How I Got Started as a Climate Activist
The following are replies to the following question, posted to the environment list. To add your story, please post it there.
"As I reach to other RCers to encourage them to get involved in working to end the climate emergency, I often hear from people that they don’t know where to start. I think it might be useful if we had a collection of stories from you about how you got started. Can you post to this list with a short paragraph or two about how you first got engaged in climate work, and what you do to stay engaged?
In 2001 we adopted 3 goals for the RC Community. One of them was about the environment. Being a good RCer, I did occasional sessions on the goal. One day a light went off in my head—OMG this is really important. I emailed someone I knew who was involved, asked her what one thing to read to understand the situation. I read the book and started going to meetings of 350.org <http://350.org/> and Sierra Club. I started going to actions. I became involved in both groups, became a leader…. I had to do lots of sessions about being part of both groups, a lot of my early material was restimulated by being part of those groups and by being active on this issue. It’s been really, really good for me. Now I just lead in one of the groups but and still active in the other.
When people ask me what to do, I tell them following: 1. Whatever you do, big or small, matters; 2. You can connect based on your interests and existing relationships—the climate emergency impacts everyone; 3. Do it with a friend, you don’t have to do this alone; 4. Discharge on what’s hard about it and be sure to work early; 5. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to do, just try things and discharge about it and see what makes sense for you; 6. You don’t have to know anything about the climate emergency to get started, you already know enough to be very useful; 7. Try something this week. 8. Discharge some more. 9. Try something again. 10. Talk about the climate emergency and what you are doing to other people. 11. Discharge and stay with us; let your counselors know if you are struggling."
Diane Shisk, Shoreline, Washington, USA
Aurora Palm, Uppsala, Sweden
I've always cared deeply about the environment and known that our societies have destructive policies. But I did not know how to get involved doing anything about it, it was such a big issue and I felt hopeless. I tried getting involved in politics with the green party, but it was very slow and I felt stupid, so I quit. Sometimes I would go to a meeting for an activist-organization, but there would be no obvious or appealing way to get involved. Then one time, a close counselor showed up at the same meeting!
We laughed and cheered each other on. He felt hopeful about going to a civil disobedience action they talked about at the meeting, and we decided to counsel and think together about going. We both ended up going to the action and had minis and supported each other while we were there. After this we became climate-activist-counseling-buddies for a long time, and this made all the difference to me!
We had sessions on the environment, we told each other about things we were trying, cheered each other on massively and sometimes we were there as a counseling ally when the other was leading something challenging. We're still supporting each other around it now, but not as actively.
One more thing I'll mention is when I re-activated myself after some health issues. I asked a friend to be my become-active-buddy. We went to an introductory meeting by Extinction Rebellion together. This is when I finally found my "activist home", and I prioritized building relationships there from the start. It went well :)
So I say - go find yourself a buddy or two!
Miri Sager, Canada
I didn't know what to do about climate change. I discharged a lot of very early discouragement and read everything that came my way. As far as I remember, what got me going was when Tim wrote a few year ago: do something, do anything. You don't have to know what to do. Start somewhere and keep going.
So I decided to use what I have, including my voice and RC tools wherever I can. Some experiments flourished, some did not go so well:
- I wrote about climate and Jews to the local Jewish newspaper and that became a series of articles drawing connections between Jewish values, antisemitism, racism and other oppressions, and climate change.
- Through this I met a young activist who suggested that we do a workshop for climate activists about antisemitism and a workshop at our synagogue about climate change - which grew into an environmental committee at the synagogue.
- I've been able to support her to become a great active member of a local climate group.
- I offered the local 350 to facilitate a sharing circle which was welcomed, and have tried to involve younger folks to lead it with me. I would have started by building relationships before offering this project which I've been doing after the fact. I try to help other things go well there -- thinking about racism and building coalitions, welcoming new members.
- I support anti-racism initiatives and Indigenous causes and water defenders.
- When there is an opportunity to speak to City Council (5 minute delegations on particular issues) I participate. I like trying to think about how to reach the Councillors as humans. I also email them, and sign various online petitions to all levels of governments, banks that finance fossil fuels, insurance companies that ensure pipelines etc.
- I have experimented with writing and sharing stuff on social media.
- I talk to bus drivers, strangers at bus stops, and every one I know - I've had to learn to ask a question and just listen. At the moment it seems that people are eager to talk about the climate emergency now, with the exceptional heat, wild fires, storms etc.
- I've participated in a few different kinds of non-violent protests.
- For a while another RCer in my region who also was trying to figure out how to get active was doing regular mini-sessions with me; recently I've started doing regular minis with others who are working with me on the "what's happening with the climate" resource. I find that counseling regularly on this with others who are also active in some way is very helpful.
Hauwa MusaBauchi, Nigeria
In 2017 Janet Kabue asked if I could join her weekly support group on COE and I accepted. It's been almost 4 years now and the more I discharge the more I feel the need to play a role in changing the climate situation for the better. What I lacked back then was information and knowledge so what I do now is talk about it for the sake of informing people, because most people around here are ignorant of the situation. I meet a child and I tell him about climate change, or an adult who's complaining about how the weather is so hot not like before, I still relate it to climate change. Any opportunity I get I just inform people. That is how I've been helping others get started because information is key.
Debo Powers, Montana, USA
I have been an environmental activist for decades. However, one day I was hiking with a friend who has very different political beliefs than I do. I enjoy talking with her because we do not think about things in the same way, but we respect each other fully. It stretches my thinking to listen to her and share what I think. I discovered that she was a "climate denier." We had an interesting discussion on that hike, but when I returned home I started studying information about the climate so that I would have better discussions with her. As a result, I started raising climate issues in environmental groups that did not have a policy about climate change and helped to integrate climate into the work that was being done. I got involved in the local Democratic Party and wrote a draft plank on climate change for the Montana Democratic Party Platform and presented it at the State Convention. I testified at Legislative hearings on climate bills. I ran for the Legislature to raise these issues.
There is so much that we can do....from small conversations to large action. When forest fires threatened our homes and smoke filled the skies and obscured the views of the mountains for many weeks in Northwestern Montana, I would lightly point toward climate change when people were talking about the fires. When family members were threatened by hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, I would point out how we are all affected by climate change.
I recently started a regional RC support group for Climate Activists. The goal is to discharge and TAKE ACTION....and discharge some more.
