Perhaps the cameras wouldn’t have seen it and The Boston Globe, as usual, would have shrugged. Perhaps it would have served no reasonable, “strategic” purpose for 26 ordinarily law-abiding citizens to be handcuffed at the door of the governor’s office and taken to jail, where we would have shivered for a night or even just a few hours (I’ve been to jail before it’s not fun). And I’ll say this now: It’s the last time I’ll engage in that kind of weak display. But what does it say that we were willing to walk away? Personally, I feel like I failed on some fundamental level. I have the utmost respect for all who took action that day. Our organizers, concerned that after-hours arrests would receive little if any media coverage, accepted a deal so that we could walk away and receive a court summons in the mail. Given such stakes, going to jail for a peaceful act of civil disobedience outside the governor’s office would seem a small thing to ask-a small, principled act of resistance on behalf of one’s fellow humanity.Īs it happened, the 26 of us, after staying put past the building’s closing time, and being informed that we were therefore unlawfully assembled and trespassing on state property, were not arrested and did not spend any time in jail. Indeed, those like Charlie Baker who collaborate in such a crime may be said to represent our contemporary version of the “ banality of evil.” Current Issue The motives may be as ordinary and unremarkable, as banal, as quarterly profits or a politician’s approval ratings, but that doesn’t lessen the magnitude of the crime or its effects. For instance, it can be said with confidence that to deny scientific facts and obstruct what amount to emergency life-saving measures, on a global scale, is a moral crime of outsized proportions-an unprecedented crime against humanity. When one considers all that is at stake, at this late hour of the climate crisis-literally, countless millions of lives, even the future of human life on earth-there are perhaps a few things that can be said with a certain amount of moral clarity. This is the most insidious form of climate denial, as if these politicians and corporate executives think they can bend physical reality to their will. To deny scientific facts and obstruct what amount to emergency life-saving measures, on a global scale, is a moral crime of outsized proportions-an unprecedented crime against humanity.Īnd yet here we are, confronted with a situation, increasingly characterized by scientists as a global emergency, where corporate and political forces of both major political parties continue to push fossil fuels (yes, that means you too, Jerry Brown), as if we can extend our reliance on oil and gas far beyond the point of no return.
(And of course, this isn’t even to mention the many localized environmental and human-health impacts of fracked oil and gas.) If we’re serious about climate, then no more gas. Coal, oil, and gas must be replaced with renewables-but as OCI shows, new gas infrastructure doesn’t merely replace coal, it displaces wind and solar going forward, fatally slowing the necessary, rapid transition to decarbonized economies. In fact, even without coal, there’s enough oil and gas currently under production to far exceed the limit-and that’s without considering the inevitable, and massive, additional greenhouse emissions from methane leakage. Even if we replace all coal-fired electricity with gas, carbon emissions would still vastly exceed the level we can afford by mid-century.
NO FRACKED GAS IN MASS FULL
Even replacing all coal-fired electricity with gas would still vastly exceed the carbon emissions we can afford by mid-century.Īs a new briefing from the climate and energy think-tank Oil Change International spells out in the clearest possible terms, “ fossil gas is not a ‘bridge fuel.’” Full stop.
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