Like everybody else in the environmental field, we hoped the climate-change-denying candidate — a man whose vision of nature is limited to the putting green and sand trap — would be rejected by voters.

While most Americans care about the quality of their air and water and accept the facts of a warming climate, Harris rarely discussed the environment during her campaign. Most of all, she never offered a compelling economic argument about how she would help people pay for rent, food, or utility bills. The consequence was a rout.

Some environmental organizations may now retrench. We’re doing the opposite. Here’s why: Clean air and water, floods, high insurance costs, housing shortages, and rising food and energy prices are bread and butter issues; they are also environmental issues. That’s why A2 has from the beginning sought to engage the American working-class (70% of the U.S. population) in the fight for environmental and climate justice. It’s why we have grown to over 360 community-members in 52 U.S. states and territories, representing hundreds of thousands of people.

The goal now is to organize these communities — and soon many more — into a democratic mass that can act self-consciously and with determination to advance environmental and economic justice.

Our recent appointment of Tanya Harris-Glasgow as our first Field Director is a milestone in this regard. She started her career in community organizing after being displaced from her home in the Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina. She led her first campaign from a cot in an evacuation center. With advice from Wade Rathke, founder of the community organizing powerhouse, ACORN, we have set Tanya the initial task of establishing five State Organizing Centers in the Mississippi Basin to mobilize grassroots leaders to support polices and draft model ordinances that promote environmental justice. Tanya will be aided full time by a dedicated staff member and given access to the full gamut of A2 expertise in technical assistance, communications, and grant writing.

Over the next week or so, we’ll be talking to staff about repercussions of the election and the trajectory of our work. The Biden administration has 10 weeks left in office and we’re sure that key agencies are eager to get money for worthy environmental initiatives out the door. We’ve got plenty of such projects so will be submitting lots of grant applications in the coming weeks.

We look forward — with appropriate trepidation — to the challenges ahead. But we’re determined, regardless of changed political circumstances, to secure additional funds for members, engender new collaborations, start ambitious campaigns, and achieve victories in the movement for climate and environmental justice.

November signals the start of the season of giving. To help our members meet the challenges ahead, visit here to give your support.

Harriet Festing
Executive Director
Anthropocene Alliance
[email protected]