Aurora Levins Morales, Maricao, Puerto Rico
I grew up in rural Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, with a father who was an ecologist and a mother who was an amateur naturalist, so I was conscious of environmental issues at an early age. During my childhood, Puerto Ricans successfully stopped plans to dig open pit copper mines in our mountains. My father was part of the 50 year struggle to make the US military stop using two of our offshore island municipalities, Culebra and then Vieques, for target practice and other military practice. Vieques has a 25% higher cancer rate than the big island, and was left with massive contamination of radioactive wastes, heavy metals and other toxins.
For me, environmental issues were always part of the big picture of my activism and I was aware and sometime wrote about how other issues were all connected to what was happening to the earth, and how justice between humans was necessary in order to stop environmental harm.
Because my primary work is as an artist, and because I was raised to see how all injustices are connected, I have never focused my work on specific issues, bit contribute to a wide range of movements, But in 2019 I decided to focus more of my work on climate justice, and made the decision to return to Puerto Rico from the US in order to do that work in my homeland.
First our two months of earthquakes and then the pandemic, have seriously slowed that work, but I am building relationships with people in the agroecology movement which addresses climate, colonialism and food security, keys ways into the climate conversations that need to happen. I was recently given access to a new local radio station and will be writing short pieces for them on a regular basis.
I'm not a journalist. I'm a storyteller. I've written pieces about the loss of a beloved spring when the forest around it was clear cut to plant bananas. I've written about where the dried salt codfish we eat comes from and how its history is tied to slavery. I write about the soil and water, about changes in our diets, about what elders told me of farming in the 1920s, about climate migrants who left for Hawai'i after hurricane San Ciriaco in 1899. I am writing about the old public car system that used ay less fuel, and created social tim and space for people riding into town together.
As a returnee after 52 years in the US, I am careful not to tell people what I think they should do. Instead I tell stories based on what community elders and other people have told me. I won't start out talking about how deadly RoundUp herbicide is. I'll start with weed control in the early 20th century, and a story I heard about peanuts being used for ground cover in Guatemala, and talk about choice being taken away through the government giving or denying subsidies. (Money to support farmers.) My goal is to increase people's pride in what they already know, and help them notice their own significance and also their connections with the rest of the world.
I have found that the best way for me to work is very locally and globally, but not nationally. My best offering is my ability to tell stories that both inform and help people feel.
Mary Heath, Adelaide, Australia
I think I started by going to the 350.org website, signing up for 350.org emails, even though there was no chapter in my city. I received their call to organise a local event spelling out 350 and filled in the form to be the host. I letterboxed and spoke to neighbours inviting them. I baked biscuits! We had a very small gathering in the local park, took pictures and sent them in. Next I went to an event in our central Mall, asking a bank to stop funding coal. I invited some friends and between the 5 of us, we outnumbered the organisers. Then a friend asked me to join a reading group and we read a book that informed me, made me hopeful and scared me a lot. When we finished it, three of us decided to set up a climate action choir. I tried every new thought I had--we sang outside banks. We organised the local event for national days of action. We sang at rallies. I practiced giving a short, inspiring speech. I got better at following news on the climate crisis. Every rehearsal, I asked each person to write a postcard to a politician or CEO and provided key points. And I kept going from there.
How do I keep engaged?
*I keep acting on my best thinking. Over time, I am better informed, better connected and have discharged more.
*I remember it is more important to keep taking action than to take exactly the right action. I learn by trying things out.
*When overwhelmed, I work on remembering that this is not a one-person-sized issue. And that I am not alone in acting on it.
*I try to take the direction that my whole life has prepared me for taking part in responding to this crisis. And that means...?
* What I do, doesn’t have to be big or spectacular. Being friendly and warm, being persistent, having the occasional well communicated thought--these things are all valuable and so is just showing up and helping with practical work.
*It can never make sense to give up. We know every effort no matter how small or large, is needed.
Gene Galazan, Arizona, USA
For a number of years I resisted including COE as one of the key areas I prioritized. Was this an important issue for me as a Jew? I have decided absolutely! Since making this decision, I have led a COE support group for a number of years. The support group has had a listening project at the downtown library in Phoenix, AZ where people stopped and shared their thouughts about the environment.
I am currently organizing a Dayenu Circle in my temple, a group of people wanting to explore how they can have a positive impact on our environment. I also take part in a monthly support group on COE led by Russ Vernon- Jones.
Finally, I am part of an interfaith climate action group locally. We are supporting indigenous leadership in AZ on environmental issues.
Marshall Ifeanyi, Nigeria
Thinking's about how I started: it goes back as far as my earliest days in RC.
Already I had been exposed to environmental issues through the activities of some NGOs while attending workshops in Nigeria. The workshops focused mostly on fighting environmental degradation in the oil-rich Niger Delta. I'd also listened to radio jingles about care of the environment by the Federal Ministry of Environment and the National Orientation Agency.
So I'd be the first to correct people who do things that negatively affect the environment. Things like throwing dirts out of the windows of moving vehicles, blocking drainages, defecating in open spaces, dumping of wastes in our waters, use of nylons (polyethylene) to wrap foods, energy wastage: not turning off the light bulbs, water wastage: not turning off the tap, and so on.
RC enhanced my interest on the subject and got me closer to understanding the issues and how to talk about it. I quickly embraced the ideals and became a self-appointed ambassador of Sustaining All Lives - SAL. I would follow the page on all social media platforms and do write-ups and on my own, share posts that teach about CoE.
I attended a number of RC workshops on SAL: Climate Change, CoE, Climate Justice, Listening Projects, and I have been following the COPs for years.
Janet's quick understanding of the issues in climate change also inspired me. And I'd write her to have sessions on how to be active in the campaign too.
When I became ARP, I started carrying out organized RC events on climate change and environment. Because I know it is better to catch them young, I started going to schools to create awareness about CoE. I partnered with a number of school principals where I and some members of my GRA Enugu Community would take turns to teach the pupils about CoE. We organized a Listening Project on CoE and the feedback was impressive. My focal points became the 3 Rs: Reuse, Recycle and Reduce.
I came to the realization that for my efforts to have effect, I had to begin with myself. So I learnt how to use mosquito nets instead of insecticides. I learnt to drink water without buying new supplies of bottled water every other time. I learnt to separate my waste and dispose them in separate bags. I'd turn off light bulbs I'm not using. And I became more prudent with water usage as well as conscious of planting trees. Gladly, I've planted about 50 trees within the last 10 years. Still planting more. And I engage in safe and healthy agricultural practices.
