Bill McKibben Arrested for Protesting Outside ExxonMobil Station

brianlux

Bill McKibben- prolific author and long time environmental activist- willingly put his own comfort on the line for bringing corporate polluters to task for ignoring and/or trying to deny climate change. Mr. McKibben, I salute you!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-mckibben-exxonmobile_561fee19e4b050c6c4a4c67d

"Bill McKibben was arrested Thursday afternoon, shortly after beginning a one-man protest outside a gas station in Vermont.

McKibben, an environmental writer and activist, was trying to draw attention to the fact that ExxonMobil's scientists knew for years that burning fossil fuels was causing the planet to warm, but chose to deny it. Recent stories in InsideClimate and the Los Angeles Times have called attention to what the company knew about climate change and when they knew it.

McKibben staged his protest outside the Simon's Quick Stop and Deli Mobil station in Burlington, the Burlington Free Press reports.

The activist said he planned to get arrested rather than leave."

McKibben also started up this excellent organization: http://350.org/

rgambs

What's sad is that this is news, and more of us aren't willing to take the full step into civil disobedience.

PJfanwillneverleave1

Well since I had no idea who bill mckibben is I had to google him a bit.
Seems his head and heart want to do good.
This latest antic is just stupid.
It will do nothing and he broke the law.
It is not sad that "more of us aren't willing to take the full step into civil disobedience" at all.
The more protesters do this shit the more their cause is lost on the laymen.
His action deserved to be arrested and nothing will come from this.

brianlux

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

Well since I had no idea who bill mckibben is I had to google him a bit.
Seems his head and heart want to do good.
This latest antic is just stupid.
It will do nothing and he broke the law.
It is not sad that "more of us aren't willing to take the full step into civil disobedience" at all.
The more protesters do this shit the more their cause is lost on the laymen.
His action deserved to be arrested and nothing will come from this.

The best way to get to know about McKibben is to read his books but here is a short list of some of the other "stupid antic" he has pulled:

-In 1989 McKIbben published the landmark environmental book, The End of Nature" (and has written several other excellent works including in 2003 Enough , in 2007 Deep Economy and in 2010 the outstanding Eaarth).

-In 2006, he lead a five-day walk across Vermont promote awareness of global warming.

-In 2007 he oversaw the organization of hundreds of rallies across the U.S. collectively called "Step it Up" with the intent of telling congress we need to cut carbon in the atmosphere to 350 PPM (thus the name of the organization "350.org"). Even our little city of Placerville had a rally which I put together.

-In 2008 he organized the very active international organization, 350.org which is allied with many other.

-In 2009, McKibben and 350.org coordinated over 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries, to raise climate change awareness. It was the largest global rally ever put together.

If those are stupid antics, I'm good with stupid antics. Wanna help? Check out 350.org.

rgambs

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

Well since I had no idea who bill mckibben is I had to google him a bit.
Seems his head and heart want to do good.
This latest antic is just stupid.
It will do nothing and he broke the law.
It is not sad that "more of us aren't willing to take the full step into civil disobedience" at all.
The more protesters do this shit the more their cause is lost on the laymen.
His action deserved to be arrested and nothing will come from this.

Civil disobedience requires breaking the law and getting arrested, did you not know that?
Do you honestly think Jim Crow laws could have been defeated without peaceful law-breaking? Do you think labor unions (and the quality of life that they brought us ALL) could have been created and maintained without proper civil disobedience?

You say nothing will come from this, which is blatantly false, you are here talking about this issue...you know who he is now, and if interested you can now dive into his body of work..sounds like more than nothing to me.

If the laymen think that voting changes a society, actions like this are better left lost on them anyways.

tempo_n_groove

Thanks for posting!

Has there been anymore talk about the plastic island in the Pacific? I'm always wondering about that...

brianlux

tempo_n_groove said:

Thanks for posting!

Has there been anymore talk about the plastic island in the Pacific? I'm always wondering about that...

I haven't heard anything particularly new about what is often referred to as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch". There is a common misunderstanding that this is a huge mass of floating plastic bottles and although large areas of plastic and other trash are found in the oceans , the most insidious characteristic of the plastic trash vortex is the fact that most of it is plastic that has broken down into small particles. Plastic photodegrades into ever smaller pieces which often contain and/or absorb pollutants which affect marine animal life because these particles are ingested by aquatic organisms and become part of ocean and bird life's food chain. The plastic causes increased infant animal mortality and kills fish turtles and birds because it cannot be digested.

So what we have is a situation in which the oceans are being heavily polluted, sea life is dying from pollution and plastic being ingested, humans are over-fishing the oceans and using fishing methods like bottom trawling that disrupt sea life and industrial pollutants are washed down rivers into the oceans or are dumped directly into them, noise pollution from large ships traffic and military testing is disrupting sea life, area of the ocean are being changed by using ocean water as a thermal cooling agent, alien species are being introduced in areas where they are not normally found which disrupts life cycles, and of course climate change is affecting the oceans (I'm sure I've missed at least a few other human-related activities that disrupt ocean life). The end result is... well,need I say more?

