Wayne’s Sierra Club World: When Facts Fail—Organizing the Organizers for Change
By Wayne Tanaka, Chapter Director | Reading time: 5 minutes
As federal actions dismantle the very institutions meant to keep our environment, people, and democracy safe—and as the planetary crisis moves ever closer to the point of no return—it’s clearer than ever that hard science, facts, and logic, while critical, are simply not enough to save us.
The arts, the social sciences, and the cultivation of relationships grounded in lived experiences and shared values—for our children, for our health, for a fair and free society—are essential to turning away from the existential precipice we collectively face.
But with Western institutions of power decidedly entrenched against transformative, necessary change - and now actively working against these elements - these, too, standing alone will not spontaneously redeem humankind.
There is, however, a discipline that can weave together and leverage all of these critical components of change, to break our suicidal complacency, shift power, and drive the transformation we desperately need: the art and science of community organizing.
Listen. Ask questions. Spark conversations that question the status quo: What is at stake if we let this continue? Is this a dignified way to live? Is this the future we want for our children, our community, our home? Identify common problems and break them into manageable parts—root causes and symptoms—then identify the decisionmakers who have the power to fix them, but aren’t wielding that power responsibly. Then, with creativity and tenacity, use your collective people power—armed with facts, stories, insights, and action—to capture their attention and change their minds.
Take the small wins, the relationships forged in the fire of resistance, the shared realization that Taking Action to Change Things is not only possible but imperative—and snowball these into the next campaign, and the next, and the next, until we start moving mountains, and the earth itself.
This is how we shut down Red Hill, forcing the US Navy to finally concede–not by a single campaign, but by organizers building on networks forged in past struggles, themselves rooted in generations of collective action.
Hawaiʻi has a long history of people organizing against oppressive and unjust power: defeating two annexation treaties; breaking the plantation oligarchy; resisting evictions in Kalama Valley, Chinatown, Sand Island, and Waiāhole; reclaiming Kahoʻolawe; and defending Haleakalā, Mauna Kea, Kapūkakī, and Lahaina. All of these examples and many, many more illustrate how organizing has shaped our landscapes and social fabric, with people coming together to build a better world and a better future for our islands (speaking of art, you can see much of this history depicted in Mari Matsuda’s “It Was Never With Our Consent,” viewable here).
Over the years, the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi has invested substantially in helping keep this local legacy of civic and political engagement alive, alongside others—helping communities to organize and build coalitions around myriad challenges, all rooted in historical injustices and the resulting imbalances of power. But the stakes today demand that we amplify and accelerate this work.
That’s why we’re deepening our investment in those with the most at stake: our young people. Through our ʻŌpio Organizing for Change program, we are equipping youth with the tools and training to help their own communities organize and realize their true power, and ultimately take back control of our collective fate. This month, we have had the tremendous privilege to speak on advocacy and organizing for college students at UH Hilo, and led organizing workshops for haumana in Maui Kaiapuni classrooms - continuing the momentum we began last summer.
Our vision: trained organizers launching campaigns that not only win change in their communities, but also strengthen networks, share lessons learned, and coalesce into bigger and larger movements, locally and beyond are shores, that we need now more than ever before.
We need you in this work. If you know of young folks interested in a training or workshop, connect them with us—we will be hosting another youth workshop this fall.
If your community is wrestling with a challenge that organizing could help solve, reach out.
And if you or anyone you know has resources they’d like to contribute to this vision, donations—cash or in-kind—are absolutely critical for this work to continue. Thanks to an incredibly generous donor, donations to our organizing program will also be matched dollar for dollar.
Contact us at hawaii.chapter@sierraclub.org if you’d like to be a part of this movement-building initiative.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand” - and when the powers that be are dismantling our democracy, destroying all that sustains us, and driving us—and our childrens’ future—into oblivion, making a demand, and taking back power, is not an option—it is our obligation.