DemocracyNow.org hosted a conversation about how to confront global warming it with 350.org founder Bill McKibben and journalist Christian Parenti. Some have called 2013 “year zero” in the battle over climate change. This comes as 2012 was a year of extreme weather, from the melting of the Arctic, to Superstorm Sandy, to the massive typhoon in the Philippines. It was also the warmest year on record in the United States, with massive droughts and frequent wildfires. In the U.S. presidential debates, neither of the major party candidates took on climate change. But right after the election, McKibben and 350.org hit the road to begin a campaign focused on confronting the role of the fossil fuel industry — what McKibben calls, “Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization.”
The tour has since ended, but the fossil fuel divestment campaign it launched is growing. Many environmentalists welcome the fossil fuel divestment campaign as the new frontier in their activism, but some have raised questions about the effectiveness of a widespread fossil fuels divestment campaign, including Parenti, who wrote the recent article, “Problems With the Math: Is 350’s Carbon Divestment Campaign Complete?” We host a discussion about the campaign with McKibben, who was just voted “Vermonter of the Year” by the Burlington Free Press and is the author of “Eaarth: Making A Life On A Tough New Planet.” Parenti is professor of sustainable development at the School for International Training and the author of “Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence.”
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