WORLDFIRE - Chapter 21, Part II
Shaping the State of the Union
The answer arrived unexpectedly one morning on my friend’s doorstep. Unfolding the Washington Post, I saw a headline announcing that Chinese President Hu Jintao was coming to the White House for a state dinner. It was just the hook we needed. With China being the world’s biggest carbon polluter and the U.S being historically responsible for the most climate pollution overall, here was a chance to highlight not only America’s moral imperative to lead on climate, but China’s as well. The plan came together a few days prior to the state dinner during a series of long phone calls with Paul. We were not about to let this moment pass–the presidents of the world’s two biggest carbon emitters meeting at the White House–without a call for bold climate action. Coordinating closely with Lester Brown, I drafted an open letter calling on Presidents Obama and Hu to place the climate emergency at the top of their policy agendas. By the time the letter was finished, Hu’s arrival was mere days away, so I sent it to a number of key allies, asking for sign ons within 48 hours. The letter called on both presidents to declare a global climate emergency by placing their respective nations on a wartime-like footing to slash carbon emissions.
Two days later, nearly two-dozen prominent business, religious, and green group leaders had signed onto the open letter. Never before had groups as diverse as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Earth Policy Institute, 350.org, Friends of the Earth, and the Endangered Species Coalition gone on record publicly supporting the bold goal of 80 percent carbon cuts by 2020. It felt like a watershed moment for the planetary protection movement. The night before the event, I emailed a press advisory to every media outlet on my list. I also decided to plunk down $300 I didn’t really have for a national media distribution. Fortunately, the service I used had a news arm and needed a hook for their story on the Obama-Hu meeting, which our letter conveniently provided.
Here are excerpts from that January 19, 2011 letter:
Dear President Barack Obama & President Hu Jintao:
It is time to publicly acknowledge that the continued burning of fossil fuels threatens the survival of civilization. The science is incontrovertible on this fact, yet the response from government is business as usual. Our two nations dominate world carbon emissions.
No civilization has survived the ongoing destruction of its natural support systems, nor will ours. It is with a deepening sense of dread over the fate of future generations that we call on you to acknowledge the severity of the global climate emergency by placing climate stabilization at the top of your policy agendas… Nature tells us time is running out, but we can't see the clock. As we blindly reach critical climate "tipping points," things promise to get worse, much worse. Central to the solution is a wartime-like mobilization by the governments of the United States and China to cut carbon emissions 80 percent (based on 2006 levels) by 2020. This is required if we are to reduce carbon emissions to 350 parts per million in the atmosphere, the level top climate scientists say is safe for humanity.
There is no more important measure of presidential leadership than living up to the expectations of our children to protect their future. Every day our respective governments fail to act, their future grows more perilous. We await your response.
The morning of the White House state dinner, I rolled over to a copy shop on Capitol Hill to fax our letter to the White House and pick up a banner I had ordered that read: “Presidents Obama & Hu: IT’S TIME TO DECLARE A GLOBAL CLIMATE EMERGENCY.” Then I pedaled down to the White House gates, where armed with copies of the letter for reporters, I held vigil for five hours. Two stalwart allies and letter co-signers, Brent Blackwelder and Brock Evans, joined me over the course of the day to help hold up the banner. I was disappointed, but not surprised, when no major media outlets covered the letter’s release.
Note that the final sentence in our open letter was, “We await your response.” In reality, of course, they were awaiting ours to see how serious we were about demanding emergency action. The answer turned out to be not very. January 19 was the last time most of the groups co-signing that letter ever mentioned its bold call for a wartime mobilization to slash carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020. What I thought had marked a new chapter in the climate annals turned out to be a mere footnote. But a climate emergency flag had at least been planted, a flag that would be spotted four years later by The Climate Mobilization when they came across the letter online and dialed me up, but you already know that story.
The response to our letter would finally come on November 11, 2014 in the form of a joint announcement by President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping pledging to cooperate on reducing emissions. Heralded by the mainstream media as a “historic” agreement, the contents of the joint agreement were actually anything but. The U.S. pledged to cut emissions a paltry 26-28 percent (not 80 percent) by 2025 (not 2020) and China refused to commit to any cuts at all, instead opting to set an emissions peak target date of 2030 or sooner. Both presidents seem to have missed the “emergency” part of our letter. As did some of the larger conservation community. None of the groups that signed our 2011 open letter applauded the White House’s limp 26-28 percent goal, but others would later do just that by calling on the 2016 presidential candidates to publicly commit to cutting carbon emissions 28 percent by 2025. When climate groups are all over the map like this (some saying we need 80 percent carbon cuts and others saying 28 percent cuts is good enough), is it any wonder the public is confused? 12 years after Brent, Brock, and I held up that banner in 2011 calling on President Obama (remember, Biden was Obama’s Vice President) to declare a climate emergency, three climate activists would get arrested outside the White House holding up a nearly identical banner, reading: “President Biden: Declare a Climate Emergency.” Those are 12 years we could have been mobilizing that we are never going to get back.
