About

The Climate Mobilization

Since 2014, Climate Mobilization has sounded the alarm and launched urgent climate action in countless local communities.

Our Mission

TCM is building power for a national transformation that rapidly restores a safe climate and creates a just and democratic society.  

Our Vision

Our vision is a safe climate, democratic society, and just economy where all communities and the living world flourish for generations to come. 

Our Values

We are committed to bold and necessary transformation. 

We are dedicated to winning solutions that match the scale, scope, and speed necessary to avoid collapse and build a better world. We fight for what is needed to keep our communities safe.

We believe in the power of everyday people to make change.

It will take millions to respond to the climate emergency, so we work to get as many people involved as possible. We believe that when people come together, extraordinary things can and do happen.

In times of emergency, community is our strength. 

We take the time to foster mutual relationships. We learn from and build relationships with communities, groups, and movements that share our values in order to work toward a more equitable and just world.

We learn together. 

We reject perfectionism. We embrace honest mistakes as an opportunity to learn, grow, and transform.

We believe that dismantling systemic injustice must be at the heart of the climate movement. 

Anti-racism and anti-oppression are key to our victory. We strive to tackle the root of oppressive and destructive systems that harm our communities with necessary and thoughtful urgency.

We elevate marginalized voices in our fight against the climate emergency.

We can’t heal the planet when those closest to the problem are left out of creating the solutions. Repairing our world means listening to and centering their voices. 

We advocate for equitable and just responses that give power to people.

Right now, decisions that are destroying our world are largely made by the powerful few. Building a world that works for everyone requires collective and democratic forms of power that allows all of our voices to be heard.

We are dedicated to building a world that values people and our planet over profit.

We want to transform our economy into one that recognizes the importance of a safe and livable climate and of the natural world, as well as one that creates equitable value rather than prioritizing exploitation, hoarding and extractive profit.

Core Goals

Create resilience from crises and disasters through community-controlled food, energy, water; and economic and political self-determination

Launch ambitious, people-powered resistance that takes on the fossil fuel industry in new ways.

Support frontline communities organizing for local power

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Create a just, regenerative future for all

Break the silence: Tell the truth about the threat we face and its root causes

Ground in a lineage of visionary politics, action and community building

Our Origins

When Margaret Klein Salamon and Ezra Silk founded The Climate Mobilization at the People’s Climate March in 2014, there was no climate group publicly organizing around the scale of solutions we need: an all-of-society, emergency-speed mobilization to zero emissions, with a level of government economic intervention and public investment not seen since WWII.

Over the past 6 years, we have succeeded in fundamentally transforming climate politics in the United States, including leading the climate movement into “emergency mode,” drastically raising the honesty, ambition, and level of action from activists and governments across the country.

In 2022, after seeking counsel from dozens of movement leaders, we updated our movement-building work for a new era: Climate Survival. The “polycrisis” of climate disasters, inequality, COVID, white supremacy, rising authoritarianism and more has led to untold human suffering. It’s also created new opportunities for our movements to build power. Today, we are getting rid of the silos between these issues and building a new kind of climate justice movement that meets people in the midst of struggles to build power for survival and justice.

Our Team

We are a small team, supported by highly dedicated volunteers. Our passionate staff have diverse expertise in organizing, communications, policy, and research. We also rely on deep collaboration with our partners across the climate and environmental movement to bring our vision of Climate Mobilization to life.

Co-Leader and Network & Movement Building Director

Co-Leader and Director of Resource Mobilization

Disaster Resilience and Somatics Researcher & Volunteer

Kentucky Movement Incubation Coordinator

Climate Survival Farming and Food Sovereignty Coordinator

Volunteer Grant Writer

Climate change is an emergency. 
Let’s act like it. Let’s mobilize.

Mariyah Jahangiri

Co-Leader and Network & Movement Building Director

Mariyah is a first-generation Pakistani community organizer who is on a life-long journey of working to create alternative, anti-capitalist models of collective healing, popular education, community organizing, and mass movement. She has been inspired by studying social movements and organizing in many movement ecosystems and geographies – most recently in Cape Town, Iowa, Puerto Rico, Atlanta, and currently in Los Angeles. At Climate Mobilization, she started as a Network Organizer where she leads programming, coaching, and other resource development for a learning hub of 43+ local decarbonization and climate justice campaigns. She also recently developed strategy for youth, BIPOC-led, climate movements alongside the Network Support Team at Power Shift Network, and organized with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network to base-build in Wilmington and San Pedro alongside low-income API communities most impacted by extractive industries in Los Angeles. Mariyah has spent the past 7 years leading campaigns for Just Transition, abolition, food sovereignty, housing justice, undocumented workers’ organizing, reproductive justice, and Palestine solidarity as well as being involved in mutual aid projects, across more than 15 geographies.

