What does climate change with social justice look like? Petaluma has the answer

Sitting here listening to the rain, basking in gratitude for every droplet we are blessed with. Grateful that this rain will provide much needed relief for our minds, perhaps we will not have to hold our breath every time the wind picks up, perhaps we can have just a little more peace of mind. This rain feels like such a beautiful end to a cycle, and a beginning to what can be, to the possibilities. This is deeply emblematic of the Environmental Justice warriors in our community. A deep sense of gratitude and hope fills our hearts.

In March of 2021, six strangers were selected to pilot a new way to equitably advance community engagement, a project called the Petaluma Equitable Climate Action Coalition (PECAC) funded by the United Way of the Wine Country’s MapOne project. For six months, we learned together, laughed together, cried together, and were human together. We held a space that celebrated showing up as each of our full selves, fostered trust, questioned our assumptions and shifted how we look at the world. We dissected Petaluma’s Climate Emergency Framework section by section, learning about Climate Justice, Mitigation, Sequestration, Adaptation and Social Resilience. We took the abstract concepts of climate change and humanized them, looked at how environmental injustices show on the ground and in the bodies of Petaluma residents. We removed barriers and honored the time, energy and work of these strangers who quickly became family with an $1,800 stipend each. We embraced discomfort and continual learning by actively decentering whiteness and trusting the process.

We took this conversation into our communities, holding listening circles about what climate solutions folks wanted to see in their neighborhoods. PECAC listened, checked our assumptions, and held healing space for others. Folks who arrived cautious and unsure quickly settled in because PECAC did not just create a space for conversation, PECAC created spaces of belonging. The power of holding this space and deep listening in community bloomed into new ideas, thoughts, and possibilities. People felt empowered, energized and free. We learned that these listening circles themselves were an example of climate adaptation, justice, and healing; they fostered relations, helped process trauma, and offered a chance to collectively come up with the community story of what is needed. We learned that the white supremacist narrative of transactional engagement is not only is that wrong, it is harmful to the voices who have enormous potential to reshape how climate solutions are approached, designed, and implemented. And it perpetuates the historical systematic exclusion and devaluing of communities of color, one of the very root causes of climate change in the first place.

On Sept. 28 the six members of the Petaluma Equitable Climate Action Coalition powerfully summarized their recommendations for equitable climate action to key decision makers around the county, including Councilmembers, City Staff, agency heads, community organizers and researchers. They modeled the courage, vulnerability and leadership that is needed in climate action. They transformed what has historically been a top down directive from “experts” to an example of community ownership of the solutions needed to respond to this collective existential crisis. And the beautiful magic in it was that the recommendations represent things all human beings want and deserve: recognition, being heard, a sense of belonging, safe clean parks to play in, safe ways to get around, beautiful tree filled neighborhoods, emergency preparedness and mental health services. The presentation went so much deeper than the recommendations, it lifted up the humanity that has been missing from these efforts and modeled a process for engagement that raises the bar moving forward.

As Alegría De La Cruz, Director of the Office of Equity, Sonoma County, shared after watching the presentation, “You have truly created a new standard for high quality community engagement with complex bureaucratic documents.”

And we are not done. “Community engagement” cannot be treated as a check-the-box transaction, the vulnerability and stories of participants spoken but not heard. It needs to be culturally responsive. It needs to recognize the fact that government agencies carry the legacy of violence against and dispossession of Black, Indigenous, Latinx and People of Color communities. It is clear that without the voices of folks like our PECAC members through every part of the process in Climate Action, and without a true paradigm shift that leads us into designing and conducting a transformative process, we will continue to replicate systems of oppression and continue to harm the earth. We have started with community engagement, and it is incumbent upon leaders who have positions with power to act.

Leaders of the County and cities must reflect on questions such as how do we shift from community engagement to community ownership? How do we value and respect the time, energy and stories of folks who engage? How do we not re-traumatize through this process? How do we resource communities of color to lead? And critically, how will we make sure the recommendations are heard and implemented by communities themselves?

“We are all broken people, no matter what title we carry or what we do, we all have broken parts in us and when we share those parts with others and open up, and don't put ourselves on a pedestal, and we're honest and transparent, we open others to share their lives. It's really simple.” - Kymberly Bailey, Petaluma Equitable Climate Action (PECAC) Participant

In the face of an urgent climate crisis, why is it more important than ever to slow down and foster trust, relationships and community healing? Because like a seed, the human potential stored in healed relationships is transformative. The wisdom of living at the margins, the power of connecting in community, and the brilliance of the human spirit is what is needed to respond to this collective existential climate crisis. It is imperative that we genuinely center the experiences of communities rendered most vulnerable by racist systems who bear the brunt of the impact of climate change. We must put them at the forefront of how decisions are made about how to implement solutions equitably. It is in these stories, in this trust, in repaired relationships that we all rise. Our future well being depends on the well being of all.

We close with gratitude and celebration for our brave team who took this project idea and soared with it. Who wove in art, music, and poetry, who so deeply engaged every single day, and whose passion for the community is unquestionably deep. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts Celeste Chavez Hernandez, Luis Chavarin, Ri Bussey, Lisa Lim, David M. Ortega Jimenez, and Kymberly Bailey for who you are, how you show up, and the belief you hold that a better world is possible. You make Sonoma County a better place, and we feel so grateful to be in partnership with you.

And now it is up to all of us to carry these recommendations forward and live up to the example of vulnerable, courageous leadership that this team showed. In all of our broken bodies is the lived wisdom needed to shift our extractive relationship with our earth to a relationship of reciprocity that heals ourselves and the planet together. We call on leaders throughout Sonoma County to honor Black, Indigenous, Latinx and People of Color communities, center Diversity, Equity and Belonging and Anti-Racism, and resource these communities’ leaders to lead Climate Action work.

(For a more detailed presentation of the recommendations, visit www.dailyacts.org/climate-action.)