Do you think this is a movement?
Like many of you, I've had a lot of conversations recently about 'the movement'. It takes on a certain inflection when you say it. Talking to so many people who work deeply on this thing makes us forget that some people don't quite understand the special inflection.
Jeremy Doochin is an amazing leader. Growing up in Tennessee with parents in the Sierra Club, Jeremy started a student group in high school that grew to 80 members. As a teenager he was elected to the state Sierra Club board of directors and by all means is a well respected and accomplished activist. When we first started talking Jeremy didn't quite see this as a movement.
We talked about the divide between youth and adults in the types of campaigns they take on and how they approach their work. He talked about how there was so much room for collaboration, saying youth should be throwing events every year that adults can go to, and vice versa to establish an ongoing relationship. While I am all for working with and involving adults, I asked why we should run the same events every year. Why aren't we looking for an broad escalation of tactics? Why are we still thinking in terms of 'throwing events' for environmental issues? He didn't quite know.
A movement escalates until it wins. It may do a lot of other things, but it will not accept half-way measures, it will not accept stagnation and it will expand at an ever-increasing rate. The climate movement is very young. We're growing really fast, but we're also still figuring a lot of stuff out.
Here's a book recommendation: Tools for Radical Democracy: How to Organize for POWER in your Community by Joan Minieri and Paul Getsos. It says engaging in movement-building “provides a space for intensive political education.” Investing in the political education of all our members not only spurs activists to greater levels of commitment, it also empowers them to guide and change the direction of the movement. We've already challenged established leaders of environmentalism, and this bottom up ground-swell is going to challenge every leader out there to listen harder to what the people are saying will get the job done.
Americans are generally pretty poorly informed about social movements. High school history class tends to teach the 'great leaders' version of events, and imply that only extraordinary citizens have an impact. More from the book:
“Your work is rooted in the history of social change. Your day-to-day organizing may give you some opportunities to educate members, leaders, and staff about this history, but in movement activities, this political education can occur at a deeper level. Members learn about the history of struggle in a place they are visiting and about other people they need to work with but may not understand.”
But there are a lot of youth like Jeremy out there who don't see it yet. So far we haven't reached a critical mass of youth. Why do you think we're bringing 4,000 people to DC for Power Shift? Is it going to shift the balance of power? Is every one of us going to come away with a crystal clear vision of where we need to go? Or is this a huge drumbeat in the increasingly rapid rhythm of a movement which might falter or stall, but which will be so democratic, so well planned, so inspired that we will not only win without compromise, but we will win before its too late. I'm in it for the Long Haul, and I want to be smart. I want to win more than anything in the world, but I know we're not going to win until we're ready.
We must internalize the need to escalate tactics until we win. We must lose the notion that we'll only work on climate change for a few years until we get a real job, or until we pass the legislation we need. If you think that the next president is going to fix this, you've been dreaming. They'll pass some legislation, and it won't be nearly as good as we need it to be. Old style environmentalists, and the American public, will call that a success. Hey, compromise is always better than nothing, right? That's the mentality the climate cannot afford.
Our work right now is to invest in the political awareness of ourselves and other youth. With political awareness comes more strategic campaigns, and with really good strategic campaigns, we're going to win. Do you think this is a movement? Do the people you work with?
This essay is the third of a six part series this fall looking at organizing for power in the youth movement. All comments and feedback are greatly appreciated.