Bill McKibben: This Climate Strike Is Part of the Disruption We Need

By Bill McKibben
Business as usual is what's doing us in.
We live on a planet that finds itself rather suddenly in the midst of an enormous physical crisis. Because we burn so much coal and gas and oil, the atmosphere of our world is changing rapidly, and that atmospheric change is producing record heat. July was the hottest month we've ever recorded. Scientists predict with confidence that we stand on the edge of the sixth great extinction event of the last billion years. People are dying in large numbers and being left homeless; millions are already on the move because they have no choice.
And yet we continue on with our usual patterns. We get up each morning and do pretty much what we did the day before. It's not like the last time we were in an existential crisis, when Americans signed up for the Army and crossed the Atlantic to face down fascism and when the people back home signed up for new jobs and changed their daily lives.
After making it to the US on a zero-carbon journey, @GretaThunberg is leading the charge toward the global #climate… https://t.co/sfwqDeQ0To— Climate Reality (@Climate Reality)1567617780.0
That's why it's such good news that the climate movement has a new tactic. Pioneered last August by Greta Thunberg of Sweden, it involves disrupting business as usual. It began, of course, in schools: Within months, millions of young people around the world were striking for days at a time from their classes. Their logic was impeccable: If the institutions of our planet can't be bothered to prepare for a world we can live in, why must we spend years preparing ourselves? If you break the social contract, why are we bound by it?
Good to see #climate #leadership being shown by big business in support of #GlobalClimateStrike as this is an oppor… https://t.co/Vx5dFaCz9Q— Julie Hirigoyen (@Julie Hirigoyen)1567079453.0
And now those young people have asked the rest of us to join in. After the last great school strike in May, they asked adults to take part next time. The date is Sept. 20, and the location is absolutely everywhere. Big trade unions in South Africa and Germany are telling workers to take the day off. Ben and Jerry's is closing down its headquarters (stock up in advance), and if you want to buy Lush cosmetics, you're going to be out of luck. The largest rally will likely be in New York City, where the U.N. General Assembly begins debating climate change that week — but there will be gatherings in every state and every country. It will almost certainly be the biggest day of climate action in the planet's history. (If you want to be a part — and you do want to be a part—go to globalclimatestrike.net.)
It's not a "strike" in the traditional sense, of course — no one is demanding better wages. But we are demanding better conditions. In the most literal sense, the world isn't working as it should (studies say that increased heat and humidity have already reduced human work capacity as much as 10 percent, a figure that will double by midcentury). And what we're saying is, disrupting business as usual is the way to get there.
This strike will not be the last such action. And activists are flooding into the electoral battles now underway and taking on the financial community, too. It's starting to add up: The polling shows that for young Americans, climate change is far and away the most important issue.
But it can't be just young people. It needs to be all of us — especially, perhaps, those of us who have been placidly operating on a business-as-usual basis for most of our lives, who have rarely faced truly serious disruptions in our careers and our plans. Our job is precisely to disrupt business as usual. When the planet leaves its comfort zone, we need to do the same. See you on the streets on Sept. 20!
#Climatestrike because if business as usual is doing us in, then disruption is required!! https://t.co/SiQ8rJY76X— Bill McKibben (@Bill McKibben)1567549331.0
Bill McKibben wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Bill is the founder of the climate movement 350.org and the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College.
Reposted with permission from our media associate YES! Magazine.
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Migratory beekeeping involves trucking millions of bees across the U.S. to pollinate different crops, including avocados and almonds. Timothy Paule II / Pexels / CC0
<p>According to <a href="https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/israeli-kitchen/beekeeping-how-to-keep-bees" target="_blank">From the Grapevine</a>, American avocados also fully depend on bees' pollination to produce fruit, so farmers have turned to migratory beekeeping as well to fill the void left by wild populations.</p><p>U.S. farmers have become reliant upon the practice, but migratory beekeeping has been called exploitative and harmful to bees. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/health/avocado-almond-vegan-partner/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported that commercial beekeeping may injure or kill bees and that transporting them to pollinate crops appears to negatively affect their health and lifespan. Because the honeybees are forced to gather pollen and nectar from a single, monoculture crop — the one they've been brought in to pollinate — they are deprived of their normal diet, which is more diverse and nourishing as it's comprised of a variety of pollens and nectars, Scientific American reported.</p><p>Scientific American added how getting shuttled from crop to crop and field to field across the country boomerangs the bees between feast and famine, especially once the blooms they were brought in to fertilize end.</p><p>Plus, the artificial mass influx of bees guarantees spreading viruses, mites and fungi between the insects as they collide in midair and crawl over each other in their hives, Scientific American reported. According to CNN, some researchers argue that this explains why so many bees die each winter, and even why entire hives suddenly die off in a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.</p>Avocado and almond crops depend on bees for proper pollination. FRANK MERIÑO / Pexels / CC0
<p>Salazar and other Columbian beekeepers described "scooping up piles of dead bees" year after year since the avocado and citrus booms began, according to Phys.org. Many have opted to salvage what partial colonies survive and move away from agricultural areas.</p><p>The future of pollinators and the crops they help create is uncertain. According to the United Nations, nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, risk global extinction, Phys.org reported. Their decline already has cascading consequences for the economy and beyond. Roughly 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops around the world depend on bees and other pollinators for free fertilization services worth billions of dollars, Phys.org noted. Losing wild and native bees could <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wild-bees-crop-shortage-2646849232.html" target="_self">trigger food security issues</a>.</p><p>Salazar, the beekeeper, warned Phys.org, "The bee is a bioindicator. If bees are dying, what other insects beneficial to the environment... are dying?"</p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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