It’s no secret that the climate movement, despite some recent successes, has its problems. Spoken by mostly white voices, our messages are sometimes out of touch with the priorities of frontline communities: the ethnic minorities and low-income people who unfairly absorb the health and economic costs of climate change and environmental pollution. We are becoming more diverse, but we’re not there yet. And we focus most of our attention on the corporations and politicians that we perceive to have all the power, rather than building power from the ground up, in the communities that are right now dealing with the consequences of climate change and fossil fuel extraction.
Here’s good news, though: Last week, all of those problems dissolved (at least for a couple of days) at a breakthrough meeting in Atlanta. The occasion was a convening of advocates associated with the Advancing Equity and Opportunity Collaborative and the U.S. Climate Action Network’s Southeast Climate and Energy Network. The convening drew 30 activists and policy advocates working on climate change and equity — including many from frontline communities in the South.
Why Atlanta? Everyone knows the Sou... Read more
