By Tim Toben
Derrick Jensen, author of Deep Green Resistance, asks two questions: What do we want more of in our lives, and how do we get there? We’re numb to it, but I’ll say it anyway: Our culture is destroying our planet. We watch and participate in the slow poisoning of our children, fed a diet of processed food, processed news and processed education. Few children experience the natural world with the kind of intimacy that we and our parents did.
Richard Louv has dubbed the effects of that schism as “nature deficit disorder.â€Â Like Jensen, I want each year to bring more migrating songbirds and fewer incidents of dioxin in mothers’ breast milk. So how do we get there? Here also, I agree with Jensen that all options must be on the table. The mainstream environmental movement has failed to slow the industrial juggernaut that puts our planet and the children of all species in peril.
As GDP grows, ecosystem health declines. Because most of us are just trying to pay our bills and support our families, we rarely stop to examine the systemic flaws that govern our actions. The Occupy movement has shined a light on those systemic failures, and I strongly support it.
Until last year, I operated within that system. Mine was one of five local families who came together to create a model green building in Chapel Hill. We met with community organizers, ministers and neighbors, all of whom endorsed the project. We received unanimous approval by the Chapel Hill Town Council and were encouraged to proceed. We hired arguably the leading green architect in the world to design it. It would be a prototype that consumed half the energy of conventional buildings, but like every prototype, it would cost a whole lot more than the second, 50th or 500th one built. Some would not be able to afford to live there.
To finance the project, we signed a deal (aka a “construction loanâ€) with the devil (Bank of America) on July 17, 2008. Three months later, the banks, gambling our mortgages in the great Wall Street casino, tanked the U.S. economy. The federal government intervened with TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program), but instead of paying forward that largess, the banks tightened credit policy and crushed commercial projects like ours and foreclosed on families across America.
The partners of Greenbridge lost everything we invested. Last fiscal quarter, Bank of America reported a $6 billion profit – $2 billion a month.
And while the corporations usurp the wealth of communities, even the “green†movement has been co-opted by industry. The omnipresent green labels on everything from light bulbs to lawnmowers suggest that we are doing a lot to change direction, but the opposite is true. We are an industrial growth economy, driving straight toward the ecological cliff. We’ve even accelerated, over the past 10 years, from 60 to 65 mph. We have to stop buying stuff. It’s going to take a few brave souls standing in the middle of the road risking their lives to slow us down.
Two months ago, I went to Washington, D.C., and participated in the 350.org protest of the Keystone XL Pipeline outside the White House. Like others who think that pumping dirty tar sands oil over aquifers and farmland is nuts, I was arrested and taken to the Anacostia jail. It was a small act of civil disobedience, but a long way from my service on President Obama’s National Finance Committee in 2008.
It is time for direct action of every type, and it’s encouraging to see more and creative uses of civil disobedience. We are in financial, social and ecological crisis, and I’m grateful to all who are willing to take risks of every sort to fundamentally alter America’s direction.
Tim Toben is one of the developers of the Greenbridge project and a former member of the N.C. Energy Council.
Deep Green Resistance (DGR) is a movement based on the book, co-authored by Derrick Jensen, called Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet. For everyone who has been moved by Derrick’s work, DGR has a plan of action for those determined to fight for this planet-and win. This is for those who know the real world and are willing to do what it takes to protect it. It is time to take the action Tim is talking about.
Zygmunt Bauman says that rational people will go quietly, meekly, joyously into a gas chamber, if only they are allowed to believe it is a bathroom. And Ill say that rational people go quietly, meekly to the end of the world if only you’ll allow them to believe that buying energy saving bulbs is gonna save the day.
The fact is that 98% of the old growth forests are gone. 99% of of the prairies are gone. 80% of the rivers on this planet do not support life anymore. We are out of species, we are out soil, and we are out of time. And what we are being told by most of the environmental movement is that the way to stop all of this is through personal consumer choices. It’s time for a real strategy that can win.
Where is your threshold? To take only one variable out of hundreds: Ninety percent of the large fish in the oceans are already gone. Is it 91 percent? 92? 93? 94? Would you wait till they had killed off 95 percent? 96? 97? 98? 99? How about 100 percent? Would you fight back then?
How about this? If a foreign power were to do to us and our landbases what the dominant culture does – do their damnedest to turn the planet into a lifeless pile of carcinogenic wastes, and kill, incarcerate, or immiserate those who do not collaborate – we would each and every one of us – at least those of us with the slightest courage, dignity, or sense of self-preservation – fight them to the death, ours or far preferably theirs. But we don’t fight. For the most part we don’t even resist.
No more ineffective acts – piecemeal, reactive, and sad. Now this war has two sides. Learn how to join the resistance:
deepgreenresistance.org
Tim, you are spot-on with your evaluations. I observe over-consumerism every day in my work. The “gotta have it” mentality is rampant in this country. I applaud what you and your cohorts are saying and standing for. Makes me imagine someday having a museum similar to the “Holocaust Museum” where we can take our grandchildren and say “this is what the earth used to look like before the reckless destruction of life.” I hope we don’t have to visit a museum before this country and the world wakes up. Keep up the good work and I will do my best to spread these truths around.
Although I agree with much of what Mr Toben writes, I find myself a bit taken aback by his article. After forcing a big downtown development on a wisely reluctant community, the developer, having lost some of his money, now wants the town to know that he thinks the whole thing was a big mistake. Thanks a lot! The town is stuck with greenbridge forever, at least do us the favor of sticking by your convictions. Tim Toben is now free to wander around his ample remaining acreage, and the town is left with a big shadow.
Croatan Earth First is in the middle of a 4 part Deep Green Resistance reading group. The 3rd installment will be on sunday december 11th at 7pm. We will be discussing part 3: Strategy and Tactics but if you want to chat a bit about the first two sections as well we would be into that. The group is having it’s meetings at Internationalist Books 405 W. Franklin St. Chapel Hill NC.
Margie, I don’t see where Tim is making any apologies for Greenbridge, and it was certainly not forced on our community. There was a long and deliberative process (most developers think it’s too long in Chapel Hill) in which the project was analyzed by town staff, critiqued by town boards, and commented upon by local residents. This resulted in many adjustments and compromises to satisfy the town.
Much as I regret the way things have gone at Greenbridge since it was built, I still think it will be held up as a model for other similar developments are Chapel Hill (and maybe Carrboro) inevitably urbanizes.
It’s very courageous of Mr. Toben to advocate the type of action used by anarchists to protest the building of Greenbridge. Derrick Jensen’s writings were even distributed as a critique of Greenbridge .
In light of the recent raid at the Yates building, I wonder how much the anarchist’s efforts shined a light on Toben’s participation in the system. Obviously, failing can prompt one to reevaluate his life, but I’m curious if the “direct actions” against Greenbridge are somewhat responsible for his advocacy of direct action.
If the answer is “yes”, then let’s keep working on Mr. Riddle, the owner of Yates.
When I first met Tim Toben some years ago, it was clear that he had been very inspired by Thomas Berry among others and was deeply engaged in the effort to figure out a way of life more in harmony with the earth. I was pleased to see the above piece describing his path thus far from Greenbridge developer to direct action for the earth. It may not speak to those already engaged in deep green resistance but there are many others for whom Tim’s story will provide encouragement to do more.