Dispatch from Netroots Nation
Welcome back to Data for Climate Progress — your one-stop shop for all things climate at Data for Progress.
Welcome back to Data for Climate Progress — your one-stop shop for all things climate at Data for Progress. Catch us here every month for our latest climate polling, juicy insights, and can’t-miss reading lists.
As always, we’d love to hear from you — drop us (Grace Adcox and Catherine Fraser) a line at gracea@dataforprogress.org and catherine@dataforprogress.org. Forwarded this email? You can subscribe below.
Charm City Goes Green With DFP’s Climate Team
Earlier this month our climate team — along with members of our comms and polling teams — headed up to Baltimore for Netroots Nation (aka the largest annual conference for progressives). DFP staffers hosted or participated in four panels, two of which were on climate. Missed the conference? Or miss us already? We’ll fill you in on all our climate conversations in this special Netroots issue of our climate newsletter.
Panel #1: Building Community-First Climate Infrastructure
Our very own Grace Adcox helmed our first panel, which dove into all things community engagement and climate infrastructure. With federal officials racing to distribute funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for new climate infrastructure projects, ranging from direct air capture hubs to transmission lines, community benefits plans (CBPs) and community benefits agreements (CBAs) are central to the government and developer’s plans for communities to benefit from the deployment of much-needed climate infrastructure.
We were lucky to be joined by four close partners in the community benefits and climate space: Esther Baldwin with Black Appalachian Coalition, Evana Said with World Resources Institute, Amanda Woodrum with ReImagine Appalachia, and Jay Mehta with Jobs to Move America. A couple of quick highlights from our panelists:
Esther Baldwin voiced a need to empower communities to fully participate in any community benefits or engagement processes and build community coalitions representative of their community. That means ensuring racial justice, labor, environmental, faith, and other key groups have a seat at the table. Learn more about Black Appalachian Coalition’s work here.
Evana Said spoke about findings from World Resources Institute and DFP’s work to create a comprehensive database and corresponding case studies of community benefits and similar agreements, responding to a need to build capacity for communities to understand what community benefits have been won in the past. Find more on WRI and DFP’s collaboration here and stay tuned for the public launch of the database.
Amanda Woodrum talked about the potential for CBAs and CBPs to fundamentally change the way we do development in the U.S., including their ability to create pathways to high-road, family-sustaining jobs through pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeship programs in Appalachia. Don’t miss ReImagine Appalachia's community benefits resources page here.
Jay Mehta shared a host of insights from Jobs to Move America’s (JMA) rich experience negotiating CBAs, including one with North America’s largest electric bus manufacturer, New Flyer. Read about their landmark New Flyer CBA here and Jacobin’s 2024 feature of JMA here.
Panel #2: How to Engage Young Voters on Climate
DFP’s Danielle Deiseroth presented polling on how to message and engage young voters on climate. Emceed by the DNC Environment Climate Council Chair Michelle Deatrick, the panel discussed why leaning into climate is a winning strategy for 2024 and beyond. Curious about how to talk to voters on climate? Here are some of Danielle’s toplines:
DO:
✅Emphasize lowering costs, including any specific dollar figures that households can save due to climate actions or government programs
✅ Be optimistic and use a frame that centers on bolstering the American economy or creating a better America for future generations
✅ Talk about the quality of jobs, not just the quantity of jobs, from climate action
DON’T:
❌ Project too far into the future – climate change is already here now, and people want to evaluate how to solve the problems of the present
❌ Use wonky statistics or terms, like “gigatons of removal” or “net-zero by 2030”
❌ Fearmonger or use doomsday messaging
Last, but certainly not least, if you squint really closely, you can see Danielle sporting a Campaign Workers Guild pin (whom DFP staffers recently unionized with) in solidarity with the Progressive Workers Union’s (PWU) negotiations with the Sierra Club and Executive Director Ben Jealous (who is seated to the right of Danielle). Support and follow along with PWU here.
As PWU said: Solidarity forever! ✊
Collaborating on Community Benefits
Also this month, DFP’s Grace Adcox, Catherine Fraser, and Margo Kenyon had the pleasure of meeting with our friends Evana Said and Devashree Saha at the World Resources Institute’s D.C. office. During this productive gathering, the teams collaborated on the community benefits database mentioned earlier, planned ahead for upcoming research on community benefits in the transmission sector, and celebrated submitting a joint draft working paper focused on Detroit’s Community Benefits Ordinance (CBO). 👀 Stay tuned for more information when we get closer to the launch of the community benefits database and the Detroit CBO working paper!
DFP Enjoys Some RECS and Relaxation 🧪
DFP’s Catherine Fraser is currently attending the Research Experience in Carbon Sequestration (RECS) program, with a packed agenda full of lectures, field and lab experiments, and site visits focused on carbon management. The event is sponsored by the Department of Energy. Last week, she got to run experiments at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, to simulate how carbon management technologies, like direct air capture and carbon capture and storage, capture carbon dioxide in practice. See a photo of her making her high school chemistry teacher proud in the NREL lab above!
Hurricane Beryl makes landfall, fueled by record-breaking ocean heat, by Jake Bittle (Grist)
The Biochar King of Minneapolis, by Emily Pontecorvo (Heatmap)
PWU and Sierra Club Reach Agreement Narrowly Averting Strike (The Progressive Workers Union)
Yes, Biden Should Step Down—for the Sake of the Planet, by Kate Aronoff (The New Republic)
Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement, edited by Jeff Ordower and Lindsay Zafir (recommendation courtesy of the good people at Red Emma’s Bookstore, whom the DFP climate team met while at Netroots Nation)
The Current Affairs Magazine TikTok account covers new polling from Data for Progress, showing a strong majority of the American public want oil and gas companies to be held legally responsible for the effects of climate change.
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