This is not a knock on the people working for big green groups, or their membership. Their staff and members want to change the world. The problem is with the institutions themselves. Once internal bureaucracy sets in and mainstream foundations start exerting their influence, it is the nature of things for organizations to lose their edge. Just as with nature, this is where natural selection in a healthy social movement kicks in with new organisms (organizations) moving in to occupy niches (turf) in the ecosystem (movement) that were previously held by groups that failed to evolve. Some of this natural selection is starting to occur in the climate movement, but not enough to fundamentally change the dynamics of the ecosystem.
But try explaining that to starving polar bears, whose changing ecosystem dynamics mean watching their homes literally melt beneath their feet. While researching this book, I came upon a viral video of an emaciated polar bear in the Canadian Arctic. Barely able to walk, the skeletal bear was rummaging for food in a rusty garbage barrel on an ice-free landscape. Witnessing that bear’s suffering reduced me to sobs. The iconic symbol for climate breakdown, polar bears represent a dying majesty. Their fierce magnificence is why so many people love them and care about their plight. It is also why days after holding vigil outside the White House, I found myself preparing to take part in a polar bear plunge. The “Keep Winter Cold” Polar Bear Plunge is an annual fundraiser organized by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. The group holds the event every winter at National Harbor on the Potomac River to support their work to end the burning of fossil fuels.
When I arrived at the harbor, I was happy to see a member of Congress in attendance. I was happier still to see an NFL player, for I have long felt that sports figures are one of the keys to shifting public opinion in our sports dominated culture. If I had had the resources and bandwidth, I would already have launched a campaign to recruit big names in professional and collegiate sports (e.g. football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, tennis, and golf) to publicly endorse the green energy moon shot goal. Knowing that sports figures are revered as heroes by many in our culture, the thinking is to enlist the help of one or two well-known stars from each of America’s favorite pastimes to inspire fellow athletes to speak out. If done right, I believe this could help shift the political dynamics pretty dramatically. So you can imagine my delight when I got a chance to briefly speak with San Francisco 49ers linebacker NaVorro Bowman at the Polar Bear Plunge, who was enthusiastic about the green energy moon shot goal. A more recent example of this is tennis star Coco Gauff speaking to reporters in defense of Extinction Rebellion climate activists who peacefully interrupted her 2023 US Open match for 50 minutes to draw the public’s attention to the worsening climate emergency. Imagine what would happen if even a fraction of the excitement, loyalty, and passion fans feel for their sports heroes were channeled into rooting for Team Humanity.
Gathered together next to the icy Potomac, we listened to a rousing speech by U.S. Representative Donna Edwards (D-MD) imploring us to protect future generations from the ravages of our melting globe. Then we walked as a group to the changing tents to don our swimsuits before descending to the shore. Frigid at 34 degrees, the water was still 15 degrees warmer than the air outside. Shivering and eying the fingers of ice gripping the shoreline, with blobs of slush bobbing up and down at the water’s edge, I waited until the shout came from a bullhorn: “Go, go, go!” Then together with Rep. Edwards and about 200 other intrepid souls, I entered the frigid waters of the river I had just spent a week dryly pedaling past. Wading in deeper, I psyched myself up by repeating over and over: “This is not a problem. This is not a problem…” before diving underwater to fully experience the big chill. It was C-O-L-D! After swimming in the deep for a second or two, I turned around and quickly made for shore. Passing an older woman leaning on a cane slowly making her way back to shore, I stopped to give her a hand over the slippery rocks. Then I gave her a big hug of appreciation. Seeing someone from an older generation brave that frigid water inspired me, for hers is the kind of can-do spirit we need to mobilize a climate emergency response.
My final media push was around President Obama’s January 25 State of the Union address, which would be the real test as to whether the green energy moon shot message had gotten through to the White House. As my recent White House vigil had demonstrated, there is probably no tougher media nut to crack than the DC media market, especially on a media day as big as the State of the Union. In Washington, it is not just the White House and 535 members of the House and Senate vying to be heard. You are also competing with pretty much every special interest group on the planet. But the synchronicity that had defined my journey to DC was not done with me yet.
The serendipitous help came from fellow electric vehicle advocate, Charlie Garlow, who introduced me to a reporter for a local ABC News affiliate, Mike Conneen, who was new on the beat and looking for green tech stories. After dialing up the reporter and pitching him on doing a story about my ride, Mike convinced his editor to let him cover it. The two of us would end up spending an hour together on the National Mall taping what turned out to be a solid two-minute piece called, “Man bikes cross-country to attend State of the Union.” It aired a few hours before the president’s address to the nation. Here are some highlights:
Conneen: “Tom Weis is passionate about renewable energy. So passionate, he pedaled this bicycle with a back-up electric motor 2,400 miles cross country to put pressure on lawmakers.”
Weis: “We have a global climate emergency, and the reaction from Congress and the White House is either denial or inaction.”
Conneen: “[A]ctivists, including Tom Weis, say they want to hear President Obama speak in urgent terms about climate change and renewable energy during his State of the Union address.”
