Give it up for Bill McKibben

++Don't be surprised in twenty years when Bill McKibben receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is a special American, who has contributed to our understanding of the environment with scores of books and is now a nonpareil organizer on a global scale against climate change.

++He is the founder of 350.org, which is the first global environmental group which organizes at a grass-roots level against climate change. You might have seen his work with the protest against the Keystone XL Pipeline wrapping around the White House.

++His latest book Oil and Honey,The education of an Unlikely Activist,is a semi-memoir of how he went from being an author in upstate Vermont to a world-class organizer, even if he didn't know it at the time. The oil in the title is obvious, the honey is a story that is woven through the text about the life and times of Kirk Webster, who has bee yards in Vermont and has established a lifestyle of no debt,little consumption and production on an old-fashioned scale. 

++I have always found McKibben's writing accessible, humane and encouraging. I have always argued that organization will beat money. But,that attitude is more an attitude than real. McKibben's account of organizing 350.org is worthwhile for anyone interested in advocating for an issue. He doesn't hide the slips, pitfalls and other disasters that await the organizer around each bend. 

++Unfortunately,the struggle to fight climate change does demand going after the juggernaut of the fossil fuel industry. McKibben is painfully aware that members of Congress have been bought and sold by the fossile fuel industry. McKibben cites that John Boehner has received nearly $1 million in campaign contributions from that industry. McKibben neglects to mention Boehner's PAC received $237million from the industry at the end of the 2012 campaign. 

++But McKibben and his merry band have marched on--creating the divestment movement around 250 colleges. From the small Unity College in Maine, McKibben has moved on to bigger pastures in the divestment struggle. The divestment movement takes its lead from the struggle against apartheid and the pressure brought against colleges to divest from companies that did business with the apartheid regime.

++I admire the lifestyle of Kirk Webster and would love to live the same but I am too plugged into our consumer-information system. I suspend my pessimism on the ultimate result of 350.org. and greet it with the same support I had for Occupy Wall Street. Whatever the verdict on Occupy, it did make the issue of income inequality central to our national debate. Hopefully, for all our sakes,McKibben's crusade will have even more positive results.

++And if you have tuned out on the issue, it is still a good read.