climate action
The Capitol Climate Action lost some its thunder, through no fault of its own. Last week, Nancy Pelosi met their key demand by ordering the Capitol power plant to switch from coal to natural gas. That’s pretty much a victory, but one that robbed them of the spectacle of mass arrests. They blockaded the plant, but no one seemed interested in arresting them. I remember that curious feeling of still being free at the end of a day on which I expected to go to jail. It’s a combination of relief and regret.
The weather didn’t help either. Out of 10-12,000 people at the conference, only a couple thousand or so made it to the action. Also, it scuttled their attempt at dress clothes- everyone seems to have dressed for the elements instead. And all science aside, it’s tough to get a good photo of global warming activists when they’re bundled up for freezing temperatures. Irrational but true.
This action was associated with Power Shift 2009, a huge conference of student climate activists:
It seems like a lot of the logistical work was handled by Greenpeace people, although their name is nowhere on the event. Maybe some Rainforest Action Network as well. Even with the anticlimactic protest, they did pretty well for themselves. They didn’t get their national media hit, but it’s notoriously difficult to get a story out of DC- there’s so much else to compete with. What they did get was an easy victory, and thousands of student activists going home inspired by their accomplishment. Doesn’t hurt that they got some painless exposure to direct action, either.
