From WXXI news I'm Jasmine Singer and this is Environmental Connections.

Today's environmental connection shines a light on the power of unity in the face of the climate crisis, especially how building coalitions across deep divides isn't just hopeful, it's essential.

My guest is author and activist Eileen Flanagan, whose latest book, while it's forthcoming, it'll be out in August.

Common ground draws from her work in the Peace Corps and her Quaker faith, and her leadership with Earth Quaker Action Team.

She has seen firsthand the ways that unlikely alliances indigenous leaders and farmers faith communities and environmentalists, frontline organizers and investors can reshape environmental outcomes.

Eileen Flanagan, welcome to Environmental Connections.

Thank you.

I'm thrilled to be here.

So excited to talk to you so frequently.

We are covering some really sad, difficult, complicated stuff.

And sure, that's part of the discussion today, but I really appreciate your perspective and the energy that you bring to your work.

And there's so much to ask you about.

So let's begin with something foundational.

You spent two years in Botswana at a Peace Corps as as a Peace Corps volunteer.

And you've said that those experiences shaped your worldview in ways that continue to influence your activism today.

So can you take us back to that time?

Was there a particular encounter or lesson that really crystallized the connection for you between environmental issues and social justice?

Thank you for that question.

I think there are a number of things I learned being a Peace Corps volunteer important in Southern Africa.

One was the power of community.

I lived in a village where people borrowed things from each other all the time.

Not everyone needed to own their own shovel or, you know, any kinds of things.

People would knock on a neighbor's door and ask for an onion rather than walk two miles in the hot sun to go down to the village store.

And it took me a while to realize that I was supposed to ask back, that this was a reciprocal relationship that people were initiating.

And that really made me think more about our own culture and how coming home to a suburb in the United States, people wouldn't knock on their neighbors door.

They would get in the car and drive somewhere if they just needed an onion.

So there are a lot of things about community that change how much we need.

I was very happy living with very few possessions in Botswana and found it difficult to keep that practice.

As I came home, got married, had kids.

The expectations for what we need to own as a family just skyrocketed.

So that was an important lesson.

I was also there during apartheid in South Africa and got to know South Africans who had stood up to a really brutal regime and was inspired by that history.

So coming home, I started getting much more involved in activism after that experience.

And I know that related to that, you're a Quaker, and Quaker spirituality centers on the belief that there's that of God in everyone.

And so that can sound kind of abstract until you're sitting across from someone whose views or behaviors are diametrically opposed to your values, which in today's moment in society is happening kind of every day.

So in the heat of organizing, especially around polarizing issues, how does that belief shape your response to conflict?

Yeah, I I've come to believe that it's a spiritual practice, but it's also more strategic to not demonize people who voted the other way.

Frankly, my side has done a lot of demonizing.

And if you want to win those people's votes back in the next election, that strategy is going to backfire.

We saw that in people being called deplorables or trash or things like that.

But it also seeing that of God in other people means that we are kind of intrinsically connected on a very deep level.

And just to go back to the Botswana experience, that was part of what led me to more climate activism.

I was always already trying to carry my reusable water bottle and decrease my own consumption.

But I reconnected with a friend from my village in Botswana, and we were just talking about the weather, and it was 113 degrees where she was living, and that used to be when I was in the Peace Corps.

That would happen maybe once a year or something.

That was an extreme temperature that's now really normal in Botswana.

So thinking about all those kids who I taught and their kids and feeling a connection to this place, when I started doing research on how climate change was affecting people globally already, it really spurred me into a deeper level of commitment.

And what I came to understand through the research of the book is that most people aren't inspired by what's happening in Botswana.

Most Americans, if they don't feel that personal connection, but it's it's an early warning sign of something that's affecting everybody.

So for me, the spiritual sense that all people are intrinsically connected, relates also to this strategic piece of how do we build coalitions?

And the last thing I'll say about that is that I really learned a lot from indigenous people.

There are few chapters in the book that explore indigenous led campaigns.

And what I really loved from watching Ojibwe women in Minnesota is that they talked about being related to all people in a way that did not at all sugarcoat the harm that some people are doing.

And sometimes I do feel like that's a problem in my faith community.

We can talk about that of God in, all people.

And it sounds like we're not against something that people are doing, but they were really, really clear.

The sheriff's departments were taking lots of money from the pipeline company that they were fighting.

