As we saw last week, in Krugman’s world you start by assuming that the market basically works and then you deal with exceptions — “market failures” or “negative externalities.

What if we stopped bowing down to the Market Gods? What if we stopped saying the sun revolves around the earth except on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays…?

What if we asked instead, is this jumbled mess of a system we call our economy working for us? If we think it isn’t, what values do we think it should support that it currently isn’t? A strong middle class? Justice? The survival of the human race and our responsibilities as stewards of the earth? In short, rather than starting from the market, we start from our values.

Put it another way. Right now we say, we want a strong middle class and the best way to do it is using “free markets” — except in agriculture and transportation and housing and computers and health and finance and so on. What if we start by saying, we want to have a strong middle class. Given the way the economy works now, how do we help make it happen?

I think starting from our values instead of from the market-except-on-Tuesdays-Wednesdays-etc. buys us two big advantages:

1) Debating What Really Matters to Us. Let’s take Finance. Right now, the main debate is over avoiding another massive “market failure” — not giving Wall Street incentives to push the economy over a cliff. That’s obviously a good thing.

But if instead of asking why did the market fail we were asking what values do we want to encourage, we’d be debating a much broader set of questions. What do we really want from Finance? What should its purpose be ? Is it to create good jobs for everybody who’s willing and able to work — to reward hard work? Is it to strengthen our communities over the long haul?

If the debate centered around those values, we wouldn’t just be asking how we stop Goldman Sachs from deliberately screwing over everyone who doesn’t run a powerful hedge fund. We’d also be asking how we can shift Wall Street so it rewards companies that create good jobs over companies that fire thousands of people even when the company is raking in record profits.

2) Debating Who Decides. If you start from the market-except-on-Tuesdays-Wednesdays-etc, it’s easy to avoid talking about power. It makes it easier to obscure backroom deals. And as we just saw in the healthcare debate, it makes it easier for people to successfully pretend they are against “government” that doesn’t directly benefit them — a.k.a. “keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

Or to put it another way, when you pretend negotiating over values isn’t happening, the people who lose out are the people with the least power.

If you start from a value-based approach, it’s going to push you to ask who currently decides which values should shape the economy and who should get to decide. Is it just the owners of the fossil fuel plant belching toxic fumes in Chula Vista? Or is it also the people in Chula Vista’s neighborhoods whose homes and elementary schools are in striking distance of that plant?

In turn, these questions will encourage the debate to focus on the balance of power. It will lead us to ask what we can do to create strong environmental groups, strong unions, etc. — folks who are in a position to act as a dynamic check on corporate power. You’re less likely to ask these kinds of questions about checks and balances and power if you start from Up with Markets. As Krugman said at the beginning of his pro-market based article:

If there’s a single central insight in economics, it’s this: There are mutual gains from transactions between consenting adults.

In other words, a market-based framework starts from the implicit assumption that the owners of the fossil fuel plant in Chula Vista and the poor folks in the neighborhood are on a level playing field.

You might think, isn’t this a bit much? Do I really want to imply that Krugman is rooting for the fossil fuel plant over the poor folks?

Obviously not. The point I’m trying to make is not that folks who use a values-based framework are more virtuous than those using a market-based framework. That would be stupid (not to mention unbelievably arrogant).

Deciding which framework to use isn’t about good vs. bad or right vs. wrong. It’s about focus. A value-based framework pushes the debate towards the issues that matter to us most deeply. And it makes it harder for the wealthy and big corporations to hide what they’re really fighting for.

Up next week: why a value-based framework is also more “efficient” than a market-based framework.

This weekend, I went down to DC’s National Mall to pick up my folks, who were in town visiting and enjoying our wonderful free museums. On the way back, we got stuck in my favorite kind of DC traffic jam: a seemingly endless stream of folks, decked out in American flags, union T-shirts, banners, and baby strollers, marching to overhaul our insane, hypocritical immigration policy. It was fabulous — and hopefully a sign of things to come now that we’ve had our first real victory on healthcare!

In the month since then, I’ve been trying to find out how the outcome at Copenhagen changed the U.S. climate movement. Whether advocates thought it was a complete failure or just a disappointingly small step, surely it marked a turning point. So what are the big goals now? How will strategy be different from here on out? What are the next moves?

Hiskes found that leaders of the bigger Enviro groups are gearing up to take on Congress. And McKibbin?