I am happy to say that I have been invited to groups and associations to give talks on CoE. And we have a Climate Moment in our monthly RC classes in my community.
I'm on it. Still learning.
Hinako Arao, Tokyo, Japan
I wanted to do something positive for the environment and a friend of mine suggested 350.org Japan. I volunteered for them for a while and learned about the climate crisis. I led a couple of events, hosting vegan parties at my place to support their divestment campaign. Then, the position opened at 350 Japan and I applied and became a full time climate activist. This was 3 years ago. Now I am building a climate movement in Japan together with many other people. I have less time and I do less sessions, but my commitment to keep thinking is stronger and when I have sessions, I discharge better. These 3 years were not an easy journey for me. I have a big struggle in doing things together with other people, and climate activism is all about doing things together. It continues to push me to grow, and I am a more confident person compared to before.
JG, Washington, USA
1) I made the decision that environmental/climate justice would be my primary wide world change focus.
2) I got stuck for 4 months discharging and feeling uncertain about what to do.
3) I joined a labor union.
4) I researched local environmental justice organizations near where I lived at the time. I started attending meetings/actions.
5) I followed Native organizations on social media and went to support Native water protectors at Standing Rock.
How I stay engaged:
1) lots of sessions, workshops, and discharge
2) I have close friends who can think with me about the climate crisis and what to do.
3) I make friends with new people who think differently than me.
4) I decided to lead climate justice in my rural county and work together with others.
5) We look for opportunities to take strategic action and learn more. We prioritize moving at the pace of relationships.
Rob Venderbos, Fryslän
When I was around two or three years old I decided to change the world outside my family for the better as well. The first thing I figured out was becoming a member of the WWF, this meant I got a monthly journal from which I learned about animals and every year I helped raise money for the conservation of an endangered species. In the following years I made my parents go door to door with me, raising money for whatever charity I knew was raising money that way.
Early into my teens I joined my dad and family friends into going to a march. I continued to go to marches when I could, it was good to see that I was not alone in caring about this. A big thing I did was openly care about the world, nature, the climate, injustice and people. Even though caring is often considered uncool. Many people, including many classmates, figured out that I cared and told me what they were doing, however small it was.
Kara Huntermoon, Eugene, Oregon, USA
I thought I would give you a rural perspective on climate change activism.
I live on a farm and have been inspired by research on alternative ways of farming that sequester carbon. I manage the 33 acres under my care, so I have been able to implement a lot of carbon-negative policies on the farm. I have spent years reading about climate-adaptive farming, talking with other farmers and land stewards, and experimenting on the farm with small-scale solutions.
I got started just reading a lot and trying things out. What happens if I make and use a compost toilet instead of flushing? What happens if I raise farm animals in these ways that have positive carbon impacts? What happens if I dig swales to help water sink into the soil for storage? What happens if I plant trees instead of growing annual crops? (I plant 150 trees every year.) How can I benefit the local wildlife with my farming practices?
My initial experiments felt insignificant. What could it matter that learned how to graft fruit trees? Or that I learned how to butcher chickens? Climate change is so big and overwhelming! I still feel strongly that our small-scale implementation of these practices is not enough, and we must share what we are learning here and inspire others to do similar work in their local ecosystems.
That is why I teach. I teach classes, host work-traders and apprentices, and accept visitors for farm tours and work-stays. I do not have a college education. I am a working-class mother of two married to an immigrant man who does physical labor work (an arborist). My classes are unconventional (often hands-on) and I am always struggling to learn how to teach others effectively. In spite of this, at this point I am acknowledged locally as an expert on the topic of "ecological integration" or Permaculture.
I recently read a news article about drought in California causing farmers to go bankrupt and lose their land. Among the hopeless reports of powerlessness, one farmer interviewed stood in stark contrast. He basically said, "There's as much water as ever, it just falls in different patterns now. Instead of creating a snowpack and melting slowly all summer, it rains in dumping heavy downpours and runs off the land into the sea. If we dig swales and hold that water on the land, it can sink into the ground to recharge the underground aquifers. We can still farm here, we just need to change the way we do it." I breathed a huge sigh of relief. He was speaking my language! This is the work I do.
I also teach a wide-world class on discharge and liberation, and I focus heavily on what I call "ecological resistance" and "ecological integration." This includes topics about climate change, and making it personal to how we live our lives and meet our daily needs. We can meet our daily needs in ways that increase the resilience and abundance of all life. To do that, capitalism must end.
Start small. What happens if I change this one thing in my daily routine? And then if I change this other thing?
Keep focused on the goal: Humans belong on this planet, and we can meet our needs in ways that beneficially impact all life.
Bill Darnell, Canada
I have been active in environmental issues since my early 20"s. I am 75 now. I taught about climate change in high school in the early 2000's but it was after I retired that I committed to climate action. Just before the Copenhagen UN climate summit in 2009, a friend of mine and I decided that for a week we would fast and hold a daily vigil outside the office of our member of the national parliament. We were urging our government to have courage and take bold action at the summit. We have since organized many events and built an organization of over 300 volunteers/supporters. A highlight is that two years ago, we convinced our city council to create a climate action plan which they adopted unanimously and have begun implementing. Without discharge and RC theory and perspective, I would not have been able to sustain my commitment. Some of my fellow activists have begun RC, we have a monthly climate listening
circle and we have structured many of our activities using RC theory and practice.
Marjorie Smith, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
What I've been doing is starting to ask my neighbors here in the apartment complex, what they think about the wildfire smoke that we get here in Oregon. It seems like a next step would be to ask, "What are we going to do about it?" And maybe another good question would be, "Who do you know that's doing something, and what are they doing?"
I've been writing letters to the Editor of the local newspaper, about once a month, to clarify my own thinking on political and environmental topics, all of which have been published -- though that doesn't offer a direct way to connect with others for action.
A piece that I'd like to do, is to help shift the discussion from "What do we do about the forest fires (hurricanes, flooding, heat waves, depending on where you live)?" to the wider question, "What do we do about the huge influence that the Big Energy corporations have on stifling climate action?"
