Alexandria Shaner

Jeremy Brecher’s new book, The Green New Deal from Below: How Ordinary People Are Building a Just and Climate-Safe Economy, is a timely and important contribution for organizers and anyone thinking about rebuilding the world from the bottom up.

The Oil Kills uprising and fellow movements around the world have placed their bodies between those tankers and our shared future to say, “here, and no further.”

We know that we depend on ecosystems being healthy for our survival, and yet must remember that part of healthy ecology is also dependent on being more united as we protect all that we love to move forward and ensure a livable future.

As violent militias rampage across the country, activists in the DRC are urgently calling for an end to Rwanda’s aggression and for a green transition that puts justice first, dismantling colonial exploitation once and for all. François Kamate, a young Congolese activist, shares his experience and offers pathways to solidarity.

Organizers looking ahead greatly benefit from pausing for a look back. The value of a good debrief surpasses the time it sacrifices. What can we each understand about the last 15 years that could inform the next — personally, as community and as a movement?

While Mayor Bowser, like so many officials, declines her constituency’s invitation to become a part of building a livable future, the growing movement behind this vision will fight on, with or without her.