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On this page, you will find the latest SSAFE Advocacy opportunities
Protecting the Climate in the 2024 Election!
NEW! For your consideration, a SSAFE member has asked us to share this impactful letter from David Orr, a well-known climate activist, “What’s at Stake in 2024?“
You may read the letter at this link and add your own name to the list of signers.
Here’s an urgent message for all of us from SSAFE Advocacy Leader, Ted Wolner, Kendal at Oberlin.
“What’s At Stake for the Climate in the 2024 Presidential Election?
Fossil-fuel interests and many of their political allies want to:
- Replace 100s of expert civil servants in the EPA, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and the Departments of Energy & Interior;
- Open more federal lands, waters, forests, & monuments to explore & drill for oil and gas;
- Push the Energy Department and FERC to approve some, many, or all of the 14 applications for new or expanded liquified-natural-gas export terminals (LNGs); all 14 LNGs = the carbon dioxide equivalent of ~186 new coal-fired power plants;
- Back the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, which 360 environmental and climate organizations criticize as a “fossil-fuel giveaway”;
- Block financial assistance for renewable energy to foreign countries;
- The top four actions by themselves would likely doom chances to hold average global temperatures at or below 2 degrees Celsius, greatly strengthen the anti-democratic hold the nation’s oil and gas corporations have on climate policy, and setback global progress on renewable energy by years.
So What Can We Do?
On the ground (working with your local League of Women Voters or similar organization):
- Get unregistered voters to register, and voters whose address has changed, to register anew;
- Get out the vote via door-to-door canvassing (in addition to phone-banking or postcarding);
- For those who don’t know the location of their polling place, identify where exactly they can vote;
- Arrange transportation to polling stations on election day for those who need it.
At home:
- Postcard, text, or phone environmentalists who tend not to vote in swing states (work with the resources identified below 👇);
- Volunteer to drive voters who need transportation to their polling places;
- Volunteer under local training guidelines to be a poll watcher on election day;”
Postcarding: Turn out the Vote in Battleground States
We encourage you to sign up to receive “pledge to vote” postcard packets from Center for Common Ground. The non-partisan postcards are sent to low-propensity voters to encourage them to turnout to vote.
The Center for Common Ground is non-partisan, Black and women-led voting rights organization founded in 2018. We work in states where more than 20% of voters are people of color – Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. These voters tend to vote for economic, social, and environmental justice.
Click the button on the right to learn more and order postcards.
Phone Banking: Call to Remind Environmentalists to Register & Vote
The Environmental Voter Project identifies millions of non-voting environmentalists and turns them into consistent voters.
- “We estimate that over 8 million environmentalists did not vote in the 2020 presidential election and over 13 million skipped the 2022 midterms. We are a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on a simple, high-leverage solution to this problem: with an 8-year track record of success, we are accurately identifying these non-voting environmentalists and efficiently converting them into a critical mass of consistent voters that will soon be too big for politicians to ignore.”
Click the button to the left to learn more and sign up to call voters.
10,000 Strong to Get Out The Vote in 2024!
From Working Families Power, a fund new way to send postcards with a personal touch! Sign up using the form on their website and add your own photo to each postcard!
See the example to the right. ➡️
Note: Be careful to indicate your communication preferences as you go through the sign-up process so you are not inundated with marketing and solicitation emails.
Click the button on the right to learn more and order postcards.
Letter Writing: Write a Letter to the Editor about the risk to the Inflation Reduction Act. Inform readers about how much is at stake both financially and environmentally!
Read more:
Will climate change win the 2024 elections?
Rewiring America: How much can you get in electrification incentives? (Look up your address and note how many incentives are planned for 2025.)
Tips for Writing a Good Letter to the Editor
- Add a short reference to an existing article
- Praise the article or newspaper, or critique it politely.
- State how it relates to your issue.
- Keep to 1 bite-size argument, 1 major pt. (150-350 words).
- Identify a solution/action
- Specify how to get action (e.g., write Senator X).
- Close creatively (metaphor, word play, starting point)
- Always be respectful.
- Check the newspaper’s submissions requirements for author information, word limit, email attachment or not.
More about Letters to the Editor
Did you know that published letters in local or even national newspapers (print or online) are monitored by your elected officials? A key part of being an effective advocate is learning how to write short and effective letters to the editor. Click on the video on the right to view the workshop – it’s easier than you might think!
The workshop slides are available here to download. Please contact us if you would like to join a letter to the editor team on your campus!
State and Local Advocacy
SSAFE is committed to promoting state and Local climate advocacy. Use these resources to learn more about your state legislature and current environmental legislation.
State and District Sessions: Start by learning more about your state and district legislative sessions.
The National Conference of State Legislatures tracks legislative sessions in each state, district and territory.
Environmental Legislation Tracking: Utilize resources from organizations dedicated to tracking current state and local environmental legislation.
SSAFE Successes!
Success! The SSAFE Advocacy Team collected a record-breaking 791 signatures on a petition during January and February 2024 to pressured the U.S. Department of Energy to stop reviews for at least a year of 17 applications for new LNG export terminals, and we won!
Success! The SSAFE Advocacy Team collected 682 signatures to EPA Administrator Michael Regan to strengthen Landfill Methane Emission Standards and submitted them in July 2023.
Success! During Earth Month, April 2023, SSAFE Activists collected 397 signatures petitioning the International Seabed Authority and Elon Musk to support a moratorium on deep sea mining.
Read more here about this important issue.
Success! The SSAFE Petition to EPA Administrator Michael Regan re: Stronger Methane Emissions Standards logged 298 signatures! The letter was printed on SSAFE letterhead and mailed to his Washington, DC office on December 1st, 2022.
Success! The SSAFE Letter Writing Campaign supporting the Break Free From Plastics Act to members of Congress has resulted in 286 letters submitted!
SSAFE Wrote Postcards! SSAFE and the Center for Common Ground are working together to encourage low-engagement voters to register and vote. The Center, a non-partisan group, has compiled a list of low frequency or recently purged voters. Together, SSAFE residents wrote over 450 postcards encouraging low-engagement voters to confirm their registration and remember to vote during the 2022 mid-term elections.
To the right is a selection of postcards written by SSAFE members from Kendal at Crosslands. They are carefully arranged to hide addresses for privacy.
Success! The SSAFE Petition to Tristan Brown, Acting Administrator Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration logged 286 signatures! The letter to Tristan Brown was printed on SSAFE letterhead and mailed to his Washington, DC office on May 28th, 2022.
Success! The SSAFE Petition to Michael Regan re: Strong Truck Emission Standards logged 254 signatures! The letter to Micheal Regan was printed on SSAFE letterhead and mailed to his Washington, DC office on February 14th, 2022.
To the right is an example of how SSAFE mails petitions to administrators such as EPA or DOT administrators. The letter includes signatures from the SSAFE Advocacy Leadership team and a list of digital signatures. In addition to the paper letter and signatures, a copy is also emailed digitally with signature timestamps.
Letter writing campaigns are different. Each digital letter and signature is emailed at the time of signing. Letter campaigns are used to contact local and state elected officials. When the signer enters their zip code and address, the letter automatically chooses the signers elected officials such as Senators, House Representatives or other local elected officials.
