In this episode, organizer Jeff Ordower of 350.org talks about how the environmental movement can shift its focus from blocking what it doesn’t like to building what it does.
Text transcript:
David Roberts
It is a much-discussed fact that the environmental movement cut its teeth blocking things — mines, pipelines, power plants, and what have you. It is structured around blocking things. Habituated to it.
However, what we need to do today is build, build, build — new renewable energy, batteries, transmission lines, and all the rest of the infrastructure of the net-zero economy. Green groups are as often an impediment to that as they are a help.
So how can the green movement help things get built? How can it organize around saying yes?
Recently, the activist organization 350.org hired Jeff Ordower, a 30-year veteran organizer with the labor and queer movements, in part to help figure these questions out. As director of North America for 350, Ordower will help lead a campaign focused on utilities standing in the way of clean energy.
I talked with him about organizing around building instead of blocking, the right way to go after utilities, the role green groups can play in connecting vulnerable communities with IRA money, and what it means to focus on power.
All right then, with no further ado, Jeff Ordower of 350, welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.
Jeff Ordower
Thank you so much, David, for having me. I'm excited to be here.
David Roberts
Okay, well, I want to get to 350 and climate activism in a second, but first I'd like to just hear a little bit about your history in activism, which is mainly on the labor side. And what I'd really like to hear, and this is probably like a whole pot of its own, but insofar as you can summarize, I'd love to hear from your perspective when you were working as an organizer in labor. Looking over the fence at climate activism, what was your sort of take or critique like from the labor perspective? What did you think climate activism was doing right or wrong?
Or what did you think you could bring to climate activism from the labor side?
Jeff Ordower
Yeah, I both did labor organizing and I come out of base-building community organizing. I actually come out of the notorious ACORN was where I spent the first half of my organizing.
David Roberts
The late, lamented —
Jeff Ordower
Yeah. So it's very similar. But I started in labor, moved to ACORN very quickly, and then as ACORN was destroyed, both helped to start new community organizing efforts. And then lately, over the last few years have been involved with labor organizing. And it's interesting because I really started tracking what was happening in climate around Copenhagen, which was 2008, 2009, at the same time where ACORN was going through its difficulties. And we were trying to figure out what to build and how to build it and how to build something that was more intersectional. So I was — the personal piece of my story is I was working in St. Louis, which is where I'm from, and part of what we do as community organizers is think about how do we challenge the local power structure?
It's about power and it's about how we build power for folks who don't have the power that they need and help collectively do that. And St. Louis is, like many midwestern towns, is kind of a branch office for many Fortune 500 companies these days. So the most powerful players in the region were coal companies. Peabody Coal was the largest private sector coal company in the world. Arch coal was the second largest in North America.
Both were headquartered in the St. Louis region because it's at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. So, as the only Fortune 500 company in the city limits of St. Louis that was getting tax breaks, there were lots of reasons to fight Peabody and so started on a campaign about that, but there was also this tremendous excitement that was happening. So we were both at the beginning of the Obama administration. There was a time of great hope. For those of us who —
David Roberts
I recall vaguely, vaguely distantly.
Jeff Ordower
Well that's interesting. So, for climate folks, they're like, "Oh, this is not a time of great hope." But the fact that after six or seven attempts, depending on how you count it, at winning health care for everyone in the country, I look back at that early days of Obama and say, wow, we got financial reform to some degree, but we got health care was the most important thing that changed so many people's lives. So I actually think climate folks view that era a little bit differently than we might in having really a generational win. And I'm sure we'll get into this a little bit later, but it is how I think about IRA is also the next generation or the next generational win that we've gotten.
But, looking at that, I think the sheer number of resources that the climate movement was mustering — you know there were many organizations in St. Louis at the time that had been newly created that were doing work. There was a global movement, there were these incredibly ambitious, and I just want to say badass, for lack of a better word, youth, climate activists and organizers. So I think there was a lot to be admired about what was happening. And the fall of 2009 with 350 managing a global day of action, it's when I first started tracking 350.org. So, that was where I really lauded at what was happening.
The climate movement was so exciting to think about the global nature, to think about what they were doing. I think where also looking over the fence where things seemed harder was I think about organizing. And I think many of us, community labor organizing, think about organizing and not mobilizing and how folks build longer term power. And it was less clear to me how the climate movement was doing that and how really the most affected people were — you have a lot of people whose job was to whether it was to get signatures or to do lobbying. But there didn't seem to be formations not just where people could speak from their experiences but also really exercise the longer term campaigning and power building that was necessary.
And so that felt like, and still feels to me a little bit like some of the weaknesses in the climate movement. And obviously more than a decade later, we also have strengths too. I mean that the Sunrise movement is the complete counter to that actually moving folks in hubs in a very significant way for youth organizing. I think, 350.org with our 100 chapters, that the game has changed somewhat. But at the time it really felt like much more emphasis on mobilizing, much less emphasis on organizing.
David Roberts
Right. So people would show up in the streets and march but you didn't see the sort of long-term accretion of power coming out of that?
Jeff Ordower
Yeah, and it's not just the accretion of power, it's also the relationship of having real organization where you have folks who are directly affected by issues, make decisions collectively. That's how things get stronger. It's how you figure out tactics that work. It's the relationship between staff and members. It's members figuring things out. Building of power comes through some trial and error and that comes through a process of collective work where you have democratic organizations. And that's similar — it's the most clear in labor fights because if the workers aren't really willing to fight the boss then you can't have a union no matter what.
David Roberts
Right.
