NEW ECONOMY ORGANISERS NETWORK (NEON)
Published 2013/07/03 at 10:47 am
Ensuring that climate change activists have the tools at their disposal to expose the financial system as the key driver of climate change.
It is becoming increasingly clear that far from being the solution, our economic system is the driver of climate change, through mechanisms including the privatisation of common resources, environmental deregulation, globalisation and the relentless pursuit of economic growth. Too often, however, climate campaigners lack the knowledge and connections to conduct campaigns on these issues, resulting in narrow campaigns that leave the root problems unaddressed. Meanwhile, campaigners outside of the traditional environmental sphere (trade unions and grassroots anti-austerity groups, for example) sometimes fail to appreciate the gravity and interconnectedness of the climate crisis.
The New Economy Organisers Network (NEON) is a new project from nef that seeks to remedy these problems by building a network of civil society organisers that have the knowledge, skills and connections required to set up and win high-profile campaigns on systemic economic issues. Through our pilot projects, including a mentoring scheme and masterclasses, we have already interacted with some 400 campaigners across 100 organisations, including grassroots movements (Move Your Money, 38 Degrees), trade unions (TUC), faith groups (the Quakers) and NGOs (Friends of the Earth, People & Planet).
Funding from APE has enabled us to:
Continue our Mythbusters programme: We’ll be adding three more articles and a practical guide on how to convince skeptics to our highly-acclaimed Mythbusters series.
Run an online course focused on the ‘mythbusters’ content: 500 campaigns are logging on every Tuesday evening to receive live webinars from the authors of our Mythbusters series, followed by Q&A and debate practise.
Run ‘Hack the Story’ workshops: we’re bringing together creatives, campaigners and economists to come up with a new and compelling story of our economic future.
To find out more about any of our programmes, email stephen.reid@neweconomics.org
We are delighted to have received funding from APE. So ingrained is neoliberal thought that it can be difficult to raise funds for projects such as NEON that are attempting to bring about systemic economic change. We are grateful to APE for acknowledging the important connection between the economy and our environment.”
