The movement of demand for climate change took a new turn on October 14, 2022, the day when a pair of activists at the London National Showroom threw tomato soup on the glass in front of the “sunflower” painting in Vincent van Gogh.
Most people did not like the scene, which is an attempt to attract the attention of the audience by sabotaging a famous artwork, however This was a kind of point. After decades of peaceful protests, climate activists did not come close to what they wanted. Although people all over the world have started experimenting with climate changes directly – sweating through heat waves and breathing in luxury smoke from forest fires – global carbon dioxide emissions were still increasing, and elected governments are still registered on oil and gas New projects. Activists felt as if they had to try something different: What can they do to destabilize things and attract people’s attention?
This question has become more urgent, as President Donald Trump begins his second term in his post, Announcement of “Emergency Case” In his opening speech on Monday to expand the production of fossil fuels. Keno Erbil Joshia, a 19 -year -old organizer on Friday for the future of New York City, an active climate group led by the youth, said in The Fut a few days after the presidential elections in November.
When Trump entered the White House for the first time in 2017, climate activity was planted Fresh waveBased on the broader “American resistance” momentum that rose against its policies. A movement is once associated with the protests of pipelines and began stripping the university to attract widespread attention, with completely new groups led by youth such as sunrise and zero hour. Graduation marches and The occupation of Congress offices. Swedish teenager Greta Thonberg began to overcome school on Friday in 2018 to protest the lack of government work, and to inspire adolescents all over the world to participate in “school strikes”. Call A “new green deal” has become a popular slogan Between the progressive.
But when President Joe Biden took office in 2021, some of this energy faded. Climate movement move. Large environmental organizations such as Sierra Club tried to influence federal policy – and they succeeded once, with Congress passes the largest investment in climate work In the history of the United States in 2022 – while extremist popular activists demanded more climate challenge, HECKLing Climate Adviser at the White House, Ali Zaidi, on multiple occasions.
“We used to see this crazy climatic movement, which was very broken, which was in a state of equation, as most Americans were not, while they were interested in climate change, ready to march in the streets for that,” said Dana Fischer, a professor. At the American University, which studied climate activity for more than two decades. “All this has ended.”
With Trump’s return to the White House, you expect climate advocates to start working together again, along with people who represent other progressive reasons, as they will have a common enemy. “Will the resistance rise again? Yes, Fischer said.” Will the resistance look similar? Certainly no. ”
Halil Sajirkia / Anadolu via Getty Images
The first sign that progressive activists will respond to the new Trump administration by moving together two days before the presidential opening, when About 50,000 people He participated in the march of the people in Washington, DC, on January 18, in protest against reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ and ethnic justice, along with other reasons. Of the 453 demonstrators included in the Fischer team at this event, 70 percent of climate change as one of their best motivations to participate.
“All the different things for which we fight are attacked,” said Arpels-Josiah. “I think we have no other option but to organize in a moment like this, right?” On Friday, his organization plans to Future Nyc, to hold a The rapprochement of justice from the youth climate On March 1 to discuss how to press for change in New York at the local state level.
Climate activists have expressed appetite to experience something new, but they have not heard a comprehensive strategy during the next four years. “There is definitely a feeling that we have struggled to transform the marches and mass mobilization in one place to a meaningful political change that changes the lives of people,” said Saul Levin, Director of Campaign and Politics in the New Green Deals Network, and a climate alliance. Work and justice organizations. “Thus we do not give in to these methods, but we test different things.” Levin did not provide details about what the coalition would try, but he said he would not rule any tactics, due to the presence of different ways through the movement.
In recent years, activists have banned traffic in the street For politicians ashamed they call “climate criminals”. These are signs that climate movement grows.Radical wing“The branch of the most confrontation and more exposed to the objection. Experts say civil disobedience, says Even if people are alienatedIt can sometimes work Focused attention on an issue and made Tamer’s protests seem more socially acceptable. It is not the same to create a cause and influence, but the tales indicate something of the idea. Two weeks after the interruption activists spent a week in blocking traffic in London in November 2022, for example, investigative studies found that people in the UK were more likely to support the friends of the most moderate group on earth, According to the study Last fall.
