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Colors: Where did they go? An investigation.

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If you watch a lot of movies and TV shows, you might have noticed that over the last few decades everything has gotten a lot more ... gray. No matter the kind of story being told, a sheen of cool blue or gray would wash over everything, muting the colors and providing an overall veneer of serious business.
So many TV shows and movies now have a dull filter applied to every scene, one that cuts away vibrancy and trends toward a boring sameness. Every frame’s color scheme ends up feeling the same as every other frame. And when there are so many projects using similar techniques, you end up with a world of boring visuals that don’t stand out.
The best term I’ve read for this comes from incisive film Twitter member Katie Stebbins. She calls it <a href="https://twitter.com/_katiestebbins_/status/1461348307901378561">the “intangible sludge,”</a> and her comparison of screenshots from season one of Dexter (2006) and the new Dexter limited series (2021) underlines what she means.
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for an explicit example of how the Intangible Sludge has become standardized, look no further than a season 1 dexter screencap & a dexter: new blood screencap (pls do not @ me with "but he's not in miami anymore") <a href="https://t.co/3ubAZCI32Z">pic.twitter.com/3ubAZCI32Z</a>
— Katie Stebbins (@_katiestebbins_) <a href="https://twitter.com/_katiestebbins_/status/1461348307901378561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Notice how in the first image, you can see the pinks of Michael C. Hall’s skin, the various blues of his shirt. But in the second, everything is muted. Hall’s skin is pale and even yellowish. His shirt is an indefinable blue/green/black/brown. A shadowy blandness coats everything.
The word that describes the look of that second picture is “desaturated.” Colors have been pulled way back, giving everything a slightly washed-out appearance, like in an old photograph. Desaturation is not in and of itself bad. It’s a tool that can be used poorly or used well. But why is it everywhere now?
There’s no one answer to that question, but here are my five best guesses as to what I think might be behind the endless desaturation of Hollywood.
Okay, things are about to get technical, but we’ll have some fun along the way. Promise.
From the dawn of color film, color timing has been an important part of moviemaking. (“Color timing” is more colloquially known as “color correction,” but people who actually work in the field don’t view it as “correction.”) When you’re filming something over multiple weeks or months, you might be piecing together a scene or sequence from bits and pieces shot over multiple days. The light might not match, or the leaves on the trees might not be the same shade of green. And if things don’t match, we’ll notice almost immediately on a subconscious level.
Hence: color timing. For most of the history of film, color correction was achieved physically, via chemicals applied to film negatives in a lab.
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While darkness has leached into so many movies and TV shows, HBO’s Station Eleven is rich with color. Its post-apocalypse is verdantly green. Emily VanDerWerff talks to showrunner Patrick Somerville and others from the show’s production team about why they bucked this trend.
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And pretty soon, filmmakers figured out that you could use these sorts of color shifts — whether they were created on set or in the lab — to guide an audience emotionally through a film. Cutting between scenes with wildly different color schemes could even provoke certain responses within viewers.
“It’s not just the color in any given scene. It’s how that color bumps up against the scene, that’s before and after it,” said Steve Cosens, one of the directors of photography on the new HBO Max miniseries Station Eleven. “There’s color latency. If your eye is looking at a scene, and it’s so warm that when you go to the next scene, your eye is automatically going to compensate, and it’s going to make it cooler.”
In the late 1990s, it became possible to digitally scan film negatives in a way that allowed people who would eventually become known as digital imaging technicians (henceforth a DIT) to manipulate the properties of the image. The first film to have its run scanned for this sort of manipulation was the 1998 movie Pleasantville. In that movie, two ’90s teenagers are sucked into a black-and-white 1950s sitcom world, and as they introduce things like sex and literature and weather (yes, somehow they introduce weather), elements of the town burst into color. The entire film was shot in color, then digitally converted to black and white, with a handful of elements kept in color for effect.
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At the time, this was treated as hugely groundbreaking filmmaking, but <a href="https://variety.com/1998/digital/news/cinesite-breaks-f-x-ground-in-digitized-pleasantville-1117481759/">the articles written about it in 1998</a> undersell how ubiquitous these techniques would become.
The first movie to use digital color manipulation in the way we’d think of it today — i.e., shifting the colors within a film image to meet a digitally achieved palette — is generally considered to be the 2000 Coen brothers’ Great Depression picaresque O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins knew that the Coens wanted the film to have a Dust Bowl tinge, but he also knew that the film would shoot in Mississippi in the summer, which would mean lots of lush greenery. To tilt the picture more toward the yellow sepia tone the Coens wanted, he initially thought about applying physical filters to the lens. But he found that process limiting and decided to turn to a company called Cinesite — which had just broken new ground with its work on the 1998 film Pleasantville.
The results are striking. Watch O Brother, Where Art Thou? and you will never know it was filmed in a lush, green Mississippi summer. It looks dried out and beaten to hell. Deakins and the Cinesite folks talk about that process in the following video (which is really worth a watch if you want to get into the weeds on all of this).
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“O Brother, Where Art Thou? showed how color grading could be used in much more subtle ways. In this case, the palette of neutrals and brown tones was subtle and desaturated,” said Dr. Jennifer O’Meara, a film professor at Trinity College Dublin, who has studied digital film coloring techniques extensively. “Notably, Deakins worked collaboratively with the colorist, Julius Friede. The specifics of their working arrangement helped to reduce fears among cinematographers that postproduction color editing would take the creative control of a film’s image track away from those who shot it.”
In 2022, nearly every movie and TV show has a dedicated DIT who works with the cinematographer and the director to figure out what an image might look like after it’s been run through a series of digital filters. As with so many technologies in film history — from hand coloring to Technicolor — a handful of pioneers showed what was possible, O’Meara explains, and then everybody else got on board.
“It usually takes some overt demonstrations of new color processes in action to make them look appealing enough for more filmmakers to invest the time and money required to use them,” O’Meara said.
Now, cinematographers and others on a film’s production team have to know how to work with these digital processes.
Digital color timing “really is like painting,” Cosens said. “If you lit a scene with a neutral white light, and if there are blue couches in that scene, you can grab that blue and swing it to be a slightly more purple blue, or you could swing it to be a slightly more green blue.”
Digital techniques are ubiquitous in modern Hollywood. Many projects go to set with something called a “look-up table” (henceforth a LUT), which is a formula that nearly instantly manipulates the raw footage captured on set and allows anyone involved in production to see what that footage might look like once it’s been manipulated digitally. The LUT usually features some version of the color palette everyone has agreed to aim for, but it’s not the final image, and many productions only use it as a rough starting point.
But if you see the image as produced by the LUT and say, “Hey, that seems pretty neat!” then you might not bother to shift things very much at all. After all, working to painstakingly control just how much your eye is working to follow shifts between scenes is tricky stuff. If you have an all-purpose visual presentation you can just sort of apply to every scene in a movie or show, hey, then you don’t have to worry about latency. You can just do whatever.
“When digital colorists are making changes it is much easier and quicker to make what are called global color changes, where groups of pixels with the same pixel values are all changed in the same way at once, much as different color filters work on platforms like Instagram,” O’Meara said.
