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| - The barricades of Occupy Wall Street behind him, activist Micah White says his new mission to fight climate change gives him no choice but to come meet the business elite, but without the "champagne and caviar". Even before coming to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in this Swiss ski resort where the global financial elite meet every year, White admitted that he was probably committing "reputational suicide" by coming here. "It's a reinvention of myself," said the American, his hat tight on his head on a frigid early morning, before starting a marathon of meetings and round-tables. "A lot of the political struggles that we've been engaged with for the last 100 years, the class war, the fight against the rich is going to be put on the back burner as we try to mobilise hundreds of millions of people for climate action," said the activist. White was a major figurehead of the post crisis "Occupy Wall Street" movement, a peaceful mobilisation against financial excesses, which saw demonstrators camped outside in New York's stock exchange district, deriding the so-called "one-percent". And here he was, invited to the snowy town whose name, for decades, has been associated by anti-capitalists as a hub for globalisation and where hundreds of world and business leaders converge every year in a ballet of jets, helicopters and limousines. Forum organisers "are thirsty for new ideas, which surprised me a lot (...) But do they really listen? That's the question," said the man who has turned into a kind of activist entrepreneur. White has set up a fee-based "online university" to provide advice and analysis on activism. And he plans to launch a "redistributive" crypto-currency. "I feel optimistic. I think that there's a kind of deep cynicism among activists that every single elite must just be, you know, really not trying to actually create change and stuff like that. "But in my interactions, I think that there are people who are sincerely trying to create change, especially around climate change," he said. Risking to rile old friends, White called on other activists to "put aside their political critique for a moment and start a new conversation" with the business elite. Already some of his activities at the forum, and some of his statements -- like discovering "the revolutionary potential" of Davos -- have been ridiculed on social media. He has been called a fraud and a "sellout" or a "narcissistic and corrupt leftist". So did Micah White lose his soul on "Magic Mountain", the name of Thomas Mann's great novel set in Davos? "The most important thing for me is to protect my revolutionary edge, my activist edge and that means avoiding a lot of luxury, the decadence. "I didn't go to parties or cocktail parties. I'm intentionally avoiding all that kind of caviar and Champagne experience," he said. aue-arp/sjw/rl
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