being on a campus can be helpful at least, assuming it's the sort of place that can host an occasional conference.

climate change oriented groups can vary widely, as it is such a big/multi disciplinary issue and there are so many different actions or directions a group could take.

what might help is looking up schedules in those conference hosting spaces to find those events bringing in people from the national stage to present on their research, if the research was something at least tangentially related to my own. there was usually support for being a member of the broader campus community and attending lectures even though I wasn't registered. couldn't crash the free food easily, but as far as sitting in on panels and lectures like they were excited that I was curious lol.

it definitely helped to have a checked out boss that all I had to say was that I was attending a conference on campus and it would cost zero dollars.

anyway, they could be exhausting to attend, but I would meet people from all over the continent with similar interests coming up through similar institutions and we could talk about our experiences in the discipline and/or adjacent career paths, like for fed/state/local government agencies, private non profits, community action or "industry".

talking to lots of early career academics is kinda how I learned about those other alternatives, because invariably people burn out at the academy and go do something else with their fancy paper. agencies can do a real shit job of recruiting and most have onerous application processes. private non profits can be crazy opaque, especially smaller ones.

national and regional conferences tend to be the only times all these different sectors collide, so they can be illuminating in finding out what else is out there, professionally, and what they want.

its also one of those "weak ties" things, where sometimes you only see or communicate with some of these people once a year or so. like just enough to stay on the radar or reach out with a question/update. having lots of those weak connections is major. I mean, basically, it's the selling point of any social network platform: they offer to facilitate those weak ties for you all in once place with the same communication system in exchange for your personal information and the right to steer your attention.

but, we all have email and I've found that people tend to appreciate when I take the time to connect with them once every year or so with a personal/professional update and inquiry.

this feels rambly, so I'm gonna cut it off here. hope it helps?