How We Work
Our Approach and Meta-Strategies
Overview
Rooting Our Work
These six meta-strategies undergird the Climate Justice Alliance vision, and will continue to influence the trajectory of alliance work.
1) Fight the Bad:
Organizing to shut down the extractive economy
Our vision for the next economy is informed by our position on the frontlines of an extractive economy that continues to harm our communities, exploit our labor, and deny us basic rights and sovereignty. We must organize to shut down extractive facilities and extractive economic structures in our communities.
2) Build the New:
Grassroots organizing to build the next economy now
The heart of the Our Power strategy has been to lead with a vision of what Just Transition looks like and build real models of that transition that can be shared, replicated and innovated. As part of this strategy, we must use our grassroots organizing power to create the economic institutions we need in a way that builds the political power of our members and organizations. These new economic institutions will be regenerative rather than extractive – rooted in ecological resilience and equity.
2) Build the New:
Grassroots organizing to build the next economy now
The heart of the Our Power strategy has been to lead with a vision of what Just Transition looks like and build real models of that transition that can be shared, replicated and innovated. As part of this strategy, we must use our grassroots organizing power to create the economic institutions we need in a way that builds the political power of our members and organizations. These new economic institutions will be regenerative rather than extractive – rooted in ecological resilience and equity.
3) Change the Rules:
From the local on up
Alternatives and models are not enough. We must change the rules to create new paths of least resistance that privilege the Our Power economy over the Old Power economy. This happens at all levels of governance beginning with the local; it is also strengthened by demonstrating that we can create the new economy and by flexing both economic and political power. We must identify the legal and structural barriers to the economy we need to build. We must break the rules that need to be broken and write the rules that need to be written to facilitate constructing the Just Transition economy.
4) Move the Money:
We will not resource a Just Transition from charity alone.
We must organize to move money out of the old economy using both public and private vehicles. We must weaken the power of the speculative markets, extreme energy, worker exploitation, extraction and militarism while strengthening economic and political democracy, placing power in the hands of the people.
4) Move the Money:
We will not resource a Just Transition from charity alone.
We must organize to move money out of the old economy using both public and private vehicles. We must weaken the power of the speculative markets, extreme energy, worker exploitation, extraction and militarism while strengthening economic and political democracy, placing power in the hands of the people.
5) Build the Bigger We:
Bridging movement across economic sectors, issues and geography
To make this real, we must join forces as a social movement across not just the US, but the world. Remaking the economy is an opportunity to bridge concerns from climate and environment to workers’ rights and education to food sovereignty and housing. We seek opportunities to strengthen old relationships, test out new ones and struggle together.
6) Change the Story:
We have a responsibility to point a new direction
In order to shift the dominant culture and change structural power relationships, we need to change the stories that normalize unjust power structures, make fundamental change imaginable, and build the capacity to narrate the changes underway. There is an opportunity to help allies in other movements see the climate crisis as a key driver of structural change in the 21st century and therefore a critical opening towards building a new economic system. As CJA models multiracial alliance-building and successfully uplifts the work of communities of color, it can point a new direction for the grassroots climate movement as a broad, multi-sector, transformative front.
