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New Breaking Green Podcast: Leonard Peltier’s Road to Clemency with Michael Kuzma
Protestors blockade Farnborough Airport to protest plans to double private jet flights
Local residents and climate activists blocked Farnborough Airport this week to protest against the proposed expansion of the airport which will almost double the number of private jet flights to 70,000 a year, in a move which blatantly ignores the climate crisis.
Scores of activists are blockading the main entrance to the airport with banners proclaiming “FLYING TO EXTINCTION” “PRIVATE FLIGHTS = PUBLIC DEATHS” “STOP PRIVATE FLIGHTS” “PRIVATE FLIGHTS COST THE EARTH” “QUAKERS FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE” and “CLIMATE EMERGENCY”.
Protestors are releasing colourful smoke flares, chanting slogans and engaging with members of the public, whilst accompanied by the XR Rebel Rhythms band of drummers.
The demonstration includes campaigners from Extinction Rebellion (XR) Waverley and Borders, who have joined forces with Farnborough Noise campaign group, Blackwater Valley Friends of the Earth, Alton Climate Action Network, local councillors and local residents, to voice their opposition to the plans.
The protest follows a consultation period on Farnborough Airport’s expansion plans which ended on 18 October 2024. The plans have drawn fierce opposition from local residents and environmental campaigners. Rushmoor Borough Council has yet to make a decision on the proposed increase in flights.
The proposals include doubling the airport’s annual weekend flight limit from 8,900 to 18,900 flights and upping its annual flight limit by 71% from 50,000 to 70,000 flights.
The 33,120 private flights to and from Farnborough Airport last year carried an average of just 2.5 passengers per flight, with each passenger responsible for the emission of nine times as much carbon as an economy flight to the US and 20 times that to Spain. Currently 40% of flights to and from the airport are empty.
For the limited benefit it provides to a small number of people, private aviation has a disproportionately large impact on climate change due to its high carbon emissions. Per passenger mile, flying in a private jet is the most inefficient and most carbon-intensive mode of transport. It epitomises the worst of climate injustice, where a few people emit large amounts of carbon for the sake of a journey that can be taken by a scheduled flight or, in many cases, by train.
Private jets are 10 times more carbon intensive than a normal airliner and 50 times worse than trains, with a four-hour private flight emitting as much as the average person does in a year, according to research by environmental campaign group Transport & Environment.
At a time when we must drastically reduce our carbon emissions and dependence on fossil fuels, Macquarie is blatantly ignoring the science and is complicit in the unfolding climate crisis.
Steve Williams, Environment Portfolio Holder for Waverley Borough Council, said: “Aviation has no realistic prospect of becoming sustainable in the near future, so any form of airport expansion is unacceptable, given the climate crisis. Expansion at Farnborough is particularly iniquitous because of the impact on the locality nearby and the massive carbon footprint of the privileged few who choose to travel by private jet.”
Chris Neil, from Shackelford, said: “It’s unacceptable that a tiny number of very wealthy people award themselves the right to fly in private jets, emitting huge amounts of carbon and destroying the peace and well-being of people who live under flight paths. The lie put out in support of expansion plans is that more flying is good for business and economic growth. The reality is that Farnborough airport’s busiest day of the week is Sunday – very rich individuals are putting their desire for luxurious recreation and prestige above the real needs of ordinary people.”
Teresa van den Bosch, a retired GP, added: “I am going to Farnborough airport to join a protest against the plans for expansion which are going to be considered by Rushmoor Council later this year.
“More flights use more fuel and produce more emissions, and private jets do so at a rate 30-40 times that of a commercial flight per passenger mile. Burning fossil fuel is contributing massively to the steady global rise in temperatures and climate breakdown. The proposal to expand Farnborough is also deeply concerning to me in its inequality as the super-rich 1% burned through their “share” of the annual carbon budget within the first 10 days of this year. It’s just not fair or sustainable.”
Protestor Pete Goodman, commented: “I was on a campervan holiday in Valencia on the night of the storm. My ‘holiday snaps’ didn’t need to go into a camera as they are etched into my memory forever. Excessive warming of the Med was the cause and it is due to high carbon emissions, of which the worst are executive jets.”
We need to stop ALL AIRPORT EXPANSION and start listening to the experts, the climate scientists, before it is too late. The fossil fuel, holiday and airport companies want us to ignore worsening climate change and to continue to make things worse! If you care about life on earth, and especially if you have children, I would implore you to join us to campaign against private flights at Farnborough Airport. More generally, join Extinction Rebellion or any other climate change campaign groups that you can, and take action. Once climate change happens, it cannot be undone, and we will indeed realise what we have lost.
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XRUK Strategy 2025-26
As XRUK has evolved, so has our ability to dedicate time and energy to the depth of thought and work that the movement needs and deserves in its strategy. This strategy is rooted in research and evidence, built on the reality of what this movement is at this time – not what it used to be or what we would like it to be. XRUK is committed to delivering on its original promise, a mass movement to create transformational, systemic change.
Over six years our movement has evolved as the landscape has shifted around us. We know the tactics of 2019 no longer yield the same results, as the systems we face have adapted in response. To stay ahead, we must innovate and explore while applying the lessons learned from our journey – remaining true to our identity throughout. The climate and ecological emergency is not a single issue campaign, although many treat it like it is. We know that it is a world of interconnected injustices and corruptions that have brought us to this moment. The circumstances we are working within are as unique as the level of change we are here to create.
XRUK is guided by a determination to achieve its three demands, while acting in alignment with our principles and values. Our vision represents the future ahead, the ultimate destination that guides the journey. Our mission is the strategic steps we must take in the present to bring us closer to that future.
Vision: A society transformed to be compassionate, inclusive, regenerative, equitable and deeply connected, and in which the impacts of the climate and nature crises are mitigated and humanity thrives in harmony with the natural world.
Mission: To spark and sustain a spirit of creative, nonviolent rebellion to disrupt and pressure the perpetrators of climate and ecological injustice and drive systemic change through equal participation in power.
2025 is a pivotal moment in the journey of Extinction Rebellion. We have been uncompromising in our voice because we carry a truth based in physics, not politics. There is opportunity in this moment to explore and define together what this means for us as a movement.
We want to celebrate the place that Extinction Rebellion UK holds within a greater ecology of movements. Hundreds of groups and thousands of people all using a diverse and beautiful range of tactics to create a better world. In this emergency we need a little bit of everyone, from everywhere. All actions matter.
Last year the Strategy Team gave an update to the movement on the work it was doing, and now it is time to begin to share this with a wider audience. We have gone back to basics and unfolded our theories of change, delved into community bases of power (and how they already exist within our movement) . We have done research to learn how we can use our voice to forge the connections between everyday people and the climate and ecological emergency with a wider spectrum of support to build unrelenting pressure on the system. These are all vital ingredients for cultural momentum, the lever for transformational change.
This is an invitation from XRUK to all rebels join us doing this work together. A successful strategy is not only measured in words on a page but in how that is implemented and absorbed. Come back soon for more on how circles within XRUK are planning to turn this into reality!
Love and courage, XRUK Strategy Team
The post XRUK Strategy 2025-26 appeared first on Extinction Rebellion UK.
Urgent Action! Sign On to Support Indigenous Land Rights in Chile
How to organize under authoritarian creep in a closing civil society
This article How to organize under authoritarian creep in a closing civil society was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'dW2ml2q_Su5spMxxjN5dwA',sig:'YkTypmDajdiqKtBn8RWDyzWMLzVxsowtlyH46EDsd6g=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2194226053',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});As you read this, new executive orders are being signed, and old protections are being dismantled. Many of the frameworks and institutions of our aging democracy — more specifically, our representative republic — are being tested to the point of fraying or dissolution. We are being engulfed by a far-right dehumanizing government at all levels — executive, legislative, judicial.
While some progressive organizers and activists continue with “business as usual,” others are gripped with the question “What do we do now?” The truth is stark: We know the new president won by a slim 1.5 percent margin, with 19 million fewer voters participating compared to four years ago. We also hold that even though this was no MAGA mandate, it underscores a hard reality: Progressives lost the national election because there simply aren’t enough mobilized like-minded people overall.
We didn’t get here overnight, or even in the past four years. A lack of effective relationship and solidarity building across class, color, gender, religious beliefs, sexuality, age, ability, culture and more is part of the problem. Another is the lack of alternative political parties that we can recognize as representing us — our values, our needs, our world view — to inspire us to engage. In short: No mandate, low engagement and the system is broken!
Simply, we can’t do the same things as before because what we’ve done wasn’t enough. Living in these “interesting” times, it bears remembering that in crisis there is also opportunity.
We find ourselves in a closing space — our inclusive civil society under attack. There is an element of claustrophobia bearing down upon those of us who identify as progressive, social justice-minded, democracy advocates.
#newsletter-block_58ecc1fb2f0a226f354f5fd75fb0a1f0 { background: #ececec; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_58ecc1fb2f0a226f354f5fd75fb0a1f0 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our NewsletterWhat does a closing civil society look like? Literally, our options are increasingly limited. We may be told how to behave, how to dress, who we can associate with, what we can say and even what we can or cannot do with our own bodies. Personal choices may narrow as community organizations are threatened with lawsuits and economic sanctions — or they may be outlawed entirely, as freedom of expression, access to education and literature and the right to protest are curtailed.
How does authoritarianism show up? Authoritarianism often manifests through the actions of an autocrat or a small group (oligarchy) desperate to maintain control over their population. Tactics like mass disinformation or fake news, along with scapegoating — blaming and dehumanizing and othering specific groups — are used to strike fear and justify restrictions on freedom of speech, association and personal autonomy. Disregard for the rule of law becomes routine, targeting free press and public institutions, paving the way for corruption and political retaliation. Courts are co-opted, and authorities use surveillance, imprisonment and violent repression to enforce compliance, or silence dissent. In such environments, an open and thriving civil society becomes little more than a distant dream.
In the U.S., an extreme storyline for 2025 could land with the military being deployed to crush a people power movement — or enforce unpopular policies, such as mass deportations, even though national law generally limits the military taking action against its own citizens.
How do we prevent this? Fortunately, history offers lessons from those who’ve faced — and defeated — authoritarian regimes. Their victories remind us that change is possible, even in the most oppressive circumstances.
Stories of resistance: Lessons from across the globeFrom Serbia to Chile, Denmark to the Philippines and Iran to Kenya — there are stories to learn from. The U.S. civil rights struggle offers insights for us now if we are willing to listen. Each of the mentioned highlights from the stories below have many more lessons to offer, so check out the linked information to continue distilling what you can apply today.
Previous CoverageSerbia: The civil protest group Otpor! grew from a handful of students outside of the mainstream into a broad movement that proved instrumental in overthrowing Slobodan Milosevic’s dictatorship in 2000 — and establishing a democracy in the process. Their youthful and humorous approach coupled with an expansive training program was key, as they trained 80,000 people (1.3 percent of the population) in just two years.
Chile: From 1973–1990, diverse groups — women, students, labor organizers, artists, churches, musicians and others — formed small, trusted affinity groups to be able to work under the radar and build a creative, resilient movement for a better future. Arts and culture with a focus on a safer, happier, inclusive vision for all of Chile were instrumental in winning the referendum that ended Augusto Pinochet’s brutal military regime.
Denmark: During World War II, the Danes used a “negotiation under protest” strategy to appear cooperative while subtly undermining Nazi plans, limiting destructive retaliation and preserving critical resources. A notable example of Danish resistance came from a 17-year-old, who — outraged by the seemingly passive response of his countrymen, wrote and distributed the “Danish 10 Commandments,” a set of widely regarded guidelines for engaging with the occupation. One of the most remarkable acts of resistance was sparked by a Nazi officer with a conscience who leaked information about the imminent deportation of Danish Jews. This act prompted a coordinated effort by Danish citizens to smuggle nearly 7,000 Jews to safety in Sweden overnight.
U.S. civil rights: Nonviolent action theory and practice were the strategic and philosophical cornerstones of the U.S. civil rights movement, expressed through training, as well as political education or citizenship schools. These commitments supported deep strategic understanding of power and economic disruption, leading to effective bus boycotts, lunch counter sit-ins and more. Training and preparation were key to overcoming fear and building long-term resilience and support from outraged allies.
Philippines: The 1983–86 Yellow Revolution in the Philippines was fueled by a commitment to nonviolent action from a cross section of the lower and middle economic classes of Filipino society. Long standing cultural organizing had already built a powerful general strike muscle effectively leveraged by the lower classes to address grievances. When the middle class was also trained in “people power” strategy and tactics, the Marcos regime fell. Targeted political education and low profile nonviolent action workshops enabled the “powerless” to analyze how to strategically challenge authority.
Kenya: In 2024, Gen Z-led mass decentralized protests exposed corruption in President William Ruto’s regime, forcing him to reverse a controversial finance bill, widely seen as contrary to promises of development and opportunity. Key to the power of this youth-led movement was their ability to expose Ruto’s false populism from outside the traditional political parties and spectrum. By leveraging social media, and inspiration from other youth-led movements in Bangladesh and Nigeria, Kenyan youth forced policy reversals. They now face an ongoing challenge of how to bridge from this mobilizing force to institutionalizing or securing their power.
Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'I9ZkFanSRixczX1daGLCXw',sig:'wHjRJh3GKwGUD5pzvaEMdGyIUdTpCsHz0p4a5aJostQ=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2157862721',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })}); What are the takeaways for us right now?As we deal with the claustrophobia of our shrinking civic space, the foundational principles of effective organizing remain as essential as ever. These practices — critical, necessary and enduring — are the building blocks of a better world, and now is the time to revisit and strengthen them.
It’s the right time to pause, take stock and recalibrate. To think, plan, innovate and get in shape — both literally and metaphysically. We are in unsettled territory right now, and the uncertainty of the current landscape demands reflection and flexibility. We’ll need to make space and time to assess the shifting terrain, avoid digging into our positions or getting distracted by the torrent of everyday assaults that we miss strategic adjustments that are needed.
Openness to risk and the capacity to build support for courageous personal and organizational actions, needs to be at the heart of our work now. This is not a time for “sunshine activism” (i.e. actions that fall more into the category of symbolism or virtue signaling). Engagement may often be uncomfortable, even dangerous. It will help to acknowledge these risks upfront, whether they are physical, economic, reputational or emotional — and recognize that those taking such risks now might need to later shift as the assaults on our human rights grow. People need to be ready for — and supported in — taking strategic action to block imminent harms, defend useful institutions and build alternatives.
Let’s focus on building the crew we need to grow our people power. Perhaps this time we are not just “the resistance,” but rather the collaborators, the builders, the family and friends, the community of the future we want to see.