“The climate activists will remain at all, but they will not remain unexpected,” Fischer said. The Trump administration can provide hostile to work More fuel for groups such as climate challengeThose who are arrested by activists who are arrested repeatedly to confront the executives and oil politicians.
Andrew Derek Stachhan
Of course, civil disobedience is just one tool among many, and activists tend to have more popular forms of organization, such as gatherings, in order to attract a large crowd. “We need everyone now, and to prepare a real authority over climate justice, we need a larger alliance than we have ever seen,” Levin said in a collective call to organize climate groups the next day of the inauguration. “This begins by gathering people in societies to build power for people.” In February, the climatic work campaign, an alliance of environmental and health organizations, plans to hold “climate cannot wait” Atlantaand PittsburghAnd DetroitHope, “Filling the largest possible number of people to ask for work.”
ARU Shiney-Ajay, Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement, is working with Los Angeles organizers on a number of measures in response to the destruction that has been presented Latest forest fires. In the week before the presidential opening, members of La Hub of Sunrise led a multiple demonstration of days outside the Phillips 66 Oil facility in Carson, California, demanding that “fossil fuel companies” pay their contributions to the climate crisis, which made the last fires More dangerous.
“If we want to have any hope to win truly, to transform the tidal in society, to remove our economy from the strongest industry in history, and the fossil fuel industry, we must build the organizational power that it really requires. Shiney-ajay said during the call of climate groups: “People are disrupted in power.”
Over the course of the five-day protest outside the Philips 66 facility, the neighbors stopped to show their support-until the oil refinery guards told the group they agreed with, according to Shane EGai. She said, “These are the moments that felt the most important witnesses.” In the aftermath of forest fires, the sit -in created an opportunity to meet “people who have never faced the climate movement on their doorstep before finding themselves in support.”
Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The sunrise movement is inspired by the historical examples of people who excite change for successfully change, such as Montgomery bus provinces of civil rights movement in the fifties, and The United Auto Labor Union in Michigan in the 1930sAccording to Dejah Powell, Sunrise membership Director. “When we look at change and transformation [in society]She said: “Many of them came from work: a 40 -hour work week, weekend, a paid satisfactory leave.” “It comes from disrupting or threatening the capital.”
Powell said that the organization is looking to build on the success of the strikes in the Friday school, which started in 2018, and the students’ continuous experience for a month. The group seems to be also ready to expand its direct efforts: Sunrise members recently boycotted the confirmation session of Trump’s Energy Management Candidate, Chris Wright, CEO of a vision company. Shin EGai said that any politician is unlimited. “We have a saying:” There are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies. “The CEO said that the organization is open to a set of tactics, although it draws the line in a violent protest.
Despite the peaceful nature of these types of demonstrations, Fischer says that climate organizers must prepare Campaign on protestsWith the possibility Father and violence. She said: “I think what we will see is that the Trump administration is definitely retreating from civil disobedience, and perhaps all forms of protest,” she said. “This will quickly escalate what will happen in the streets.” Moreover, over the past decade, It issued more than 20 states of laws Increased penalties for protest near the so -called critical infrastructure such as oil and gas facilities, and now it is sometimes punished for years in prison.
Some of the exercises in which climate activists have participated over the past two months on the non -violent direct work and the deficiency of tension situations, according to Loufon from the new green deals network. “We believe that we need a new set of fresh training tools and courses, because no one can fully predict the level of chaos and repression that will come from this extremist administration.”
Amid this chaos, climate movement will look not only to new tactics, but also an updated message. Some economic concerns that are obligated to push Trump to the presidency, such as Economic inflation and High cost of livingLevin said. He said that the fires in Los Angeles are an example of how to threaten the disasters of such livelihood and financial security. “We have talked about these things for years, but we need to update how we are talking about.”
Shiney-Ajay believes that La fires are an opportunity to connect points between the climate crisis and other pressures facing the city, such as fleeing rental prices and the need for a more flexible infrastructure, as well as an opportunity to bring more people to movement. “People want to believe that something will work or have something to believe in,” she said. Acts like one in Phillips 66 oil refinery helps in it.
“The following is a way in which we can respond after the disasters that are human and gentle and make your life better and help you believe in your government, and help you believe in a better world,” said Sinai Ajay. The movement’s task will be “keeping it unlike the vision of the world that Trump proposes.”