Now imagine that idea extrapolated to the most popular film franchise on the planet. And as YouTube essayist Patrick H. Willems argues persuasively below, Marvel movies are among the worst offenders in terms of dull, uniform color grading.
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So, okay. You have the technology. Now what do you want to use that technology to make your movie look like?
The rise of digital coloring techniques occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it’s worth looking at the predominant trends in what the biggest movies at that time looked like. And what’s notable about the late 1990s, especially, is that they’re full of films that have a dark, slightly grimy aesthetic. Yes, movies drenched in shadow have existed for decades — see <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/BigComboTrailer.jpg/300px-BigComboTrailer.jpg">any given film noir</a> or <a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYWNlN2U4YjQtMzI3NC00ZjkxLWEwMTItYWRlNDUxYTYwYjVlXkEyXkFqcGdeQWpvaG5oYXJ0._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,0,500,281_.jpg" has-subtag="true" data-cdata='{"rewritten_url":"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYWNlN2U4YjQtMzI3NC00ZjkxLWEwMTItYWRlNDUxYTYwYjVlXkEyXkFqcGdeQWpvaG5oYXJ0._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,0,500,281_.jpg?ascsubtag=[]vx[p]22604567[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]r-placeholder[d]d-placeholder","subtag_max_length":99,"subtag_delim_length":2,"subtag_key":"ascsubtag","subtag_data":{"ascsubtag":"[]vx[p]22604567[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]r-placeholder[d]d-placeholder"},"encode_subtag":false}'>The Godfather</a>. But in the ’90s, movies like <a href="https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/602f12b0af46098bc52fce33/master/w_2000,h_1119,c_limit/VF1321_Foster_Hopkins_Embed02.jpg">The Silence of the Lambs</a> (1991) and <a href="https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/5YeLLCDGjktTZ73PkqxVKT-1200-80.jpg">Se7en</a> (1995) created hugely influential color palettes streaked with darkness.
But if I’m looking for the film that boiled these trends already building in the 1990s into one single aesthetic, right on the cusp of the digital coloring revolution, I’d point to 1999’s The Matrix. In fact, look at this clip and tell me you can’t see the path that gets us to that Dexter screenshot above.
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I want to be clear: This Matrix scene is really well-handled in terms of color and lighting. Key lights hit Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne just right to let us see just enough of their faces to read their performances. When the red and blue pill appear, the colors pop against the slightly desaturated look of everything else, but there are subtle hints of color here and there throughout, like the chair Fishburne sits in, which is a cool red.
What’s more, the aesthetics of this scene and the original Matrix trilogy more generally reflect the predominant visual aesthetic of onscreen computers at the time. The famous trickles of green symbols raining down a black screen are reflected in the film itself, which is bathed in the eerie digital green light of the fictional Matrix.
“The first Matrix was very stylized, and every almost every scene was a small vignette on its own in a particular color way. Green was the color of the Matrix, and blue was the color of the real world,” said Peter Walpole, the production designer of The Matrix Resurrections, the fourth film in the franchise. “It is very specific in that first film, and it works incredibly well. It enhances the overall art and design of the film, whether it’s coming from the Wachowskis or the people who lit and designed it.”
It’s not hard to imagine a filmmaker seeing the above clip, however, and not grasping all of the ways directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski kept the whole scene from becoming too dour. The history of art is visionaries coming up with new ways of creating, then a whole bunch of people trying to blatantly copy what they did but missing the part where the original was so arresting because it felt like nothing else out there. Trends get watered down into thin gruel.
And the same goes for other terrific visual stylists of the 21st century who like to play on the monochromatic side of things. Christopher Nolan’s movies, for instance, have a sturdy machismo rooted in a look that <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/tenet-2.png">perpetually mimics an overcast day</a>. Nolan knows exactly what he’s going for; his many imitators miss the point.
The Wachowski sisters themselves have mostly made <a href="https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/2021/08/04/6f88eb20-d69e-46a9-80f4-04f1a8f8dd55/speed-racer-movie-1270401.jpg">bright, colorful movies</a> since they left the initial Matrix behind. In fact, look at this clip from The Matrix Resurrections, the recently released fourth film in the series, directed by Lana Wachowski.
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Watch this clip, and it’s full of color. The rich red and blue that was present only in the pills in the clip from the first film is everywhere here. One character’s hair is blue, and the seats on the train are red. The walls of the train are light blue; the cherry trees the train passes through outside are pink. The prevalence of blue throughout actually tugs the dark stocking hat Reeves wears from black toward navy, because our eyes like to make colors bleed into each other.
“I asked [Lana Wachowski] how much we were going to keep the first movies as a reference, and she said, ‘Our movie is a different movie. Don’t worry about it,’” Resurrections cinematographer Daniele Massaccesi said. He added that the green and gray look of the original made sense in 1999, but not so much in 2021. “Sometimes, you look at a photo on a computer, and it’s even more colorful and real than the real thing. So we decided to go even further and keep all those colors.”
Walpole confirmed to me that the choice to work in references to blue and red was deliberate, but he also said that it created some tricky decisions here and there, because red can be a distracting color that’s too vibrant on screen.
“Red can make reference to love or passion or violence and danger. But it’s also a very good block color,” so it can be used to create interesting contrasts with other colors in a scene, Walpole said. “I actually used it in [Neo’s] apartment. His apartment is quite masculine because he lives on his own. There’s lots of gray and charcoal. There’s lots of wood. But we did one small wall in this very dark, deep red, and it almost was a subliminal message” about the nature of the movie’s reality.
So, okay, the people who make the Matrix movies are moving away from the hugely influential visual style of that first film. Why isn’t everybody else?
Check out this action scene from the 2004 movie Collateral.
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You’ll notice that the overall aesthetic of this scene is vaguely similar to the washed-out look that is so common in movies today. But it’s also not quite capable of pulling off that look. The reason for that is simple: This is one of the first big-budget movies ever shot entirely on a digital camera, and the digital cameras of the time worked great in low-light environments but also tended to flatten the entire image in a way that more or less tugged the entire picture toward the darkest pixels within it.
Now, Collateral doesn’t have particularly flat images, but you can hopefully still see how the clip above is trying to have a moody, grimy, washed-out feeling and struggling to do so. The camera keeps pulling out pops of color almost without trying. And that’s in a film made by director Michael Mann, one of the greatest filmmakers out there at knowing exactly how to create precise images to achieve certain effects.
When people who weren’t as good as Mann at getting exactly the images they wanted up on screen were behind the camera, a lot of early digital filmmaking looked garish and a little weird, with colors that seemed spattered onto the screen almost at random.
This period is part of filmmaking history that I had largely forgotten about, because it was a relatively brief chunk of time — roughly the last half of the 2000s. But cinematographer Christian Sprenger, who shot the mesmerizing Station Eleven, persuasively argued that that period of time caused a mini-backlash that coincided with the trend toward darker visuals in general and got us here.
“When digital cameras showed up, they naturally had more saturation and more pop to them. For a while there, everything we saw was super-saturated, and super-poppy. If you go to Best Buy to buy a television, you’re looking at these incredible color demos of the most colorful colors possible,” Sprenger said. “I think a lot of filmmakers almost see that as an antithesis to cinema. If you really look back on a lot of cinema history, a lot of things are not overly colorful and saturated like that. So I think people are pulling that back to try to make digital a little bit more like film.”