So, let’s go. Here’s the short list of tips and tools for protest under authoritarian creep (pun intended!):
1. Find your people and get a crew together!
Don’t go it alone. Take care, work and process collectively. This is cardinal basic guidance for all changemakers. Start with a small adaptable, decentralized group, one that’s nimble and responsive. Stay aware of — and connected to — like-minded groups or organizations to avoid spinning your wheels or duplicating efforts. Know that hierarchical and command/control centralized power structures are much easier to disrupt, while small groups are more flexible, easier to move and build trust and make decisions in.
There is much to learn from those who have been marginalized and harmed by our racist, sexist and oppressive systems. Many of us are here today because our people, our ancestors, took care of themselves and each other in times of crisis. Our power is with each other, built by collective action and within community relationships.
Warning: Investing in building a vibrant, loving community doesn’t just build our political clout — it brings a myriad of other benefits. Side effects may include improved quality of life, enhanced mental health, greater happiness, increased resilience and the ability to achieve far more than we would working alone.
2. Figure out your lane and speak truth to power
Now you’ve got a crew: It’s time to figure out your lane. What are your strengths? What do you have to offer and, most importantly, what do you want or feel called to do? Define your role in the constellation of efforts to prevent harm, defend just institutions and build a better future.
Speak out clearly and with conviction. Call things as you see them; support those who do the same. Educate yourself and your community to recognize and combat misinformation and disinformation. Support independent, alternative and accurate media and reporting; create structures and processes to make lies, censorship and repression backfire.
3. Get your formation in order!
Figure out what you need to operate effectively: legal support, safety measures, communications strategies and other tangible and intangible resources and training. Assess risks and build capacity to handle challenges and ensure that any attempts at repression backfire.
It’s not only a new administration, it’s time to get in shape! Personally, organizationally, digitally and in real life. Strengthen your foundation by building relationships and trust to grow solidarity and resilience. Consider this as base-building to reduce reliance on the broken oligarchy system and invest in us — longer term, with mutual aid, health care, community gardens, kitchens, third spaces, tool libraries, collective childcare, elder care, alternative education and more! Explore alternative communication structures off-the-web, like mesh networks or non-trackable platforms to maintain secure connections.
Tangible community investments coupled with political education not only deliver on specific needs but also bridge from the stopping of immediate harms to defending useful institutions and creating the future we want to see.
4. Vision and innovation
Leverage art and culture to challenge oppressive systems, build alternatives and offer an inclusive inspiring vision. Explore a range of tactics — from bold, direct action to subtle, indirect approaches — to inspire and mobilize.
Cultivate and share a positive vision of a future that has room for everyone who is willing to work together. Clear and inclusive messaging will help draw people in and foster collaboration. We need to inspire the millions who did not vote and are not yet engaged. Some of us need to focus on what happens when we win: How will we bridge to institutionalizing or solidifying inclusive and democratic power?
Do what you can to limit and block immediate harms while keeping the bigger picture of systemic change as the guiding vision. Adopt a big bold positive vision of the future that supports mass coordinated action when needed, and remains flexible to adjust as conditions evolve.
A few ideas to consider include pushing for a worker’s Economic Bill of Rights and calling for the direct election of the U.S. president (by eliminating the Electoral College in favor of direct votes) or the impeachment of an elected politician who is breaking laws. It’s also worth investing in the capacity to leverage disruption, perhaps with an eye to supporting the proposed coordinated contract/strike date of May 1, 2028.
5. Choose strategically — does this action/project advance your overall goals or help build power for the longer term?
Get up to speed with strategic planning tools and methodologies. Invest in training and political education to prepare for clear, collective decision-making while dealing with risks and fears. Make strategic choices based on a longer term arc to support resilience and relationship building. Protest in an authoritarian context might require low-visibility, dispersed activities in some instances, or for some groups or vulnerable people to ensure safety. Expect repression to escalate and proactively invest in support as an integral part of campaigns.
6. Work with aligned partners
Strengthen connections with established civic, religious, international and diverse communities and organizations. These relationships can help mobilize trusted leaders who can provide activists with cover or legitimacy when needed. Establish relationships with moderate civil society groups, especially to help meet immediate needs such as food, housing and safety.
Though the going will not be easy (no rose colored glasses needed!), we will need to work to limit infighting and avoid doing the oppositions’ work for them. Presenting a unified front to the world is critical.
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Donate7. Be like water
Be flexible, responsive and use varied tactics. Get comfortable with holding many things at once — stay focused on specific actions, while always keeping the bigger picture in mind. Act locally, think nationally and globally. Cultivate a willingness and capacity to disrupt if needed, but maintain your flow!
It is all about lowering the bar to entry and preparing ourselves, our organizations, our elected leaders, our judicial systems and our funders to take risks. It’s worth repeating: We simply don’t have enough actively engaged people on the side of human rights and an inclusive future. Don’t be confused: Folks are generally supportive, but they have not been moved to action! A mix of factors — including misinformation and disinformation, grievance politics, capitalism/debt slavery, systemic racism, homophobia, sexism, ageism and a flawed and limited two party system of constitutional democracy — has left many opting out of using the power they do have to make change.
So, our core challenge is to increase our people power — politically, culturally and in every way — to transform our society into one that takes better care of all of us. If we fail to offer a vision that improves life for all of us, we risk alienating potential allies, who may even work against us. This is not a call to overlook racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of oppression — we can and must address these alongside each other as we build inclusive movements.
To expand our groups, we should consider inviting and building with people we don’t usually work with — even those we may not currently like or appreciate. If there is a big lesson to take away from this recent election cycle, it is that we can NOT afford to write off folks who might be allies. We’ll need to meet folks where they are at and move them toward engaging from there. Success may even mean welcoming those who once voted for Trump and realize now that he and MAGA are the problem. Adaptability will be key to building a collective future. Be like water.
Darya Alikhani provided support/assistance to this story.
This article How to organize under authoritarian creep in a closing civil society was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
City of London insurance CEOs targeted for climate crimes in a second day of action
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For a second day running, Extinction Rebellion (XR UK) protesters have targeted insurance companies in the City of London, asking ‘Who are the real criminals?’ [1] ahead of this afternoon’s appeal for the ‘Lord Walney 16’ nonviolent activists at the High Court.
This morning (30th January) scores of protesters arrived from 8am to occupy the offices of Marsh McLennan, and target the CEOs and offices of Lloyd’s of London, Howden, Willis Towers Watson, AXA, and Hiscox – as staff arrived for work.
Today’s action escalated the emerging strategy of putting the spotlight on the potential criminal actions of CEOs. At Marsh McLennan, Howden, and the world’s largest fossil fuel insurer Lloyds of London [1], protestors wore giant masks caricaturing the faces of their CEO and carried placards reading “WANTED FOR DEADLY FOSSIL FUEL PROFITEERING – HOMES FLOODED, BUSINESSES RUINED”.
At the same time, Christian Climate Action and XR Buddhists jointly held a silent vigil at Hiscox, which is among the top ten insurers of fossil fuels [2]; and medical professionals from Health for XR occupied the lobby of global health insurer AXA, which holds investments in liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals throughout the world. TotalEnergies, the company insured, has vowed to increase LNG production by 50% by 2030. [3]
At Lloyds, flood victim Swan told the queueing insurers: “I’m broken. I’ve been flooded three times – and I’m not the only one. I’m living in survival mode and the insurers, the banks, and the Government aren’t coming to save us. Social collapse is coming as these insurers go about their business as usual.”
Speeches outside each location told arriving staff about the crimes of their company and CEO. Marsh McLennan – whose CEO is Chris Lay – are insuring the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline despite an internal staff revolt and most other large insurance companies ruling it out. John Neal (CEO Lloyds of London), Carl Hess (CEO Willis Towers Watson) and David Howden (Howden Group) were similarly singled out.
Just 20 companies insure 70% of fossil fuel projects and a significant number of these are based in the UK, mostly in the City of London. [4] Insure our Survival is targeting the insurance companies Marsh McLennan and Howden and global insurance market Lloyds of London because they are major facilitators of oil, gas and coal underwriting: Marsh, Howden and the syndicates who operate within the Lloyds of London market connect fossil fuel businesses to many different insurers to enable them to comparison shop for the best prices.
Extinction Rebellion’s Insure Our Survival Campaign demands insurers withdraw from the fossil fuel market and pull the plug on new oil and gas projects. Insurance gives oil, gas and coal companies the confidence to dig and drill as the planet burns by covering their operations against financial losses when things go wrong.
Without insurance, major oil and gas companies therefore cannot operate, and climate-wrecking oil, gas, and coal exploration, production and distribution will fail to go ahead. As a result of thousands taking to the street last year, Insure our Survival succeeded in getting the giant insurers Zurich and leading underwriter Probitas to pull out of new oil and gas. [5] All eyes are now on the companies that continue to profit from fuelling climate disaster.
Later this morning the activists will make their way to the Royal Courts of Justice to join over 1000 people in protesting against the role of oil industry lobbyists in drafting laws that criminalise peaceful activists, standing in support of the 16 political prisoners known as the ‘Lord Walney 16’ [1] whose punitive jail sentences are appealed at the today.
Today’s Insure Our Survival protests are the latest in more than 134 nonviolent direct actions over the last year in the City of London and across the UK that targeted more than 100 offices of 27 insurance firms in 40+ towns and cities. [6] [7] [8]
Insure Our Survival spokesperson Steve Tooze said: “By effectively insuring the climate emergency, the insurance industry is helping create the extreme weather that is flooding our homes, destroying our food supply and threatening to kill billions in our lifetimes. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead insurance executives could be climate heroes and use their ‘superpower’ to shut down the fossil fuel industry and help save our entire civilisation, and the biosphere that we rely on for life.”
“Insurance companies need to stop insuring oil and gas immediately if they are to have a chance of being on the right side of history. You are complicit in an injustice of heinous proportions. While 16 peaceful protestors are in jail for a combined sentence of 41 years, those who are putting our future at peril are continuing to soak up profit.”
Dr Naomi Adelson, GP, joining the protest with XR Health, stated: “As a doctor I have a responsibility to mitigate this crisis to protect public health. It can be hard to know what to do about such a big problem, but health insurers such as AXA have the power to really make a difference by choosing to insure projects that work towards a healthier world rather than those that continue to work with harmful fossil fuels.”
Notes to editors
[1] Court of Appeal to review corrupt jail terms for Just Stop Oil: https://defendourjuries.org/press-releases/court-of-appeal-to-review-corrupt-jail-terms-for-just-stop-oil/
[2] Insure Our Future: Lloyds Market: https://lloydsinsureourfuture.com/lloyds-market/
[3] Top 20 Lloyd’s syndicates in 2023: https://www.atlas-mag.net/en/article/ranking-of-top-20-lloyd-s-syndicates-in-2017
[4] TotalEnergies Forecasting LNG Sales Rising 50% to 2030: https://www.naturalgasintel.com/news/totalenergies-forecasting-lng-sales-rising-50-to-2030-but-short-term-said-sensitive-to-supply-disruptions/
[5] Insure Our Future: Zurich: https://insure-our-future.com/company/zurich/
Zurich’s Sustainability Strategy: https://www.zurich.com/sustainability/strategy-and-governance/sustainability-risk
[6] Insure Our Future – week of action: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/act-now/campaigns/insure-our-future/
[7] To End the Fossil Fuel Era, Activists in London Target the Insurance Industry: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30112024/london-activists-target-insurance-industry-fossil-fuels/
[8] Insure Our Survival – how the week unfolded: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2024/11/21/insure-our-survival-how-the-week-unfolded/
About Extinction Rebellion
Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
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Time has almost entirely run out to address the climate and ecological crisis which is upon us, including the sixth mass species extinction, global pollution, and increasingly rapid climate change. If urgent and radical action isn’t taken, we’re heading towards 4˚C warming, leading to societal collapse and mass loss of life. The younger generation, racially marginalised communities and the Global South are on the frontline. No-one will escape the devastating impacts.
The post City of London insurance CEOs targeted for climate crimes in a second day of action appeared first on Extinction Rebellion UK.
City of London insurance conference disrupted by Extinction Rebellion and students
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Climate activists have this morning (Weds) disrupted an insurance industry conference held at Howden’s offices [1] by interrupting proceedings, singing and theatre, occupying the entrance hall and blowing whistles.
The noisy disruption started at 8am, as arriving conference delegates and insurance staff were greeted by protesters shouting through megaphones and blowing whistles and pleading with them to blow the whistle on their fossil fuel insuring CEOs, speak out at work against insuring oil, gas and coal, or jump ship to companies who refuse to insure fossil fuel exploration and production. Banners read: “CEOS BURNING YOUR FUTURE, MAKE THEM STOP” and “INSURING FOSSIL FUELS – ENSURING CLIMATE COLLAPSE.”
Inside the conference at least one hundred delegates from top insurers listened with interest as protesters from Extinction Rebellion’s Insure Our Survival campaign stood up to give testimonies from African women affected by climate collapse and speeches about the escalating threats to each and everyone of us.
Lampooning the lifestyles of the mega-rich CEOs who are enabling fossil fuel companies to burn and flood our planet, protesters assembled a model of a bright green Lamborghini sports car outside the main doors that has been made to look like it is sinking into floodwaters. The car – the Shambourghini – has been converted into a karaoke booth with performers singing and inviting the delegates to join them in singing songs about leaving their company.
Meanwhile students from Insure Tomorrow [2] and Education Climate Coalition [3] staged a lobby occupation warning that young talent is shunning fossil fuel insurers. They held a banner saying: “NO NEW WORKERS FOR FOSSIL FUEL INSURERS”.
As people queued to get in, activists impersonating insurance workers could be seen reading satirical tabloid newspapers such as The Sin (headline: “Hell-A. LA Wildfires caused by profit-mad CEOs”) and The Daily Fail (headline: “Fire, flood, famine but insurance CEOs laugh all the way to the bank”).
The disruption will be a major embarrassment for conference hosts Howden as it took place in front of their international peers and competitors. The broker’s underwriting portfolio includes oil and gas, mining, energy service contractors and drilling contractors, and processing and refining companies. [4].
Howden have been feeling the heat because the offices of their High Street retail division across the UK – that facilitate insurance for our homes and cars – were repeatedly visited by Extinction Rebellion local groups in the second half of 2024, including over Christmas.
Three of the companies attending – Swiss Re, Munich Re and Hannover Re – and their CEOs were singled out by protesters because they provide insurance to the other insurance companies. Their support for high-risk fossil fuel projects undermines efforts to combat climate breakdown, making them a key player in environmental harm and hindering sustainable progress. Axa and Allianz were also targeted.
The insurance industry is suffering from a recruitment and retention crisis [5] and students and young people are piling on the pressure. A recent KPMG survey of 6,000 office workers identified a rise in “climate quitting” among 18-24 year olds [6], with 1 in 3 turning down a job to avoid working for a company with poor ESG commitments [7].
Today’s Insure Our Survival protests are the latest in more than 134 nonviolent direct actions over the last year in the City of London and across the UK that targeted more than 100 offices of 27 insurance firms in 40+ towns and cities. [7] [8] [9]
Insure Our Survival spokesperson Lucy Porter said: “It’s difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at an insurance industry conference called “Is Another World Possible?” attended by senior insurers who are lining their pockets by helping fossil fuel crooks to burn down the only world we’ve got.
