One of the biggest challenges of organizing for the climate movement is that the information about the the climate crisis is terrifying. For some people, terror can be a motivating force. For most of us, it is immobilizing. How do you organize people when the information you need to give them will terrify them? Many people are in denial about the seriousness of the climate crisis. I don’t mean climate change deniers. These are people who systematically cast doubt on the science because they stand to benefit from the fossil fuel status quo and will use their resources to insulate themselves from consequences. I mean everyday people who don’t have the emotional bandwidth to face facts this dire, so our minds deny and minimize the threat.

Diane Shisk, a climate activist from the Pacific Northwest, works with 350Seattle and the Sierra Club, but she is also a top leader in Sustaining All Life (SAL). Sal is a program of Re-Evaluation Counseling, an international peer counseling organization. For the past decade, she has been using peer counseling tools to help people develop the emotional capacity to face the climate emergency. I am one of the climate activists who has come out of that counseling organization.  I am still terrified about the climate crisis. But I was able to get enough support to look at it and move past immobilization and fear. I had to have a few panic attacks at the workshops, but then I could get support to process those feelings and move toward action. One of their biggest and most effective strategies is to help us look at how our present time terror about the climate emergency triggers early trauma in our lives. If we are adults facing a climate emergency, we can work together to take collective action. However, if we are triggered and recalling trauma from our early childhood or infancy, we feel totally alone and helpless. When we work through the trauma that is triggered by the climate emergency, it doesn’t solve global warming. But it does give a more more accurate picture of our power. Climate solutions aren’t going to come from Western political leaders or capitalist innovation. Climate solutions will come from a movement of the people, determined to take back this planet from billionaires, corporations, and fossil fuel monopolies. This is part of why young people are leading the movement. They have fewer years of being beaten down by the system. And even though many of them have also experienced early trauma, they are still more resilient.

from Sustaining All Life

This past weekend, Diane Shisk co-led a zoom workshop for climate activists, and I left feeling incredibly hopeful. There were three things that contributed to that feeling of hope.

1, Putting the fight against racism at the center of our climate work. Diane spoke openly about the racism in the environmental movement and that our climate agenda must include fighting for racial justice–from Black Lives Matter to other forms of racism. But beyond just talking about an anti-racism agenda, she chose to co-lead the workshop with an Indigenous woman in the organization who lives in the Global South. And the Indigenous woman went first and led the longest portion of the workshop. Diane Shisk modeled backing POC leadership and it made a huge difference for all the participants of color.

2. Diane said she believes we have a good chance to defeat Tr*mp in November. You want to talk about terror? This is my nightmare. I had to cut back on social media after the 2016 election, because so many people were simply venting their terror. I couldn’t take in anyone else’s fear, because my own was so out of control. Previously, I had enjoyed social media commentary from a wider variety of voices, but after the election, I could see that some peoples’ lenses were tinted with painful emotion. Some shared despair. Everything they said was spreading their hopelessness. Other people’s lens was tinted with terror. Their comments were spreading their fear. Another group’s perspectives were tinted with contempt. They were busy assigning blame for the problem. All of those people had valid points. But the impact of their commentary was to make me feel afraid, hopeless and contemptuous. And then there were people whose social commentary completely ignored the election. They acted as if everything was fine. I couldn’t deal with the avoiders, either. So in 2016, I started a new twitter list called “The Solution” that focused on voices that were engaged with strategies to get us out of this mess, with an eye on making Tr*mp a one-term president. Most of my social media engagement is with that list. So here we are in 2020. It is clear to me that Tr*mp cannot win the popular vote in November. (He didn’t even win it in 2016). On the other hand, he now has the power to engage in widespread voter suppression and fraud. Bu the election isn’t a video game that Tr*mp can hack to make his name light up in the high score display. It’s a complex system that can be manipulated in a close race to change the outcome. We have not slid far enough into fascism that he can hack a major loss. From his mostly-empty rally to his disastrous coronavirus response to the imploding economy, there is no public will for such a close election in 2020. We have much work to do to make it happen, but I believe that we can defeat him.

3. At the workshop this weekend, Diane Shisk also said she believes that the Sanders campaign has been effective at moving the Democrats in a progressive direction. She thinks we have a real chance to win a Green New Deal with Joe Biden. I am no fan of Biden, but I am prepared to vote for him in November, and to encourage others to do so. I have been inspired by the inclusion of Varshini Prakash from the Sunrise Movement and other strong progressive activists in the DNC platform committees. The Democrats can see that they have to move in a more progressive direction if they have any hope of winning in November. It will be our movement’s job to hold them to that platform after November.

But Diane Shisk is just one person. Why does her analysis matter so much to me? Because, as I said, she is a top leader in a peer counseling organization. She has probably spent more years and total hours than anyone processing her emotions about the climate emergency, She is able to look directly at terrifying information from the news and the scientific community through a lens that is minimally tainted with fear, despair, contempt, and avoidance. So I think her assessment likely has a high degree of accuracy. And above all, I trust her because I am looking for signs of hope. One of the things she said about this moment in climate activism and the Movement for Black Lives is that people have been systematically discouraged around creating a more just society. But then, when they see others becoming active, people become more hopeful and are energized to take action themselves. This is how uprising happens. I am looking for hope to energize me to keep pushing for change. And I am sharing hope because hope is contagious and can keep our movement motivated. Now is the time, and we are the people: to defeat Tr*mp in November. to win a Green New Deal, and to reshape our country and our world into the more just and equitable future that we all deserve.