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Bill McKibbon Guest Article: Bolivia at the Forefront of Climate Change

Posted: admin on Apr 20 | Environment, News

At the 350 movement we’ve gotten to see much of the world in the last couple of years—our day of action last October, with 5200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries was what CNN called ‘the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.’ But there are very few countries that have provided more leadership and hope on the issue of global warming than Bolivia—which is why it’s so important that the upcoming People’s Summit on Climate Change will be held there this spring.

It will come as a distinct contrast to Copenhagen’s UN climate summit in December. That affair was marked by a focus on power politics, not science. Though 117 nations endorsed the 350 ppm co2 target that researchers say is necessary to ward off the very worst effects of climate change, they were the wrong 117—the poor nations, the most vulnerable nations. The real addicts—led by the U.S.—simply weren’t ready to come to terms with their need to dramatically cut emissions, and so the session ended with a whimper, the so-called Copenhagen Accord which promises nothing, enforces nothing, accomplishes nothing.

The failure of those talks does nothing to slow down the progress of climate change, of course, and it has been Bolivia that has been one of the few countries courageous enough to make this point loud and clear. This is a fight between human beings on the one hand, and physics and chemistry on the other—and physics and chemistry don’t really bargain. So glaciers like Chacaltaya continue to disappear, and Arctic ice to melt, and seawater to acidify. We don’t have all the time in the world—we don’t, in fact, have a moment to spare.

Thank heaven, then, for the nations like Bolivia willing to work alongside civil society (instead of lock normal people out of the hall, as the UN did in Copenhagen). In fact, ‘work’ is the key word for this year. At 350.org, we’re organizing a huge Global Work Party for October 10 (10/10/10!). All over the world, thousands of communities will be putting up solar panels and insulating homes and doing the other things we must do to deal with climate change. Our message is not that we can solve global warming one nice project at a time—we can’t. Instead, our message is: if we can get to work, so can our lawmakers. If we can climb up on the roof and install solar panels, the U.S. Senate can do what it’s supposed to do, and the UN General Assembly, and everyone else who needs to actually get to work.

That process begins in April in Bolivia. The world’s leaders haven’t led, so we’re going to have to lead for them. It’s going to be a fight, and it’s on now.

Bill McKibben is founder of 350.org and author of the first book about global warming, 1989’s The End of Nature.

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