Jeff Ordower
And you can think of a thing as an organizer that should work. But really, it's what people who are going and working on the shop floor or these days working in an Amazon warehouse or working in a Starbucks, what they think is going to give them the courage to stand up to the boss. It's not what you think as an organizer. And so I think that's what's so important and that comes over time and building that. And I think where the climate movement sometimes struggles is it has just some of the sharpest, most brilliant policy minds in the world but it doesn't always have that relationship with folks who are the most affected to be able to figure things out and have this trial and error that organizing really is about.
David Roberts
So let's then talk from a really high level, 30,000 foot level or whatever the phrase is about where the climate movement finds itself. Sort of what kind of moment is the climate movement in right now? I think you have said and written that this is a sort of historic turning point. How would you describe that in a broad way?
Jeff Ordower
Yeah, I think it's kind of two parts. So one, we've had this historic generational win with IRA in the US. And so the one piece of it is the task before us is whether we can rise to the occasion and use it. And I know in previous podcasts and I sometimes use the pod to talk about previous pods, but both the IRA is filled with carrots and not sticks. But I think we can do a lot with those carrots. And I think we can really transform our energy system and also do that in a way that promotes equity and justice and it's an opportunity before us.
And then the second thing is we also have to do that while recognizing that all of the above is insufficient, that we actually do need to convert the way we live and we work so we can't just continue to build pipelines and mine coal and also add in some renewables. There has to be a real transformation. We have to make some hard choices and we have to and this is where it comes back to power. We have to build the collective power to do that. So I think we're at a crossroads. We have more tools than we've had before in the toolbox, at least in the US, to really have a just transition. So it's a question of whether we can step up and build the power that's necessary to consummate that transition, if you will.
David Roberts
Well, let's talk a little bit about that because the premise of this conversation is sort of the attempt by 350 and I think probably broader than 350, but we'll focus on 350 —
Jeff Ordower
Definitely broader than us, yes.
David Roberts
To sort of pivot from purely oppositional trying to stop fossil fuels from getting built, to a more prospective, forward looking support for building things, right? This is a big topic in green circles right now. There's this whole school of thought that liberalism is not used to building things and the whole approach of sort of abundance and building is different than what we're used to. We have to reorient ourselves, et cetera, et cetera. At a general question about that, which I think is probably the one that strikes most people first and most forcefully, is just this: The conventional wisdom in organizing or the conventional wisdom about organizing is just that it's easier to get people fired up about things they hate and oppose and want to stop.
For one thing, it's just clearer, right? When you stop something, you've stopped it, right? It's a clear win. It's not ambiguous. You got big, evil, corporate bad guys that you can demonize and sort of rally people around that. And just generally, like, anger fires people up. And the sort of conventional wisdom is that it's very difficult to organize around building for a lot of reasons, I think we'll talk about, but just for a million reasons. There's a lot more arguments among advocates about what to build, where to build, when to build right? And what are the right trade offs and all these kind of things.
So do you agree with that general conventional wisdom? Do you think it's true that it's just easier to get people fired up around anger and it's more difficult to do this sort of forward looking thing that you're thinking about here?
Jeff Ordower
Yeah, it's a very good general philosophical question because for decades with comrades, you have the conversation do you organize out of anger or do you organize out of love? I think that this is a related question and the answer is I think polarizing and organizing out of anger is important and matters and lots of people do that and works for them. But I also think organizing out of a vision of what's possible and the world in which we can live and what's possible if we can open the door and really change material conditions for folks, I think that is just as compelling and I think folks will join and build together as well. Now I'm thinking about this question.
There's many directions we can go in this, but I do want to say organizing for solutions doesn't mean that we're just organizing to build renewable energy or utility scale solar, wind. It also means there's a lot of people, people and their companies and their corporations that are in the way. And so we still have to clear out a lot of these barriers. And it's not just fossil fuel companies, but it's also the pernicious role of utility companies.
David Roberts
Oh yeah, we're definitely going to get to that.
Jeff Ordower
Okay, I didn't mean to jump ahead.
David Roberts
Oh, my friend, we're definitely getting to that. I know you're the North American director now and so maybe you won't have anything to say about this and we can just cut it if you don't. But one of the interesting things when I had lunch with May, the head of 350, a few months ago, she was talking about this shift. And one thing she told me that I had not understood, I don't think, is that a lot of the impetus for this turn away from sort of pure opposition more to building things came from 350 branches in the developing world.
Jeff Ordower
That's right.
David Roberts
And I think maybe naively you would think those are the people getting hurt worst by oil and gas pipelines and have the least environmental protections down there and that's the protection they need. But they say otherwise. So maybe talk a little bit about why that is.
Jeff Ordower
Well, I think people are clear that they're getting hurt by pipelines. I also know, again, it's hard for me in the Global North to be like, "Here's what people in the Global South think," but here's what's been reflected to me that — first of all, when you talk with many activists, in the Global South. They say whatever is happening for us around emissions just generally is a drop in the bucket compared to the damage over the last hundred years that countries in the Global North have caused. But related to that, there's the reality of like, what do people need to actually get the energy that they need?
And that's around renewable energy that's around solutions. Energy is just so unaffordable. It's increasingly challenging given what's happening, given the war, and given that, again, the Global North is going to capture all the oil and gas that they can. And given the issue with governments that having a real ability to have diffuse solar is absolutely critical to how people can live and get what they need to do. And so I think for many of our groups, if you talk to folks in the Philippines at 350, they'll say our ability to actually deliver solar to more remote fishing villages is absolutely critical.
