Audience: Environmental 'Base'

At the Lab, we believe that multiracial, cross-class (MRXC) coalition-building is essential if the climate movement is serious about tackling the climate crisis at the scale it demands. However, a historical lack of collaboration, trust, or healthy mechanisms to deal with conflict often impair these collective efforts. Our new Blueprint for a Multiracial, Cross-Class Climate Movement provides an analysis of the difficulties MRXC climate coalitions are likely to face and offers recommendations for a proposed path forward. Our intention is that these insights help advocates fighting for a livable climate and communities grounded in justice and shared prosperity.

Severe thunderstorms hit my hometown of Durham, NC last week, bringing 80 mph winds and flash flooding across our community. Around half the county was without power for more than 24 hours– presenting serious health risks for our most vulnerable neighbors, as temperatures (and humidity levels) climbed into the mid-90s. 
96% of people in the United States have faced extreme weather risks this summer (from flooding, storms, heat, or fire) according to the new “Danger Season” tool from the Union of Concerned Scientists that tracks county-level alerts. 

As the global climate crisis intensifies, extreme heat events are becoming more frequent and severe worldwide. This escalating heat has placed the topic at the forefront of climate change discussions, with city governments increasingly concerned about the risks posed by extreme temperatures. To limit the impact on communities and safeguard public health, effective communication of heat risks, especially to vulnerable populations, is of paramount importance.

Last week I attended Netroots Nation and had the chance to connect with and learn alongside leaders across racial, social, economic, and climate justice movements, including many Lab members! This newsletter is inspired by one salient takeaway I heard across different panels and conversations at Netroots: building long term power to transform and govern means having a plan to win that includes strategies for both building grassroots power and electoral capacity. Leaders organizing in rural communities and multiracial communities shared how focusing on both makes it more possible to build the kind of durable power that can be flexed at the key moments shaping our political and social landscape, which include elections. 
 

 
Join the Climate Advocacy Lab for a Peer Learning Exchange on how leaders across the climate movement are relating to Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

A Climate Advocacy Lab training focused on the latest climate justice messaging research, our recommendations, and how to apply them to your work, including:

An overview of what polling research reveals about what Americans across communities understand (and don’t) about the connection between climate change and social justice;
What message testing tells us about the most engaging ways to talk about climate justice, such as by leveraging “moral emotions;” and
How to avoid triggering backfire, and the situations in which focusing on climate injustice may—or may not—increase support for addressing it.