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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now our climate story of the week, which we're continuing every Tuesday on the show in 2024. After all this year, we'll determine who will be setting the national climate agenda, if any, for the next four years. With today's news, did you see this? That last year was officially the hottest on record. Planet Earth keeps setting that record year after year during the 21st century if you haven't noticed. That makes this election year even more critical.

My guest today is a professor who studies direct action and resistance movements and who's stepping closer to advocating for them as we face this choice. Dana Fisher is the director of the Center for Environment, Community, and Equity, and a professor in the School of International Service at American University and the author of the soon-to-be-published book, Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action. Professor Fisher, welcome to WNYC.

Dana Fisher: Thank you so much for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Do you want to reflect for just a moment to start out on this breaking news today that last year was the hottest on record, and put that in some context?

Dana Fisher: Absolutely. This week, we are expecting a number of different Earth observatories to release their assessments of the data coming from 2023 with regard to climate change and global warming.

Basically, the average temperature over the past years, which they do all of this analysis to determine it. It ends up that, depending on which of the two data sources that have so far been released, Earth was 1.4 plus degrees Celsius warmer than on average, which puts us very close to the 1.5-degree threshold that both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement identified as the threshold we wanted to stay below in order to limit the climate crisis and to limit the degree to which we're going to be experiencing climate shocks around the world.

Brian Lehrer: I heard an interesting analogy, I think, on our morning show today about why 1.5 degrees Celsius, which doesn't sound like a lot, is considered so potentially catastrophic for long-term global effects. The analogy was, think about when you get a fever as an individual, your temperature doesn't go up from 98.6 to 110. All it has to go up to is 100, and you're sick. I'm sure it's not a one-to-one analogy about how science works, but I thought it was very interesting for people to start to get their heads around why 1.5, such a small number, matters.

Dana Fisher: That's a great analogy. I think it's also important to think about the places that are barely within what we consider to be a livable niche in terms of sustaining human life. When I say the livable niche, that's usually defined as being able to live outside without a large-scale infrastructure. Thinking about places in the Middle East, places in the desert, places in Arizona where we saw these amazing heat waves this past summer, and they're expected to be even warmer this year. Those are the areas that we need to worry about, as well as the ways that this type of warming is going to affect climate patterns more generally.

We're under a tornado warning here in Washington DC right now. They're sending all the kids home from school. This is not normal for December, or, sorry, we're in January now. It's not normal for January either.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, we're getting the same system up in New York tonight. They haven't said tornado warnings but yet another flooding event. One of the reasons we're speaking to you today and not waiting until your book comes out is that an example of the direct action you're focusing on is supposed to happen this Friday when Joe Manchin is scheduled to speak at an event in New Hampshire that usually draws presidential candidates. Can you talk about who's planning to protest his appearance?

Dana Fisher: Yes. Sure. First and foremost, it's worth noting that Manchin is doing this private event in New Hampshire. Many people are seeing it as a test for a potential run as a third-party candidate in the election. Now, Joe Manchin is a Democrat, but he also comes from the coal state of West Virginia and tends to be the most conservative on energy of anybody who is in the Democratic caucus, so worth noting here.

The people who are organizing the protest on Friday is a group called Climate Defiance, which is a youth-led group that is relatively new. They only formed last April, and they have become the go-to group for doing this nonviolent direct action that is disrupting public events. Frequently they do it to block events that are being organized by Democrats or members of the administration. Young people are being called from all up and down the East Coast and farther to come into New Hampshire for the event on January 12th. They always are nonviolent, but they are very disruptive. In this case, they specifically are calling to shut down the event.

Brian Lehrer: This kind of thing came up in our previous segment when we touched briefly on the pro-Palestinian protest in New York City yesterday that shut down all three bridges between lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, and hundreds of people were arrested. They got the attention that they were looking for with that nonviolent civil disobedience. You're telling us, "Expect more of this." It looks like your work at American University is moving more from analysis of climate direct action to kind of a guide in your forthcoming book onto how to be effective with direct action, if I've got that right. Talk about what you think the place of that is today.

Dana Fisher: Let me just say that first, just to clarify, I don't specifically have a how-to guide for doing direct action. In the book, I talk specifically about how the future and getting us to the other side of the climate crisis is up to us. That is why we have to save ourselves. I go through all the research I've done in the past 20 years to study climate policy-making as well as activism around climate change, to understand that at this point, the only real moment and opportunity to get us to put pressure where pressure is needed is to come from civil society, which is the section of the IPCC that I contributed to as a writer in the most recent round. It's coming from there.

