Invitation to the Climate Party

Dear Climate Allies,

We are creating a Climate Party to OCCUPY OUR GOVERNMENT to get solutions to the Climate Crisis. We've registered CLIMATEPARTY.ORG to host our activities on-line. As Tim DeChristopher said recently "Our challenge is not a technical one or an economic one: it's a political one."

The Climate Party's first General Assembly is this Sunday Nov. 6th, starting 10 minutes after the end of the upcoming Tar Sands Action, estimated to be 5:40pm. We're meeting to the middle-left side of Lafayette Park, if you were turning away from the White House. We'll reconvene for a 9 pm evening session over pints at Harry's Restaurant (436 11th St NW, http://www.harryssaloon.com/).

From this humble beginning, we'll create a political movement that swears eternal opposition to Tar Sands Oil. Since the Climate Crisis will be with us for the rest of our lives, we can afford to spend time building political infrastructure to help us Win Our Victories. Let us begin the discussion about creating a Political WIng of the Climate Movement.

The Climate Party will take a multi-tracked approach to pushing the political system. We will create a national third party, support candidates in other parties who are Climate Champions, create a Climate Policy data base to push doable Climate Legislation, host Climate Culture events in DC to bring the truth to the political elite, create support networks for Climate Champions, create a DC Climate Activist Hostel to bring more climate voices to the Capitol, create a Congressional Climate Caucus, fundraise and more.

First, we'll create a Climate Citizen & Politician Alliance to be a support network for Climate Champion Politicians, like Rep. Paul Pinsky of Maryland who was arrested at the Tar Sands Action in August. You may never have heard of Paul and that's part of the problem. We need to support our Climate Allies by volunteering for their campaigns, supporting them financially and amplifying their message. The young people who went to Powershift need jobs supporting the campaigns of Climate Champions. We'll create a support network that brings together Climate Politicians and Volunteers.

Second, we'll support you when you run for office. If you were willing to get arrested in front of the White House, you are brave enough to be in the US Senate. We will "storm the bastille" of our oily government and elect 10,000 Climate Champions. Please be one of them. We will encourage a new generation to run for office by DOING POLITICS DIFFERENTLY. We ONE PENNY from FOSSIL FUEL CORPORATIONS. Many people refuse to enter politics because they think it will require them to become corrupt, phony liars. We will not require you to wear a tie or wear your hair slicked back. We will create a party of authentic, down-to-earth, big-hearted humans. We will do politics in a way that doesn't sell our souls, but rather, makes our souls shine.

Third, the Climate Party will be creative to put the Climate Crisis at the forefront of the national political conversation. We must break the unholy silence on the Climate Crisis in DC. We must stop letting the Political Class get away with "shuffling the deck chairs of the Titanic" with their delusional arguments about budgets while the sky is being broken. First and foremost, DC politicians will take the Climate Crisis seriously when we start winning 50 seats in Congress. Additionally, the Climate Party aspires to host a series of awesome Climate Culture events in DC, such as Grizzly Bear rock show with Dr. James Hansen speaking at the set break. We'll give away tickets to congressional staffers until everybody on Capitol Hill understands the dire seriousness of Runaway Climate Change.

Fourth, the Climate Party will stake out advanced positions on Climate, far ahead of what is "conventional wisdom" in DC. We will push serious, realistic Climate Public Policy. We will compile a database of doable Climate Policy options to give good politicians something to work with, like "Complete Street" legislation, carbon taxes, enforcing existing EPA standards, writing new standards commensurate to the problem, signing the Kyoto Protocol, banning Tar Sands oil like the E.U., and ending fossil fuel subsidies. We will advocate for Public Policy based on Ecological Intelligence and the Precautionary Principle, and so we'll oppose "green-washing" non-solutions like the so-called "Smart-meters" based on radio-frequency pollution.

The author Terry Tempest Williams was debating war with a conservative senator. He asked her "which of your beliefs would you be willing to die for?" and the question caused her a lot of contemplation. Eventually she decided that the real question was "what would I live for?" Going to jail in protest is like a minor dying. But what can we dedicate our lives to that will make even more change? We can occupy our government with good people who know about the Climate Crisis so we can get human civilization on track to survival.

Please join us. Support this new action by donating online, helping us compile a library of articles on Climate&Politics and on Climate Policy, running for office, signing our email list and offering your service to the Climate Party. The Climate Party starts out as a shoe-string, ragtag crew, but we are right to obsessively focus on the Climate Crisis, and in ten years, our Climate-centric approach will seem prescient, and we'll be a force in national politics. We have a long row to hoe. We invite good allies to join us as we go the distance. We join together in this endeavor not knowing how it will go, but knowing that it needs to be done.

We invite the Divine Source to bless our endeavors with success, fun and victory. May we be the human species coming into Ecological Balance with Mother Earth so Humanity continues gracefully into the future.

Onward and upward!

Transition Town cofounder rallies Vermonters

“I feel an intense urgency to do this work, and I hear that all over the world” said Naresh Giagrande, one of the founders of the Transition Town movement in the UK. Indeed, on that Nov. 24th evening at Montpellier’s Unitarian Church, one could feel that positive, encouraging, ready-to-go energy. It was an inspiring evening, and an auspicious beginning for Vermont’s Transition Town movement.

The church was packed. Vermont’s crunchy intelligentsia turned out in force. The energy in the room was palpable and refreshing. Climate change can be pretty doom and gloom, and the Transition Town movement nicely short-circuits this by shifting to a positive vision for a low-carbon future. Citizens are encouraged to create committees or councils that “Start creating visions of a positive future.” By “unleashing the collective intelligence of humanity”, the climate change crisis can be addressed by “letting a thousand flowers bloom.” On his powerpoint, Giagrande had written a T.T. slogan, “Action without vision is just busyness. Vision without action is fruitless.”

Giagrande is currently on a worldwide speaking tour to spread the word about this movement to create an “abundant, pleasurable, resilient future.” Resilient is a key word in Transition culture, meaning the ability of a living system to withstand shocks. In this case, a resilient, transitioned community will withstand the shocks of peak oil with grace. One quick way to measure the resilience of a community is looking at the cords of firewood and seeing if they are well-stacked, notes Richard Heinburg, author of Peak Everything.

Transition Town started in Totnes, England. A group of citizens have worked together to create an ‘energy descent plan’ that looks forward into a desirable future. And they are cultivating a pleasant vision: old school, homespun, communitarian, and fun. They are trying to embody that Buckminster Fuller proverb, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.”

The Transition Town has a component called The Great Re-skilling. Giagrande said “We are probably the most useless generation in history. Most people can’t cook their own food, let alone grow it.” The Great Re-Skilling encourages people to meet their own needs rather than employ energy intensive delegation of the task. Or to reframe it, do it like our grandparents did before we paid Chinese slaves to do it. Mend soxs. Fix that bicycle instead of throwing it away and getting a new one. Grow and store food.

The Transition Town model is hugely hopeful. There are abundant web resources at www.transitiontowns.org. Vermont has it’s own Transition website transitionvermont.ning.com. And also, on Dec 6th, at Vermont Technical College, there will be a conference on this subject, called “Community-based Approaches to Energy and Climate Change.”

Onward and upward, Transition Vermont!