And they talked about those law enforcement people as their relatives, either even as they were standing up to them and committing civil disobedience and sometimes facing violence.

So there's something about not sugarcoating the harm.

That is very much what Doctor King taught in the civil rights movement, that you challenge the harm without, demonizing the people.

And I think that is one of the core lessons of the book.

For those of you just tuning in, I'm talking with Eileen Flanagan, who is a prolific author and activist and has a new book coming out in August.

It's called Common Ground How the Crisis of the Earth is Saving Us from Our Illusion of Separation.

And you can preorder it.

By the way, I just really encourage people to preorder.

It really does help the author.

So let's let's hold on to that, subtitle for just a moment, because you talk a bit about that illusion of separation, the idea that we imagine ourselves as separate from nature and from each other, from from future generations.

That illusion seems baked into our systems, right?

Like our economics, our politics.

What broke that illusion for you personally, Eileen?

And how do you invite others to see through it without sounding preachy?

Without sounding preachy, that is, a struggle.

Because that doesn't work strategically either, right?

I, you know, I think it was a journey of a lot of things.

I mentioned reconnecting with this friend in Botswana, but it was also just having children.

I remember watching Hurricane Katrina on television while my own kids were young, and I was also caring for my aging mother and hearing these stories of families who stayed behind, who could have gotten out.

But they stayed to care for an elder.

That just really kind of pierced my heart.

So that was an important part of this journey.

The illusion is really heavily promoted.

So another story in the book is I went to the Louisiana and Atlantic Oil and Gas Industry meeting, which was in New Orleans, in a hotel that flooded as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

And I refer to these folks as The Illusionists because they were really, in, in deep denial about the effects of climate change, even as they were talking about the effect of hurricanes on deepwater drilling, and kind of complaining about how the roads were getting flooded out with zero acknowledgment that companies like Exxon and Chevron and all the companies in the room were major drivers of the climate crisis, which is of course, increasing those kind of weather events.

They had a very expensive PR guy who was one of the speakers and learning about how the industry invested in PR to increase, you know, people's denial and, keep the illusion going.

I think it's important to recognize that it's not just that people are silly and they have all these illusions, it's that it's a marketing campaign.

Right?

Yeah.

And I mean, it reminds me so much of the illusion of control, right?

Like, or the illusion of controlling someone else or the illusion that we can control, you know, someone else's destiny or something like that.

There is something very powerful about letting go of that.

And, and it really faces forces us to see what we do have control of which when it comes to climate activism, is quite a lot.

I mean, despite the heaviness of the subjects we cover here, that is the through line with all of my guests that there are things that we can do.

And I, I hope that environmental connections as and your work especially leaves people feeling emboldened.

I want to go back to what you just said about having kids, because as someone who chose not to have human children, which makes it sound like I have a bunch of aliens from Mars walking around, I have that same connection with, non-human animals.

I feel like that is what connects the dots for me.

It's kind of that understanding that you can have an interspecies relationship that is so meaningful that it speaks to your soul and sparks that that flame of activism for the environment, for the climate.

So I appreciated what you said about having kids, and I've heard that, of course, from so many people.

It's an experience that I am sure is uniquely profound.

And as is, you know, the the relationship we can have with our companion animals and with wild animals.

So I thought I'd throw that out there.

I hope you don't mind.

No.

That's great.

And I would add one that I just read an article about how a deep connection to a particular place can break through for people.

It was a story about a pond that used to freeze, and people used to go ice skating on it, and now the pond doesn't freeze enough to people for people to go ice skating.

And there was a study done that sometimes for people to grasp climate change, which is, you know, parts per million in the atmosphere.

It can be really, really abstract.

And this study showed that something specific like that, you used to be able to ice skate here, and now you can't actually breaks through to people in a special way.

So I think whether it's our kids or our neighborhood or our cats or other animals, we care about, being able to see how this is affecting what we love is really the key.

Whatever it is that we love.

And it's also it makes me think that we as humans, at least here, kind of need to have that connection in our everyday life in order to really take climate change seriously, as opposed to, like you said, something going on on the opposite side of the planet.

I'd love to get your thoughts on on that.

And like, does that mean we have to appeal to excuse me if I'm being crass, but does that mean we have to appeal to people's selfishness?

Like, that's not how you would ever frame something?