And that also as a bulwark against the increasing level of climate chaos that we're facing. Unfortunately, the grids are weak and get knocked out all the time. And so if you're facing typhoons, if you're facing hurricanes, you need to have some kind of resilient energy. And so I think folks are talking about the solutions for those two things, and they're not saying it in the context of like, let's build pipelines and renewables. They're also saying some of this gives us the ability to think globally about how we're campaigning. So how are we actually moving resources, the trillions of dollars over the last few decades that have gone in all the different ways from the Global South, the colonial practices that still exist and the imperialist practices that still exist.
How does money and money moving from south to north, some of it is about how we move money back from north to south, and how we as a global organization, push for that and campaign for that so that that can go into solutions. And there's pretty interesting dynamic governments, new governments in Latin America and Colombia and Brazil, places like the Marshall Islands. Folks are talking about Kenya, where there really is a commitment to change energy policy and practices. And so it's a huge opportunity if we, as a global organization with allies, can do the work that we need to do to redistribute the wealth instead of having it go upward.
So I think that's the context through which we're thinking about solutions.
David Roberts
They need energy, is what seems obvious.
Jeff Ordower
Yep.
David Roberts
I hadn't really thought about like, they need more energy. And so just stopping bad energy is not enough.
Jeff Ordower
No, that's right. And for many years of campaigning against Peabody Coal and St. Louis, and fascinatingly, going to their shareholder meetings so that we could both ask questions and occasionally disrupt them, they would do these presentations on energy poverty. The coal company's role is they're eliminating energy poverty in Africa. And actually no, we need to be thinking about what's the real way to deliver energy so that it's also not controlled by — If we think utilities are bad here, right, South Africa, where you've got rolling blackouts for hours a day because of the huge amount of corruption of utility companies and the coal companies, how do we actually create real grassroots, real community controlled power is absolutely critical.
David Roberts
So let's talk about utilities then. So it sounds like the main way that this sort of turn toward building is going to manifest is a focus on utilities. So maybe just say a general word about how they fit into that frame, why you think they are a good target and the right target for organizing.
Jeff Ordower
Yeah, they're the main thing. There's other things too and I'm sure we'll get into them. But utilities are particularly pernicious for a number of reasons. The first is they're not interested in sharing their power, right? They want to control transmission, they want to control how energy moves. So they don't want a grid where you have lots of rooftop solar and lots of other sources of transmission. So they're actively blocking that in all the ways that they can. Almost every utility company is and they're worried about their profits. And so it's anything from how they spread misinformation to how they're messing with permitting and transmission.
So that's the first thing is they're actually blocking the transition and then they're interested in really where they make a good chunk of money. Some people have characterized utility companies as like they're not actually interested in the generation transmission of electricity. They're really interested in building things. But it is often what we see is that's what's sexy is to build things?
David Roberts
Yes. Well that's what gets them their rate of return, right? Listeners are bored of hearing me talk about this but that's literally how they make their money is by building big things and spending a lot of money and that just the consequences of that cascade down to everything, right.
Jeff Ordower
And spending our money. So they're like, oh well, you're right, we're not going to do coal, we'll build frac gas plants and that'll be the transition. That's the bridge fuel that we need. Right, so you've explained it much better than I'm going to but that's certainly how they're structured and what they want to do. And then I think because the fact that the way we get energy is dependent on the profit system, I mean, that's obviously also problematic but it really plays out in a way that's very dangerous for working people, low and moderate income people because you're faced with outrageously skyrocketing bills.
And so there is a link between what happens in terms of how energy is produced and the same companies threatening to cut people off, not providing the power they need to provide. Or as we see with every heat wave, unfortunately, every summer is folks making decisions about not turning on air conditioning, not doing the things that they need to do to stay cool or to stay protected from the weather. Similar in winter and how many deaths there are of lower income folks because of heat waves, because people are scared that they're not going to be able to pay their bills. So it's both cut off, it's the threat and it's really the impact on — we have two energy systems people who can afford it and people who can't afford it.
And it's the same utility companies that are part of that. So these issues are interconnected and utility companies are and again, I think you've talked about this on previous podcasts in a much deeper way as not a policy person than I will, but there's the whole web of the ways in which utility companies influence things through ISOs the impact of utility companies and expertise that we don't have as consumers on public utility commissions and public service commissions. And a way in which sort of there's a self perpetuating kind of ecosystem of how decisions are being made.
David Roberts
They are enormously influential for all the reasons we're talking about, but they're also because of that kind of self perpetuating, largely closed ecosystem of decision making. They're also relatively obscure to most people, just to the average Joe or Jane on the street. You bring up like Big Oil, all the associations come along with that. Like people get that rapacious oil executives, that's a very intuitive frame. But like utilities, I'm just not sure people know what they are, what they do or have any real sense of them. Is that a challenge in organizing around them? Just sort of like that basic educational piece of like this is the entity that is between you and this is the reason these things are happening. Are people responding to that?
Jeff Ordower
Yes, I think they really are. I think actually, while people know about oil companies, people also know you're writing a check to your utility company every month and you see the rates increase and you don't understand why you didn't use any gas in the summer and you're still getting a bill for basic services. Or you don't understand the outrageousness of heating bills and cooling bills, particularly as weather becomes more extreme. So, I think we are finding that folks are pretty fired up about their utility companies. I think what's harder is, and this is our next step and this is our organizing challenge, is how do we get folks to really think about challenging that in a way in which they think the game — to your point, this closed circuit we've got closed circuits on transmission and closed ecosystems, on how decisions are made and how do we get people to believe that their voice matters, that there's things that they can do that are going to change a rigged system so that it works for consumers and ratepayers.
