Kentuckians for the Commonwealth ran a Climate Crisis Deep Canvassing Project in Louisville, Bowling Green, and Hazard, Kentucky where they knocked on thousands of doors and had more than 600 conversations with low-income communities and communities of color. They developed a written report that synthesizes the lessons, themes, and best practices from their on-the-ground experience to inform future canvassing trainings and program design.

Supported by the Climate Advocacy Lab's Climate Justice Microgrant Program.

Recognize the disruptive potential of climate gentrification. This study looks at the current and potential impact of climate gentrification on low- and middle-income renters in Miami and Tampa, as areas away from the immediate coast become more desirable due to a growing awareness of climate risks. The authors have created a Climate Gentrification Risk Index to help local officials identify areas vulnerable to climate gentrification and plan for long-term land use changes. 

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.

Building long-lasting grassroots power requires centering concrete issues and the humanity of individuals you’re organizing. Many organizations in West Virginia are cultivating organizers, building organizations that can sustainably organize local communities according to their needs for years to come, incorporating mutual aid, and more, in an effort to win and wield political power. In this article, The Forge contributor Mat Hanson discussed organizational strategies with multiple people involved in grassroots power building in West Virginia: Katey Lauer, co-chair of West Virginia Can’t Wait; Nicole McCormick, a founding member of the West Virginia United caucus and rank-and-file leader in the successful teacher’s strike; Dr. Shanequa Smith of Restorative Actions and the Black Voters Impact Initiative; and Joe Solomon, the co-founder and co-director of Solutions Oriented Addiction Response (SOAR), a volunteer-based organization that advocates for harm-reduction strategies to the opioid crisis.

“People’s rights” hold the true solutions to climate injustice. This resource argues that we need a transformation of the food system, where power, resources, and responsibility is redistributed from the elites to the producers and consumers, who are the ones who can most significantly contribute to solving the climate crisis. The central idea of “peasant agroecology” builds communities, conserves biodiversity, is based on science, builds autonomy, and involves revolutionary grassroots resistance—both via political organizing and grassroots economic ownership that is at odds with current models of global capitalism.

Many people communicating for social change are exploring how to tell diverse and inclusive stories that center marginalized communities while building understanding about how inequality persists. Intersectionality is an important tool to help us tell great stories that help us understand systemic issues. Five guiding principles to telling intersectional stories: Show, don’t tell; Provide historical context; Uplift the voices of marginalized people; Tell whole stories; and, Radically reimagine the world.

  

In 2018, the Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) campaign secured a landslide ballot measure victory in Portland, establishing a multi-million dollar municipal fund that addresses climate, economic, and racial justice by providing funding for renewable energy projects, job training and apprenticeship programs, and regenerative agriculture. Last year, we got to look “under the hood” with PCEF Steering Committee members to cover the history of the campaign, what PCEF does, and how the community-led coalition was able to win at the ballot box. 

In a follow-up webinar, we came back together to share new developments on the victory and cover topics including:

• How has PCEF been implemented, and how is it helping the community build political power? 
• What lessons have been learned since winning the legislation, and what challenges and insights does that bring? 
• What would it take to replicate this winning model in your own context and municipality?

• A broad majority (69%) of New Yorkers support levying a tax on corporate polluters, where the revenue (estimated $15 billion raised per year) would be used to invest in new renewable energy projects, community sustainability initiatives, and fossil fuel workers impacted by the transition to clean energy.
• Support for specific investments is also high:
  • 65% support investing funds in large-scale renewable energy projects, like offshore wind farms and mass transit overhauls
  • 63% support investing in low-income communities and communities of color to improve their climate resiliency and sustainability
  • 73% support investing in programs for workers and communities impacted by the transition away from coal, oil, and gas
    
     

Increasing accessibility, affordability, and reliability of public transit is imperative for BIPOC, low-income people, those living in rural areas, seniors, youth, and people with disabilities. COVID-19 exacerbated transportation inaccessibility because of limited routes and slashed service times. It also posed significant threats to transit workers who were not given adequate protection. Transit agencies must have safeguards in place to combat the negative effects of future pandemics as well as climate change. Such policies include better sick and family leave policies for transit drivers and electrification of the transportation sector to meet climate goals.             

This report examines a particular set of “false solutions” to the climate crisis, each of which is marketed (often by fossil fuel interests themselves) as a “renewable” or “clean” or “low-carbon” alternative to fossil fuels: Biofuels, Renewable Natural Gas, Biomass, Green Hydrogen, and Waste to Energy. The author argues that these false solutions are the wrong direction for New York, as the state looks to achieve the emissions reduction targets established by the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.