Eileen, help me out.

Actually, I think that's a great question, Jasmin, because I thought about that a lot in the early writing.

Am I saying that people's self-interest is what should motivate their climate action?

And that is actually a very dangerous thing.

One of the stories that was in an early draft that I cut out of the book because it's no longer news, was after hurricane Sandy, there was a lot of great things that happened after hurricane Sandy.

But there was also this competition among us engineers to try and devise a solution for climate change for New York.

And the winning idea was called The Big You.

And then it pieces of it have survived the idea of building walls in certain locations to, protect Manhattan and, is happening.

But the idea of having this, like, giant wall around Manhattan, Manhattan, didn't survive, but but it was a great example of climate action that was about protecting Wall Street.

And when you realize that Brooklyn and Staten Island, you know, have a lot of toxic waste from our industrial past, and that water diverted from Manhattan would make flooding worse in those neighborhoods.

It's it's an example of the kind of ways that people could respond to climate change that are very selfish, protecting their, you know, one community's self-interest, a big community like nothing against people in Manhattan.

But my two kids live in Brooklyn, so I'm really concerned about where the toxic waste is going to flood.

Right?

Yeah.

That, that that's just not the way to go to build higher walls, you know, might be necessary in some places.

But what we really need to do is reduce fossil fuel use and carbon emissions.

And that was the good thing that New York State did once that they passed an innovative law that really did limit that.

And that's good for everyone, right?

That's good whether you live in Rochester or Brooklyn or Manhattan or Mumbai, everybody in the world is positively affected by that kind of action.

Yeah.

So the way that I talk about it now, just one more thing, sorry, is that we have a common stake that the risk is on equal.

So there is a place for me to say I'm worried about my kids as well as my friends, kids in Botswana, like I have a stake, but it's not just selfishness, it's a shared stake.

I think the solutions we come up with will be much better for everybody if we have that perspective.

Well, I'm sorry for interrupting you a moment ago because that is such a good point.

Thank you for making it that we can find that commonality.

Whatever it is, whether it is the shared stake of the of the daughter or the shared stake of, you know, really caring about that, that pond that will no longer freeze, which is but one thing I appreciate about your work, Eileen, is how evocative it is and how tangible it is, because I know that a lot of people who sort of talk about activism or environmentalism or who are not talking about a specific campaign, it can get a little amorphous, but you always bring it back to these really specific examples that we can really latch onto.

And I, I'm curious a little bit about your journey.

So I would like to switch gears and then come back to talking a little bit more about the tangible activism, especially spiritual activism isn't just about showing up at protests or writing op eds.

There's also that inner work.

So the daily practices that build resilience and that build clarity.

I'd love for you to talk a little bit about your relationship with that, your spiritual or grounding practices that you return to, especially when you're tired or discouraged.

Asking for a friend.

Yeah, I well, I think there's a couple of things.

One is ego.

There's a lot of energy wasted between organizations, to be frank, arguing over who's going to get the credit.

And it's related to who's going to get the next grant.

You know, there is a practical aspect to whether we get credit for the change we made.

But there's something tricky about this.

For me, I think it's important for people to feel that they were part of something to make a difference.

But if we get too focused on the ego part of that, it's not actually great for coalition building.

Successful coalitions are ones where people focus on what we did together and not just having, you know, one hero or, or one group, that gets all the credit.

So for me, there's something about spirituality that is about we rather than I, another practice is the idea of forgiveness, and asking for forgiveness.

I write a lot about interracial coalitions and, frankly, people hurt each other.

And white people, you know, have a tendency to show up and be clueless sometimes about, groups that they want to partner with or neighborhoods that they don't necessarily live in.

And I think there's something really important about the spiritual practice of recognize that we're all fallible and, being willing to apologize or ask forgiveness or ask for guidance when you don't know what's going on, which is related to ego.

Again.

And the third one I would say is just grounding.

We're living in a time of huge fear.

I was recently a peacekeeper at the big, marches that happened nationally and there were so many people terrified about what was going to happen.

And I find that whether it's taking a walk in the woods or breathing deeply, or lighting a candle or listening to music, any kind of practice that helps me be grounded and not twitchy with my fear, I guess, is the way to say it will help me make better decisions and that goes for long term strategy, but also just showing up in the streets at a time when, who knows, maybe the military will get called on us.

