Little Rock       Recently, President Trump in his usual stream of consciousness blurted out that he didn’t believe automobile exhaust caused air pollution.  I hope he’s not back to blaming trees again.  More frighteningly, a rumor circulated widely among the environmental cognoscenti, that the president was preparing an executive order that would declare groups working to mitigate against the damage to climate change and its impending dangers as operating outside the public interest and subject therefore in his executive view as warranting rejection of their tax exemption.

Against that backdrop, a variety of local organizations convened in Little Rock in a first meeting to organize the Arkansas Statewide Organizing Center or SOC, whose purpose is explicitly to collectively address the environmental and climate issues affecting people in that state.  This meeting was not a gathering of the usual suspects, long known for their environmental advocacy or of groups that would be on any list from the president or the Arkansas governor as enviros, but an assembly of ten very different groups who understood the issues were important to their members and had to be addressed.

The meeting was called by Local 100, United Labor Unions and the Arkansas Community Organizations, both membership organizations with roots in the state that stretched back 45 and 55 years, respectively.  KABF, the over 40-year-old, 100,000-watt noncommercial Little Rock-based radio station, was there.  KEUD, a brand-new station in Eudora, Arkansas, was represented.  The Unitarian church was there along with the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).  A bike-riding group was in attendance along with people from several counties active in EWOC, the Emergency Workers Organizing Committee, and Arkansas Renters United.  All of these groups and more were coming together because they had a base, understood the issues, and were willing to campaign and take direct action because they knew that, especially now, they needed to step in and step up.  They are looking to expand the SOC with more groups just like them in coming months.

The heart of the meeting was a discussion about campaigns, as the group looked to the challenges they were facing.  Two examples were presented, one concentrated on flooding and the other on the contamination produced by oil-and-gas waste.  Others around flood and home insurance were raised.  The impact of new policies from Washington and in Arkansas endangering local rivers, assessing penalties on protestors, and resisting public transparency were discussed.  It was clear that future meetings would make a decision, but that any collective campaign would be centered on a specific statement of the issues and demands, common targets, clear handles, and accessible actions for all of the groups’ members.

The Arkansas SOC was encouraged that they were not alone, but supported by Anthropocene Alliance, a national assemblage of 400 frontline groups dealing with similar issues, that has been assisting in the organizing of other statewide organizing centers in the region in Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Missouri.  Their staff at the meeting committed research, organizers, and any needed technical assistance to the efforts undertaken by the SOC, as well as the opportunity to join with other, similar formations as they emerged.  Meetings in the future with this expanding coalition will determine the course with this kind assistance.

In the sound and fury of the times what some elected leaders and their business and industrial supporters seem not to realize is that concerns about the environment and climate are not ideological issues, but self-interest issues.  The groups coming together in Arkansas and other states, as well as the Anthropocene Alliance, understand this clearly, and they won’t be so easily intimidated and stopped.