Jonathan Isham is Luce Professor of International Environmental Economics in the Department of Economics and Program in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, Vermont.

Sissel Waage is an independent consultant who works on environmental and social aspects of sustainability issues in North America, Europe, and Africa.

Igniting Action for a New Movement

SISSEL WAAGE

Could the next grassroots revolution in America be over climate change? Economist, March 18, 2004

We need a grassroots movement. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, February 13, 2005

"CAN WE REALLY WIN THIS FIGHT against global warming?"

We often hear that question from college students, business leaders, and civic groups as we go around the United States spreading the word about climate change solutions. If you've seen An Inconvenient Truth or had an eye on popular magazines lately—remember that Time magazine cover story that told us all "Be Worried. Be Very Worried"?—you too may be asking yourself, Can we really do something about global warming? Can we really shed our fossil-fuel dependence for a clean-energy future?

Our answer—and the resounding message of this book—is, Yes, we can.

We can do it if we engage neighbors in our coffee shops, our church and synagogue and mosque basements, and our chamber of commerce meetings, making a mutual pledge to protect places and people we cherish. We can do it if we then reach out to like- minded allies, building tough-minded coalitions of civic, religious, and business leaders who want to do the right thing. We can do it if we forcefully demand that our elected officials become champions of visionary legislation that will promote rapid investments, in the United States and around the world, in a clean-energy future. Above all, we can do it if we begin to "build the world anew" around the things that matter: our families, our communities, and our shared stewardship of this earth.

Winning this fight will be an immense challenge. To stop the accelerating growth of greenhouse gas emissions, to reduce those emissions to a small fraction of their current levels over a mere generation, will require unprecedented social and economic transformation. To succeed, a sustained movement of engaged citizens to lead the fight will be needed. Quoting Ignition coauthor Gus Speth (chapter 2), we need a groundswell.

As we document throughout this book, such a groundswell is growing. If you decide to get involved, you will be joining a diverse band of engaged activists: Republicans and Democrats; leaders of businesses, environmental groups, state agencies, places of worship, parent-teacher associations, Native American tribes, colleges, universities, and business schools; and rural grandparents, urban parents, and schoolchildren everywhere. Some see global warming as a form of intergenerational injustice or as a religious affront, some see it as a significant business risk, some are acting to ensure a hopeful future for their children and the landscapes they love. All understand the gravity of the crisis and are committed to doing their part to bring about change.

As this groundswell builds, it will face challenges unlike past efforts to change society. Leaders of past social movements—the civil rights movement immediately comes to mind—could rally the nation by pointing to a clear villain and sympathetic victims. Leaders of today's climate movement have a tougher sell: they must convince fellow citizens that global warming—where each of us is at once victim and oppressor, where the greatest damages will be to those not yet born—is nevertheless worthy of national resolve.

So yes, it will be hard work.

Ignition is designed to help. Here are assembled the voices of top scholars and inspiring young leaders, including academics who have studied social movements and politics for decades and new civic leaders who are developing tactics for today's climate action. This book is neither a cookbook nor a handbook of, say, "Fifty Ways to Save the Planet." Rather, think of it as an ongoing workshop, a gathering of like-minded citizens who are sharing their personal experiences and learning from one another. In the pages that follow, they present insights and strategies designed to build an even larger, even more diverse community of activists. Each chapter of this book is focused on ideas and actions that can tip the balance towards a clean-energy future, and together these chapters provide a comprehensive view of what is being tested and what has worked.

A Fresh Perspective on the Climate Crisis

In the last several years, the two of us been lucky enough to get to know hundreds of fellow citizens who are building the climate movement. If you're not sure whether you can play a role, we can assure you: becoming active in this new movement does not require expertise, only a commitment to making a difference.

We are unlikely editors of a book on climate change. Neither of us has formal training in the science of the issue. Neither of us has spent the last decade or two dressed in suits exhorting policy makers to take action on climate change. In fact, neither of us has been actively engaged with climate change issues at all, until very recently. The reason was simple: it seemed to be the domain of natural scientists, engineers, and policy analysts. As social scientists, we were both drawn less to the corridors of the United Nations than to diverse places around the world where we tried to make a difference in the lives of others: the dirt pathways of villages and towns in Africa and the Pacific Northwest and the hallways of universities and conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

By the early 00s, we—like many others—finally realized that climate change had the potential to override all other environmental and economic development gains. So we stepped back to consider the story of how the world got to this point. The story begins at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, when the world's growing use of carbon-intensive forms of energy—first coal, then fuel oil and natural gas—began to help much of the world's population dramatically improve their lives. Coupled with human ingenuity and growth of international markets, the world's use of fossil fuels unleashed unprecedented levels of well-being. Since the late 1800s, the average human lifespan has almost doubled in much of the world, and the quality of that life has...