It’s an idea echoed by Gina Gonzalez, a co-producer heading up post-production on Station Eleven, who points out that one of the most common places to find hyper-saturated colors right now is in commercials. And no movie wants to feel like a commercial.
“Let’s use a Target commercial as an example,” Gonzalez said. “Yes, those commercials have a red that is in your face because of the logo. But all of the other colors that they choose are very poppy, and they make you excited.” They make you, in short, want to go shopping.
So if brighter colors are subconsciously associated with advertising (and advertising has always loved a bright color), then it stands to reason that duller colors are meant for serious business. And this is an age of stories about serious business.
My secret belief is that when we talk about the intangible sludge, what we’re really talking about is the way that the blockbuster mentality has taken over everything. If you go digging around in the worlds of film and television, there are plenty of examples of movies that use color in fascinating ways. Ari Aster’s horror movie Midsommar is <a href="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5d23b6746157520008b1d877/master/pass/Brody-Midsommar.jpg">a feast of cool color ideas</a>, and the Netflix hit Squid Game is rife with <a href="https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SquidGame_Unit_103_1195.jpg">bright and poppy visuals</a>. But both of those projects were produced on a smaller scale than, say, a superhero movie.
And within superhero movies, less vibrant colors are king, with <a href="https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2018/12/21/spiderverse_bac348.1059_lm_v1-1-_wide-3caeb61b0f0aebf37354f0b0f8efd2ec431b21a7-s1100-c50.jpg">a handful of exceptions</a>.
The irony of this genre being based on characters from comic books, who were so often portrayed using <a href="https://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/simonandkirby/archives/tag/comic-book-colorists">the brightest and vibrant colors imaginable</a>, is worth nodding toward. But I think the cinematic superhero’s descent toward intangible sludge has something to do with how often these stories have enormous, potentially world-ending stakes. If every time a superhero suits up, they have to save not just this universe but many of them, then the story becomes one about the end of the world. And we think the end of the world looks like this:
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Our vision of the world’s end is heavily influenced by the post-nuclear war stories of the mid-20th century, which took place in a gray, barren landscape where low-hanging clouds blocked out the sun. (Incidentally, The Matrix takes place in a post-nuclear-war reality.) That notion of the end of things is, yeah, what everything would look like after a nuclear war, but it’s so all-pervasive that basically every post-apocalypse looks like that now.
Not all post-apocalypses have that gray, washed-out look (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4Lpr1sqKbQ">hello, Mad Max: Fury Road!</a>), but enough of them do that we’ve come to associate that washed-out look with the enormous stakes of the world ending. So if you’re telling a lot of stories where the world might end, then desaturation will be your go-to cinematic tool.
But there are other ways to tell these stories. <a href="https://www.vox.com/e/22636388">the new HBO Max series Station Eleven</a> makes the post-apocalypse lush, green, and beautiful, for instance. The series’ color palette deliberately made use of rich reds, blues, and greens, and the post-production digital color work actually tugged the colors toward richer, more saturated hues.
“In many ways, we were trying to invert the post-apocalyptic genre,” said Station Eleven creator and showrunner Patrick Somerville. “Quiet, big, expansive, beautiful, green. Not destroyed. Just still.”
Yet even if stories about the end of the world can take a turn toward the colorful, the tendency to make the post-apocalypse gray and washed out will probably never stop being the primary way we present these tales. In an era where we seemingly meet a new potential apocalypse every day, our post-apocalyptic go-to visuals have trickled down into almost any story that wants us to take it seriously.
The new Dexter (which, I should say, is pretty good!) is about the ways in which our pasts are inescapable, and something like Netflix’s crime drama Ozark presents each and every bad choice its characters make as a potentially catastrophic event. The post-apocalypse isn’t the only reason we associate grays with serious business — the dark shadowy vibe pops up in visual art throughout human history. But with the end of the world lurking around every corner, it’s not hard to see why the post-apocalypse would become a visual shorthand for things getting serious.
So all of those answers make sense of both how we got to the world of the intangible sludge and how we might be finding our way out of it. But there’s one other answer worth considering: how these techniques intersect with digital visual effects. And to talk about that, we have to head back 20 years to some enormously influential films.
The more I worked on this article, the more I started to think that it might answer one of the long-standing questions that I have always had about three movies I love: Why do the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings movies have a slightly different color grade from the theatrical editions?
Fans of the series first noticed this in November 2002, when the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring arrived in stores. The theatrical edition (released in December 2001) was lush and colorful, and the extended edition, which added new footage to the film, had just a slight turn toward desaturation. That disparity has continued to be true, right up until new Blu-ray remasters of the films were released in 2020. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSPRGt63M0w">Here’s a good visual comparison</a> of the two editions from a DIY color grader trying to tug the look of the extended editions closer to the theatrical editions.
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The Lord of the Rings movies are full of computer-generated visual effects, which by and large still stand up to scrutiny. But the effects in the theatrical edition received a time and attention that the ones in the extended editions just could not receive in a similar fashion, since they were for a fans-only direct-to-DVD project.
One truism of computer effects is that it’s easier to hide their seams if you are placing them in a dark or rainy environment. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkqmzZWs2XA">T. rex attack in Jurassic Park</a>, for instance, is the first time I was ever unaware a visual effects sequence had been created in a computer. And the T. rex shows up when it’s both dark and rainy. But if you don’t have a scene set in the dark or in the rain, is there a way to perhaps achieve some of the same effect without having to, say, create an artificial night? There sure is if you can toss a desaturated digital color grade over everything! And, indeed, such a color grade can help make computer effects look a little less like they live in the uncanny valley.
“If you have a visual effect that is sharp, and you know you’re going to apply a desaturated look to it, you also know that it’s okay that it’s going to be that sharp, coming out of the VFX vendor, because you know, there’s going to be some softness added to it through the color process,” Gonzalez said.
To be clear: This is an Emily VanDerWerff theory. Nobody I talked to told me The Lord of the Rings extended editions are patient zero for this particular trend. But if you look at the timeline and the influence of these films, it certainly seems possible. And at the very least, the use of digital color grading to hide the seams of more obvious computerized effects feels persuasive to me.
In the end, though, there is no one answer to the question of why desaturation is everywhere. I’ve left even more possible answers out of this article (like the rise of LED lighting). Even so, I’m glad at least some productions are realizing the intangible sludge has become a cliché.
“Our responsiveness to color can be very strong and goes back to early childhood, when babies develop their color vision within the first year of life and bright, particularly primary colors begin to grab their attention,” said O’Meara. “People often pay close attention to color in everyday life, with strong preferences for particular shades when it comes to clothing, physical appearance, décor, and so on. This same kind of responsiveness to color can make its way to film viewing, particularly when color is used in an expressive way by filmmakers.”
So if color can create such potent emotions in viewers, why are so many filmmakers leaving that tool in their toolbox and just doing what everybody else is? C’mon, Hollywood. Not everything has to look like it was filmed in a sink.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22840526/colors-movies-tv-gray-digital-color-sludge">https://www.vox.com/culture/22840526/colors-movies-tv-gray-digital-color-sludge</a>