David Roberts
I guess that's what I was getting at. That's what's opaque is, you know, there's a utility, you know, you get bills from them, but how they come to their decisions and how you as a random person could get involved or insert yourself in that, I don't think most people know intuitively. So what is the answer to that question then? Because even if you do know about utilities, it's still not obvious what the answer to that question is, so what does it mean? Is this mostly about sort of public PR campaigns drawing attention to them, bashing them so that they feel pressured to change?
Or are you talking about organizing around more specific stuff like getting people into PUC meetings or getting people into shareholder meetings? So what does it look like to organize against a utility?
Jeff Ordower
Yeah, I think it's all of the above. And when I say we actually want to talk about the bigger we because to the point this is not 350.org driving this, there's a lot of groups doing really interesting work on utilities. So folks are getting into shareholder meetings and rallying outside and having some people inside and some people outside to get utility companies to change the way they operate. Folks are engaging in a more robust way than I've seen in years. Actually, ACORN used to fight utility companies and 20 years ago was really the height of our fights against utility companies, both winning more money for subsidies and doing everything, including folks blocking the trucks.
Usually, there's a cut-off date in the colder weather states like April 1 or April 15 where you can't cut anyone off for non-payment, and then on April 15, trucks would roll out and ACORN members would block those trucks. So 20 years ago, you saw much more robust fights against utilities. We're seeing this really popping up in lots of places. There are organizations going to PCs and PSEs and that's really exciting. We're seeing folks really thinking about shareholder meetings in a different way. And then some of the most innovative things are also both legislatively and using the power of the ballot.
So legislatively, three states have now passed legislation and we're hoping this is setting the stage for many more. I believe it's Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maryland. I want to say that forbid utility companies from using ratepayer money for lobbying, which would make sense, right? We're paying our bill.
David Roberts
Seems so obvious, right? Just seems so obvious.
Jeff Ordower
I know. Capitalism, David, that's how it works. You get to sell a product, then you can use our money to lobby against us. So we're hoping that that sets the stage for many, many more states passing this and that even these are the kinds of legislation that could have bipartisan support. And again, this wasn't us thinking about this. This is many groups doing it. And then there's a different set of things that are also possible, which is in Maine, we're seeing a critical fight, Pine Tree Power, where they're trying to use the power of the ballot to basically eliminate the private utility companies and create publicly owned utilities.
David Roberts
Yes. Stay tuned for a Volts pod on that very subject.
Jeff Ordower
Oh, fantastic. Yes. So elections in November, and I think last I checked, the two major utility companies that spent $18 million to try to beat it. I'm sure that I'm looking like do I have a little what is that countdown to show how many more millions they've spent in the last week.
David Roberts
Yeah, maybe the right sequence is first you pass the law preventing them from using shareholder money for lobbying. Then you go after try to make them public. So that's utilities there's a lot of sort of vulnerable points, I think, where you can get in there and bash utilities, where they're subject, I think, to public mobilization. But you said the turn toward building is broader than that. So what are some of the other pieces that you see? How can activism organize around building?
Jeff Ordower
Well, what's really exciting, and one of the groups in the 350 Network Council, Minnesota 350, really did some significant work as part of a larger coalition, for example, with their Climate Action Plan in Minneapolis, to think about how IRA funds really can help them change and electrify the whole city, particularly starting in lowest income neighborhoods, neighborhoods of color first. So I think there's a lot of tools in the toolbox to do this. Many other organizations are thinking about this as well, where there are progressive mayors and progressive city councils to think about. The IRA money itself is not sufficient to transition whole cities, but it gets you pretty far.
And so if you can find some bridge funding, if you can do a windfall tax on profiteers or a corporate tax or something, that you can find additional resources to really move in an aggressive way to electrify a whole city. So I think one thing is thinking about larger scale industrial policy and lots of brilliant — both policy groups and organizing groups and groups that are doing party building and political work. The major organizing networks are thinking about this kind of work where how do we really transition cities? So I think that is in the building category and it is within our reach given the additional influx of money.
And then I think there's a second thing, which is the direct pay provisions of IRA, where school districts where public buildings can install the solar that they need to install rooftop solar. And then they're getting a check from the federal government to be able to do that.
David Roberts
As opposed to a tax credit where you buy the, whatever, the item, and then later when you file your taxes, deduct the item on your taxes, get the credit for it. This is just you buy the item and you get basically the refund at the point of sale. You don't have to do it through your taxes. It's only available to schools and nonprofits. I feel like there's a couple of other categories too, but it's a couple of categories of entities are eligible for direct pay.
Jeff Ordower
Right. And these are entities predominantly that don't pay taxes, right. So they're getting money that they wouldn't have normally gotten. Because you're right, the other things are in tax credits for entities that pay taxes.
David Roberts
Yeah, and all of those seem like good points around which to organize, like schools, churches and nonprofits and things like that.
Jeff Ordower
It's absolutely so clear in schools, I don't know about you, but I went to school in St. Louis and there was one wing of the school that was air conditioned. So everyone wanted to take social studies classes because that was the only wing that was air conditioned. Everything else, you're in school in late August in Missouri, and it's 97 degrees. But yeah, so many schools, the facilities issues, and we were seeing just waves of school cancellations because of the extreme heat. So it's really helping kids learn, too. There's such an opportunity. It's not just about that it's cool to have solar on top of schools, but it actually makes a difference in kids being able to sit and learn.
