Activism Campaign Appraisal 2

This article discusses the 350.org activism campaign appraisal, including its background, issues, goals, and credibility. It also analyzes the policy environment and power-holder maps. The subject is environmental activism, and the document type is an appraisal. No course code, course name, or college/university is mentioned.

ACTIVISM CAMPAIGN APPRAISAL 1
Activism Campaign Appraisal
Name of the Student
Course
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3. Background to the Issues (20%)
Currently, one of the challenges facing the world today is climate change. Climate change is
attributed to by many factors, and majorly the release of fossil fuels into the atmosphere.
Most of the fossil fuel generally are directly related to the non- renewable sources of energy
which ends up depleting the resources on the surface of the earth, jeopardizing sustainability
as well as causing changes in the climate patterns (Alaimo, 2012). The end results is that
individual from all walks of life are being exposed to the danger of the climate change, which
ranges from exposure to ultraviolet rays, increased temperatures on the earth, pre-empted
long periods of drought, depletion of the ozone layer and subsequent insufficiency of oxygen
in the atmosphere, cancerous diseases among others (Bernadino and Sumida, 2017).
A fight, thus, aimed at creating justice to the earth, by averting the possible causes of climate
change and proposing sustainable approaches towards achieving various manly objectives, is
a worthy fight. In light with this, 350.org has strongly come out to fight against various
practices which are detrimental to the atmosphere. Additionally, the organizational practices
aimed at creating community-led renewable energy for everyone.
a. Identifying the problems/issues the campaign aims to address
The various issues which the 350.org aims at addressing includes:
 A quick transition to renewable energy – the organization is aiming to achieve this by
supporting community-led energy solutions (Hestres, 2014).
 Stopping the implementation of any new fossil project - the organization is aiming to
achieve this by banning all the gas, coal and oil projects via community resistance and
local resolutions (Klein, 2015).
 Averting the economics of dirty energy - the organization is aiming to achieve this by
stopping the financing of fossil fuel companies as well as stopping the social license.

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b. Defining the campaign goals/objectives
The specific campaign goal of 350.org includes
 Developing knowledge and sharing of skills in order to organize movements
 Utilizing the already existing plans to organize a power shift in various nations
 Creation of a definitive theory of change, as well as a political alignment
 Experience sharing from various nations (McGregor, 2011)
 Creation of strategies to stun the various challenges
 Creation of strong relationships to foster the regional as well as international
collaboration and cooperation (McKibben, 2016).
c. How did the campaign establish credibility as an activist?
350.org represents a new generation of environmental activism which has over the past ten
years gained significant momentum and leading various campaigns such as the people's
climate march, justice, rise for climate, jobs, and Exxon Knew (Monastersky, 2009). Yearly,
the organization attracts thousands of people who participate in the annual activities and
chapter meetings. Besides the networking of the grassroots personnel’s, the organization also
connects various climate change activist groups for major projects as well as demonstrations.
The credibility of activism is dated back to the founder of the organization, bill McKibben,
who long before was an environmentalist activist (Schifeling and Hoffman, 2017). After
documenting his first book, the end of nature; in 1989 that essentially introduced the readers
to the idea of climate change; he led a step-up campaign in 2006 which led to various protests
as well as nationwide demonstrations. Following the enthusiasm, momentum, and expansion
of the idea, it was changed to 350.
Additionally, the other supportive group was comprised of alumni from Middlebury college,
who took the ideas of Bill McKibben, turning them into a great revolution. After it had
resulted in a lot of success surprises across, it degenerated into grassroots and policy

