Dr. James Hansen was our guest for the May 2016 monthly call. Dr. Hansen is the American adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. Recognized by many as America’s leading climate scientist, Dr. Hansen is a member of CCL’s Advisory Board and is a strong advocate for CCL’s Carbon Fee and Dividend proposal. He is the author of Storms of My Grandchildren, and he recently spoke at the Berkshire-Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha to urge support for a revenue-neutral fee on carbon.

This Citizens' Climate University audio lesson covers how to prepare for a meeting with a member of Congress, including researching your member of Congress, assigning meeting roles and the power of practice.

This is the first in a series of four lobby training podcasts. In Lobbying 101, we review the basics of the U.S. Congress, discuss what it’s like to be a citizen lobbyist and demonstrate how citizens can build meaningful, long-term relationships with a congressional office.

In this update to the original Household Impacts Study lesson, CCL's Science and Legislative Director Danny Richter discusses the datasets used to fine tune the results and the resulting updated charts. The Household Impacts study estimates the impact our policy would have zip code by zip code, congressional district by congressional district, state by state, and for the nation as a whole. It breaks down what % of constituents in each geographic unit end up ahead by economic quintile, by race, and by various other useful distinctions.

In this lesson, we introduce the concept of total motivation and adaptive performance and discuss how to work them into your CCL team culture locally. Additionally, you'll hear from folks several CCL folks about what they are doing locally to create the conditions within which teams can motivate themselves.

The concepts and framework discussed in this lesson are based on the research of Lindsay McGregor and Neel Doshi (not CCL volunteers) in their book Primed to Perform: How to build the highest performing cultures through the science of total motivation.

Part one of Tabling 101 focuses on the what, why and where of tabling as well how to prepare for tabling and must-have and nice-to-have tabling resources.

Part two of Tabling 101 focuses on how to connect with people and sharing of tabling best practices of Citizens' Climate Lobby volunteers from across the country.

Author, teacher, consultant and public speaker Renee Lertzman was the guest for CCL’s April 2016 call. She teaches Psychology of Environmental Education and Communication in the MA program at Royal Roads University in British Columbia. Ms. Lertzman’s work focuses on the intersection of psychology, environment and culture to help organizations, governments and businesses devise communication and engagement strategies for the uniquely challenging nature of environmental work. Her latest book is Environmental Melancholia: Psychoanalytic Dimensions of Engagement.

U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Republican who represents Florida’s 26th District, is our guest for the March 12 call. Along with Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), he recently formed the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the House. Congressman Curbelo was also the first Republican to cosponsor the climate resolution introduced by Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY) last September.

Meeting in the home district of a member of Congress increases the likelihood of a face-to-face meeting and allows more CCL volunteers to participate in lobbying. This session will cover why "In-District" is so important and how to involve local people of influence (faith, business, labor and political leaders) in the meetings. And we'll demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by describing some of our greatest successes. 

CCL's Marketing and Liaison Director Ashley Hunt-Martorano, and two of our most experienced citizen lobbyists, Marti Roach and Jay Butera, discuss strategies for successful in-district lobbying.