Competing Environmental Discourses Ecological Activists vs. the
Ecological Modernists
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Ecological Activists spiritual descendants of Foreman direct
action, nature as sacred, skeptical about technology, emphasis on
local change/grassroots grassroots organizing,
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350.org http://350.org/about/what-we-do/
http://350.org/about/what-we-do/ International Day of Climate
Action in 2009 the Global Work Party in 2010 Moving Planet in 2011
Climate Impacts Day in 2012.
http://350.org/resources/videos/the-350-
movement-90-seconds-no-words/
http://350.org/resources/videos/the-350-
movement-90-seconds-no-words/
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http://globalpo wershift.org/ps- videos/
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Stop the Keystone XL
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http://gofossilfree.org/ http://gofossilfree.org/ Oxford Alumni
Occupy University Over Fossil Fuel Investments Oxford Alumni Occupy
University Over Fossil Fuel Investments Oxford, UK Oxford alumni
have occupied a university administration building to demonstrate
their anger over todays announcement that the university has
deferred until May its decision on whether to divest from fossil
fuels.
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Peoples Climate Change
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http://peoplesclimate.org/wrap-up/
http://peoplesclimate.org/wrap-up/ largest climate march in
history.
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Gustave Speth A specter is haunting American environmentalism
the specter of failure.
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Naomi Klein https://vimeo.com/102170079
https://vimeo.com/102170079 The really inconvenient truth is that
its not about carbonits about capitalism. The convenient truth is
that we can seize this existential crisis to transform our failed
economic system and build something radically better. requires
breaking every rule in the free-market playbook: reining in
corporate power, rebuilding local economies, and reclaiming our
democracies.
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Smart Growthers The price of renewable electricity from solar
and wind is now equal to the grid average price in many countries
around the world and that list is growing because there is a cost
down curveThe more we use, the more scaling of production, the
cheaper it gets. The more oil and coal we use the more expensive it
gets. Within less than seven years 86% of the people in the world
will live in areas where the price of renewable electricity y is
cheaper than the price from other sources. Al Gore
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Bring out your dead...
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Critique of Env. Movement Beltway centered Bipartisan Not
kitchen table issues The green bubble of seemingly widespread
interest in climate change and green jobs was, it turns out,
primarily an elite phenomenon, one which had little effect upon
widespread public opinion about climate change
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EcoModernist Manifesto
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Wake up Enviros! more, better, or louder climate science will
not drive the transformation of the global energy economy stop
trying to scare the pants off of the American public most
successful actions will not be justified for environmental reasons.
stop treating climate change as if it were a traditional pollution
problem we will not regulate or price our way to a clean energy
economy we will not internalize the full costs of fossil
fuels,
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Be Realistic we will need to make clean energy technologies
much cheaper in order to decarbonize the global energy economy we
are going to have to get over our suspicion of technology,
especially nuclear power. There is no credible path to reducing
global carbon emissions without an enormous expansion of nuclear
power. big is beautiful. The rising economies of the developing
world will continue to develop whether we want them to or not. The
solution to the ecological crises wrought by modernity, technology,
and progress will be more modernity, technology, and progress. The
solutions to the ecological challenges faced by a planet of 6
billion going on 9 billion will not be decentralized energy
technologies like solar panels, small scale organic
agriculture
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Need to Play Politics CAFE requirement Campus Divestment