Here’s an enigma: you come across an environmental campaign which, on the surface, looks well meaning, but on closer inspection is so weak in its “solutions” and so diluted in its ambitions that you actually start to question the motivation of the people running it. We Can Solve It (or “we” for short) has both of these attributes, and looks extremely polished to boot…all the hallmarks of an Astroturf. Could it be that “We Can Solve It” are a front for an industry lobby group?

No, in fact it’s worse than that.

We Can Solve It is:

“a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection — a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. The goal of the Alliance is to build a movement that creates the political will to solve the climate crisis — in part through repowering America with 100 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources within 10 years. Our economy, national security, and climate can’t afford to wait.”

So, it’s an Al Gore project, or rather a project run by people who slavishly follow the Al Gore principles, basically meaning that they will always push for “solutions” that sit firmly within the orthodoxy — lots of local “campaigning lite”, no civil disopedience, no sabotage, no radical life changes, politicians and businesses being politely asked to change and being heartily applauded for shuffling in their seats a bit…that sort of thing.

What makes it even worse (if that’s possible), is the list of “successes“, proudly displayed on their own page. Here’s a sample:

– We Members Forward National Dialogue with Letters to the Editor
– Thousands Urge the Press to Ask Questions on Global Warming
– Stunning Response to Calls for a Global Treaty
– State Department Feels Public Pressure in Run-up to Climate Conference
– How a Climate-conscious County Official Is Helping Arlington County
– Florida Governor Taking on Climate Change
– Colorado Voters Pass Renewable Energy Standards; Governor Doubles Them!
– Ceramic Tile: A Handcrafted Art Form Drives an Eco-revolution
– Trucking Goes Green!
– Pennsylvania Entrepreneur Follows Her Passion for Solar Power
– Wind Energy Is Replacing a History of Oil in One Texas Town
– US-Based Company Helps Denmark and Israel Get Behind the Wheel of Electric Cars

They range from the utterly symbolic (letter writing and “questions”) to the trivial (someone deciding to go into the solar energy business) to the superficially interesting, but ultimately disappointing (“Florida Governor Taking On Climate Change” – actually a piddling 40% cut by 2025, which I managed in a year in my house!) These are the kinds of changes that are apparently saving the world; yet the vast majority of them are (as I said) simply kow-towing to politics and big business.

Moreover, this kind of thing is exactly what I wrote about in A Matter Of Scale, and which seems to be getting worse:

What we are seeing in a so-called age of Environmental Enlightenment is actually a set of basic ideas about the way we need to act and the reasons for acting, being mutated out of existence in the cacophony of competing ideas, which no one can seem to agree upon. This is in part due to the presence of the powerful commercially-funded body of sceptics; but made worse by a huge range of environmental groups that are each trying to compete for a slice of the “we helped save the world” pie. The ideas and messages are changing so often that there is currently little chance of a genuinely effective idea dealing with the competition.

How about some solutions that really will make a difference; the kinds that stick two fingers up at the bodies that caused all the problems in the first place, placing the ability to make decisions in the hands of the people who actually want this planet to be survivable in a couple of generations? You won’t find them in the mainstream, and you certainly won’t find them at We Can Solve It!