350.org cofounder Bill McKibben made a similar point: the focus on Congress is premature. “One of the reasons why it’s so hard in Congress is because they don’t feel any particular pressure,” he said. “There are lots and lots and lots of groups lobbying Congress. But Congress members are good at telling whether there’s anything behind that lobbying or not. I think we have to figure out how to put some pressure behind that lobbying. And the easiest way to do that is movement building.”

“Easiest” is not a word I would ever associate with movement building.

Hiskes asked McKibben, given that all the work around Copenhagen didn’t seem to have much effect,

So what’s the new plan?

“I don’t know,” he said. “We threw up a Hail Mary pass and nobody caught it.”…

Next month, 350.org’s core team will gather in Vermont for a strategic retreat.

But some folks are calling for a less DC-centered approach:

Alex Steffen, editor of Worldchanging and an evangelist for what he calls bright green urbanism, offers a different diagnosis. “The COP [Conference of the Parties, or U.N. treaty] process is at best stalled for a few years,” he said. “Given what’s just happened with the U.S. Senate, and the Supreme Court basically allowing open bribery, I see zero chance of a meaningful climate bill coming from the Senate. I think there will be something, but it will be at a level of watered-down-ness that it just won’t matter.”

While he’s pessimistic about the national and international efforts, Steffen sees great hope and potential on the local level. He points to a growing number of people who are clued-in on sustainability but who don’t consider themselves activists or environmentalists—people working and volunteering in architecture, design, planning, community development, housing, building, local energy, local food, and alternative transportation.

Such citizens are “reconverging on the city as the appropriate battleground for action,” Steffen said. “I think we’re going to see cities emerge as the fulcrum point for change. If we can change cities profoundly, we may have a shot at tackling climate change.”

It’ll be interesting to see how all this shakes out in the next few months.

There’s a lot more I was going to write about in this series: how to build a bigger base of supporters, media strategy, the importance of tackling race and class head-on, et cetera. But my energy is flagging a little — and let’s face it, there are lots of places online to get great advice about the nuts and bolts of running campaigns and movement building. But none of it matters for Enviros like McKibben — a smart, talented, dedicated man I respect, even if I’ve been a little snarky towards him — until they’ve made some more fundamental decisions:

• If the DC/Copenhagen boards are stacked against us, does it really make sense to focus our play there? Or should we focus on boards where we’ve got a better chance of winning?
• Are we willing to play to win? Are we willing to do what’s effective instead of what’s easy or comfortable?

These are the fundamental questions folks like McKibbon need to start asking themselves if they’re going to have a chance of stopping global warming.

In case there’s any doubt about the need to move beyond the Underpants Gnomes’ strategy, here’s Exhibit A. After a year of Enviro efforts leading up to Copenhagen, a Pew survey found enviros had lost a lot of ground:

[Fewer Americans] see global warming as a very serious problem – 35% say that today [October 2009] , down from 44% in April 2008…. 57% think there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In April 2008, 71% said there was solid evidence of rising global temperatures. … there has been a comparable decline in the proportion of Americans who say global temperatures are rising as a result of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels. Just 36% say that currently, down from 47% last year….

[The drop] has been particularly pronounced among independents. Just 53% of independents now see solid evidence of global warming, compared with 75% who did so in April 2008…. Fewer Democrats also express this view – 75% today compared with 83% last year….

Opinions about global warming changed little between 2006 and 2008. In August 2006 and January 2007, 77% said there was solid evidence that the earth’s temperatures were increasing; that figure fell modestly to 71% in April of last year.

Yes, many corporations and Republican have been viciously attacking global warming as a hoax. And yes, given how terrible the economy was last year you’d expect fewer folks would say global warming was a top priority. But last year was also a year when scientific evidence for global warming got scarily stronger. And it was a year after McKibben’s efforts got off the ground, after several years of efforts building up to it. According to 350.org’s site,

350.org was founded by U.S. author Bill McKibben, who wrote one of the first books on global warming for the general public, and a team of university friends. Together, they ran a campaign in 2007 called Step It Up that organized over 2,000 rallies at iconic places in all 50 of the United States.

If after all those efforts fewer folks are on our side, it’s time to stop digging and figure out a new strategy for getting out of the hole.

Once you figured out where you are going to play, you need to figure out how you are going to play — your strategy for winning.

