What we learned over 5 years of organizing for the People’s Climate Plan
Last month, we got to see the fruit of over 5 years of concerted organizing when we stayed up until 2am to finally witness the passage of the FNSB Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. It’s a reminder that when we organize strategically around a long term vision - we win. This win was not simple, and it was not easy. It is a testament to the hard work of many community members over the course of years, and we want to take a moment to acknowledge what it took to get here, and what we’ve learned in the process.
We take turns in different roles in the movement over time. No one person can carry the load. Many of the people who were there to witness the passage of the climate plan in 2024 were not the same people who initiated the process in 2019 (although huge shoutout to those who have been a part of the whole process!) This shows how important it is for us to think of what we’re doing as a movement that is bigger than us, and not dependent on any one or two people. Like our local geese friends in their long migrations, we take turns at the front of the V formation, taking on the brunt of confronting the challenges we face as a group, and making it easier for those behind us to rest up for when it’s their turn. This is how the Climate Action Plan process happened. Different assembly members cycled through. Different FCAC organizers, FCAC members, and other community members took on different chunks of the work, and through time, we created something beautiful and powerful that no one of us could have invented or achieved on our own. It’s important to know that we share the load of working for a better world and community not just through space, but through time.
Setbacks are just a part of the process. We can leverage them for even greater power. When Aaron Lojewski replaced the entire Climate Action Committee with unqualified, political appointees, who then proceeded to gut the plan beyond recognition, it seemed like all was lost. Over 500 community members had come together to provide input on the plan, it had been laboriously worked and reworked by the highly qualified and thoroughly vetted previous Climate Action Committee members, and it was nearly complete. We had congratulated ourselves on what a collaborative process it had been. We had worked hard to ensure the plan would truly answer to the needs of our community, and we felt good about what we had helped to develop. Immediately, the reconfigured committee proceeded to disregard all those months of hard work as they adulterated, diluted, and distorted the Climate Action Plan beyond recognition. It was excruciating to bear witness. When it came down to a Borough Assembly vote, no one voted for the gutted plan. We no longer supported the plan either, and we completely supported the climate-friendly assembly members in their choice to vote it down. Still, it hurt to see all that work go to waste. But our community’s persistence ensured that this would not be the end of the story. With hundreds of community members left devastated by the outcome, and many who had become involved in the Climate Action Plan process turning out to vote, the fall of 2023 saw a new Borough Assembly who committed to take up the plan again in close to its original form.
We hold an important niche in a much larger movement ecosystem. As an organization, our role in the movement is to hold the most visionary line, and to change what’s politically possible by refusing to compromise our core values. That’s what we did throughout this process, staying true to the vision of a plan that truly meets our needs, even if it meant supporting the rejection of a watered down plan that only met some of our needs. We could have compromised then and pushed for passage no matter what. But now we have a plan that doesn’t shy away from addressing the real climate-based issues we face, and this matters. By holding the line for what we need, not just what we think we can get, we actually changed what we can get. This is our role in the movement, which is one part of a much bigger whole, and we appreciate and celebrate all the parts of the movement that made this win possible.
Through this process, we learned so much about the depth and breadth of our movement, across time, across movement roles, and through and beyond setbacks. Hundreds, if not thousands of community members saw this plan across the finish line, and we just want you all to know that we see you - those who testified at any of the meetings between 2019 and now, those who showed up to rallies, everyone who showed up to one of the community input meetings or submitted input online, the organizers and volunteers with the Policy and Politics working group, the Interfaith Working Group members who collected signatures from dozens of people from different Interior faith communities, all of the original Climate Action Committee members, RESPEC, the Assembly members who worked hard to bring this plan back to life, and every single person who listened in to one of these Assembly meetings on the radio, or read about it in the paper, or who checked in on what was going on with the plan on our social media or our newsletter, or who shared our posts or invited their friends to testify. Thank you for the collective effort and energy you have all put into this plan. We see you all, and we have so much gratitude for this big beautiful community working to take care of each other and our home.
If you want to get involved in the next phase of our Policy and Politics work focused on decarbonization and overall Climate Action Plan implementation, contact bella@fbxclimateaction.org.