“Insurance staff – It’s time for you to rise up against senior management who are forcing you to be complicit in the destruction of their own futures. Don’t let your CEO make you part of a climate crime that threatens to kill billions. He is burning your future to keep making a killing.
“We know it’s scary and tough, but the world needs you to rise up and tell your bosses to stop insuring oil, gas and coal. You can strike a mighty blow to halt the fossil fuel criminals in their tracks because without the insurance that your business provides, they can’t keep drilling and digging for the products destroying our futures.”
Shana Sullivan, PhD student and spokesperson for the Education Climate Coalition, said: “Like the Insure Our Survival protesters, students and graduates see clearly the toxicity of the insurers at this conference. We see them insuring an arms industry that fuels wars and genocides. We see them insuring oil, gas and coal projects that cause deadly fires, floods and famine all over the world. We see them refusing to insure vulnerable people and communities from the climate disasters they are helping to cause. Unless we see major changes in this industry, we promise that you will not get to use young talent to burn down our futures.”
Insure Our Survival spokesperson Steve Tooze said: “The insurance industry has been flying under the radar for decades as a prime enabler of climate breakdown. No longer. Their reputation is being damaged daily as we establish their complicity in destroying our futures in the public mind.
“Zurich announced that they would no longer insure new oil and gas after our week of actions in February 2024. The insurers who continue to underwrite fossil fuel projects can expect to face double the number of protests in 2025. We won’t stop until they stop enabling climate chaos.”
NOTES TO EDITOR
- “IS ANOTHER WORLD POSSIBLE? The Risk Forum and Exhibition”, 29 January 2025, Howden, One Creechurch Lane, London EC3: https://risk.airmicforums.com/
- Insure Tomorrow: https://www.insuretomorrow.org
- Education Climate Coalition: https://www.educationclimatecoalition.co.uk
- Howden’s Energy Liabilities: https://www.howdengroup.com/uk-en/industry/natural-resources/energy-liabilities
- Insurance industry still faces recruitment, retention challenges: https://insurancenewsnet.com/innarticle/insurance-industry-still-faces-recruitment-retention-challenges
- Climate quitting – younger workers voting with their feet on employer’s ESG commitments https://kpmg.com/uk/en/home/media/press-releases/2023/01/climate-quitting-younger-workers-voting-esg.html
- Insure Our Future – week of action https://extinctionrebellion.uk/act-now/campaigns/insure-our-future/
- To End the Fossil Fuel Era, Activists in London Target the Insurance Industry https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30112024/london-activists-target-insurance-industry-fossil-fuels/
- Insure Our Survival – how the week unfolded: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2024/11/21/insure-our-survival-how-the-week-unfolded/
About Extinction Rebellion
Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
Donate | Support our work
What Emergency? | Read about the true scale of the climate crisis
Why Citizens’ Assemblies? | Breaking the political deadlock
XR UK Local Groups | View a map of all local groups
XR UK website | Find out more about XR UK
XR Global website | Discover what’s going on in XR around the globe
Time has almost entirely run out to address the climate and ecological crisis which is upon us, including the sixth mass species extinction, global pollution, and increasingly rapid climate change. If urgent and radical action isn’t taken, we’re heading towards 4˚C warming, leading to societal collapse and mass loss of life. The younger generation, racially marginalised communities and the Global South are on the frontline. No-one will escape the devastating impacts.
The post City of London insurance conference disrupted by Extinction Rebellion and students appeared first on Extinction Rebellion UK.
It’s going to take multiple strategies to win under Trump 2.0
This article It’s going to take multiple strategies to win under Trump 2.0 was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
In the wake of the 2024 election and Donald Trump’s return to power, we have heard many suggestions for how progressives should regroup and respond. Some activists have argued that we need to prepare for mass protest and civil disobedience against the horrific policies the administration is bound to implement, such as mass deportations and the rolling back of labor rights — with some organizers, following United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, going so far as to suggest that a general strike could congeal by the end of Trump’s term. Others, citing feelings of “protest fatigue,” are instead using the moment to build communities of care and mutual aid. A third group has pushed for a revival of base-building and community organizing. And still others have looked to electoral campaigns and legal action at the state and local level as a bulwark against federal hostility.
In early December, the Ayni Institute convened a summit in Boston where organizational leaders and veteran activists came together around a different proposition: namely, that none of these strategies, by itself, is sufficient. Rather, movements gain strength when they can find ways for many approaches to work together.
At the gathering, some 70 participants representing movements around climate, criminal justice reform and prison abolition, immigrant rights and economic justice, as well as leaders in philanthropy, engaged spirituality and local government, shared learnings and strengthened ties as a community of practice dedicated to creating healthy social movement ecosystems. These practitioners held in common the belief that defeating the forces of white supremacy and creeping authoritarianism, while winning true economic justice and multiracial democracy, is not a matter of finding one “right” strategy for change. Rather, social movement success is predicated on appreciating the varied contributions of groups pursuing different theories of change and crafting complex collaborations between them.
By finding ways to manage the tensions that commonly arise, while rejecting the idea that diverse initiatives should be seen as being in competition with one another, movement organizations can emerge with greater strategic clarity and a stronger sense of common purpose. The discussions taking place at the summit offered some key insights into how.
Social movements as ecosystemsThe Ayni Institute describes social movements as “multi-strategic.” As the organization explains in a video introducing the model of social movement ecology, “This means that they implement many different strategies towards creating social change simultaneously, whether they are conscious of it or not.” Varied theories of change are embodied by organizations in different parts of a movement ecosystem. In principle, these can be complementary. In the moments that movements are most successful, it is generally because groups with different organizing traditions and strategic approaches have been able to come together or play off of one another in constructive ways. Yet often these different approaches come into tension. Crucial to managing the conflicts that emerge is clarifying the divergent assumptions and organizational practices held in the distinct segments of the ecology.
We have worked with Carlos Saavedra at Ayni to develop a framework that classifies movement organizations based on their primary approach to making change, dividing them into five categories. The first category is perhaps the most mainstream and accepted within U.S. society: the inside game. Here, advocates lobby policymakers, enter into electoral contests, file lawsuits or otherwise work within society’s existing dominant institutions.
Two other approaches also try to influence these dominant institutions, but do so by wielding power from the outside. Practitioners of structure-based organizing work to build durable membership organizations, such as unions and community groups, that can leverage the influence that comes from a unified base to extract concessions from corporations, landlords, politicians, bureaucrats and other powerholders. A separate approach, mass protest, uses large-scale demonstrations and escalating campaigns of civil resistance to alter the limits of political debate. Such campaigns allow mobilized communities to create urgency around an issue and shift public opinion, “changing the weather” around their issues and producing more favorable conditions for all the other strategies. At its most potent, mass protest uses the disruptive power of widespread noncooperation to suspend the ordinary workings of mainstream institutions and thereby force concessions from those in power.
The two other approaches to change operate outside of dominant institutions. Activists constructing alternatives attempt to “prefigure” new possibilities for society by building models of social housing, community farms, credit unions, worker co-ops, counter-cultural arts spaces and radical schools. These types of alternative institutions provide bottom-up methods for serving the needs of the community while also embodying a set of values distinct from mainstream capitalist accumulation and profit-seeking. Finally, organizations oriented toward personal transformation believe, in Ayni’s words, “that change happens when we better our lives and the lives of others through providing service, improving our health and well-being, or reaching higher levels of consciousness.” Society is transformed as the lives of individuals are improved through spiritual pursuit, education, therapy or recovery practices, or other one-on-one development and support.
The fact that there can be invaluable work going on in each of the five segments highlights the idea that there is no single correct approach to creating change. Rather, the fortunes of social movements depend on the dynamic relationships that exist within the ecosystem of groups pursuing political transformation.
Mapping the terrain of movement organizationsWith regard to its most recent gathering, the purpose of Ayni’s summit was not to introduce movement ecology to new people. Rather, it was to bring together a community of practitioners who have already aimed to implement the framework into their organizing. Participants compared notes about how the tool has aided their work, as well as about how to confront challenges that have gained urgency in the current political moment. To this end, attendees wrestled with issues such as how to make political advances in populist times, how to defend movements against authoritarian repression, how to deal with periods of failure in organizations, how more-neglected segments of the ecology can be integrated, and how to construct more sophisticated collaborations.
#newsletter-block_3a32b8fbf9f14139d58e91ac57b24f14 { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_3a32b8fbf9f14139d58e91ac57b24f14 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our NewsletterIn discussions with various organizers, several key reflections emerged about how thinking through the dynamics of movement ecosystems can foster strategic advances.
A first important use of movement ecology articulated by members of the community of practice was as a tool that could help them map the universe of organizations working on their issue areas or within their geographical regions. One participant who described using the framework in this way was Dawn Harrington, who both manages special projects for the National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls and serves as the executive director of Free Hearts, a Tennessee-based organization led by women directly affected by the prison system.
“We require people that are trying to join the leadership of our organization to do a course in social movement ecology,” she said. “Then during our leadership campaigns and policy meetings, we look all across the state and ask, ‘What are the different organizations and the different theories of change? And where are the gaps? Where do we need more of this or that?’”
Harrington emphasizes that the framework gives shared language to describe strategic differences, and is helpful in navigating conflicts among diverse groups. “We prioritize structure organizing as our core strategy, and so where there were groups doing personal transformation or straight up inside-game, we were having a lot of conflicts,” Harrington explained. “Before, we were thinking, ‘Okay, it’s just personal issues, or we just hate each other.’ But the movement ecology framework helped us to understand that it’s actually our theories of change that are in tension, and it helped us better appreciate the other areas of change.”
Not all experiments with the framework were successful. “When we first got trained in the model, the first thing we did was try to build a cross-theory-of-change coalition across our state,” Harrington said. “It started out really good,” she added, but resentment built when not all groups were equally committed to joint campaign work. Still, “it wasn’t a complete failure, because I think it got us to the point where we know what’s happening across the state with other organizations, and there is more communication.”
In moments when the Tennessee state government has locked in conservative rule and inside-game efforts have been stymied, movement ecology allowed organizers in the criminal justice space to identify opportunities to build power from the outside, Harrington said: “We can see the whole picture of how, even when politically things are getting worse, we’re still building a movement. All the pieces fit together.”
Filling gaps, navigating tensionsJames Hayes, co-director of Ohio Voice, an organization dedicated to doing ongoing civic engagement with underrepresented communities in order to win progressive governance, has seen benefits as the framework has gained a foothold among groups in his state. “Movement ecology has been part of our strategic plan since I joined the team in 2017, and we train a lot of people in our space in Ohio on it,” Hayes said. “In large part, it just helps us have shared language to talk about the things that we are seeing and experiencing. So if we have disagreements, we’re using similar terms and coming to a similar understanding of what we’re disagreeing about.”
At the Ayni conference, a variety of representatives from the foundation world who were present argued that movement ecology allows them to identify areas of need and to make a case for dedicating funding to underdeveloped areas. For Hayes’s organization, the framework serves a similar function, helping them to set priorities. “It’s been helpful in thinking about what type of work we really want to support at Ohio Voice — to ask ‘where do we want to focus our resources, our energy, our time?’” he explained. “Part of our analysis is seeing that we had a lot of mass protest energy erupt over the years, but there has been a loss of organizing capacity in that time for various reasons. We saw that we needed more groups doing base building and running issue campaigns at the local level.”
Furthering the point, Hayes argues that an examination of the ecology in a given region can reveal imbalances that are creating weaknesses for movements. “We’ve been able to talk about how people have gotten away from organizing and become reliant on inside-game strategies — and how that’s not working now because gerrymandering has made it very difficult to move anything,” he said.
Hayes also echoes Harrington’s belief that awareness of movement ecology allows groups to better navigate tensions. He mentioned Equality Ohio, which is one of the more powerful organizations working on LGBTQ issues in the state. “Historically, the relationships between more insider groups like Equality Ohio and more radical queer liberation groups have been frayed and tense,” Hayes explained. “The previous executive director a couple years ago told me how grateful she was for the movement ecology framework, because it gave her the tools to talk with her team and her board and also to talk with outside partners about how they can have better relationships.”
This has concrete effects on how campaigns played out, Hayes believes. “There was really powerful work that happened, where people engaging in the State House strategy were open to there being more outside game energy and to some of those types of pressure tactics,” he said. “In general, it just resulted in a growth of capacity, culminating in getting the governor to veto an anti-trans bill that had been passed.”
Among other takeaways from the Ayni conference, Hayes points to discussion of inside-outside strategies. “I think eight or 10 years ago, there would have been huge pushback on the idea that movements doing co-governance was even possible, let alone necessary,” he said. “I think now there’s a huge hunger for it. We’re bringing more people into a conversation about what type of power we need if we’re going to get what we want out of electoral politics.”
Allowing for both focus and flexibilityJuan Pablo Orjuela, a community organizer and longtime immigrant rights leader with groups including Movimiento Cosecha, spoke to how an ecological framework can help specific organizations focus on what they do best, while also allowing wider movements to make strategic pivots when circumstances warrant.
“First being introduced to movement ecology, it was like an ‘Aha’! Before, when I was coming into mass protests, it felt like a negation of structure-based organizing, which is the philosophy that I came from,” Orjuela said. “Movement ecology helped me reconcile that these two traditions can exist and work together in some way. And it helped me be less resentful when people didn’t understand where I was coming from.”
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DonateBelief that change can be a result of multiple strategies does not mean that “anything goes,” or that all efforts are equally effective. Individual organizations must still make difficult choices about how to focus their work. And when they do choose to situate themselves within a given segment of an ecosystem, they should lean in to maximizing the role they have chosen. While doing this, they can also recognize that, as political circumstances shift, different parts of the movement may temporarily come to the fore while others recede in importance, only to become more significant later on.
“I was recently hired to do a strategic retreat with an organization in Los Angeles that was feeling really stretched thin, and we used movement ecology to help them diagnose what they were doing,” Orjuela said. The group’s leaders began to see that they were being asked to operate in many different segments of the ecosystem simultaneously — building alternatives through a land trust, while also running a personal transformation program for tenants, and then still trying to do structure-based organizing with a fiscal sponsor. “They had never broken down their work like that,” Orjuela explained. “And I think it was really helpful for them to realize, ‘we’re stretched thin because we’re working on too many theories of change.’”
The next day they talked about what their priorities were. The conversation allowed the group to drill down into a core strategy that best made use of their capabilities.
In addition to helping leaders focus on the work that they do best, Orjuela has witnessed how movement ecology can allow for greater strategic flexibility at key moments. Previously, he was involved with a campaign in New Jersey to pass a law that allows undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses. “This is really important for a lot of people,” he said, because it means that being stopped by police for a traffic violation “doesn’t have to turn into a deportation proceeding.”