vox Colors: Where did they go? An investigation.

If you watch a lot of movies and TV shows, you might have noticed that over the last few decades everything has gotten a lot more ... gray....

WATCH: Anti-vaccine passport protesters pelt MP with seaweed

Protesters from the French overseas constituency of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon threw fistfuls of seaweed at their representative of the national parliament, angry over the vaccine mandate. The attack was condemned by politicians.
The heated confrontation took place on Sunday in France’s islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon in the western Atlantic. People unhappy with the government’s anti-Covid-19 policies and the introduction of the vaccine mandate gathered outside the home of Stephane Claireaux. The MP has been representing the constituency since 2014.
At one point the politician, who came out to speak to the crowd, was pelted with seaweed by the jeering demonstrators, footage of the incident shown. Annick Girardin, who held Claireaux’s seat in the National Assembly before joining the cabinet, denounced the incident, calling it “unacceptable.” 
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L'agression de Stéphane Claireaux à son propre domicile lors de la manifestation contre le passe sanitaire est absolument inacceptable. Les images sont profondément choquantes. <a href="https://t.co/S4ttQF2WTG">pic.twitter.com/S4ttQF2WTG</a>
— Annick Girardin (@AnnickGirardin) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnnickGirardin/status/1480270903736942596?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2022</a></blockquote>
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“This is not how we conduct the debate of ideas. I give my full support to the MP, who suffered a serious assault in front of his own family,” she wrote on Twitter, after sharing the video.
Similar reactions came from President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand, who said his fellow legislator faced “intolerable aggression” at his home, and Minister of the Overseas Sebastien Lecornu, who described the incident as “deeply shocking.” Several public figures demanded that local authorities ensure the safety of the MP and his family.
A condemnation “without reservation” was also <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.facebook.com/artano.stephane/posts/10226987147375430" target="_blank">expressed</a> by Stephane Artano, the senator from Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, whom Girardin called out for fanning anti-vaccine sentiment and criticizing Claireaux’s support of the mandate. In a statement, he said he only endorsed peaceful protests and that any abuse of a politician, who may have ideas one disagrees with, was against democracy.
<div class="toRI1Ksp"><a href="https://www.infowarsstore.com/specials-clearance/new-years-super-special?ims=cuzeh&utm_campaign=heronewyear&utm_source=Infowars+Hero&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=heronewyear" target="_blank"><img src="https://api.directus.libertycdn.com/uploads/_/originals/InfowarsNewyearsSpecial-hero-385.jpg" /></a></div>
The protest in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon was part of a nationwide pushback against the mandate passed last week by the National Assembly, which would replace “health passports” with “vaccine passports” in France, making regular vaccinations effectively necessary to participate in public life. President Emmanuel Macron stated the imminent law was designed to “piss off” vaccine refuseniks. 
Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon is a small French overseas territory located just south of Canada’s Newfoundland and Labrador. It has about 6,000 residents, most of whom live in two communes. Since mid-November, the archipelago has reported a surge in Covid-19 infections.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/watch-anti-vaccine-passport-protesters-pelt-mp-with-seaweed">https://www.infowars.com/posts/watch-anti-vaccine-passport-protesters-pelt-mp-with-seaweed</a>

news WATCH: Anti-vaccine passport protesters pelt MP with seaweed

Protesters from the French overseas constituency of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon threw fistfuls of seaweed at their representative of the nation...

Time is running out. Here’s how the climate movement can level up.

