Enacting Truth at the FERC: Building to a Crisis Moment
“This is inappropriate,” said a woman from somewhere behind me. I knew then, with great disappointment, that our time was short.
Ellen and I had been flyering in the lobby of the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC. Like hundreds of others who came to the hotel that evening, we were there for the Women’s Council on Energy and the Environment’s 34th Annual Woman of the Year Gala. Nobody noticed when we slipped past the registration table and into the gala itself, despite not having paid for tickets.
“This is inappropriate,” I heard the woman say again. She must have read the flyer, I mused, as I continued passing them out. People were standing around the room in groups, chatting, and greeting each other ahead of the big honorary dinner.
When a second person said the word “inappropriate,” this time with more urgency, the room became palpably uncomfortable. Heads turned, and people stopped taking flyers. I felt a hand grasp my shoulder, and someone began pushing me from behind, steering me towards the door. This is it, I thought.
Knowing it was now or never, I sat down on the floor, and in the largest voice I could muster, began explaining why Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Cheryl LaFleur did not deserve to be Woman of the Year. Instead, I announced to the room, the award should go to the women on the frontlines of the climate crisis in North America, women who are standing up, and even going to jail, to protect their communities from FERC-approved fracked gas infrastructure projects.
Needless to say, it wasn’t long before Ellen and I found ourselves back on the streets, the police warning us not to go back into the hotel. They told us that as long as we stayed on the public sidewalk, our First Amendment right to free expression remained valid.
When I raised my voice to address the room, however, I didn’t do so to express myself. Nor did I do it to speak truth to power. In fact, I think it’s wrong to characterize activism as “speaking truth to power.” What good is speaking truth to a system built with no ears, and one that has the sole purpose of maintaining economic growth?
No, for me, it was all about ENACTING truth.
The climate crisis is an example of a truth that requires urgent enactment. This is because it remains largely invisible to those operating the levers of destruction. Unlike the LaFleur’s of the world, who remain largely insulated by wealth, those living on the frontlines of the crisis might see and feel it everyday. LaFleur, on the other hand, can sit comfortably at the helm of a government agency, rubber stamping climate change inducing infrastructure projects with impunity, never once having to experience the consequences of her actions firsthand. Not in a significant way, at least.
It is our job, therefore, to bring the crisis experience to her directly. It is our job, in other words, to manifest the crisis for those who are blinded to it, namely, the economic elite, the bureaucrats, and the other managers of the world who are tasked with keeping the cogs oiled and running. We must build around these folks a crisis so immense and forceful that they have no other choice but to abandon the machine all together.
This means being extremely confrontational. It means going to offices. Going to homes. Going to private dinners. Going everywhere and doing everything we can to bring this crisis to the surface. When the victims of climate change go home, they can’t escape it either. It’s at their doorsteps when they go outside. It’s at their dinner tables when they have nothing to eat. It’s in their hearts as they worry about the drought, or the storm, or safeguarding a clean and stable world for their children to live in. The crisis is a truth, and we must enact it everywhere.
We must do this using non-violent means, not necessarily as a way to appeal to the humanity of those in power, or to touch their hearts, but as a tactical necessity. This is because using nonviolence robs those in power of a moral justification to use force against us.
Ellen and I were a minor annoyance that day. But we weren’t alone. We’re a part of a growing network of people all across the country who are realizing we’re not the only ones being trampled over by the FERC. When our collective energy comes together and we bring it to bear upon a singular, movable entity, that entity will be moved. This is my conviction, and this is my faith.
As the Beyond Extreme Energy network builds towards a mass action at the FERC in late May, let’s go with a new kind of marching order. We’re going to move the FERC come hell or high water, not by speaking truth to LaFleur’s unlistening ears, but by enacting the truth of a crisis that nobody should be allowed to ignore.
Visit Beyond Extreme Energy to learn more about how you can get involved with the upcoming actions at FERC.