Think Beyond the Pump originated in the liberal, activist hub of Berkeley, California. It was at first, a small band of activists with a simple, if rather unoriginal idea; a warning label on a gas pump, but one that warned people about climate change. One evening, traffic engineer Jack Fleck, having recently finished the book “The Tropic of Chaos” which, among many things speaks truth to the irrefutably destructive power of the fossil fuel industry, spoke of this label idea at a breakout session held by his group 350-Bay Area. In attendance (held in the space-age Ed Roberts Campus building in Berkeley), I thought — cool idea! A climate warning label on a gas pump would squarely address the overlooked need for governments to regulate the oil industry’s climate effects. Not to mention how burning fossil fuel harms people’s health. But also, such a warning, in the face of every customer for gasoline, disrupted the “normal” consumption of fossil fuel. Foundationally, everyday people would need to be alerted to fossil fuel harms if we were ever going to transition en masse off them. 

Dispiritingly, we were told multiple times by famous First Amendment lawyers, like James Wheaton of Prop 65 fame, that the high courts would strike down our proposal as unconstitutional. One member of the Berkeley Energy Commission (I’ll call him Fred and I won’t ever forget him) told us our claims of label effectiveness were “specious, at best.” In those blinkered early days, I’d describe ourselves as naive activists swinging for the fences. Notwithstanding, passing an important law like this would be a sales job built only on scrupulously-checked facts  

But we also found that “warming labels” would push up against the status quo in interesting ways. There would be lots of “Freds'' pushing back. Hardly environmental communication experts, it turns out these characters would have a lot of powerful ammo to defend the system. Which is to say that while even some environmental communication experts told us our idea wouldn’t work, the Freds of the world would come from across the ideological spectrum. This pushback, in fact, showed we were onto the kind of disturbance the climate crisis needed. I’m happy to report our label idea is on much firmer theoretical ground these days.

Jack, the traffic engineer persisted. He chose the most progressive councilmember in the Berkeley City Council, Kriss Worthington. He would be our first warming label political champion. We were in business. A bunch of us from 350-Bay Area sat alongside people from the local chapter of the Sierra Club who themselves, sat beside a slick-haired lobbyist representing the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA). Surprisingly and at the last minute, I was thrilled when a whole clique of U.C. Berkeley students marched in and queued up to the podium to support us and further drown out the lobbyist. Our climate warning label idea was officially in the public domain.

We stayed up past 1am in early Spring 2015 to hear the bill receive a first reading. In the surreal, middle-of-the-night circus atmosphere inside the crumbling Mairie on the Loire-inspired Berkeley City Hall, our little label idea would pass its first political test! But what we didn’t know was that earlier that evening, the Berkelely council voted into law a radiation warning label on all new cell phones. This meant two similar First Amendment cases would go beyond the City’s appetite to defend two potential industry lawsuits. With the cell phone radiation case passing into law before ours, Berkeley (and San Francisco, Santa Monica, and Seattle) would shelve any final vote to make warming labels law. Indeed, the U.S. wireless communication industry group CTIA, would sue Berkeley on free speech grounds (9th U.S. Circuit Court initial ruling on CTIA v. Berkeley here).    

The story didn’t end there. In 2015, the City of North Vancouver in B.C. Canada, became the first in the world to pass a law requiring climate change information labels on gas pumps. But as a petro-state, Canada, much like in the U.S. did what petrostates do. The Canadian Fuel Assoc. (CFA) and others talked the city into a rosier, oil industry-sponsored Smart Fuelling label program. What was supposed to be the government regulating the oil industry, became an advertising campaign for the Canadian oil industry. In other words, greenwash.        

But the warming label idea went on. It turned out Cambridge, MA Vice-Mayor Jan Devereux had been watching Berkeley’s warming label actions, and wanted a program in her city. Oddly, the Cambridge city attorney who was notoriously cautious, was undeterred by the threats of lawsuits that Berkeley faced (her legal analysis). She gave Jan the green light, and the bill was introduced to the Cambridge City Council in 2018. Watching them debate it, and vote against it, I knotted up inside when one council member mocked it as the stupidest idea he had ever heard! But it would be soon after the 2018 council imbroglio, that Council Patricia Nolan would bring it back to life. In January 2020 with the Fred-like councilmember termed out, the City of Cambridge passed the first warming label law in the U.S. 

Around the same time, the Green Mobilists in Sweden took their own course to enact climate warning labels, in 2021. Sweden became the first country in the world to have “climate impact” information about the various fuels on gas pumps. And now it’s Hawaii's turn. With simultaneous bills (here and here) Hawai’i could be the first U.S. state (er, 2nd sovereign nation in the world) to require, well, you know. 

— James Brooks, Chairperson