David Roberts
Yeah, I've always thought that was like a low hanging fruit. And I've always been puzzled why there isn't more organizing around that, but just healthy interior air for schools and electric buses so they're not breathing diesel fumes and efficiency upgrades so that they can stay cool in the heat. These bring together your environment people and your school people, and like, parents who are the most rabid, ready to organize demographic in the world. I've always wondered why there isn't more action around that.
Jeff Ordower
Same here. And I think this is the challenge before us is whether we can spur this kind of action in organizing. And this is something that ought to happen in red states and cities and blue states and cities. And so I think this is the excitement, and I think folks are just starting to wrap their heads around this opportunity and this possibility, and so let's see if we can do it. But this is I think the challenge before us as organizers is whether we can muster the enthusiasm that's necessary, because you're absolutely right, this is the link.
David Roberts
I read your piece about IRA. So say a little bit more then about how you see the opportunity IRA presents. We've talked about this on the pod a couple of times, but just how you envision using IRA to organize around building things. What do you think are the opportunities it provides?
Jeff Ordower
Yeah, and I think this is where we started the podcast, which is about the role of how we think about organizing, which is what I think right now may end up being very different as we're talking to groups, as parents are getting in the struggle in their school districts, as they're meeting with folks. What it ends up looking like on the back end is different. But I think some of it is we need to do some basic education with folks. So folks understand what is possible and what they can do. Because it does seem there are parts of it where I'm like "Oh, this seems too good to be true. What's the catch?"
So really, to talk about the possibilities, I think the second is if we're talking about school districts. And you said this before, what do we do? Why aren't there more fights about this? I think people are pretty particularly in big cities, there's a lot of despair about the state of school's infrastructure. Right. The major project schools were built in many places decades and decades ago. And so they're dealing with just basic infrastructure problems of lead pipes and bad water and asbestos pops up here and there. Like I know in Philadelphia, where I live now, they've had to shut down schools because of safety concerns.
And schools are so underfunded. It's really leading with the vision there. And there has to be a little bit of a fight and a little bit of a push. And then I think having folks realize that there are going to be in city after city, in school district after school district, there are going to be bureaucrats and I actually use this term fondly, there are going to be folks within the system who are going to be trying to figure this out. And so we need to figure that out together. And I think some of the missing piece is, we in organizing, this is going to be a slight shift from how we think about organizing.
I laid this out before where we said, okay, we're going to fight the utility companies. That's right. But also there's a way in which we can have some relational power because there's folks within the bureaucracy of these systems trying to figure out how to make things work. And we're going to need to co-conspire and collaborate with those folks as well and believe that we have the access and can be heard. And I think many times people don't feel like they're heard at cities, states, federal level, we've talked about this in the context of public utility commissions.
So we're going to need to try out and see if folks can be collaborators and will be heard by the bureaucracies that are going to need to take care of this opportunity or step into this opportunity, I should say. And that's where the excitement is. But it is going to be something different for us and it is going to be a little bit of a shift that we've got to figure out.
David Roberts
Yeah, and I have a question about precisely that shift, which is especially on the left, I think there's just this very sort of deep, almost instinctive suspicion and hostility toward "the man", whatever guise "the man" takes in a particular situation. But the idea of you as a nonprofit organizer collaborating with, say, a utility, or maybe collaborating with private companies sometimes who are trying to build things in innovative ways or collaborating with institutions that leftists have more traditionally just fought will inevitably bring some measure of like "You guys are selling out. You're getting absorbed into the man. Like you're collaborators with the man."
Now that sort of sentiment. Do you worry about navigating that at all?
Jeff Ordower
Not if we're doing real organizing and people are making — I think this is where the democratic process comes in handy is if a group in X city is making a decision based on a set of meetings and actions, some of which will be actions, some of which will be meetings, some of which will be research that they're doing this and that it's based on a collaborative process, then I think that's a defensible decision. I think where we get into it is if we're talking about big picture decisions and someone's like telling people what to do. But I do think that's the magic of organizing is folks can handle pretty nuanced conversations and decisions and they have to live that through.
And so, for example, those of us who come out of community organizing, there's something called research actions. And what that means is before you make a decision to start a campaign, you often pick up the phone and call the people who might be decision makers and see if they'll meet with you and tell you what it is that you need. Like who's the targets? What do you think? And usually it's interesting because you do three or four of these meetings and everyone's like "Oh no, we're not responsible for that, someone else is." But then you build an analysis and then you can make the decision about what your campaign is, who are your targets and what you're doing.
And so, I think this is similar in that if we can get to the table with some of the folks who are making the bigger policy decisions for school districts, for public buildings, those folks are then going to give us the information that we need to collaborate and that offer will be there. And that folks can decide that. And so, I think that's where organizing matters. And I do think with public institutions I'll say two more things about this. I think public institutions, it's not selling out and that we're not just I think that is a view sometimes that we have.
And I kind of think I don't know, I'm just going to say it. So, I think there is an elitism among many, both folks within government, the political class, some set of kind of elite policymakers that believe that if you didn't go to an Ivy League school and if you didn't, that there are folks who are qualified to tell you what policy should be. And then there's a great set of unwashed people who just want to fight things and can't deal with complicated subjects. And my three decades of organizing, David, that is absolutely not true, right?
We have lobbied for very complicated sets of banking regulations of things — folks can get this. And I think it's when we cut the steps there. And I do think the more elitist folks who are doing this aren't doing this because they hate people in Middle America or something. That's not what's happening. But what's happening is, I do think, for example, this is where utility companies are the problem, are trying to set up the way money moves, the way advertising moves. They're trying to set up these false choices, these false juxtapositions, and saying that people can't handle that complexity.
