Earth Hour 2015. Wasn’t that a thing that happened? Do you remember participating?
EarthHour.org has a nice website (here) and the organization seems fantastically sincere… but I wonder about things like Earth Hour. Following each event it seems that America does what we so predictably do every time. As with Red Nose Day (which, BTW, raised a paltry $21mil – can that even be true? That’s couch-cushion change for some of the celebs who participated!) we had a splashy celeb-studded “event” and our Big Beloved Stars did their bit, all the while hawking their wares. Jamie Foxx talked up Earth Hour whilst also shilling for the newest “Spiderman,” for example. Ben Affleck was surely involved, as were Leonardo DiCaprio and "rustyrockets."
Instagram caught the dramatic photos of darkened landmarks. Twitter raged hotly with tweets about the big event for a few days… then that hashtag went dark. Reports say that a billion folks participated, enthusiastically, in this feel good event. (No - that wasn't just Americans, obviously.)
And I’m not the only one who feels not-so-vaguely dismissive of Earth Hour. Cynical opinion pieces popped up a few days after the event – many of which you probably read. Then they, too, disappeared, leaving only… anticipation for Earth Hour 2016? (March 26th, 2016, for those of you keeping track.)
And so now here we are, and it’s late May, and all of the hubbub and shouting has long since died, and I’m thinking – so? So now what?
Into this negative space I propose we kick-start and Earth YEAR. Not Earth Hour. Not Earth Day. EARTH YEAR. A whole year – a jam-packed annum – of solid ACTION and COMMUNICATION. Can we keep at it for a year? Is that too long for the average American attention span?
Here’s a place for a modest, web-based start. That Organizing for Action site (https://www.barackobama.com/...) is still up, and it has a clean, easy-to-navigate interface that allows you to tweet directly to the climate change denier(s) who represent/s you in Congress. Yes, many of these folks won’t see our tweets on their hand-held devices – but their minions will certainly register our voices if we maintain a constant barrage of tweets aimed directly at them. Every legislator surely has staff who are paid to pay attention to who is tweeting them, and what they are tweeting.
Twitter’s #climate hashtags sometimes feel like a passionate, well-meaning echo chamber, with me sending fervent, earnest tweets about climate change refugees, and you sending serious, urgent tweets about reframing the issue as one of food scarcity, or poverty, or global conflict. And all of us tweeting the same “news of the day” #climatechange tweets to one another.
I think it's time to start hectoring Congress. Yes - lots of folks do, but we need to step it up. And rather than using the (perfectly good) canned tweets on the OFA site, let's write our own. Even better, cruise over to your rep/senator’s twitter page and reply directly to their fatuous drivel. You know what I mean: empty encomiuma to our troops by legislators who clearly don’t know or care (or won’t admit, more likely) that American troops will be increasingly put in harm’s way as the world warms… chipper tweets about jobs, and not a peep about GREEN jobs… self-aggrandizing announcements about global security with no reference to the Pentagon’s report on climate change… and the like.
So let’s tweet them! Get all up in their grilles! Let’s see if we can get replies, even. And if we can start to budge that dial in congress. Even a little.
Then, after Paris 2015 fails to live up to the hype, our next agenda item this Earth Year will be ACTION. We’ll take to the streets. Whaddya say?