This is why we would be wise to promote cleaner, safer energy sources, reduce pollution, greatly reduce consumption, purchase durable rather than throw-away goods, recycle rather this dispose and limit our consumption of sea food (which I now avoid it altogether).

tempo_n_groove

brianlux said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Thanks for posting!

Has there been anymore talk about the plastic island in the Pacific? I'm always wondering about that...

I haven't heard anything particularly new about what is often referred to as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch". There is a common misunderstanding that this is a huge mass of floating plastic bottles and although large areas of plastic and other trash are found in the oceans , the most insidious characteristic of the plastic trash vortex is the fact that most of it is plastic that has broken down into small particles. Plastic photodegrades into ever smaller pieces which often contain and/or absorb pollutants which affect marine animal life because these particles are ingested by aquatic organisms and become part of ocean and bird life's food chain. The plastic causes increased infant animal mortality and kills fish turtles and birds because it cannot be digested.

So what we have is a situation in which the oceans are being heavily polluted, sea life is dying from pollution and plastic being ingested, humans are over-fishing the oceans and using fishing methods like bottom trawling that disrupt sea life and industrial pollutants are washed down rivers into the oceans or are dumped directly into them, noise pollution from large ships traffic and military testing is disrupting sea life, area of the ocean are being changed by using ocean water as a thermal cooling agent, alien species are being introduced in areas where they are not normally found which disrupts life cycles, and of course climate change is affecting the oceans (I'm sure I've missed at least a few other human-related activities that disrupt ocean life). The end result is... well,need I say more?

This is why we would be wise to promote cleaner, safer energy sources, reduce pollution, greatly reduce consumption, purchase durable rather than throw-away goods, recycle rather this dispose and limit our consumption of sea food (which I now avoid it altogether).

I'm aware of all the above Brian. I was hoping to start a thread on it. The more people know and understand the better off we all are.

There was a kid who came up with an idea to clean it up. I'm looking for that article.

brianlux

tempo_n_groove said:

brianlux said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Thanks for posting!

Has there been anymore talk about the plastic island in the Pacific? I'm always wondering about that...

I haven't heard anything particularly new about what is often referred to as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch". There is a common misunderstanding that this is a huge mass of floating plastic bottles and although large areas of plastic and other trash are found in the oceans , the most insidious characteristic of the plastic trash vortex is the fact that most of it is plastic that has broken down into small particles. Plastic photodegrades into ever smaller pieces which often contain and/or absorb pollutants which affect marine animal life because these particles are ingested by aquatic organisms and become part of ocean and bird life's food chain. The plastic causes increased infant animal mortality and kills fish turtles and birds because it cannot be digested.

So what we have is a situation in which the oceans are being heavily polluted, sea life is dying from pollution and plastic being ingested, humans are over-fishing the oceans and using fishing methods like bottom trawling that disrupt sea life and industrial pollutants are washed down rivers into the oceans or are dumped directly into them, noise pollution from large ships traffic and military testing is disrupting sea life, area of the ocean are being changed by using ocean water as a thermal cooling agent, alien species are being introduced in areas where they are not normally found which disrupts life cycles, and of course climate change is affecting the oceans (I'm sure I've missed at least a few other human-related activities that disrupt ocean life). The end result is... well,need I say more?

This is why we would be wise to promote cleaner, safer energy sources, reduce pollution, greatly reduce consumption, purchase durable rather than throw-away goods, recycle rather this dispose and limit our consumption of sea food (which I now avoid it altogether).

I'm aware of all the above Brian. I was hoping to start a thread on it. The more people know and understand the better off we all are.

There was a kid who came up with an idea to clean it up. I'm looking for that article.

Great, tempo_n_groove! Always good to see interest on these topics here.

I remember seeing an article about a device a young man devised to capture and gather plastic from the ocean. It seemed like a good idea. What I'd really like to see is something that will clean up the plastic that has photodegraded because this is the material floating around out there in the greatest abundance and which is causing the greatest harm (and of course reducing the amount of large plastic items from the oceans will reduce further photodegraded plastics out there).

PJ_Soul

tempo_n_groove said:

Thanks for posting!

Has there been anymore talk about the plastic island in the Pacific? I'm always wondering about that...

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch? It's still going strong directly over the Pearl Jam stage... at least it's not growing too fast!

HughFreakingDillon

interesting. I was just thinking over the weekend, as I was cutting my plastic pepsi can holder in pieces. I was thinking how fucking sad it was that I had to do that so when it is eventually dumped in a natural area, that at least it won't make a duck or a seal starve.

brianlux

HughFreakingDillon said:

interesting. I was just thinking over the weekend, as I was cutting my plastic pepsi can holder in pieces. I was thinking how fucking sad it was that I had to do that so when it is eventually dumped in a natural area, that at least it won't make a duck or a seal starve.

Yes, sad, but that's great that you know to do that Hugh!