While the Paris Climate Talks have ended (and, thankfully, ended relatively successfully), we all know that the conversation about climate change is far from over… Enter AdBusters.

Earlier this year, EcoSalon spoke to AdBuster’s Kalle Lasn about the organization’s Billion People March. (A quick recap: AdBuster’s Billion People March will take place December 19th. The March is meant to hold world leaders accountable for their Paris Climate Talk decision.)

As you know, December 19 is right around the corner, so, we decided to check back in with AdBusters’ Rory Breasail to find out the technicalities of how people all over the world can be part of the monumental March.

Billion People March – World Revolution? from Adbusters Media Foundation on Vimeo.

EcoSalon: How can people organize to be part of the March and its concept?

Rory Breasail: If you’re a member of an environmental NGO, grassroots direct action collective, civil society group, or have a way with making rad media, we want you to get in touch with us! Or if you’re just feeling inspired about our plan for a global climate justice movement, we want you to get involved where you live.

You can host a direct action or a march, produce images with Blackspots or Culture-Jamming acts and put them out on social media with the hashtag #BillionPeopleMarch.

We’re demonstrating our capacity to work together on a worldwide level to challenge the systems that make climate change possible, anything that pushes toward this goal has our support. Just let us know! (To get in contact, go here.)

ES: Where can people go for up-to-date info on the March?

RB: Check in at the March’s site.



ES: What is the day, time, etc. people can plan to gather?

RB: December the 19th, 2015. Essentially one week following the close of the COP21 in Paris we will let world leaders know that the conversation on climate change does not end simply because they declare it so. We’ll be making call outs for other spontaneous subversions in the run up to Dec.19th to build momentum, too.

ES: What other events will the March possibly spur in the future?

RB: One of the aims for the #BillionPeopleMarch is to build appetite and capacity for a series of global big-bang moments aimed at producing systemic change. Both by building our own network of activists, media members, NGO’s etc., as well as inspiring impromptu demonstrations we’re hoping to pull off these kinds of actions on a rolling basis, gaining the numbers, affinity, and experience to produce more and more successful worldwide simultaneous action. Following the #BillionPeopleMarch on Dec.19th, expect future global days of targeted action in the New Year.

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Have you heard about the Billion People March? The March, created by AdBusters, is challenging people all over the world to gather on December 19th and present an ultimatum to “the powers that be” that could curb climate change.

Sound intimidating? It shouldn’t. Kalle Lasn, writer, activist, and founder of counterculture magazine, Adbusters, which is credited with kicking off the #OccupyWallStreet movement, wants to get the word about the Billion People March out so people like you and I can take action at the local level.

EcoSalon recently chatted with Lasn and found out what the Billion People March is all about, how this march differs from past marches, and what people can do to take action at home.

EcoSalon: What’s the goal the Billion People March is trying to reach?

Kalle Lasn: Ever since Occupy Wall Street, protest marches [and other forms of protest] haven’t really worked all that well. We have these big bang moments where 300,000 people march in New York, or whatever. Everybody gets excited and it’s something that comes and goes, and three days later, everybody’s forgotten about it, and no meaningful change has actually happened. It’s got to the point now where the people who really have the power — the corporations and the government — I don’t think they take us too seriously anymore.

So, this is something that we’ve been struggling with at AdBusters a long time: How do we create an activism that actually speaks truth to power in a very effective way? Of course, there also is [the fact that] we are at a very critical moment in human history; climate change is on the horizon and we are going to have this big, world meeting of world leaders in Paris in December. The feeling is that they are probably not going to tackle the problem head on and actually do anything meaningful. So, we thought we’d do something as grandiose as a Billion People March and then tried to come up with a strategy. Instead of making it a general march, let’s have one demand. The original posters of Occupy Wall Street asked, “What Is Our One Demand?” Occupy Wall Street unfolded all over the world, and we never really answered that question.

ES: How do you plan to keep people invested in the goal of the March (to make global change) after the date has passed?

KL: This time, we’re trying to attach this idea of a 1 percent tax for all stock market transactions and currency trades. We are trying to say that this will be our one demand on December the 19th.

Our strategy is to then have a follow-up massive march where we have a second big demand. And then, a few months later, when the moment is right, we can have another big globalized uprising where we have a carefully chosen third demand.

Basically, we need to come up with a strategy where people [all over] the world, which we estimate could be over a billion, somehow come up with a unified strategy of pushing through key systemic demands that are essential for us to eventually solve the climate change problem.

The other thing that is wrong with most protest marches is that they are centered around one big moment — they come and they go, and there is nothing else going on! This time, our Billion People March will be this big moment on December the 19th, and we want to build up momentum and make this march bigger than the march was to the lead up for the Iraq war, for example, which was the last time that very many people protested.

ES: How can people avoid burnout when trying to make change at home?

KL: It seems to me that we have a few bright moments, but we haven’t really achieved all that much. I think what’s missing is a narrative. Instead of getting into the streets for one wonderful day of solidarity with all of your friends, we need to have a story.

The world is in danger. Is there any strategy that will solve the problem? If we can’t trust our leaders to do it, then what are our other strategies? [If we can get people to buy into this narrative] and they aren’t just buying into a big bang moment, they are buying into a story of how they can be one in a billion. We want people to say ‘yes, I’ll be one in a billion.’ This is a beautiful story that has been missing from the political left for a couple generations now. We want to give people an ongoing story that goes on for a few years that people can buy into and do something about.

ES: What are some of the other ways people can get involved at the local level?

