Resource Type: Evaluation & Measuring Progress

As we previewed a couple of weeks ago, Justin and I recently attended the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA) in Los Angeles. APSA is (at least in my opinion) the top conference in political science and draws some of the brightest scholars and most insightful research from across the discipline. It’s also usually the only occasion I have each year to get updated on emerging research, catch up with some of our social scientist members, bring in new scholars to the Lab community, and generally try to stay relevant in the field. In this feature, I’ll give you a quick recap of our time in LA and share some thoughts on how the issue of climate change has grown in prominence in the study of politics.

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. 

Black August, a month dedicated to honoring the resilience and struggles of Black activists and revolutionaries, holds a significant connection to the ongoing fight for climate justice. The intersection between Black August and climate justice underscores the historical ties between environmental injustice and racial discrimination. I want to take this month to explore the relationship between Black August and climate justice, highlighting the impact of environmental issues on marginalized communities and the role of collective activism in creating a more equitable and sustainable future.

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. 
 

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.

Like many of you, the Lab team has been exploring how we can best support the climate movement at this critical moment, with nearly a trillion dollars on the table to reshape the climate and energy landscape following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA),  Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), and CHIPS & Science Act. Simultaneously, we know communities across the country continue to suffer from the impacts and fight build-out of the extractive, polluting fossil fuel industry – including many of my neighbors across the Southeast, calling on President Biden to oppose the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

From studying past social movements, the Lab has learned that the transformational change necessary to equitably address the climate crisis is more likely to occur when multiracial, cross-class (MRXC) movements* claim their collective power, expand the imagination of what’s possible, and organize and mobilize people at scale. In the last 5 years, the Sunrise Movement has demonstrated a commitment to learning and practice on multiracial, cross-class movement building. This week’s newsletter features reflections and lessons from Lab member and Deputy Organizer Director at Sunrise, Dejah Powell. As a Lab member yourself, you can read the full report* on how Sunrise has been working to build a movement across race and class, and the implications and learnings based on those efforts. This report was developed as part of the Lab’s Climate Justice Microgrant Program.