Orjuela saw the New Jersey campaign go through several rounds of battle between 2013 and 2019, with activists dealing with feelings of failure and defeat when a given push did not yield success. The first efforts, based in community organizing and inside-game maneuvering, came tantalizingly close. But that made it all the more heartbreaking when they fell short. “In 2015, we had the votes to get it out of committee,” he explained. “But there was an external event — a terrorist attack in Europe — that made anti-immigrant sentiment go up.” In the new climate, the politicians decided to not move forward with the bill. “There was this sense of grief in the base, and a lot of resentment and distrust,” Orjuela said, with many organizers leaving the campaign.
Yet within a couple years, Orejuela found himself drawn back in. “There was a feeling of, ‘We don’t want to fail the same way again,’” he said. This resulted in a hunger for new tactics. And in this context, Orejuela identified mass protest as an organizing tradition that had not yet been significantly deployed. People said to Cosecha, “You need to come here and implement this. It was actually by popular demand. Like we almost felt like we had no choice,” he said and laughed. “We shifted more to getting in the face of politicians and making them answer for why this bill had failed so many times. Instead of lobbying, we would take the tone of demanding.”
The campaign also launched a 300-mile pilgrimage across the state. As Orjuela explained, “It showed the need for driver’s licenses, because to not break the law, we had to walk all the way to Trenton to advocate for ourselves.”
Previous CoverageIn December 2019, Gov. Phil Murphy finally signed the bill, making New Jersey the 14th state, including the District of Columbia, to expand access to driver’s licenses and state ID cards. The ACLU cited it as a landmark measure, noting that it allows more than 700,000 New Jersey residents to gain the documentation necessary to drive.
In a session at the Ayni summit devoted to how organizers can grapple with the feelings of failure that commonly emerge over the course of movement cycles, Orjuela offered a reflection from the New Jersey campaign: “With grief came a recognition that we needed to try something different,” he said. “These feelings of failure and tension can also birth experimentation — if you’re open to it.”
For Orejuela, the Ayni gathering overall was an opportunity to both share his experiences and build his comfort in working with more people on movement ecology, even if they have never heard of the concept. “I don’t approach it from an academic background. I’m a trial-by-fire kind of person, and sometimes that’s made me afraid to talk about the things that I’ve actually learned about, even if I have the language for it,” he said. “For me, the more I integrate the framework, the more confidence I gain. And it’s cool to talk about it with the level of proficiency that I know I do have.”
Learning through practiceThe intent of the Ayni summit was not to launch a formal coalition, or even to create full alignment around strategy on how to build opposition to the Trump administration. Instead, by bringing people together who are incorporating an ecological framework into their organizing and who are coming from different segments of the social movement ecosystem, the gathering showed how a model that might otherwise be just a theoretical construct is being made real through practice and refinement.
Far too often, Ayni argues, “social change gets boxed into narrow choices: advocacy, elections, or service work,” when the real change comes just as much from “building alternatives, organizing mass civil resistance and leading transformative community organizing.” Having a community that has been willing to bring foundational theories of change together, engage with friction and difference, and process the tensions that arise gives hope that the problems that have hobbled movements in the past may have a less pernicious hold.
In this respect, the gathering offered a vital lesson: We do not all have to be working in the same way to confront urgent challenges of Trump 2.0. But if we foster a robust ecology of change, we may yet see the movement resurgence that we need.
Research assistance provided by Matthew Miles Goodrich.
This article It’s going to take multiple strategies to win under Trump 2.0 was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Voices of Resistance: Young Mapuche man speaks on the toll political oppression has taken on his family
As extreme weather batters communities, New York climate activists show a powerful path forward
This article As extreme weather batters communities, New York climate activists show a powerful path forward was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
On the evening of Dec. 10, 12 self-identified elder climate activists sat around the Christmas tree in the New York State Capitol, in Albany, singing carols as they waited to be arrested. The protesters, who were there to support New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, had been told by police they would face criminal misdemeanor trespass charges if they stayed put.
“Normally, for a protest like this, we’d expect to be written a citation rather than charged with a misdemeanor,” said Michael Richardson of Third Act Upstate New York, which helped plan the civil disobedience. “But there were enough of us ready to take the elevated charges. We knew it would have fewer consequences for us than a younger person.”
The next evening, another seven elders gathered around the Christmas tree in expectation of being arrested. Protests continued into a third day, dramatically capping off a campaign that had worked for two years to pass a state law making fossil fuel companies pay for damage caused by an escalating climate crisis.
On Dec. 26, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul bowed to the activists’ demands by signing the Climate Change Superfund Act, which will force fossil fuel companies to pay an estimated $75 billion over 25 years into a fund for addressing the impacts of climate change.
“This legislation is about getting resources to people in need,” said Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media. “We’re already seeing states and municipalities drain their budgets as they try to respond to increasingly expensive extreme weather disasters. This bill helps fill those gaps while pointing a finger at the corporations who are most responsible.”
The Climate Change Superfund Act faced a long road to passage, despite widespread public support for the idea of holding polluters accountable. December’s protests pushed it over the finish line while garnering national attention.
“Our job was to put an exclamation point at the end of a very long sentence New York’s climate movement wrote over the course of two years,” Richardson said. “Civil disobedience changed the dynamic of discussions going on in the governor’s office, leading to the bill’s passage. But it took a lot of work from people all over the state to get us to this point.”
Third Act members signing carols as they wait to be arrested. (Fossil Free Media) A long fightThe push to pass the Climate Change Superfund Act began in earnest in early 2023, when New York’s legislature became the first in the country to introduce a bill making polluters pay for climate damage. It died in the state assembly after clearing the senate — but in 2024, climate groups and supportive lawmakers returned with a new version of the bill.
“It passed the state senate again, really easily,” said Sara Gronim, an organizer for 350 Brooklyn. “Meanwhile, in the state assembly, we had support from a majority of members, but leaders who were reluctant to move the bill forward.”
By June, time was running out to get the legislation through the state assembly. The previous month, Vermont had passed its own Climate Change Superfund Act, but now New York lawmakers like Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie seemed ready to let the clock run out on their state’s own version without bringing it to a vote.
“We’d been meeting with lawmakers, having people call and email their representatives, that sort of thing,” Gronim said. “We’d done rallies and letter-writing days. But Speaker Heastie seemed impervious to all of it.”
On the final day of the legislative session, high school students from the state’s Fridays for Future organization traveled to Albany and staged a die-in outside the legislative chambers. “It was beautifully dramatic,” Gronim said. “There had been no major climate change legislation passed by the assembly that year up to then, and I think the students made Heastie realized he needed to emerge with something climate-related in hand.”
At 3 a.m. on June 8, in the final hours of the legislative session, the assembly passed the Climate Change Superfund Act in a 95-46 vote. “It literally came down to the waning minutes,” Richardson said. “We were relieved, but we still needed the governor to sign it.”
New York has led the nation on climate action before, for example when it became the first state with significant gas reserves to ban fracking in 2014. However, for months the Climate Change Superfund Act languished on Gov. Hochul’s desk.
“Industry came out very hard against the bill, and they had the governor’s ear,” Richardson said. “When we heard her in the press echoing concerns about the bill, we knew there was a very real chance she would let it die.”
#newsletter-block_106d9188abe0e92f073a5917ef4a9dfe { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_106d9188abe0e92f073a5917ef4a9dfe #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter Harnessing civil disobedienceA diverse grassroots coalition of groups supported the Climate Change Superfund Act, including NYPIRG, Fridays for Future New York City, Environmental Advocates New York and New Yorkers for Clean Power. However, it was Third Act, which works to enlist people over 60 in the climate fight, that took the lead, with its local chapters, on an 11th-hour push to secure Hochul’s signature.
“We didn’t want to have the typical kind of rally that happens over and over during the legislative session,” Richardson said. “So, we decided on an old-fashioned teach-in like those organized against the Vietnam War in the ‘60s.”
The action kicked off with another die-in at the Capitol led by youth activists on Dec. 10. Then, for two successive days, hundreds of activists participated in the teach-in outside Hochul’s office. “It was an intergenerational, interfaith, intercultural coalition of people of all ages,” Richardson said.
The sit-in around the Christmas tree, on Dec. 10 and 11, brought a true civil disobedience element to the protests. Over half the activists risking arrest belonged to Third Act chapters from Upstate New York, New York City and Vermont.
“Having us out there helped put force behind the arguments of our allies in state government urging Hochul to sign the climate Superfund bill,” said Richardson, who was one of those arrested. “The attorney general was coming forward saying he can defend it in court, while the state comptroller said it was fiscally sound. We even had multiple members of Congress come out in favor.”
In the end, the protests not only persuaded Hochul to sign the bill, but helped focus national attention on the ideas behind the Climate Change Superfund Act in a particularly striking way.
“Pageantry is very important in any social movement, and that informed how we planned our protests,” Richardson said. “Nineteen elders being arrested on criminal trespassing charges for singing songs around a Christmas tree made for a compelling image.”
That image spread far and wide in the news and social media, sparking a national conversation about holding polluters accountable for climate damage in New York and beyond.
Third Act members at a sit-in in the state Capitol building in Albany last month. (Fossil Free Media) The death of Big Oil?The campaign to pass the Climate Change Superfund Act unfolded against a backdrop of extreme weather that has made climate change tangible for more and more people.
“Just in this past year, New York suffered a string of climate catastrophes from deadly heat, to killer storms, to wildfires and polluted air,” said Eric Weltman of Food and Water Watch, a national organization that supported the bill. “Similar impacts are being felt at a national level, as we see with the catastrophic fires in Southern California. It shows why legislation like this is so important.”
New York’s climate Superfund law and the similar legislation in Vermont are both based on highly successful state and federal Superfund laws that require polluting industries to pay into a fund for cleaning up waste sites. Over 1,300 toxic dumps have benefited from the national Superfund law.
Like that legislation, climate Superfund laws are based on the principle that taxpayers shouldn’t foot the bill for damage caused by polluting industries. The idea has far-reaching appeal with voters, according to climate groups’ internal polling.
“The message works in different ways for different audiences,” said Fossil Free Media’s Jamie Henn. “You can be someone on the left who cares about the climate crisis, or someone on the right who believes in law and order and doesn’t like paying taxes. Either way, there’s something to like about this approach.”
While so far only New York and Vermont have passed climate Superfund laws, that could change quickly. Other states where activists are working to advance similar legislation include Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California.
“So far, California and Maryland are farthest along,” Henn said. “Both had climate Superfund bills introduced in their last legislative sessions, and I think we’ll see many more states follow suit in 2025. We held an organizing call for interested state legislators in December that attracted over 60 lawmakers from around the country.”
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DonateClimate Superfund laws can’t directly fund the clean energy transition. Rather, the money they raise will help communities rebuild in the wake of climate-related catastrophes. New York’s law is expected to raise $3 billion a year for such projects.
“Here, like everywhere, we have bridges washed out by storms, libraries that get flooded, elementary schools that don’t have correct ventilation for wildfire smoke,” said Gronim of 350 Brooklyn. “Two summers ago, the view outside my window was orange because of Canadian wildfires. Kids were in school at that time. Money from this law will go to the infrastructure repairs and renovations we need.”
However, perhaps the farthest-reaching consequence could be the potential of climate Superfund laws to make polluting companies change their behavior as they realize they will be held liable for climate damage.
“There is no way the fossil fuel industry can continue expanding production if they have to pay for the harm they’re doing,” Henn said. “The math just doesn’t add up. The damage done by burning a barrel of oil today far outweighs the benefits, especially when we have better, cheaper renewable alternatives.”
An argument launched by the New York Climate Superfund bill’s opponents was that payments made by corporations will be passed on to consumers. However, supporters say this ignores the extent to which taxpayers already pay for climate damage.
“We’re paying all the costs right now, through state and local taxes that go toward rebuilding after disasters, that is if there’s enough money to do it all,” Richardson said. “I ask you: How do you pass a cost on to someone who’s already paying 100 percent?”
Even in places that likely won’t pass their own climate Superfund laws anytime soon, having a bill introduced by sympathetic lawmakers can help reframe the conversation over climate damage.
“We’re not going to see this pass tomorrow in Florida, for example, but it’s a hell of a great fight to have there,” Henn said. “If your state is experiencing extreme climate impacts, you don’t have to sit by helplessly anymore. There’s finally something you can point to as a means of making those who are most responsible fund the cleanup.”
Unsurprisingly, fossil fuel companies and their allies have been steadfast in their opposition to climate Superfund bills. The American Petroleum Institute and U.S. Chamber of Commerce have already filed a lawsuit against the Vermont version, which climate groups are preparing to defend in court.
“Oil companies are freaking out, because they know these laws will eat into their profits,” Richardson said. “It happened to toxic polluters like Dupont under the original Superfund, and to Big Tobacco companies when we held them accountable. Now, fossil fuel companies risk being penalized just as our economy reaches crucial renewable energy tipping points. It could mean the end of Big Oil.”
This article As extreme weather batters communities, New York climate activists show a powerful path forward was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Abolish rent. Yes, for real.
This article Abolish rent. Yes, for real. was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
The largest tenant union in the country is responding quickly and passionately to the devastation of the Los Angeles fires. The LA Tenants Union is demanding not just enforcement of existing California protections against price gouging of rental homes, but a moratorium on evictions and a rent freeze, all while tenants are coming together with heroic levels of mutual aid.
But these steps will only mitigate a perpetual struggle, as union co-founders Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis write in their new book “Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis.” “Why do tenants wake up every month and have to pay rent?” they ask.
“The entire real estate industry relies on privatizing a common resource (land), hoarding a human need (housing), blocking public intervention or competition, and maintaining a captive market of tenants to exploit and dominate,” Rosenthal and Vilchis argue. “Tenants are exploited and oppressed not just by corporate landlords, or by unscrupulous landlords, but by the fact of having a landlord at all.”
By daring to challenge an entrenched, often deadly societal obligation and demand the burden be lifted, “Abolish Rent” provides a historic contribution to the human rights movement in the U.S. I am among those who needed to hear this book’s message.
I teach and write about housing as a human right. But the daily reality of our law school clinic work representing low-income renters sometimes narrows my vision. Can our client get an extra week before an eviction date that forces them to move out of their home and into their car? Can the infestation of roaches and mold in our clients’ apartment lead to a discount in the rent they are struggling to pay?
If housing is truly a human right, our clients should never have to ask those questions.
“Rent is a fine for having a human need,” Rosenthal and Vilchis write. “Everyone deserves a safe and stable home, simply by virtue of being alive. This is what we mean when we say housing is a human right, no different from the right to breathe the air on this earth: You are born with this right; you should not have to earn it.”
They are correct, both as a matter of international law and overwhelming moral consensus. That means it is not just a shame that our clients and millions of others skip meals and leave prescriptions unfilled in order to pay the rent. It is not just sad that they are among the nearly seven million households who live in rental housing plagued by unsafe wiring, water leaks, rodents and mold. It is a human rights violation on a massive scale.
