Checking In With Jack Hanson

Young Leaders Award recipient Jack Hanson is the co-founder and executive director of Run On Climate. He has been working to advance climate justice since his senior year of high school. In 2019, Jack was elected to the Burlington, Vermont City Council at the age of 24, breaking voter turnout records in the process. While on Council he championed numerous policies to reduce emissions and lower the cost of living in Burlington, including requirements for landlords to weatherize rental units, renewable heating requirements for new buildings, a citywide electric bikeshare system, a commitment and roadmap to get Burlington off of fossil fuels by 2030, and more. He started Run On Climate in 2021 to support other local-level leaders and climate activists working to advance climate action in their own communities.

We recently checked in with Jack to learn more about his background and plans for the conservation and regeneration of the planet.

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WS: Could you start by telling us a bit about yourself and what inspired you to embark on your current project?‍

JH: In 2018, I was wrapping up a two year fellowship at an environmental advocacy organization, pushing the Vermont Legislature to take stronger action on climate. I was feeling super discouraged because our coalition had put so much time, energy, and money into trying to get the legislature to pass meaningful climate policy, and yet not a single policy passed during those two years that would actually move the needle.

I started to wonder if my time and energy would be better spent pushing for action right in my community (Burlington, VT). I took a look at what the City was doing. While the City had taken a number of important steps, it wasn’t nearly enough. Burlington was failing to meet emission reduction targets that scientists say are necessary – and it was also failing to meet its own goals.

Burlington was and is full of people who care about climate, including many people who are engaged in climate activism. But almost none of them were focused on the local level. I started organizing to get people to pressure our city government to do more.

A few months later, we recruited a climate and housing activist to run for city council in my district so we could have a strong champion within local government. I agreed to be her campaign manager. Shortly after starting her campaign, she decided it was too much to take on and she dropped out. With the election fast approaching and no one to challenge the incumbent, I stepped up and ran myself, at the age of 24.

I was told not to run on climate, because it was not seen as a local level issue. I was told to focus on more immediate day-to-day concerns like trash pickup and parking; that no one had won a Burlington city council seat with climate as their top priority.

For me it was not optional. I knew I would rather focus on climate and lose the race than win while not prioritizing climate action.

We knocked on thousands of doors - every door in the district at least twice, and defeated the incumbent city councilor with record turnout.

While on council I led on the passage of numerous climate policies, including:

• Declaring a climate emergency and committing to a just transition off of fossil fuels.
• Approving the NetZero by 2030 roadmap, which lays out potential pathways and accountability mechanisms to getting Burlington off of fossil fuels by 2030.
• Adopting energy efficiency (weatherization) requirements for rental units.
• Expanding and improving bicycle, pedestrian, and transit infrastructure.
• Eliminating minimum parking requirements for new developments.
• Electrifying the City’s vehicle fleet.
• Expanding electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
• Investing in energy efficiency and decarbonization of City buildings.
• Restricting the use of gas-powered leaf blowers.
• Incentivizing electrification (heat pumps, electric vehicles, etc.), including larger incentives for low income residents.
• Requiring transportation demand management (incentives to help workers commute sustainably) for City employees and in new developments.
• Requiring renewable heating in new developments.
• Changing the City’s charter to allow it to regulate heating systems in buildings in order to eliminate fossil fuel use.

In 2021, shortly after I was reelected for a second term, two other community organizers and I launched Run On Climate to support others – local elected officials, candidates, grassroots activists – working to make change right in their own communities.

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‍WS: How might receiving the Walking Softer Young Leaders Award affect your project?‍‍

JH: The Walking Softer Young Leaders Award is a game changer for us. It’s the largest financial contribution we’ve ever received, and it is allowing us to grow our team and our impact.

Furthermore, the mentoring, education, and connections that the program fosters are invaluable. I imagine that a number of the folks I work with through the Young Leaders Award Program will become lifelong collaborators and friends.‍‍

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‍WS: In what ways does your project engage with local communities? How important is community involvement to the success of your initiative and why?

JH: Run On Climate is focused exclusively on local level action. Most people do not have substantial influence on their state government – and certainly not on the federal government. Yet almost everyone has the ability to make change in their community and in their local government. We are here to help them do so.

It is a privilege to support and collaborate with local organizers and community leaders. Perhaps even more rewarding is to connect these local climate champions with one another so they can learn from, teach, and inspire one another.

To address the climate crisis and create a sustainable, just, society, we need meaningful action in every single community. We are here to support and foster that local-level climate movement.

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‍WS: Could you share a particular success story from your project that you feel proud of?

JH: Last year, we were involved (through our 501(c)4) in a number of very close elections. Our electoral team, composed primarily of student interns in Vermont, spent the fall phone banking and remotely organizing for several climate champions running for city council in communities across the country.

In November, two of our top priority candidates were elected with razor thin margins; one of them was elected by 46 votes out of over 10,000 votes cast.

We can legitimately say that we made the difference in these tight races. Now, we are working with these newly elected city councilors to pass meaningful climate policy in Minneapolis, MN and Boulder, CO respectively.

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‍WS: What advice would you give to other young individuals who want to start their own environmental or climate projects?

JH: Before considering launching your own new project, start by understanding what is already out there. It may be that your dream organization already exists!

Before launching Run On Climate we spent about six months meeting with dozens of climate organizations. We specifically sought to connect with organizations working in a similar space to what we hoped to do.

These meetings made it clear that what we were hoping to do was very much needed, and was complimentary to the existing climate movement infrastructure. It also helped us refine what we hoped to do, finding a more specific niche where we could maximize our impact. What the meetings also did is they initiated important relationships with organizations that we still collaborate with to this day.

I still remain very open to the idea of Run On Climate merging with another organization(s) if at any point it makes sense in service of the broader movement.

If we see ourselves in competition with other organizations working on similar goals, we will all lose. We have to support one another and work in collaboration with each other. The forces opposing us (fossil fuel companies, corrupt politicians, etc.) are extremely powerful. We will make progress only by working together.

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Learn more about Jack's work:

runonclimate.org

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