I mean, it's a scary time.

So whatever practices people have for grappling with fear, I think are really, really important, whether they think of themselves as spiritual or not.

It sounds to me like you're talking a lot about humility and if I'm interpreting this correctly, also about not always needing to kind of have the last word, but sitting in the discomfort of the divide that you might have with the person across from you who you're trying to build a coalition with.

Do I have that right?

You do.

And actually, research shows that that is a much better way of building connections with people who you disagree with.

And it's my own experience, but I don't always remember it, that if I listen first, instead of coming in hot with my, you know, rant about the latest thing in the news, if I do that, odds are that I won't find common ground with someone.

But I'm thinking about an incident in the news and somebody, in my extended family who I frequently disagree with.

I asked him what he thought first, and he said what he thought, and he said, oh, I bet you disagree with all that.

And I was like, no, I disagree with half of that.

So I was able to affirm part of what he said and then offer something different.

When I can do that, I feel much more listened to than when I come in hot with my rant.

Right?

Well, it's so much easier said than done, but it is possible.

And you know, I'm not to disclose too much, but as a as a vegan lesbian, over 40 with no children, I am used to having to sort of contend with not necessarily existing in the mainstream, in the world and, and kind of going into a room understanding that this is just people are going to disagree with something.

One of those things, and it can actually help to be the, the person going up the down staircase, I would imagine it could help with coalition building.

And so I'd love to talk about your work targeting Vanguard, one of the world's largest asset managers.

It's not as immediately visible in the fossil fuel world as, say, Exxon or Shell, but you chose it deliberately.

So tell us about what makes Vanguard such a powerful and perhaps under-recognized climate actor.

Great.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, we were invited into this campaign by other organizations that were looking at where's the flow of money?

And, in the foreword to my book, Kumi Naidoo, who was the former head of Greenpeace, said, you know, we can't fight these projects, one refinery or one pipeline at a time.

We have to cut off the source, which is the money.

And that is really, really true.

And it was one of the things I definitely learned visiting communities that were trying to stop, dangerous projects in their own communities.

So vanguard, as soon as we looked at it.

First of all, I'm based in Philadelphia and it's in the Philadelphia suburbs, so there was a natural fit for the group.

I work with Earth Quaker Action Team or Equate, but it was also a natural fit because cause, we're founded out of a community where lots of people have investments.

Lots of people care about climate change in the environment, but it's another aspect of the illusion of separation.

They don't necessarily realize that their mutual fund is invested in Exxon, one of the biggest perpetrators of the fraud that climate change isn't real.

They don't necessarily recognize that they're invested in Enbridge.

The pipeline company that I mentioned in northern Minnesota that was building a pipeline through Ojibway land.

And so as a customer, they had a special voice, in this company that has trillions, many trillions of dollars invested.

But they also have the ability to move their money.

So in the first year or so of the campaign, we encouraged customers to complain and to say that we wanted Vanguard to have more climate friendly funds in the short term and use their power to push these companies in the long term, because I can't get the CEO of Exxon to talk to me.

But the head of Vanguard can, you know, they have so much power, they vote on shareholder resolutions that come before companies.

So we really want them to use their power for the common good, which is also for the economic good in the long run.

So you have built coalitions in this seemingly impossible space.

You have built coalitions with groups that don't always align politically or culturally.

And that's really hard work.

How do you begin conversations, Eileen, with potential allies who maybe they're not sure they trust your politics, or maybe they don't identify as environmentalists.

You know, we are in a moment right now where everyone sort of has a knee jerk reaction to any request, whether whether it's in their best interest or not.

I think people are dubious of of of people like you do and people like me.

So how how do you navigate this?

Yeah.

And I'll say that, often when people hear the title Common Ground, they go to thinking of people at the opposite end of the political spectrum, which is a particularly difficult place to operate.

I would say that a lot of the coalition building I've done personally is across difference, but not quite that far.

So one of the stories in the book is early in the Vanguard campaign.

We decided to do a walk to Vanguard's Global headquarters carrying these concerns, and we wanted to start in a frontline community.

So we had done some research on our area.

It turned out Vanguard was invested in a lot of polluting facilities along the Delaware River.

And I would offer to your listeners that you can look up what are the major polluters in your region and see if there, you know, if those companies are in Vanguard's portfolio.