On an unusually warm, clear day in late September, a dozen progressive activists paddled their kayaks and boats up to to a houseboat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) keeps parked on the Potomac in Washington, DC. For four days, they had been floating around the West Virginia-themed boat named “Almost Heaven” with colorful signs, calling on him to support Build Back Better, the most critical piece of climate legislation considered by Congress in over a decade. Apparently unmoved by their “We want to live” chant, Manchin finally leaned over the railing to acknowledge their presence and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/10/01/joe-manchin-kayak-protest-orig-vf.cnn">talk for a moment</a>.
The bird-dogging campaign to try to change Manchin’s position on Build Back Better was one of the most visible moments of climate protest in 2021, another pandemic year that forced activists to get even more creative. So far, those who targeted Manchin have managed only to get under his skin; he <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/schumer-plans-build-back-better-vote-next-year-11640020897?reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter">claimed</a> the White House was using them to bully him into voting yes on the bill when he announced he couldn’t support it on December 19. (The activists were representing the <a href="https://twitter.com/CPDAction/status/1443732470294360068?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">Center for Popular Democracy and other advocacy groups</a>.) Since then, Manchin has <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/588479-climate-advocates-hopeful-after-manchin-spending-comments">softened</a> his criticism of Build Back Better’s climate provisions — including his objections to a methane emissions fee and tax credits for union-made electric vehicles — though it’s not clear yet if Democrats will reach a deal on the larger, roughly $1.75 trillion bill.
But the houseboat confrontation was only the tip of the iceberg of a movement that in 2021 became more decentralized and far-reaching, fighting on dozens of fronts. With the goal of slashing fossil fuel reliance and creating a cleaner, fairer future, high schoolers’ student strikes expanded, the college divestment movement grew, and racial justice organizers sank major gas terminals and pipeline projects through lawsuits and public opposition.
Climate organizers are “trying every possible permutation of what we can do,” observed longtime climate activist and journalist Bill McKibben.
But even as the climate movement finds new recruits and builds political momentum, the one thing it seriously lacks is time. If Democrats can’t find the votes for the climate provisions in Build Back Better, then the country misses its best opportunity to marshal the federal government’s power to meaningfully rein in carbon emissions. Even if the federal government steps up, states, cities, and corporations will be just as essential to contributing larger pollution cuts to move the world toward its incredibly ambitious deadline to slash global pollution <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/">in half by 2030</a>. The US might not have another opportunity to make a difference before the world warms to a calamitous level.
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<figcaption>Environmentalist groups rally outside the Capitol on the fifth day of “People vs. Fossil Fuels” protests in Washington, DC, on October 15, 2021.</figcaption>
<cite>Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</cite></figure>
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To beat the clock on climate change, some activists believe they’ll win by refining what the movement is already doing. By finding new levers to push, and new age groups to attract, the movement would build on the momentum of what’s already working to change entrenched institutions.
But others think it’s time for a new movement entirely. That includes <a href="https://www.climateemergencyfund.org/margaret-klein-salamon">Margaret Klein Salamon</a>, executive director of the Climate Emergency Fund, a group that’s funding a more aggressive strain of organizing that conveys climate change as a house-on-fire-style emergency requiring more direct action now.
“What we need to do if we have a shot in hell on climate is fight for our lives, and make it clear we’re fighting for our lives,” Salamon said. “That’s a different movement” from what she sees today.
Some of these strategies will clash, and some could even threaten the movement’s unity. But the risks could also be worth it: The stakes are higher than ever to snap the US out of apathy and inertia while the whole world barrels toward worsening climate change.
There’s much more happening in climate organizing than trailing Manchin around Washington. Racial justice advocates have used key laws to stop new permits for fossil fuel infrastructure. Activists have worked to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/climate-activists-urge-blackrock-vanguard-vote-against-exxon-directors-2021-05-04/">cut investor</a> ties to fossil fuels, have <a href="https://www.vox.com/22455347/exxon-board-shell-oil-news-chevron-engine-no-one">infiltrated the boardroom</a>, and have won a handful of global <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-26/shell-loses-climate-case-that-may-set-precedent-for-oil-industry">courtroom victories</a>. These wins have had one big thing in common: The campaigns have found leverage in otherwise intractable, slow-moving institutions.
Many of these campaigns have relied on a mix of pressing for change from the outside and reforming financial and government bodies from within. After the 2018 midterm elections, the Sunrise Movement proved how effective raising hell can be in pushing for change. The then-new group helped to tap into a national network of young organizers to stage sit-ins and protests in the US Capitol staged weeks after the 2018 midterm election.
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<figcaption>Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) rallies young climate activists, organized by the Sunrise Movement, in front of the White House in June to demand that President Joe Biden work to make the Green New Deal into law.</figcaption>
<cite>Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</cite></figure>
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<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/12/climate-change-is-finally-having-a-political-moment-thats-no-accident/">Relying on a mostly digital strategy</a> to train their recruits for in-person action, Sunrise helped sustain pressure on Democratic leaders and presidential candidates. The avalanche of pressure led to Biden releasing the most comprehensive plan any incoming president had ever had for the climate crisis — a plan that still hinges on Manchin’s vote to enact legislation for clean electricity and electric vehicles.
But raising hell often takes other, quieter forms. In the first year of the Biden administration, another long-simmering campaign to change the financial sector’s relationship with fossil fuels showed it could gain some serious ground. In the 2010s, college students provided the original model for divestment campaigns, urging their institutions to stop investing endowments in fossil fuel companies. Once seen as a long-shot campaign, the divestment movement reached a new milestone in October, after <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/10/1035901596/harvard-university-end-investment-fossil-fuel-industry-climate-change-activism">Harvard University</a> and one of the world’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/26/abp-pension-fund-to-stop-investing-in-fossil-fuels-amid-climate-fears">largest pension funds</a> and others pledged to divest <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opinion/climate-change-divestment-fossil-fuels.html">$40 trillion</a> in global assets.
Other smaller campaigns have grown into a strong political force that in 2021 flexed to stop new investments in fossil fuel exploration and projects. Climate activists have applied the same balance of pressure from the outside, for example, by demanding Treasury Department regulations forcing bank disclosures on Big Oil loans. And they have balanced this pressure with takeovers from the inside, succeeding with a coup last spring when a climate-focused hedge fund, Engine No. 1, gained three seats on ExxonMobil’s board.
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<figcaption>Bill McKibben speaks on the opening evening of COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 31, 2021, for Pathway to Paris, a US-based organization working to realize the Paris climate agreement.</figcaption>
<cite>Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns</cite></figure>
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The next stage for activists is finding new pressure points that build on this momentum. Longtime climate activist Bill McKibben, a cofounder of the grassroots group <a href="http://350.org/">350.org</a>, predicts one of those pressure points will be involving more older Americans to lobby financial institutions to cut ties from fossil fuel investments.
In November, McKibben <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/leading-climate-change-activist-looks-to-mobilize-older-americans-204334958.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr">launched a new group called</a> <a href="https://thirdact.org/">Third Act</a> to attract older Americans to climate activism, making the case that they owe it to the young to take action and should use their financial influence to pressure companies. Baby boomers wield a lot of power politically and financially, controlling more than half of the country’s household wealth to millennials’ 6 percent, according to <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/#quarter:119;series:Net%20worth;demog%5B%E2%80%A6%5Dneration;population:all;units:shares">federal data</a>. They’re hard hit by climate change, too: Heat waves are the deadliest natural disaster and are especially deadly for older adults.
Some fights are more local. “There’s really a fossil fuel fight in almost every community, certainly in every region,” said Janet Redman, Greenpeace’s US climate campaign director.
Climate activists have slowed down construction by raising hell over specific projects: After years of delays, PennEast, the developers of the 116-mile pipeline project to carry natural gas from Pennsylvania into New Jersey, <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2021/09/27/penneast-calls-it-quits-after-a-years-long-fight-to-build-a-gas-pipeline-1391442">abandoned</a> the project in September. Groups like Sierra Club and Greenpeace have promised to continue their fight into 2022 against 20 proposed gas export facilities <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-be-worlds-biggest-lng-exporter-2022-2021-12-21/">poised</a> to make the US the biggest gas exporter in the world.
