Minds of the Movement
An ICNC blog on the people and power of civil resistance
As the climate movement continues to make waves across the globe, Minds of the Movement contributors are diving further into a wide range of questions that readers are asking about civil resistance for environmental justice at local, national and global levels:
- How are ordinary people nonviolently nonviolently turning the heat up on decisionmakers to adhere to agreements about the climate emergency?
- Confronted with inaction among leaders, how are people leading the way toward environmental justice themselves?
- What are the most preoccupying environmental injustices that nonviolent movements are tackling today?
- What impacts are movements having on environmental problems?
Check out our series below for more on these challenging questions.
By: Yoselyn Guardado Chicas, June 21, 2023
A powerful movement for the defense and protection of water has been brewing in El Salvador for decades. Based in Suchitoto, in the department of Cuscatlán, this nonviolent struggle has many components: grassroots community organizing, large demonstrations, popular education, and hip hop music production—all typically led by peasant communities with strong women’s participation. The message of the struggle is that water is not for sale. […]
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Also available in Spanish: “Si una gota es constante, puede romper una piedra”: movimiento por el derecho al agua en El Salvador
By: Robyn Gulliver, Kelly Fielding and Winnifred R. Louis, May 11, 2022
In late 2021, Adani Corporation announced the first coal shipment from the freshly dug Carmichael Coal Mine in central Queensland, Australia. A five-year blockade encampment, the re-occupation of traditional lands on the minesite by Waddananggu Traditional Owners, and relentless fierce civil resistance by hundreds of activist groups seeking to stop the proposed mega-mine appears to have been a failure. But was it? […]
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By: Sonja Stojadinovic, February 9, 2022
For the last few months, people in the western part of Serbia near the city of Loznica have been struggling to preserve their homes and livelihoods from the invasion of lithium mining investors. This region is rich in jadarite ore from which much-demanded lithium metal is extracted (used in nearly all technology). […]
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By: Elizabeth A. Wilson, November 8, 2021
Over the last five years, groups and organizations like Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future emerged to mobilize against climate change and adopted more radical measures than the environmental movement has traditionally used. Although temporarily disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, a global nonviolent civil resistance movement is coalescing and it is clear that its leaders have been studying and drawing lessons from the field of civil resistance studies. […]
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By: Giorgi Meladze, July 7, 2021
The country of Georgia is stumbling towards local elections this autumn, against a complex backdrop of political violence and discord. Amid the disarray, a number of nonviolent campaigns for environmental protection are percolating all over the country, from small towns far from the capital of Tbilisi to the capital itself. Although some of these campaigns—“Shukruti” and “Namokhvani” to name just two of them—are successfully galvanizing support from civil society allies to counter harmful mining and damn-building activities, the road to long-term success will no doubt be a long one. […]
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By: Tom Hastings, February 11, 2020
In 2016, James Hansen, revered NASA Goddard Space Center climatologist and official who announced publicly in 1988, “Global warming has arrived,” stood next to me outside a North Dakota courtroom. The trial of Michael Foster, one of the five climate activists who became known as the Valve Turners, was happening on the other side of the door. […]
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By: Elizabeth A. Wilson, December 19, 2019
After Greta Thunberg, the social force that has drawn most attention to climate change in recent months is Extinction Rebellion (XR), a London-based environmental group committed to nonviolent civil resistance. In little more than a year, XR has seen its profile rise dramatically, owing in part to its disruptive tactics and use of art and theatre. […]
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By: Elizabeth A. Wilson, September 30, 2019
Though Greta Thunberg is not the leader of the youth climate change movement (which defines itself as leaderless), she has emerged as an eloquent spokesperson and almost singlehandedly has fashioned a powerful moral narrative for the movement. She has done so by using imagery, subconsciously resonating with pop culture, pushing social boundaries, and evoking moral authority. […]
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By: Elizabeth A. Wilson, September 17, 2019
Student climate strikers have sought to get local and national authorities to "treat the climate crisis as a crisis" by passing climate emergency declarations. The NGO Climate Mobilization now estimates that over 221 million people are represented by governmental entities that have made such declarations. This fundamental reframing work is a strategic first step in galvanizing power of ordinary citizens around the world to pressure their governments to take action.
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By: Sara Vazquez Melendez, July 26, 2019
For the past 40 years, the community of Tallaboa Encarnación, in the municipality of Peñuelas, Puerto Rico, has been the site of sustained civil resistance campaigns against environmental polluters in the area. Yet the struggle has intensified in the past few months. [...]
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By: Phil Wilmot, July 24, 2019
Uganda’s forests are disappearing at disturbing rates. After tireless but unproductive advocacy efforts, a small group of young farmers in the remote district of Amuru may have found a hack to curb deforestation with direct action. This year they’ve already impounded 27 truckloads of charcoal. [...]
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By: Oakley Hill, July 23, 2019
As the climate crisis becomes more prominent and imminent, we often look for top down change when problems so profound and systemic must also be addressed from the bottom up. Everyday citizens can slash emissions and move the planet toward environmental sustainability—especially if they leverage their power at the community and city levels. Around the world, this is already a growing reality [...]
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By: Steve Chase, August 22, 2017
A few weeks back, I sat in a movie theater watching Al Gore’s new movie about his efforts to avert climate chaos through citizen education, lobbying, and high level negotiations. The film is funny, heartbreaking, insightful, scary, and, even hopeful at times. Yet, I’m not sure that Gore fully understands what is involved [...]
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