Overview
Using insights from history, ecology, economics, cultural & media studies, and systems theory among other disciplines, this course examines the complexity and scale of our planetary crisis, explores our vision for a just and livable future, and investigates Sunrise Movement’s theory of change.
Sunrise Seminar is a 10-week course beginning in March with an east and west coast cohort of 8-10 participants from multiple hubs. A 1-2 hour class will be held weekly via video-conference, and participants will be expected to complete up to 1 hour of homework each week, including readings, videos, presentations, journaling, and learning experiments in tandem with their personal work with their hub.
Audience
Sunrisers who have received 101 or equivalent training, participated for at least ~2 months, and are interested in engaging with challenging material that will help shape and inform their approach to organizing within their hub.
Start meetings with mindfulness visualization aid.
Goals
<aside> 💡 1) Challenge Sunrisers to take a more critical and thoughtful approach to their organizing, one that better aligns beliefs, actions, and habits with those necessary to create the truly transformative and just change Sunrise is attempting. This includes building skill sets and introducing tools for ceaseless analysis and re-analysis of our predicament, our vision, and our theory of change.
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<aside> 💡 2) Provide an inter-hub dialogue to explore new insights, questions, and critiques of the movement through reference to hub-specific and movement-wide experiences.
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<aside> 💡 3) Introduce a range of practical topics that will eventually be covered in more depth by other courses/training modules that will allow Sunrisers to develop in-depth knowledge in specific areas.
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<aside> 💡 4) Gather substantial feedback on course content, structure, and facilitation style from a diverse pool of participants to inform a broader launch of this learning program in Summer 2021.
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“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin
Part 1: How Bad is It?
1.1 Emissions & Ecocide - What's Really Going On?
Students will be challenged to confront the increasingly dire assessments of the state of the climate & ecological crises, and the growing body of reputable characterizations of catastrophe and the likelihood of coming collapse(s). Students will be introduced to a Toolkit for parsing through the the confusing media & scientific environment in order to better select trustworthy and responsible information.
1.2 Culture, Economics, and Energy ****
Students will be introduced to a systems thinking approach for evaluating the climate and ecological crises and understanding their connection to energy, material use, modern monetary systems, & the dominant growth-logic.
1.3 Our Political, Media, and Mental Environment
Students will be challenged to consider many of the countervailing forces we're facing in building this movement, including our political, media, education, advertising, and public opinion contexts.
Part 2: Our Vision
2.1 ****New Economics and Culture
Students will be introduced to historic, modern, and future forms of economic organization outside of modern day financialization.
2.2 Environmental & Climate Justice
Students will be introduced to the history of environmental justice movements in the US and global south, the state of inequality and environmental/climate injustice in the US, and the notion of climate change and ecological destruction as an inherently unjust phenomenon. Voices from frontline communities will be used to counter the dominant "climate fundamentalism" that tells us solving these issues is simply about reducing emissions.
Students will be introduced to the concept of the collective visioning, the Green New Deal and discuss different specific policy plans to judge their strengths and weaknesses.
Part 3: Sunrise Theory of Change
Students introduced to the scale, depth, and levels of sacrifice and disruption that previous transformative political movements required in order to win. Students will also be introduced to modern training, concepts, and theory for creating political change on the local, state, and federal level through acts such as organizing, messaging, coalition building and protesting.
Students will be introduced to concepts of systems leverage points to better understand how to affect change in complex systems, such as local communities, national political systems, or the global political economy.
3.3 Psychological & Community Resilience
Students will be introduced to forms of personal and communal practice that can strengthen and sustain themselves and the movement in the face of climate grief, loss, apathetic distraction or nihilism, and burnout.
Part 4: Action
Students will consider how they can share a set of key learnings from Sunrise Seminar with their hub and and how their Hub could turn these learnings into strategic change or new initiatives.
