Methodology

This booklet emerged from a variety of intentions and processes. In an effort to model what it could look like to accountably write a booklet like this, we engaged in a deep and extensive feedback and consultation process with:

Maryam Adrangi, Mel Bazil, May Boeve, Patrick Bond, Doyle Canning, Gopal Dayeneni, Michael Dorsey, Carol Duong, Madeline Gardner, Jihan Gearon, Tom Goldtooth, Jamie Henn, Ben Holtzman, Cathy Kunkel, Sharon Lungo, Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan, Tadzio Muller, Ana Orozco, Payal Parekh, Scott Parkin, Diana Pei Wu, Carla Pérez, Anne Petermann, Ben Powless, Patrick Reinsborough, Rafter Sass, Levana Saxon, Emily Simons, Matt Smucker, David Solnit, Brian Tokar, Jessica Tovar, Kevin Van Meter, Dave Vasey, and Ian Vitteri.

We are grateful for their time and contributions, and feel to some degree as if we were more co-facilitators than coauthors of this content. Additionally, these ideas came from a much broader multisectoral community of practice and we couldn’t begin to list everyone who has helped shape our thinking. You know who you are. Thank you. Below we’ve outlined just a few ways this booklet came to be in our immediate processes.

•    Multiple and sporadic conversations between Joshua and Hilary about these topics and shared organizing experiences.

•    Previous writing each of them had done, including a zine Hilary wrote about accountability and relationship-based organizing, growing into this bigger project; and workshop curriculum from Joshua around strategy, organizing, and movement theory.

•    We contacted over sixty people during the arc of the writing process for insights, direction, critiques, and feedback. This group was a mixture of frontline relationships we feel accountable to, peers, mentors, and people who fill a range of climate justice organizer roles and perspectives.

•    We had several extensive one-on-one conversations with key leaders in this work to talk through the core ideas.

•    Our work was inspired by and building with key concepts innovated by Movement Generation, which is more than an organization—a political community we belong to and learn from.

•    Hilary completed a graduate thesis on related topics, and the interviews conducted during that project translated well, with permission, into direct quotes for this project.

•    This project is open-ended, meaning that we encourage people to engage and build from these ideas to contribute to another booklet, or book.

About the Title:

When the peasant movement La Via Campesina adopted the slogan “Small Farmers Cool the Planet” it inspired lots of creative adaptations, including an effort from North American community based organizations and climate justice groups to use the slogan “Grassroots Organizing Cools the Planet” to highlight grassroots solutions. With permission from these groups, we modified it into what became the title for this booklet.