Sandy Wilder, New South Wales, Australia
I first read about global warming around 1990. Having grown up on a farm and studied biology the information alerted me to the danger facing our earth.
Early on I went on marches and volunteered at Greenpeace, offered film and discussion nights to community members in my local library and held listening posts at markets.
I’ve worked with the Citizens Climate Lobby to build relationships with politicians, joined in with Australian Parents 4 Climate Action, presented at local government meetings about the climate emergency, and helped run market stalls to engage people. I have put signs in my window and garden and door knocked locally to talk with people about our environment. I write to members of parliament when they take a stance on climate, appreciating their doing so. I volunteer on polling days for candidates whose policies I value and have done scrutineering after elections.
Counselling with RCers active in the climate movement has been so important for thinking about each other and learning what works and how to be more strategic.
Currently I’m working in sessions figuring out how to respond to people being disapproving of activists and people in denial: how to be indignant and hold a connection.
Whenever I get a chance to connect with a young one - either in being playful or listening to their upset I’m reminded of the importance of connecting. Your post today has me deciding to figure out how to bring climate into more conversations.
Julian Weissglass, California, USA
I became concerned about the environment when I saw that my father was very upset when he saw a tree being cut down. He even had tears in his eyes and we never cried in our family.
In 1981 I protested the building of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. I was arrested (along with about 1,900 other people) for trespassing. We were “imprisoned” in a college gymnasium for 3 days. About 500 of us plead not guilty by reason of “I protested and at Defense of Necessity” and won the case.
In the early 90s, I suggested to Harvey that we have an ILRP for Care of the Environment. He agreed, but did not take action so I raised the issue again with him and in 1996 he asked me to find someone. So I ran a “classified ad“ in Present Time. I interviewed all the applicants by phone and he appointed Wytske Visser. A couple of years later Wytske was ill and I and could not travel to workshops in the United States. So I led a few. There was very low attendance -- mostly people working for governments on planning issues, some researchers, and a few activists.
I started the workshops with people going outside and having a five minute each way mini being given attention while they explored something in the environment. I cried just touching a tree. At some point, I became involved with my local 350.org organization and introduced news and goods and having people tell their stories about themselves as young people and the natural world. I started leading a small book club and we have been meeting monthly for several years.
Jason R, Chicago, IL, USA
My family has a long history of commitment to the environment. In eighth grade I was assigned a science paper and chose global warming. I made a decision to end it. I tried to elect politicians who would do that.
Years later, after a series of RC environment workshops I went to local 350 and Sierra Club meetings. At one of those meetings, I met a young adult leader and made a decision to back them. This person was good at navigating communication between political and grassroots activists. We have a lot of environmental racism in my city and it is critical to do a
lot of listening. We also needed to address political corruption. We lobbied, we elected better politicians.
I live in a coal-producing state with a lot of nuclear plants. It looks like we are about to pass a bill that will close coal plants. We had to make sure the bill provides new jobs to the coal workers. There is still a debate over whether the plants will close in 2035 or 2045. I still get discouraged, a lot, but I chip away at it.
Lance Cablk,Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
I grew up in a forested rural part of northern Michigan, immersed in nature and wildness.
I got started as an activist while at university with Rainforest Action Network doing street theatre activism, selling beautiful t-shirts, and organising bucket drives to raise money for rainforest causes. I also got involved with a long-time activist trying to safegaurd nuclear waste storage along the Great Lakes, as they gave up. This scared me. For a short time I worked for Greenpeace followed by PIRGiM (Public Interest Research Group in Michigan) as a door to door campaigner.
I studied field botany, ecological management, and conservation. I also taught a similar range of courses in graduate school and at community colleges and was a researcher. I became active with the Green Party in Michigan for a short time, until I became discouraged by the heaviness of this group.
Early on I organised RC workshops for Wytske in eastern USA and began leading COE support groups.
Early on in becoming a parent, I co-founded a Transition Town group that was active for a few years until it took over a community organic garden that had been a community support centre previously.
For the last three year I coordinate/lead a community-based ecological restoration, eco-literacy, and climate action programme where I live in a largely upper middle class suburb of Auckland. I am proud of my work, work hard, and have a growing team that I am mostly honest and transparent with. It feels like we are only just getting started to make big changes in our community. I am committed to have fun as we go. Since I have taken on bigger leadership many of my relationships with RC COE leaders have faded, but not all! :-) And of course I keep many of you close in my heart and will welcome any contact we can arrange.
I would like to make more time to lead in RC again, but this is challenging given many other responsibilities, commitments to recreational dance and music, and personal relationships - including celebrating fatherhood with my son in a few minutes from now... :-). My weekly sessions are still a vital part of my work.
Chioma, Lagos, Nigeria
My activist story started as far back as 1995 with Amnesty international Nigeria. Shell petroleum discovered oil in Nigeria in 1956. Ever since the lives of the indigenes of Ogoni land in Niger Delta of Nigeria were turned upside down, lots of pollution and oil spillage took over the once fertile land used for farming and fisheries.
This birthed movement for the survival of “Ogoni land," which resulted in killing of nine leaders of this movement that prompted Amnesty international to launch a global outcry for the injustice done on peaceful protesters and senseless killing. Since then Amnesty international had called on vast network of supporters to pressure both Nigeria government and oil giants destroying the natural resources of these people to “Own up, Pay up and Clean up” all the affected communities.
In addition, my activism with in RC started in 2015 after the first COP21, some contacts were made by RCers in Paris which I was asked to follow up some people from my region in Nigeria and West Africa that attended, most of whom are committed RC community leaders in their various communities.
More so, on attending Community building and leadership workshop in UK led by Diane Shisk in 2018, i was fired up on the urgency of the situation with Diane’s explanation and details of how Africans will be most affected with adverse effect of climate change. On my return back to Nigeria it became very urgent that all RC community classes, regional workshops, National workshops had climate emergency as one of their priorities with lots of discharge.
Furthermore, people out side RC had this urgent call for action for climate emergency/crisis through Listening project. My community visited some primary and secondary schools with in my locality for sensitization on this topic, both teachers, head teachers and principals welcomed our visit with vital information on climate change.
Almost all communities within my region had replicated what started from my community, almost every RCer in my region is climate activist because of the level of information they had communicated to them.
Think and listen is another strategy we use.
Climate moment is a must in every RC activity with in my region.
We also try to live what we teach and say.
