Citizens' Climate Lobby

Constant Love (2:26)

Champion Scale (9:40)

In Your Lobby Meetings (14:26)

Communication Skills (25:35)

Beyond Your Representative (28:06)

CCL Community Training Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/274

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CitizensClimateLobby

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CitizensClimate

Role of media (3:09)

Media manager role (4:09)

Overview of media opportunities (5:50)

Media resources from CCL (11:22)

Additional Practice & Resources (24:33)

Why In-District? (3:06)

Getting Started (7:25)

Planning Your Meeting (10:27)

Additional Resources (16:42)

Stories From the Field (17:44)

Local Climate Impacts Field Trip (25:40)

Role of the editorial board (1:52)

Examples of editorials (5:12)

Ways to engage your newspaper's editorial board (10:42)

Preparing for the meeting (16:43)

Closing the meeting (24:18)

As host of Citizens Climate Radio, Peterson Toscano had the pleasure of sitting down to record interviews with Marshall multiple times. In these lively conversations, Marshall's voice is filled with kindness, wisdom, tenderness, insights, and mirth. Whenever Marshall spoke about CCL, he  expressed an unshakable faith in individuals to do far more than they ever imagined possible. As a leader, he influenced hundreds of thousands of volunteers to believe something outrageous—that cooperation in the US congress leading to bipartisan climate legislation was not only possible, but inevitable. 

For our main section we return to the beginning and bring you an intimate, moving, and at times hilarious conversation with Marshall Saunders, founder of Citizens Climate Lobby, and Mark Reynolds, the executive director. They reveal their origin stories. Highly ambitions and successful businessmen, they seemed unlikely candidates to head up an organization that puts relationship-building and climate advocacy at its heart.

The Art House

 

Days after the 2016 US presidential election, Peterson interviewed Marshall again and asked if Marshall book recommendations for listeners. Instead of suggesting books of non-fiction about climate, policy, or civics, Marshall immediately pointed to a 19th Century novel. He encouraged listeners to consider Leo Tolstoy’s Resurrection. The book is about a man who loses his way in the midst of a quickly changing industrial world. Tolstoy’s most philosophical work, Resurrection reveals flawed characters in need of redemption and the wisdom they discover as they find their way back to the places where they belong.  South African author, Glen Retief reads excerpts from the novel.

 

Excerpt from Resurrection

We may say of a man that he is more often kind than cruel, more often wise than stupid, more often energetic than apathetic or vice versa; but it could never be true to say of one man that he is kind or wise, and of another that he is wicked or stupid. Yet we are always classifying mankind in this way. And it is wrong. Human beings are like rivers; the water is one and the same in all of them but every river is narrow in some places, flows swifter in others; here it is broad, there still, or clear, or cold, or muddy or warm. It is the same with men. Every man bears within him the germs of every human quality, and now manifests one, now another, and frequently is quite unlike himself, while still remaining the same man.” 

Puzzler Question

 

You are at a political rally chatting with a new friend. Let’s call her Heather. When you ask her if she wants to join your climate group, she says, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t have time for climate work. I feel bad saying that but I work full time and two children still in school, I don’t have time for protesting right now. 

It sounds like Heather as a limited view of what climate work looks like. How would you respond to Heather? 

Send Peterson your answer by February 15, 2020, along with your name, contact info, and where you are from. You can email your answers to radio @ citizensclimate.org or leave a voicemail of 3 minutes or less at 518.595.9414. (+1 if calling from outside the USA.)

 

Dig Deeper

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

Skip ahead to the following section(s):Actions For All (2:59)Group Development (7:12)Lobbying Congress (10:25)Media Relations (14:45)Grassroots Outreach (18:12)Grasstops Engagement (22:32)

CCL Training Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/384

Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/chapter-action-slides

Searching for ways to bridge the partisan divide in America, we hear this month from John Wood, Jr. at Better Angels, a national citizens’ movement “to reduce political polarization in the United States by bringing liberals and conservatives together to understand each other beyond stereotypes.” Wood is a national leader for Better Angels, a former nominee for Congress, former Vice-Chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, and author of the upcoming book, “Transcending Politics: Perspectives for a Divided Nation.”

Join CCL leaders from Texas, Ben Boral and Ham Richards, for a training that will walk you through how to utilize a new tool their team has created to help generate calls across your district for your member of Congress to create a steady presence of political will for a livable world and support for the Energy Innovation Act.

Monthly Calling Campaign: http://cclusa.org/mcc

Skip ahead to the following section(s):Background (3:38)How to make a call (6:37)Running a Calling Campaign (14:31)Success Stories from the field (27:26)Getting Support Ahead (35:04)

CCL Community Training Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/390Presentation slides: http://cclusa.org/calling-campaign

This training focuses on how to begin reaching out to your national faith headquarters, potential allies, and local places of worship, given that many voices within the faith community have been making a moral case for action on climate change.

