Here at Deep Green Resistance, we are an “aboveground” organization with a firewall between us and underground action. That means that our primary work is legal (although this varies depending on national laws). Our members also take part in non-violent direct action of the sort common among aboveground movements.
This is in contrast with “underground” organizations that conduct clandestine, highly illegal activities. We advocate for this, as we think coordinated underground action is the best chance for saving the planet.
We call this separation thefirewall between aboveground and underground activities. Maintaining a firewall is essential for security and effectiveness.
Assata Shakur was a member of the Black Panther Party (an aboveground organization) and the Black Liberation Army (an underground organization). She was active in the early 1970s and was eventually arrested. She escaped prison in 1979 and went on the run, eventually reaching Cuba. In 1987 she published the excellent book Assata: An Autobiography, which contains the following quote on the importance of a firewall.
“One of the [Black Panther] party’s major weaknesses was the failure to clearly differentiate between aboveground political struggle and underground, clandestine military struggle. An aboveground political organization can’t wage guerilla war anymore than an underground army can do aboveground political work. Although the two must work together, the must have completely different structures.”
More information on the importance of a firewall and security culture can be found in the Deep Green Resistance book, available here. We will end with a quote from the DGR book.
There has to be a partition, a firewall, between aboveground and underground activities. Some historical aboveground groups have tried to sit on the fence and carry out illegal activities without full separation. Such groups worked in places or times with far less pervasive surveillance than any modern society. Their attempts to combine aboveground and underground characteristics sometimes resulted in their destruction, and severe consequences for their members.
In order to be as safe and effective as possible, every person in a resistance movement must decide for her- or himself whether to be aboveground or underground. It is essential that this decision be made; to attempt to straddle the line is unsafe for everyone.
Editor’s note: this essay was written by Mark Behrend, a Routledge author and veteran of the Vietnam War who became an activist after refusing to facilitate shipments of munitions. DGR does not agree with all of the points in this essay, but it has value and deserves publication.
Image: mwewering, Pixabay
By Mark Behrend
While environmental discussions typically center on climate change, pollution, and biodiversity, both activists and educators tend to avoid the question of human numbers. We might argue whether overpopulation gave rise to industrial capitalism, or vice versa. But we avoid discussing it further, due to fears of being politically incorrect on race, religion, or family rights.
The simple fact is that, all other things being equal, our environmental problems today would only be one fourth of what they are, if we had merely avoided quadrupling the global population, between 1900 and 2004. Either way, however, if your country’s population is growing, you are ultimately at risk of starvation and ecological collapse. And the faster your population is growing, the sooner and harder that collapse will be.
The problem with human population isn’t just that it’s growing, but that it has been growing exponentially, since the dawn of civilization — and especially since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Paul Ehrlich cites the mythical example of a weed that’s introduced to a pond. The weed doubles in size every day, and completely overruns the pond in a month. And yet, if we were to visit the pond on the 29th day, we might think the problem is under control, since half of the pond would still be intact. Wryly summing up the story, Ehrlich points out that, ‘A long history of exponential growth does not imply a long future of exponential growth.’
Human growth isn’t quite that fast. But it has added dimensions, which in some ways are even worse. Here’s a real life example, put into its proper context.
Early in the first century of the Common Era, there were approximately 175 million people on Earth. In the almost 2000 years that have followed, population has doubled more than five times. But look at how both the numbers and the time lines have accelerated:
50 C.E., 175 million
1150, 350 million
1750, 700 million
1875, 1.4 billion
1955, 2.8 billion
1995, 5.6 billion
Note that it took 1100 years for the population to double once, 600 years for it to double again, only 125 years the third time, then 80 years, and finally a mere 40. It would be bad enough if we had simply added another 175 million lives, at a faster and faster pace. But we’re talking about doubling, quadrupling, and ‘octupling’ the population, followed by geometric progressions for which there aren’t even words — going to 16 and 32 times the original number.