And I think we've really set up this level of elitism and we need to push back against it. And my experience is when the process means that folks will really figure out what makes sense based on where we're trying to go, if we can make that set of decisions. But again, I don't want to well, actually, that's not true. I'm happy to spend the whole podcast critiquing utility companies, but I think they are creating these false choices, right? We saw this in California around the rooftop solar regulation, where the utility "No, no, no. Low income people. We're not going to be able to have subsidies for low income folks.
If all the middle class people have rooftop solar, then we won't have any money for lower income folks." And so they're creating these false juxtapositions and we're buying into that. And that we can't buy into that, we actually have to believe the folks will understand and will want to fight together. And that's why I think the utility work, it's so important that we bring together constituencies of folks who can't get net metering together with lower income folks, working, folks who can't pay their bills. I think that's where the synergy happens and that's where we can make the good decisions around organizing.
David Roberts
Speaking of that, one of the things I always have appreciated about the labor organizers I've spoken to, I mean, obviously there might be a trace of naivete about this because I'm from the outside looking in, but my impression is that the labor movement is extremely focused on and realistic about power. They recognize that power is the thing, that it's not who has the best arguments or the best slogans. It's just what are the concrete results here and how can we organize in such a way as to create further results? And so from that perspective, you've written that IRA sort of all these pots of money give activists a chance to go in and organize groups of people who have not necessarily traditionally been part of green organizing, like low income communities, et cetera, et cetera.
My question is, how do you do that in a way that isn't just — because I feel like the climate movement has been sort of not very good at this — how do you do this in a way that makes winning the next battle more likely? How do you do it in a way that builds power over time and isn't just about one win or one bill or one sort of victory? How do you organize in a way that makes the next bit of organizing easier, that builds your institutional power? Are there general principles to guide us here?
Jeff Ordower
Absolutely. So power is critical. Power is about size, it's about scale, it's about mobilization. It's about the ability to really move, to act and move the things we want to move. And so that is investing in longer term institutions. And part of the reason why I came to 350 was because we had 100 local groups and they weren't just in Brooklyn, but they're in Montana or they're in Sioux Falls. They're in places where we need to be doing that work and we need to be then investing in the size and scale and ability of not just our groups because that doesn't matter.
It's about a larger ecosystem of how lots of organizations are working together, building their size and scale and scope, including with labor unions, to the degree that in the place where we can collaborate so that we are building stronger organizations so each win strengthens us and strengthens our ability to then move the next thing. And that we're thinking some number of steps ahead around that too. So I think that's absolutely critical. And I think having campaigns where and again, people join and stay in organizations where they have a voice, where they have a say. And so going through the process, going through the steps of running the campaigns and winning the campaigns and needing the participation of everyday people in order to do that develops leaders and keeps those people in so that we can continue to grow for the next step that we're doing.
David Roberts
I want to press you on a couple of things.
Jeff Ordower
Absolutely.
David Roberts
I'm sure you've heard, I'm sure you're aware of the larger conversations going on about speed and about building. And one of the sort of standard critiques of the green movement is that it is too accustomed to blocking things and is still sort of instinctively blocking things. And now all these sort of environmental laws that were passed for good reasons are now being sort of turned and used to block building things. You hear not just about NEPA on the national level, but like in California, the California Environmental Quality Act is being deployed to stop infill, to stop zoning reform, to stop bike lanes, to stop basic public places, to stop low income housing.
And then there are environmentalists fighting solar fields in the desert because of the species, or that they're fighting transmission lines through the forest that could bring hydro and lower emissions intensity, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot of this going on around. Is this turn toward building going to involve at any point direct confrontation with friends over these sorts of issues, over these sorts of clashes of values and trade offs? Is at any point 350 going to come out and say, "Yes, this is a short term damage to the environment depending on how you measure it. But it's a long term step we need to take. And so we're going to come out in favor of building this thing that other environmentalists are coming out against." In other words, are you going to put some real skin, real organizational skin in this game?
Jeff Ordower
I certainly hope we will. I do want to draw some distinction. I know you didn't say this, but I think there are some red lines for us too. We're not going to compromise on the ability of indigenous communities to determine what happens with their lands. For example, we think absolutely that things that are built or things that are mined on indigenous lands, indigenous folks should get a say in that and should get to control what's happening on their lands. So there are some red lines. And the second thing is, I think we're lumping conservationists and environmentalists and everyone not worrying about all the labels, but everyone's sort of in the same pot.
David Roberts
NIMBYs.
Jeff Ordower
Yeah, the NIMBYs versus, and I do think that there is a level of hard — organizing is about having challenging conversations with people too, and it is about asking tough questions. And the group process is about people trying to think about what there is for the greater good. And sorry, I'm going to go on a slight ramble, but I do think this is important. So the folks who are blocking the wind in wherever I forget, is that Martha's Vineyard? Those are the uber-rich and it's about impeding their view. And we need to fight with those folks, whether or not they claim they're environmentalists or conservationists or whatever.
And the NIMBY folks, we really do have to challenge them. We have to challenge NIMBY folks in a whole variety of ways, right, because all of the issues are tied together, as you pointed out, affordable housing, having single-family zoning that's required in some places, that's unconscionable, right. There needs to be multifamily housing. There needs to be we need to have less class-segregated housing, not just in California, but everywhere. And so we need to fight those things and we need to push back against people who are using NIMBY, who are using levers. And that's very clear.
