Member Spotlight: Eliza Nemser

This week, I spoke with Eliza Nemser, the Executive Director and Co-Founder at Climate Changemakers, an online climate action hub equipping thousands of changemakers to effectively advocate for policies at all levels of government. We discussed issue-motivated politics, the missing middle, and the difference just one hour of action can make. 

Will Hespe: What makes Climate Changemakers a unique organization?

Eliza Nemser: Climate Changemakers has a uniquely low barrier to entry when the goal is meaningful action, which is to say we don't have low bar actions on your way to meaningful action. We don't have courses, trainings, or webinars. Our invitation is, “show up, and we will support you.” Our Hours of Action are facilitated coworking sessions, and our resources are designed to help you learn as you go. So essentially, Climate Changemakers is a free course in effective climate advocacy where you’re productive every step of the way. 

We are also uniquely not partisan, without that being code for bipartisan. We are not partisan in that we do our very best to omit partisan rhetoric from the work we do. We advance climate policy using policy advocacy and elections, but through the lens of climate. 

We also have a unique bias for action. Everything comes down to taking action, whether it's using our action playbooks on your own time, or during an Hour of Action event. We don't have chapters across the country, we have Hours of Action in cities across the country, and we’re adding more all the time. 

The last thing I'll say that's unique about Climate Changemakers is that we have activated a demographic between the ages of roughly 20 and 55. This age group has been the “missing middle” in terms of advocacy, across race, gender, and other demographics. You know, there's a lot of retiree advocacy, there's a lot of youth advocacy, but we've energized this missing middle, and I do think it's partly because of our obsession with productive action and making good use of our time.

Will Hespe: How does being issue focused, rather than party focused, affect your political action?

Eliza Nemser: It stands as a welcoming invitation. The goal is not to exclude people, or alienate people, based on partisan identity. The goal is not to participate in this culture where the climate is such a partisan issue, but instead, to subdue that narrative by transcending the rhetoric. I think it helps us be more successful in attracting people who want to take action on climate. I think it helps us drive the discourse into nonpartisan territory that's less charged, and I think it helps us in our relationships and conversations with lawmakers and their staff by making it clear that there's not a different, deeper objective of advancing the agenda of one party, but that we are truly focused on advancing progress on our issue.

Will Hespe: What's something most people don't know about the politics of climate that they desperately need to?

Eliza Nemser: I'll say three things: how underutilized advocacy is, how easy it is to participate, and how impactful advocacy can be. Let’s start there: most people don't know how effective advocacy truly is. When you reach out with personalized language and authenticity, that can go far to influence the priorities of a particular decision maker, and maybe even their orientation towards the issue. 

Many people also don't realize how easy it is to recognize their own agency as an effective advocate, as a messenger, as someone who has a role to play as an engaged member of civil society. Climate leadership, in many cases, looks exactly like this: catalyzing more attention and action to advance progress. Most people don't realize how easy it is to do it. 

Finally, most people don't realize how many people are actually very willing to engage in the work, but are not yet engaged in the work. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communications found that 28% of Americans would “probably” or “definitely” take political action on climate,” whereas only 2% are engaged. That leaves a lot of people who are willing to engage and could collectively make a transformative difference.

Will Hespe: What are the first steps someone in climate can take to engage with the political side of it?

Eliza Nemser: Raise your hand, make the decision. Put it on your calendar and show up. We always say that effective advocacy takes longer than a couple of clicks. It might take an hour, it might take 30 minutes, but it takes long enough to deserve a spot on your calendar. You really need to intentionally carve out the time—you can't be very effective if you're not investing time. Climate Changemakers strives to make this as easy as possible. Put an Hour of Action on your calendar, whether it's on Zoom, or at your local bar or cafe, or at 9Zero. 

Community really helps. It helps keep us motivated. It helps us punch above our own weight. There's also an evergreen, 24/7 invitation to go to our Action Hub at Climate Changemakers. It is the most robust action hub for climate advocacy on the internet, and it's 100% free. All of our resources and all of our events are free. Take some time to click open an action playbook and get started. And then, don’t let your climate action be a one-off activity, but come back for more and build a habit, and then tell your friends and network to do the same.

Will Hespe: Why did you choose to collaborate with 9Zero?

Eliza Nemser: We're thrilled to partner with 9Zero, and it's a very natural collaboration. 9Zero represents a physical space for climate action in all of its forms, whether it's a coworking space for you to accomplish your climate work in your day job, or office space, or a gathering space for events. All of this is climate action. It makes perfect sense to bring our Hour of Action into that space, into that environment, and into that partnership. 

There's something fundamentally similar about what 9Zero is doing and what we're doing at Climate Changemakers, which is to function as a hub—a hub for engagement on climate, whether it's a brick and mortar space, or a community that transcends brick and mortar and has a virtual presence. Climate Changemakers and 9Zero are both rolling out the welcome mat for all climate-concerned people and providing structure. We’re focused on creating spaces that are radically collaborative with other organizations’ endeavors, synergistic with those existing endeavors, and additive. For 9Zero, it's a physical structure. For Climate Changemakers, it's a model of engagement across our Slack and our Hours of Action, but also a structure to support all of this important work, and to galvanize more participation in climate.