How are communities uniting against fracking and tar sands to change our energy future?

Working across Lines offers a detailed comparative analysis of climate justice coalitions in California and Idaho—two states with distinct fossil fuel histories, environmental contexts, and political cultures. Drawing on ethnographic evidence from 106 in-depth interviews and three years of participant observation, Corrie Grosse investigates the ways people build effective energy justice coalitions across differences in political views, race and ethnicity, age, and strategic preferences. This book argues for four practices that are critical for movement building: focusing on core values of justice, accountability, and integrity; identifying the roots of injustice; cultivating relationships among activists; and welcoming difference. In focusing on coalitions related to energy and climate justice, Grosse provides important models for bridging divides to reach common goals. These lessons are more relevant than ever.

About the Author

Corrie Grosse is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University, where she teaches, researches, and organizes at the intersection of energy and climate justice.

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Energy and Political Landscape: Climate Crisis, Extreme Energy, and the
Climate Justice Movement

2. The Organizing Landscape: Research Context

3. Idaho Part 1: Talking across Political Lines by Building Relationships

4. Idaho Part 2: Talking across Political Lines by Agreeing to Disagree

5. Working across Intersectional Lines: Youth Values and Relationships

6. Working across Organizational Lines: Grassroots and Grasstops Tensions and
Possibilities

7. Two Tales of Struggle: Coalition Building against Big Oil

8. Lessons from Measure P and the Megaloads: Native–Non-Native and Latinx-White
Coalition Outcomes

Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"Working across Lines is the book we need during these divided times. Accessible and engaging, it offers a dose of hope to counteract the demoralization that often follows an honest assessment of what is needed to address the climate crisis. Hope—as Corrie Grosse reveals—can be found in the compelling stories of everyday people with very different political orientations successfully working across lines of difference to resist extreme fossil fuel extraction. This book is situated nicely within a growing literature on climate and environmental justice. What this book does that most do not is to demonstrate how successful and diverse coalitions striving for climate justice work."—Shannon Elizabeth Bell, author of Fighting King Coal: The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia

"The fossil fuel resistance is full of stories of hope—after all, without it our odds of fighting climate change are slim. Working Across Lines powerfully connects storylines, including the author's own journey, to bring to light two examples of where the resistance is at its most impactful. At once deeply researched and highly personal, this book is important reading to understand our particular moment in time."—May Boeve, Executive Director, 350.org

"Corrie Grosse has produced a first-rate study that explores one of the most important questions of our time: how can ordinary people practice coalition building across formidable political and cultural divides to build stronger, more effective, and more equitable movements for climate justice? This is the book I've been waiting for!"—David N. Pellow, author of What Is Critical Environmental Justice?

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews