Organizing during a Pandemic
Resources, Ideas & Ways to Take Action To Solve the Climate Crisis and Care for Your Community During COVID-19
350 Colorado takes this pandemic seriously and urges all communities to unite to protect one another in pursuit of dignity and justice. We all deserve care, dignity, and protection in dealing with this pandemic, and recognize that this pandemic is more than just a public health crisis, and is also a crisis of rising xenophobia, lack of access, and inequity.
Fossil fuel companies are using this moment to their advantage by pausing protective regulations while ramping up extraction, putting our communities at risk by mixing toxic air pollution with a respiratory pandemic. 350 Colorado is committed to standing up for the health and safety of all Coloradans and ensuring a just recovery from the coronavirus includes climate solutions.
While we recognize that there is a lot of fear in this moment, the only way to fight this virus is to come together to confront this crisis head-on as one, united, global community.
We must: Look after each other, seize the moment, and prepare for the future.
Look After Each Other
We must care for ourselves and our communities above all else.
Self-care
- Psychotherapist Leslie Davenport on Practicing Self- and Communal-Care in a Time of Pandemic, by Asher Miller, originally published by Post Carbon Institute on March 19, 2020.
- Lockdown – Now it Gets Tough – Includes an interview with the author about how to communicate and have tough conversations with family and others during the lockdown.
- Yoga at home- Yoga with Adriene seems to have a session for everything from anxiety to weight loss and tons of yoga challenges. (Not to mention a cute as heck doggo-Benji)
Community Care and Mutual Aid
- If you are an individual, we are directing you to the Needs/Resources form created by the Front Range Mutual Aid Network (who also has the best one-stop-shop COVID-19 resource guide we’ve found thus far).
- You can join a mutual aid group on Facebook and find resources and assist your community
- CIRC resources for immigrants struggling in this moment.
- https://www.foodpantries.org/st/colorado – This is an evolving list of food pantries across the state that people can donate and help out with.
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/3678916828846169/ This group is full of people making masks and nursing hats and other important gear for medical staff right now and other highly impacted groups.
- Working Families is working on de-incarceration to protect people bit.ly/justresponseco
- Denver DSA Is doing a bunch of cool things around the need to cancel rents for people and encouraging them to make videos, and they have a petition upon the subject.
JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) Resources
Seize the Moment
Resources to continue organizing and take action.
350 Colorado petitions and actions to sign and share:
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- Protect Air Quality During a Respiratory Pandemic – Urge Gov. Polis to halt polluting oil and gas activities that are making us more vulnerable to COVID 19
- Sign the petition encouraging our elected officials to adopt a Green New Deal, transition to a sustainable future, and close large polluters like Suncor who continue to violate their permits and pollute surrounding communities, despite receiving a record fine.
- CO organizations calling for a Just Response to the Pandemic Crisis.
- Sign up to join Earth Day Live – a 72-hour Livestream event April 22-24.
Visit our Online Action Hub for More Colorado Virtual Actions
National Calls to Action:
- Call to action from 350.org
- Tell Congress that you do not support a Big Oil Bailout while working-class people and vulnerable communities bear the brunt of this COVID-19 pandemic, via 350.org
Support a People’s Bailout:
1. Prioritize and address the immediate material needs of people and not that of corporations. #PeoplesBailout
2. Support workers and communities hit by the crisis, not corporate executives.
3. Don’t bailout the fossil fuel industry.
4. Establish a plan of action and invest in a Green New Deal that prioritizes people over profits.
Other important petitions to sign:
- Sign the petition: We need paid sick leave, via Daily Kos
- Sign MoveOn’s petition demanding that Congress realize that people across the country are struggling and need health care access with Medicare for All.
- Sign the petition to credit card issuers: Waive payments and interest during the coronavirus pandemic, via Daily Kos
- Sign the petition to protect Indigenous Sovereignty: Demand fossil fuel profiteers JPMorgan Chase and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. defund the Coastal GasLink pipeline.
- Sign the Petition to allow homeowners to grow gardens in their lawns regardless of local restrictions.
Hashtags for social media: #peoplenotpolluters #greenrecovery #justrecovery
Upcoming Training & Workshops
- Grow a Garden! – Daily free online gardening classes here
- Check out our calendar for upcoming training & workshops
- The Colorado Renewable Energy Society YouTube has lots of great recorded webinars
- Join the Online Earth Week Summit happening April 10-18 for daily free workshops and webinars.
More Informative Videos Worth Watching:
- Nafeez Ahmed – Post-pandemic Systems Change
- Naomi Klein – Coronavirus Capitalism — and How to Beat It
- Rising Majority Teach-In w. Naomi Klein & Angela Y. Davis
Messaging
- How Progressives Should Talk About COVID-19 from Nicole Carty and Anthony Torres
- Talking About COVID-19: A Call for Racial, Economic, and Health Equity from the Opportunity Agenda
- COVID-19 Messaging Document from Anat Shenker-Osorio
- Fight Back Table Messaging
- Grassroots organizer demands
Local Teams
- Tips:
- Move Monthly meetings (speakers etc) to zoom
- Move Leadership Council Meetings to zoom
- Renew campaign plans in light of the current situation
- Organize your team documents (google folders, spreadsheets, etc.)
- A comprehensive list of tips, tools, and examples for event organizers during the Coronavirus outbreak
- 350 Local Group resource doc (From 350.org) **This one is amazing**
- Leading Groups online
- Using Art and Song to Grow Our Movement in Times of Pandemic (60 min video recording plus transcript):
- How to keep uninvited guests out of your zoom meetings guide (zoom bombing)
Tactic and tools
- Coronavirus & Climate Strikes – 350.org
- Ideas from artivist David Solnit – 350.org
- Sign up to join a campaign call testing platform
- An irreverent guide to activism in the time of pandemic from our friends at Beautiful Trouble.
- 198 Methods of NVDA
- Ideas from Greenpeace
Prepare for the Future
We must ensure solutions to the Coronavirus include solutions to the climate crisis. “The choices we make today will shape our society, economy, health, and climate for decades to come.”
#JustRecovery
Learn more about the COVID19 Just recovery petition from 350.org.
What do you envision in a just recovery for Colorado? Email outreach@350colorado.org to have your ideas included in our vision statement.
A Green New Deal
Contact your legislators in support of a Green New Deal to help provide Green jobs to millions who have been impacted by COVID-19 layoffs.
Help Create Colorado’s Future by Joining a Campaign Committee
Learn more about our campaigns and how to join here!