NIPS moved its office to Washington, DC, in December, 2012, to accommodate the family needs of its Executive Director, Dr. Jim Driscoll. We seek to replicate and improve upon our successful Tucson pilot project in the local DC community and to take advantage of the networking opportunities provided in DC to spread this program more widely.
PEER SUPPORT GROUPS
Two DC Area Peer Support Groups Are Now Meeting: One General (Greenbelt, MD) and One for White Climate Activists Eliminating White Racism (DC).
The Support Group for Climate Activists of the Global Majority is taking a break, but will accept calls.
Climate Support Groups encourage people to take action to stop global warming, either politically and/or personally, and provide them with ongoing peer support for this work.
General.
DC. The first Climate Activists Peer Support Group (CAPSG) met at Quaker Meetinghouse in January, 2013. We meet monthly for over a year, but now are focusing on Eliminating White Racism among white social change activists, but especially in the climate movement. If you are interested in more general local peer support for climate activists, please call Jim Driscoll at 520-250-0509.
Citizens’ Climate Lobby (www.CitizensClimateLobby.org) NIPS convened national, telephone-based, call-in CAPS Groups for this national organization monthly for two years. This evolved into a phone-based CAPS specifically for CCL men which meets monthly. If you are part of CCL (or any other organization) and would like to join or set up such CAPS Groups, please contact Jim.
Greenbelt,MD. Another Support Group for Climate Activists has been meeting for almost two years, monthly until the start of this year and now quarterly. The membership is currently closed. If you are interested in forming a group in that area, please call Jane Young at 301-507-765.
Climate Activists of the Global Majority. The Institute puts a special focus on peer support for climate leaders of the global majority, i.e. people of color. Their perspective is key to solving this crisis. As a practical matter, our current, mostly-white climate movement will not succeed politically in a “majority-minority” nation. Race is always used as a wedge to divide social movements in the U.S. As a matter of justice, the impacts of climate change fall very disproportionately on the global majority. Over the last two years, we have had two Support Groups for Climate Leaders of the Global Majority. One met monthly for six months on the first Wednesday afternoon at the offices of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, 245 2nd St., NE. The second group for climate leaders of the global majority met monthly in the evening, first at the Quaker Meetinghouse and later at the MLK Public Library. Both are currently taking a break. If you are interested, please contact Karen Leu (kleu82@gmail.com.)
Eliminating White Racism for White Climate Activists. As noted above, the climate movement will not prevail segregated into a mostly white climate movement and organizations of the Global Majority working on Environmental and Climate Justice explicitly on on building the resilience of communities of color in general which is so vital to climate adaptation. Therefore serious white climate activists work among ourselves on the racism which we inevitably picked up in this racist society and we take action to support organizations led by People of the Global Majority (PGM). While there are many useful approaches to eliminating white racism, Peer Support is somewhat unusual in focusing on the emotions that sustain racism and makes it difficult to take effective action supporting PGM folks. We meet monthly here in DC. Please call 520-250-0509 or email Elizabeth Stevens at writetoeliz@gmail.com.
DC Climate Justice Project. Following Naomi Klein, the People’s March for the Climate, Hillary Moore and Joshua Kahn Russell of 350.org, we believe that white climate activists need to spend some of our time supporting PGM organizations and leaders. There are many ways to do that here in DC. NIPS is currently working with One DC to support the multi-issue, community-resilience-building “People’s Platform” (www.OneDConline.org.) Every month One DC suggests an action for climate activists to attend. Please contact us to receive these notices. It is important to attend our EWR Support Group in conjunction with this work.
Moral Action on Climate March, September 20. As a second step in this climate justice work, NIPS is asking this March to endorse the People’s Platform, DC Ferguson and DC Black Lives Matter’s call to eliminate the racists “jump out squads” used by DC police to harass PGM. We are asking individual PGM leaders and groups in DC to endorse the March as a next step in deepening the relationships between these two racial groupings.
NIPS would like to work with any climate group interested in dealing with racism.
Horizonatalist Discussions on Climate
As detailed in the essay Elites vs. Equals on this website, NIPS shares the growing critique of the NGO-industrial complex as a barrier to solving the climate crisis (see http://nipspeersupport.org/?page_id=665.)
NIPS organizes horizontalist “Topic Group Discussions” as one means to overcome the silos created by NGOs in the climate movement and to fight the grassroots disempowerrment that goes with the NGO model. In AZ, Topic Group Discussions led to the formation of the Tucson Climate Action Network and have been incorporated in its monthly meetings for almost four years now.
First Two DC Climate Topic Group Discussions were Successes
The first Topic Group discussion for information-sharing meeting was held on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013, to help build #FORWARDONCLIMATE, the biggest climate rally in history. Our second was held on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 7 p.m. So far, we have formed Action Groups on Eliminating Racism in the DC Climate Movement, One-on-One Outreach and Using Discussion Circles in DC to Expand the Climate Movement. After eight sessions studying the DC Sustainabiity Plan, we decided to connect more groups in DC concerned with climate/ sustainability/envronmental justice and ended up helping to organize a candidates’ forum for the DC Mayor’s race in April, 2014. We are now working with Divest DC to engage more local groups in the movement.
We are happy to conduct Topic Group Discussions for any climate/sustainability/environmental justice group.
CURRENT ACTION GROUPS FORMED IN OUR TOPIC GROUP DISCUSSIONS:
Climate/Sustainability Discussion Circles in DC. The first meeting of this Action Group was May 14th, 2013 7:30-9 p.m. at the Quaker Meetinghouse. Lore Rosenthal from Simplicity Matters coordinated this Group based on the great success of this model in the state of Maryland. The purpose of this Group was to replicate this model in the DC area. The first new DC Discussion Circle chose to focus on the new DC Sustainabilityy Plan. It began meeting in June and continued through the summer. This Circle organized environmental groups to participate in a candidate forum for the DC Mayors’ race to bring these groups together with the African-heritage community. For more information on setting up Discussion Circles on the Plan or other topics, please contact Lore at lore@simplicity-matters.org
Eliminating Racism in the DC Climate/Sustainability Movement. This Group met three times at the DC Quaker Meetinghouse, 2111 Florida Ave., NW, DC. It led to the creation of our DC CAPS Groups for PGM climate activists, the EWR CAPS Group for White climate activists and the ongoing Climate Justice Project.
DC Climate One-on-one Outreach Project. NIPS seeks to use the insights of peer support–one-on-one contact, listening rather than lecturing and “attraction rather than promotion”– to expand the the number of people volunteering in the climate movement–in ALL the climate organizations. We have conducted trainings for DC CCL, and DC Divest locally and the Great March for Climate Action nationally. If you or your organization wishes to take part in this pilot project, please give Jim a call.