"No Time to Waste..."

Winter and wildfires – it’s a strange combination. But with wildfire evacuations for residents of Santa Cruz County just last week, we don’t have to look far to see the effects of climate change in our communities. It’s against this backdrop that Battery Powered launched its winter theme on Climate Action with Expert Night. Our panel of experts shared insights on what it will take to build a sustainable and equitable climate future. Here’s what we learned.

Change starts with people

"How we move forward depends on communities. We have no time to waste but there are no shortcuts in organizing." - Miya Yoshitani

While we could have started talking about big policy goals or other top down strategies, Miya Yoshitani, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, reminded us that all significant social change that has happened in the U.S. has been a result of community organizing: the person by person, block by block organizing work that takes years but eventually brings the voices of those closest to the problem into the center of power to deliver transformative change. This community organizing and people power is what has brought us to the current moment where there is opportunity for significant climate action.  

Jared Blumenfeld, Secretary of Environmental Protection for the State of California, doubled down, saying that the people’s voices are incredibly important to pressure government for policy that is better, faster, and bolder. And Ivan Frishberg, Director of Impact Policy at Amalgamated Bank and Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, noted that the “pace and scale of change needed is going to cause incredible friction within the economy.” Getting past that friction to move companies forward will require consistent pressure from the people.

Equity in climate action

“We cannot be successful if we don’t do it in an equitable way.” - Jared Blumenfeld

The people of today’s climate movement look a lot more like the country than they did even a decade ago.  “Ten years ago, climate was about polar bears and ice caps!” said Corinne Van Hook-Turner, Director of Climate Innovation at Movement Strategy Center. That narrative was not accessible to those most impacted by climate change, who were experiencing the effects as a cross section of issues including economic inequality, housing, health, climate and more. Now the movement has broadened and become more diverse, with low-income and people of color increasingly at the forefront.

This is essential because climate change impacts these communities first and worst. How so?  Jared directed us to the example of Alameda County. Your life expectancy if you are white is, on average, 21 years longer than a person of color or low-income person in the same county.  Cumulative environmental impacts are a big element of this disparity, such as how close you live to a hazardous waste facility, whether your drinking water meets federal standards, or the pollution levels in your neighborhood due to, for example, diesel trucks routed near your streets. A long history of segregation and racism, such as redlining, means that communities of color are disproportionately those that must live in polluted areas. And these communities, Miya pointed out, also suffer a long history of disinvestment, so they lack safe public spaces to recreate, grocery stores, and other assets for a healthy community. 

Community-driven solutions

“What does it look like when you defer to the expertise of communities?“ - Corrine Van Hook-Turner

Putting these impacted communities at the core of decision making and solutions is not just the equitable thing to do, it also works!  One example that Corinne shared is Marin City, a mostly Black community with chronic flooding, crumbling infrastructure and poverty, all within one of the most affluent counties. In 2018, the community modeled a process to place their lived experience at the center of identifying the problems and crafting solutions to create a People’s Plan for climate resiliency that could guide municipal leaders.

In short, the panel urged that we must challenge the traditional top down structure that got us into the challenges of inequity and climate change we have today, and turn to communities at the forefront for solutions.

All hands on deck

“If we do this right, we don’t just avert a climate catastrophe and the planet, but we end up with a more just and sustainable economy and society.” - Ivan Frishberg

“The 2010s were a lost decade in terms of climate; we lost a climate bill,” cautioned Ivan. In an earlier period with a stronger political appetite for action on climate, we needed to reduce emissions by 3% per year; now we have to do it by 8% per year. So while you can look at this as a moment of opportunity, it is more realistically “the biggest do over” we can imagine. It’s going to take federal and state action, tremendous pressure from the people to urge faster, bolder action, and “businesses leaning into this until it hurts and then some” to make the most of it, said Ivan.

Jared spoke to a Cabinet-wide approach to climate where every single agency is addressing climate and working across silos. “If you are a farmer you are feeling climate change right now; if you are at the Federal Reserve you realize that economic stability requires a stable climate; if you are a postal worker you are experiencing climate change as workers get too hot,” Jared continued. The problem is intersectional and the solutions must be as well.

How should philanthropy engage?

“This is not the time to sit on the sidelines. Just do it!” - Jared Blumenfeld

Recommendations from our panel focused more on HOW to fund rather than WHAT to fund.  The needs are vast so there are a multitude of opportunities for philanthropy to make a difference, but how philanthropy deploys its resources is the key. Panelists emphasized acting in partnership with impacted communities, investing in social movements and activism, giving locally, removing barriers to applying for funds, and not drowning organizations in reporting. But perhaps the most urgent message came from Miya, who called for building a real relationship between philanthropy and communities that rebalances the power to a more healthy and equitable mutual partnership. “This is not charity, this is mutual benefit.”

To learn more about our winter theme, check out the Issue Brief here. 

Our theme on Climate Action continues on February 23rd with a virtual Organization Night. Our 12 finalists for a grant will be presenting about their work. You can RSVP here. 

---

Battery Powered is The Battery's giving program. To learn more or get involved, visit thebatterysf.com/batterypowered or contact [email protected]