A Field Guide for Climate-Minded Citizens

Que Humanidad / Compiled & Mr. Alvarez’s Thoughts | AI Enhanced.

September 20, 2026

Why I Went Looking

I caught the tail end of a conversation a few days ago. Someone was talking about a fast-growing organization whose name started with “Democratic Socialist,” and somewhere in the same breath came “Socialist Party.” I did not catch the full name of either, and I did not want to interrupt to ask. So I went looking on my own, the way I usually do.

What I found turned out to be worth writing down. The name I half-heard belongs to one of the fastest-growing political organizations in the country, and it sits inside a landscape of parties, movements, and advocacy groups that is genuinely easy to confuse. Several of them have similar names. Several of them dislike each other. Almost all of them have something to say about climate.

At Climate Change Community, our work is about turning climate concern into climate competence, and part of that competence is policy literacy: knowing who is organizing, what they want, how they try to win, and where climate fits into their agenda. You do not have to agree with any of these organizations to be better off understanding them. If anything, the opposite is true. It is hard to argue well with something you cannot name accurately.

Two things before we start. This post is a map, not an endorsement. Inclusion here does not mean Climate Change Community LLC supports any organization, candidate, or platform. And this map covers one part of the political landscape — the one my overheard conversation sent me looking for. It is not a survey of American politics, and it should not be read as one. Membership figures are often self-reported and change quickly, so check each group’s own site for current numbers.

The Name I Probably Heard: Democratic Socialists of America

Start with the organization at the center of all this, because most of the confusion radiates outward from it.

DSA is a membership-based political organization rather than a political party in the legal sense — a distinction that trips up a lot of coverage. It was founded in 1982 through the merger of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the New American Movement, and it describes itself as a big tent on the left. Members work on three main fronts: electoral campaigns, labor organizing, and direct action. Its endorsed candidates usually run in Democratic primaries or on the Democratic ballot line, but DSA itself is organizationally separate from the Democratic Party. Its declared goals include stronger labor unions, universal health care, racial and gender equality, and a Green New Deal to address global warming. In 2026 it released an updated platform that has drawn heavy attention from supporters and critics alike.

The growth is the headline

Before Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run, DSA had only several thousand members. According to the organization’s own monthly figures, as reported by City & State New York, national membership stood at about 50,700 in October 2024 and reached roughly 92,900 by December 2025. On July 4, 2026, DSA announced it had passed 120,000 members.

Here is the detail that probably explains the “Socialist Party” half of what I overheard. In making that announcement, DSA claimed the title of largest socialist organization in U.S. history, saying it had surpassed the peak dues-paying membership of Eugene Debs’ Socialist Party of America. DSA put that 1912 peak at about 113,000, which matches Britannica’s figure, though historians’ counts range higher — some sources put it closer to 118,000 or even 150,000 depending on what is being counted. The gap does not change the claim much, and it does explain why two organizations a century apart were being discussed in the same sentence.

Much of the recent surge traces back to New York. Zohran Mamdani, a NYC-DSA member and former state assemblyman, won the 2025 mayoral race and was sworn in as mayor of New York City on January 1, 2026. NYC-DSA grew from about 5,900 members in October 2024 to more than 13,000 by the end of 2025. By midsummer 2026, DSA-backed candidates had won or advanced in at least 35 primaries nationwide heading into the November midterms.

Where DSA stands on climate

For our community, this is the part that matters most. DSA created an Ecosocialist Working Group at its 2017 national convention, its first organized climate effort. In 2019 members adopted a national Green New Deal campaign, and the organization later developed a strategy it calls Building for Power, which supports local and state campaigns for publicly owned energy, green social housing, public transit, and green space.

Its best-known climate win is New York’s Build Public Renewables Act, passed through the state budget in 2023. The law equips the New York Power Authority to develop renewable energy, and DSA organizers led the multi-year Public Power NY campaign behind it. Whatever you make of the politics, that is a concrete piece of climate legislation with an organizing campaign behind it, and it is worth studying on those terms alone. DSA’s climate organizers publish their strategy and reports at ecosocialists.dsausa.org.

The Question That Divides Everyone Else

Once you move past DSA, the landscape stops being a list and starts being an argument. Nearly every group below has taken a position on the same strategic question: do you work inside the Democratic Party, or do you build something separate from it?

That single disagreement explains more about these organizations than their ideological labels do. Two groups can sit close together on policy and still regard each other as obstacles, because one of them is running candidates in Democratic primaries while the other considers that a dead end. Keep the question in mind as you read, and the sections below stop looking like a directory.

The Independents

These groups run or support candidates under their own banners, or organize as independent parties. They differ widely in size, strategy, and ideology.

