Deciding what one wants to do and be in life has often been hard for young people in high school and college. Now with a global pandemic in a time of climate change, it is more difficult than ever to answer the questions, What do you want to be when you grow up?

Many graduation speeches exhort us to Pursue our Passions, and many a parent worry that such a pursuit will lead their child into a jobless future.

Flannery Winchester was not put off by the concerns of others. She wanted to study English literature. She had no idea her skills and passion would lead her to taking on a national role in communicating to people about climate change. 

As Citizens Climate Lobby’s Communications Director, Flannery Winchester trains and supports volunteers to publish written pieces in local media, appear on TV and radio. She also pitches national media, manages and edits the CCL blog, and keeps our volunteers informed and inspired through social media and regular newsletters.

Flannery came to CCL after content and marketing roles at an email marketing agency, an international software company, and a local women’s magazine in Atlanta. She began volunteering with CCL in 2015 and joined the communications department in 2017. When she’s not working, she’s probably gardening, reading, or spending time outside with her dogs.

The Art House

Krista Hiser is back with another instalment of the Ultimate Cli-Fi Book Club. This time she looks at a book that hits very close to home. She dives into the Pandemic and climate change in Emily St. John Mandel’s novel, Stations Eleven.

You can hear standalone versions of The Art House at Artists and Climate Change

Good News Report

Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz, and this is Climate Connections shares good news. Electric trucks could save lives: Pollution from diesel trucks is associated with health problems, and it disproportionately harms low-income people and communities of color. 

 

You can hear Citizens’ Climate Radio on:

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Also, feel free to connect with other listeners, suggest program ideas, and respond to programs in the Citizens’ Climate Radio Facebook group or on Twitter at @CitizensCRadio.

Join CCL Research Coordinator Rick Knight for a training that will explore what methane is, where it comes from, and how it affects the climate.  The training also explores the various measures that have been enacted, other policy designs that have been proposed to control and how it fits in with CCL’s overall climate advocacy.

 

Skip ahead to the following section(s):

(0:00) Introductions and agenda

(3:04) What methane is and why we should care

(10:15) Where methane comes from

(21:19) Methane policies and regulations

(34:16) How methane fits in our advocacy

Presentation Slides and citations: http://cclusa.org/methane-fee-slides 

CCL Community Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/events/item/24/9004

Join CCL Research Coordinator Jerry Hinkle for a review of six different climate impact and policy tools available to CCL volunteers in the Local Impacts category of our resource directory to help you understand the impacts on the state level. Jerry will review some of the recent research available to include in your advocacy, including the Health Co-Benefits by State from Decarbonization, Household Impact Study Resource, Rural Economic Benefits of Climate Policy, and Climate Central's Tools.

Skip ahead to the following section(s):

(0:00) Intro & Agenda

(4:31) PNAS: Health, Agriculture & Labor Benefits

(8:18) Household Impact Study

(10:18) Nature: Poverty Alleviation

(12:24) MIT: Net Climate Policy Benefits

(15:11) Rural Economic Benefits

(20:30) State Climate Policy Dashboard

Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/state-level-climate-tools 

CCL Community Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/events/item/24/9003

Support from faith communities carries considerable influence with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, 30% of whom are Catholic. This month, we'll hear from José Aguto, executive director of Catholic Climate Covenant, which helps U.S. Catholics respond to the Church's call to care for creation and care for the poor. José will talk about the Covenant's work, how to connect with Catholics on climate, and the Covenant's support for climate solutions like the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. José worked for the Friends Committee on National Legislation before joining Catholic Climate Covenant. He served in the U.S. Army and is a graduate of Brown University and Villanova Law School. 

Skip ahead to the following section(s):(0:00) Intro & Agenda(4:51) Jose's Presentation(20:42) Q&A Discussion(28:10) Legislative Update(33:44) CCL January Actions

CCL's January Action Sheet: https://cclusa.org/actionsheet  January Pre-Call Video: https://vimeo.com/663491023 Catholic Climate Covenant: https://catholicclimatecovenant.org/ CCL's January President and Senate Action Campaign: https://cclusa.org/take-action We're All Part of God's Plan(et): https://godsplanet.us/ Laudato Si Action Platform: https://laudatosiactionplatform.org/ CCL's March 29 - 30, 2022 Conservative Conference: http://cclusa.org/conservativeconference Vatican Statement Supporting Carbon Pricing:https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2019/june/documents/papa-francesco_20190614_compagnie-petrolifere.html CCL's Resilience Hub: https://cclusa.org/resilience

Join Todd Elvins, CCL's Action Coordinator, for a training that provides a thorough action guide organized by CCL’s lever of political will that your group can use to plan and coordinate your areas of focus for the year ahead. Know that we trust that each group will do what is appropriate for its local politics and volunteer resources.

CCL Community Training Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/384 Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/chapter-action-slides 

Skip ahead to the following section(s):(0:00) Intro(3:00) Planning Guide & Important Dates(5:38) Being An Oasis In The Storm(9:40) Educating & Activating Your Communities(13:52) Getting Voters To Ask Candidates & Elected Officials For Climate Action(19:26) New Years' Resolution & Social Media Action

Citizens’ Climate Radio is a monthly podcast hosted by CCLer Peterson Toscano. Browse all our past episode recaps here, or listen to past episodes here, and check out the latest episode in the post below. 

How can we help the public embrace the science that reveals our climate has been changing dramatically and very quickly? And more than that, how do we make them feel and experience the data so profoundly that it causes them to respond? 