I'm not saying that people all need to be doing direct action. What I'm observing as a scientist is that direct action, particularly nonviolent direct action, is becoming much more common and provides an avenue to the kinds of systemic changes that are needed to address the climate crisis. That's what I talk about. The book ends by talking about the many ways that we can all contribute to saving ourselves, either by engaging in activism or as individual citizens in our communities.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take a few phone calls for our guest on this. I wonder if anybody who's participating, has participated in the past, or plans to participate in 2024, maybe election-related in direct action climate protests, wants to talk about your own participation and why you see that as effective and where you think the line is past, which maybe you turn people off rather than turn people onto the cause, which we're going to talk about next.

Any very brief anecdote you want to tell us, because we don't have a lot of time in this segment left, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text in our climate story of the week with Dana Fisher, director of the Center for Environment, Community, and Equity and professor in the School of International Service at American University in Washington and author of the soon-to-be-published book Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action.

It's funny because I have text messages that we didn't get to in the last segment from both camps on pro-Palestinian protests or both reactions, let's say, people saying, "Yes, this is finally getting people's attention. This is what we have to do." Another one that said, "Don't they realize they're just going to turn people off?" I'm thinking of, for example, last year at the US Open tennis tournament in Queens. One of the matches was paused when a climate activist glued his feet to the floor somewhere on the US Open grounds. I would imagine that's a fairly climate-concerned crowd at the US Open.

I heard the question come up at that time, does that foot-gluing stunt make people more committed as opposed to more susceptible to backlash? Do you have analysis?

Dana Fisher: Oh, I absolutely have analysis. I can tell you this. I did a number of segments right after that event happened at the US Open, or that action happened at the US Open. First and foremost, let me just say that this type of nonviolent direct action, which is very performative, is what in the book I talk about a distinction because not all civil disobedience is the same.

There is civil disobedience that is focusing and aiming on getting public attention to potentially sway public opinion through media coverage. Those folks are doing what we call shock. They're shockers and they are specifically trying to shock people into getting attention and drawing attention to climate crisis. That's exactly what happened at the US Open where this one activist glued his foot to the ground and basically led to a pause in all play.

Now, it's worth noting here that first and foremost, the actual athlete specifically said they supported the sentiment that motivated this activist to glue his foot and they ended up having a conversation about climate change, which is the goal of this type of shocking through direct action. That's very different from those folks who are aiming to do what I call disruption. Disruption is really more about trying to embed civil disobedience into a broader campaign that is about drawing attention to a broader campaign and the types of other actions that could take place.

Within the context of these kinds of actions that are very much about disrupting the general public, getting media attention, the goal is media attention. The fact that we're talking about it today and that we're talking about the blocking of the tunnels this morning shows that it's working. That's why they do it. The goal is then that we not only talk about the fact that that's happening, but then we talk about the issues.

Research shows that when we talk about the issues, there are many people who are what we call sympathizers who are going to say, "You know what? I want to do something about the climate crisis. I may not want to glue myself. I may not support the group that's gluing themselves, but I'll do something." Research shows that those people who pay attention to what's happening will tend to support more moderate factions of the climate movement or whatever social movement it is. It's not very popular in terms of the specific group doing that kind of action, but it is extremely popular for mobilizing people who are supporters who may not already be doing something about climate change.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a caller, I think, who is a direct action participant, at least, was at one high-profile event in November. Linda in Westchester, you're on WNYC. Hi, Linda.

Linda: Hi. I'm a member of Extinction Rebellion in New York City, and on November we disrupted the Metropolitan Opera in the opening of Tannhäuser. It was quite effective. We did two rounds of disruption. The first two disruptors were up high, and they threw down really long banners. The opera was disrupted at a certain moment. That had to do with the climate. The comment on the banner was, "No opera on a dead planet." Two disruptors were taken out, and then Peter Gelb went on stage and said, "We've gotten the disruptors and the show will go on."

Brian Lehrer: Peter Gelb, the head of the Metropolitan Opera? Go ahead.

Linda: Yes. Exactly. As soon as the curtain went up, I stood up alone and started shouting, "We are in a climate crisis. There's no opera on the dead planet." Within 30 seconds, somebody jumped over two aisles, ripped the sign off of me, ripped my necklace off, took me in a hold by my scarf, and then disappeared. He was trying to assess if I had a bomb or something.