 

Cris Lagunas

Strategy Director

Cris is helping to grow the Climate Emergency Movement by supporting creative campaigns and extending the reach of the movement’s message. Cris is a co-founder of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, an organization dedicated to using direct action tactics to expose, challenge and dismantle the immigration detention system.Cris got his start in organizing when he was 15 years old, getting involved in a local group of fellow undocumented youth.

Rebecca Harris

Co-Leader and Director of Resource Mobilization

Rebecca has been with Climate Mobilization since 2019 leading our organizing efforts. In this role, she has coached dozens of local climate groups, coordinated organizing trainings, and launched the campaign for a national Climate Emergency Declaration. In July 2021, she collaborated with Acton, MA residents to launch Housing and Climate Justice for Acton, a renters rights and climate justice group led by public housing and Section 8 renters and other low-income residents, and has already won several campaigns. Along with a history of social movement organizing, Rebecca previously worked as a journalist covering equity in Chicago public schools and as the Development and Communications Manager at Latino Union of Chicago, an immigrants’ and workers’ rights organization. She is a 2017 graduate of the Reframe Mentorship in strategic communications and a 2019 participant in the Anne Braden Organizer Training Program.

Caroline Contilloq

Disaster Resilience and Somatics Researcher & Volunteer

Caroline Contillo is a disaster researcher and facilitator based in New York’s Hudson Valley. For fifteen years, she has worked to bridge contemplative and somatic practices with organizing work, including involvement with Occupy Wall Street, the Zen Peacemakers, the Buddhist Climate Action Network, and the Peoples Climate March. Since completing the Tulane School of Social Work’s dual degree program with a MSW and a Master’s of Science in Disaster Resilience in 2022, she has worked as a researcher for the Consortium for Equitable Disaster Resilience. Her writing has focused on disaster equity and the politics of climate emotions. Caroline is a trained mindfulness instructor and is also trained in the somatic modality Focalizing, and has a certificate in Disaster Mental Health from Tulane’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. She also facilitates self and community care workshops for local social service organizations, and is currently working to become certified as a mental health first aid and psychological resilience educator.

Daisy Carter

Kentucky Movement Incubation Coordinator

Daisy Carter (she/they) is a New Orleans native, queer multi-disciplinary artist and climate justice organizer working at the intersections of mutual aid, disaster resiliency, African-American herbalism, and grassroots organizing. Daisy is inspired by the black radical movements of the so-called U.S and African diaspora, reimagining what healing + self-determination look like for frontline, BIPOC (black, brown, and people of color) communities who are most vulnerable to climate disaster. For the past few years, they have been organizing around mutual aid, environmental + climate justice, and building BIPOC and marginalized leadership throughout Kentucky. In 2021, they founded Rise and Shine, a community-led mutual aid organization building power and solidarity with low-income, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized communities in Bowling Green, Kentucky and beyond. She has also led numerous political campaigns, direct actions, and led outreach + communications strategy for organizations such as The Sierra Club, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival. At the Climate Mobilization, she is supporting programming, the development of the Movement Incubation Program, and the creation of climate survival outreach projects.

Zakaria Kronemer

Climate Survival Farming and Food Sovereignty Coordinator

Zakaria Kronemer is a farmer from Richmond, Virginia with roots in community organizing and climate activism. In 2017, he began working with farmers and other communities in rural Virginia to develop a robust campaign against the construction of two fracked-gas pipelines. It was through this struggle —and the relationships built along the way—that connections between food, land, and climate justice were revealed to him. He teamed up with other BIPOC farmers and set out to build an alternative, regional food-system founded on sovereignty, security, ecological stewardship, and human dignity. Zakaria most recently worked as a field manager and program lead with Real Roots Food Systems—an emerging organization striving to increase participation in our food system. He envisions a food system that people can meaningfully participate in without needing to become a farmer, chef, or professional, in which nutrient-dense, healing food is not a luxury or a lifestyle, but a right.

Fernando Rodriguez

Volunteer Grant Writer

Fernando J. Rodriguez is a first-generation QPOC Honduran Mexican American, born and raised in South Central Los Angeles (Occupied Tongva/Chumash territory). Fernando has experience in legal and student advocacy, community organizing, resource gathering, and leadership. As a dedicated Grant Writer for Climate Mobilization Project (CMP), he collaborates with the Co-Leader and Director of Resource Mobilization to identify funding opportunities, connect with philanthropic funders, and support grant proposals and submissions. Prior to their current role, Fernando served as an Eviction Defense Paralegal at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, where he directly helped low-income communities navigate the legal system. His responsibilities included interviewing and counseling tenants on the unlawful detainer process, organizing around eviction defense resources such as in-person clinics alongside community organizations, and drafting legal pleadings under attorney supervision. Fernando also interned at the Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC), where he worked closely with staff attorneys on projects such as immigrant-owned cooperatives, community-controlled housing, Indigenous land trusts, and other groups that redistribute wealth, democratize governance, and provide long-term stewardship over common resources.

