Enter
B
Q&A
HUFFINGTON
08.19.12
AP PHOTO/PETER DEJONG
ILL MCKIBBEN, the environmental author-turned-activist, knows
his movement is troubled. But he’s
committed to protecting the environment, so he trudges forward,
battling setbacks, death threats
and what he sees as his primary
enemy: the fossil fuel industry. In
2008, he launched the grassroots
campaign 350.org, and last year
played a pivotal role in raising
public opposition to the Keystone
XL pipeline project. But he’s concerned he’s fighting a losing battle
against climate change.
—Joanna Zelman
You were arrested during the Keystone
XL pipeline protests. Is civil disobedience necessary for a campaign to be
successful? It’s one tool in the
toolkit, I guess—and not the one
you usually reach for first. But
it is a way to demonstrate the
moral urgency of questions. It
needs, I think, to be totally non-
violent and dignified—the Keystone protests, which were the
largest civil disobedience actions
in 30 years in this country, were
a good example. We told people:
come in a necktie or a dress. Because we need to demonstrate
who the radicals are in this fight.
They’re not us.
McKibben,
shown here
at the 2009
UN climate
change
conference,
says our
only hope is
real political
change.