Roberta Paro, Norwich, CT, USA
I got involved in environmental activism for two reasons: 1. I met a couple of women who I liked and were involved in the Connecticut USA Chapter of the Sierra Club, an organization that provides its members opportunities to explore, enjoy and protect the planet. 2. I wanted to learn what these women were talking about. I had not taken any science classes since I was in the ninth grade and no family history of activism so it was my curiosity and connection with them that got me involved.
For the next eight years I did many things. I was invited to listen to two Congressional candidates speak about why they should be endorsed by the Sierra Club. The candidate we endorsed won by 87 votes. I organized in my city to stop the expansion of fossil fuel use during times when we use a lot of electricity. To stop the Keystone XL pipeline I participated in a two week long civil disobedience action where over 1,000 of us were arrested. I've had letters to the editor published in my local newspapers. I helped get a busload of people from my geographic area to large demonstrations in New York City and in Washington, DC. I worked with many wonderful people to make these things happen. (Thanks for asking to write about what we did).
I took a five year break from environmental activism. I am sure that not getting enough discharge on my isolation was a big part of why that happened. I recently returned to activism. I think that was partly due to a phone call I received from a woman I like and who is now leading the Connecticut USA Chapter of the Sierra Club. I am working on protecting voting rights. I see this as necessary for being able to elect leaders who will protect our air, water, land, and climate.
Denice Dennis, Ohlone Land (El Cerrito), CA, USA
Where I started during this last period in Climate Emergency, and building connections to do the work:
After retiring from paid community organizing and health policy work early in 2018, I decided that I wanted to dive into climate justice work. I responded to an email or a Facebook post from an Indigenous Women's group calling on older women to come out to close down the streets in San Francisco for a large climate action. I had met women in this group in a series of Oil Refinery Healing Walks in the Bay Area that they had organized, so had been following their posts on Facebook. This group also was conducting formal NVDA (non-violent direct action) trainings and I signed up for one shortly after the action.
At that first action, I met and got connected to an older women’s group (largely white women) that responds to requests from the Indigenous Women’s Group to show up and physically support direct action by shutting down the streets or prepping for art actions, as well as requests from youth advocates and PGMI groups responding to climate and issues of racism. Since then, I have been to many trainings on non-violent direct action and climate issues led by Indigenous Women (live pre-covid and then webinars and zoom), as well as participated in NVDA when called upon by Indigeous Peoples. These trainings have been places to meet others interested in the work and developing strong ties with each other. I have taken on a leadership role in the elder women's group, also support the core Group that founded the organization, and have introduced "listening time" and "think and listens" in work group and affinity group meetings, making connections to women in this group a goal. I also led a training group to plan and implement a training series that was built on pre-recorded webinars by Indigenous women (with their permission, of course.) Our smaller group meetings have included readings and discussions on Indigenous and African Heritage History and these have included many opportunities to support "listening time". The "listening time", as well as our shared experiences in doing the actions, have been key in us developing our connections with each other.
I also was interested in influencing local climate policy, and within 6- 9 months joined both an local environmental justice group in my small city and the local regional 350 group. I led the successful organizing effort in my city to get a Climate Emergency Resolution adopted and facilitated communications between our group and city council members. Early on, I asked one of the 350 leaders if she would have a phone call with me about opportunities for involvement and what she thought the most important climate issues were in our region. I offered my help to support and organize the monthly meetings. After George Floyd was killed, I introduced a Movement for Black Lives film on the connection between environmental justice and racism, and used a "listening time" format in the 350 group and in my Elder Women's group during regular meetings for a few months.
Recently, I transitioned over to a newly formed 350 in my County. That work includes taking advantage of my connections to the policy makers here to get rapid action on Climate policy at the county level. And building connections with a whole new group of people!
I have to discharge A LOT on my early material to stay connected to the people I am meeting and working with; to remember that my brain works and that my thinking is good; that what I do makes a difference; that I can give up the early hopelessness and isolation in doing the work.
Love this work!
Emma Cameron, England
Becoming aware of the increasing threat to climate stability from carbon emissions, I began to read and learn more about carbon emissions and climate change.
Six years ago I moved to Worthing, on the south coast of England. I’d heard about the divestment movement and found out that West Sussex County Council, my local authority, were investing a large amount of pension fund money [over £100 million] in fossil fuel companies, such as Shell and BP.
I joined the local Transition Town group to see if they were doing anything and met another activist who wanted to focus on this particular issue. Together we formed Worthing Climate Action Network.
We started a campaign to raise local awareness of fossil fuel investments. We emailed Councillors, began a petition, held information stalls for the public, organised demonstrations and talks. We formed alliances with other local environment groups and talked to anyone who would listen [and some who wouldn’t] about the issue. It’s been a long fight but the Council is now in the process of transferring a third of the pension fund into a low carbon fund. We’re still campaigning for full divestment.
Two years ago, I went with a friend to the first demonstration of
Extinction Rebellion in London and, feeling inspired by their ideas, we formed a local XR group. This is gaining new members and we were active in the recent rebellion in London. We’re forming close connections.
I have many sessions on my climate activism, discharging grief and hopelessness, which helps me keep going. I organise a six-weekly meeting of UK RC artists who are engaged in racial and climate justice and am part of a weekly Care of the Environment group.
I talk to my friends about what I do, sending them photos of the rebellion, hoping to inspire them to take action too. As a writer and artist, I use my creativity in many ways. I’m currently writing a novel about a battle to save an ancient tree, which moves into a story about a world that’s been transformed.
Maura Fallon, Seattle, USA
Living in East Asia for decades I saw the impact of climate change occurring every day. Typhoons, limited arable land, water shortages and pollution.
When we decided to move to Seattle I decided to work on climate change issues and to leverage my white class (raised middle/current owning) privilege. I joined a foundation of women where we pool money to grant out to non-profits. (I think in my mind that we are the financial support for organizations which are working collectively toward a climate justice vision.)
I simultaneously built ties in the activist community (mostly PGMI and working class nonprofits focused on environment). This also included artists, poets and musicians who create art about the environment.
I joined a grant team focusing on the environment. I talked with the grant team about ending racism and the environment. I talked with others about what I and we were learning. I got involved in planning our educational programs where I suggested speakers, facilitators and trainers who have a good understanding about ending oppression and about social justice issues, including the environment.