I asked a few of my organizer buddies the top tips more progressives should know about organizing strategy. They gave me a lot of great ideas. But when I started writing them up, I realized that the biggest problem folks like McKibben face boils down to one simple point — do what’s effective, not what’s easy or comfortable.

Take the post that got me to write this series. McKibben criticized Gore’s strategy:

Simply adding a few thousand more tons of scientific reports to the environmental side of the scale won’t tip the debate, not when Exxon can afford to buy the necessary coterie of Congress members.

McKibben is arguing that as a play on the board, publishing more scientific reports isn’t the right move to push Congress. But McKibben’s answer wasn’t much better.

The United States now holds a big key to unlock this process, and we need Obama and the U.S. Congress to turn that key–which is why many of the candlelight vigils will take place at U.S. senate offices, and at U.S. embassies and consulates around the world.

Does he really think Enviro candlelight vigils are going to move the Senate?

The problem isn’t the tactic, it’s the play. If tea baggers and Glenn Beck held candlelight vigils at Republican Senate offices, that would have some teeth. Why? Republican senators know that these folks — and even more importantly the folks who are part of their network — have the power to fire up the Republican base against them and cost them votes, or even field a challenger who has a real chance of winning. Ditto if union members held candlelight vigils against Senate Democrats in states where the senators know unions have the power to influence Democratic primaries. But Enviros? Give me a break.

That’s why organizers start by mapping out who are the players they need to move, and what realistically will it take to move them. It’s often called a Power Analysis:

Imagine a football game–the coach aids the team to determine the opposing team’s power as defined by its strengths and weaknesses. What kind of power and which players will it take to move the ball across the field to the goal line and victory? The coach is conducting a power analysis that will inform his design of a winning strategy. The power analysis is a process to determine what kind of power (quality) and how much power (quantity) is needed to move a target, the individual who can give you what you want, to accept the organization’s policy or proposal for resolving an issue. The process includes a systematic series of questions, investigative steps, information collection and refined knowledge of the players with power to deliver you closer to your goal. All with the purpose of moving the people with power to give you what you want or win your proposal.

Doing a power analysis is a lot of hard work. For example, here’s a standard list of questions you’d need to answer for each target to develop a target’s profile (courtesy of the Praxis Project and SCOPE LA):

1. What power does the decision-maker have to meet your goal/demands? By what authority?
2. What is the decision-maker’s background and history?
3. What is the decision-maker’s position on your issue/goal? Why?
4. What is the decision-maker’s self-interest?
5. What is the decision-maker’s history on the issue?
6. Who is the decision-maker’s boss?
7. What/Who is the decision-maker’s base and support?
8. Who are the decision-maker’s allies?
9. Who are the decision-maker’s opponents/enemies?
10. What other social forces influences the decision-maker?

As an organizer friend of mine said, “you can never know too much about your target.”

Then you pull together the information you’ve gotten from each of these profiles and figure out which players and other levers are most likely to move your target — often by creating a map like this.

Next, you create a strategy: where are you going to place your bets? How are you going to track your progress? How are you going to set goals and hold folks accountable for reaching them? What’s the best sequence to try to move people? And what resources we need to pull this off, and how do you get them?

Then comes the really hard part: you actually have to follow the plan. If your plan says knocking on doors and talking with voters — something that many folks find about as fun as dental surgery — that’s what you do. If it’s organizing lots of small group meetings with individual actors — which includes working out talking points that your power analysis & strategy says will move these actors to put pressure on your target, making sure everyone practiced the talking points , making sure everyone knows how to get to the meeting and has a ride, etc. — that’s what you do. And you keep doing it. And keep doing it. And revising your plan as you learn from hard experience what’s working and what’s not.

Whew! Is it any wonder that McKibben went for Senate vigils?

And that’s why the most important lesson is, do what’s effective, not what’s easy or comfortable. Some parts of playing to win are easy. Some parts are hard but fun. But you don’t win football games by doing just what’s easy or comfortable — and you don’t win social justice that way either.

Up next: Conclusion.

the filibuster allows as few as 3% of the total U.S. population to potentially elect representatives able to block the will of the other 97% of the population. In practice, filibusters are put together with a hodgepodge of states representing larger minorities of the population, but when corporate special interests start with such a low threshold of votes needed to preserve the status quo, it’s hardly surprising that federal inaction, diluted compromises and voter frustration is the norm.

