Organizing Cools the Planet offers a challenge to all concerned about the ecological crisis: find your frontline. This booklet weaves together stories, analysis, organizing tools, and provocative questions, to offer a snapshot of the North American Climate Justice movement and provide pathways for readers to participate in it. Authors share hard lessons learned, reflect on strategy, and grapple with the challenges of their roles as organizers who do not come from “frontline communities” but work to build a movement big enough for everyone and led by the priorities and solutions of low-income people, communities of color, Indigenous, youth, and other constituencies most directly impacted by the crisis. Rooted in the authors’ experiences organizing in local, national, and international arenas, they challenge readers to look at the scale of ecological collapse with open eyes, without falling prey to disempowering doomsday narratives. This booklet is for anyone who wants to build a movement with the resiliency to navigate one of the most rapid transitions in human history.
What People Are Saying
"There is no task more urgent than to organize a mass popular movement to deal effectively with the looming environmental crisis. The barriers are high, the forces opposed powerful. All the more reason to dedicate ourselves to the kinds of efforts outlined Joshua Kahn Russell and Hilary Moore's booklet." —Noam Chomsky
"In an atmosphere heavy with doomsday predictions and fear, this pamphlet is a breath of fresh air. Joshua Kahn Russell and Hilary Moore weave together stories and organizing tools to create a vision for practical transition amid the climate crisis. Organizing Cools the Planet confronts pressing questions of our time." —Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Founding Director, Indigenous World Association
"Joshua and Hilary's manual will be useful to all who want to make change creatively and peacefully in our brutal times." —Dr. Vandana Shiva
About the Authors
Joshua Kahn Russell is a strategy, organizing, & nonviolent direct action trainer with the Ruckus Society. He has worked internationally with the Climate Justice Now! network to bring justice to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and has been a leading voice within the International Youth Climate Movement. Joshua spent four years as Rainforest Action Network’s grassroots actions manager, campaigning against banks and corporations to end our addiction to coal and oil. He has authored chapters for numerous books, most recently The Next Eco-Warriors. His articles have appeared in Yes! magazine, Left Turn, PeaceWork magazine, Upping the Anti, and Z Magazine. His blog is www.praxismakesperfect.org
Hilary Moore is a core organizer with Rising Tide Bay Area and a founding organizer of the Mobilization for Climate Justice West, a grassroots alliance of organizations in the Bay Area dedicated to keeping frontline communities at the forefront of the struggle while advancing community-led solutions. Hilary organizes around gentrification issues in West Oakland, as well as organizing allied support for the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. She sits on the board of the Institute for Social Ecology. Her interests and research focus on building collective practices of care within communities engaged in resistance and struggle.