Matt Gladue, RE-AMP member and Organizer at ISAIAH.
ISAIAH helps people of faith “act collectively and powerfully toward racial and economic equity in the state of Minnesota.” The organization is relatively new to the climate and energy movement, yet is making waves already with a campaign to move Xcel Energy to create greater access to renewable energy for low-income communities. ISAIAH recently joined the Network as a new member organization, and I had a chance to catch up with Matt Gladue, an organizer with ISAIAH, to learn more about the organization’s current focus, to hear his thoughts on the most important opportunities for our work in Minnesota, and to find out what motivates him to do this work. Read the full interview below, and enjoy!
Jessica Conrad: What work related to RE-AMP’s goals is ISAIAH currently focused on?
Matt Gladue: Generally speaking, we are trying to build out a base of people in member congregations who are better informed and better equipped to act on climate change and environmental justice issues. That’s the bigger picture.
More specifically, we’ve launched a campaign to move Xcel Energy to create greater access to renewable energy, energy efficiency improvements, and weatherization improvements for low-income folks and folks who are not creditworthy.
Jessica Conrad: What do you see as the most promising opportunity for accelerating the transition off of fossil fuels in Minnesota right now?
Matt Gladue: The most promising opportunity I see is the recognition that we have done an amazing job of developing the right policy tools and that we now face the challenge of building the people power to compel both elected officials and decision makers in the utility field to take action on those policy ideas.
Jessica Conrad: How are you feeling about the potential of your participation in the RE-AMP Network to make a difference in your work with ISAIAH?
Matt Gladue: This focus on climate and energy is a new body of work for us, so we’re constantly learning about policy and about which levers we can pull to make policy changes possible. We can’t do that on our own. Being connected not just to the sheer number of organizations in the RE-AMP Network, but to the different kinds of organizations in the Network is really exciting. There’s so much potential for learning there.
Jessica Conrad: What motivates you to do this work?
Matt Gladue: In December of 2014, I read Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything. She starts her introduction by describing how her response to climate news was to say, “Oh, that’s awful. But I don’t want to have to think about it, so I’m going to assume that there are other really smart, really good people working on that issue.” Nevertheless she did some research and discovered that working on climate really meant working on the set of issues she was already engaged with and recognizing their interconnectedness. As someone who has spent almost all of my time organizing around racial and economic justice issues, I recognized myself in Naomi’s story and started to figure out how I could work on what may be the most pressing issue facing us today.
Another motivator is the base of leaders in ISAIAH who started to come to me and say “We really need to bring our particular expertise to this issue. It’s really important to us.” Their drive motivates me.
And finally, how do I put this? I’m a “Pope Francis Catholic.” I find his writing about how the economy and the environment are not separate entities but instead twin systems that need massive overhauls to be really, really compelling.