“There is no easy way, but there is a way.” – Willie Nelson
Texas Impact, as the Texas affiliate of Interfaith Power & Light, participated in the United States Climate Action Network’s (USCAN) Annual Meeting on June 18th to June 21st, 2019. USCAN is a broad coalition of environmental faith groups, advocates, as well as other Interfaith Power & Light affiliates that coordinate their efforts towards their common goal of environmental justice.
The Annual Meeting started with an inspirational opening by the Sampson Brothers, two brothers who promote cultural pride, unity, and hope by positive example through art, education and dance. They performed a ritual dance of their respective tribes to bless the land and the work to be done.
Executive Director Bee Moorhead asks the opening plenary panel about climate disasters and their affect on climate migration.
The opening plenary was presented by Colette Pichon Battle of the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy and Tom Athanasiou of EcoEquity, focused on equity and what that means in practice and how we can strive towards it throughout the broader environmental movement. Specifically, they explained methods of remedying our shared past while moving forward in what would be called a Just Transition. This meant working towards equity in disaster response and recovery in a highly cooperative world.
Reflecting on the last year in terms of climate change, Tom Athanasiou explained that drastic reductions in our emissions have been necessary and the longer we delay the costlier these reductions will become. However, state and local victories on renewable energy and climate disaster response is helping to ensure we meet these goals.
Communications Coordinator Joe Czap discusses climate disaster policy at the state level with Jamie DeMarco of Citizens Climate Lobby.
Then the first breakout sessions focused the meeting around a multitude of topics including, the impact of climate change on health, how to achieve 100% renewable energy, and best practices for local organizing and impact. The overall focus was on integrating community organizing with a values-based structure to insure a just and fair inclusion to improve the national environmental movement.
The second day’s plenary was presented by Linda Harper of Georgia WAND, David Arkush of Public Citizen, and Keya Chatterjee of USCAN, and focused on identifying and working on areas of misalignment and alignment. One example was of nuclear power plants that were built on the coast that could now be damaged by severe storms or hurricanes.
During the breakout sessions, Texas Impact’s staff focused on developing skills to engage potential advocates at a larger scale. That included dissecting how past movements, like the Civil Rights or Women’s Rights Movements, succeeded and failed in this strategy. They also provided nuts-and-bolts organizing strategies to engage people as well as developing a robust volunteer training program.
John Hill of the United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society listens during a breakout session.
Finally, the USCAN Annual Meeting held a vote on its organizational goals for the upcoming year. Through a ranked-choice voting process, the attendee members of USCAN voted to focus on building grassroots power, elections, moving towards 100% renewable energy and policy development.