Have you been listening? Have you been following #climatechange or #ClimateAction on social media, or noticed that there seem to be more - and more urgent - news stories every day about heat, and wildfires, and floods, and global warming?
It's not your imagination. There's a groundswell bubbling up. Climate change is finally on the MSM radar. And more and more voices are calling for a global climate revolution - or for action on the scale of the citizen mobilization undertaken in WWII.
But what is missing in these calls, so far, is a PRACTICAL way to do that. What is missing is a framework for us to work with. So I have a suggestion - #PivotToClimate. I described it in a diary here a week or so ago, but didn't flesh it out.
In brief: for all of calendar 2017, I am calling on all of us in the social and environmental justice activism communities to devote 50% of our time and treasure to educating, communicating, lobbying, organizing, demonstrating, voting, advertising and taking direct action on the issue of climate change. Doing this will capture the momentum generated by a newly-installed Clinton administration in the US, and give the extra kick and urgency of a deadline.
Why is this a good idea? Because a vast panoply of social and environmental justice groups already exist, have operational structures in place, have robust membership and at least some funding, and are working on issues that will be directly impacted by climate change. We don't need a central organizing committee, or a board of directors - what we need is a pledge to focus 50% of our already considerable time and energy on climate change, together, during a year that will change the world!
Oxfam, 350.org, Avaaz, UNICEF, Rising Tide, the Global Witness, the Rainforest Alliance, RainbowPUSH, the AFL-CIO and hundreds more are out there, doing their work individually, on an immense range of highly specific topics. We've already came together once, when we took to the streets for the People's Climate March in September of 2016. And it was amazing.
When all of the individual lights that we shine on topics like poverty, disease, mass extinction, labor, and the environment pivoted all at once that day, they merged into a single, vast, glorious, blazing column of illumination, focused on climate change.
It was an awesome achievement! But it was just one day. Can you imagine what a difference we would make if we focused our light on climate change, together, for one entire YEAR?
I can. And I think it would be a game changer.
Here's a start on the brass tacks.
GET STARTED:
- Take the pledge. Talk to the folks who make the decisions in your organization, and get them to agree to #PivotToClimate and focus at least 50% of your time and energy on climate change in 2017.
- Then develop a communications strategy. Pull together a list of CONCRETE examples of how climate change affects your community, your constituents, your target audience, and the topic your group focuses on. Add climate change to your mission statement. Compose a letter or press release from your board of directors and executive leadership. Contact the media and let them know you're joining the #PivotToClimate movement.
WAYS TO OPERATIONALIZE:
- Web: switch up your web presence. Split your website's landing page in vertically and devote the new half-page panel to climate change. Talk specifically about how your organization's goals and objectives are affected/harmed/exacerbated by the changing climate. Provide links to some basic information that you think would interest your members in particular.
- Social media: make 50% of your social media presence - your tweets, Instagram and Facebook posts, blog entries - all about climate change. Talk about how climate change is an issue that trumps EVERYTHING, and will make it harder for your to save the whales/save orangutans/save the river/save the reefs/alleviate hunger/work on the refugee crisis/stem the spread of mosquito-borne illness in the tropics/help kids in developing communities with asthma…. Etc. Include the #PivotToClimate and/or #climatecrisis hashtags in your content.
- Education: if your organization does educational work, plan to spend 50% of that pedagogical time on education about climate change. Don't focus on teaching the science (unless that fits really neatly into your brief). Focus instead on immediate impacts, and how it affects your constituents directly. There will be a connection.
- Politics: pressure legislators. Be relentless. When talking to anyone in government about your cause or issue: make the connection to climate change. Don't sign off on a phone call or email without adding, "incidentally, climate change will (insert talking point about how it affects your group here). That makes it particularly important to us - and we hope to you, too." Close in-person conversations with a similar flourish. And don't just do this when interfacing with conservatives/Republicans, either. Plenty of Democrats and progressives don't have climate change high enough up on their priority list. Press them for specifics about their plans, their votes, and their actions.
- If you work with the military, the latest statement from the Center for Climate and Security has plenty of grist for your mill. As does this 2015 DOD report. Handling crisis after weather-or-climate-induced (or exacerbated) crisis in far-flung lands has the potential to put our troops directly in harm's way. This should be a great concern to everyone worried about global security.
- Organize: if you do community organizing, prepare handouts for your workers to distribute. Include a discussion of climate change that covers impacts to your community. If you're working on urban poverty, for example, you can talk about how heat-related deaths are much worse in under-served and poor communities, or how the California drought is driving food prices up, which has a disproportionate impact on those in poverty. Connect the dots for people.
This is just a start… I'd love to hear thoughts and suggestions in the comments. There is, as always, more to come. Thanks for reading!