Same goes for generations of government-sanctioned housing racism leaving Black households far more likely to be evicted and to be unhoused. Or the overall 3.6 million eviction filings each year that are the inevitable result of unrestrained rent hikes far exceeding wage increases.
This is all illegal. As the LA Tenants Union members chant outside their landlords’ palatial front doors, “Housing is a human right, not just for the rich and white.”
Government largesse for landlords, government violence for tenantsGovernments bear the primary responsibility for protecting human rights, yet our U.S. government is the chief architect of our wretched housing system. Housing in this country is anything but a free market system: Governments heap largesse on landlords and wealthy homeowners, while tenants feel the blunt end of police power and rigged legal systems.
#newsletter-block_b986cc68c8323d286ef24e1ee507f1cc { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_b986cc68c8323d286ef24e1ee507f1cc #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our NewsletterLandlords are presented with an overflowing cornucopia of government subsidies and tax benefits, including write offs for depreciation of their properties (a particular favorite for landlord Donald Trump), lower capital gains tax rates and deferred payments, abatements from state and local governments, and estate tax exemptions. If you want to be rich but have the IRS treat you like you are poor, owning real estate is the ticket.
As for wealthy homeowners, they benefit from tens of billions per year in mortgage interest and property tax deductions. Even our low-income housing programs in the U.S. largely operate by directing government dollars to for-profit landlords through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and HUD voucher and project-based programs.
These are just the direct subsidies. Indirectly, governments prop up the value of privately-held properties by providing infrastructure like water, sewage systems and roads, along with legal frameworks. All housing is public housing, Rosenthal and Vilchis point out, quoting housing scholars David Madden and Peter Marcuse. When landlord lobbyists like the National Multifamily Housing Council claim that its members are “housing providers,” they spew nonsense. We are the housing providers; they just extract profit from it.
Extracting those dollars from tenants is facilitated by governments acting as the muscle for landlords. “Behind each rent check is the threat of state violence,” Rosenthal and Vilchis write. “If we can’t pay the rent or if we defy any terms our landlords set, they can call the deputies of the state to throw us out of our homes.” As legal scholars have pointed out, our courts provide landlords with fast-track deployment of that police force at a speed and ease that is unmatched across the rest of our civil justice system.
With government running interference for them, landlords and wealthy homeowners are raking in wealth at a breathtaking rate. Two-thirds of the world’s total wealth is in real estate. U.S. landlords collect a half-trillion dollars in rent each year, a monthly transfer from the poorest to the wealthiest that further widens our massive income and wealth gaps.
“The supposed cure for renting is owning your own home,” Rosenthal and Vilchis write. “But rent is a trap. … Paying rent is keeping us from reaching the first rung of that imagined ‘property ladder.’ And our lost ground is our landlords’ gain. Our rents pay off our landlords’ mortgages, so they can claim their second (or fourth, or 100th) house.”
Indeed, corporate landlords in recent years have ramped up their purchases of single-family homes, particularly in Black neighborhoods. This sets them up not just for more rent collection, but also for reaping the benefits of the homes’ increasing value. In 2021, the average U.S. home value increased at an amount that exceeded the average salary. Those home value gains are often never taxed, while renters’ salaries obviously are. Which means renters’ sweat-earned income continues to fall further behind the passive income their landlords collect as reward for already being wealthy.
Rent strikes claim housing as a human rightIt is a bleak picture. But Rosenthal and Vilchis promise “Abolish Rent”will provide “both polemic and guide.” They deliver the latter largely in the form of inspiring examples of tenant power from the hundred-plus tenant associations organized by the LA Tenants Union, including a dramatic rent strike that won Mariachi Plaza tenants lowered rents and guaranteed repairs.
Previous CoveragePeople of color and immigrants long marginalized by the U.S. housing system find themselves joined by millennials elbowed away from that first rung of homeownership. It is a dynamic that is contributing to the resurgence of tenant unions well beyond LA. In places like Louisville, Kansas City and Connecticut, local tenant campaigns are building power and coalescing as the national Tenant Union Federation. Tenants form the majority in many U.S. cities.
With those numbers can come real power. But that power lays dormant without solidarity, often elusive in a U.S. housing system and overall culture that emphasize the individual. “Every first of the month, we wonder what it would take to never pay rent again,” Rosenthal and Vilchis write. “Often, our fantasies are individual: We’ll get a windfall, make it big or play our cards right, earn our way up. … If we want to end the misery of rent for everyone, we’ll need to trade our individualistic fantasies for universal abundance. And we’ll need to work together.”
The ultimate collective tenant action is the rent strike. “Rent strikes stop the flow of cash to our landlords and reveal their dependence on us,” Rosenthal and Vilchis write. “Rent strikes suggest that the right to housing already exists; all we need to do is claim it.”
There is no sugarcoating the substantial risks involved. Although strikes by past generations were the chief instigators for the limited tenant rights that exist today, they inevitably lead to pushbacks up to and including evictions and arrests.
Yet, like labor strikes, rent strikes return power from the fortunate few to the previously marginalized. Rent strikes inherently combine the power of depriving the landlord of revenue while physically occupying the housing in dispute. In this way, every rent strike emulates the legendary sit-down labor strikes that seized the means of production.
But scattered rent strikes won’t achieve the “abolish rent” end game, Rosenthal and Vilchis caution. For that, we will need a coordinated rent strike across a full city or even the country. “This is the kind of power we would need to begin to transform property relations, as well as the state that guarantees them,” they write.
Evicting the landlordsIt can be hard to envision the transformation of the state that “Abolish Rent” calls for. Most of us in the U.S. have known nothing but the state operating as an agent actively helping to extract profit from property, but it turns out there is plenty of precedent for a state that actually treats housing as a right.
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DonateWhen Rosenthal and Vilchis talk about “evicting our landlords,” they invoke in part the Tenant and Community Opportunity to Purchase Acts. TOPA and COPA laws provide first rights of purchase — and sometimes government funding to support that purchase and subsequent renovations — to entities that will convert the property into permanently affordable housing. They can even impose a right of first refusal for tenants or the community, meaning the landowners must accept the bid if it matches the best offer.
Even landlords who are not willing to sell can be evicted through eminent domain, long used by governments at all levels to seize privately-held property to protect the environment and build or expand roads, railways and government buildings. During the mid-20th century, the federal government under President Dwight Eisenhower combined with state and local governments to exercise eminent domain in more than a half-million instances in order to build the interstate highway system. In 2021, Berlin residents passed a referendum to seize the property of large corporate landlords and convert the apartments to social housing. Since 2016, the Catalonia region of Spain has allowed the seizure of vacant corporate-owned apartments, which are then provided to low-income tenants.
As an interim step, Rosenthal and Vilchis support rent control, which not only pumps the brakes on housing profiteering, it builds the state’s role as a protector of tenant rights. But the end game is plentiful, high-quality public housing, which has been a spectacular success in places like Vienna and Singapore. Public housing has also worked well many times in the U.S. despite endless sabotage by real estate-funded politicians.
So, evicting landlords and removing the profiteering from housing is not only possible, it has been done. Same goes for the abolition of rent. In our clinic, we have represented plenty of public housing or voucher tenants whose rent, set by law at 30 percent of their income, is exactly zero dollars.
Abolishing rent for the rest of us will not be easy, as real estate capital’s long legacy of attacking rent control and public housing shows. But the fact that 44 million U.S. households rent their homes means the movement has massive potential, and can be ignited at any time.
“High rents, displacement and homelessness are not inevitable,” Rosenthal and Vilchis insist. “Every first of the month is another opportunity for organizing, collective action and collective refusal.”
This article Abolish rent. Yes, for real. was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Media in the Age of War and Resistance w/ Nora Barrows-Friedman, Dennis Bernstein and Bob Buzzanco
Should climate activists target fossil fuel subsidies?
This article Should climate activists target fossil fuel subsidies? was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'pC1vzZ_fT1JbQxqSMO2L6g',sig:'ACF1b5I66CM-o0eGEgwinGvAm-XTsPuknek56Te-scA=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1326115348',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});Back in mid-December, Bernie Sanders made headlines when he sent a tweet that seemed to show support for Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. “Elon Musk is right,” Sanders said, before adding, “The Pentagon, with a budget of $886 billion, just failed its seventh audit in a row. It’s lost track of billions. Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a military budget full of waste and fraud. That must change.”
It’s hard to imagine Sanders and Musk actually agreeing on much, but the message from Sanders got me wondering about another area of wild government overspending: fossil fuel subsidies.
According to the International Monetary Fund, fossil fuels subsidies in the United States added up to a whopping $757 billion in 2022. Of this $3 billion are considered explicit subsidies — a more modern and well organized version of bags of cash — while the remaining $754 billion are implicit subsidies. This latter category is a confusing soup of uncounted environmental and human health damages. While the Biden administration took actions that will hopefully knock these numbers down, there is still a lot of public money flowing to Big Oil in 2025.
On paper, this seems like a pretty ripe target for climate organizers. It shouldn’t be too hard to make the case that dumping billions of public dollars into the coffers of already profitable corporations is pretty inefficient. What’s more, with electric vehicle magnate Elon Musk at the helm of DOGE, there is — again, at least on paper — a target with a vested interest in opposing the fossil fuel industry. The campaign strategy kind of writes itself, but is it actually a good idea?
For the past few weeks, I’ve been playing out a debate over that question in my head. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to realize what I’m actually wondering is: How do you organize for the climate in this new political reality? So, I decided to play this exercise out, to make the case for — and against — running a fossil fuel subsidy campaign in the second Trump era with the goal of finding an answer to that broader question.
#newsletter-block_7594d813976969c3b3f6034a5b803d9f { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_7594d813976969c3b3f6034a5b803d9f #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter The case for a fossil fuel subsidy campaignI’ve already laid out the core argument for this campaign but, simply put, if you can make the case that fossil fuel subsidies are government handouts to already profitable corporations, it should be a no-brainer for an agency focused on “efficiency” to cut those subsidies. The work of organizers is simply to craft a campaign that forces the decision dilemma onto those with the power to act.
For climate campaigners, this should be pretty standard fare. First, launch the demand with an online petition, organize to build a base around the demand, deliver the petition and then escalate with creative actions. Using Musk as a target, there would be plenty of options for creative, impactful protest from his public appearances to Tesla dealerships and so on.
If this campaign succeeded, it could — at least in theory — drive a wedge between the Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry. Or, alternatively, it could divide Trump from one of his most ardent supporters in Elon Musk. In either case, these cracks could be exploited by organizers to open up all kinds of other climate wins.
The case against a fossil fuel subsidy campaign
On paper, this campaign sounds great. But would the paper case actually play out in the real world? That is harder to say.
Let’s start with the biggest elephant in the room: When we talk about Donald Trump and Elon Musk we are talking about an unhinged authoritarian and the richest man on the planet. The former is a climate denier and the latter — although he has built an electric vehicle empire — has exhibited a pretty questionable moral compass, even going back before his descent into the MAGA-verse.
That presents a massive challenge because, at their core, campaigns like this require a movable target. Usually, this is achieved through some combination of moral sway, economic or political cost, and risk posed to a target’s profile or reputation.
Previous CoverageThe Keystone XL campaign was a textbook example. The full story is more complex, but at the 10,000-foot view that campaign pushed President Barack Obama with moral appeals to act on climate and protect frontline and Indigenous communities. Organizing created political risk, particularly the risk of losing young voters. At the same time, the administration was cornered by creating the narrative that approving Keystone XL would sink the Democratic Party’s reputation on climate.
Today, Donald Trump has proved through various actions that he doesn’t think, act or respond like a normal politician. He doesn’t have a moral compass, and moral appeals to authoritarian regimes just don’t work. Damage to his reputation, at least of the kind that progressive movements can threaten, doesn’t phase him. Political risk is more or less non-existent given that 2024 was — at least barring some changes to the U.S. Constitution — the last time he could run for the presidency. And, lastly, he doesn’t really care about damage to the broader Republican Party.
This issue of immovable targets is the same problem that campaigners have faced in moving the fossil fuel divestment movement from targeting community institutions like universities and churches to targeting major banks. Instead of targets vulnerable to public shame, campaigns have run into structurally-immoral and amoral actors, making winning those campaigns much more challenging.
It’s possible that Elon Musk could be a more movable target, but even that seems questionable. In 2025, Musk is not just the guy behind Tesla. His journey to the alt-right, tech-bro, MAGA-sociopath side of things makes any appeal to his greater angels seem like folly. There is a chance that a campaign could be framed to focus on his own self interest — basically by showing that subsidizing the fossil fuel industry is harming him — but that would require some pretty questionable framing, messaging and positioning. When you think of the broader context of policies and actions that the incoming administration is promising, it could put organizers on the wrong side of broader movement goals and politics.
Even if you were somehow able to navigate that minefield and move Musk to back an end to fossil fuel subsidies, he still would have to convince Trump and his administration to go against the fossil fuel industry. That seems like a tall order for people who, in their first term, made the CEO of Exxon Mobil their Secretary of State.
The path forward
On the one hand, you have a campaign that makes a lot of sense of paper. On the other hand, you have a political reality that argues strongly that it would not work. But is it actually that black and white?
Going through this exercise made me realize, more than anything else, that a new political reality like this requires pushing the way we think about and construct campaigns. Take a minute to imagine the following scenario.
It’s early 2026. Trump’s State of the Union is a few weeks away, and Joe Rogan is sitting down to talk with the young spokesperson of a new political group. The topic is climate action, something Rogan has been skeptical of in the past, but thanks to common ground forged around public lands, hunting and wildlife conservation, a shift seems to be starting. The spokesperson links the latest round of climate-fueled wildfires in the American West to a public auction where Bureau of Land Management tracts of land — once used by the public for hunting, fishing and hiking — were sold to fossil fuel companies for a pittance. There’s a palpable outrage, but instead of allowing the right to channel that outrage at vulnerable people and communities, a surging movement uses it to rally support for a working-class vision of climate action.
Is something like this possible? Yes. Will doing it be easy? No.
We know that this kind of thing is possible because of legislation that was just passed by unanimous consent. The EXPLORE Act is one of the largest pieces of legislation ever passed by the U.S. government, delivering a wide range of policies to benefit outdoor recreation. This act supports everything from mountain bike trails to commercial guide permitting to the expansion of public shooting ranges for hunters and sport shooters. It also passed with the support both a climate change organization, Protect Our Winters, and a group that supports hunters and anglers, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
Getting these kinds of groups and their audiences from agreeing on recreation policy to alignment on building a mass movement is not a small step, but clearly there is common ground to build from. Sowing seeds in this common ground and making it fertile will mean challenging a lot of our own assumptions, and challenging some movement DNA that’s not working.