Looking at partisan politics, I got involved in my local political party, am active in a Political Action Committee interviewing candidates and joined a public policy non-profit with a political arm to learn more about candidates across my state. I then share information with friends and acquaintances about candidates (who to vote for, how to volunteer and donating money). Now when it’s election time people seek out my guidance. I also help people in other states find similar organizations where they live.
I am also doing disaster readiness work in Seattle where we have a big potential earthquake situation and where we also have some smoke in the summers because of wildfires. It's a good way to organize my neighborhood and to be in touch with people in the rest of my city and region.
I learned as I did things. I tried somethings that worked and a lot of other things that didn't work for me. I am pleased with what I have done, though my distress doesn’t always let me remember that. For me being active is hopeful.
Pam Parker, East St Johnsbury, Vermont USA
Thanks for this question, Diane. You were my inspiration. I had been involved with environmental groups as a supporter and occasional participant, but when you put out the call for people to prioritize addressing the climate crisis, that really made sense to me. I got on this list and took Eric Toensmeier’s Zoom course on climate change, then turned around and shared lots of that info with my area.
The biggest bang for my buck came when I joined my town’s energy committee. Every town in Vermont has been invited to have an energy committee to work locally on lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Our committee has grown from having a limited focus to taking action on all kinds of fronts - energy conservation, transportation and land use. I’ve gotten to know many folks in town government I never would have met otherwise and from our different
starting points, we’re addressing the same goal. Our town’s governing body just voted unanimously to adopt the energy plan our committee wrote. It’s exciting!
Caroline New, Bristol, England
I’m 75 now, and I’ve been an activist since I was 15 with brief periods of ‘doing nothing’. (That is activist-speak!) I began as a peace activist, in the Aldermaston marches and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the UK. In 1968, during the student rebellions, I became a Marxist and got involved in various ‘hard left’ groups. In the 1970s I was in the women’s movement... in the eighties in the National Child Care Campaign... in the 90s I worked against the Poll Tax and chaired the Union branch where I worked and so on. I had a critique of capitalism, and I could see that everything was connected. My focus was on social justice, including globally. I uneasily realised there were environmental limits on growth, but I did not know how to bring the ‘red’ (socialism) and the ‘green’ (environmentalism) together.
I had a few tries, but it was only when I retired 15 years ago that I really became a climate activist. I started a women’s group with some friends. It was called ‘Older Women for World Change’ or OWWCH (a joke: it’s what you say in English when something hurts). We joined the Transition movement. We believed that frightened people can’t think well, and that fear is at the basis of climate denial or indifference. We decided to make an exhibition of drop down banners that you can stand on their frames to make a display. Two of our 14 banners included a brief graphic explanation of carbon emissions, and one painted a picture of a world with low carbon emissions. The others consisted of excellent photos of local people in our city: Bristol, in South West England, and a paragraph from an interview with them. These people – 10 of them – were very diverse. There were two Somali immigrants, a Jamaican caretaker (janitor), a discussion group of older working-class people who called themselves ‘the University of Withywood’ – a poor housing estate. There was an older Asian woman, two white neighbours of mine, a white community worker on his allotment – the photos were lovely. All these people had in common was that they had lived for decades emitting far less carbon than we in England now think is normal. And they had lived good lives.
We launched the exhibition in a local environmental centre and had a party. We took it around Bristol to libraries and community centres for two years. People liked it. They would spend quite a time reading the brief interviews. We made a video and a booklet to go with it.
Looking back, it seems this historical moment has passed. We were trying to reassure people they could thrive with lower carbon emissions. That still needs saying, but the main task is to mobilise people in many many ways to become organised, active and demanding.
That is how I started as a climate activist. I have been inspired by other people’s stories.
Nancy Faulstich, Watsonville, CA USA
In November 2012 I heard Bill McKibbon of 350.org speak on the "Do the Math" tour. This was the spark leading me to decide to help everyone around me face the reality of climate change and move to action.
Having a big goal helped me start taking steps and also helped me see that there are thousands of possible steps. Once I tried something, I learned and moved and by virtue of being in a new position I could then see other possible action steps. (I highly recommend beginning by just taking one small step!)
After organizing a loose network in my local community to build awareness about climate change as a social justice issue I ended up being one of the founders of a new organization. I took this step after extensive consultations with people working in other agencies and organizations. It seemed there was a need. And I was the person with room in my life to take on the major responsibility for keeping the organization going.
I was able to start being paid part time for this work and since 2020 have been paid for 32 hours a week. I'm very proud to be able to support myself and my daughter as a climate leader who is a single mother. And I likely could not have done this without the support of family members who helped me financially over the years.
Regeneración - Pajaro Valley Climate Action has become a significant organization since forming in 2016. We have conducted research and developed our own place-based publications explaining climate change and offering action ideas and locally relevant solutions.
We have many opportunities to speak at events, on panels, on podcasts and radio shows and we have organized and hosted three Climate of Hope Forums. We see ourselves as a leadership development organization and we back the leadership particularly of young people and young adults and people from low income communities of color.
We have published a Draft Blueprint for Equitable Climate Resilience and a vision for transportation equity. Our publications and videos are available on our website. We use social media to reach a wide audience. We are sought out in our geographical region as consultants, speakers, to serve on committees, etc and are building relationships with many others across the state and even internationally. We have helped others in our region center climate work on justice.
Key ideas I hold out:
1) Everything we do matters. Every bit of warming prevented will help protect someone's life or someone's health.
2) We are part of what we are fighting to protect, and this work can be joyful and fun.
3) Facing the harsh reality together can leave us feeling hopeful and
optimistic.
4) Talking about climate change with friends, family members, colleagues, neighbors etc is one of the most important actions we can all take.
5) For those who have extra resource, giving money is another key action. Give to organizations working directly on climate change or invest in renewable energy infrastructure. Resources were systematically stolen from low income communities of color over centuries. We can help return what was stolen.
6) All human activities take place in a climate that has changed, therefore everything will be affected. Center your climate action on what you are passionate about - public health, sports, educating children, the arts - etc. Link what you care about to climate change and start talking and organizing around that.
I have not focused on becoming a scientific expert. I unfortunately have to spend a huge amount of my time raising money in order to be able to continue to do this work. I keep facing my grief and shock about the deterioration of the environment, I keep facing feelings of early powerlessness, and keep doing whatever I can figure out to try. I have made many new friends through this work and love being part of a huge, vibrant, international movement for justice.