But when we did that, we found a huge cluster in a city called Chester, which is a majority black city just south of Philadelphia.

And they had one after another, an incinerator, chemical company, a paper mill, an oil refinery, and a very small community.

Tons of pollution.

And that community had been resisting for decades and had had some local wins.

So we reached out to them and said, could we start the walk in your community?

Well, you know, the leader, Selene Mayfield was like, who are you?

You know, very, very understandably.

But she understood that she needs allies, you know, that a small community by itself, is more powerful with allies.

So we built a relationship.

We showed up to some of their things.

They had some hearings at the local, town and council meeting and things like that.

It turned out we knew more people in common than we realized at first.

And, so she said yes, and we started there.

But we've continued to try to show up, you know, when they have an event, so that it's not just we wanted to do a thing, but it's actually building a relationship over time.

And I think that's true, whatever the kind of difference is, whether it's generational or political or, racial or class, that we need to invest time.

And going back to your question about spiritual practices, I was really clear that if she said no, she didn't want to partner with us on this, we had to accept it.

Right?

The fossil fuel community companies come in whether the community wants it or not.

And we wanted to operate in a different way.

We wanted to be really open to hearing no.

If that was what the answer was, that's tough.

I, I'm not sure as as someone who has been an activist for various causes, I, I'm, I'm not particularly good at taking no for an answer.

Just ask my wife.

But I appreciate that some of the long views of what you're talking about can assist with that.

And before we go to our one break of the hour, I have I have a question about how that kind of organizing can sometimes get a boost after a shared crisis.

And you alluded to this earlier, but I want to revisit it.

After hurricane Sandy, we saw a surge of grassroots energy that helped push New York into real climate leadership.

Can you walk us through that moment and how it became a turning point for policy and movement building?

Yeah, I think it's a great example, actually, of people who are already on the ground knowing what was up.

So Eddie Battista is one of the people I interview.

And he talked about how, he works with the New York Environmental Justice Network.

They knew that there was a lot of chemical waste in their communities in Brooklyn and Staten Island and, you know, north east Manhattan, like along the waterfront.

And they had been warning officials for a long time that flooding could release all these toxins and didn't feel listened to.

So because they were already organized, they were able to really be leaders in this post Sandy moment of, first of all, getting that story into the news that know this hurricane was bad in lots of ways.

But one of the ways it was bad was it released all these old toxic chemicals.

But they also then called together a meeting from all five boroughs.

They invited people from different communities to come sit around round tables and talk about how could they make the most of this moment.

And people use this phrase instead of bouncing back from the hurricane.

They wanted to bounce forward.

They wanted to enact policies that would be good for their communities in the long run.

For example, there was tons of HUD housing that was damaged from the hurricanes.

And there there's this, you know, fine print around HUD that about hiring HUD residents to do repairs.

And so they were able to highlight that and make sure that some of those rebuilding jobs went to people who were living in public housing, which is not always what happens after a storm like in hurricane Sandy when, I mean, Katrina, it was often outsiders who got the jobs so that pulling people together very quickly and then building relationships with labor, with people doing immigrant rights work, with people doing health work, it was really a moment when a lot of people started to realize that their issue was affected by climate change, too.

And so, they built those relationships and then they took advantage of another big event, which was, national climate organizers decided to have this big climate march in 2014, in New York around the UN.

And so, I think something organizers can do is look for what other folks are doing, that you can kind of catch some of their wind.

And they absolutely did.

They threw down with the organizing for that, but really used it as a chance to build the New York Coalition.

So you can build a coalition at any time.

But as you said, it's often, a moment of crisis or some other kind of mobilization that gives you a chance to build new relationships.

It makes me think of, marriage counseling.

Right.

Like so many people get into it in, in, like, a marital crisis, there's there's rarely a moment where, where you're like, oh, things are so good right now.

Do you want to do you want to see a therapist together, or is it.

It reminds me of coalition building across relationships, including the ones in your very own, in your very own house.

So we're going to take a quick break.

I am talking with Eileen Flanagan, author of the forthcoming Common Ground How the Crisis of the Earth Is Saving Us from Our Illusion of Separation.

And I want to invite our listeners and our viewers on YouTube to join the conversation.

You can call us at (844) 295-8255 or if you're local, (585) 263-9994.

You can also comment on YouTube and hello to our YouTube viewers.