Featuring the stories of Bill Bray (CCL Presbyterian Action Team & TX Woodlands Leader), Andy Panelli (CCL IL Chicago South Suburbs Group Leader), Nadine Sapirman & Ann Perry (CCL Unitarian Universalist Action Team Co-Leads) and Judy Berlfein & Dadla Ponizil (CCL Jewish Action Team and CCL CA San Diego North Co-Leads)

Skip ahead to the following section(s):Overview of Faith Outreach (2:19)Presbyterian Faith Outreach (6:45)Catholic Faith Outreach (15:49)Unitarian Faith Outreach (22:27)Jewish Faith Outreach (31:45)Where to Find Faith Action Teams (40:04)

Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/faith-outreach

CCL Community Training Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/337

Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/citizensclimatelobby

Twitter: http://twitter.com/citizensclimate/

In this episode you will meet a fellow climate action figure. Solemi Hernandez finds great joy and fulfillment in the climate work she does. In hearing some of her own story, we hope it inspires you in your own. Originally from Venezuela, Solemi has lived in the US state of Florida for the past 17 years. She seeks to improve conditions for immigrant farm workers. She is also raising her two sons, and Solemi has taken on a very big mission. She wants to save the world starting in her own community.  Like her father and grandfather before her, Solemi worked for the oil industry in Venezuela. In fact, she grew up in an oil town and saw firsthand the environmental and health hazards that came with the well-paid oil jobs. Once the oil industry became nationalized, Solemi moved to the USA and started on a very different path—as a social justice minded environmentalist. She began to volunteer with various groups including the Water Keepers Alliance and the Sierra Club. She helped create a local chapter of The Pachamama alliance, an umbrella organization that connects environmental and social justice organizations to work in the community. She also volunteered for Citizens Climate Lobby. Her concerns for her community and her passion to address climate change deepened in 2017 when she and her family endured a category 5 storm, Hurricane Irma. For three days the family lived in an emergency shelter in a public school that eventually also flooded. They returned to a devastated neighborhood. Their house survived the storm the region was without electricity for three weeks. With sweltering temperatures and limited supplies and resources, she and her community worked together to take care of each other. Solemi speaks about the added risks marginalized people face who do not have the income and mobility necessary to escape the storms and then to rebuild. Solemi admits that climate work is challenging, but she has found purpose and meaning in the climate work she is doing. Her enthusiasm is contagious, and her story is inspiring. Solemi Hernandez is Citizens Climate Lobby's Southeast Regional Coordinator covering Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. She first learned about CCL in 2017 and she immediately signed up as a volunteer because she was inspired by CCL’s mission to create the political will for climate solutions. She is currently enrolled as a Political Science student at Florida Gulf Coast University. She has been a grassroots activist and community organizer for many years in Florida.Prior to CCL, she worked as the co-host of a Spanish language TV talk show based in Southwest Florida. While at this position she had the opportunity to research and conduct in-depth personal interviews with political candidates and politicians. She has been volunteering with a number of organizations advocating in Tallahassee for the environment and the Everglades restoration.Solemi is the mother of two wonderful young boys who are her motivation to continue her work for a better quality of life for all. She enjoys reading, watching documentaries, spending time with family and friends, going to the beach and exploring nature in all its diversity.

The Art House

Playwright Chantal Bilodeau returns to the Art House. Every two years to coincide with the UN COP meetings, Chantal and her team organizes an international event, Climate Change Theatre Action. They select 50 short climate change themed plays from 50 playwrights around the world. This fall over 200 communities organized events in 30 countries where they read some of these plays. Chantal shares highlights along with good news about how the movement is growing both in and outside of the theatre community.  A book with all 50 of the 2019 plays will be published in 2020. The collection of 50 plays from 2017 is available now. 

Puzzler Question

We hear your answers to a question about what household might do with a carbon dividend. Your friend Darren thinks given out a dividend is a bad idea. He says, "People will just use the dividend they get to continue paying for fossil fuels. Giving them money enables them to stay in their fossil fuel lifestyles. Hear what listeners had to say. New Puzzler QuestionYou are at a political rally chatting with a new friend. Let’s call her Heather. When you ask her if she wants to join your climate group, she says, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t have time for climate work. I feel bad saying that but I work full time and two children still in school, I don’t have time for protesting right now. How would you respond to Heather? Send Peterson your answer by January 15, 2020, along with your name, contact info, and where you are from. You can email your answers to radio @ citizensclimate.org or leave a voicemail of 3 minutes or less at 518.595.9414. (+1 if calling from outside the USA.)Dig Deeper

The Elderly and the Disabled were Left Behind in Hurricane Irma. What Will Happen Next Time? (American Magazine)

Post Katrina and New Orleans homelessness (Real Truth)

The 17 Principles of Environmental Justice (Reimagine)

American Meteorological Society Explaining Extreme Events from a Climate Perspective This BAMS special report presents assessments of how human-caused climate change may have affected the strength and likelihood of individual extreme events. (American Meteorological Society)

The 5 biggest environmental and climate change stories over the last decade and what’s changed (ABC News)

You can hear Citizens’ Climate Radio on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, SoundCloud, Podbean, Northern Spirit Radio, Google Play, PlayerFM, and TuneIn Radio. 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.If you listen on iTunes, please consider rating and reviewing us!