Michael Foster in the movie the Race to Save the World

Every person who tells history has to decide do they tell the story of actors, hero figures, or do they talk about trends, influences, paradigm shifts.  The producer of the movie The Race to Save the World decided to tell the stories of the actions shown in the movie by focusing on individual persons (and showing their families) even though they often had multiple co-defendants or co-organizers.  As I personally know all the NW people shown in the movie, I think the movie makers  chose well those who are most outspoken and charismatic - who make compelling calls for action.   As such it is a movie that communicates that ordinary people - people like Abby who says "I am just a Mom" - can make a difference by putting their heart and mind to it. 

I have known Michael Foster since 2012 when I founded 350Seattle.org and he became one of the founding leaders in the core hub.  Michael had already just founded the local Plant for the Planet group, not mentioned in the movie but quite significant.  This was the first US chapter of an organization founded by a then 12 year old German boy, to be an organization just for middle school children fighting climate change by planting trees.   Also not mentioned in the movie is that this Seattle chapter brought together children, two of whom are Michael's daughters, to be lead plaintiffs in the first Our Children's Trust case against the WA Dept of Ecology - a case they ultimately won but did not have much legal teeth, so then the case of Piper et al against the State of WA  went forward also out of this ground work.  The movie shows that case by focusing on Aji Piper, and focuses on Michael for his Valve Turner action - taken as simultaneous and parallel action with 4 other defendants across 3 other states.  Michael was arrested in ND, Ken Ward in WA, Leonard Higgins in MT, and Emily Johnston and Annette Klapstein together in MN.

As one can tell in the movie Michael is a passionate, idealistic, driven and emotionally open person.  It is less obvious the conflicted life long relationship Michael has to the word Hero.  I suggest reading this quite compelling psychological profile of Michael in an article by the Seattle Met magazine shortly after the action.   Michael seems unyielding in his beliefs and unable to grant that civil disobedience is not the only way to affect change or that civil disobedience is not right or possible for people of all walks of life.  Michael wrestles with being both a beacon in the movement and a guilt inducing force – a guilt he himself wrestles with.The movie touches on the tragedy in Michael's life that proceeded his action.   His wife had divorced him the year before and won sole custody of his two children, a loss Michael feels acutely.   

Michael was willing and so chose the most dangerous site of ND (due its politics as a conservative oil state the most charges were leveled at him for the very same thing his co-defendants did) so that he faced originally 75 years and then 22 by the time of trial.  He had a fairly sympathetic judge who took into account his lack of a record and gave him a partially suspended sentence and he wound up with good time only doing 6 months.   His children were infuriated that he would do something that would take him further away, and it drove an even bigger wedge.  Some of us felt after watching a year of his depression that when Michael did this action and chose ND that it was in a sense a passive suicidal gesture - a sort of complete lack of caring what happened to himself and "taking one for the cause".  At a recent panel for the movie the last question asked (with the moderator some how thinking they could answer in seconds!!! ) was "If you had it all to do over again would you do it again?"   Michael declined to answer. He says he does not regret the action.   But he carries pain about the impact on his relationship with his daughters.

We are shown Micheal with his partner Sue Leander.  Michael, between his divorce and the action, had fallen in love with another member of the Plant for the Planet and 350Seattle.org group, Sue.  The movie shows that Sue did not know what Michael was going to do for the reasons explained in the last blog of trying to protect others from conspiracy charges.   Sue tells in the movie of learning on FB that Michael has committed CD.  When I was told on the day of the action that Michael was involved I immediately called Sue to offer her emotional support because I understood he would be charged with LOTS of years.  I discovered that not only had he had not told her that he apparently had not arranged for her to be told, so she really had just learned on FB. She had little to no understanding of the severity of what he was facing.

Michael has mostly not worked, or at least at a full time paying job since his divorce, and has taken a rather Gandhi like position that we should all live in vows of poverty which would also reduce our greenhouse gases.  He gave away his car as he went to prison and so now gets around by other means.  He has frequently fasted as forms of protest until he appears as skin and bones.   These are all actions that mainly provoke concern in his friends and make it hard for those who actually know him to see him as an "every man" icon that others can live out.

The movie also does not show Michael in PDX during the Shell No bridge action (although that action is shown.)  That action was a source of great joy for Michael.  The police had gotten all the kayakers off to one side and kettled them behind a net.  Their attention had gone to trying to get the people dangling off the bridge down so the icebreaker could finally pass.  Michael, being Michael - uncompromising in the deployment of disobedience and also absolutely committed to stopping climate change - saw the moment.   He said to the rest:  "OK we have have to break out now!" and he lifted the kettle net and paddled out without looking back to see if they would follow him.  Luckily, they did.  The police then spent hours chasing them as shown in that part of the movie.

What I would add to what the movie showed of Michael is the connections between him and the other parts of the movie, and that in fact this is how movements function; with a multitude of overlapping relationships between groups and new approaches and groups that are spawned out of old efforts.   And that a movement takes all kinds of personalities and voices, including people who operate very differently than we do.