I always loved the perspective of keeping one foot in RC and one foot in the wide world. I'm a better RC leader for having taken on wide world leadership, and I'm a more effective wide world leader for having the tools of discharge, liberation frameworks, and support of many Co-Counselors.
I can't think of anything I'd rather do with the rest of my life than try
everything I can think of to help ensure that life continues on this
magnificent Earth. I'm glad to be side by side with all of you!
Susan Lees, Arlington, MA USA
I started by calling 5 grandmother friends from my town and inviting them to my house - about 7 years ago now. Over my kitchen table we talked about the climate situation, shared food and feelings. We felt increasing concern for our beloved grandchildren - for their future and for all children’s future. We proposed ideas for actions we could usefully take as grandmothers and elders. We agreed that as elders we were smart, had many decades of experience, had time available, and that we were also willing to take risks.
In the following months we kept connected through more kitchen meetings, tending a common town garden, making meals together, traveling together to talks, hearings and protests, and risking arrest to stop a fracked gas pipeline.
Soon after we started this group I also attended a 350MA.org <http://350ma.org/> meeting in the next town. Sitting on a low auditorium bench, I talked to the woman next to me. She was not only the founder of that 350 Massachusetts climate action group, but she and a friend of hers were about to start an organization to mobilize mothers for a livable future. Would I want to join their founding group, she asked? Yes, I would! It combined my love of community organizing, and working with mothers/grandmothers/parents. It was women led and had an exciting capacity building model - which had been lacking in my previous organizing work.
With the tireless, brilliant and loving work of so many mothers and grandmothers, this is now quite a large organization in its 7th year - with more than 25,000 members, in 5 states with hundreds of new women leaders.
What keeps me going is staying connected and staying active in Mothers Out Front - and discharging a lot. In this time of pandemic, I have a list of friends to take walks with - and now three comfortable chairs on my front porch. I hope for many porch visits and porch 'work sessions' in my near future!
Anica Gavrilovic, Nottingham, England
I got started by inviting my local friends to a talk about Sustaining All Life. I didn’t know a lot and I read as much as I could beforehand. It felt like a big jump from having sessions and going to workshops to doing something public. I wanted to see who might want to do something very locally. About 20 people came. Carol Walker, Alternate ARP in our area came as my assistant and Don Bishop my husband and also an RC er came too. I was going to Poland for COP 24 and I said I’d like to have a “home group” to come and report back to.
For the year after that a small number would come to my house to share thinking and have very short mini sessions. I talked about what I had learned, and shared material from SAL website. People who came shared their ideas. One of them, a disabled woman, had never been to a meeting of any kind before. 2 of the people who came to some of those meetings are in my current fundamentals class. Some people from that meeting have come to online SAL events.
This year someone contacted me from a new local activists group to ask if I could help with an event they are organising for Great Big Green Week (in the UK, at the same time as Climate Fringe Week in Scotland and New York Climate Week). They know about me because of that first meeting. I’m planning to stick with this group. I’ve found bringing up the topic in conversations with people is a good challenge (set by Diane) and I started doing that about the same time as I did that initial meeting. Often times people have known more than me, or I’ve made factual mistakes but I’ve learned a lot and carried on doing it.
Margaret Butler, Portland, OR USA
I became a labor activist at age 20, and retired from that work at age 60 in 2017. I had been concerned about the climate crisis and had known I wanted to focus my energy here for a number of years before I left paid work. In 2017-2018 I joined the Climate Jobs PDX committee of Jobs with Justice (which builds relationships between unions and climate activists and engages the labor movement in climate work and is made up of many people I have worked with for years). With Climate Jobs, I volunteered to help collect signatures for and pass a local measure to create a Portland Clean Energy Fund (taxing big corporations to do climate justice projects in communities of color and low income communities). It was a great idea, led by a bunch of global-majority led organizations.
At the same time, I read and re-read, in session, Diane's Present Time article about the disparate impacts of the climate crisis globally. That discharge helped sharpen my thinking and commitment.
In late 2018, I read about Extinction Rebellion and went to one of the
first meetings of the Portland chapter. Because of my work in the labor
movement, I was experienced with non-violent direct action and believe that peaceful disruption of business as usual will be a critical part of how we make the change we need to make. In April 2019, we built a garden on the railroad tracks where fossil fuel infrastructure was being expanded and we got arrested twice. Five of us pleaded not guilty by reason of necessity (peaceful direct action was the only effective path left) and convinced 5 of 6 jurors to vote to acquit us.
What keeps me going is my relationships in co-counseling, lots of discharge and my close relationships in Extinction Rebellion, Climate Jobs and our allied organizations.
Kate Potter, Elmwood, IL, USA
I was in cooking school in my mid-30’s. A woman lectured on traditional foods. She showed slides of glowing yellow butter and explained how nutrient-dense it is when it’s that color. She said it’s because the cows were grazing on rapidly-growing green grass, not eating grain.
For whatever reason (maybe because I like good food!), I was so intrigued that I read everything I could about grass-based farming and soon left New York City to learn how to farm. I’ve worked on grass-based dairies and beef operations; I’ve pastured pigs, sheep, goats and chickens; and have run my own farm.
I’m still amazed at how rapidly nature revives when tilled and poisoned cropland is converted to permanent pasture (or forest or wetland where appropriate) and is properly grazed by ruminant animals. The whole cascade of life returns. The songs of frogs return to farms where they hadn’t been heard for decades, Brilliant butterflies and birds where two years ago there was a deadly expanse of genetically modified soybeans. Edible wild fungi on logs where last year there was just a monotonous lawn.
I’ve spent the last two weeks reading the book "Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost its Way and What We Can Do About It." I’ve read much of it out loud in session. I’ve had to discharge to keep reading because the authors are so stark about how we’re killing our planet. The destruction they catalog is heartbreaking.
They argue that the promise of “green technology” is false and has distracted many of us from what’s important: ending industrial civilization and restoring the natural world.
The work of regenerative farming has been fun for me -- even easy. But I’ve done it mostly alone or with a few other people. Reading this book and discharging about it reminds me that I want to restore land and water alongside huge numbers of other people.
Now I want and need to learn how to make relationships and communicate so that as many people as possible will come to regenerative farming and land restoration. Doing this “people work” of environmentalism feels very scary. But I’m counseling on it in my sessions.
