, in my opinion.

But I believe an ‘ecological sound system of governance’ does not exist. Rather, there can be sound systems of governance which have ecological awareness and protection as a byproduct. What I mean is that if we have a reasonable affluent society, with solid institutions for science, education, culture, healthcare and political discussion and negotiation, then adequate environmental awareness and protection will result from this combination of bona fide institutions. People who are used to enjoying the benefits of such institutions, and who are free from disease, hunger or fear of socio-economic exclusion will be naturally drawn to activities which have a low environmental impact, in my opinion. Hence my claim that economic growth itself is a prerequisite and ultimate cause of environmental protection.

Besides this, I stick with my point that we can use the energy tax lever to limit the propensity of people to use energy for pursuits that have poor environmental cost/social benefit performance. I live in Europe where the energy (for consumers) is typically taxed quite significantly for this very reason, so we know people can be controlled in this way to cause them to curb their desire for ‘more’ without ruining their quality of life. Moreover, allowing energy to become a luxury good by failing to install cheap energy generation will affect quality of life rather quickly and therefore fail to achieve anything except chagrin and inequality.

Yes we do and we can do it very successfully. The European model as compared to the USA shows how it can be done without impoverishing the population.

However I do see what you are saying and in Europe, it is likely that more taxes will be resisted. No party would get re elected in the UK if they increased fuel taxes even further as a party line. There is a fine balance there.

However this still does not take away from my point. The people on the march want to help the environment and the easiest, quickest and most cost effective way of doing this is by reducing the energy they use. Some of it would not even cost money i.e. walking more, smaller T.V., not wearing shorts in the winter etc. SO these people should be comfortable to take this action. Yet I doubt that many of these people even know what a carbon footprint is and how it is calculated.