KL: The other thing is that we are trying to get this idea across that sure, we’re going to have a Billion People March, but at the same time, we will have maybe millions of what we call lone wolves. People like me — I don’t actually like marching! I enjoy doing lone wolf things on the side. I like the idea that between now and December 19th, that all these lone wolves will all start putting out messages on ATMs. We start putting posters up on bank windows. And somehow, we use the whole world almost like an art project. We build momentum by doing an increasing number of lone wolf actions.

There are many [other] things that people can do. You [could] become a lone wolf, or you may be one of the people who march on December the 19th, but you could also be just a person who moves your money out of a big bank to a co-op. Or could be one of the people who decides to opt out of the global casino and basically sells off all of their stuff and shares, and vows never to get into that game again. There are a bunch of things you can do.

To keep up to date on the March’s goings ons, sign up for the Billion People March’s tactical briefings. This is part one in a multi-part series EcoSalon is doing before the March.

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Image from the Billion People March‘s tactical briefings page

The post Localizing the Billion People March: Adbusters’ Kalle Lasn Is At It Again, This Time Tackling Climate Change appeared first on EcoSalon.

Kalle Lasn’s Adbusters, the counterculture magazine known for spurring the #OccupyWallStreet movement, has released a redesign of its popular Blackspot sneakers.

Why is a magazine in the shoe business? Even Oprah, the Queen of everything, doesn’t have a shoe line. I caught up with Lasn over the phone recently to discuss the Blackspot sneaker, corporate culture and the future.

A filmmaker, author, activist and committed anti-corporate visionary, Lasn has been heading up Adbusters for more than 20 years now. In the heat of a major backlash against Nike about a decade ago, the Vancouver-based Adbusters team came up with the idea for making shoes that were free not only from the sweatshop conditions that were plaguing Nike, but free from the paralyzing stronghold of the corporate marketing agenda. “In one of our brainstorming sessions, instead of whining and complaining about Nike, we thought, let’s take away their market share and go head to head with our own shoe,” he said. “It excited our whole office.”

Lasn and his team got to work on the idea and realized there was great potential, not just in taking a share of money away from the corporate shoe business, but in empowering individuals to understand that there were other options besides the corporations running the fashion and shoe industries. “Isn’t it kind of tantalizing to try and ride on the mega ‘corporate cool’ and launch your own brand?”

Blackspot is marketed as the “Unswoosher”—a blatant dig at Nike. The goal of the shoe is to “dethrone the Nikes, Adidases and Reeboks out there by jamming the global shoe industry with a new paradigm of #truecost brand liberation,” according to the shoe’s website. But Nike in particular claims it has been making big strides in the last fifteen years to turn around its supply chain and business practices. I asked Lasn if he thought Blackspot was still relevant in the face of Nike’s commitments to sustainability and labor conditions. “Why should I get hooked on top down mega-corporate cool initiatives? What about indie brands working from the bottom up,” he asks, seeming unfazed by Nike’s apparent changes. It’s still a massive corporation, regardless of how it has modified its supply chain or business practices he insists. “In the future we can build a new indie kind of cool, made up of dozens of little brands like Blackspot. Going indie is the next step after going local for food. It’s time for a movement to take away power from the mega-corporations.”

It’s the idea, of course, that spurred the #OccupyWallStreet movement in mid-2011. What started as a suggestion in an Adbusters email, turned into a global movement. “Some people think #Occupy had its moment in the sun that spawned class occupations around the world and then fizzled out. We never saw it as being this one catalytic moment, we only saw it as one step along the way,” he said. Blackspot and the indie business revival is the next logical step. It excites Lasn. “This strong gut feeling in so many people, it gave birth to an idea that things today just don’t compute. Things are still rolling out of those great moments when people slept in parks and became politicized. There are still more great ideas to come,” he says confidently.

As an open source concept, Blackspot can be co-opted by anyone wanting to use it. Lasn envisions Blackspot Antipreneurism going a long way–restaurants and clubs, even credit card companies taking away lending models from the big banks. Adbusters may not be a fashion company in the truest sense, but it was among the first to embrace this small-scale fashion ethos more than a decade ago. Today, Etsy is filled with empowered hyperlocal manufacturers and designers, and a scroll through EcoSalon’s own fashion section illuminates scores of small-scale clothing, textiles and accessory makers offering high quality alternatives to the corporate fast fashion options. Even personal care items are experiencing a small, handcrafted renaissance.

As for the shoe itself, it’s had a bit of a redesign from the original. The first pair of Blackspots I owned looked a lot like a low-top shoe any old Chuck would wear. (They sadly met their maker at Burning Man 2012. RIP.) They lasted quite a few years, and were great conversation starters—especially the red tip, which is designed for “kicking corporate ass,” and is Lasn’s favorite feature, of course.

The new shoes are being manufactured in Portugal by a family-owned small shoe operation known for small-scale vegetarian shoe production. The Blackspots are made with organic hemp fabric and recycled automobile tires, “something Nike would probably never do,” says Lasn. The 100 percent vegan shoe resembles a tricked out black Chuck Taylor high top. It feels a little bit ‘90s, and looks a lot like something you’d expect to see on the feet of anti-corporate youth. It wears a bit bulky, and if you need support (I have really high arches), you’ll want to throw a good insert in there. I found the old design to be more comfortable and supportive for my feet. But it doesn’t take away from the real purpose of this shoe, which is, of course, not comfort or couture. It’s a reminder that we don’t need much on our feet–certainly not a corporate dictum–to get us where we’re going. “People who buy Blackspots like the absence of political and corporate baggage that comes with them,” says Lasn. “What if we all go indie? What will the future look like then?” Based on the shifts we’re already seeing, thanks to Lasn, Adbusters and #Occupy, I’m guessing it’s going to look a lot like he envisions. It seems clear that we’re heading towards a leaner corporate culture–one that empowers local and indie producers. One where we leave our shoes at the door. If we wear them at all.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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