A key obstacle to reaching critical mass has long been environmentalism’s reputation as a “Birkenstock movement,” observes Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president of the advocacy group Hip Hop Caucus. Yearwood criticizes the overly white makeup of staff and volunteers who’ve historically dominated national green groups and have been less focused on battling racism and pollution, while Black, Brown, and Indigenous people have long linked racial justice to battling back fossil fuel infrastructure.
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<figcaption>Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president of the Hip Hop Caucus, speaks about funding climate change legislation outside the US Capitol on October 7, 2021.</figcaption>
<cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite></figure>
A focus on racial justice in halting fossil fuels can be a “galvanizing tool,” according to Yearwood. “It helps to get the movement focused on why they need to push back against this pipeline or project.”
This year, the Louisiana St. James Parish community, through local groups like Rise St. James, successfully <a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-environment-and-nature-environment-army-fe541fd9f9f0239c6fc728cc2751eb88">delayed a permit</a> for a $9.4 billion Formosa chemical plant planned by the Mississippi River, pending a full environmental review. Local groups argued in a brief that the pollution would harm the residents nearby and the plant would be built on Black burial grounds. “A lot of these petrochemical companies are looking to build on former plantations, almost like a digging in the eye. It’s a disregard for Indigenous, Black, or Brown communities,” Yearwood, a Louisiana native, said.
Yearwood saw a parallel to how Indigenous rights activists <a href="https://www.minnpost.com/environment/2021/11/the-line-3-replacement-has-been-completed-and-operating-for-months-so-why-are-activists-still-camped-out-by-the-construction-sites/">fought back</a> against Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline carrying oil from North Dakota to Minnesota, which completed its construction this year. A resistance camp has been operating there for months despite construction being over, monitoring for leaks and staying ready to assist the nearby protest of another nearby pipeline replacement, <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/11/08/white-house-confirms-reviewing-impact-line-5-shutdown/6342914001/">Line 5</a>.
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<figcaption>Police in riot gear arrest environmental activists at the Line 3 pipeline pumping station near Itasca State Park in Minnesota on June 7, 2021.</figcaption>
<cite>Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images</cite></figure>
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Tara Houska, attorney and Indigenous activist, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1007805657/indigenous-activist-on-why-groups-are-protesting-the-line-3-pipeline-in-minnesot">told</a> NPR in June that these fights represented “an incredible groundswell of young people in particular and Indigenous, Black, BIPOC folks who are out risking personal freedom and their bodies on the line to stop this horrible project from exacerbating climate crisis and disrespecting tribal sovereignty yet again in the history of this country.”
Working through the legal, financial, and political system is slow, frustrating work. There are usually more losses than victories. Activists have found success through these traditional lanes, but this kind of change doesn’t necessarily move fast enough.
Swedish teen Greta Thunberg has become the most famous voice of a growing climate emergency movement. Her goal is to draw attention to the irrationality of acting as if everything is fine when there is assured destruction ahead from climate change. “In an emergency, someone needs to say that we’re heading towards the cliff,” she said in a December 2021 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/12/27/greta-thunberg-state-climate-movement-roots-her-power-an-activist/">interview</a> with the Washington Post Magazine. “And everyone is just following, saying like, ‘Well, no one else is turning around, so I won’t either.’”
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<figcaption>Climate activist Greta Thunberg delivers a speech during a Fridays for Future demonstration in Milan, Italy, on October 1, 2021.</figcaption>
<cite>Matteo Rossetti/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images</cite></figure>
Margaret Klein Salamon and the Climate Emergency Fund she leads are supporting organizers who match this rhetoric. She sees the strategies of groups like Extinction Rebellion, Friday for Future school strikers, and the Sunrise Movement as distinct “from the gradualist, institutionalized environmental and climate movement that has been dominant for decades. The climate emergency movement says what do we need to achieve to avoid an apocalypse.”
The kind of activism that fits this vision, Salamon argues, is more aggressive direct action that could run the gamut from hunger strikes to blockades of streets and pipelines to workplace strikes. Though not common in the US, Extinction Rebellion has staged blockades of pipelines and Amazon warehouses in the UK.
Salamon wonders what that looks like if more US activists adopted similar strategies. That would mean more worker strikes, like what Amazon’s tech workforce <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-walk-out-to-protest-climate-change-2019-9#:~:text=and%20Privacy%20Policy.-,More%20than%201%2C500%20Amazon%20employees%20are%20expected%20to%20walk%20out,action%20to%20combat%20climate%20change.">did in 2019</a> for a climate protest.
In November, several Sunrise Movement members participated in the first US climate hunger strike: Kidus Girma was one of the four who gave up food for two weeks and sat outside the White House to draw attention to Biden’s continued fossil fuel leasing, posing the question whether Democrats like Biden and Manchin really do care about his life. His goal wasn’t to win over Manchin: “I’m speaking to Americans and people around the world about what kind of world do we want to create,” Girma said in an interview with Vox.
Just as divestment campaigns and battles against pipelines had many detractors before they gained momentum, observers now question whether tactics like hunger strikes are too polarizing to be useful in the United States. “You want a range of tactics all working toward the same goal, but it also can end up splintering and causing fissures within the movement,” said University of Maryland sociologist Dana Fisher, who studies environmental protest movements. “You end up with these camps within the climate movement: the sellouts who are willing to put on a suit and go inside, versus those outside, yelling about a capitalist system.”
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<figcaption>Climate activists set off smoke after scaling the US Chamber of Commerce building in Washington, DC, on October 14, 2021. Extinction Rebellion led the rally, claiming the business lobbying group denies climate change and puts corporate profit ahead of the health and well-being of the planet.</figcaption>
<cite>Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</cite></figure>
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“In the end, it’s not going to stop an oil and gas lease or to shift this huge oil tanker that is the United States away from all of its reliance on fossil fuels in the kind of time that’s needed,” said Fisher.
Fisher’s skepticism stems from concern that a blockade or hunger strike won’t win the next election, while targeted voter outreach might. She fears that the more radical the tactic, the more divided the public becomes on addressing climate change. Instead of seeing Democratic politicians trying to appeal to climate voters, they could consider it a liability should it become too polarizing.
The lightning rod that sociologists like Fisher worry most about is the use of property destruction and perhaps even violence.
The climate movement has closely followed the tenets of nonviolent protest. Leaders regularly cite inspiration from the civil rights-era nonviolence, and the sit-ins and mass protests mirror similar strategies. But it isn’t a given any movement will remain that way.
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<figcaption>Students take part in a Fridays for Future climate strike demonstration in Glasgow, Scotland, on September 24, 2021.</figcaption>
<cite>Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images</cite></figure>
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Already a few prominent scholars have argued that protesters should target property and fossil fuel infrastructure to deliver a global wake-up call. Swedish ecologist Andreas Malm <a href="https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/22691428/vox-conversations-climate-change-andreas-malm">makes</a> this provocative argument in his 2021 book How to Blow Up a Pipeline.
He argues that the nonviolent tenets of the climate movement have failed to produce the results needed. He makes the case for an escalation, by destroying physical fossil fuel infrastructure to reinforce that humans can control their own fate. “[P]eople tend to perceive fossil fuel infrastructure as a fact of nature, something beyond our control, something that we cannot put a stop to,” he said in an interview with <a href="https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/22691428/vox-conversations-climate-change-andreas-malm">Vox Conversations</a>. “Therefore, those disasters that are destroying our lives are something that we can just try to live with, to adapt to as best as we can.”
There’s plenty of apprehension among climate activists in opening this can of worms. Property destruction is hugely controversial, and violence is the most polarizing tactic that could truly splinter the climate movement’s delicate balance of insider and outsider tactics.
While Malm narrows his argument to targeting property and pipelines — he does not support harming people — science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson took the thought experiment even further in his 2020 novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ministry-Future-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0316300136/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?ots=1&slotNum=2&imprToken=00bf1a6c-c999-51b0-322&_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&ascsubtag=%5B%5Dvx%5Bp%5D21490604%5Bt%5Dw%5Bd%5DD" has-subtag="true" data-cdata='{"rewritten_url":"https://www.amazon.com/Ministry-Future-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0316300136/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?ots=1\u0026slotNum=2\u0026imprToken=00bf1a6c-c999-51b0-322\u0026_encoding=UTF8\u0026qid=\u0026sr=\u0026ascsubtag=[]vx[p]22610738[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]r-placeholder[d]D","subtag_max_length":99,"subtag_delim_length":2,"subtag_key":"ascsubtag","subtag_data":{"ots":"1","slotNum":"2","imprToken":"00bf1a6c-c999-51b0-322","_encoding":"UTF8","qid":"","sr":"","ascsubtag":"[]vx[p]22610738[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]r-placeholder[d]D"},"encode_subtag":false}'>The Ministry for the Future</a>.
