• Home
  • About
  • Resources
  • Contact

Findhorn New Story Hub

Change the Story, Change the World

  • Blog
  • New Story Film
You are here: Home / Ecology & sustainability / Bill McKibben Receives Right Livelihood Award

Bill McKibben Receives Right Livelihood Award

3 December 2014 Leave a Comment

350.org writes….. “There’s no doubt that Bill McKibben is an incredible leader to the climate movement (as especially evident by him receiving the Right Livelihood Award yesterday). He is a mentor, a friend, and has spent decades speaking to people all over the world about the urgency of the fight against climate change. We’re so grateful he has been the chair of 350’s board. Bill will continue to be a leader, transitioning to a new role in 350 and making space for a new chair.”

Together we’ve built a movement; now, together, we’ll deploy it to confront the greatest crisis we’ve ever faced.

Bill McKibben

Here is Bill’s heartfelt letter upon receiving the award.

Dear friends,

My wife Sue and I are in Sweden this week — the Swedish Parliament is honoring me (which really means all of you) with the Right Livelihood Award, the so-called “alternative Nobel Prize.” We’re all in good company — the other honorees are veteran human rights activists from Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and some guy named Snowden.

The trip comes at the end of a remarkable autumn, which has given me much to think about. The great People’s Climate March in New York happened 25 years to the day after the publication of The End of Nature, the book I wrote when I was 28 years old, and the first book for a general audience about climate change. That sea of people — and the pictures flooding in from other marches around the world — made me feel as hopeful about our prospects as any time in that quarter-century.

We’ve built a movement, that’s the key thing. And it’s beginning to make a dent — by the time that day was over (and remember that it ended with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund announcing their divestment from fossil fuels) I was letting myself think that we’d seen the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel industry.

Which doesn’t mean we’re guaranteed a victory, of course. Unless that end to coal and oil and gas comes swiftly, the damage from global warming will overwhelm us. Winning too slowly is the same as losing, so we have a crucial series of fights ahead: divestment, fracking, Keystone, and many others that we don’t yet know about.

That means we need to be at our fighting best, which in turn explains why I’m stepping down as chair of the board at 350.org to become what we’re calling a “Senior Advisor.” If this sounds dramatic, it’s not. I will stay on as an active member of the board, and 90% of my daily work will stay the same, since it’s always involved the external work of campaigning, not the internal work of budgets and flow charts. I’m not standing down from that work, or stepping back, or walking away. Just the opposite.

But no one should run a board forever, and so I think it’s time someone else should be engaged in that particular task, leaving me more energy and opportunity for figuring out strategies and organizing campaigns. And also more time and energy for writing, which is how I got into all of this in the first place.

Anyway, that writing and strategizing will probably go better if I’m home once in a while. The constant travel of the last 7 years has helped a little, I hope, to build this movement, but I’m ready for a bit more order in my life. Don’t worry — I’ll still be there when the time comes to go to jail, or to march in the streets, or to celebrate the next big win on divestment. But I’d like to see more of my wife.

I’m proud of the way we’ve grown as an organization, big enough to be running successful campaigns all over the world, big enough to be helping spearhead the People’s Climate March or playing our part in battling pipelines, mines, wells from Alberta to Australia — and big enough to be building the climate solutions and political will necessary to take on the power and money of the fossil fuel industry.

That size and complexity means we need a board chair who is as good at dealing with organizational budgets as carbon budgets. KC Golden will be taking over on an interim basis — he’s a remarkable organizer from Seattle, and his big-picture thinking on what we really need to do to win this fight has been a guiding light for the climate movement for years.

And 350.org is blessed with an amazing staff, including the crew of then-young people with whom I launched the group back in 2007. They are less young now, and they’ve turned into some of the most talented organizers on the planet. Over the years, they’ve expanded our team to include some of the wisest and most passionate climate activists in the world. Our goal, always, has been to build campaigns that volunteers around the planet can make their own, and that’s what we’ll keep doing.

In truth, it’s been the great joy of my working life to be a volunteer here at 350.org, just like all of you. I’m looking forward to the next 25 years — the quarter century that will decide whether we make progress enough to preserve our civilizations. Together we’ve built a movement; now, together, we’ll deploy it to confront the greatest crisis we’ve ever faced. 2014 will be the hottest year in the planet’s history; that means we have to make 2015 the politically hottest season the fossil fuel industry has ever come up against, and 2016 after that, and….

We have found our will to fight, and that gives us a fighting chance to win. I’m happy to be here in Stockholm accepting this prize on our behalf, but for me it will be the biggest honor of all simply to be shoulder to shoulder with you as we go into battle.

Bill McKibben

P.S. It’s giving season, and I just donated the money from the Right Livelihood award to 350. If you feel motivated to join me and chip in a few bucks, click here. And while money’s important, it’s not as important as your skills and talents. Let us know the ways you can help build this movement by clicking here.

Related

Filed Under: Ecology & sustainability Tagged With: 350.org, Bill McKibben, climate change, Right Livelihood Awards

  • Sign up to receive weekly notifications of blog posts and other New Story Hub news. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Post a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About the Findhorn New Story Hub

The Findhorn Foundation's New Story Hub is a resource centre for anyone engaged in the cocreation of a new evolutionary paradigm. We invite you to join us to accelerate our collective understanding of what might be, what is emerging and what must change, both in us and in the human story. read more

In the blog

Your Exclusive Preview of The Great Turning at Findhorn!

As you will know from our previous update, we have wound down the New Story Initiative to open to a deeper calling in service at this time. Many of you had asked to be kept informed of what emerges … [More]

  • Mind and Heart ~ Charles Bukowski
  • I tell you this ~ Mary Oliver
  • Do What You Love
  • Charles Eisenstein in Conversation with Interspecies Communicator, Anna Breytenbach
  • Watch the New Story Film
  • Rise Up Again
  • Reverence for All Life ~ Chief Luther Standing Bear
  • Conscious Life ~ Gangaji
  • The Ancient Woods Trailer
  • The slow circles of Nature ~ May Sarton

Tags

activism awakening change clean energy climate climate action climate change community consciousness culture shift documentaries ecology economy ecovillage living education energy environment evolution of humanity films Findhorn Findhorn Foundation and Community future for humanity global change humanity's evolution inspiration movements nature new story New Story Summit New Story Summit Anniversary Stories peace renewable energy social change social justice spirituality story Summit Reflections Summit Stories One Year On Summit video clips sustainability sustainable living transformation videos world change youth

About the Findhorn New Story Hub

The Findhorn Foundation’s New Story Hub is a resource centre for anyone engaged in the cocreation of a new evolutionary paradigm. We invite you to participate and to help us accelerate our collective understanding of what might be, what is emerging and what must change, both in us and in the human story. read more

The Findhorn New Story Hub is an initiative of the Findhorn Foundation: Scotland, UK, IV36 3TZ. Registered charity number: SC007233

Get Notified

Join our Findhorn New Story mailing list. We won't give your email address to third parties & you can unsubscribe at any time.
    See our Privacy and Data Protection Policy here.
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Search the Findhorn New Story Hub

  • Sitemap
  • Terms & Privacy Policy
  • Copyright
  • Credits
  • Contact