One of these assumptions is that, in the climate world, as well as in other progressive movements, we hold the moral high ground. After all, we rely on the facts: The world is warming, the fossil fuel industry is making it worse, and we have to act now. These are just facts of physics. Nevertheless, there’s a problem with believing that facts give us the moral high ground.
First, we too often assume that because we’re right, people will support us. Second, we don’t spend enough time grappling with the fact that, particularly today, what is “right” is not set in stone. Particularly at a time where the influence of major media is waning and disinformation is rampant.
We have to recognize that public support is earned, not given. Earning that support can’t happen if we don’t first start by understanding how our audience views the world.
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DonateOne way of thinking about this is through the tried and true approach of “pillars of support” — one of the movement tools popularized by Sebria’s Otpor! movement. The idea is that any institution can be broken down into the groups and institutions that prop it up. Instead of looking at power as a monolith, it’s reimagined into constituencies and institutions that prop it up.
The challenge for climate organizers — and the broader progressive world — is that sometimes we have to actually convince these pillars to withdraw support, not just knock them down. That means we have to meet people and communities where they are at and figure out how to move them to our side, not simply try to force them into submission.
That takes us back to Bernie Sanders’s tweet about cutting military spending. Because it was framed as being in agreement with Elon Musk, Sanders was skewered by the left. To many, the very idea of engaging was unthinkable, but Sanders saw an opportunity for a possible win on one of the most immoveable realities of American politics: military spending.
It’s hard to say if there is actually any chance that DOGE would, or could, cut military spending — but it is an open door. Unfortunately, it also would mean engaging with people and an institution that makes a lot of organizers extremely uncomfortable, and for very good reasons. This creates a friction in our movements that, at least to date, movements seem to struggle to even want to wrestle with.
If you’ve read this far still hoping for a definitive answer to “is a fossil fuel subsidies campaign a good idea under Trump” I’m going to disappoint you. Going through this process made me realize that even with nearly two decades of organizing experience under my belt, I honestly have no idea.
My only conclusion from digging into this thought experiment is that the biggest challenge we face might be accepting that there isn’t a clear map for the road ahead. We are living in a time where megafires, genocides and an authoritarian regime rising in America are all pretty standard headlines. A significant amount of the populace doesn’t even believe those headlines. The term “unprecedented” feels too small to describe this moment. We have to accept that we all might be wrong at any moment — that even the most tried and true strategies can fail and the most ridiculous, out-of-left-field ideas could thrive. The playbook for organizing in this era is being written while the game is happening, which is both terrifying and exciting.
This article Should climate activists target fossil fuel subsidies? was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Why Is Wall St. Backpedaling on Its Climate Commitments? w/ Climate Organizer Liv Senghor
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What if the climate crisis is an invitation to deepen our spiritual selves?
This article What if the climate crisis is an invitation to deepen our spiritual selves? was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
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As a climate activist, I have often found it uncomfortable delving into things like spirituality, as it can feel like a luxury when people and ecosystems are suffering so much. However, as I’ve sat with the grief of climate change for more than two thirds of my life, noticing my own and others’ cycles of burnout from repeatedly over-stretching our limits, spirituality has come increasingly knocking on my door.
Like a wise old friend, it has tapped me on the shoulder and whispered: “Perhaps the way we address this existential issue, including how we relate to ourselves and each other in the process, is just as, if not more, important than the outcome.” As philosopher Bayo Akomolafe asks: “What if the way we respond to the crisis is part of the crisis?”
This feels like a particularly poignant question at a moment when wildfires of unprecedented ferocity are burning through Los Angeles County. The sight of whole neighborhoods being destroyed conjures feelings of immense distress and helplessness. But what if there’s room for more than just those emotions? By turning to an under-explored resource like spirituality, it’s possible to see that climate change is also inviting us to cultivate the very traits that will enable us to confront a crisis with greater compassion.
#newsletter-block_c41c78f092654a13107d35238b8ad371 { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_c41c78f092654a13107d35238b8ad371 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter What is spirituality and why is it important?Many conflate religion with spirituality, but they are not the same. We can have spiritual experiences in the context of organized religion but, for many, spirituality occurs outside of this — from experiencing awe in nature, deep meditative states, the locked-in feel of a creative pursuit, endurance exercise, blissful moments with loved ones, etc.
There are many definitions of spirituality, but I like psychologist and researcher Lisa Miller’s, who described it as “an inner sense of relationship to a higher power(s) that is loving and guiding” and the sense that we are “loved, held, guided and never alone. Researchers Susan Baker and Robin Morrison emphasize that spirituality is an active process — a journey of finding meaning, wholeness and peace, which traverses through contemplation and reflection to action.
We know that spirituality is core to human well-being. Research shows that people who identify as spiritual, experience greater mental and physical health. Spirituality mediates feelings of greater connectedness with nature, with ourselves and one another. In Miller’s research, she makes the case that humans are biologically hardwired for spiritual experiences, and that when we don’t have enough of this in our life, it comes knocking on the door in the form of anxiety, depression and addiction.
What might spirituality have to offer the climate crisis?As we delve deeper into the spirituality literature, four core features emerge, each of which could be valuable in addressing the climate crisis:
1. A sense of meaning and purpose larger than all of us. This could counter the hopelessness and fear that many experience when confronted with climate change.
2. Experiences of interconnectedness and oneness. Interestingly, when someone is having a spiritual experience, the parts of the brain that distinguish between self and other, soften, towards a place of greater oneness. We see experiences like this occurring in collective action and social movements as well, and they are positively correlated with psychological well-being and motivation to take climate action.
3. A sense of inner love, strength and compassion. This could counter the depression and anxiety often induced by growing rates of climate despair.
Previous Coverage4. Experiences of self-transcendence. This could encourage more of the collective action and collaboration that climate change requires, in turn lessening the individual burden of responsibility felt by so many climate activists, which fuels cycles of burnout.
As I sat with this, I began to form a working hypothesis that the climate crisis is actually an incredible invitation to grow our spiritual capacities. What if climate change was actually like a spiritual gym in which we are called to evolve our awareness, consciousness and action, such that we can rise to the challenge at a spiritual level?
6 spiritual traits that the climate crisis might be inviting us to cultivateBuilding on this, I read more about the intersection of spirituality and environmental crises, while also reflecting on my own experience and chatting with other activists. From that emerged the following six spiritual traits that I think the climate crisis is inviting us to cultivate more of in ourselves:
1. Honoring our pain and grief
The poet Stephen Levine says that “if sequestered pain made a sound, the atmosphere would be humming all the time.” To transform injustice, we must first let ourselves be moved by its pain, yet most of us live in cultures that teach us to repress painful emotions. Too often, when we contemplate being with our own suffering, we think of it as self-indulgent; we worry that the house of sorrow will become our final resting space, that we’ll be swallowed up by our feelings.
But as therapist and activist Francis Weller reminds us: “Our grief offers a wild alchemy that transmutes suffering into fertile ground.” Weller talks about five gates of grief, one of which is “sorrows of the world,” a type of grief that is often marginalized by mainstream culture, leading to unattended sorrows accumulating, which are then often pathologized. He points out that, whether we register it or not, the daily loss of species, habitats and cultures is registered deep in our psyches. In other words, so much of the grief we carry is not personal, but collective.
Opening up to and embracing this reality can be so liberating, as Buddhist Monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh knew all too well when he invited us to: “Hear within ourselves, the sounds of the Earth crying.” Environmental activist and Buddhist Joanna Macy reminds us that all spiritual traditions have mourning practices, and that letting ourselves grieve is actually a precondition to effective action. She also invites us to see how communing with our own suffering builds our capacity to be with the world’s suffering, noting that: “The heart that breaks right open can hold the whole universe.”
Ecopsychologist Chellis Glendinning talks about the idea of “Earthgrief.” She says that “to open our hearts to the sad history of humanity and the devastated state of the Earth is the next step in our reclamation of our bodies, the body of our human community and the body of the Earth.”
Previous CoverageBuilding on this, psychologists Mary Watkins and Helene Shulman talk about non-redemptive mourning in their work on social injustice and violence. This is the idea that some losses should never be allowed to settle but instead be kept present in our communal memory and mourned in an ongoing way — such as species that have disappeared forever, collective traumas, cultures that have been devastated or eroded.
Too often, in our efforts to “save” and “protect,” we forget to mourn, to grieve, to feel the pain of loss. As journalist Mark Jerome Walters noted so poignantly, “When the tiny wings of the last Xerces blue butterfly ceased to flutter, our world grew quieter by a whisper and duller by a hue. … Rarely, in turning our attention from a recently extinct species to our last ditch effort to save another, do we pause to say goodbye.”
It’s really only when we give ourselves permission to pause, to be with our pain and to follow it back to its source that the transformative work can begin.
2. Embracing our ecological selves
We are nature. We’re not separate from it. Costa Rican climate negotiator Christiana Figueres (who turned to Buddhism to help her navigate her climate despair) says that we were always “wilderness before we decided we were civilization.”
This idea of the “ecological self” was popularized in Western culture by deep ecologists who believed that spiritual processes of self-actualization naturally lead to transcendence of the self, and a place of deep interconnectedness with nature. It should be emphasized, however, that this is an idea which has featured in Indigenous cultures for far longer than Westerners have written and talked about it.
Thinking about this trait together with the previous trait on honoring our pain, Western psychology often tends to teach us that our grief is personal. However, given that we are part of nature, what if the feelings of despair and pain we experience when witnessing climate and environmental devastation were also arising from the Earth itself? What if it was the grief of a burnt-out forest registering in our bodies and psyches? What if the emptiness we feel is actually our soul trying to register the loss of species and ecosystems?
This disconnection from the Earth and nature is what Glendinning refers to as “the original trauma,” and it carries with it all the characteristic symptoms of psychic injury — anxiety, depression, disassociation, hypervigilance, etc.
As such, I see acting on the climate crisis as a journey of re-understanding and resuming one’s place in the natural world, which also cultivates the humility needed to work effectively on a challenge as multifaceted as climate change.
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Compassion and gratitude are practices that are core to most spiritual and religious traditions. Emotions researcher Robert Emmons describes gratitude as: “a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness and appreciation for life,” as well as a state associated with greater well-being and increased capacity for action.
Gratitude is counter-cultural in a world that breeds insatiable appetites for consumption and tells us we are never enough — the very same attitudes at the root of the climate crisis.
I see compassion as crucial to working on climate. Compassion is the capacity to suffer with the Earth, without allowing its suffering to overwhelm us and stop us from taking action. Compassion is also essential to metabolizing shame — a state which psychology professor Gershen Kaufman describes as leaving us feeling “unspeakably and irreparably defective.” Shame leads us to excise parts of ourselves, sometimes our entire selves, from feeling, from loving, from being connected to each other and the rest of nature. Shame can make us do awful things to ourselves and each other. So to transform the climate crisis, I think we have to find a way to transform our shame, and compassion is a key part of that.
An incredible example of the power of compassion is the research of psychologist Jeanne Achterberg. In the study, Indigenous Hawaiian healers were invited to choose a person with whom they held a compassionate bond. These people were placed in functional MRI scanners and isolated from all forms of sensory contact with the healer. The healers then entered scanners in a building away from the receivers and were invited to start sending healing intentions to their subjects at two-minute intervals. The receivers had no way of discerning when these intentions were being sent, yet 10 times out of 11, at the exact time the healer sent the intention, specific areas of the brain associated with receiving loving emotions were activated. This is one of many examples of the power of compassion and how it can influence people and places far away from us.
4. A more expansive view of time
The scale of shifts occurring with climate change are so enormous compared to the short duration of our human lives, that we can and often do overlook them. Yet, to address the climate crisis, we must work with time scales that don’t center humans, welcoming in a more post-humanist lens.
Spirituality might help us do just that. Modern neuroscience shows us that space and time assume different forms — less hard, rigid and linear forms — in the altered states of consciousness that are elicited by spirituality.
Many spiritual teachings are brimming with depictions of immensity that offer us a way of opening up to these often unfathomable time scales.
For example, consider Buddhism. The Saṃyutta Nikāya (a collection of Buddhist scriptures), talks about the length of an eon as longer than the time it would take to wear away an enormous mountain by rubbing it just once every hundred years with a fine piece of silk. And The Lotus Sutra invites us to imagine “hundreds of thousands of billions of myriads of countless eons.”
Of course, Indigenous cultures are rich with wisdom on different relationships to time. Aboriginal cultures on the continent where I live talk about understandings of “deep time,” stretching far back, far before humans existed and far forward beyond when we cease to exist here. In the words of Yuwaalaraay/Gamilaraay woman Frances Peters-Little, deep time is this understanding that: “All things will outlast us, the land will change, and survive. … Yes, the land will be different. But new things will come of it.”
Deep time is inherent to Aboriginal understandings of The Dreaming (the spiritual world that accompanies the physical world). According to these understandings, ancestors speak to us in the present through climate events, as though those ancestors are still living today. This breaks down concepts of linear time, and seeks to warn us that the way we are living is out of balance with nature.
I believe that key to climate recovery is this larger view of time, in which we draw on wisdom from ancestors, as many Indigenous cultures do, while also embracing our role as ancestors for future generations.
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Research shows that spiritual experiences are characterized by a sense of oneness and deep interconnectedness with others and the Earth. Feeling connected to something larger than one’s self bestows meaning, and purpose. It counters loneliness, depression and anxiety, and it’s critical to sustaining the long arcs required to work on systemic injustices like climate change.
This connection could look like belief in a god (or gods), ancestors or the divinity of nature itself. And it cultivates in us a sense of being held, of being protected by something larger than ourselves. It grows a sense of awe and respect for the power of the natural world, and supports a more eco-centric view, in which humans are embedded within nature, rather than in control of it.
Francis Weller says: “When we open ourselves and take in the sorrows of the world … we become acutely aware that there is no ‘out there.’ We have one continuous existence, one shared skin.” Interestingly, Freud also reflected on this state of interconnectedness, saying that, at the beginning of life, the ego includes everything, then over time, it individuates. He noted that what remains is: “a shrunken residue of a much more inclusive — indeed, an all-embracing — feeling, which corresponded to a once intimate bond between the ego/self and the world around it.” In other words, our well-being is intimately connected to our sense of interconnectedness to the world around us.
6. Inner fluidity and diversity
As a part of nature, we are always changing. We are not one self, but a multitude of selves. Like fractals, we are part of the world and the world is part of us.
Facilitator and systems thinker Michael Ventura says: “You’re not one person, you’re many people, you’re a community of moods and selves under one name. Parts of you aren’t even human, they’re part mammal, part reptile, part rose, part moon, part wind.”
To address the rapidly changing nature of our Earth, I think we have to embrace our own inner-changing natures, and learn to work with rather than against our inner fluidity and diversity.
To do this, I think we have to let go of calcified thought patterns and identities, which are the very same drivers of the oppressive systems underpinning the climate crisis. We need to open up to witnessing techniques common to spiritual practices like meditation, where, rather than identifying with painful emotions and feelings, we notice and observe them and bring some compassionate understanding to them.