Meanwhile, consider our use of resources, just since 1900. In that year, 1.6 billion people used seven billion tons of materials. By 2008, 6.7 billion used 62 billion tons. And by 2030, economists say that 8.5 billion of us will use 100 billion tons of resources (food, concrete, steel, fossil fuels, lumber, etc.), while leaving behind 70 billion tons of waste. And both population and per capita use are growing exponentially, with the material ‘demand’ per person exploding, from 4.375 tons per year in 1900, to almost 12 tons in 2030.
Advertising salesmen, marketing executives, and CEOs call this kind of growth ‘progress,’ and ‘the miracle of capitalism,’ while a more neutral observer (an alien from another star system, perhaps, or an indigenous person from an uncontacted tribe) would more likely describe it as ‘insanity,’ ‘collective suicide,’ or ‘a mad rush to destroy the Earth.’
Though no one with a big personal stake in capitalism dares admit it, this little party we call industrial civilization will soon be over. Never mind the shortages of precious metals, rare earth minerals, etc. If nothing else, we’ll run out of arable land, food, and fresh water. Industrial agricultural practices (mono-crops, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, etc.) destroyed a third of the world’s topsoil in just the last 50 years, while climate change is systematically reducing the snow pack and the flow of rivers.
As for what to do about it, population theorists offer us a clue. They predict that world population will ‘level off’ at nine or ten billion, sometime around the middle of the century. They’re a bit vague as to whether this will happen by means of a collective attack of common sense, or as the result of famine, starvation, and war. But either way, zero population growth means zero economic growth, which means the end of capitalism. We’re going to have to develop a no-growth economic system in 30 years or so. So why not do it now, with two billion fewer mouths to feed, and considerably more resources to sustain them?
Meanwhile, future leaders (and by ‘future’ I mean the immediate future — not decades or generations hence) must show real leadership for a change, and enlighten their constituents to the simple facts of infinite growth on a finite planet. Among the more politically incorrect data they might include is the uncomfortable truth that, just as we have no right to murder our next door neighbors, there is also no ‘right’ to have as many children as we want, when the current number is already destroying the planet.
On a personal level, we might start by simply giving up the polite custom of congratulating each other for getting pregnant and having babies. Instead, encourage friends and neighbors to adopt, and point out the many constructive ways there are to satisfy our nurturing instincts. Adopt homeless animals. Plant trees. ‘Adopt’ a beach or a creek bed, and keep it clear of trash. Help an indigenous community cope with the onslaughts of civilization, and assist them in spreading their knowledge of living in harmony with Nature. And, if it is permissible to protest outside abortion clinics, why not at fertility clinics?
At the national level, democratic leaders must also push other nations to overcome the traditions, superstitions, and prejudices that make overpopulation such a crippling problem in much of the world. The simplest remedy is to guarantee equal rights to women and girls — particularly in education, family planning, and employment. Where this is attained, the birth rate typically falls to below the replacement rate, and populations naturally decline. Thus, without a single forced abortion or sterilization, merely adopting a global, one-child policy for 200 years could return us to a pre-industrial population of around 700 million, which just might be sustainable.
To facilitate this radical transition toward planetary survival, we would also need to immediately scrap the airline, auto, beef, and fossil fuel industries, while radically and progressively reversing globalization, abandoning cities, and reorganizing society at the village level.
Though this might sound like giving up everything that makes modern life livable, I ask you to imagine Hawaii before the British, Santa Clara Valley before the Spaniards, or the Himalayan nation of Bhutan, a mere generation ago. None of these cultures had TV, Starbucks, jet travel, or out-of-season produce. And yet, somehow they were happy.
On her deathbed in the late 1920s, the last of Santa Clara Valley’s full-blooded Ohlone Indians described her childhood and early life to a National Geographic reporter, in an article later entitled, ‘The Woman Who Remembered Paradise.’ I’ve read it countless times, but have never been able to read it aloud, because of repeated stops to choke back the tears.
