Time: Tuesday, May 18 to Thursday, May 20
Each day runs from 12pm-5pm ET/9am-2pm PT with additional keynote sessions and social events each evening
Climate Advocacy Lab’s Research + Experimentation 9 Convening
Image credit: Shane Lukas
If you're unfamiliar with R+Es, we convene them to...
- Share what we as a community are learning (public opinion research, all types of messaging tests, randomized controlled experiments, case studies, etc.)
- Dig into how research might help answer some of the big questions facing our movement
- Continue to deepen relationships and trust, especially as we seek to make the space more inclusive
- Grow this community of practice together around values of discovery, collaboration, justice, and joyfulness
In other words, register to learn how we can engage the public on climate change more effectively, more efficiently, at scale, and through deeper relationships with movement partners and future collaborators. So join us for three days of learning, conversations, and community-building that will recharge your spirits and inspire you to up your climate engagement game!
Agenda
All times in Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4:00)
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
12:00pm-12:30pm: Welcome, Introductions, Expectations, Day 1 plan
12:30pm-1:30pm: Panel 1 – State of the climate movement 2021
- Danielle Deiseroth, Data for Progress. "Harnessing the Popularity of Ambitious Climate Action"
- Jihan Gearon, advisor to Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship. "Environmental Justice is Non-negotiable" (lessons from the Black Mesa Water Coalition)
- Marouh Hussein, The New School. "Environmental Justice is Non-negotiable" (designing the Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship)
1:30pm-2:30pm: Panel 2 – 2020 election debrief
- Brionté McCorkle, Georgia Conservation Voters. "Lessons Learned from the 2020 Election Season in Georgia"
- Tiffany Hartung, Interfaith Power & Light, and Parrish Bergquist, Georgetown University. "Mobilizing and Engaging Faith Voters: The Faith Climate Justice Voter Campaign"
- Natalie Carey, Potential Energy Coalition. "Vote Like a Madre: Amplifying the Political Power of Latina Moms"
2:30pm-3:00pm: BREAK
3:00pm-4:30pm: Discussion groups (notes here)
4:30pm-5:00pm: Day 1 wrap-up and closing
7:00pm-8:30pm: Keynote session
- Elizabeth McKenna (Johns Hopkins University) discusses non-transactional power building in social movements with Climate Advocacy Lab deputy director Carina Barnett-Loro, based on her new book Prisms of the People: Power & Organizing in Twenty-First-Century America with Hahrie Han and Michelle Oyakawa
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
12:00pm-12:30pm: Welcome, Introductions, Expectations, Day 2 plan
12:30pm-1:30pm: Panel 3 – Communications and narrative strategy
- Margaret Kwateng, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance. "Building the THRIVE agenda"
- Ashley Fairbanks, 100% Campaign. "Maybe the Opposite is the Answer: Moving Past Climate Doomgloomism"
- Gabi Porter, Center for Climate Integrity. "Climate Accountability: Data-backed persuasive messaging"
1:30pm-2:30pm: Panel 4 – Advances in digital and social media advocacy
- Yash Mori, Digital Climate Coalition. "How We Build an Army of Truth Tellers"
- Cat Stern, Lockwood Strategy. "Using Micro Influencers to Engage Novel Audiences"
- Jessica Lu, Potential Energy Coalition. "Neutralizing Opposition Messaging: Insights from Data Experiments"
2:30pm-3:00pm: BREAK
3:00pm-4:00pm: Panel 5 – The environmental justice-labor-climate nexus
- Ananda Lee Tan, Just Transition Alliance. "Building Powerful Movements with Relational Trust, Transformative Vision & Principled Practice"
- Lisa Abbott, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. "Our time to thrive: building alignment among labor and climate justice organizations in Kentucky"
- Dave Campbell, United Steelworkers Local 675. "Where we are and where we've been: a perspective on just transition in organized labor"
4:00pm-5:00pm: Panel 6 – Data tools for organizing
- Shelby Green, Climate Cabinet. "Using local data to build power for environmental justice"
- Caroline Spears, Climate Cabinet. "Combining data & policy to create state-specific climate organizing tools"
- Brittany Bennett, Sunrise Movement. "How to Measure a Movement"
8:00pm-9:30pm: Virtual happy hour
Thursday, May 20, 2021
