Audience: Indigenous Peoples

This Insight explores the linkages between environmental injustice, policing, and prisons. By now, many folks in our movement are familiar with the pitfalls of the current policing and prison systems, but how do we, as climate activists, understand the call for police reform, or even abolition, within our own work?

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will invest $40 billion total, including $27 billion in direct spending, towards environmental justice communities and low-income residents—despite supporters claiming that the amount is $60 billion. Just Solutions Collective performed its own section-by-section analysis of the IRA’s text, adding up appropriations and other tailored spending to produce its own calculation. In total, the IRA includes $228 billion in appropriations and an additional $324 billion in tax expenditures. Direct appropriations in the IRA for environment, climate, and energy total $145 billion. This is dwarfed by the $270 billion provided in energy-related tax expenditures, through a variety of tax credits intended to incentivize primarily the private sector to invest in different aspects of the alternative energy economy: from mining companies extracting lithium to factories manufacturing inverters to refineries making biomass-based jet fuel to utilities installing solar arrays.

Learn about an evidence-backed framework to engage your key audiences and build buy-in from your supporters. In 2021, we kicked off a round of research project collaborations to study how climate advocates can leverage the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA) to better organize and mobilize their bases. SIMCA predicts that people participate in activism when they feel that their social group is experiencing injustice, when they strongly identify with that group, and/or when they feel that acting together could have an impact (that is, a sense of collective efficacy). These collaborations helped us unpack SIMCA and provided a better understanding of how and when to use this model. We found that SIMCA-informed messaging tended to perform as well as or better than existing approaches, though the specific context of each implementation was important for determining exactly how this played out. In part 2 of this report-out, we feature research done in collaboration with three climate justice organizations: Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Alianza for Progress, and Neighbor to Neighbor Massachusetts. (Also see our practical guide for integrating SIMCA into climate engagement programs and check out the projects from our SIMCA Part 1 webinar)
 
 

In 2021, we kicked off a round of research project collaborations to study how climate, clean energy, and climate justice organizations can leverage the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA) to better engage and mobilize their bases. In short, SIMCA tells us that people participate in collective action when they feel that their social group is experiencing injustice because of an issue, they strongly identify with that group, and/or they feel that acting together could have an impact (that is, a sense of collective efficacy). Come see how we’ve been unpacking SIMCA and leave better understanding how to organize your key audiences and build buy-in from your supporters!