What is the Climate Justice Reading Group?

The Climate Justice Reading Group is a collective study focusing on 11 themes selected to deepen our understanding of climate justice, intersectional organizing, collective liberation, direct action, movement history, and theory.  We meet bi-weekly on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of each month at 5pm PT / 8pm EST. To Join the Climate Justice Reading Group, please contact Lina Blount at [email protected] or email the ADN at [email protected].  If you have feedback or additions to our curriculum list, please let us know! 

 

Why study together?

The Alumni Divestment Network is developing a community of action and support to build sustainable power for the long haul. We believe that reading, sharing stories, and expanding our minds together is a key component of creating community.  We are committed to growing our organizing skills, political perspectives, and knowledge of social movements, past and present.  Through the Climate Justice Reading Group we challenge the notion that education is contained within the classroom, and co-create a transformative learning space among students and post-college folks.  

 

Reflections from the Study

Lina Blount - Resistance 

In our March 24th reading group meeting we began the first of 2 sessions exploring movement theories and stories around resistance.  To start, members of the group reflected on times that they have resisted, what it felt like, and what supported them in their resistance.  Many participants mentioned the importance of trust in groups to support resistance and discussed the difficulties in building trust in spatially separated groups.  Drawing on some of the themes from the readings, especially from Daniel Hunter's piece on direct action and some of Ella Baker's comments on direct democracy, the group brainstormed ways to support alumni in their resistance skill building around the country. 

 

Our Curriculum 

Our curriculum draws from various sources, including Maypop Collective, Catalyst Project, Training For Change, Wildfire Project, and others.  Many thanks to all who contributed to this compilation of materials.   

 

1. Community Care - Examinging the roles of Despair, healing, trauma, emotional organizing/ personal transformation in movement transformation, societal transformation.  Understand the term “transformational organizing.”

• bell hooks, “Love as the Practice of Freedom” in Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (bio).
• Excerpt from “Out of the Spiritual Closet” by Movement Strategy Center
• Excerpt from “Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others” by Laura Van Dermoot Lipsky
• “These Are the Times to Grow Our Souls” (p. 28-51), Excerpt from “The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the 21st Century” by Grace Lee Boggs
• Calling IN: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable

 

2. Roots of Ecological Crisis - Exploring the scope, root causes, and implications of our current moment of ecologic crisis. 

• Rebecca Solnit, "Call Climate Change What It Is: Violence" 
• “Introduction: One Way or Another, Everything Changes” of This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein (p. 1-28)
• “The Right is Right: The Revolutionary Power of Climate Change,” Chapter 1 of This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein (p. 31-63)
• Capitalism vs The Climate - Naomi Klein (The Nation)
• Derrick Jensen, “A Language Older Than Words” - Pages 7 to 10 (from Chapter 1: Silencing)
• Bill McKibben, Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math, Rolling Stone, 7/19/12
• Kolya Abramksy, “Racing to ‘Save’ the Economy and the Planet” 

 

3. Resistance - Inquiring into various forms of building and contesting power, organizing, and movement strategy. We draw from movement history to explore the roots of nonviolent discipline and the critical role of direct action. 

• George Lakey, Strategizing for a Living Revolution: 5 Stages for Social Movements
• Daniel Hunter, The Power of Nonviolent Direct Action – Daniel Hunter (final)
• Carlos Saavedra Diaz and Paul Engler, Momentum Webinar #2: The Theory of Integration
• Beautiful Trouble, Pillars of Support
• Carol Mueller, “Ella Baker and the Origins of Participatory Democracy” from Vicki Crawford, Jacqueline Rouse and Barbara Woods, Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torch Bearers 1941–1965. (15 page PDF: Mueller-Ella-Baker-and-origins-of-participatory-democracy). (bio)
• Black Panther Party Ten-Point Program 

 

4. Systems of Oppression and Collective Liberation - Digging deeper into our understandings of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. Laying the foundation for understanding about how systems of oppression operate and highlight how they contribute to and perpetuate the climate crisis. Goal: Understand terminology of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism.

• Andrea Smith, “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy” from The Color of Violence: The INCITE Anthology. (bio).
• Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class and Sex” from Sister Outsider (bio). 
• Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” 
• Tema Okun, “White Supremacy Culture” from dismantlingracism.org. (bio)
• Cynthia Kaufman, “Capitalism and Class” from Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change. (bio)
• Aime Cesaire, “Discourses on Colonialism” 
• “Against Patriarchy: Tools for Men to Help Further Feminist Revolution” (p. 139-148) and “What We Mean by White Anti-Racist Organizing” (p. 173-178), Excerpts from “Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement-Building Strategy” by Chris Crass.  

 

5. Environmental Justice & Climate Justice - So often these terms become hollow buzz words in our movement.  In this section we explore the history, principles, and case studies to gain a clearer understanding of what it means to organize for climate and environmental justice.  

