Why civil disobedience?

We just got done with a legal briefing. This seems like a good time to talk about why we are choosing civil disobedience at the Capitol Power Plant. Civil disobedience is a time-honored tactic and strategy of peaceful social movements. It has been used throughout history as an effective way to demonstrate the seriousness of an issue, the morality of a situation, and the commitment people have to bring about change.

The American author Henry David Thoreau pioneered the modern theory behind this practice in his 1849 essay Civil Disobedience, originally titled “Resistance to Civil Government”. On November 2, 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, urged young people to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants:

“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.”

Why the Capitol coal-fired Power Plant?
The Capitol Power Plant, sitting just blocks from Capitol Hill, symbolizes the stranglehold coal has over our government and future. It’s not the largest or the dirtiest power plant in the country, but as the plant that is actually run by and for Congress it serves as an incredibly iconic symbol of what is wrong with our country’s energy and climate policy. From being outdated and inefficient, to burning dirty fossil fuels including coal, to having its clean-up blocked by politicians pandering to coal industry interests, we see this plant as the strategic target to address our concerns.

Tags: civil disobedience, coal, legal briefing

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 10:42 am and is filed under Live Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.