This is why bold, progressive leadership in the states matters.

States Move National Policy: Generally able to take action with a majority vote in their statehouses, states have always been where progressive policy moves forward. And when multiple states act, it creates a wave of reform that can ultimately drive federal action despite the filibuster and minority resistance.

•The federal minimum wage was raised in 2007 only after states representing a majority of the population passed their own minimum wage increases.

•Health care reform is only being considered in D.C. because states across the country have expanded coverage in recent years and enacted insurance reforms like bans on preexisting conditions and medical loss rations — provisions ultimately incorporated into federal bills.

•Serious federal movement on climate change only followed multiple states in the Northeast and West enacting their own cap-and-trade bills to reduce greenhouse gases.
Making the Progressive Case in the States: Without the filibuster diluting every bill, states are also where voters can see progressive values embodied.

The right-wing has long understood the power of messaging through state policy. Whether on gay marriage, abortion, immigration, or anti-tax policy, the right-wing doesn’t even bother having a federal agenda other than saying “no” to all reforms, but they deliver their message to their voters through state initiatives attacking abortion rights, banning gay marriage, scapegoating immigrants, and trying to slash state taxes.

Progressives need to be equally bold in using state policy to make clear our values to voters. By promoting and enacting progressive policy in the states, we can overcome the frustration people feel with D.C. due to compromises forced by the filibuster.

For more ideas on playing on the state/local board, including a 2010 kick-ass multistate economic strategy, check out Progressive States Network.

Taking on corporations around the globe may sound insanely ambitious, but boring it’s not. But using local/state government? It’s more Kumbaya than Mortal Kombat. Sure, there’s evil here — just ask the environmental justice groups who fight against toxic dumps and pollution-induced childhood asthma in inner-city neighborhoods. But if mayors like Bloomberg are on your side, we’re not talking social justice-style bloodsport. And that makes it a lot harder to get massive numbers of folks fired up enough to mobilize big-time. So how do we add some sizzle?

Here’s one way to do it: turn it into a sport. Cities around the globe could compete against each other to see who could make the biggest drops in CO2 emissions — like the Solar Decathlon only with a lot more smack talk.

And like real sports, we could tweak the rules to make it a more exciting contest — one where Dallas or Seoul might stand a chance of wiping the smug off San Francisco’s face.

The key to making this work is to make it as fun and as head-bangingly competitive as possible to really get folks bloodlust up. To take very geeky discussions about, say, the right kinds of solar panels or filtration systems and tie them back to a bigger picture of who’s the bigger badass. To take the stats and serve them up with style. In other words, to actually treat it like a sport and try to use the same kind of tricks that help rev up cadres of obsessed sports fans. Call it ESPNization.

The best way to pull this off? Bring the “obsessive entertainment behavioral economics” experts — sportscasters and sportswriters from around the globe — into the mix from the beginning. You’d end up with a much better result than if enviros just did it on their own (not to mention better media coverage).

There are plenty of ways to play off the idea. Cities could pull in their actual sports teams to help rally folks. And for cities that already have sports rivalries, it’s another great way to go at each other.

Mind you, it’d take some effort to work out the details of the contest. For example, does it make sense to have different leagues so cities in undeveloped countries that don’t have the kind of resources a San Francisco has could still have a chance of winning? Or maybe teams of cities could go head-to-head — take the usually bland “sister city” concept and juice it up, giving cities with more money and incentives to really help out cities with less?

We might also want rules to promote sharing ideas across cities. Maybe you’d win points for new innovations — even more points if other cities used your innovations.

And we’d certainly want to think about how we incorporate social justice/equity. Maybe you’d win points for a Green for All-style approach – or lose them if all the benefits skipped inner cities and slums.

Yes, working out the rules – and dealing with attempts to game the rules or cheat – would take a lot of work. But we’ve got that problem right now. The difference is that today nobody except for a handful of Enviro nerds pay attention to the details that tell you cities are really reducing their CO2 emissions. With the games, we’d have obsessed fans around the globe watching the details like a hawk. In fact, if we do it right, fights over scoring, over refs, over all of the nitty gritty details would actually strengthen the drive to stop global warming.

How would we know it’s working? My “metric” would be when Lou Dobbs started ranting that Koreatowns across the US were acting as a fifth column for Seoul.

