Common Ground
How the Crisis of the Earth is Saving Us from Our Illusion of Separation
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In Common Ground, veteran organizer Eileen Flanagan weaves together a series of stories of hard won successes in the climate change movement, including against a multinational bank in one case, and a heavily polluting fossil fuel company in another, based on grassroots organizing.
As heat waves, wildfires, storms, and floods become ever more deadly, the book describes a groundswell of action in which citizens of all ages, races and political stripes struggle to understand each other and the enormous challenges we face fighting companies and governments wilfully blind to the climate change dangers we face as a society.
A Quaker activist, facilitator, and teacher, Flanagan takes us on a personal journey through her environmental direct-action experiences as well as her relationships with community leaders to understand how we can form coalitions to actually make a difference. Flanagan shows that “the illusion of separation”—the fallacy that humans can thrive in a dying world—is at the root of interlocking environmental crises and that it’s often politicians and corporations who benefit by keeping the rest of us divided across lines of race, class, religion, and generation.
In Common Ground, Flanagan argues that more than technology or even elections, acting in solidarity with all life is humanity’s best hope for survival.
Includes a foreword by internationally acclaimed South African activist Kumi Naidoo, President of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and former head of Greenpeace International and Amnesty International.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Flanagan, a Quaker and environmental activist, weighs in on the underlying causes of the climate crisis and offers nonviolent strategies to combat it in her strong debut guide. She argues that only by addressing social and economic divides can activists effectively unite against the fossil-fuel industry and disarm the "pillars of power" that support it, including proindustry politicians, judges, and banks. Flanagan reports on some successful direct actions, including those undertaken by Margie Richard, a woman from the oil refining corridor in Louisiana dubbed "Cancer Alley." Richard began organizing picket lines and community meetings in the 1980s and eventually persuaded Shell to meet the community's demand that they buy out homeowners in her town close to the refinery in 2002. Flanagan admits that small-group sing-outs or camp-ins are not enough to disarm industry Goliaths and that victories are often modest in comparison to corporations' power. To that end, she calls for an activism built on love and touts the importance of "many, many groups pushing on the pillars that support the status quo, while inviting those with more power into our vision of a just and sustainable alternative." Well researched and impassioned, this successfully mixes big ideas with frank advice.