Socialist Party USA was formed in 1973 and carries forward the tradition of the old Socialist Party of America after that party split apart in the early 1970s. It describes itself as a multi-tendency party working toward a radical democracy: a classless, feminist, anti-racist socialist society built on cooperation at work, at home, and in the community. Unlike DSA, SPUSA insists on full independence from the Democratic Party. It is far smaller, with limited electoral presence, though it maintains state and local chapters, lists eco-socialism among its commitments, and is headquartered in New York City.

The Green Party of the United States is a federation of state Green parties, formally recognized as a national party in 2001, with roots reaching back to 1984. Its program rests on Four Pillars: peace and nonviolence, ecological wisdom, grassroots democracy, and social justice. On climate it is arguably the most explicitly ecological party on this list. Its platform calls for an Ecosocialist Green New Deal aiming for 100 percent clean energy and zero greenhouse gas emissions within a decade, a halt to new fossil fuel infrastructure, and a phase-out of nuclear power. The party holds no seats in Congress or state legislatures, but it does have elected officials at the local level.

The Peace and Freedom Party was founded in 1967 out of the anti-Vietnam War and civil rights movements. A socialist and feminist party, it currently holds ballot-qualified status only in California, where it counted roughly 154,000 registered voters as of May 2026. Its platform commits it to socialism, democracy, ecology, feminism, and racial equality, and it functions as an umbrella through which several socialist groups compete for its ballot line.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation was founded in 2004 in San Francisco. A Marxist-Leninist party, it combines demonstrations, political education, community organizing, and election campaigns; its 2024 presidential nominee was Claudia De la Cruz. It operates independently of the Democratic Party, reported a presence in more than 50 cities in 2024, and local branches describe rapid recent growth. PSL is also the most controversial group here. It has drawn sharp criticism, including from the Anti-Defamation League, over its Israel-related organizing, and organizations that share personnel with PSL have faced congressional scrutiny over their funding.

The Communist Party USA, founded in 1919 and headquartered in New York City, is the oldest organization on this list. It holds a Marxist outlook, publishes the People’s World newspaper, and uses the slogan “People and Planet Before Profits.” It claims more than 11,000 active members and pursues coalition work on labor, equality, peace, and environmental sustainability while remaining institutionally independent.

Socialist Alternative is a Trotskyist organization founded in 1986, the U.S. section of International Socialist Alternative, and it describes itself as a revolutionary organization campaigning for a new party of working people. Its best-known moment came in Seattle, where member Kshama Sawant won a City Council seat in 2013 and served for a decade. During her tenure Seattle became the first major U.S. city to adopt a $15 minimum wage, in 2014 — the small city of SeaTac had passed one by ballot measure a few months earlier, in November 2013. Sawant has since left the group to pursue her own projects.

Working Inside Democratic Primaries

These are not socialist parties, but they overlap with many of the same voters and often back the same candidates. They represent the other answer to the strategic question.

The Working Families Party is a progressive, labor-aligned party best known for fusion voting, which in states like New York lets a candidate appear on more than one party’s ballot line. WFP is active in 18 states and is led nationally by Maurice Mitchell. It often cross-endorses progressive Democrats while building its own ballot line where state law allows; in 2025, Mamdani appeared on both the Democratic and Working Families lines. Its current priorities center on affordable housing, living wages, and working-class economic policy. It is worth noting that fusion voting lets WFP occupy both sides of the strategic divide at once, which is exactly why it matters in New York.

Our Revolution launched on August 24, 2016, as an outgrowth of Bernie Sanders’ first presidential campaign. A 501(c)(4) political action organization, it recruits, trains, and supports progressive candidates from school board to U.S. Senate. Its current strategy focuses on electing progressives, getting corporate and billionaire money out of politics, and opposing what it calls the oligarch agenda. It can also be pragmatic: in 2026 it endorsed billionaire Tom Steyer for California governor, citing concern that a divided progressive vote could help a Republican.

Justice Democrats, founded in 2017, recruits insurgent candidates for Democratic primaries and is best known for helping elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. For the 2026 cycle it announced a dozen candidates and pledged that its slate would refuse money from corporate PACs, AIPAC, and the crypto and artificial intelligence lobbies. It names the climate crisis among the challenges its congressional caucus aims to confront.

Climate-Focused Allies Worth Knowing

Two more organizations belong here, not because they are parties but because they are where much of the actual climate work in this space happens.

The Sunrise Movement is a youth-led climate justice political action organization formed in 2017 and widely credited with popularizing the term Green New Deal. It credits its pressure campaigns with helping pass the Inflation Reduction Act and establish the American Climate Corps, and it runs electoral programs to turn out young voters. Under executive director Aru Shiney-Ajay, Sunrise has recently reorganized to connect climate action with resistance to authoritarianism, including organizing in Minneapolis during the 2026 federal immigration enforcement surge.

