Be Green

Written by KATHERINE MCCARTHY

The Root Board will donate $5 per order to The Climate Emergency Fund. We are committed to showing up, spreading the word and helping the climate activists trying to save the world.

The Climate Emergency Fund is founded recently — July 2019 — with the goal of quickly getting money to groups engaged in climate protest. It has already raised and disbursed several hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to groups it has vetted. The grantees range from the well-established 350.org to the fledgling Extinction Rebellion, an activist movement that uses nonviolent civil disobedience — like filling the streets and blocking intersections — to demand governments do more to stave off mass extinction.

As David Roberts wrote for Vox:

The money is going to everything from hiring organizers to buying signs and bullhorns to organizing school trips. A second round of more than 30 grants is in the works, representing over $2 million more. The fund is currently raising money, accepting donations large and small. ... [The founders] came together around a shared conviction that street protest is both crucially important to climate politics and a longtime blind spot for environmental philanthropy.

And there’s evidence that focusing on movement-building is essential in the climate fight. If you’re skeptical that street protest can make a difference, consider Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth’s research. She’s found that if you want to achieve systemic social change, you need to mobilize 3.5 percent of the population, a finding that helped inspire Extinction Rebellion. That’s not an impossible proportion of people to get into the streets — particularly if the activists doing the work get funded.

Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, states “The only way to break [the ongoing power of the fossil fuel industry] and change the politics of climate is to build a countervailing power,” he said. “Our job — and it’s the key job — is to change the zeitgeist, people’s sense of what’s normal and natural and obvious. If we do that, all else will follow.”