College Climate Organizing Internship
The campaign:
Mighty Earth is launching a new campaign to transform and decarbonize the auto industry. The transportation sector is responsible for a shocking 24% of world emissions – largely due to cars.
As automobile producers move to electric vehicles, by 2040 materials used for production will account for 60 percent of life-cycle emissions. This means in addition to going electric the auto industry must shift material supply chains to include green aluminum and steel, deforestation-free and sustainable leather, rubber, and other materials to be truly carbon neutral.
As a global leader in the automobile industry, General Motors (GM) is uniquely positioned to set the industry standard for supply chain decarbonization. In 2021 GM announced they plan to be carbon-neutral by 2040 and eliminate tailpipe emissions from new light-duty vehicles by 2035. However, going electric is just the start.
The destruction from GM’s material supply chain spans almost all continents. In Guinea, mining for bauxite – the key ingredient used to make the aluminum in car bodies – is driving rampant environmental destruction on Indigenous territories. Meanwhile, in China, the dirty coal-fired smelters producing GM’s aluminum are run by the forced labor of Uyghurs, the ethnic Muslim minority persecuted by the Chinese government.
This past April, GM announced the EcoCar EV Challenge partnering with 15 North American universities to develop the EV car of the future. Mighty Earth is looking to hire college organizers on these campuses for our campaign to tell GM to cut the carbon and the human rights abuses in their supply chain.
Who you are:
We are looking to hire paid intern organizers at universities participating in the EcoCar EV Challenge including:
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University/ Bethune-Cookman University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology
Mississippi State University
The Ohio State University / Wilberforce University
University of Alabama
University of California, Riverside
University of California, Davis
University of Texas at Austin
Virginia Tech
West Virginia University
We are looking for candidates who:
- Are outgoing
- Enjoy planning public actions and events (or are excited to learn how)
- Are passionate about climate change, the environment and human rights
- Are self-starters who take initiative and get things done
Scope of work:
- Represent Mighty Earth on your campus and to students and clubs
- Plan and execute creative public actions to pressure auto companies to decarbonize
- Drive turnout of students to events
- Gather large numbers of petition signatures on campus
- Apply pressure on auto companies by generating phone calls, letters, and social media posts aimed at them
- Execute a plan to build a large group of engaged and excited students who are ready to mobilize and act
- Generate media attention through op-eds, letters to the editor, and talking to reporters
Compensation:
This internship will pay $20 an hour and will require 15-20 hours/week of your time. The position lasts through May 06, 2023.
To apply:
Please submit a resume to [email protected]. We will fill positions on a rolling basis and aim to hire during December for intern organizers to start in January. Please include 3-4 sentences in the body of your email about why you want to intern for Mighty Earth.
Who we are:
Founded in 2015, Mighty Earth is a global advocacy organization working to defend a living planet. Our goal is to protect half of Earth for Nature and secure a climate that allows life to flourish. Mighty Earth achieves transformative change by creating a “perfect storm” of campaigns, communications, and practical engagement with decision-makers to rapidly transform entire industries and government policy.
We have played a leading role in driving the transformation of whole industries and government policy to stop the destruction of tropical forests, transform agriculture, and drive multi-billion-dollar shifts to clean energy. Through our campaigns, we seek to make significant progress to support impacted people around the world, especially Indigenous communities, communities of color and low-income communities, including by protecting land rights and combatting modern slavery.