In this vein, I think we also need to be able to lean more into that beautiful fluid space between stimulus and response that Viktor Frankl so poignantly points out contains our freedom.
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Donate Questions to ponder moving forwardReflecting upon these traits, I am left wondering how we might embed more of these capacities into the climate movement today. Here are some questions I will leave you to ponder:
1. Honoring our pain and grief: How can we carve out more heartfelt spaces to hold and be with our pain and grief collectively, while not letting it overwhelm us?
2. Embracing our ecological selves: How do we treat ourselves and each other more like nature, rather than machines? How do we make sure we are giving ourselves enough time to be in nature as a means of nourishing ourselves so that we can continue to do the unending work needed to transform the climate crisis?
3. Leaning into gratitude and compassion: What practices can we build into our work and spaces to center gratitude and compassion despite the enormous loss and suffering that so many are experiencing?
4. Taking a longer view of time: How do we learn from ancestors and act in a way that honors our own role as ancestors for generations to come?
5. Connecting with something larger than you: What gives you a sense of connection to something larger than yourself? How can you connect with this regularly and help others do the same?
6. Working with your inner fluidity and diversity: Where might we be holding views and ways of being that are too rigid? How can we open up to parts of ourselves that have been marginalized and disavowed, such that we can be with and work with the diversity and complexity that is at the root of the climate crisis and its transformation?
In conclusion, what if the climate crisis is an invitation to relate to ourselves, each other and the rest of nature more compassionately? What if it’s an invitation to embark upon a deep and powerful spiritual journey — to love more deeply, to hope more courageously, to welcome in parts of ourselves that we have marginalized, to find a way to be more aware, to journey to a place inside ourselves of greater wholeness? Ultimately, we will only find out if we are brave enough to take the first step.
This article What if the climate crisis is an invitation to deepen our spiritual selves? was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Can Palestine solidarity activists shift the balance of power at American universities?
This article Can Palestine solidarity activists shift the balance of power at American universities? was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'YYiNNgU9Q2tOPzceVxfp5A',sig:'aATVSwzGQJNhqSoBeYM999h4JVNVkPzdR4IyRSNX1nc=',w:'594px',h:'413px',items:'2155472378',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});On Oct. 9, the esteemed historian Rashid Khalidi, author of “The Hundred Years War on Palestine,” resigned from his tenured position at Columbia University. In explaining his decision, he cited the way higher education has become just a “cash register — essentially a money-making, MBA, lawyer-run, hedge fund-cum-real estate operation, with a minor sideline in education, where money has determined everything, where respect for pedagogy is at a minimum.” For pro-Palestinian organizers across the country, Khalidi’s remarks encompass the dilemma that is our current moment of defunded higher education, the repressed movement for Palestinian liberation and the unstable state of academic freedom in the classroom and on the campus.
Khalidi’s resignation came on the heels of a series of attacks on pro-Palestinian speech, including the release, in September, of the Lippman Report, a 139-page investigation into supposed antisemitism on City University of New York campuses. Mandated by Gov. Kathy Hochul, the report systematically equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism and calls for an “overhaul” of policies and procedures preventing and regulating what it deems antisemitic. Lippman’s findings have prompted New York’s City Council to hold hearings on the subject and have been understood by Palestinian activists within CUNY as a clear attempt to “criminalize and thereby silence any criticism of Israel.”
In November, President-elect Donald Trump threatened to use federal funding to leverage a war against the radicalism and “wokeness” on campuses, gesturing to the encampment divestment movement last spring. On Dec. 12, New York University tenured professor Andrew Ross was arrested by the NYPD during a peaceful rally held by the university’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine group, or FSJP, and issued a “personae non grata” status. Ross had already been accused of “egregious acts of antisemitism” — including speaking at Palestine solidarity rallies and founding the campus FSJP chapter — in a lawsuit filed against NYU by the group Students Against Antisemitism.
With over 186,000 Palestenians dead and 96 percent of children in Gaza facing imminent death, the fight for a liberated Palestine becomes more urgent everyday. Yet, the growing backlash Palestine solidarity activists face, particularly on American university campuses, raises questions about higher education’s role in perpetuating injustice — and how student, staff and faculty organizers alike can adapt and resist.
#newsletter-block_a9582adfadeb98a17260e84d768edfe6 { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_a9582adfadeb98a17260e84d768edfe6 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter A history of hollowing outIn response to Ross’s arrest, the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, put out a statement condemning the incident and the state of pro-Palestine speech on campus. In some ways, this is not new terrain for the nearly 100-year-old association. Repression of academic freedom has historically occurred when calls for liberation on campus have been at their strongest and most threatening — as was the case in 1915, when AAUP was first founded, in response to the silencing and firing of radical faculty. This included anti-capitalist thinkers such as Scott Nearing, who was denied tenure at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School for his outspoken views on child labor and inequality.
Historian Andy Hines argues that pioneering educators in the early AAUP were met with a now-familiar tension: whether to understand themselves as part of the professional or working-class, and whether the AAUP ought to be a vehicle for the former or latter. Academics differed from their professional-class counterparts in one crucial way: They were not independent practitioners, but employees. AAUP leadership, led by founding President John Dewey, made a compromise: Faculty gained professional rights — most notably tenure and a certain cultural purchase — but deprioritized class-based worker control.
The AAUP’s initial 1915 Declaration of Principles, outlined principles of academic freedom, shared governance and tenure. In the past decades, as faculty have gradually lost governance over their universities and their wages have decreased in relative terms, the substance of these formal privileges has been steadily emptied out. To Hines, the decrease in available tenure-track jobs and more general state disinvestment has hastened this process of hollowing. Contingent staff — who compromise 76 percent of teaching on campuses — often make less than the minimum wage. Even tenure-track faculty, like Maura Finkelstein at private Muhlenberg College, are susceptible to firing if their political expression is not in line with the amorphous dictates of the administration and their funders. These conditions explain the recent call for professional rights on campuses, particularly from staff and non-tenured faculty, and extend beyond the pro-Palestine movement.
The compromises AAUP members made in 1915 proved consequential in the heated political juncture of the late 1960s. The Soviet-sized specter of socialism and decolonial struggles abroad, the erupting domestic social movements of the oppressed and increased concerns over radical thinking made the U.S. university, as a scene of knowledge production and social struggle, a particularly heated landscape. According to Hines, these political pressures prompted another compromise: Universities were forced to accept new social groups into their demographics and establish academic fields, but curtailed any explicit communist dimensions.
Through the following decades, the birth of neoliberalism eroded public protections, increased austerity on campuses, promoted the disciplining of far-left thought and continued to weaken the efficacy of the 1915 compromise. During this period, we saw a dual force: On the one hand there was the starving of university budgets, jeopardizing entire fields of study. On the other hand, there was a full-out culture war against the left, which included a targeted counterinsurgency against the “physical and intellectual vandalism” of campus social movements through increased course requirements, academic disciplining and tuition.
High tuition, and the resulting dependence on loans, can be understood not just as a mode of financing but as a pedagogical tool. The idea was, according to academic Eli Meyerhoff, that “envisioning a future of indebtedness would retroactively inform a student’s view of themselves in the present,” limiting their imagined possibilities of liberation. High tuition and debt increases the stakes to make one’s degree lucrative, squeezes future wages and the competitive academic pressures of more “professionalizing” disciplines does not give students the space to take political risk. Barbara Ehrenreich called this tragedy the “fear of falling.”
Geosciences graduate student and organizer Sofia Menemenlis underscored this dynamic at Princeton University, saying, “Students in science and engineering programs face heavy demands on their time and little professional incentive to engage in political activity. In Palestine solidarity work, to embrace the call for divestment from Israel’s genocide is also to organize against many of the same companies that finance university research and hire science, technology, engineering and math (or STEM) graduates.”
UC Santa Barbara English professor Christopher Newfield referred to this commercialization of universities since 1980 as the “the Great Mistake.” In the words of UC Berkeley adjunct professor Khalid Kadir, “We went down the low road of self-preservation. As opposed to standing up and making the case for the value of higher education as a public good, we decided to save the university in the context of the neoliberalization occurring around it, by increasingly relying on financialization to solve the problem.” As universities have increasingly corporatized, the primary way they can distinguish themselves from other corporations and justify public funds is through teaching. However, the shift in economic priorities from teaching staff to management positions has weakened faculty governance and concentrated power to administration.
Previous CoverageThis leads us to our present moment of crisis. Aditi Rao, an organizer and classics graduate student at Princeton University, aptly described it as a feeling of “precarity and unsafety, which the university has brought upon itself by gradually turning more and more into a corporation.” Rao points to the doxxing trucks with digital billboards that have targeted Ivy League campuses and come twice to Princeton’s campus in the past year, as an example of how the university has put itself in a vulnerable position by attempting to avoid financial liability. These trucks display the names and faces of people on campus (from students to deans) associated with the pro-Palestine movement. “The trucks that have come to campus are extremely violent,” Rao said. “If they keep coming around, someone will get hurt, and the university is fine with it. I’ve always known that they don’t care what I teach, but I did not realize they were willing to sacrifice the several millions my life may be worth in lawsuits to hold onto 10 percent of its donors.”
Across the country, Kadir describes how the deficit of UC Berkeley has made the university increasingly vulnerable to its wealthy benefactors and to the orders of the regents (the University of California’s board of trustees), who were the ones to crack down on the spring encampment. The new chancellor, a professor from the Haas Business School, seems — according to Kadir — invested in continuing down the “great mistake” of privatization, promising to secure millions in VC funding. “But how can you guarantee high returns?” Kadir asked. “And if you can, would you not prefer to make that deal with the state, so that the public can reap the benefits?”
According to Newfield, the solution to the decrease in funding was to replace “academic methods with business strategies that respect students as consumers and that treat parents, the public and loan companies as investors.” It’s this very notion that has made Rao fearful of her students, saying, “I am scared of my students. On the first day of class, I took off my keffiyeh, and I won’t do anything to give them any opportunity to discredit or report me.”
In the contemporary contest for control over the university and academic freedom, an under-considered aspect is the role of students as foot soldiers within a wider surveillance and disciplinary apparatus. Students, situated so often as clients in the neoliberal university, leave reviews and lodge complaints just as they might for Uber drivers and Doordash delivery services. These reviews and complaints, even in the minority, stick to faculty, shaping their working conditions, job security and job prospects.
This is the case even for tenured faculty, though particularly so for adjunct faculty who lack job security. These university “watchdog” groups have “provided attacks on tenure disguised as advocacy for the student consumer.” Hines, who has detailed the repressive mechanisms of prestigious universities, sees this connection between precarious adjunct faculty and gig workers, saying, “Contingency is a mode of counterinsurgency.” Disorganizing, precariousness and susceptible to surveillance and discipline: These are the conditions of knowledge-production in the modern university.
Palestine solidarity on campusThe Palestine movement makes clear that democracy, free speech and liberation are not possible without a free university. How can we respond to this moment, reshift the balance of forces, and negotiate greater academic freedom, particularly in the context of Palestine? The task becomes the development of vehicles of struggle, modes of organization, capable of engaging with the gravitational forces of financialization.
To Kadir, the first step is making time for in-person community-building and political education. “We all grew up in a neoliberal environment, and have lost the ability to gather and fight for things beyond our personal interest,” he said. “Are people going to fight for something if they don’t understand it? Can we build together if we don’t trust each other?”
Previous CoverageFor Ali Noorzad, an organizer at San Francisco State University, one of the main goals of this past semester was to educate and bring new students to the movement, through flyering, holding public democratic general assemblies and planning a cross-campus popular convention for Palestine in the Bay Area. “The people I’m closest to and I strategically spend as little time together as we can, because the majority of our efforts should be towards getting to know new people and organizing them,” Noorzad said.
Students at CUNY are taking a similar approach; reaching out to students and having one-on-one conversations about the issues that impact them on campus and developing small agitational campaigns. In late November, the Princeton undergraduate body voted to divest from weapons manufacturing. A coalition of progressive student groups won this campaign through tabling, flyering, reaching out to peers and holding teach-in’s on the importance of military divestment for Palestine.
The second step is to encourage vast factions of university campuses to align with workers and strive to strengthen the labor movement’s organizational infrastructure. Historically, the AAUP has been at its strongest when it participates in collective bargaining with other, more contingent campus groups. “As a graduate student instructor,” Rao said, “I try to intentionally position myself as a worker. Because to me, anyone who has class consciousness feels moved to action on Palestine.” Noorzad agreed that to get the broader campus community to commit to this struggle, “People need to understand U.S. aid to Israel as directly connected to tuition hikes and classroom cuts. Students’ political and economic status is threatened because the government will not stop funding genocide.”
Already, there are a number of inspiring examples of organized labor exerting material threats to “business as usual” on campuses. In the spring, NYU grad workers went on a grading strike to protest student repression and censorship, the CUNY on Strike contingent of the staff and faculty union held a sickout in response to student arrests. The University of California also held a system-wide academic strike in support of the pro-Palestine protests.
The moral imperative to resist the astonishing violence of Israel’s Zionist regime can also lead to deeper understandings of the hypocrisies of liberalism and financial logics on campus — and through that, the development of a class consciousness. The ideals of human rights, the right to autonomy and free speech and the sanctity of international law are shown to be smoke and mirrors obscuring a machinery of death, administrative bloat, debt and precarious labor conditions. In contrast, the relational and communal work of protest and movement work, can allow the class majority to reassert the university as a public good and divest the university from its material and ideological complicity in the genocide and occupation of Palestine.
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Donate The tasks aheadOn April 22, 1969, a group of Black and Puerto Rican students took over the South Campus of the City College of New York campus in Harlem. They held it for two weeks, preventing classes from occurring, launching a “people’s university” and forcing the school president to resign. It only came to an end when a proto-militarized police force intervened at the behest of the mayor.
The protesters presented the school’s administration with the now-famous five demands, calling for radical equity and democratization of the school’s curriculum and demographic composition. They demanded that both the student body and the subjects taught (and, importantly, how they are taught) would reflect the Black and Puerto Rican communities of Harlem. Of particular focus was the training of teachers, and the need for them to be versed in the historical and cultural contexts in which they would teach. Over the next few years, these demands were largely met: The future educators CUNY was training were required to learn Spanish and take courses in Black and Puerto Rican cultural history; students were brought more fully into course design; Urban and Ethnic Studies departments were formally established.
In contrast to this history, on April 25, 2024, a group of over 200 CUNY students, amidst a nationwide eruption, occupied the quad on the north end of the same campus. They too put forth five demands: 1. divest from Israel; 2. an academic boycott of Israel; 3. proclaim solidarity with Palestine; 4. demilitarize CUNY campuses; and 5. constitute a People’s CUNY. Both the format and the substance of these demands self-consciously tethered this encampment — named the Gaza Solidarity Encampment — with the occupation of a half-century earlier.