In this imagined near future of climate catastrophe, ecoterrorists bomb power plants, down jets, and target executives to bring about political and economic change. Robinson isn’t advocating for this world in his book, but rather making the case we can still avoid it. In <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/30/21726563/kim-stanley-robinson-the-ezra-klein-show-climate-change">an interview</a> in November 2020 with then-Vox editor and podcast host Ezra Klein, Robinson explained why he considered that the status quo on climate may spur violent advocacy as “in that matrix of decisions we need to make. What methods are going to work to get us to a better place 30 years out?”
The questions Robinson considers in his novel are similar to what the climate movement has to contend with: What happens if the political system fails? What happens if there is never a critical mass for true change? What if entrenched special interests delay meaningful action until it is too late? His novel looks at what happens then as the powerless take drastic action to force a revolution.
“Revolution has often been physical and violent, and then sometimes revolutions have been invisible and peaceful,” the author told Klein. “So one would hope for the peaceful revolutions. ... You have to think about revolutions of the past and what they could be now.”
There’s another fundamental split in philosophies over what it will take to ensure a lasting revolution on climate change.
“When you have lots of different tactics going at once, you have lots of entry points for people becoming engaged in the issue,” said David Meyer, a social scientist at the University of California Irvine who studies climate protest movements. This kind of decentralization helps with one of the biggest challenges facing any social movement: the need to innovate or risk failure. “Movements that don’t diversify their tactics evaporate or get crushed,” Meyer added. “If you don’t innovate tactics, it gets boring and authorities find ways of dealing with you.”
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<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1641828022_8690_14772" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23151374,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BpclYWwkFe8lJKi-gf7WouN26cI=/0x0:4500x3000/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/b4LNP-W40cRYJFmHUF_4dDPRveA=/0x0:4500x3000/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-HssnijQlECOKiAx0fpKJl8p0SI=/0x0:4500x3000/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3Du8Bu8mxYz2AcWl48BIGwwbJG0=/0x0:4500x3000/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-_9GWpppVbN6PqWyWQ2DJrCMgzs=/0x0:4500x3000/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NoNB-FKtosuwhO33dxsvV6q33Ws=/0x0:4500x3000/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rAyh7XXJ-61F61wOOhlBMJHs4gM=/0x0:4500x3000/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FpMIRHXpQFexRkmF4AIvlfpLl0I=/0x0:4500x3000/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Q776IK8nEsc5tXKycieWBnnqdCM=/0x0:4500x3000/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 1920w" sizes="90vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="4500" sizes="90vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EME9rqXSN9lX2Tqe8hYtSR7gKz8=/0x0:4500x3000/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/R6g4f480fT0OKjFMfJHFPpdyNrQ=/0x0:4500x3000/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6oNhdP8v45SLEta3vHjaATvwnIY=/0x0:4500x3000/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/80dnRObwRUoJ_qMuEBEkMm_zEmo=/0x0:4500x3000/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/y5MnlgzLxNQyJN3ykzemLXsz4eE=/0x0:4500x3000/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XroxTC-oGhBJLl3wWg-hxR7RS1g=/0x0:4500x3000/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fMHa_e-eO16aXu5c3lOut9BkHfU=/0x0:4500x3000/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/q4O8cDWe8wvS-pZnZP9e1uig_bI=/0x0:4500x3000/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ew14uUYvlH2R6LbAGVLsMQBVqxU=/0x0:4500x3000/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Px1hqOMVYMVkJiZD8_eIe3tcejU=/0x0:4500x3000/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23151374/AP19346438171065.jpg 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>A man looks up as police and fire personnel move in to remove Greenpeace activists after they scaled European Union headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and unfurled a large banner during a demonstration outside an EU summit meeting on global warming on December 12, 2019.</figcaption>
<cite>Francisco Seco/AP</cite></figure>
</div>
The US is still tinkering around the edges of how to transition away from fossil fuels, instead of moving at the much faster pace necessary to meet global climate goals. Changing this course requires new strategies. Some believe the key is in growing the climate movement to a critical mass of the population, which will usher in political change through advocacy and turnout in elections. Others think more targeted youth strikes and pipeline protests are the key to jolting the US from its inertia.
But growth of a movement for growth’s sake does not necessarily win political victory in a system that is <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/20/22846504/senate-joe-manchin-build-back-better-democrats-republicans-43-million">structurally biased against change</a>. Polling from the Yale program on Climate Change Communication shows consistently that a supermajority of adult Americans, <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/climate-change-american-mind-september-2021.pdf">70 percent</a>, are at least somewhat concerned about climate change. The most engaged group are those who describe themselves as “very worried” is smaller than that, though this subset has grown in the past five years from <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/climate-change-american-mind-september-2021.pdf">22 to 35 percent</a> of the population.
What’s less clear is how even a large subset of “alarmed” voters translates into political power. At the national level, politicians don’t reflect these popular beliefs. Congress disproportionately represents climate change deniers and fossil fuel interests — a major reason Congress has yet to pass a single bill that would target carbon pollution across the economy. Now, even as a minority in Congress, Republicans have continued to threaten climate legislation through the Senate filibuster, forcing Democrats to rely on the budget reconciliation process that still hinges on Manchin’s vote.
<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1641828022_7048_14773" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23152995,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/S1rb1pzRiZr1etuvsyMh9QBmKHM=/0x0:3000x2000/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JtkMXcjz5JprIP3ZKFFYvTmX9-s=/0x0:3000x2000/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/qrPU4MNBdA9GLfrZCsVbGlnk1IU=/0x0:3000x2000/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SZgcM_M7sOSljs9PJbhpQGpvGq8=/0x0:3000x2000/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3fyXH99tFMi3cduQL9YqcAJ9BDw=/0x0:3000x2000/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9XGDSNq35AKif4vg_Z-4Rz710lg=/0x0:3000x2000/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3dYUJV4I03FDHqXCIsaBuSW8gmg=/0x0:3000x2000/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IpKrGaBCXydC3dNnTZfUiXtr-ek=/0x0:3000x2000/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tShbZh7bPptxT_xs0Cgu6EGqnek=/0x0:3000x2000/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="3000" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Co9CkuIc6kr1e4lH3v3KtjhpvVc=/0x0:3000x2000/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UbT6bqVpV8wvDKdz51Ons4GUldI=/0x0:3000x2000/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sOkKl0V0CAq-xoXbbQx97rB4neM=/0x0:3000x2000/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MHahzoRr0CM4krDiI7cNJwi8R-g=/0x0:3000x2000/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4YdT7ctz43vKRPCJ8Yw3G9bD1lw=/0x0:3000x2000/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/j8BLo_GHsaU1xNHT9L_KrXpO6uA=/0x0:3000x2000/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/q5stIwm2WgFFY0qpoeCCmHu4ReM=/0x0:3000x2000/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CRLcHDY38gcY7n5ub5kLwgAqAwc=/0x0:3000x2000/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/By6HSAfvVJM9m9PbN2zNcX_ey3g=/0x0:3000x2000/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZIKz165Eo5uIYjvTOpNDbsuHzqs=/0x0:3000x2000/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23152995/GettyImages_1235240445.jpg 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>From left, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) at a rally held by the League of Conservation Voters and Climate Action Campaign to urge the passage of Build Back Better legislation on September 13, 2021.</figcaption>
<cite>Drew Angerer/Getty Images</cite></figure>
Putting a single number on how big a movement has to grow to deliver systemic change is hard, to say the least, but Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth has gotten a <a href="https://carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu/publications/35-rule-how-small-minority-can-change-world">l</a><a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/advocacy-social-movements/paths-resistance-erica-chenoweths-research">ot of attention</a> for research that settled on a number after examining 323 violent and nonviolent protests globally between 1900 and 2006. Chenoweth’s research concluded that a movement is effective enough to change the system if it hits a critical mass of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world">3.5 percent</a> of the population.
It sounds so simple, and newer groups like the UK’s Extinction Rebellion have rallied around <a href="https://extinctionrebellion.uk/act-now/">that figure</a>. But other researchers question how much of Chenoweth’s work really applies to climate change, since she was studying sometimes-violent regime change in other countries. And there’s another catch: That 3.5 percent has to be incredibly devoted to the cause, willing to march in streets, even at one’s own risk of arrest. These distinctions matter for how to decide when a movement has truly hit critical mass, explained Fisher, the University of Maryland sociologist.
“Who cares about climate change at this point? Well, just about everybody, except for people who consider themselves strong Republicans,” Fisher said. “We do not have 3.5 percent of the population that’s willing to engage in risky confrontational activism, for sure. I’m not sure that we have 3.5 percent of population that’s willing to do more than vote.”
There isn’t much time for the climate movement to figure out what formula of activism will succeed. The next few years will have the highest stakes yet.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22846697/climate-change-activism-joe-manchin-protest-build-back-better-biden">https://www.vox.com/22846697/climate-change-activism-joe-manchin-protest-build-back-better-biden</a>

