Resource Center

This is a revolutionary dual-tool for frontline organizers who wish to achieve greater effectiveness by facing potential failures head-on. Forget the old concept of movement “wins” or “losses,” this podcast and guide-booklet are an invitation to rethink our relationship with the definition of failure when working to create social change. Learn from the L’eau Est La Vie resistance camp leadership and their epic, yet “unsuccessful,” campaign to stop the Bayou Bridge pipeline. Determine powerful leverage points within your struggle. Listen to the veteran frontline water and land protectors, get inspired, and then prepare to follow the additional step-by-step printed guide-booklet. Learn how to design your own plan for artful and effective failing, and also find out the one way that you will most certainly fail when working to stop social and environmental injustices.

People don’t buy as many electric vehicles (EVs) because they misperceive the mileage driving range of the EV car batteries. However, correcting these misperceptions in people can reduce their concern about vehicle range and increased their stated willingness to pay for EVs (specifically those with battery ranges between 60 and 240 miles, relative to a 50-mile-range baseline model). When this study provided people with this accurate EV driving range information, it increased people’s willingness to pay for EVs more than did providing information about how accessible vehicle charging stations are. The authors argue that this research can be turned into political messaging about EVs.

This interactive session covered how researchers and advocates (the two biggest constituents in the Lab community!) can help each other evaluate the effectiveness of their programs, test out new approaches to win campaigns, and generate more knowledge for the rest of the movement to learn from. Our panel included:

Kate Mannle (Rare) and Adam Seth Levine (Johns Hopkins University, research4impact) on the process of building mutual understanding and a healthy, equitable working relationship across sectors
Rodrick Leary (Audubon) and Heather O’Connor (Louisiana State University-Shreveport, Indiana University) on how to connect across sectors and share knowledge
Ernesto Cruz (Neighbor to Neighbor) and Justin Rolfe-Redding (Climate Advocacy Lab) on moving from shared interests to tangible questions and a functional research plan

So much new social science research, polling, articles, field reports, and other great evidence gets added to the Lab’s Resource Library each week, that it can be hard to keep up (even for us on staff!). We’ve taken a beat to look back at forty of the most significant pieces we’ve uploaded so far this year and the key themes that emerge from what we’re learning.

Legislation along the lines of the Build Back Better Act is overwhelmingly popular in key U.S. Senate battlegrounds, with clear electoral benefits for incumbents if it passes. On the specific question of how support for this legislation would translate to electoral benefits for incumbents who back it, the poll finds that voters in the four battlegrounds (Nevada, Georgia, New Hampshire, and Arizona) are 23 to 33 points more likely to say that the legislation would make them more inclined to vote for their incumbent than less inclined. 14% of those who do not currently approve of the incumbent say they would be more likely to vote for them if they help pass this legislation. Across the four states, 62% say they would be more motivated and enthusiastic about voting in the elections this November if Congress took action and actually passed this legislation. Democrats in particular would be more motivated to vote (81%), including many Democrats who currently express a lower degree of enthusiasm about voting.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls – including a new edition of Muhlenberg College’s long-running National Survey on Energy and the Environment (NSEE), new polling on potential clean energy investments in Congress, a poll gauging young Americans’ support and interest in a Civilian Climate Corps, and polling on air pollution and environmental injustice in New York State.