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The differences in these two CUNY encampments can encapsulate how much we have lost. Simultaneously, though, they can speak to the strength, resilience and determination of the campus front for Palestine in spite of the growing complexity and coordination of campus repression. The class contradictions have never been sharper, and because of that, it has never been more urgent or clear to fight for what ideas are allowed to propagate on campus, by whom, and in what fashion.
As labor organizer Ben Mabie explained, “Universities are sites of dense overlapping layers of the working class that cut across differences in immigration, race and education status. Students and staff are at the center of this large-scale capital accumulation and thus play a catalytic role.” Grounding our movements in the rich and inspiring history of the campus movement, including the 1969 encampment, is important but insufficient, as conditions have changed drastically. We must continue to renegotiate the appropriation of resources, fight for true academic freedom and protect our right to protest and dissent. We must ultimately win back what we’ve lost and then, always, win more.
Around the world, universities have been and remain sites of robust participatory democracy, freedom and life-making. They have not always been these financialized, marketized, securitized sites of siloed job-preparation. The encampments of last spring showed that this capacity of the university to foster resilience and liberatory knowledge production is not relegated to the past.
Yet, forces hostile to this possibility loom stronger than ever. It seems our current task is twofold: On one hand, we need to keep alive this flame of the university and the campus as a space of deep democracy and transformational knowledge production. On the other, we must also soberly assess the conditions and forces that contain and threaten to extinguish that flame, and work towards contesting them.
This article Can Palestine solidarity activists shift the balance of power at American universities? was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
How Big Oil Covered Up Climate Change 70 Years Ago w/ Rebecca John
How US activists are infiltrating Israeli events selling Palestinian land
This article How US activists are infiltrating Israeli events selling Palestinian land was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Outside of a synagogue in West Orange, New Jersey, a hundred people with PAL-Awda NY/NJ, a local Palestinian rights organization, gathered to protest an Israeli real estate event taking place there on Nov. 13. The protesters accused the realtors from My Israel Home, an Israeli real estate company based outside of Jerusalem, of marketing Palestinian land. They also said that the company was discriminating against event attendees by religion, effectively excluding everyone except especially religious Jews. According to PAL-Awda, the protesters were attacked by counter-protesters, including an organizer of the event, armed with pepper-spray and tactical flashlights wielded as bludgeons.
While the confrontation unfolded outside Congregation Ohr Torah, a protester going by the name “Riley” made their way inside. (The identities of Riley and other event attendees mentioned in this story have been obscured to protect them from any potential retaliation.) In order to register, Riley provided My Israel Home with the name of their synagogue and how they had heard of the event. According to Riley, they were questioned at the door by private security about their synagogue once again, plus their social media accounts, political beliefs and professional background.
After being frisked, Riley says they were allowed to attend the event — and able to document My Israel Home realtors advertising properties in Giv’at Ha-Matos, which is categorized as an Israeli settlement in the West Bank by the United Nations. According to the International Court of Justice, Giv’at Ha-Matos and the 300 other Israeli settlements in the West Bank are all illegal encroachments upon Palestinian land.
“Not only were the properties reserved for Jews only, the realtors were specifically targeting Jewish people in the tri-state area,” Riley said. “That was the focus.”
Israeli real estate companies have recently held more than two dozen similar events across the United States and Canada, marketing property on Palestinian land and discriminating against attendees, according to activists like Riley. In response, activists have been infiltrating the events to document violations of international and domestic laws, which they hope will help stem Israel’s ongoing annexation of Palestine.
Infiltrating the eventsSince March, Israeli real estate companies have held more than 27 events like the one at Congregation Ohr Torah, according to Greg, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, or JVP, which has organized protests against them. The locations span Toronto to Baltimore, Long Island to Los Angeles, and have been put on by at least five different companies. In addition to My Israel Home, others involved include CapitIL, Home in Israel, My Home in Israel and YYK Jerusalem. The properties marketed by the various companies range from apartments in southern Israel for $435,000 to homes in the illegal Israeli settlement of Efrat in the West Bank for more than $2.9 million. (None of the aforementioned Israeli companies responded to multiple requests for comment.)
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“We were horrified to learn of the proliferation of real estate fairs to sell property in the occupied West Bank to North American Jews,” JVP Executive Director Stefanie Fox said. “These events advance ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and are in violation of international law. It is an insult to the Jewish tradition that synagogues around the country would host such events. These are supposed to be our holy spaces and instead they are collaborating in the destruction and displacement of Palestinians.”
According to activists who have attended, or attempted to attend, the events, all of the Israeli real estate companies explicitly required them to answer questions regarding their religious affiliation, without which they would either not receive further details or would be stopped at the door. Greg received a call from a CapitIL agent after registering online for one of the company’s events.
“He asked me where I daven [pray], who the rabbi is there and for the rabbi’s number — seeming incredulous that I wouldn’t just have the rabbi’s number stored in my phone,” Greg explained. “He said he would check on me with the rabbi and asked if the rabbi would know who I was. I said probably not because I don’t go to shul [synagogue] that much.”
Greg did not receive any further information about the CapitIL event, effectively preventing them from attending.
Another JVP member, Parker, successfully registered for an event by Home in Israel, which also asked registrants for the names of their synagogues and rabbis, but they were nevertheless stopped at the door by security. According to Parker, they were on the guestlist, but security claimed that a background check had found anti-Israeli posts on their Instagram account — despite Parker’s account being private. Jay, another JVP member who attended the same event, believes Parker was actually stopped at the door because of their age, as they appeared too young to buy property.
Two other JVP members, Alex and Jess, were able to successfully register for and attend a My Home in Israel event. According to the activists, the online registration process included providing information about their synagogues, and they witnessed another attendee being turned away from the event for apparently failing to register.
In addition to occasionally frustrating activists’ attempts to document violations of international law at these Israeli real estate events, the registration processes themselves may run afoul of domestic laws against discrimination in housing. Realtors cannot discriminate in the marketing of property to prospective buyers, according to Dina Chehata, an attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Greater Los Angeles, a public advocacy organization for Muslims in the United States. They are planning on filing complaints against My Home in Israel with housing authorities in California over two events held there.
“We have strong policies that really look down on discriminating against somebody in real estate and in the sale of land based on their protected characteristics — national origin being one, religion being another,” Chehata said. “So we would like to appeal to state agencies to say that it’s against our public policy in the state of California, and the United States generally, to have companies that are selling to American citizens in a way that discriminates against their protected characteristics.”
Bring the law to bearOf course the most pressing violations of law at these Israeli real estate events concern Israel’s ongoing annexation of Palestine. According to activists with both JVP and PAL-Awda, at least four of the Israeli real estate companies that have recently held events in the United States and Canada — CapitIL, My Home in Israel, My Israel Home and YYK — market properties in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Activists’ infiltration of the events have allowed them to document such violations, which in turn provides legal advocates with the evidence necessary to file complaints.
According to Leena Widdi, spokesperson for PAL-Awda, legal complaints are one facet of the multi-pronged approach to opposing Zionism, or Jewish ethno-nationalism, which motivates the Israeli annexation of Palestine.
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Donate“We do research, compiling and organizing documentation for legal action,” Widdi said. “We also organize protests when ‘Stolen Land’ events are discovered to confront, publicize and challenge these illegal events. We are continuing to broaden our campaign against the event organizers, their financial supporters and the Zionists and politicians who provide them political cover.”
In March, PAL-Awda assisted the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation Law Commission, another Palestinian rights organization, in filing complaints against My Home in Israel with the attorneys general and other authorities in New Jersey and New York regarding real estate events in each state. Although the New Jersey Civil Rights Division, which enforces local fair housing laws, does not comment on ongoing investigations, PAL Law’s complaint appears to have triggered an investigation into My Home in Israel in New Jersey. The division issued a letter to My Home in Israel, requesting further information about a company event on March 10 at the Congregation Keter Torah synagogue in Teaneck, New Jersey.
In some instances, the combined efforts of protesters and legal advocates have successfully prevented Israeli real estate events from taking place at all. Following calls by PAL-Awda to protest an event by My Home in Israel in Brooklyn, New York, on March 13 and PAL Law’s complaint to authorities in New York, the Israeli realtors cancelled the event. Pressure from protesters and legal advocates has also pushed Israeli realtors to move other events to new venues or hold them online, rather than in person.
While it remains unclear if or when the investigation into My Home in Israel will proceed in New Jersey, activists say they will continue working to ensure that international and domestic laws are enforced to end the marketing of Palestinian land by Israeli realtors, as well as the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and Israeli occupation of Palestine in general.
According to Riley, who infiltrated the event at Congregation Ohr Torah, ongoing demonstrations are necessary, but other forms of pressure need to be brought to bear on Israeli realtors who seek to benefit from the illegal annexation of Palestinian land.
“They don’t care about anyone shouting ‘Free Palestine’ — they laugh in the face of that,” Riley said. “Things that can provide even the slightest bit of material pressure are better than just the mass demonstrations. And I felt like I was in a position where I could do this.”
This article How US activists are infiltrating Israeli events selling Palestinian land was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
Can nonviolent struggle defeat a dictator? This database emphatically says yes
This article Can nonviolent struggle defeat a dictator? This database emphatically says yes was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
With Donald Trump set to take office after a fear-mongering campaign that reignited concerns about his desire to become a dictator, a reasonable question comes up: Can nonviolent struggle defeat a tyrant?
There are many great resources that answer this question, but the one that’s been on my mind lately is the Global Nonviolent Action Database, or GNAD, built by the Peace Studies department at Swarthmore College. Freely accessible to the public, this database — which launched under my direction in 2011 — contains over 1,400 cases of nonviolent struggle from over a hundred countries, with more cases continually being added by student researchers.
At quick glance, the database details at least 40 cases of dictators who were overthrown by the use of nonviolent struggle, dating back to 1920. These cases — which include some of the largest nations in the world, spanning Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America — contradict the widespread assumption that a dictator can only be overcome by violence. What’s more, in each of these cases, the dictator had the desire to stay, and possessed violent means for defense. Ultimately, though, they just couldn’t overcome the power of mass nonviolent struggle.
Previous CoverageIn a number of countries, the dictator had been embedded for years at the time they were pushed out. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, for example, had ruled for over 29 years. In the 1990s, citizens usually whispered his name for fear of reprisal. Mubarak legalized a “state of emergency,” which meant censorship, expanded police powers and limits on the news media. Later, he “loosened” his rule, putting only 10 times as many police as the number of protesters at each demonstration.
The GNAD case study describes how Egyptians grew their democracy movement despite repression, and finally won in 2011. However, gaining a measure of freedom doesn’t guarantee keeping it. As Egypt has shown in the years since, continued vigilance is needed, as is pro-active campaigning to deepen the degree of freedom won.
Some countries repeated the feat of nonviolently deposing a ruler: In Chile, the people nonviolently threw out a dictator in 1931 and then deposed a new dictator in 1988. South Koreans also did it twice, once in 1960 and again in 1987. (They also just stopped their current president from seizing dictatorial powers, but that’s not yet in the database.)
In each case people had to act without knowing what the reprisals would be.
East Germany’s peaceful revolutionWhen East Germans began their revolt against the German Democratic Republic in 1988, they knew that their dictatorship of 43 years was backed by the Soviet Union, which might stage a deadly invasion. They nevertheless acted for freedom, which they gained and kept.
Researcher Hanna King tells us that East Germans began their successful campaign in January 1988 by taking a traditional annual memorial march and turning it into a full-scale demonstration for human rights and democracy. They followed up by taking advantage of a weekly prayer for peace at a church in Leipzig to organize rallies and protests. Lutheran pastors helped protect the organizers from retaliation and groups in other cities began to stage their own “Monday night demonstrations.”
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By November 1988, a million people gathered in East Berlin, chanting, singing and waving banners calling for the dictatorship’s end. The government, hoping to ease the pressure, announced the opening of the border to West Germany. Citizens took sledgehammers to the hated Berlin Wall and broke it down. Political officials resigned to protest the continued rigidity of the ruling party and the party itself disintegrated. By March 1990 — a bit over two years after the campaign was launched — the first multi-party, democratic elections were held.
Students lead the way in PakistanIn Pakistan, it was university students (rather than religious clerics) who launched the 1968-69 uprising that forced Ayub Khan out of office after his decade as a dictator. Case researcher Aileen Eisenberg tells us that the campaign later required multiple sectors of society to join together to achieve critical mass, especially workers.
It was the students, though, who took the initiative — and the initial risks. In 1968, they declared that the government’s declaration of a “decade of development” was a fraud, protesting nonviolently in major cities. They sang and marched to their own song called “The Decade of Sadness.”
Police opened fire on one of the demonstrations, killing several students. In reaction the movement expanded, in numbers and demands. Boycotts grew, with masses of people refusing to pay the bus and railway fares on the government-run transportation system. Industrial workers joined the movement and practiced encirclement of factories and mills. An escalation of government repression followed, including more killings.
As the campaign expanded from urban to rural parts of Pakistan the movement’s songs and political theater thrived. Khan responded with more violence, which intensified the determination among a critical mass of Pakistanis that it was time for him to go.
After months of growing direct action met by repressive violence, the army decided its own reputation was being degraded by their orders from the president, and they demanded his resignation. He complied and an election was scheduled for 1970 — the first since Pakistan’s independence in 1947.
Why use nonviolent struggle?The campaigns in East Germany and Pakistan are typical of all 40 cases in their lack of a pacifist ideology, although some individuals active in the movements had that foundation. What the cases do seem to have in common is that the organizers saw the strategic value of nonviolent action, since they were up against an opponent likely to use violent repression. Their commitment to nonviolence would then rally the masses to their side.
That encourages me. There’s hardly time in the U.S. during Trump’s regime to convert enough people to an ideological commitment to nonviolence, but there is time to persuade people of the strategic value of a nonviolent discipline.
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DonateIt’s striking that in many of the cases I looked at, the movement avoided merely symbolic marches and rallies and instead focused on tactics that impose a cost on the regime. As Donald Trump wrestles to bring the armed forces under his control, for example, I can imagine picketing army recruiting offices with signs, “Don’t join a dictator’s army.”
Another important takeaway: Occasional actions that simply protest a particular policy or egregious action aren’t enough. They may relieve an individual’s conscience for a moment, but, ultimately, episodic actions, even large ones, don’t assert enough power. Over and over, the Global Nonviolent Action Database shows that positive results come from a series of escalating, connected actions called a campaign — the importance of which is also outlined in my book “How We Win.”
As research seminar students at Swarthmore continue to wade through history finding new cases, they are digging up details on struggles that go beyond democracy. The 1,400 already-published cases include campaigns for furthering environmental justice, racial and economic justice, and more. They are a resource for tactical ideas and strategy considerations, encouraging us to remember that even long-established dictators have been stopped by the power of nonviolent campaigns.
This article Can nonviolent struggle defeat a dictator? This database emphatically says yes was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.
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