vox Time is running out. Here’s how the climate movement can level up.

On an unusually warm, clear day in late September, a dozen progressive activists paddled their kayaks and boats up to to a houseboat Sen. Jo...

AOC Tests Positive For COVID

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has tested positive for Covid-19, less than one week after she was spotted <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10363679/AOC-spotted-partying-maskless-crowded-drag-bar-Miami-vacation.html">partying maskless</a> at a crowded bar in Miami.
“Representative Ocasio-Cortez has received a positive test result for COVID-19. She is experiencing symptoms and recovering at home. The Congresswoman received her booster shot this Fall, and encourages everyone to get their booster and follow all CDC guidance,” reads a statement from her office.
<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter"></figure>
The far-left member of ‘the squad’ was seen last week at several Miami hotspots, as New York was hit with a record-high number of Covid-19 cases due to the far less mild Omicron variant. New York has also instituted a strict mask and vaccine policy. 
<figure class="wp-block-image"><img alt="" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/2022-01-09_15-48-18.jpg?itok=n87GRWFX" /></figure>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true" readability="4.5942857142857">
AOC was spotted partying in a bar maskless in the great free state of Florida. Absolute hypocrite <a href="https://t.co/5lPEtPTnib">pic.twitter.com/5lPEtPTnib</a>
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1477788957865742337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 2, 2022</a></blockquote>
How will AOC spin this? Blame Florida?
<figure class="wp-block-image"><img alt="" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/111.PNG?itok=zri1hHDt" /></figure>
Nailed it:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true" readability="4.3697478991597">
Haven’t heard much from AOC in awhile. I assume she got covid in Miami.
— Boomieleaks (@Boomieleaks) <a href="https://twitter.com/Boomieleaks/status/1479853558438797317?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2022</a></blockquote>
https://twitter.com/k_ovfefe2/status/1480334806273646597
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/aoc-tests-positive-for-covid">https://www.infowars.com/posts/aoc-tests-positive-for-covid</a>

news AOC Tests Positive For COVID

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has tested positive for Covid-19, less than one week after she was spotted partying maskless at a cro...