For those of you who are tuning in there, we'll be right back in just a moment.

This is Environmental Connections.

I'm making Mac Monday.

On the next connections, we continue our series of conversations with local state lawmakers about the state budget.

Our guest in our first hour is Assembly Member Jen Lunsford, who shares her takeaways from the legislative session.

Then, in our second hour tiki culture in Rochester, think colorful, fun drinks.

How is that affecting the local scene?

That's Monday.

Talk to you then.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Carey.

Yola center providing education and life skills solutions designed to empower individuals and the families of those with complex disabilities.

Mary Carey, Yola Center Transforming Lives of people with disabilities More at Mary Carrie ola.org.

If you're just tuning in, I'm Jasmine Singer and this is Environmental Connections.

I am having a fascinating discussion right now with author and activist Eileen Flanagan.

Her new book, Common Ground How the Crisis of the Earth Is Saving Us From Our Illusion of Separation, comes out later this summer and is currently available for preorder.

So, Eileen, you've been talking a lot about coalition building, and when I think of that and I think of the fact that the glue that binds coalitions is frequently not data or ideology, but it's stories.

Can you share a moment from your organizing where someone's personal story transformed the direction of the campaign, or softened someone's resistance?

Wow.

That's a that's a really interesting question.

I, I can think of one example that had an impact on the campaign.

Where are you going to say something?

No, I was just going to say, I know I'm completely putting you on the spot here.

So if you'd rather just share some of yours, I would just tell me.

Tell us a story.

Let's make a story.

Time our.

Well, the example, the example that came to mind was in the second campaign of the group that I work with, earthquake or Action team.

We decided to take on our local utility, and push them to do more solar, because Pennsylvania is way behind New York state.

You know, we're an old fossil fuel state oil, gas, coal.

We've had it all.

And, it shows in the politics, let's just say, the legacy of those industries.

So we had a minuscule amount of solar, and we started pushing them to do more of that.

We were thrilled when an interfaith group, said, we want to join you as a partner.

It's called Power Interfaith.

They are a group that has black leadership that brings in people from a real diversity of faiths and coalitions.

They work on a lot of different issues, you know, poverty issues, health care, education, all kinds of things.

So they were showing up, wanting to kind of be part of this space, working on environmental and climate issues.

And we were thrilled and we developed a good relationship with them.

There was a moment in the campaign where we decided we wanted to send a communication to the utility, kind of laying out in more detail what they we wanted them to do.

And it was in a room of people from the two organizations that someone from power, said something about why aren't we including a demand that they not raise the price of electricity?

Well, the answer was because my predominantly middle class group didn't think of that at the beginning.

Right.

It's not that we were against that demand, but it wasn't at the top of what we were thinking about.

And, this young man just started telling a story about all the people he knew who couldn't pay their electric bills and how crucial it is that this transition to renewable energy happened in a way that doesn't raise the cost for those people.

So as soon as we heard that kind of personal testimony, our group was like, yes, sure, let's include that.

But it was an example of something we weren't thinking about because most of our members, you know, we have a pretty wide economic range, partly because we're very intergenerational.

But we're not the people most likely to have shutoffs, to be honest.

So it was important to hear that story.

Yeah, that is powerful.

And I also want to reiterate for our listeners and our viewers that if you have a personal story, we'd love to hear it.

Tell us your personal stories, listeners, but if you have a story that kind of changed the way you look at environmentalism or climate issues because it just it spoke to you in a new way.

I think.

Eileen, just you just gave a fantastic example of how that could happen.

Then definitely give us a call (844) 295-8255 or comment on our YouTube.

Eileen, there's often so many disagreements within movements about tactics.

Some people will want to sit at the table, others want to flip it over.

How do you hold space for both approaches in the same movement, and how do you personally discern when it's time to escalate?

Yeah, that is something that is very on people's minds today.

I'll say one thing that was really helpful to me and to our organization equate, was, being familiar with research on successful social change movements that shows that, there are multiple roles that are really important.

And, Bill Moyers research, not the PBS person who just passed away, but, sociologist with a similar name.

He found that there were these four roles that showed up over and over, which, we call the helper, the advocate, the organizer, and the rebel.

So the helper is maybe teaching people to cook vegan or, building rain gardens or helping people, you know, insulate their houses so they use less energy.

It's, addressing a problem directly, but not taking on the system, kind of, more focused on, you know, individual and group changes.

