There is an immense need to increase the diversity of environmental experts appearing before legislative bodies. To address this challenge, Green 2.0’s Environmental Experts of Color Database offers an expansive set of leaders on environmental and environmental justice topics. Our convening power ensures a wide range of experiences and backgrounds. The leaders represented in this database hold invaluable knowledge and a more representative set of perspectives on vital environmental issues. Anyone who is interested in connecting with experts of color to invite them to participate in hearings, events, research opportunities or other potential projects can use this database.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including lots of new polling on climate change and the environment as issues in the midterm elections.

Midterm voters of color are the most likely to view climate change as an “urgent problem” and to say that the Inflation Reduction Act was a motivating factor in their vote. 73% of midterm voters say they support the Inflation Reduction Act when it’s described as “the largest investment ever in clean energy in an effort to reduce toxic air and carbon pollution,” including 90% of Black voters and 83% of Latino voters. 62% of midterm voters say that climate change is an “urgent problem we must address now,” including 77% of Black voters and 68% of Latino voters.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new polls focusing on voters of color, young people, and Latinos.

Harness climate concerns shared by people of color. This survey of people of color about their attitudes toward climate change reveal that they are paying close attention to the issue and are motivated to get involved with climate solutions. The results show that people of color feel a strong sense of urgency to tackle climate change and are overwhelmingly more likely to support political candidates who prioritize the issue.

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.

In this training, you will glean insights from Partnership for Southern Equity and their values-based organizing model, contextualized by their short film The 4th Arm which explores how centering values and lived experience is critical to the work of organizing and central to our ability to achieve energy and climate justice. This training will help you:

• Develop the skills necessary to be an effective community organizer 
• Gain an understanding of value-based community organizing
• Deepen your understanding of allyship and allies
• Explore what it means to build power and "systems change"

In 2020, there were about 6 million Afro-Latino adults in the United States. They made up about 2% of the U.S. adult population and 12% of the adult Latino population. About one-in-seven Afro-Latinos – or an estimated 800,000 adults – do not identify as Hispanic. The life experiences of Afro-Latinos are shaped by race, skin tone and other factors, in ways that differ from other Hispanics. The multiple dimensions of Latino identity reflect the long colonial history of Latin America, during which mixing occurred among indigenous Americans, White Europeans, Asians and enslaved people from Africa.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new polling on clean energy investment as part of Biden’s economic plan; “direct pay” reforms to better incentivize clean energy production; electric vehicles and ethanol; and state-level polls in California and Massachusetts.

A majority of Nevadans are concerned about the impact of global warming, especially when it comes to the rise in wildfires in the West and resulting poor air quality.

• That sentiment is strongest in Washoe County, where the past two summers have been smoke-filled due to catastrophic wildfires in California. Almost all Washoe County residents polled have concerns about wildfires and resulting air pollution.  
• More than half of those polled in Clark County and nearly two-thirds of those in Washoe County said climate change impacts them daily, including 69% of Black respondents. 
• 78% of those aged 18-24 agreed climate change is impacting their lives, while less than half of those aged 65-74 agreed.
• The lone segment of Nevadans who did not report seeing a daily impact due to climate change was rural Nevada, where more than three-quarters said global warming doesn’t impact them.
• Nevadans on both sides of major political party lines are united by concern about the recent rise in the size, frequency and severity of wildfires — 95% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans agreed it’s a problem.
• While wildfire concerns span party lines, concerns about air quality do not — 90% of Democrats are concerned, as opposed to only 48% of Republicans.