‘The Oceans are Rising and So Are We’: exploring utopian discourses in the school strike for climate movement

This article offers some provisional analyses of the discourses presented by participants in the School Strike for Climate movement, which (since it began in 2018) has been organised variously under the banners Fridays for Future, Youth for Climate and School Strike 4 Climate.1 This paper contends that the movement goes beyond just presenting a vision of an inescapable future, or a simple request for adults to listen to science.2 Instead, their vision is constructive of a better world, as participants challenge the failures of politicians and arguably the adult public, demanding to play an active role in policymaking when it comes to the climate crisis. This movement is constructed upon a critical utopian discourse, expressed through complex temporalities, which define the role of resistance as anticipation. This article also considers how the anxiety in the School Strike movement creates a militant optimism, and how its narratives are demonstrative of an open-ended utopian process

Census 2020: Making Western New York Count

Although climate change requires an international response and will require national policies and actions, local geographies have to be involved because it that is where the harms are felt. But how can local and regional areas respond to the climate crisis? This article offers a story of the emergence of a climate justice movement in Buffalo and Western New York as an example of how one community is addressing climate change and its unequal impacts

The Climate Justice Movement in Western New York

Although climate change requires an international response and will require national policies and actions, local geographies have to be involved because it that is where the harms are felt. But how can local and regional areas respond to the climate crisis? This article offers a story of the emergence of a climate justice movement in Buffalo and Western New York as an example of how one community is addressing climate change and its unequal impacts

How do radical climate movements negotiate their environmental and their social agendas? A study of debates within the Camp for Climate Action (UK)

This is a case study of the Camp for Climate Action, which has held several high-profile protest events in the UK since its inception in 2006. It analyses the Camp as a contested space where different emphases on environmental and social priorities have to be negotiated by its activists. The article considers areas of contestation where concerns over climate change meet questions of social justice. These are structured around tangible issues of campaigning, such as opposition to new coal-fired power stations or to the third runway at Heathrow airport, some of which have put the Camp at odds with labour movement and class struggle activists. While some demand a drastic shift away from current levels of consumption, others question the discriminatory effects of self-imposed austerity politics. On a more abstract level, the article considers debates on the need for government solutions to the environmental crisis and their possible impacts on social equality. The article is structured around movement-internal debates and makes use of interviews, extensive fieldwork notes and continuous participant observation over the course of four years

The French Environmental Movement in the Era of Climate Change : The Case of Notre Dame des Landes

International audienceOur paper discusses the effect of climate change on the development of the environmental movement in France. Today, the French Green movement appears as strong as it has ever done, particularly in the predominantly institutionalised terms of its recent development. But what of protest? Despite successes and visibility on a number of issues, on climate change – the defining environmental problematic of our age – there is relatively little to report. Focusing on movement responses (mobilisation, discourses, policy, strategies) to three infrastructure projects (EPR nuclear reactor, Flamanville; Notre Dame des Landes airport, Nantes; 450MW gas power station, Guipavas, Brest), we argue that institutional and identitarian movement dynamics have constrained the movement’s ability to mobilise effectively on climate change. We discuss: 1. the development of consultative decentralised structures modifying the relationship between civil society and the state; 2. the institutional development of the Greens, placing them (as movement allies) in power-sharing agreements with traditional left parties committed to liberal economic growth strategies; 3. the media ‘capture’ of the nuclear thematic by Greenpeace France, and its effects on developing a mass movement; 4. the importance of the anti-nuclear struggles of the 1970s as lieux de mémoire for the movement We explore to what extent these dynamics, taken together, constrain the development of new movement positions over energy, and effective movement mobilisation over both nuclear power and climate change. Finally, we discuss whether the recent development of climate camps represents a potential way out of this impasse

Bridging the Equity Gap: Driving Community Health Outcomes Through the Green Jobs Movement

The fundamental link between poverty and health mandates a new approach to both, one capable of raising community health standards by lifting individuals, families and communities out of poverty.Merely providing access to healthcare does not address fundamental societal inequities that translate into greater health risks and more extensive exposure to environmental hazards for low-income communities and communities of color -- risks aggravated by climate change.In Bridging the Equity Gap: Driving Community Health Outcomes Through the Green Jobs Movement, Green For All makes the case that the Green Jobs Movement -- a broad, progressive coalition of environmental and health advocates, social justice and civil rights organizations, labor and community-based groups, and business -- can bring about a systems change to improve economic, environmental and health conditions for low-income communities

Building the Road As We Travel: New Political Coalitions and the Washington State Labor Council

[Excerpt] New political action often involves testing ideas and approaches that do not always come together immediately or as envisioned. The political agenda of the Washington State Labor Council was formulated as one of three fronts in a comprehensive strategy to help the labor movement gain momentum over the next decade. This agenda was shaped during a tumultuous period of highs and lows in the political climate of Washington. Before 1988, the labor movement participated in politics through a traditional COPE mechanism. They turned to a more activist approach and had stunning victories by 1993, only to face a more sobering situation with business victories in 1994. LRR asked Lynn Feekin, an associate editor with the Review, to explore the recent political action experiences of the council with its Research Director, Jeff Johnson

Negotiating the Resistance: Catch 22s, brokering and contention in Occupy Safer Spaces Policy

In the post 2008 financial crisis climate we have seen a plethora of protest movements emerge globally with one of the most recognisable, particularly in the western context, being that of the Occupy movement, which sought to contest the global accumulation of wealth by the few, at the expense of the many. Such protest movements have paved the way for old and new, often contentious, dialogues pertinent for a variety of disciplines and subject matters. Drawing upon both emerging narratives from the movement within the published literature and the authors own empirical interview data with participants at a variety of Occupy sites, this article discusses to what extent the Occupy movement negotiates its existence with the hegemonic state-corporate nexus through its Safer Spaces Policy. The paper concludes that the counter-hegemonic endeavours of resistance movements can be compromised, through the coercion and consent strategies of the powerful working in tandem, resulting in a movement that both opposes and emulates what it seeks to contest. Such discussion can ultimately contribute to the longevous discourses pertaining to how hegemonic power operates not just on but through people

Markov-Switching and the Ifo Business Climate: The Ifo Business Cycle Traffic Lights

Business cycle indicators are used to assess the economic situation of countries or regions. They are closely watched by the public, but are not easy to interpret. Does a current movement of the indicator signal a turning point or not? With the help of Markov Switching Models movements of indicators can be transformed in probability statements. In this article, the most important leading indicator of the German business cycle, the Ifo Business Climate, is described by a Markov Switching Model. Real-time probabilities for the current business-cycle regime are derived and presented in an innovative way: as the Ifo traffic lights.Ifo business climate, growth cycle, turning points, Markov-switching

Diversity and Transformation: African Americans and African Immigration to the United States

Successive generations of African immigration have continuously transformed the African American community and the sociopolitical climate of the United States.Though the history of African immigration to the United States has at times been a turbulent one, the arrival of many different African peoples has profoundly impacted the social makeup of the United States. During this nation's infancy, hundreds of thousands of captive Africans were delivered to American shores. Overcoming tremendous adversity, this population and its successive generations laid the foundations of opportunity for a new wave of immigration after 1965. From Jim Crow to the Civil Rights Movement to desegregation, African Americans have been instrumental in transforming the sociopolitical climate in the United States, creating an environment far more accepting of new immigrants. A series of post-1965 immigration policy shifts opened the doors to a steady increase in African immigration in the latter part of 20th century. Today, approximately 50,000 Africans arrive annually