Advocates are trying to change the system, but using the tools of the system, like lobbying, like sitting down at the table and negotiating, you know, things like that.

The rebel is, trying to change the system by challenging the system.

And, that could mean, like, the young people from the Sunrise Movement who did a sit down in Nancy Pelosi's office, which was really important to getting the Inflation Reduction Act ultimately passed.

Earthquake or Action team was founded to be a rebel group.

So we've been known to block driveways or sometimes we'll do it in a prayerful way, right.

Like we'll, we had, you know, silent prayer in a shareholder meeting and sort of took over where we alternated the silent prayer with singing, with PNC Bank.

And so there are ways to do that rebel role that don't involve literally breaking the table, you know, like we're deeply committed to nonviolence, which I do think research shows it's more effective.

But we can still be challenging and, turning over the, the expectations of what is normal and, and things like that.

The last of the four roles is called the organizer.

And those are the people that work on bringing people together.

And so we really need all of them.

And I think it's important that we make space and acknowledge that we need people to go sit down and lobby.

And no one person is going to do all four roles.

And it does kind of tie back to what you said earlier about ego, doesn't it?

Just kind of like nobody really knows the one right way forward because there is no one right way forward, especially if you, as you mentioned, look to other social justice movements that have had different types of successes in the past, like, you know, certainly certainly there are a lot of setbacks here about the LGBTQ movement being an example.

I mean, I certainly remember campaigning for marriage equality, while I was in a relationship that where I couldn't get married, which, yeah, directly affected me at the time.

But, I it's shocking how how recent that was.

And, and we needed all types.

We needed everyone, all of the helper, the organizer, the advocate, the rebel.

What about your own experience?

Which one of these roles did you start in and and how have you moved among them over time?

Well, yeah, I went to ten years of all girl Catholic school, so I was definitely not trained to be a rebel.

Or maybe, maybe that's the exact takeaway that most people in that situation get.

Well, I actually did have a little bit of, a challenging moment in eighth grade where I went to the principal and complained about something with my friend that.

But, I think the, you know, most people in our society are encouraged to be helpers or maybe advocates.

Those are the ones that you might have learned in Girl Scouts, you know, or something like that.

I didn't really think of myself as a natural rebel, but it was because I found this group that was playing the rebel role in a way that was exciting and effective and full of, like, singing and things like that.

I don't think I would have become a rebel if I joined a group where people were just shouting all the time, because that's not really my style.

But I think what I am in my heart of hearts is an organizer, and organizers can play any of the roles.

They're really just focused on this part of bringing people together.

And so that that role can happen in different ways.

I also think we're in a time, though, where we need more rebel organizing.

It it's like sometimes I think of, you know, if you have a choir and you don't have all the parts, you're not going to be able to, you know, sing the full, the full song as it was written.

And I think that's true of social change movements.

And we can look at the civil rights movement or, you know, you mentioned the LGBTQ movement.

I seen a lot of inspiration from Act Up, where it was mostly, gay people who really started, you know, challenging decision makers around the lack of Aids funding and, you know, moving medications along.

And if you go into the history of Act Up, they had a very strong rebel approach, like, we are dying, our friends are dying.

And I thought a lot about how the climate movement hasn't managed to bring that same sense of urgency.

There are people dying from climate change right now, but it's not, people don't yet feel like this is threatening me and my friends in the same way that they did.

But backdrop also had really wonky people who read the policy information and understood how to talk to, you know, the people making policy and and you need that.

You need to have both if you're going to be motivate officials to change and also understand what kind of change is possible.

I love that all of it.

And it's so it is so important in today's time, in today's moment, in terms of the climate and so many other issues.

And I appreciate that you shared a bit about your own history.

I know you've been arrested multiple times while engaging in peaceful protest.

The decision to risk arrest is not one that people take lightly.

And I and especially now, it's a very, very different decision depending upon who you are and, and, and where you come from and what the stakes are.

Can you talk a little bit about the internal process there, like what pushed you to say.

Yes, the first time you were confronted with that possibility?

And what did it feel like in your body to cross that line?

Yeah, I, I it really was going back and visiting Botswana and southern Africa and realizing that people are dying right now.

Was that what moved me to want to take that risk?

To be honest, most of the civil disobedience I've done in the past was not that risky, and it depends on a lot of different things.

