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Targets, Strikes,

Bombs & Butterflies

Connecting climate movement strategies

Adapted for Branch

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Welcome

This is an experiment!
Today’s goal: A perspective shift, to practice imagining new ways of working together

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Agenda

Discussion guidelines: Inclusion, privacy & bravery
Butterfly background: Less debating, more coordinating
Breakout: Imagining a connected path
Share back: Let’s make a new story

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Discussion guidelines

Inclusion

Flow in, flow out: Invite people to speak, ok to pass
Active listening
Respond with care

Bravery

Share your experience
Be curious, ask questions
Mistakes and disagreements are expected
This is a space to hear different perspectives, not a space to debate

Privacy (next page)

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Inclusive, welcoming & safe

We follow the Chatham House rule: You are free to use information received, but neither identity nor affiliations of the speakers/participants may be revealed (unless the speakers/participants give their consent).

A summary of this event will be published online. We will not include names/orgs without consent.

If something inappropriate happens, reach out to our CAT moderators (@melissa, @clare, @mobolaji, conduct@climateaction.tech)

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Current Climate Vibes

< Background >

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A few climate movement strategies:

< Background >

Climate targets

🎯

Climate strikes

🪧

Soup throwing

🥫

Corporate & government net-zero targets

Protests and mass demonstrations

Civil disobedience and disruption

Hesitant to associate with activists

Post-action connections are weak

Skeptical of corporations and institutions

Isolated, disconnected:

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How do we grow & build momentum �as a diverse, decentralized movement?

< Background >

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< Background >

There is no way that one individual or one organization or one strategy is going to win this. We really need to figure out how to collectively make our butterfly fly with all four wings working together.

— Leah Penniman

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Butterfly Metaphor of Social Transformation

Resist: Direct confrontation of injustice, like boycotts, strikes
Reform: Transforming existing institutions, like government
Build: Creating new institutions, like co-ops, land trusts
Heal: Therapy, ceremonies, vigils, art

From Leah Penniman in Bioneers.org

< Background >

Photo by Fleur on Unsplash

Resist

Heal

Reform

Build

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All four wings are necessary for transition
Most advocacy & activism focuses on one wing
It is difficult for one group to have the capacity and expertise to do everything

Butterfly Metaphor, Leah Penniman

https://bioneers.org/bipoc-leaders-food-sovereignty-strategies-ztvz2102/

There’s a very powerful metaphor for this in the form of the four wings of transformative social justice depicted as a butterfly. Butterflies cannot do what they do without all four of their wings. When we talk about social change and social transformation, these four wings are: resist, build, heal and reform. Resist refers to that direct confrontation of injustice, with boycotts, civil disobedience, protests, non-cooperation, walkouts, strikes, all the forms of non-cooperation with oppression.

Then there’s the wing of reform. Those doing reform work are some of the most courageous folks in some ways, because they’re going into the belly of the beast, into these institutions to do policy change, to transform public schools from the inside out, to run for elected office, to work within the published media with all of its complexities and problematic ways of being, etc. The builders, which is where we at Soul Fire Farms squarely put ourselves, are the ones who are creating institutions that strive to represent the world that we want to create, such as freedom schools, land trusts, seed-saving networks, co-ops, churches, farms, community clinics, sanctuaries. The final wing is healing, because there’s no way we can go through centuries if not millennia of land-based oppression and not be scarred, not to carry this trauma in our DNA, which sometimes results in lateral violence among ourselves, impeding our own progress, so we also need therapy, ceremonies, plant medicines, stories, art, vigils, prayers, all of these aspects of healing. There is no way that one individual or one organization or one strategy is going to win this. We really need to figure out how to collectively make our butterfly fly with all four wings working together.

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Wings Working Together

Example: Labor Movement in the US

< Background >

Resist

Heal

Reform

Build

Labor: Strikes

Gov. officials: Policy

Labor: New unions

Consumer groups

?

Gov.: New agency

Industry

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Note: I am not a historian

Great Depression opportunity to win labor rights in the New Deal: Minimum wage, child labor laws, workers compensation, social security, right to unionize
Different groups working in the same direction
Wings:

Labor strikes: Workers fought back against wage theft and dangerous working conditions.
Consumer groups: cross-class movement
Government officials: Motivated to balance power between industrialists, government, workers
Industry: In general, industrialists did not help the labor movement and lobbied against reform. However, they did eventually have to change after the Wagner Act was passed, implemented, and enforced.
New Unions: Labor had to increase membership and create more unions in order to build and maintain power
New Government agency: National Labor Relations Board
Healing wing: I did not come across any actions in the healing wing in my research. Possibly because history doesn’t prioritize it, but also possibly because there was little activity here.

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How do we connect these strategies?

< Background >

Comment in chat

Climate targets

🎯

Climate strikes

🪧

Soup throwing

🥫

Resist

Heal

Reform

Build

Resist

Build

Resist

Heal

Reform

Build

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Coalitions are one way to work together…

< Background >

…but let’s experiment!

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Other ways to connect our work

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< Background >

Think snowballs, ripple effects, building momentum, synchronizing, passing the ball, opening doors for others, succession…

These are just a few ideas to get started:

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Breakout

Round robin introductions: What are you currently working on?
Group Q&A: What questions do you have about each other’s advocacy strategy?
Explore: How can you connect each other's work, directly or indirectly? Try to come up with at least one scenario to share with the larger group.

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Resist

Heal

Reform

Build

Miro link

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Share out

What futures did you imagine together?

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Heal

Reform

Build

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What’s next?

THANK YOU!

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Resources

Inspiration

Sane Energy Project , No North Brooklyn Pipeline
SNCC Youth Organizers
“New Phase of Civil Rights Struggle”, Martin Luther King interview
Frances Perkins, textile workers, union members, and others who fought for workers rights

Movements

Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown
Butterfly metaphor, Leah Penniman
Climate Change Countermovement
After Protest: Pathways Beyond Mass Mobilization

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Run-of-Show

Duration	Agenda/Activity
15 min before event	Tech check
5 min	Icebreaker / wait for people
5 min	Welcome: Agenda & ground rules
10 min	Butterfly background: Level-setting
45 min	Breakout (4-6 people per group)
10 min	Shareout
3 min	Thank you
15 min	Optional chat to wrap-up

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Always inclusive, welcoming & safe

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