The environmental movement received many setbacks last year, such as rollbacks in environmental protection policy and threats to prior climate gains, but we can reassert momentum by expanding our base to include both populists (workaday people) and progressives (typically influential in society)).
In 2021, President Biden cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline extension, which would have transported carbon-intensive tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska. This was a major victory for the environmental movement and the health of the planet, although the pipeline construction community lamented the loss of potential jobs. A similar situation occurred in coal mining, where reducing the use of coal, while environmentally sound, led to job losses. Small rural towns in Appalachia went from prosperous to poverty stricken.
Many factors have contributed to the decline of the coal mining industry. But workers, their families, and the communities that depended on them were left high and dry, economically. They were not included in the new energy economy.
Even if clean energy industries are anticipated, in most people’s minds the promise of a future job does not equal the loss of a current one. Psychologists call this neurologically based preference for current rewards, future discounting, or, in layman’s terms, the desire for “a bird in the hand.” In Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, biological (food security) and safety (a home) needs must be substantially satisfied before people will be motivated by higher needs—in this case, the long-term health of the planet.
To successfully broaden the environmental movement, we must address the economic needs of populists, not just the most powerful members of our society. Calling for a transition to cleaner sources of energy without regard to the economic impact on working people creates opposition and invites the pushback we are now experiencing. Instead, older, dirty sources of power should be phased out only when newer, cleaner sources are in place, watt for watt, job for job, and dollar for dollar.
Experience shows us that this approach can work. In 2020, democratic socialist Bernie Sanders spoke at a televised Fox News Town Hall and received cheers from the conservative audience when he linked jobs with environmental initiatives. In an article published in The Atlantic in November 2025, former New York Times columnist and author David Brooks reminded readers that an alliance between rural populists and urban progressives a century ago achieved important objectives. Among these was the creation of the U.S. Forest Service.
When we link the needs of populists and progressives, we can expand the environmental movement, avoid backlash, and achieve the Sierra Club’s core environmental objectives.