Time Magazine made “the protester” their person of the year, 2011, rather than any one individual. The focus was two main waves of protest – the Arab Spring uprisings and the Occupy Wall Street movement. But there was a third movement that was making change – the environmental movement.
2011 was the “year of the protester,” a dramatic display of what can be done by what Malaysian author Alvin Ung calls “barefoot leadership.” Such leadership involves ordinary people achieving extraordinary results. Examples were seen in Cairo and many other capitals in the Middle East against dictatorship. And a fledgling movement has begun under the name “Occupy Wall Street” against corporate power and inequality.
Jailed for two years
It was also the year when environmentalist Tim DeChristopher was jailed for two years for his “civil disobedience” in disrupting a 2008 auction for what proved to be an illegal sale of public land for oil drilling in Utah. DeChristopher won by blocking the sales but lost by going to jail.
This was also the year when a 17-year-old American kid sued his government, and several states, for their failure to protect the environment. As Alec Loorz says on his website, I Matter: “The public trust law in our country and around the world says that common resources like water and air are held in TRUST by the government for the people and for future generations. A balanced atmosphere is one of the most important resources we need for our survival. So it should be protected by the government. But it’s NOT.”
Ordinary people
Ordinary people with the potential for extraordinary results – people showing what is possible with barefoot power. Around the world, uncountable actions demonstrated that people were willing to stand up. As has been said, this is the civil rights movement of today’s generation, and it is building up steam. Protests are growing around the world against the destruction of the environment, including logging, mining, pollution and threats to wildlife and biodiversity.
‘Barefoot movement’
But this barefoot movement shows just how difficult it is to take on the juggernaut of industrialization, corporate power and consumerism. Yes, there have been victories in 2011. Yet, as DeChristopher told a Power Shift 1011 gathering in the U.S., it will take “real sacrifices” and “real effort.” The activist says people have to leave their comfort zone and get serious. He said it was too late to prevent the collapse of industrial civilization. However, this was why it was so important to engage and take action.
As governments struggle with economic crises, debt, and a desperate fight for resources, environmentalists are going to find their work cut out.
“The reality is not that I lack respect for the law; it’s that I have greater respect for justice. Where there is a conflict between the law and the higher moral code that we all share, my loyalty is to that higher moral code. I know (prosecutor John) Huber disagrees with me on this. He wrote that “The rule of law is the bedrock of our civilized society, not acts of ‘civil disobedience’ committed in the name of the cause of the day.” That’s an especially ironic statement when he is representing the United States of America, a place where the rule of law was created through acts of civil disobedience. Since those bedrock acts of civil disobedience by our founding fathers, the rule of law in this country has continued to grow closer to our shared higher moral code through the civil disobedience that drew attention to legalized injustice. The authority of the government exists to the degree that the rule of law reflects the higher moral code of the citizens, and throughout American history, it has been civil disobedience that has bound them together.”
As has been show in the past during other civil rights protests, civil disobedience can mean jail.
And as the environmental protest movement heats up, more people will end up behind bars.
Keystone XL pipeline protest
Tim DeChristopher – Power Shift 2011 keynote speech
Energy Action Coalition – 2011, the year we fought back