Weis: “People are hungry for a bold goal for America, a generational mission.”
Conneen: “Weis wants the country to go 100 percent renewable by 2020… Weis admits it’s a lofty goal, but he thinks Americans would go along for the ride if American leaders were on board, too.”
Weis: “The missing ingredient is political will… and political courage.”
Sitting on my friend’s couch that evening waiting for the president’s speech, I pined for a talk that would challenge us as a nation to get serious about the climate crisis. While the adult conversation I was hoping for did not materialize, something else remarkable did. If the president’s remarks before Congress were any indication, the green energy moon shot concept had gotten through to the White House. I am not suggesting my cross-country trek was the sole inspiration for the president’s “Sputnik moment” speech, but too many passages in his State of the Union address too closely echoed too many messages of the ride to simply chalk it up to coincidence. Here are key messages of the Ride for Renewables juxtaposed with key excerpts from the president’s speech. You be the judge:
Ride for Renewables: “What I’m calling for is a modern day green energy moon shot for America.”
State of the Union: “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.”
Ride for Renewables: “By that I mean 100 percent renewable electricity by 2020.”
State of the Union: “I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: By 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.”
Ride for Renewables: "We have a long history of fresh, entrepreneurial thinking that uniquely suits us for this historic task.”
State of the Union: “What we can do – what America does better than anyone else – is spark the creativity and imagination of our people.”
Ride for Renewables: “Millions of new jobs will be created by shifting tax breaks and subsidies from polluting fossil fuels and dangerous nuclear power to energy efficiency and clean, healthy renewables.”
State of the Union: “I’m asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies.”
Ride for Renewables: “This not a Republican or a Democratic issue – this is an American issue. We need to look past the party and do what is best for the country.”
State of the Union: “[E]ach of us is a part of something greater – something more consequential than party or political preference.”
Ride for Renewables: “This is America, and in America we do great things.”
State of the Union: “We do big things.”
Hearing Obama’s words made every one of those pedal strokes worth it. Seeing how closely the president’s words aligned with the central messaging of the Ride for Renewables made me wonder if someone in the White House might possibly have been following the blogs and videos posted during my journey. For all practical purposes, my ride through the heartland was a rolling focus group for anyone paying attention. I had also left a breadcrumb trail of talking points through numerous local media stories in the months preceding the president’s speech. I will probably never know, but in the end it doesn’t really matter. What mattered is that the White House was finally channeling the desires of Main Street, America. That’s the good news. The bad news is the president did not mention the word “climate” once in his speech, as if it were somehow possible to respond to an existential threat by not mentioning it.
Climate blogger David Roberts wrote about this glaring omission: “This is a failure on Obama’s part. A moral failure, a failure of leadership, but also, I would argue, a political failure… No matter what derangements currently hold sway over American politics, eventually, reality will out. The crazy weather will get worse, ice fields will melt, agriculture will suffer, food shortages will get more severe. Sooner or later, American politics will have to deal with climate change – that is a certainty. When that day comes, the party that has spoken honestly about climate change throughout the waxing and waning of public opinion will a) look prescient and morally courageous, and b) be trusted by the American people to develop solutions. Alternatively, if both parties have been mushmouthing about energy independence and ‘all of the above,’ neither will benefit… This is a lesson Democrats seem incapable of learning: Voters respond to strength and conviction. Even if they don’t agree… they respect people who stick to their guns… The reason voters view Dems as weak and Republicans as tough is that Republicans don’t go running for the hills every time a news cycle doesn’t go their way. They are relentlessly on message and in pursuit of their agenda.” All of that is true.
The president’s speech fell flat in other ways, too. It wasn’t just that his moon shot proposal fell 20 percent short of the target with a timeline 15 years too distant. It’s that there wasn’t a serious action plan behind the lofty words. It reminded me of that clever Wendy’s television ad of old where the little old lady humorously asks the kid behind the counter at the competing hamburger chain: “Where’s the beef?” The president also engaged in government greenwash by muddying the waters between polluting energy sources and renewable energy by trying to sell mythical clean coal, fracked methane gas, and radioactive nuclear power as safe.
The second I clicked off the television set after Obama’s speech, I knew it was time. Having done everything I could think of to advance the cause in Washington, DC, I gave myself permission to start thinking about home. Days later, sitting in my friend’s house pondering my next move, the answer was again delivered to her doorstep. Unrolling the Washington Post, I read a story about a foreign corporation’s plans to ram a 1,700-mile toxic tar sands pipeline through America’s heartland. Until then, like most Americans, I had never heard of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. But after reading reporter Juliet Eilperin’s article, I said to myself, “This is crazy. We can’t let this happen.” Then when I saw the map of the 1,700-mile toxic tube running through America’s breadbasket, I knew what I had to do next, but that is another story for another time. Well, maybe just one little story.
NOTE: The written form of WORLDFIRE is the authoritative version. Any inadvertent errors in transcribing the recordings are mine and mine alone.