They took hammers to gas pumps and nailed masterpieces in museums and busy roads.They chained themselves to the bank and ran into the ground.
He was tied to a goal post at a racetrack as tens of thousands of British soccer fans jeered.
Activists who carried out such global acts of destruction last year are desperate to convey the urgency of the climate crisis, and the most effective way to do so is to publicly blockade oil terminals and halt normal operations. He said it was confusing.
They also share an amazing financial lifeline. It's the heirs of two American families who became fabulously wealthy from oil.
Two relatively new nonprofits that the oil heirs helped found have funded dozens of protest groups dedicated to disrupting normal business through civil disobedience, primarily in the United States, Canada, and Europe. providing. While volunteers from established environmental groups like Greenpeace International have long used destructive tactics to call attention to ecological threats, new groups are funding grassroots activists. .
The California-based Climate Emergency Fund was founded in 2019 on the philosophy that civil resistance is essential to achieving the rapid and far-reaching social and political changes needed to tackle the climate crisis. Ta.
Margaret Klein Salamon, the foundation's executive director, said that past social movements, suffragists, civil rights activists, gay rights activists, pointed out.
“Actions move public opinion and media coverage, and they move the realm of what is politically possible,” Salamon said. “The normal system has failed. It's time for everyone to realize that we need to address this.”
The foundation has so far donated just over $7 million, aimed at moving society into emergency mode, she said. The United States is on the verge of enacting historic climate change legislation that would allow further oil and gas expansion, which scientists believe will help avert global catastrophe. They say it needs to be stopped immediately.
The Equation Campaign shares these goals with the Climate Emergency Fund. Founded in 2020, it provides financial support and legal defense to people living near pipelines and refineries who are trying to stop fossil fuel expansion through methods such as civil disobedience.
Remarkably, both organizations are backed by oil-rich families whose descendants feel a responsibility to reverse the harms caused by fossil fuels. Eileen Getty's grandfather founded Getty Oil and helped establish the Climate Emergency Fund, which has donated $1 million to date.
The Equation campaign began in 2020 with a $30 million pledge to be distributed over 10 years from two members of the Rockefeller family, Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert and Peter Gill Case. John D. Rockefeller became the nation's first billionaire when he founded Standard Oil in 1870.
“It's time to put the genie back in the bottle,” Case wrote in an email. “I feel a moral obligation to do my part. Why not?
The belief in the transformative power of extreme civil disobedience is not universal, and some actions by these groups, particularly those supported by the Climate Emergency Fund, have frustrated the public.
Protesters have been yelled at, threatened, labeled as eco-zealots and dragged away by angry commuters. A study by the University of Toronto and Stanford University found that while more disruptive protests garner attention, they can also undermine a movement's credibility and drive away potential support.
But Salamon and activists supported by the Climate Emergency Fund said a backlash was inevitable. They pointed to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who according to Gallup polls had a 63 percent disapproval rating in the years leading up to his death.
“We're not trying to be popular,” says Save Old, a Canadian organization that blocked roads to stop the logging of ancient forests in British Columbia and received $170,000 from the Climate Emergency Fund.・Zayn Haq, co-founder of Save Old Growth, said: “Historically, civil disobedience means a challenge to a way of life.”
There is some evidence that new climate change protest groups are gaining momentum. Researchers found that Extinction Rebellion and the Sunrise movement played a major role in raising awareness and promoting climate policy. The study found that in terms of cost-effectiveness, protest groups often outperformed traditional environmental nonprofits, the Big Greens, in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
For the equation campaign, stopping further expansion of oil and gas has a quantitative impact. The cancellation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline extension after years of resistance from tribes, farmers and local ranchers has prevented greenhouse gas emissions by some estimates by as much as 180 million tons per year. The Equation Campaign has funded campaigns against many other fossil fuel projects and has been the target of what the group's executive director, Katie Redford, described as exaggerated charges and false arrests. We often support activists.
“For the climate and literally humanity to win, we need them to win and stop industry from making more products that pump greenhouse gases into the environment,” Ms Redford said.
Climate change activists receive far less funding from major environmental organizations, especially philanthropy, which provides only a fraction of the spending on climate issues around the world. According to the ClimateWorks Foundation, less than 2 percent of global philanthropic funds in 2020 went to climate change mitigation (though that share is growing), and only a small portion of that went to grassroots efforts. It is said that the funds were used to build the movement.
