A Just Planet

20 Things We Can Do to Advance a Just and Sustainable Planet

By Jacqui Patterson, originally written for and published by the NAACP. 

On this Earth Day as the world is faced with great peril and promise, we all have a role in resisting and addressing challenges and optimizing on the many opportunities.  In the context of reversal of voting rights and stolen democracies, profit driven development and reckless extraction and processing of fossil fuels, coupled with rampant consumerism, we are seeing more and more toxic communities, increased heat waves, wild fires, super storms and drought driven shifts in agricultural yields. This year Pope Francis is releasing an encyclical calling for action on climate change.  In November, there is a meeting of the United Nations and civil society groups from all over the world convening in Paris for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties.    People all over are building resistance to and repelling the progression of climate change and environmental injustice through advancing local economies on principles of cooperation and access through local food, transportation collectives, community owned solar, zero waste systems, green schools and more.

Below are some actions we can take, big and small, to be a part of this growing movement to educate and engage our communities, reclaim our voice and influence in decision making stations, grow local economies, and ensure that all have access to basic needs and upholding of all civil and human rights.

Get the Word Out–Community Education/Dialogues

Host a Film Screening

• Host a Screening of Beasts of the Southern Wild(archived)

Host a Church Discussion

• Interfaith Power and Light

Host Town Hall Meeting

• Guide to hosting a town hall meeting

Write a Letter to the Editor

• See section on sample op-ed letters in Coal Blooded Action Toolkit(archived)

Build Community Cohesion/Engagement

Healing Hikes/Healing Tables/Healing Circles

• NAACP and Sierra Club Collaborate on Healing Hikes

Cross Movement Organizing

• Cultivate frontline community-led, cross-movement organizing

Conduct a Community Clean Up

• How to Conduct a Community Clean Up

Initiate a Community Emergency Response Team

• Start a Community Emergency Response Team

Facilitate Inclusive Policy Making

Get Out the Vote

Run for Office (and bring and environmental and climate justice lens)

• Guide to Running for Office

Advance a Clean Air Ordinances/Resolutions

• See clean air ordinances section in Coal Blooded Action Toolkit(archived)

• Information on Passing a Local Clean Air Ordinance

Testify at the Public Utilities Commission/Public Service Commission on Energy Issues

• NAACP Guide to Engaging with PUCs/PSCs(archived)

• The Importance of Public Utilities Service Commissions(archived)

Integrate equity into your local Climate Action Plan and Emergency Management Planning

• NAACP Guide to Integrating Equity Indicators into Climate Adaptation Planning

Building Local, Cooperative, Sustainable Economies

Host green jobs career fairs and/or send out job opportunities

• NAACP Climate Justice Initiative Toolkit

• Guide to Hosting Job Fair

Start a Green School

• Center for Green Schools

Launch a Community-Owned Solar Co-Op

• Solar United Neighbors

Facilitate a Local Food Gardens Project

• Sustainable Table

• Local Harvest

• Black Urban Growers

Start an EcoDistrict/EcoVillage

• EcoDistricts

• Global EcoVillage Network

For information on how we at the NAACP are connecting issues of Environmental and Climate Justice, please visit https://naacp.org/know-issues/environmental-climate-justice