• Hilary Moore and Joshua Kahn Russell, Excerpts from Organizing Cools the Planet
• Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing
• Principles of Environmental Justice (.pdf)
• Bali Principles of Climate Justice
• Interview with Robert Bullard (Great Environmental Justice Primer)
• “An open letter to all people and organizations working to combat global warming" 
• “Grassroots Organizing Cools the Planet” (Open Letter to 1Sky from the Grassroots)
• Vandana Shiva, "Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Feminism in India" 
• Jane Kay & Cheryl Katz, “Pollution, Poverty, People of Color: The Factory on the Hill" 
• Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” in Cherrie L. Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa eds., This Bridge Called my Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. (bio)
• Tim DeChristopher’s Keynote Speech at Power Shift 2011 (video)
• Goodman, James. “From Global Justice to Climate Justice? Justice Ecologism in an Era of Global Warming.” New Political Science 31, no. 4 (December 2009): 510.
• We Speak for Ourselves: Indigenous peoples challenge the fossil fuel regime in Alberta
• Winona La Duke, An Indigenous Perspective on Feminism, Militarism and the The Environment 

 

6. The Just Transition Framework - Discussing what it means to organize for Just Transition to the new economy with a frontline-centered, intersectional politic. 

• Resilient Cities: Building Community Control | Reimagine!
• Our Power Campaign Website
• Chris Crass, “We Can Do This: Key Lessons for More Effective and Healthy Liberation Praxis,” p. 273-284, and excerpt from “Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement-Building Strategy” 
• Why #BlackLivesMatter Should Transform the Climate Debate by Naomi Klein, 
• Why the Climate Movement Must Stand With Ferguson, by Deirdre Smith, 350.org
• Gopal Dayaneni and Mateo Nube, "Ecology and the Left" 
• The Jackson Plan: A Struggle for Self-Determination, Participatory Democracy, and Economic Justice
• Black Mesa Water Coalition campaign video 
• Climate Change and Labor: The Need for a Just Transition Just Transition pamphlet

 

8. Resistance Part 2 - Continuing to study the history of resistance in various movement contexts. 

• Rinku Sen, “Community Organizing—Yesterday and Today” from Stir It Up (bio).
• An Incredible Container for Transformation: an interview with Ai-jen Poo
• Excerpt from “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky (“Prologue” or “Of Means & Ends” Chapter)
• Naomi Klein, “Conclusion: Shock Wears Off- The Rise of People’s Reconstruction,” Excerpt from “The Shock Doctrine” 
• Straughton Lynd, “The Labor Movement,” (p. 13-41), Excerpt from “Accompanying” 
• Excerpt from “The People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn
• “The 8 Stages of Social Movements” (p. 42-86), Excerpt from “Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements” by Bill Moyer (or just Flow Chart?)
• Chapter 9: “Blockadia: The New Climate Warriors” from This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein
• Excerpt from the black power mixtape- find a clip or reading
• “Can Frances Fox Piven’s Theory of Disruptive Power Create the next Occupy?”

 

9. Resilience - Learning about past and present histories of place-based resilience and efforts to build the new economy. 

• What’s the Role of Race in the New Economy Movement?
• “Detroit, Place and Space to Begin Anew” (p. 105-134), Excerpt from “The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the 21st Century” by Grace Lee Boggs
• The Work of Love and the Love of Work: Resilience-Based Organizing as a Path Forward by Movement Generation
• Yotam Marom. “Occupy Sandy, from relief to resistance” 
• Excerpt from “What Then Must We Do: Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution” by Gar Alperovitz  
• Wen Stephenson, From Occupy to Climate Justice 
• Rebecca Solnit, Excerpt from “A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster” 

 

10. Cultural Organizing - What is the role of the arts, creative activism, and storytelling in social movements?

• Excerpt from “Beautiful Trouble” by Andrew Boyd.
  • Points of Intervention
  • Use the Power of Ritual
  • Show Don’t Tell   
  • Know Your Cultural Terrain
• Excerpt from Smart Meme’s Re:Imagining Change “Winning the Battle of the Story”
• Science Fiction and the Post-Ferguson World: “There Are As Many Ways to Exist As We Can Imagine”
• Marshall Ganz,  “Why Stories Matter.” Sojourners: Faith in Action for Social Justice. 
• Duncan Meisel, “Storytelling: Why it Matters and How to Get it Right” from The Most Amazing Online Organizing Guide Ever
• “Manifesto for the Obvious International” from the Creative Action Cookbook by the Summer Heat team

 

11. Organizing Millennials- Exploring issues that our generation faces such as student debt, gentrification, etc. and understanding our position as young people in the current political moment.  How does our generational context shape our organizing?

• DarkMatter’s Alok Vaid-Menon, “We are nothing (and that is beautiful)”
• 8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance 
• Andrea Smith, “Introduction: The Revolution Will Not Be Funded”  from INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (bio).
• "Oppose and Propose" by Andrew Cornell, about Movement for a New Society (organizing post-grad outside of the non-profit industrial complex)
• NPR: “Are Today’s Millennials ‘The Screwed Generation?’”
• Millennials Didn’t Abandon Our Institutions — Our Institutions Failed Them
• The Rise of the New New Left