12:00pm-12:30pm: Welcome, Introductions, Expectations, Day 3 plan
12:30pm-1:30pm: Panel 7 – Policymaker contact
- Geoff Henderson, University of California, Santa Barbara. "Conducting the Heavenly Chorus: Constituent Contact and Provoked Petitioning in Congress"
- Hilda Nucete, League of Conservation Voters Education Fund. "Protecting the Right to Vote"
- Iyla Shornstein, Center for Climate Integrity. "Leaders for Climate Accountability: Mobilizing the Grasstops"
1:30pm-2:30pm: Panel 8 – Organizational operations and engagement
- Vicki Kaplan, Dayenu. "Chutzpah 2020: How a new Jewish climate group used music, joy, and spirit to build community, quadruple campaign goals, and develop leaders beyond the 2020 election"
- Ari Trujillo-Wesler, Sierra Club. "What do we mean by base: Facilitating org identity by measuring power"
- Montana Burgess, West Kootenay EcoSociety. "Deep Canvassing to build support for climate action in a heavy-industry company town"
2:30pm-3:00pm: BREAK
3:00pm-4:30pm: Discussion groups (notes here)
4:30pm-5:00pm: Day 3 wrap-up and closing
7:00pm-8:30pm: Keynote session
- Mijin Cha (Occidental College) and Jeff Johnson (Labor Network for Sustainability) discuss the need for community-driven coalitions in the pursuit of just transition with Climate Advocacy Lab Training Manager Dominique Thomas, based on LNS's new report Workers and Communities in Transition: Report of the Just Transition Listening Project
Discussion groups
Tuesday, May 18 (notes here)
| Topic | Description | Lead |
|---|---|---|
| Coalition-building | Michael Brown | |
| Building equity into our work | How can climate organizations build equity and dismantle white supremacy culture in our orgs, campaigns, and work? | Scott Kalota |
| Polling in audience-based campaigning | This discussion group will focus on how to leverage the glut of polling and survey data to inform everyday organizing work and other day-to-day climate advocacy efforts. | David Gold |
| Ethical storytelling in advocacy work | Best practices for ethical research. Findings on storytelling and advocacy. How to ethically/equitably gather & share stories | Claudia Davis |
| Combating climate disinformation | Recent and ongoing disinformation campaigns, particularly on social media, have given addressing the problem new urgency. Discuss what we know works, how to put that into practice, and what we still need to figure out | Justin Rolfe-Redding |
Thursday, May 20 (notes here)
| Topic | Description | Lead |
|---|---|---|
| Faith-based climate mobilization | Join us to hear some about some of the work faith-based groups are doing and share about your work mobilizing and engaging people of faith. | Tiffany Hartung |
| Co-creating Equitable Built Environment/Infrastructure: Indicators & Implementation | Are there measurable equity indicators in the development, design & construction, and occupancy/use of the built environment ? | Alice Sung |
| Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) partner reunion | An opportunity to convene YPCCC users to get feedback and brainstorm ideas | Joshua Low |
| Organizing traditions within the left | This discussion group will cover differences among different organizing traditions and how organizations navigate building power from explicit or implicit claims about what their organizing methodology is. | Nicole Ektnitphong |
| Deep canvassing in the climate movement | We will discuss what is deep canvassing, script iteration, scaling with volunteers, barriers and learnings to overcome polarization with the mushy middle of voters, and reinforcing & amplifying learnings in communications. | Montana Burgess |
| What don't we know? Top research questions in climate advocacy | Join a discussion on where research is needed improve climate advocacy, and what kinds of resources, projects and collaborations are needed to deliver the knowledge to engage more communities, improve our organizing, inform strategies, and power more climate victories | Justin Rolfe-Redding |
Is there a climate advocacy topic you'd really like to talk about or want to hear other peoples' opinions on? The discussion group sessions at R+E9 (currently scheduled for Tuesday, May 18 and Thursday, May 20) are a great opportunity to connect with, speak with, and learn from other dedicated movement members from across the Lab community.
Questions? Contact Jack Zhou or Justin Rolfe-Redding