Both Redford and Salamon said their organizations only funded legal activities such as training, education, travel, printing and recruitment costs. Grant recipients must ensure that their funds are not used for activities prohibited by law.
They also disputed suggestions that paying activists makes their actions less authentic, saying recipients are already working around the clock as volunteers, depleting their bank accounts in the process. He pointed out that there are often “This is their passion,” Salamon said.
“It's unfair to continue to ask indigenous, black, brown, and poor people on the front lines to do this work for free just because they do it in their 'spare time,'” Redford said. Told.
Activists on the receiving end described the funding as a godsend. Driven by a sense of crisis and moral obligation, some dropped out of class to devote themselves to full-time climate activism. Some were juggling several jobs to pay their bills.
Miranda Whelehan of the British organization Just Stop Oil said her members were overworked and stressed until nearly $1 million was donated from the Climate Emergency Fund to cover the salaries of 40 organizers and activists. said.
“There are obviously limits to what we can do as volunteers,” Whelehan said. “Big oil companies have assets worth millions, if not billions.”
Activists reiterated that they do not want to engage in civil disobedience, but that more traditional efforts have not yet been able to stem widespread climate disaster. “We've tried everything else,” said Just Stop Oil member Louis McKechnie, who has been arrested about 20 times.
Winona LaDuke, executive director of Honor the Earth, an indigenous environmental nonprofit, said her organization has spent seven years fighting Minnesota's Line 3 pipeline, attending every regulatory meeting and public hearing. He said he attended the meeting, but it was of no use.
She said she was arrested and charged with trespassing even though she was on public property, and that the Equation Campaign, which has donated more than $400,000 to her group, continues to provide steadfast support. He said he is extremely grateful for that.
“We put ourselves at risk because we had no other legal recourse. We had nothing,” LaDuke said. “We knew we were going to get arrested.”
For some activists, civil disobedience turned out to be unexpectedly gratifying.
Peter Kalmas, a climate scientist who works for NASA, said he has spent 16 years trying to force business executives, government leaders and the public to act on the climate emergency. Ultimately, he concluded that he and the environmental movement were losing badly.
In April, Dr. Karmas I was one of about 1,000 people. Scientists from 25 countries blocked traffic and chained themselves to the doors of targeted White House gates and bank branches, among others. Scientists' Rebellion. Participants were not compensated, but the group received $100,000 from the Climate Emergency Fund to cover organizer and consultant wages, space rental, and travel expenses.
Afterwards, Dr. Kalmas said he did not speak for NASA, but said he has been flooded with feedback from around the world saying he has made a difference and inspired people.
“I get messages every day from people who say it has given them hope,” Dr. Culmus said. “It seemed to convey that urgency more than anything else.”
For some, protests come at a personal cost. Mr McKennie said he was kicked out of Bournemouth University for his climate change activities. In March, he embarked on perhaps his most public act to date, tying himself to a goalpost using metal zip ties during a Premier League football match. He said he felt “hatred and threatened” by the entire crowd and was kicked and lunged at as he was being escorted away. Mr. McKenney was arrested and received so many death threats that he deleted his social media accounts, he said.
However, his determination remained unwavering. “Even if one percent of the audience found out who we were and what we were doing, that would have been a huge victory,” he says.
Shortly thereafter, Mr. McKenney attended a Just Stop Oil meeting and asked everyone in attendance what had brought them there. McKennie said one of his buddies raised his hand and “he said, 'I went to a soccer game and some weirdo locked himself on the pitch.'”
“I hate having to go through this,” McKenney continued. “But the only way to get them heard and protect the future of my generation is to be loud enough to be drowned out even if you bury your head in the sand.”
Case said it was too early to tell whether the Equation campaign had achieved its objectives, but he and Lambert were committed to spending at a “high rate” through 2030.
The next few years will be important. Climate scientists say countries need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 50 percent by the end of this decade to avoid the most severe effects of global warming.
Ms. Getty said in an email that her belief in the effectiveness of the campaign remains steadfast, especially as time runs out. Civil disobedience is meant to serve as a warning, she said, and the discomfort caused by destructive protests pales in comparison to what may lie ahead.
“Let's remember that we are talking about extinction,” Getty wrote in an email. “Don't we have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect life on Earth?”