Obviously, even the most progressive candidates for high office speak of nothing remotely resembling a return to our tribal roots. The would-be leader who demands sacrifice, a contracting economy, and a reduced standard of living will lose in a landslide to some Trumpian demagogue, promising a strong stock market and lower taxes. And until we demand otherwise, fantasies of continued growth or a ‘Green New Deal’ are all we will get.
Revolutionary action today is a world survival imperative. Green Revolutionaries might consider a crash course in radically educating the public, along with carefully targeted attacks on the most obvious industrial offenders.
Imagine waking up one morning to a profusion of banners along freeway overpasses, proclaiming ‘PERPETUAL GROWTH ON A FINITE PLANET IS SUICIDE,’ ‘FOSSIL FUEL ECONOMIES USE A MILLION YEARS OF RESOURCES PER YEAR,’ and ‘BEFORE YOU HAVE CHILDREN, THINK ABOUT THE WORLD YOU’RE LEAVING THEM.’ These messages might appear in tandem with simultaneous, non-lethal attacks on such blatantly destructive industries as fossil fuels, the airlines, cattle, chemicals, and international shipping. In acting, we must also remember to be imaginative, invisible, and low tech, recalling the way the Vietnamese defeated the U.S. military.
As the public becomes more aware of the issues and the necessity of direct action, measures could quickly be carried to the next level. Meanwhile, we must also reach out to mainstream environmentalists, such as the Green New Deal movement. While they may be naive and subject to cop-outs, many of them are also prime candidates for radicalization. To cite one example, the first time I heard Derrick Jensen speak, 12 or 13 years ago, I thought he was crazy. But a few of his points kept nagging at me, and I soon connected the dots. As the news of industrial failures and unintended consequences worsens, such people will be coming our way in droves.
For those who are already on the edge, let me close by noting that the recent U.N. report on biodiversity made the daring admission that we are the most destructive species that ever lived — literally driving dozens of other species to extinction, each and every day. And since we cannot simultaneously be both the most intelligent species on Earth and the most destructive, it’s time for us to decide who we really are, and act accordingly.
Are we responsible agents of change, redemption, and planetary survival? Or will cosmic historians remember us as little more than lemmings in SUVs?
Hilla Kerner joined Vancouver Rape Relief thirteen years ago. Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter is the longest standing rape crisis centre in Canada. Since 1973, the group who is self organized as a collective has responded to close to 46,000 women seeking support in their escape from male violence. Since they opened their transition house in 1981, they have housed over 3,000 women and over 2,600 children.
They serve 1200 women a year, and house roughly 100 women fleeing violence at any given time. Many of the women they service are poor, indigenous, and have been prostituted. Vancouver Rape Relief is sustained by grassroots donations. You can donate to the organization here.
This interview with Hilla Kerner took place on May 26, 2019, on Derrick Jensen‘s radio show “Resistance Radio,” which is broadcast on the Progressive Radio Network.
Derrick Jensen is a coauthor of Deep Green Resistance, and the author of Endgame, The Culture of Make Believe, A Language Older than Words, and many other books. He was named one of Utne Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World” and won the Eric Hoffer Award in 2008. He has written for Orion, Audubon, and The Sun Magazine, among many others.
Resistance Radio covers ecology and feminist themes. Episodes can be found on YouTube or browse all of the interviews in our Resistance Radio archive.
Hilla Kerner can also be found on Twitter, where she is outspoken on issues of poverty, destruction of the planet, and violence against women.
Editor’s note: Anyone who is paying attention knows that global climate breakdown is accelerating faster than the worst IPCC predictions. Still, emissions continue to rise, setting records year-after-year. There is no evidence that governments, civil society, or corporations are able to address this in any meaningful way. In fact, all the evidence shows the opposite. Drastic times call for drastic measures. We at Deep Green Resistance call for “decisive ecological warfare” to shut down the global fossil fuel economy by any means necessary. We do not advocate this lightly. We fear this may be the only realistic means of stopping climate chaos.