For the next 10 minutes before I was escorted out, I was verbally abused, physically assaulted. I came out okay. It was, I think, an extremely successful action because we had over a thousand articles. The media paid attention. The comments people were talking about it. It was a shocker and it was effective. This is what we do at Extinction Rebellion.

Brian Lehrer: How far do you think this thing should go? Should it be like no major arts events at any time or sporting events without being disrupted until there's sufficient climate action, or you can do it at select ones and that's going to get the media attention to be effective? What do you think about the ideal scope of this from your perspective being involved?

Linda: From my personal point of view is that we need to be more creative because now the sports events are going to expect it and they'll have more security. The arts events are going to expect it, have more security, and so we are going to have to be more creative in what we disrupt. We have some ideas, which I'm not going to share. [laughs] Sorry.

Brian Lehrer: No I wasn't-

Dana Fisher: Can I just weigh in for a second?

Brian Lehrer: - going to ask you to tip off everybody to the secrets. Dana, go ahead.

Dana Fisher: I was just going to say, Linda, thank you so much for sharing your personal experience. This type of violence against nonviolent protesters is extremely common. I actually talk specifically about it and the way that it actually can elicit what we call moral shocks to the general public, which is an extremely useful tool for mobilizing the masses. It's unfortunate, but it is also very classic in terms of thinking about how radical flanks work in social movements. We saw it all the time in the Civil Rights Movement. We saw it more recently in the protests after George Floyd was murdered.

I'm really happy to hear you're okay, but I think that also helps to draw more attention to the type of issues that are mobilizing people to take to the streets and to stop arts events. Also, this kind of discussion about tactical innovation and becoming more creative in the ways that you're going to get attention is absolutely the next step.

Brian Lehrer: Want a last word, Linda?

Linda: Yes. I invite everybody to join Extinction Rebellion and help us declare an emergency of climate and the globe. Thank you very much.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. In our last few minutes, why this Joe Manchin protest on Friday in New Hampshire? Manchin is nobody's idea of a progressive, obviously, but he did crucially come in out of the cold and support President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which was the biggest piece of climate legislation to date. He could have blocked it. We all remember how he and Kyrsten Sinema were blocking other things that Biden was trying to get through at that time, but he came on board for the Inflation Reduction Act. Why target him at this time?

Dana Fisher: Let me just clarify here that he did actually block it. He blocked it for months. He blocked the Build Back Better Act, which was the original act and the original piece of legislation. The Inflation Reduction Act was a substantially paired-down version of the Build Back Better Act, which built off of President Biden's original climate platform. That is what passed.

He did champion it and make it possible to pass through because of the type of bill it was and for that, he should be appreciated. However, he did it by also negotiating a deal to open up the Mountain Valley Pipeline and expand fossil fuel extraction, which is exactly the opposite of what everybody in the scientific community is saying is needed for us to address the climate crisis.

Yes, it's thanks to Manchin that we have the IRA, and that is a wonderful huge investment in clean energy and it is the largest and only climate bill that we've ever seen passed through both houses of the US Congress, but Manchin also represents this kind of incrementalist all of the above energy policy, which is absolutely not going to get us to where we need to go in terms of addressing climate change. That is the reason that people are targeting him. The other thing-

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, real quick.

Dana Fisher: -is I would say that Manchin is also expected, if he were to run for president, to pull votes away from President Biden, which will basically support and help the Republicans to win in 2024.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing as a follow-up. We saw in an interview that one of the founders of Climate Defiance said, "Sometimes we go after Republicans, but Democrats are a much better use of our time and energy because we believe they are movable." Do you agree with that? We have 30 seconds left.

Dana Fisher: Democrats are movable because most Democrats run on platforms that say they want to do something on climate change, but then many Democrats also are supporting fossil fuel expansion and extraction, and that is a movable position because they're talking out of both sides of their mouths. Whereas Republicans say that there is no climate crisis and the only possible way out is to burn more natural gas. That's not really a movable stance. If somebody says they want to do something on climate change, but they are supporting fossil fuel expansion, they may very well be able to be pressured by the electorate.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there in our climate story of the week for this week with Dana Fisher, the director of the Center for Environment, Community, and Equity, and a professor in the School of International Service at American University in Washington. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action. For people who got interested in you today, you want to just tell people when that book is actually going to come out and be available?

Dana Fisher: I can absolutely say this. The book is out on February 13th, and I am doing the kickoff event in New York City at New York Society for Ethical Culture on February 16th at 7:00 PM. If you go to their website, you can sign up now.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks so much.

Dana Fisher: Thank you very much, Brian.

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