The Other Power Source: How Community Organizing Can Accelerate the Energy Transition
by Erin Sprague, CEO of POW
In the face of escalating climate destruction and disruptive policies—like withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and gutting mission-critical agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service—what if we flipped the script and removed ourselves from the cycle of reacting to the chaos and leaned into building community power for change instead? Erin points to the ways we can shift the conversation from chaos to meaningful, community-driven solutions that push for more renewable energy, protect public lands, and foster real human connections.
Eighteen years ago, legendary backcountry snowboarder Jeremy Jones prepared to ride the kind of line that the mortals among us only see in movies—big powder, bigger cliffs, and a no-fall zone. His biggest concern that day wasn’t whether he could make the descent (he could, and he did). It was the realization that his beloved snowpack and mountains were changing.
What started with one snowboarder became Protect Our Winters (POW)—a movement for outdoor enthusiasts to advocate for systemic climate solutions. We advocated for the Inflation Reduction Act, helped introduce federal legislation to modernize the electric grid, and protected millions of acres of public lands from fossil fuel development. Our audience is crosspartisan, less initiated, and presents an opportunity to convert adjacent outdoor hobbyists into enduring climate champions.
Converting more climate champions is important–thanks to all of you, we have better, faster, and cheaper tech. But until we have more cultural and political willpower, deployment remains at risk. According to AP VoteCast, 7% of Americans prioritized climate in the 2024 election. Relatively, that’s up from 4% in 2020. On an absolute basis, that’s abysmal. There is a way forward–it’s not the biggest and most efficient, but it might just be the most persistent if we start with what and who we love, in the places we already live.
Don’t We Need Federal Policy Solutions for a Systemic Problem?
Yes we do. But right now, we’re all just trying to find a patch of dry land in the flooded zone of frozen federal funding, gutted agencies, and fake energy emergencies. I often think about POW athletes like Jeremy Jones, Jimmy Chin, and Mikaela Shiffrin in these moments. Like you, they are ambitious and expert in their problem-solving capabilities. When they face impossible conditions, they don’t wait around for things to change or put themselves in harm’s way. They get creative and find a better line.
Willpower for Climate Starts with Community Connection
There is a fresh, safe line waiting for us in the power of our communities. In the 2024 election cycle, the Democratic Party alone spent $1.5 billion in 15 weeks on the top-of-the-ticket. Very little of that funding went toward building lasting grassroots infrastructure. We saw this firsthand in Montana, where our action fund worked on the ground to mobilize 10,000 climate-conscious voters in a red state. After all our climate champions lost, I asked our field organizer what we should do next. Her response: “I’ll tell you the worst thing we can do. Leave.” We hired her full-time and stayed in Montana.
If we want more than 7% of Americans to prioritize climate when they vote, we need to build long-term trust and real relationships. We need to show up for people consistently, not just when we need something. It’s no coincidence that division and disinformation are at all-time highs while real, in-person connections in our communities are at all-time lows. Some questions for reflection:
Do you know the names of your neighbors?
Do you know your House Representative’s name and stance on climate?
Do you know how your local government works?
When you turn the lights on in your home, do you know where that electricity comes from?
Community Connections Organize Us for Power
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication Director Anthony Leiserowitz says it best:
“I don’t think the climate community, writ large, is particularly well organized for power. Most climate groups tend to focus on policy–they make rational arguments for why and how we ought to reduce carbon pollution. Of course that’s critically important, but it’s weak if you can’t deliver votes or flex political muscle. Unions are well organized for power. The National Rifle Association is very well organized for power. The NRA is about 4 million members in a population of over 300 million but they punch way above their weight because they are organized for power. The climate movement is potentially much larger than this but they’re not as organized.”
POW is organizing our outdoor audience for power. There are 175 million Americans who love outdoor recreation–we call this “the Outdoor State,” and it’s bigger than gun owners and other interest groups. While it’s currently fragmented, it’s also becoming more personally motivated. Over 1,000 of our members are still re-building from Hurricane Helene in Asheville, NC, and our first office burned down in the recent LA fires. Big things always start small. To organize, we are building local community hubs in California, Colorado, Montana, Maine, and Nevada, where we do fun things like hike, get coffee, complain about the weather, support solar projects at city council meetings, and get out the vote. Our audience isn’t just one constituency–anyone can use this foundational model of shared passion and local connection for power building. What will we use this power for? For one, we are not going to let city councils and local Facebook groups descend into the disinformation that prevents needed energy innovation.
