Making it Everybody’s Movement

It’s been great to be part of TogetherGreen this past year. For me it was very validating to have National Audubon Society and Toyota signal that reaching out to diverse audiences is not only a good idea, but one that they would put their resources behind in the form of grants, training, staff and in particular focus on diversifying the environmental movement.

To me, diversifying the environmental movement is about moving from an un-sustainable monocultural movement to a multicultural movement that is adaptable, resilient and strong enough to succeed in addressing the most pressing issues of our times. To some extent, I believe, this is about broadening our vision to stop focusing so narrowly on environmental issues per se and recognize the interconnectedness we all recognize in natural systems but fail to recognize when looking at social systems. For example, climate change represents an opportunity to address poverty and inequality at the same time that we address carbon emissions. This is the précis of Everybody’s Movement, a wonderful new report from Angela Park of Diversity Matters, who provided us with a training last October.

The report looks at this disconnection between the mainstream environmental movements’ efforts to address climate change and how low-income people and people of color associated with the environmental justice movement perceive the same issue. It’s not surprising to me that there is a Grand Canyon of a chasm between these two communities, but I want to share the insights that Angela reports because they offer some great things to think about in terms of outreach but more importantly going beyond outreach to reconfiguring the ways we engage in conservation to build a broader movement.

The report interviews twenty-three activists and leaders like Mateo Nube of Movement Generation who says, ““The climate crisis is a symptom of a deeper systemic problem. It is the symptom of an economic model that is based on intensive resource extraction. We could arguably end up in a scenario where we find a way to reduce carbon emissions but are still on this treadmill of intensive resource extraction and the exploitation of people. Our goal politically is that long-term we have to rethink how we live on this planet.” This is a recurring theme of the report, that low-income people and people of color get the need to protect the planet, reverse climate change, restore habitat, etc., but link the need for these activities with the need to end exploitation of people, protect human rights, and create equity in education, income and access to healthcare. For many low-income people and people of color there is anger and frustration, that, once again, some more pressing issue (e.g. climate change) comes before the long-standing issues they have been fighting for over the last 500 years in this country.

You might say, “if we don’t fix the climate, there will be no planet to inhabit.” Angela’s report makes it clear though that for many people living in poverty or having few opportunities at good paying jobs because of institutionalized discrimination, this isn’t much of a planet to inhabit. And for many, there is a real sense that it is upper and middle class whites who have brought us all to this environmental crisis. In fact, low-income communities and people of color communities have borne the brunt of the fossil fuel economy since its inception, suffering the most and benefiting the least, whether it be extraction, production, usage or waste of fossil fuel-related activities. Think cancer alley in Louisiana and, for example the PVC industry which has poisoned people and wildlife for decades, yet only late in 2009 got the first regulations over a dirty fossil-fuel related industry.

One of the main points that Everybody’s Movement makes is that people of color, in particular, view environmental protection efforts as very important – significantly more so than whites. And yet the climate change movement remains highly homogenous by race, class and gender. For the most part, the efforts over climate change do not reflect the view that we can address stubborn issues like poverty in addressing climate change. Those two aspects alone – changing the face of our movements and taking more holistic views in addressing conservation issues – can, over time, transform our movements from appearing to be the provincial domain of upper middle class whites serving themselves to broad-based movements serving a truly progressive purpose of protecting the planet and all its inhabitants.

The report offers useful suggestions from the environmental justice’s approach to climate change that I believe are useful to all of us, regardless of our issue.

Analyze the connections between the abuse of the environment and the oppression of people with the least power, including the poor, immigrants, women and people of color.
Lack of interest from people of color in a particular environmental issue usually has to do with messaging and content rather than inherent disdain. Look for ways to demonstrate how your work can alleviate social and economic circumstances as well as environmental ones.
Try, try and try again. Recognize that for over 100 years, low income people and people of color have been explicitly not welcome in the environmental community. John Muir kicked the Maidu Indians out of Yosemite Valley, the EPA turned a blind eye to siting of hazardous waste facilities and many hunting and fishing organizations excluded people of color, instead advocating for costly licenses and creating preserves for the exclusive use of the wealthy. Engaging diverse audiences won’t come easy and will involve hard work of diversifying internally, creating programs that have real outcomes that have real benefits for the communities you wish to engage and making it business-as-usual to incorporate the broader concerns of low income and people of color communities in environmental protection efforts. (This is where we all – TogetherGreen – have a leg up. Keep at it, this is market advantage over time for constituency and funding!)
Setting the bar where low income people and people of color live vis-à-vis an environmental issue is likely to be the most protective place to get to.
Use people-oriented outcomes, not technical-oriented outcomes to engage more people and achieve stronger results. Interviewees criticize the climate change movement’s narrow focus on 350 ppm as un-engaging to low income and people of color communities because, while those communities strongly agree that climate change is a serious problem that needs addressing, it isn’t clear that achieving 350 ppm will have any positive benefit for their communities in reducing health problems, creating jobs that they can get, etc.
Increase community groups’ capacity to be part of efforts to protect the environment alongside their work on economic and social issues. In my own personal experience, I have seen how segregated we have become movement-wise. A local environmental group tackles the problem of stormwater runoff in a community while a low-income community group addresses the lack of jobs. Yet neither group has the capacity to advocate for the others’ issues when in fact there are clear interconnections (reducing stormwater runoff requires new jobs like outreach to disconnect downspouts or build new infrastructure). While coordination is one obvious answer, having the capacity to advocate for those issues inside the two organizations would facilitate richer outcomes for the community as a whole from the get go.
Language and messengers matter. Use language in outreach materials that resonate with these broader constituencies. Think carefully about whom is the best messenger for diverse audiences.
Make every environmental issue everyone’s issue. We have become specialized as a movement and that ultimately will be our downfall. It’s the oldest trick in the book, more people equals more power and more success in advocacy or education.
Much of this is hard work and requires new ways of thinking about old and new problems we all face in our work. It is, like most environmental work, going to be thankless, invisible work. But it’s necessary to create more participatory, inclusive efforts with the full engagement of poor communities and communities of color. I look forward to continuing this journey with you.


Tony DeFalco
2008 TogetherGreen Fellow
Verde