And we're going to take some difficult positions around that and we're going to be pushing our folks and we're going to be challenging our groups to do that. We also, though, this is an opportunity, there are going to be a set of like, each decision is going to open up a can of worms, but a set of other decisions. So if what we're saying is Exxon or Chevron is then going to build big wind or utility-scale solar and wind and that's getting built, that's not what we want to do. And that's not the reason, the opportunity for the transformation.
What we're trying to do predominantly is fight for community-controlled solar and wind, right? We're trying to change, not just change the way that we need to convert. And so the most profitable rapacious corporations, as you called them, David, although I agree 100% that they can just fund the next wave of things. So I think we want to use the opportunity as best we can to really change the power dynamics, to change the way the grid works, to change who produces it, who controls things and how they're controlled, and to bring many more things into the public domain and to really diminish the power of the richest 0.1 of 1% who are controlling things.
So there's going to be fights and challenges, but also we need to think about how this opportunity really creates a more equitable system, really gives the opportunity for some of the most disadvantaged folks and neighborhoods and communities over time to actually be first in line for the benefits that are possible with this just transition. And we need to think about that and we need to put so much more energy into fighting that as well.
David Roberts
I guess I'd push a little more though. It's fine and good and great to organize around solutions that both produce more renewable energy and cut low-income people in on the benefits and involve community control, et cetera, et cetera. Those are all great, but those are like the puppy dogs and grandma of this space. In the real world, there are lots of times when you just can't get all of that, where you have to decide about trade-offs. You have to decide getting more renewable energy is worth less than optimal ownership structure or whatever. Or like getting more renewable energy is worth some sacrifice of some piece of some ecosystem.
There are trade-offs and I think what I hear constantly from outside the green movement is that green groups are refusing to grapple with these trade-offs. And I guess what would really convince me that there's a turn here is a group taking some of those trade-offs head-on and being explicit about their willingness to compromise in some areas, to get advances in other areas. That seems to me it's what building is about. And what building involves is inevitably you're not going to be able to just do community solar. That's not going to solve the problem.
They're going to be bigger, more difficult things, more difficult trade-offs. And I just wonder, is 350 going to be the group to go out and be more explicit and be more honest about those trade-offs?
Jeff Ordower
First of all, it would be great to be in a position where we were sitting at the table, where our members and leaders were sitting at the table, and there was a set of "Here's what we're going to do as a society, and here's how we're going to get the huge amount of energy that we need. And here are the decisions. What do you all think? How do we make these hard decisions?" So I think the answer is yes, we are willing to do that. But also it's a question of like, what does that mean? Which decisions are hard, which particular decisions are the ones that we're trying to make and it's time, place and conditions around that.
And so I think generally we understand on a very basic level, we're not trying to run campaigns that are against large-scale renewables, right? But I want to give a very specific example about utility-scale solar and wind because I think this is really important and it talks about some of the first barriers that have to be cleared out. So one of the things that we're seeing is the unions, particularly utility unions and the building trade unions tend to be — you know, you saw this in California with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers being on the side of PG&E around solar hikes.
And some of that, we've got a first barrier, which is — it's part of what's happening with the auto worker negotiations right now — is we're really talking about why are folks siding with the status quo, what are the parts of the status quo that are set up in a particular way? So if you're building out utility-scale solar and wind and you're a worker on that, you're working for a temp agency; you don't have any union protections in 80 or 90% of the cases. You're driving across the country for a three-month gig and then sleeping in your car till your per diem comes in. So all of that is like there's a lot of things that we have to push for before we get the — there's not an equal power dynamic where we're all sitting at the table and being like, "Here are the sacrifices that some people are going to have to make or some ecosystems are going to have to make to get to the energy grid that we want."
Right now, there's a lot of fighting to do just to clear the path so that we've got good jobs in renewable energy, that we've got good jobs making electric vehicles, that we've got the ability for utilities to stop building new gas plants and start investing in the renewable energy production that they need to, including having a more diffuse grid. So I'm not saying that the choices won't be coming down and that some of them won't be hard. But right now there's a lot of underbrush that we need to clear out, a lot of fights to pick that sort of change the power dynamics so that we have a way to do what we need to do first.
And let's see how far and how fast we get just by changing the way workers are treated, by changing the way communities are treated, by changing the way that people have the ability that they're going to directly benefit from this utility scale community benefit agreements, from having utility scale solar and wind in their backyard. So that's not because Amazon told X Energy Company to build this, but that actually people are going to benefit in their bills by having utility scale solar and wind and then I think folks are going to be a lot more ready to make some of the challenging choices. But let's get to the table first. Let's talk about power. Let's really talk about power and not have the conversation in the abstract.
Right. Another critique you often hear is that green groups, and I think this is probably a critique you hear about NGOs generally, really, is that when they reach a certain size, their internal sort of organizational motivations take over. Like the preservation of the organization takes over and the health of the organization itself becomes a top priority of the organization and they sort of take their eyes a little bit off the game and that they end up — And so my question is, if 350 and other green orgs try to make this shift, try to shift more toward building, and it doesn't fire people up as much as say, the pipeline battles did, just how committed are they to this? Are they committed enough that they're willing to sort of maybe take a hit in terms of email responses or the number of people showing up at events or the amount of small donor funding that comes in?
David Roberts
In other words, are they willing to push through maybe some sort of diffuse organizational resistance or diffuse resistance to this because they are committed enough to it? Or is this the kind of thing where you're sort of testing and if the membership doesn't like it, then you are going to sort of withdraw? I don't know that you can answer that question on an abstract level, but you see what I'm getting at.
