KDE should rather act then just "strike" (Re: Should KDE join the (Digital) Global Climate Strike this friday?)

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

Hi Friedrich,

On 19.09.19 13:52, Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 18. September 2019, 18:01:18 CEST schrieb cahfofpai at tuta.io:
>> Hello to all members of the KDE community,
>>
>> this friday (september the 20th) will be a big day in climate protests and
>> hopefully also in human history: People in more than 3500 places worldwide
>> are joining the Global Climate Strike to draw attention to the rising
>> climate crisis.
>>
>> The question I want to ask you is: Should KDE join this protests and show
>> solidarity with the people engaging for this very important topic?
> 
> If KDE (as organization) found this topic important, it should rather have it 
> on its agenda every day, instead of just signaling one day the year "oh yes, 
> so important topic, we also agree someone(tm) should fix this!!1!" , and the 
> rest of the year continue using flights also for KDE activities ("it's quicker 
> & less expensive, sorry") or buy that new device because it is more powerful 
> ("I could not stand the old one, sorry").
> 
> I would find it ridiculous and would be embarrassed to see someone doing this 
> in my name (as active contributor to KDE software projects), when it's not 
> backed by official applied policies. You are actually harming the strike, and 
> shadowing those people who are not just signaling, but serious by what they 
> do.

As a very active member of the climate movement in several
organizations, my time spent there being the main reason why I didn't
run for another board term, I disagree.

Of course KDE needs to care about our own environmental impact, which is
why we have the ongoing discussion about an environmental policy (it's
currently happening on the KDE e.V. members list because we first
thought about a KDE e.V. policy), and yes, we should do even more.

However, that should not keep us from participating in this campaign.
Promoting the Global Climate Strike today through our channels (it has
to be today, since the strike is tomorrow!) could in itself have an
effect. This is not about a grand gesture, this is about informing our
audience about the strike.

Since I am deep in the "climate bubble", Friday the 20th of September
has been red in my calendar for months and I've been hearing about it
every day since then.
Outside of that bubble, however, apparently it's by far not well known
enough.

My hypothesis is that there are a relevant number of people in our
target audience who care enough about the topic that they might join the
strike, but not enough to already know about it.

If informing our audience about the strike gets some people to learn
about and join it, it's been worth it.

> Act first, then demand acts from others, please. And yes, I am aware there are 
> individuals here who privately act with environment in mind (he, I would 
> consider myself one). But as organisation KDE does not really care currently. 
> So it should not pretend it does.

We should not demand anything from anybody, of course, but we can tell
people that this crucially important thing is happening, and we support it.

> Like, are KDE's products evaluated in hindsight of their impact on 
> environment, other than side-effect of economically importance to be short on 
> need of device resources?
> Is e.V. travel support making sure people tried hard to pick the most 
> environment-neutral traffic way (where possible to tell), instead of just 
> looking at money?
> And do KDE make sure its servers are run on environment-neutral resources? 
> If not, shutting them down on strike would be an act indeed, there I agree ;)

All of these are important, and I want to make 2019 the year where KDE
significantly boots our environment protection efforts, but I'd see
informing peoplke about the Global Climate Strike as an integral part of
that effort, not as something we could only do after we've finished the
other things.

Cheers,
Thomas