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organizing engine which was very much ready to withstand the challenges which it would
come across.
Later on, various groups of people who were more interested in saving climate would join the
movement, by offering supports of any kind to id the activities of the group. This increased
the group's popularity, and with the publication of bill McKibben in the Colbert report of
2009, the popularity of the group went a rocket higher. The awareness was followed by the
massive support and currently, the level of activism, in the organization has attracted 350
climate actions in more than 188 nations, with 350 being very active.
4. Analyzing the policy environment (15%)
From the basics, the environmental policy, is any measure put forward by corporations,
government, private, as well as public organizations with regards to the impacts of the human
activities on the environment. The measures most likely to be undertaken are those with
designations of eliminating the harmful effects in the ecosystem. The measures placed on
board by the 350.org in relation to the climate crisis issue includes: a quick transition to
renewable energy, Stopping the implementation of any new fossil project, and Averting the
economics of dirty energy (Spyksma, 2019). These measures, when carefully analyzed, we
can undoubtedly say that they are sustainable means, they require the cooperation of the
community by various regional and local decision, which upon enactment, address the issues.
Further, the approach which the organization's employees to conduct grass-root mobilizations
is among the best methodologies as it seeks to ensure that the overall solution is not imposed
on a group of people or rather citizens, but through their own actions and acceptance. The
approach, seemingly, is gaining momentum on a daily basis, and this is propelled by the
annual activities as well as the annual chapter meetings (Warren, 2016). These are sustainable
mechanisms, which undoubtedly unmasks the human activities and the dirty picture of the
fossil fuels, hence, is an approach, whose graph of success would remain incremental.

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A. Power-holder maps
The power holder maps for the 350.org identifies the best target persons which can be of
great influence in promoting the social change: climate change. The steps in determining the
power holder maps for the 350.org includes: (Warren, 2016).
Step 1: determination of the target
At the CenterStage, we have the 350.org, as the major player in terms of coming up with
decisions which guide the climate change activism/call.
Step 2: map influence to target
These are personalities which have a direct influence on the target individual and can be of
great essence in developing and achieving its set objectives. Critically analyses inform us that
founders are the fist direct persons with a full touch to the agenda. There is also well-wishers
who do not mind assisting the organization by any support of whatever means. Additionally,
the community is also influential in promoting change as the campaign is based on grassroots
levels. Media outlets, who also tend to be in agreement with the idea are also potential
personalities in the map. By extension, the government can also play a significant role, and it
is of the idea to include them. Last but not least, renewable energy organizations who intend
to do away with the non-renewable energy generations are also a primary component of the
map.
Step 3: determination of the relational powerlines.
These concerns the direct and indirect relationships between these possible targets. This will
be easily explained in the mind map. The diagram shown below is the power holder map for
the organization.

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References
Alaimo, S., 2012. Sustainable this, sustainable that: New materialisms, posthumanism, and
unknown futures. Pmla, 127(3), pp.558-564.
Bernadino, A.F. and Sumida, P.Y.G., 2017. http://science. sciencemag. org/content/3
58/6361/312.1/tab-e-letters. development, 358(312).
Hestres, L.E., 2014. Preaching to the choir: Internet-mediated advocacy, issue public
mobilization, and climate change. New Media & Society, 16(2), pp.323-339.
Klein, N., 2015. This changes everything: Capitalism vs. the climate. Simon and Schuster.
McGregor, I.M., 2011. Disenfranchisement of countries and civil society at COP-15 in
Copenhagen. Global Environmental Politics, 11(1), pp.1-7.
McKibben, B., 2016. 350. org. Online: http://350. org/bill.
Monastersky, R., 2009. Climate crunch: a burden beyond bearing. Nature News, 458(7242),
pp.1091-1094.
Schifeling, T. and Hoffman, A.J., 2017. Bill McKibben’s Effect on the US Climate Change
Debate: Shifting the Institutional Environment through Radical Flank Effects.
Spyksma, H., 2019. Unintentional journalists: The role of advocacy group 350 in filling a
news gap for reporting from the Pacific region. Journalism Studies, 20(1), pp.1-21.
Warren, J.L., 2016. Aldo Leopold's odyssey: rediscovering the author of A Sand County
Almanac. Island Press.