https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ciHbl_W7BXBtrcbI7DpwSk_W6I58bYAT1ZEGl62hI7I/edit?tab=t.0
Here is a shareable Google Doc for a tenant and climate rights toolkit I developed as a Stewardship Project for a naturalist certification course I took at the Cosumnes River Preserve from April - early June 2026. One of my main goals while taking the course was in thinking deeply about how WCU as an org can more explicitly connect environmental issues with our ongoing tenant union efforts, and how naturalist skills can also be useful when applying them to urban spaces like Stockton.
One particular section I’d like to develop further that extends beyond WCU priorities and intersects with my growing interest in environmental literacy is building upon the concept of “urban naturalism,” where one observes, documents, and studies the ecology and wildlife that exists in human-made environments. Urban naturalism as a concept can help foster environmental stewardship by making Nature accessible to everyone, regardless of whether someone can travel to a state park or nature preserve. My working goal with this toolkit is to develop a working-class conception of environmentalism and how that may look within Stockton and the broader San Joaquin area.
Either in Fall 2026 or Fall 2027, I’m thinking of continuing my environmental education by taking a climate stewardship course that is also available out at the Cosumnes River Preserve, as a way of expanding upon how to engage working-class people with environmental issues. The course only costs $50 this year and next due to the Cosumnes River Preserve acquiring some federal grant money a while ago, so it’s a good time to take advantage of that rather than paying a few hundred dollars.
https://www.cosumnes.org/cosumnes-river-preserve-uc-climate-stewards-certification-course/
Like really anything that we’ve developed within this org, I don’t consider this as the final version for the toolkit, as I still intend on adding more sections over time, such as shareable DIY resources for repairs that tenants can then teach to their neighbors. Another section involving the environmental history of Stockton/San Joaquin could be developed further, and the language of the toolkit currently lacks an explicit connection to capitalism in exacerbating both housing and environmental issues. As it stands at the moment, this is a decent structure to build from that I’m hoping WCU may find some use of going forward, whether adapting the language and certain sections for future outreach materials or strengthening our presence at Stockton’s Earth Day Festival if we ever decide to do outreach at that next year. Ideally, I’m hoping that parts of this toolkit could one day be incorporated into a tab about tenant rights on the main page to the WCU website (similar to our KYR tab), as I feel that having more accessible/interactive info on the main website page helps give us a more professional appearance.
My naturalist course has helped reignite a passion I’ve had for environmental literacy and justice since I went to college up in Humboldt, and going forward with my own personal and career pursuits, I’m trying to engage in these issues more thoughtfully and to connect this interest with the work I’ve already been helping with through WCU.
Feel free to look through the toolkit. Suggestions/comments would be appreciated on how to develop it further.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0IsUcn6JxM
As a bonus, I found this episode from 1Dime Radio that I felt expresses some of my frustrations I have with the failure of leftists (in a general global sense) in failing to present a case for environmentalism and climate activism that actually represents working-class struggles and lived-in experiences. The guest is Matt Huber, a professor of the Geography and Environment Department at Syracuse University and the author of Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet (2022). A lot of the podcast discussion centered around how a lot of mainstream environmental messaging alienates a lot of people because it focuses and centers on people’s consumption habits, rather than the global production chains that reinforce environmental degradation and the exploitation of labor from the Global South in order for cheap commodities to be produced. Climate change is a serious issue that must be contended with when offering any serious far-left alternative, whether it’s socialist or anarchist, etc., because we are already dealing with the effects of climate disaster and how those effects are resulting in the emboldening of “ecofascism,” where environmentalist rhetoric can be used to strengthen authoritarian and ethno-nationalist claims regarding population control and immigration because the Left in general has failed to provide a nuanced take on these issues.