The Violence of Climate Change: Lessons of Resistance from Nonviolent Activists

238 Pages·2017·2.712 MB·English

by  Kevin J. O'Brien

The Violence of Climate Change
Also by Kevin J. O’Brien
An Ethics of Biodiversity: Christianity, Ecology, and the Variety of Life
The Violence of
climaTe change
Lessons of ResisTanCe
fRom nonVioLenT aCTiVisTs
KeVin J. o’Brien
Georgetown University Press
Washington, DC
© 2017 Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for third- party websites or their content. URL links
were active at the time of publication.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: O’Brien, Kevin, 1977– author.
Title: The violence of climate change : lessons of resistance from nonviolent activists
/ Kevin J. O’Brien.
Description: Washington, DC : Georgetown University Press, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016033266 (print) | LCCN 2016040147 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781626164345 (hc : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781626164352 (pb : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781626164369 (eb)
Subjects: LCSH: Climatic changes—Effect of human beings on. | Climatic
changes—Social aspects. | Global warming.
Classification: LCC QC903 .O36 2017 (print) | LCC QC903 (ebook) | DDC
363.738/74—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016033266
c This book is printed on acid- free paper meeting the requirements of the American
National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
18 17 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 First printing
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design by Martyn Schmoll. Cover image by iStock.com/piyaset.
conTenTs
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Toward a Witness of Resistance 1
Part I. Climate Change and Nonviolence
1. The Wicked Problem of Climate Change 17
2. Nonviolent Resistance 40
Part II. Five Witnesses of Nonviolent resistance
3. John Woolman’s Moral Purity and Its Limits 63
4. Jane Addams and the Scales of Democracy 91
5. Dorothy Day and the Faith to Love 119
6. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Hope for an Uncertain World 146
7. Cesar Chavez and the Liberating Power of Sacrifice 172
Conclusion: What Can We Do? 197
Bibliography 207
Index 223
About the Author 229
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acKnowledgmenTs
First, thanks to five people I have never met—Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther
King Jr., Dorothy Day, Jane Addams, and John Woolman. This book seeks
to pay tribute to their lives, their thoughts, and their witnesses. I hope that
in a small way it honors them and all who carry on their legacies.
Learning ethics from historical figures would have been beyond my
capacity without the lessons of Michael Birkel, my very first professor of
religion. He taught me how to study people from the past with careful,
scholarly attention to the wisdom they offer about living well in the world.
I do not do it nearly as well as he does—and all the failings of this book
are mine alone—but I keep trying, and it is my great joy that Michael has
remained a mentor and friend for almost twenty years now. I thank him
for that, and for his most recent gift, a generous and thoughtful reading,
analysis, and critique of chapter 3.
Deep thanks also to Megan Noborikawa, who taught me a lot when
she was my student and then far more when she did a comprehensive edit
of an early draft of this book. She helped to clarify both the argument and
how it was expressed. Having such a smart and diligent former student
gives me hope for the future.
Thanks to Dan Spencer and Willis Jenkins for generous and critical
readings. Both provided assessments of this manuscript for Georgetown
University Press, helping to expand its audience and shape a far better
book. They began this work as anonymous peer reviewers, but each sub-
sequently revealed his identity and continued constructive feedback in
conversation.
Many other colleagues have been long-s tanding collaborators and
interlocutors, and I thank all the scholars who work on religious ethics and
environmental issues. Most particularly, I offer my gratitude to Jennifer
Ayres, Whitney Bauman, Trevor Bechtel, Kate Blanchard, Rick Bohannon,
viii acknowledgments
Forrest Clingerman, Sarah Fredericks, Laura Hartman, and Darryl Ste-
phens. I do not know how I would think or write without these friends.
My colleagues at Pacific Lutheran University also offer continuing sup-
port and expertise, helping to make this school a place to believe in as well
as to work. I offer particular gratitude to Agnes Choi, Suzanne Crawford
O’Brien, Seth Dowland, Tony Finitsis, Aimee Hamilton, Erik Hammer-
strom, Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen, Brian Naasz, Doug Oakman, Jason Skip-
per, Jennifer Smith, Claire Todd, Samuel Torvend, Marit Trelstad, Michael
Zbaraschuk, and Joel Zylstra.
I could not work without a range of conversation partners and inspi-
rations outside academia. I have been privileged to volunteer for the last
ten years with Earth Ministry, which draws on religious faith to nurture
positive environmental change. Thanks especially to its current and for-
mer staff members LeeAnne Beres, Jessie Dye, Jessica Zimmerle, and
Clare Josef-M aier. I am also grateful to two Christian peace communi-
ties—Agape in western Massachusetts and Corrymeela in Northern Ire-
land. Years ago, I was lucky enough to live briefly in each community, and
they have had an impact on my life ever since.
Thanks to Richard Brown of Georgetown University Press for his
help imagining this project over five years and then for encouraging me
through its completion. I also thank the book’s copyeditor, Alfred Imhoff,
its project editor, Kathryn Owens, and the rest of the staff at the press
whose efficiency and intelligence made the process a pleasure and made
the book so much better.
Finally, thanks to my family for a lifetime of unconditional support,
nurturing, teaching, and challenge. My nieces, nephews, brothers, parents,
and extended family made me who I am and keep me striving toward who
I want to be. My gratitude is furthest beyond words for two of these family
members. My wife, Mary, is the best partner I could ever hope for. Thank
you, Mary, for making life better and richer every day. My mother, Mary
Lou McCloskey, taught me what it means to live fully and for others and to
try to leave every part of the world better than I find it. I dedicate this book
to you, Mom, with thanks for all you have done and all that you are.
introduction
Toward a Witness of Resistance
Introducing his novel Slaughterhouse- Five, Kurt Vonnegut recounts a con-
versation in which someone scoffed at the idea of an “anti-w ar book,” asking
him, “Why don’t you write an anti-g lacier book instead?” Vonnegut follows
with a straightforward interpretation: “What he meant, of course was that
there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers.”1
In the 1960s Vonnegut and his critic both assumed that glaciers were
inexorable forces of nature beyond human influence. In a world increas-
ingly shaped by climate change, we know that this is not true. Near where
I write these words, the glaciers of Mount Rainier shrank by 25 percent in
the twentieth century and are shrinking even more rapidly in the twenty-
first. This means a less predictable water supply for millions of people,
raising doubts for the region’s growing population.2 A more dramatic case
of glacial decline is occurring in Antarctica, where—the National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration predicts—the West Antarctic Ice Sheet,
a continental mass that feeds numerous glaciers, will likely disappear in
coming centuries because of warming global temperatures. This will result
in rising sea levels all over the world, posing a profound long-t erm threat
to coastal communities everywhere.3
This book is about climate change, inspired partly by the fact that
glaciers—symbols of constancy and inevitability in Vonnegut’s conversa-
tion—are now rapidly shrinking because of industrial human activity.4 This
is also a book about war, asking what concerned people in the twenty- first
century can learn from the examples of five particular Christians in the
United States who responded to the violence of the eighteenth, nineteenth,
and twentieth centuries with nonviolent resistance. Using this tradition of