at the risk of shameless self promotion  those of you on this list with access to academic articles might find this paper of interest on the issue of effective social movements in the context of climate change.  If you can't get it and have a genuine interest get back to me and I'll send you a pdf

North, P: (2011): “The politics of climate activism in the UK: a social movement analysis”, in Environment and Planning A, vol 43/7 pp 1581-1598.

Abstract. This paper uses social movement theory (SMT) as a theoretical ‘gymnasium’ to explore the limits and possibilities of climate activism in the UK. The core SMT concepts are used to explore why climate activism emerged when it did, and how conceptions of there being a problem were translated into arguments about what should be done. If something should be done, is contentious politics or policy change the most appropriate strategy? At what scale should action take place: a local politics of prefiguration, through direct action, or in more visible mass mobilisations? It is argued that climate activism takes place in a diverse range of political spaces and scales and works actively to produce knowledges about the dangers of anthropogenic climate change and responsibilities for it, but it is unclear that it has the motive power to move to more sustainable ways of organising human society. 

http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=a43534

Peter North
Department of Geography
School for Environmental Sciences
University of Liverpool
0151 794 2849

Building the Low Carbon Economy on Merseyside

www.lowcarbonliverpool.com

www.liv.ac.uk/geography/research/lowcarboneconomy/index.htm

Local Money

http://greenbooks.co.uk/store/local-money-p-320.html?osCsid=53cafffb104745d08678d499c824626e

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From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Mandy Meikle [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 21 August 2012 21:56
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The Liberation Theology of Pussy Riot's Trial Statements

Thanks Alastair, interesting debate. One debater says that mass participation is the first ingredient & quotes a political scientist who said, “when more than 5 per cent of the population engages in sustained, coordinated civil disobedience, few governments — dictatorships or democracies — remain in power.” So if the UK has 60m people, we need 3m people to be engaged in sustained, coordinated civil disobedience.

Official figures, which will be underestimate, say 1m marched in 2003 against Iraq war. Although one of the biggest mass demonstrations in the UK in recent years, it was a one-off event with an obvious cause yet less than half the number required to topple governments took part.

‘Coordinated’ is key here too. The Occupy movement lacked aims which the majority could grasp. After visiting Occupy Edinburgh, I asked ‘What would the slogan be?’ (http://mandymeikle.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/what-would-the-slogan-be/) and I still don’t know!

Mandy

____________________

http://mandymeikle.wordpress.com/
@powerdowngirl

From: Alastair McIntosh
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 7:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The Liberation Theology of Pussy Riot's Trial Statements


I would agree that Pussy Riot does not reflect wider Russian society’s values … at least, not until your study the theology behind what they are saying, which is why I am drawing attention to their trial closing statements. I don’t think those statements would give very much comfort to the American right whose religion prefers to set up the divine underpinning of reality in its own image. My Thought for the Day broadcast on this from this morning can be read here.



Also, can I draw folks’ attention to a series of good short debates on Protest sparked by the Tea Party, Occupy and Pussy Riot on the New York Times website here. What I like about these debates is that they are on-side with the need for social change, but taking a critical look at where the notion of protesting is at in terms of effective political shift. I am particularly struck by the deepening that is going on just now worldwide in terms of the power of nonviolence. It is a field that pushes people into their values/spirituality, and that is where deep transformation comes from. A slight regret with my TfD piece this morning is that to prevent listeners from choking over their cornflakes and to keep within the time limit, I had to slightly contract the final Pussy Riot quote: ‘People can sense the truth. Truth really does have some kind of … superiority over lies and this is written in the Bible.’ The words omitted (in the ellipsis) were: “some kind of ontological, existential superiority over lies”. You see, that’s the core issue: the crisis of our times is about the existential expressions of ontology (i.e. the study and theory of being, thus, metaphysics as applied to the human person).



A.