So you alluded to, identity.

So I'm a white woman, which is a lower risk than for many people of color.

But it's not just that you know it.

So trans people, you know, who are very important part of the climate movement in many places, trans people, you know, it depends how the police handle that, whether somebody can stay with the group in northern Minnesota, they were often put in isolation, which is actually psychologically really hard.

And in this moment where trans issues have become such a hot button, it's not quite clear, like how will civil disobedience be for that community?

If you're not a citizen, if you have a health problem and you really need to take your medication, there are lots of things that can put somebody at higher risk.

And I would say one of the biggest ones depends on how challenged the system feels by your activism.

So in northern Minnesota, where people were trying to stop a pipeline and the pipeline company was giving money to the sheriffs, there was some really rough behavior.

And it doesn't matter at that point if you're a white woman, if you're chained to a pipeline and the police are getting money from the pipeline company, that is going to be more risky than, say, sitting in a bank lobby in Philadelphia where the police are very used to civil disobedience.

So we could do a whole other hour on policing and this moment, where it's kind of, you know, uncertain how things are going to evolve in coming months.

So me personally, it felt empowering.

And I've heard that from a lot of people to realize that I could break the rules.

As I said, after being trained to follow the rules and even in the more scarier, civil disobedience that I've been part of, feeling the strength of a group is a really different experience.

I went to this women's conference once where people, like, paid a lot of money to walk on charcoal to, like, feel empowered.

And I was like, oh, you know what I'm talking about?

Like fire.

I was like, I don't I don't need to do that.

Civil disobedience.

There is something about like realizing you don't have to just fit into the box that society told you to fit in.

That can be very positive.

But people need support, they need grounding, and they need resources in case they do face higher charges or things like that.

So it's it's another moment for, people to be in coalition with each other and support each other, because some people are going to be taking more risk than others at this time.

I want to remind our listeners, we have about five minutes left, but I want to remind our listeners that I am speaking with Eileen Flanagan right now, and her new book, Common Ground How the Crisis of the Earth Is Saving Us From Our Illusion of Separation, is coming out in August.

And, by the way, are you excited?

Congratulations.

This is a big moment.

Thank you.

You know it.

This this is my fourth book, and it was the longest one for me to write and get published.

But it feels like the perfect time for this message, so I am I am really excited.

I think people are interested in, a new way right now.

Yeah.

Well, and and sticking on that subject for just a moment for, for listeners who are new to this, who, who feel the urgency, but they don't know how to begin.

What's your advice?

What's one thing they can do this week that matters?

I think, the first thing I would say is really try and find a group in your area that is doing things related to what you care about.

There's lots of things individuals can do.

You know, if you're a Vanguard customer and you want to move your money out of Vanguard, equate, on our website has a place where you can report that and be counted in the millions of dollars that we've already moved.

Right.

So even if you take an individual act of conscience is there if there's a way you can connect it to a bigger movement that is going to have more of an effect.

What is the website, by the way look at?

Org.

If you're a Quaker Action team, if you could go back in time, Eileen, and speak to your younger self at the beginning of this work, what would you say?

Well, I would go a little earlier.

I, I went to a lot of peace marches, especially around the invasion of Iraq.

And, silent vigils where people stood on a street corner with a sign, and I wouldn't do that anymore.

It doesn't work.

I would spend more time doing the things that researchers have shown work and less time doing the things that don't work.

Maybe we needed the things that didn't work in order for those researchers to find the things.

That said, I'm sticking up for young Eileen right now.

A final, final question very briefly in, let's say, 30s or less, what impact do you hope common ground will have?

Not not just as a book, but as a set of ideas and a model for how we show up for the world?

I think it's a really important time for us to think about solidarity, of standing with each other and realizing what we have in common, what our common stake is, and acting from that place, whether it's climate change, local environmental issues, or protecting democracy, that's what we need to do.

Eileen Flanagan, her new book, Common Ground, reminds us that the most powerful movements are built not just on strategy, but on empathy and courage and connection.

Thank you so much, Eileen, for joining us today here on Environmental Connections.

And thank you to our listeners for making today's environmental connection.

I'm Jasmin Singer, and I'll talk to you next time.

This program is a production of Sky Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station, its staff, management or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium, without express written consent of Sky is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the connections link.

At WXXI news.

Org.