These are the questions UK-born artist Caroline Roberts brings to this month’s episode of Citizens’ Climate Radio, and to her art installation, the present of my life looks different under trees. This piece is an immersive installation of cyanotypes that has been exhibited at BOX13 ArtSpace and HCC Southwest in Houston, TX.

Originally from the UK, Caroline moved to Houston, Texas, 18 years ago. She explains that a story about drowned forest thousands of years ago in the UK, along with recent flooding in her city, inspires and informs her artistic work. 

“The installation consists of 60 11-feet high panels, each one representing a year of Houston weather data and encircling the Back BOX like a grove of trees. Each varies in width based on the rainfall intensity, as measured by the number of days on which the total rainfall was greater than three inches: the point at which street flooding occurs. The panel color, from ice-blue to blue-black, represents the average nighttime temperature for that year. At first glance the immersive nature of this cyanotype installation provides a cool environment as Houston temperatures fall into autumn. However, a closer look gives the bigger picture: more shocking than any graph, this forest-like environment shows the story of rising temperatures and intensifying rain events.”

While Caroline started her career as a chemical engineer with the faith that science would save the environment, she soon realized that many fields and talents could contribute to environmental advocacy. 

Caroline has always relied on science, and after crunching the numbers about the future of the country’s coastline due to climate-related flooding, she found herself in a state of horror and shock for weeks.

Caroline wanted people’s jaws to drop when they saw her art, which visualizes the overwhelming information she has seen predicted for the near future. As environmental conditions over time have grown worse, her installation’s fabric coincides, growing heavy and darker and colder as the fabric winds through history and to the present.

Caroline says that viewers were “gobsmacked” by her forest of fabric, and hopes that all who see her piece will contemplate the view of their own life under trees.

For more information on the data behind this installation please continue to the story and data page.

The Art House

For this month’s segment, you will hear a dramatic reading of Kamil Haque’s play, “Confessions of the Little Match Girl to the Star.” Kamil explains that in creating this piece, he chose to fracture a fairy tale, a nursery rhyme and the calling out to one’s “mama.” These common symbols of innocence form the spine of the play. 

To create the heart and soul of this piece, Kamil examined and extracted pieces from the transcripts of Greta Thunberg’s 2019 U.N.'s Climate Action Summit and George Floyd’s final moments in 2020. Through these channels he explores how two people on opposite ends of the age and racial spectrum express grief and anguish at their circumstances. How might their spirit and the spirit of their message live on literally and metaphorically?

“Confessions of the Little Match Girl to the Star” was performed at The BTS Center’s Climate Change Theatre Action 2021 event. It is read by Dr. Natasha DeJarnett, a public health expert and the chair of Citizens’ Climate Education board. 

You can hear standalone versions of The Art House at Artists and Climate Change.

Good News Report

Our good news story this month comes from Solemi Herandez, the Southeast coordina

Citizens’ Climate International had a major presence at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, and Isatis Cintrón Rodriguez was a big part of that presence. The Latin America Regional Coordinator for CCI and a CCI founding board member, Isatis addressed the High-Level Segment of the COP26 negotiations in Glasgow on the value of stakeholders’ active participation in the design and implementation of climate policy. She talks about her work at COP26 and how people affected by climate change can have input into solving the problem. In addition to her work with CCI, Isatis is a doctoral candidate in cryospheric science at Rutgers University.

Skip ahead to the following section(s):(0:00) Intro & Agenda(2:56) Conversation with Isatis(25:25) Legislative Update(35:14) CCL December Actions

CCL's December Action Sheet: https://cclusa.org/actionsheetDecember Pre-Call Video: https://youtu.be/V1_JwSsBKSw Donate to CCL: https://cclusa.org/give More about Citizens' Climate International: https://citizensclimate.earth/ Subscribe to the CCI Newsletter: https://www.citizensclimateintl.news/

Join CCL Research Coordinator Dana Nucitelli for a review of a new tool from Dr. Drew Shindell's lab that helps advocates display on the state-level climate co-benefits. Dr. Shindell's research is one of the main underpinnings behind CCL's emphasis that carbon pricing also helps clean the air and saves lives  based on his recently published peer-reviewed article in PNAS: Temporal and spatial distribution of health, labor, and crop benefits of climate change mitigation in the United States.

Skip ahead to the following section(s):(0:00) Intro & Agenda(2:07) About Dr. Shindell's Team(5:01) Overview of the Results(7:25) Value of a Statistical Life(12:12) Introducing the Tool(15:29) Explaining the Scenarios(22:53) Choosing Your Impact

Tool: http://shindellgroup.rc.duke.edu/apps/decarb/ PNSA Article: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/46/e2104061118 Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/state-climate-health-toolCCL Community Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/425

Join Citizens' Climate International's Global Strategy Director Joseph Robertson, Cathy Orlando, Citizens’ Climate International Program Director, Isatis Cintron, CCI Board Member and Latin American Regional Coordinator and Solemi Hernandez CCL Southeast Regional Coordinator for an update and review on all that happened at COP26 and how it connects with CCL's work. 

Skip ahead to the following section(s):(0:00) Agenda and Intro(1:33) What is COP and Why is it important?(7:50) COP26 Outcomes & Article 6.8(12:20) Canada(20:59) ACE - Action for Climate Empowerment(36:20) People's Pavilion(42:14) Road to COP27 and Conclusion

Presentation Slides: https://cclusa.org/cop-26-slides CCL Community Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/383 Background reading:https://www.citizensclimateintl.news/p/cci-welcomes-cop26-commitments-to https://www.citizensclimateintl.news/p/glasgow-outcomes-need-to-protect

Extreme weather creates disruption and displacement; it requires extreme hospitality.