The Climate and Community Institute is a progressive climate and economy think tank backed by a network of more than 60 academics and experts. CCI helped define the Green New Deal for Public Schools, and in April 2026 it released a working-class climate agenda built around what it calls green economic populism: home insurance rate caps, bans on utility shutoffs, free transit, and other measures meant to lower household costs while cutting emissions. If you want the policy details behind the slogans, this is where to find them.

At a Glance

NYC-DSA maintains its own site at socialists.nyc, and DSA’s climate organizers publish at ecosocialists.dsausa.org.

Points of Debate

Honest dialogue means weighing the arguments on more than one side. These are the live questions.

• Supporters say DSA’s growth reflects real frustration with health care costs, housing affordability, stagnant wages, and inequality, and that its platform speaks directly to those everyday pressures.

• Critics question whether the sweeping constitutional and institutional reforms in DSA’s 2026 platform are feasible, and some conservative and religious groups argue that the organization has shifted further left as Marxist caucuses gained influence.

• Public understanding remains limited. A July 2026 Reuters/Ipsos poll found Americans nearly split on whether they understand democratic socialist policies — 49 percent said yes, 47 percent no. Only 27 percent said democratic socialists have at least some good ideas, while 51 percent said they have few or none.

• Strategy is contested even among climate advocates. When CCI unveiled its affordability-focused agenda, a spokesperson for the center-left think tank Third Way argued it fell short of both the ambition of the original Green New Deal and the practicality of the Inflation Reduction Act.

• And the groups disagree sharply with one another, especially over the strategic question above: work inside Democratic primaries, or build fully independent parties. That argument is older than any organization on this list and shows no sign of resolving.

A New York Note

For those of us in New York, this landscape is close to home. NYC-DSA is one of the organization’s largest chapters and has been visible in tenant organizing, labor fights, transit, housing, and public power campaigns. The Working Families Party also carries unusual weight here, because New York’s fusion voting rules allow candidates to run on more than one party line. If you live in the five boroughs, you are likely to encounter both groups at community meetings, on your ballot, and in debates over the city’s climate commitments.

Closing Thoughts

The Climate and Ecological Emergency will not be met by awareness alone. Our response will be shaped by the organizations people join, the candidates they support, and the policies they fight for or against.

You do not need to agree with any group on this list to benefit from understanding it. What matters is approaching this landscape with honesty, curiosity, and discipline: read each platform directly, compare its claims against independent reporting, and ask how each organization would actually help our communities adapt, stay resilient, and protect one another.

Visit their websites. Sit in on a public meeting. Bring what you learn back into the conversation. That is how climate concern becomes climate competence.

A companion piece published alongside this one — “Suggestions for Climate Organizations: Meetings Rooted in Compassion, Dialogue, and Adaptive Resiliency” — looks at the same question from the inside: not which organization to join, but what makes any of them worth staying in.

Sources and Further Reading

• City & State New York: DSA membership growth since the Mamdani campaign (January 2026)

• Reuters factbox via U.S. News & World Report: Who are the Democratic Socialists of America? (July 2026)

• Al Jazeera: Reuters/Ipsos poll on democratic socialist policies (July 2026)

• The Daily Signal: DSA’s 120,000-member milestone (July 2026). Note: a conservative outlet published by the Heritage Foundation, included here for the other side of the argument.

• NewsNation: DSA platform, funding, and debate (July 2026)

• Britannica: Democratic Socialists of America; Socialist Party of America; Green Party of the United States

• DSA Ecosocialists: Report to the 2025 National Convention; Building for Power campaign summary

• NYC-DSA: Statement on the Build Public Renewables Act

• Ballotpedia: Green Party; Socialist Party USA; Peace and Freedom Party; Our Revolution

• Common Dreams: Working Families Party and the 2026 midterms

• Anti-Defamation League: Party for Socialism and Liberation backgrounder (updated July 2026)

• ABC News: Justice Democrats’ 2026 slate (February 2026)

• Yale Climate Connections: Why the Sunrise Movement reorganized (July 2026)

• Grist: The Green New Deal has evolved (April 2026)

• University of Washington Libraries, SeaTac/Seattle Minimum Wage Project: sequence of the 2013 and 2014 wage ordinances

• The official websites of each organization listed above

A note on how this post was made: artificial intelligence is used to enhance my creativity and thinking. The research, drafting, and organization of this piece were AI-assisted; the perspective, the judgments, and the final choices are my own.

Que Humanidad / Compiled & cCc’s Thoughts | AI Enhanced.