Thirteen years ago, on this day, May 14, 2010, US activists tried to do a “day of action”
2010 Rising Tide US “Day of Action/Mourning” http://climate-connections.org/2010/05/10/nationwide-day-of-action-may-14th/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 394.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the prospects for action on climate change in the United States – at least at the federal level – were bleak af. Obama had not bothered to fight for the Democratic energy package and climate package, and wasn’t going to punch that tar baby again. The Copenhagen summit had revealed the weakness of the international process and there was more rising despair and rising apathy than Rising Tide.
What I think we can learn from this was
Activist groups are obsessed with “days of action”, perhaps because these give them a sense of punctuation for the meaning of building up to something. It’s not necessarily a bad mobilising tactic but it doesn’t automatically mean that you are movement-building when you are repeatedly mobilising. See my articles about the emotacycle.
What happened next
Rising Tide US I think is dead, but I could be wrong. There are a broad range of other groups sunrise movement etc etc who are are more in the news.
It’s important though to remember that those people who protested were right even if they lost and and that cannot be taken away.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.