More Organized Power Deploys More Actual Clean Power
Local officials have tremendous power to reduce oil and gas usage via utility regulations, transportation funding, zoning codes, and more. According to Nat Bullard’s Annual Presentation, there are more than 400 active local ordinances in the US against renewable power—quadruple the number from just four years ago. These efforts are often led by fossil fuel company opposition and disinformation. In Southwest Colorado, we directly experienced one such campaign, with false claims that solar panels cause cancer. We lost the battle for a needed solar installation and storage facility because we hadn’t built local relationships and trust in the face of disinformation. We gained a valuable lesson.
Contrast that with Pitkin County, Colorado. In 2017, its rural electric co-op, Holy Cross Energy, was 39% renewable and needed more solar and storage. We worked with decades-long brand partners like Aspen One to mobilize local advocates, sending so many POW members to meetings that officials (kindly) told us they got the message. The project passed. Today, Holy Cross is approaching 90% renewables. The final 10% will require more project deployment via continued community engagement. Holy Cross is widely considered a model for success and emulation to bring more renewable energy to the 42 million Americans in 47 states that are powered by rural electric cooperatives with locally elected boards.
At POW, our goal is to advance 500 megawatts of clean power onto rural grids in the next two years through community-led advocacy. Within and beyond these communities, this will also influence permitting processes, boost renewable deployment, and help de-risk investment in climate infrastructure. More clean power in our communities creates building blocks, precedent, and momentum for grid-scale transformation. In our world, blizzards result from snowflakes.
The Final Pitch
So much of modern life has become performative, from entrepreneurship to activism. In your arena, you know that the best startups endure because of their products, not their hype. Climate solutions will be the same. The “overnight successes” of tomorrow will come from the ground game we execute today. We’ll be running the ground game to advance clean tech by organizing and building power where we live.
If you’re an outdoor enthusiast, Join TEAM POW here. Growing our numbers is a part of power-building.
If you’re a founder/operator facing local opposition, contact us to get on our advocacy roadmap
If you’re an investor, fund both start-ups and adjacent advocacy efforts via philanthropy.
🎙️ Inevitable Podcast
🔥 John Mills, CEO and Co-founder of Watch Duty shares how the nonprofit wildfire alert app became a critical public safety tool—rising to #1 in the App Store during recent LA fires—and how it's evolving to support both communities and first responders. Listen to the episode here.
✨ Liz Muller, CEO of Deep Fission, returns to share her latest venture: a startup reimagining nuclear reactor design by placing it one mile underground. We discuss her shift from nuclear waste storage to power generation—and what it takes to build a new kind of nuclear company from the ground up. Listen to the episode here.
🍿 The Lean Back
Learn about Watch Duty on this episode of Inevitable.
👩💻 Climate Jobs
For more open positions, check out the Job Openings space in the MCJ Collective member hub or the MCJ Job Board.
Managing Director, Government Affairs at AMP Robotics (Remote)
Software Engineer at Arch (San Francisco, CA)
Product and Content Marketer at Base Power (Austin, TX)
Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist at Charm Industrial (Fort Lupton, CO)
Manufacturing Engineer at Exowatt (Austin, TX)
Account Executive at Moment Energy (Coquitlam, BC)
Vice President of Finance at Odyssey Energy (Remote)
Logistics Manager at Quilt (Redwood City, CA)
Senior Growth Writer and Strategist at Runwise (Remote)
Full Stack Software Engineer at Twelve (Berkeley, CA)
🗓️ Climate Events
MCJ Climate + Marketing Meetup: Monthly climate and marketing meetup to connect over marketing challenges in the climate space. We're doing a lean coffee-style meetup where participants submit, vote, and discuss chosen topics. (April 17)
Women in Climate: April Meetup: Join us for our monthly virtual gathering of women working in (or exploring) climate and the energy transition. For April, we’re diving into two timely topics: low-carbon cement, featuring leaders from Sublime Systems, and nuclear fission and SMRs, featuring leaders from Oklo. Bring your questions, ideas, and curiosity! (April 30)
MCJ Climate + Product Meetup: MCJ presents the monthly climate and product meetup. Participants connect over product challenges in the climate space. The style will be lean coffee. (May 1)
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