Seeds of a grassroots climate change movement
How 350.org, the grassroots climate change movement, came into being is an unremarkable story.
What it has accomplished since then is anything but.
After his first book, The End of Nature, was published in 1989, Bill McKibben began to publish widely on the environment, the economy and other issues.
But it became clear to McKibben — a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont — that writing alone was not having enough of an impact. The Earth was still warming up; most governments were still paying little attention.
McKibben began meeting informally with students to discuss strategies for mobilizing on climate change. In 2008, 350.org was born. It started with seven people who had a minuscule budget but many ideas. It’s now a global network with a presence in 188 countries.
The name 350.org is derived from the upper limit for safe levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — 350 parts per million. We blew past that in 2007 and now sit at a precarious 401 parts per million.
In 2011, McKibben and 350.org took on TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline, which, if approved, would allow crude extracted from Alberta oilsands to be refined on the Gulf of Mexico coast.
When 350.org targeted Keystone, it had no hope of winning. In 2011, National Journal, an insider paper in Washington, conducted a poll with 300 energy experts and lobbyists; more than 90 per cent predicted TransCanada would have all the permits for Keystone by the end of 2011. In 2015, the pipeline’s fate remains in limbo. What the grassroots opposition has also done is cause a ripple effect that has come to be known as “Keystone-ization” — the realization by ordinary people that they can successfully oppose big projects. Examples can be seen around the world.
“Keystone had something to with it, but they are all equally important and for me, it’s quite wonderful to watch . . . and for oil industry executives it’s quite annoying to watch,” says McKibben. “I read an interview the other day of the head of some fossil fuel industry. He said: ‘We have to stop the Keystone-ization of every pipeline in the world.’ That made me happy. Our job is to make sure that every new project like this is opposed.” Raveena Aulakh
Northern Gateway pipeline
Enbridge Inc. is seeking to build twin pipelines from Bruderheim, Alta., to Kitimat, B.C., where oil would be exported to foreign markets. Immediately after the proposal won approval from Ottawa in 2014, First Nations, environmental groups and the 300,000-strong union Unifor went to court to challenge it and the review process. Enbridge faces more than a dozen court cases. And Alberta’s new NDP premier, Rachel Notley, has acknowledged that opposition to the $7.9-billion project is so strong that she won’t be investing her efforts to help get the pipeline built.
Energy East Pipeline
TransCanada wants to convert its 40-year-old natural gas pipeline from Saskatchewan to Ontario to carry crude, then connect it with a new pipeline that would be built through Quebec and on to export terminals and refineries in New Brunswick. Even before TransCanada filed its 30,000-page application last fall, opposition to the pipeline was quietly building across Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. In April, TransCanada scrapped plans for a marine terminal in Cacouna, Que., amid concerns that the facility may threaten an endangered population of local beluga whales. It isn’t clear when National Energy Board hearings on the pipeline will begin.
Carmichael coal mine, Australia
Just a few days ago, Indian conglomerate Adani Mining halted preparatory engineering work on its controversial Carmichael project in Queensland, Australia, one of the world’s biggest untapped thermal coal deposits. The project, like the Keystone pipeline, has faced stiff opposition from environmentalists, indigenous people and the United Nations, which expressed concern about its impact on the Great Barrier Reef. The $25-billion mine was expected to produce about 60 million tonnes of coal annually and become the largest coal mine in Australia.