“Last month was the hottest June ever recorded, the EU‘s satellite agency has announced.” — full story at The Independent
Antarctic Melting Accelerates
A swath of Antarctica’s sea ice larger than four times the size of France has melted since 2014, AFP reported Tuesday.
The rapid decline, revealed in a study of satellite data published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, marks a stunning reversal for the South Pole: Between 1979 and 2014, its sea ice was actually expanding. Then, it lost 2.1 million square kilometers (approximately 810,815 square miles) in three years, falling from 12.8 million square kilometers (approximately 4.9 million square miles) to 10.7 million square kilometers (approximately 4.1 million square miles).
“It went from its 40-year high in 2014, all the way down in 2017 to its 40-year low,” study author and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center climatologist Claire Parkinson told AFP.
“India has increasingly suffered from extreme heat in recent years. 2018 was the country’s sixth hottest year on record, and 11 of its 15 warmest years have occurred since 2004, The Independent reported. The capital of New Delhi broke its all-time record Monday with a high of 48 degrees Celsius, according to The Times of India.”
France Records Hottest Temperature Ever in European heat wave
Large portions of Europe were hit by intense heat waves over the past week. Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic all experienced their hottest-ever temperatures for the month of June. France recorded its hottest day ever on Friday, reaching a high of 45.9 degrees Celsius (115 Fahrenheit) at the town of Gallargues-le-Montueux near Montpellier, in the southern Gard region, making it temporarily warmer than California’s notoriously hot Death Valley.
“Alaska had its warmest March on record — in some places 20 degrees above normal. Once all the data is tabulated, it is likely to be the second-warmest June on record.”
Dahr Jamai is an award winning journalist and author who is a full-time staff reporter for Truthout.org. His most recent book is about abrupt climate change, called The End of Ice.
Browse all of our Resistance Radio interviews at https://ift.tt/2mXE10f
Up to 10,000 goldminers have invaded Yanomami lands in northern Brazil, spreading malaria in the region and polluting many of the rivers with mercury.
Although most Yanomami are in contact with non-indigenous society, one uncontacted group is known to live in the area being invaded, and authorities are investigating signs of up to six other uncontacted communities living there.
The massive influx has been blamed by local indigenous leaders for the deaths of four children already. They say the miners are building settlements and airstrips, emboldened by President Bolsonaro’s support for land invaders, and constant attacks on indigenous people.
Some mining camps are just a few miles from uncontacted Yanomami.
The Yanomami association Hutukara estimates the number of miners at up to 10,000. They also report devastation to the fish and game they rely on for their livelihood.
The 35,000 Yanomami straddle both sides of the Brazil-Venezuela border. 20% of the Yanomami population in Brazil died from diseases brought in by goldminers during a previous gold rush in the late 1980s and early 90s.
After a long international campaign led by Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, Survival and the CCPY (Pro Yanomami Commission), Yanomami land in Brazil was finally demarcated as the ‘Yanomami Park’ in 1992. The Yanomami territories in Brazil and Venezuela together form the largest forested indigenous territory in the world.
Davi Kopenawa, known as “the Dalai Lama of the Rainforest” said: “Four of our rivers – the Uraricoera, Mucajaí, Apiaú and Alto Catrimani – are polluted. It’s getting worse, more miners are coming in. They’re not bringing anything [good], they’re just bringing trouble. Malaria has already increased here, and killed four of our children.”
Survival International Director Stephen Corry said today: “Bolsonaro’s racism has tragic consequences – and the gold rush underway in northern Brazil is just one example. It’s devastating the Yanomami people, who were attacked and massacred thirty years ago during the region’s last bout of gold fever. Bolsonaro’s happy to stand by and watch as the people die and the forest is destroyed – only a public outcry in Brazil and internationally can stop him.”