Alexia Leclerq

Network Coach

Alexia (she/they) is an environmental justice organizer based in Austin, TX. They graduated summa cum laude from NYU (’20), where they self-designed a major titled “The Politics and Economics of Inequality.” Their research focuses on political ecology, environmental justice, AAPI communities, inequality, postcolonialism. As an organizer and researcher they have spent the past 5 years working on various issues from preserving the Colorado River, water rights, fighting land use policy and zoning that enforces race-based discrimination, conducting ethnographic research on climate health, to organizing mutual aid, youth programming, and shaping national legislation alongside members of the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance; today Alexia continues to work as an organizer with PODER, a grassroots EJ org. Alexia is also the co-founder of Start: Empowerment, a BIPOC led social and environmental justice education non-profit working with youth, educators, activists, and community members to implement justice-focused education and programming in schools and community spaces. S:E curriculum and programming has reached over 2,000 students, been recognized by the NYC Department of Education, and taught in universities. In 2021, their work was recognized by the prestigious Brower Youth Award.

Emmett Hopkins

Co-Leader and Director of Operations & Programs

Emmett manages operations and leads Climate Mobilization’s intersectional organizing around transportation justice, where he works with local community groups to build commitment, alignment and action among frontline constituents who rely on public transit and active transportation modes. He brings over a decade of experience collaborating with diverse stakeholders to activate power towards equitable, climate-friendly transportation systems, build mutual-aid-based community food systems, ensure equitable access to public lands, and mobilize resources towards a just transition. In 2021, Emmett developed an online platform for collaborative, community-scale visioning of a just, zero-carbon future. In 2022 he helped launch a transit riders union in Sonoma County, CA, which has engaged in mutual aid, storytelling, and a successful campaign to win fare-free buses and expanded frequency.

Suha Dabbouseh

National Organizer

National Organizer Suha Dabbouseh leads national strategy for The Climate Mobilization. They are originally from Chicago but have lived, organized and rebel-roused in seven states and 11 cities. Suha received their law degree from CUNY-School of Law where they focused on social justice lawyering representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay. While practicing law, Suha had worked to advocate on behalf of domestic violence survivors, transgender clients and fighting employment discrimination. Their passion is building people power and organizing to dismantle structural inequities.

Matt Renner

Executive Director of The Climate Mobilization

Matt has worked as a nonprofit executive in clean energy, climate policy, and journalism for over a decade, focusing on the near-term social and economic impacts of climate change. He leads organizational expansion and works closely with the communications and organizing teams. Matt earned a BA in political science from UC Berkeley, where he was deeply inspired by the work of Professor George Lakoff.

Marina Mails

Co-Leader and Director of Operations
Marina manages operations and volunteers for both The Climate Mobilization and Climate Mobilization Project. She brings broad experience working in non-profit organizations, health care settings, and running her own private counseling practice. Before joining Climate Mobilization, Marina maintained a practice focusing exclusively on climate-related emotional coping, helping people make bold choices for lifestyle and professional change in response to the Climate Emergency. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science and Spanish from Wake Forest University and a Masters in Counseling from UNC Greensboro.

Meghann Beer

Co-Leader and Director of Resource Mobilization and Strategy

Meghann brings more than 20 years of nonprofit management and fundraising experience to The Climate Mobilization and Climate Mobilization Project. For over a decade Meghann has worked as a nonprofit consultant helping organizations expand their capacity, secure revenue, develop successful strategies, and effectively evaluate their programs, enabling them to create greater positive change in the world. She has also worked as an executive director, designed and facilitated international service learning experiences, and taught university courses in fundraising and nonprofit management. Meghann earned a MPA in Nonprofit Management and Comparative and International Affairs from The School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, in Bloomington, IN and a BA in Art History and American Studies from Tufts University in Boston, MA.

Zack Burley

Policy Associate

Zack provides policy support for the Climate Mobilization team, and brings a versatile set of policy skills and experiences in labor organizing, journalism, legislative politics, and legal practice to the climate emergency movement. Zack earned a JD from Denver University Sturm College of Law, is a founding organizer of the Political Workers Guild of Colorado, and formerly served as a legislative aide in the Colorado General Assembly.

AriDy Nox

Co-Leader and Director of Narrative Strategy

 AriDy Nox is a multi-disciplinary black femme storyteller and social activist with a variety of forward-thinking creative works under her/their belt. They create out of the vehement belief that creating a future in which marginalized peoples are free requires a radical imagination. Their tales are offerings intended to function as small parts of an ancient, expansive, awe-inspiring tradition of world-shaping, created by and for black femmes. They have over a decade of experience as a young social activist and organizer, within reproductive justice and racial justice frameworks with organizations like the Young Women of Color Leadership Council with Advocates for Youth, the Toni Cade Bamabara Collective at Spelman College and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. They bring creativity, enthusiasm and a tremendous capacity for organization to her/their role and deep belief that times of apocalypse are opportunities for rebirth. We need first imagine the world we want in order to create it.