I don’t know enough about global politics to know if this idea would work, or if it would create more problems than it’s worth it. And no, I’m not crazy enough to think that creating bike paths will have more drama than a mid-court three point basket. My point in spinning this out is just to show that with a little creativity, there are plenty of ways to play on the Local Board that would get folks fired up.

Up Next: Ready, Fire, Aim!

Playing on the local board sounds interesting. But can we win big enough here to make our efforts worthwhile?

To get a sense of what’s possible on this board, let’s take a quick tour of what US cities and states are doing right now without having a mass movement behind them.

You may have heard of PlanNYC, New York City’s very ambitious plans to reduce CO2 emissions 30% by 2030. Or California’s plans to reduce CO2 emissions to below 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. But there are plenty of other states and cities that are gearing up. Just to cite a few states, Florida and Minnesota is going for 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, and Illinois wants to hit 60% below 1990 levels by 2050. Even some states you wouldn’t expect are setting some targets — Arizona’s shooting for 50% below 2000 by 2040, and New Mexico is going for 75% below 2000 by 2050.

How do they plan to hit these targets? Here are a few examples courtesy of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability’s report.

Buildings: In 2007 Boston passed a law requiring any private project over 50,000 square feet to earn a basic LEED certification. It estimates that 48 new building projects, covering over 22 million square feet are expected to save 15,000 metric tons of CO2 and $4 million of energy savings a year. And there are plenty of cities that are revamping public buildings. For example, in 2008 DC began upgrading its 120 public school facilities to at least LEED Silver standards; estimates say that by the project’s completion in 2015, each year it’ll save 26,000 metric tons of CO2 and $5.7 million in energy costs.

Public Transit: Seattle’s proposed expansion of public transit, from new streetcars which carry 450,000 riders to adding 36 miles to the transit system, are estimated to save 100,000-180,000 metric tons of CO2 a year; transit-oriented development will save even more. Just encouraging people to bike or walk can make a real difference — Chicago’s plans to add a 500 mile bike way network and 5000 new bike racks, would save 10,000 metric tons of CO2 a year by 2020.

Renewable Energy from Landfill: Columbia, Missouri set a renewable energy standard back in 2004, and to meet their goal the Columbia Biogas Energy Plant came online in June 2008. By converting landfill gas into energy, it can generate 2.1 megawatts of renewable power, enough to power 1,500 city homes. Now with new “bioreactor” technology, it’s estimated that in 2009 the landfill alone will generate “1.5 percent of the city’s energy from biogas, saving $1,194,248 and offsetting 15,929 tons of CO2.”

Promoting Solar Power Investments: for most homeowners, solar power doesn’t pay off. It can cost around $48,000 to install it, and if the homeowner moves, they have to keep paying the loan. So, states such as Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Virginia, and Washington have or are passing plans that let municipalities loan homeowners the upfront cost and then repay the loan through utility bills or property taxes.

Recycling: San Francisco’s comprehensive recycling program, which recycles food scraps as well as the regular stuff, and encourages recycling of construction & demo debris, has diverted 72% of waste from landfill, saving 302,000 tons of CO2 a year — that’s 4% of the city’s overall goals just from recycling.

Solar Powered This & That : Houston, Texas has run a pilot test of “20 floating solar-powered reservoir circulators (SolarBees), which improve public drinking water quality and reduce water treatment costs by replacing energy-intensive treatment methods.” After three years of experience, the pilot is now saving saving 2,190,000 kWh of energy, $769,000 in costs, and 1,436 tons CO2e per year.

In total, according to ICLEI: 200 US jurisdictions have created a baseline of their CO2 emissions, and 155 have set targets that will reduce CO2 emissions by1,360,000,000 metric tons by 2020 – “the equivalent of taking 25,000,000 passenger vehicles off the road for the next ten years” — and 6,800,000,000 metric tons by 2050.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Even if we can’t pass cap and trade in DC, we can still play out some of it at the local level. In 2008, ten Northeastern and middle Atlantic states created the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, designed to “reduce CO2 emissions from the power sector 10% by 2018.” Although not perfect, it’s not a bad start — as the Progressive States Network notes,

revenues from the auctions will be dedicated to promoting energy efficiency in each state…. the RGGI system improves on an existing European “cap and trade” system by auctioning off all allowances, rather than giving incumbents free allowances and a windfall profit. And it much more severely restricts use of “carbon offsets,” such as planting trees or other alternatives, other than restricting pollution emissions by other companies through the trading system.