Jack Manno, NY, USA
Well before I became a climate activist, I was a lover of creeks. As a young boy in a working-class family, I managed to find flowing waters in the woods near my home. I loved the sound that creeks make: reliably bubbly, soft yet strong, urgent, like me. Whenever my family moved, and they often did, I found woods and flowing water. My grandpa was the lockmaster on the Erie Canal, Lock 17. Later in life I took water seriously, as a career. I became the Director of the US & Canadian Great Lakes Research Consortium. Those Great Lakes of North America hold fully 20 % of all the freshwater in all the world. And yet the distresses of greed and ignorance made it so that all around the Great Lakes big money corporations were regularly dumping chemical contaminants directly into the lakes. Its cheap that way, at least for a while.
In 1992 I was asked to go to Brazil for what was dubbed the Earth Summit, officially named the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. There, one of the first meetings I joined was on the Climate Crisis, then called, “Global Warming.” Most of the well-known activists and scientists who were working on Climate were there. I didn’t have much to say, but I listened a lot. What I heard clearly was that this was the time to act, 1992. If we waited, it would likely be too late. Believe me, I was getting discouraged. When I left the meeting I ran into Orin Lyons. Orin is a leader and a faithkeeper of the Onondaga People, also known as the People of the Hills who live where they have always lived, on Onondaga Nation Land, 5 miles from where I live. And I ran into him in Brazil and he was leading the Indigenous contingent to the UN Conference. And I listened. It was clear to me that the Native peoples at the meetings were by far the most rational and knowledgeable (Later, after I got home to Syracuse, NY I was asked by the Onondaga Nation leaders to help clean up the contaminated messes that non-native people had been dumping on the Nation territory for a very long time, but that is another story).
In Brazil I was convinced that the work I needed to do was to learn from and back Native People. That requires alot of listening.
In RC I lead a support group for Allies to Native Peoples who are working on the climate crisis. Eileen Nemzer is the organizer. It’s very hopeful.
Shosh Blachman, Berkeley, CA, USA
I have been working on issues related to climate change for the past 30 years or so. I began with a focus on pollution prevention -- supporting efforts to make nail salons, dry cleaners and hair salons safer and healthier work environments among others by reducing the presence of hazardous chemicals in our environment, what is called Pollution Prevention. One of my colleagues attended several COP meetings on behalf of the League of Women Voters and as I learned more I became more concerned about climate change. Many toxic chemicals are made from fossil fuels, so reducing our reliance on them is helpful. Also many of the manufacturing facilities expose the workers who are often PGM to toxics. I learned that the chemicals in microwave popcorn manufacturing are unhealthy for the workers for example.
After I left that position I got more involved in the Northern California Recycling Association (NCRA). I am now on the NCRA board and participate in a number of committees including Zero Food Waste; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Zero Waste Advocacy. I have been working on projects focused on reducing food waste, specifically to get businesses to stop putting organic material (esp food) in landfill as it generates methane, a GHG, and to encourage food waste prevention. California passed a state law addressing this called SB1383 that will take effect Jan 1, 2022 and is a model for other states in this regard. I was involved (with many others) in monitoring the drafting of the regulatory language.
I checked out the Citizens Climate League and learned about the legislation they are supporting, but I wanted to focus my efforts on reducing consumption, so this group did not seem a good fit for me. I got involved in an effort to get the Berkeley Unified School District to provide students with reuseable foodware when the cafeterias open. Manufacturing and transporting disposable foodware, even if it's compostable (though coated with toxic chemicals) generates more GHGs than using and washing reuseable trays, cups & cutlery on site. Back to the way it used to be...Other school districts are looking at this and some are doing it too. And i like to encourage and support repair and reuse, when possible.
Our synagogue has a Climate Tzedek committee with which I'm involved and we just created a Dayenu Circle. In addition, I helped our synagogue become a Certified Green Business, which is a third party certification (not greenwashing) indicating that not only do we seek to minimize our energy consumption, but also water, and waste.
I like riding my bike around town and claim to get the best parking spot that way.
Doing these things and monitoring new developments in the field give me hope. I am still fairly new to RC so most of my discharging is focused on personal issues,
Carol Rose, Tucson Arizona USA
Español Adelante
As a young person my mother taught me to love the earth, to not leave a mess, to leave things better. As an adult I worked long and far in peace, justice and human rights. I noticed that Indigenous communities we partnered with were focused on defending the earth and all the people (humans and other creatures). I also noticed that Indigenous people often organized their struggles with a longer view than settler/colonizer peacemakers like myself. In the middle of struggles for immediate survival I saw young people and allies mentored, ceremony practiced, time for deep teaching. After a while, I understood indigenous people and indigenous wisdom has the best chance of leading us out of the horrors created through colonization, capitalism and racism, including the climate emergency.
I try to organize my daily life in a way that contributes to turning around climate crisis (e.g. not flying, solar...) In organizing work and prayer, I try to follow the lead of indigenous people in my region (e.g. If with Apache Stronghold's lead the mine is stopped, it will protect sacred land and it will save enormous carbon output http://apache-stronghold.com/)
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Como niña mi madre me enseñó a amar la tierra, a no dejar un lío, a dejar las cosas mejor. De adulto trabajé mucho tiempo en paz, justicia y derechos humanos. Noté que las comunidades indígenas con las que nos asociamos estaban enfocadas en defender la tierra y todas las personas (humanos y otras criaturas). También noté que los pueblos indígenas a menudo organizaban sus luchas con una visión más amplia que los hacedores de paz colonos / colonizadores como yo. Aun en medio de luchas por la supervivencia inmediata, vi a crianza de jóvenes y aliados, ceremonias, tiempo para la enseñanza profunda. Después de un tiempo, comprendí que los pueblos indígenas y la sabiduría indígena tienen la mejor oportunidad de sacarnos de los horrores creados por la colonización, el capitalismo y el racismo, incluida la emergencia climática.
Intento organizar mi vida diaria de una manera que contribuya a revertir la crisis climática (por ejemplo, no volar, solar ...) Al organizar el trabajo y la oración, trato de seguir el ejemplo de los pueblos indígenas de mi región (por ejemplo, si con el liderazgo del Apache Stronghold, la mina está detenida, protegerá la tierra sagrada y ahorrará una enorme producción de carbono http://apache-stronghold.com/)