Jeff Ordower
Oh, I see exactly what — now, you're throwing the cans of soup at the nonprofit industrial complex, as it were. And I appreciate that. I certainly can't speak for the sector. I think part of what makes us different and unique is a couple of things. One, as we talked about earlier, because we're a global organization and we're trying to really function to some degree as a global organization, we're going to stay the course on the solutions work because that's being driven by the most impacted communities in the global south. And so we're obligated to follow their lead and we're going to stay that course.
The second thing is the funders are not a monolith and people do things because of funding and not because of funding, et cetera. But the reality is, it is about what our chapters, what local groups of 350 want to be doing. It is about both making suggestions to them and it is about having a program where people can do the work. And some of it is because some of the state groups that are both independent of 350, but have the 350 name and are part of a network council of 350 groups, have already been moving and doing solutions work.
And so they're ahead of where 350.org is. And the same thing with many volunteer run groups that we're actually hearing it the other way. I'm not worried because groups are ahead of us on solutions and we're in some ways, like running a little bit to catch up over some of the great work that's happening.
David Roberts
What about the other side of that: the donor community? Because another critique you often hear is that whatever the young people might want to do, the young people have their heads on straight, they're ready to go, but they depend on money, basically from foundations that are run by what's the polite term? Aging white boomers who might not be, let's say, totally clued into the latest in politics and the latest in organizing. And in some sense they have to chase the money. So what's your sense of the donor foundation community's posture on all this? Do they have a clue?
Jeff Ordower
Well, certainly around IRA Implementation. They ask —
David Roberts
Speak freely, Jeff.
Jeff Ordower
What did I say about — don't talk about the donors. I will say again: Members are not a monolith. Groups are not a monolith. Donors are not a monolith. There are some really interesting foundations that are thinking in very large terms about the opportunities that the Inflation Reduction Act has to really remake industrial policy and why that's critical and not just why that's important, but also how this changes the politics as well. That the way we're really delivering things for people. And that also to your point in talking to folks in the Biden administration, the way that translates into votes as well.
So I actually think the donor class does understand what we need to be doing on solutions, does understand what we need to be doing to deliver for people so that they understand that actually investing in robust government, robust, functional government is something that is in our collective interest.
State capacity, yay! That's on the Volts T shirt whenever I make one.
How do I get one of those? What's cool and is happening in donor communities these days is I think there are so many different levels. To your point on the youth. Yeah, there are some aging boomers that are sitting at big foundations and fancy buildings, usually on the East Coast. But there's a lot of folks now on the West Coast who came into money recently. There's a lot of young people who have inherited money who have much more fundamental challenges to capitalism and how they got their found wealth in the first place. So this is unique again, in my three decades that we're seeing a level of philanthropy that is actually becoming increasingly democratic, becoming increasingly kind of challenging status quo and systems.
And it's not 100% there yet, but I'm confident. I feel like there's like something for everyone within philanthropy right now.
David Roberts
Interesting. All right, well, we're out of time. So let me conclude on a positive question. If I'm just an individual, I support decarbonization and I've already bought my heat pump or whatever, and I want to get involved in activism that advances decarbonization, that helps things get built. Where do I look? Where do I go? Who do I join? Where do I aim my fire?
Jeff Ordower
Well, obviously I would like to say you should join 350.org. And I know we'll have a lot —
David Roberts
Let's get that obvious answer out off the way.
Jeff Ordower
But I do want to say I think you should join something that is local, I think because we're trying to build things. So there may not be a 350 chapter where you are. If there isn't, we'll help you build one. But there may be something else. There may be a different formation that is also thinking about building. There may be something if you're young, there may be something in the Sunrise movement and there might be something in Indivisible. There might be something in a base-building group that's through the Center for Popular Democracy or People's Action or Community Change where you can get involved.
There's organizing happening almost everywhere in the country and you can get involved. And I do think that great minds are thinking alike and that we're at a unique point right now where folks are really scrambling. We are scrambling in a good way to try to figure out how to implement this transformation, how to do it in a way that is equitable, that is just and that is clearing out, that is sort of contesting for power against those who are holding it and building the world in which we want to live. And so there is something for you to get involved locally wherever you are.
And I hope that you do that. And I really hope that you're both fighting the pernicious utility companies but also meeting with the person in charge of all buildings in the school district to figure out how you're going to get rooftop solar in your school district. And I think those two things go hand in hand and are going to help you transform your community.
David Roberts
You might say think globally, act locally. Then what might be the suggestion?
Jeff Ordower
That's not the Volts T-shirt?
David Roberts
There's going to be a lot of text on my Volts T-shirt. Jeff, thank you so much for coming along. This is really interesting. It's really fascinating to watch this movement try to reconfigure itself on the fly under intense time pressure, under intense moral pressure, etcetera, etcetera. It's fascinating to watch. So thanks for coming on and talking us through it.
Jeff Ordower
Appreciate that. And we're not going to get it right. I think part of what's great about organizing is you iterate and you try to figure it out. And that's having the community of practice of being able to do things, make mistakes, get some things right and continue to push. And that it's going to be a collective effort that we're going to need millions of folks to be involved in. And we're excited about that opportunity. So thanks for having me on.
David Roberts
Thank you for listening to the Volts podcast. It is ad-free, powered entirely by listeners like you. If you value conversations like this, please consider becoming a paid Volts subscriber at volts.wtf. Yes, that's volts.wtf so that I can continue doing this work. Thank you so much and I'll see you next time.
How climate activists can help get things built