As I said at the beginning, I’m focused just on US politics, because I’m woefully ignorant of international municipal politics. But just to give you a sense of what’s going on around the globe, here’s a few tidbits. On December 14, Copenhagen’s mayor presented a document at the Copenhagen convention with CO2 emission targets for over 3000 cities. For example, according to C40 Cities, “a group of the world’s largest cities committed to tackling climate change,” London has set a target of 60% below 1990 baseline levels by 2025, Rotterdam is shooting for 50% by 2025, and Paris is shooting for 75% below 2004 baseline levels by 2050. Tokyo is shooting for a reduction of 20% by 2020, and Yokohama is going for 30% below 2004 levels by 2025 & 60% below 2004 levels by 2050. Australia’s capital cities recently committed to cutting their emissions by 41% by 2020. Madrid plans to get to 20% below 2004 baseline by 2020 and 50% below by 2050. Mexico plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12% by 2012. In October, 20 mayors of Indonesian cities signed an agreement to reduce CO2 emissions 60% from 1990 levels worldwide by 2050 through the World Mayors and Local Governments Climate Protection Agreement. And Seoul plans to reduce CO2 emissions by 40 percent by 2030 — and create 1 million Green jobs in doing so (more on their ambitious plans tomorrow).

All of this activity is happening without a massive grassroots movement behind it. In fact, it’s happening while most national Enviro groups are still focusing their efforts on national and international standards.

As you can see, there’s plenty of room to play here — if we decide to stop putting so many of our chits on the DC board.

Up next: an example of a move we might try on the local board

Maybe banging heads with corporations around the globe is more than you’re up for. No problem. There’s still a much better board to play on than DC or Copenhagen — the state/local board. I don’t know a lot about global municipal politics, so for this post I’m going to focus on U.S. state and local governments.

Because national newspapers and most large progressive groups are obsessed with DC, it’s easy to forget how much power local government has. The Progressive State Network estimates that states have control over $2 trillion a year — “almost three times the dollar amount of non-social security domestic programs administered at the federal level.” Through laws and liability rules, states regulate “trillions of dollars of commerce.” And through public pension funds, states have control of over $2.7 trillion of financial assets.

Local government can have a pretty impressive impact on global warming. Depending on the estimates, between two thirds and 70% of greenhouse gas emissions come from cities. And although most state and local governments are in financial trouble right now, there are plenty of things we could do to push for reducing global warming that don’t require states to spend lots of money. As ICLEI notes, for example, they set a lot of the rules of the game that affect emissions in the economy:

Local government planning and decision making is particularly important in the energy, transport, industry, water and land use sectors — where emissions grew the most from 1970 to 2004.

And unlike DC, you don’t need a super-super majority to get things done. That’s why there is a hell of a lot more interesting green work going on at the states than in DC; more on that in the next post.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t play at all in DC. But I think our emphasis ought to be in pushing money and opportunities down to the states, such as The Urban Land Institute’s “3 B’s” strategy for Federal transportation dollars I blogged in November. Ditto for federal Green jobs stimulus — instead of focusing everything on changing a handful of senators, focus on moving the money to where we have more room to maneuver.

Even if you think we should focus on DC, first we have to win in the states — in particular, the states that keep shutting the rest of the country down. As progressives are learning the hard way, being strong in California and New York doesn’t mean squat if we are weak in Louisiana, Nebraska, and Connecticut. If we’re going to win in DC in the long run, in key states like these we’ve got to build year-round campaign coalitions that know how to kick ass together. As the Right has demonstrated, state and local fights are great way to build that base.

There’s already lots of Enviro activist work going on at the local level, and some of it, such as the Sierra Club’s Cool Cities campaign, is coordinated. Similarly, in the Progressive States Network’s very sharp 2010 Shared Multistate Agenda, one of the six key areas state legislators across the country have agreed to fight for in a coordinated way is promoting Green Buildings.

So if there is already lots going on, what exactly am I proposing? Let me put it this way: do you know what your city or state’s plan is to reduce its emissions? Unless you’re an Enviro policy geek or live in New York City, probably not. Most of us are not paying attention to local or state fights. Suppose we did — all at once.

In short, what I’m talking about is a strategic play — moving money, energy, and other resources from the DC board to the state/local board.

Up Next: the moves already being made on the local board that demonstrate we can win big if we go local.