Dear John,

With a new year comes new vision, hope and frontline leadership. We’re excited to kick off 2022 with a reminder from our communities’ artists and organizers to continue building the new as we resist a return to normal! 

Meet the Creative Wildfire Artists and their work, representing a joint project and call to action that CJA launched with Movement Generation and New Economy Coalition. Our work is to change the narrative, amplify transformative frameworks from OUR communities, and inspire others to resist a return to normal by reinvesting in community power. We hope you’ll find inspiration from the 14 projects that were created by these 21 artists and take action. (Artwork below by Maisie Richards & Lokotah Sanborn)

It’s hard to believe that two years have passed since CJA began our first fellowship program in partnership with our member organizations. We’ve immensely enjoyed working with these fellows as they built out capacity and knowledge within their organizations while also providing support to CJA around communications, policy, and organizing. We are sad to see them go but excited for what lies ahead! Congratulations to:

Moñeka De Oro- Just Transition Policy & Curriculum Fellow, Micronesia Climate Change Alliance

Inkza Angeles- Youth Articulation Organizing Fellow,  PODER

Keenan Rhodes- Frontline Solutions Storytelling Fellow, KHEPRW Institute

Dom Hosack- Regenerative Economy Fellow, Earthbound Building 

Kristen Jeré- Just Transition Digital Media Fellow,  Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

(from L to R)

Our next two-year fellowship kicks off this March in partnership with Center for Story-based Strategy and The Solutions Project! Stay tuned for more details soon.

In 2020, NJ Governor Phil Murphy signed one of the strongest environmental justice laws in the country, which bars permits for power plants, incinerators, landfills, large recycling facilities, and sewage treatment plants in already-burdened environmental justice communities. Despite this, the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission attempted to approve the construction of another high-carbon emission facility in the environmental justice community of Ironbound, NJ with little push back from the Governor.

The plan called for the building of a gas-fired power plant to serve as backup for a sewage treatment facility. It’s emissions of fracked gas however, would contribute to increased pollution in an already overburdened community that has been the sight of countless industrial plants which have destroyed air and water quality for decades.  Watch Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC) explain more on DemocracyNow!.

ICC and local allies immediately mobilized and led organizing efforts to halt the plant’s approval and demand the Governor step in. From rallies to petitions to direct phone calls to the Governor, residents pushed back on the proposed plan. Then earlier this month and just a day prior to the hearing to approve the plan, the Governor was compelled to postpone the vote. Calling for “a more thorough environmental justice review and robust public engagement process.” Congratulations to the Ironbound community who waged a successful organizing campaign to hold their elected officials accountable and stay true to their climate justice promises!

The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) and their allies are currently in the midst of a major battle to halt the development of a new mine in the north of Nevada. Canadian conglomerate Lithium America intends to develop the largest lithium mine on the North American continent, with extensive excavation in Thacker Pass, NV. Thacker Pass, known as Peehee Mu’huh to the native community was the location of a 19th century massacre by military forces on the original Indigenous community of the region.

Mining this area would mean the desecration and destruction of a sacred site for The People of Red Mountain–a coalition of Paiute and Shoshone individuals from the nearby Fort McDermitt Tribe. Such mining activity is known to poison the land, air, and water and kill off nearby plant and animal species while local communities, particularly Indigenous people, bear the brunt of the danger and  health conditions caused by mining—a hallmark of environmental racism.

For their part, PLAN recently hosted a roundtable discussion on Black and Indigenous solidarity that included two advocates with The People of Red Mountain. They also led a visit up to Thacker Pass for Las Vegas-based organizers where they stayed at the protest camp, visited a sacred site, participated in ceremony, and spent time learning from directly-impacted people. Tribal communities have filed multiple lawsuits over the project and protests continue to protect the sacred site.

Federal and local aid is known for its slowness in responding to communities in need following disaster, especially BIPOC communities. When residents are in need of assistance, frontline organizations answer the call and connect people to valuable resources to help get their lives back on track. In Dularge, LA we are seeing this first hand where Another Gulf is Possible (AGIP) has teamed up with Williams Architects to design and build wooden temporary housing structures for families who lost their homes during Hurricane Ida. The structures have been designed to be built without power tools, needing only a couple of people to construct or break it down, and are powered via donated solar panels and batteries. 

In addition to providing temporary accommodations, the structures are intended to allow displaced residents to remain within their local communities. Following the loss of homes, it’s common for people who are able to access temporary housing to find themselves uprooted to unfamiliar areas far away from loved ones. The work of AGIP, Williams Architects, and others are housing people and keeping communities together.