Citizens' Climate Lobby

CCR 53 Andrew Stuhl with Lessons from a 1972 Flood and Lynn Neuman is Dancing with Plastic

Andrew Stuhl, an associate professor of environmental studies and sciences at Bucknell University, has been interviewing residents from Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River Valley about what they remember about 1972. He keeps hearing about the powerful smell of flood mud. This was the pungent odor throughout the Susquehanna Valley after Hurricane Agnes brought historic rainfalls and a massive flood which upended lives and reshaped towns and waterways.

“It reminds me of the connection between smell and memory, and how quickly a memory can come back to you if you smell something in the present day,” Andrew tells podcast host, Peterson Toscano.

"I like to think about that as a metaphor for the importance of history and the importance of moments like Hurricane Agnes. They’re always with us, and sometimes they don’t come to our immediate senses, but they can be triggered, and they can be brought up really quickly. I like to believe in the power of memory and history, to mine those experiences, to reflect on them, and recognize and regard them, so we that can walk today in the difficult moments, and get through them.”

Andrew talks about his community-based research, the Agnes Flood Project. You will learn why this one storm is still so important, not just for the region, but for the entire country. Lessons drawn from 1972 and the resiliency modeled by local residents during and after the storm will help us in coping and caring for each other during the Coronavirus Pandemic and with the growing risks of climate change.

If you or someone you know have Hurricane Agnes stories to share for the Agnes Flood project, contact Andrew Stuhl and the team. They are also looking for pictures from the hurricane and its aftermath. Email agnesrevisited@gmail.com. This story was made possible through a collaboration with Susquehanna Life Out Loud podcast.

The Art House

How does an artist decide to do the work she does? How does that work evolve overtime? What impact does it have on the audience and how can an artist deepen that impact? During a recent conversation with dancer and choreographer, Lynn Neuman, Peterson Toscano encountered an artist with boundless curiosity. This curiosity drives her work.

As director of Artichoke Dance Company, Lynn recognizes the vital role art plays in addressing issues like climate change. Entertaining and Educating not enough though for Lynn and her company, though. They always want to do more to get people to act. Through community engagement and direct outreach to lawmakers, they are training community members how to change legislation.

And in this time of the Coronavirus pandemic Lynn Neuman and Artichoke Dance Company have been adjusting and adapting once again. See their Covid Creations. “It reflects our feelings of isolation and desires for connection during the corona virus. Filmed at various times of day, the series reflects the available bandwidth of the internet.” 

Dig Deeper

• Hurricane Agnes, National Weather Services

• Tropical Storm Agnes devastated Pa. in 1972: ‘Battered, lashed, flooded and paralyzed’ Penn Live

• The 1972 Agnes Flood at Milton, PA, video with archival footage

• Dancing In Plastic — How One Woman Is Shining A Light On Plastic Pollution, Medium and accompanying video 

• Waste Side Story, Robin Michals photography collaboration with dancer Lynn Neuman.

• New York State’s Bag Waste Reduction Law, NY Dept of Environmental Conservation

We always welcome your thoughts, questions, suggestions, and recommendations for the show. Leave a voice mail at 518.595.9414. (+1 if calling from outside the USA.) You can email your answers to radio @ citizensclimate.org. 

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.

 

Oct 2020 | Alex Posner | Citizens Climate Lobby

As we seek the common ground between Republicans and Democrats on climate solutions, Students for Carbon Dividends (S4CD) has emerged as an important ally in building support on college campuses for revenue-neutral carbon pricing. Alex Posner, President and Founder of S4CD, joins our October call to share about the work his organization is doing to bring Republicans on board and the growing movement of the EcoRight, especially among young conservatives. A speaker at CCL’s June conference in 2018, Alex holds a BA in History from Yale University and is also a volunteer with Magicians Without Borders.

 

Helpful Resources:

+ Students For Carbon Dividends: https://www.s4cd.org/

+ Economist Statement on Carbon Dividends: https://www.econstatement.org/

+ Register for CCL's December 2020 Conference: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/december-2020-online-conference/

 

CCL Training: Using CCL's Action Tracker

Join CCL's IT Department for a training that will debut the new action tracker tool, an update to CCL's field reporting system. The Action Tracker is an online application that will log and display the actions CCL Supporters are taking every day.

Skip ahead to the following section(s):
Why Was The Tracker Created? (3:13)
What Are The New Benefits? (6:23)
Tutorials: How Do I…? (10:45)
Testimonials From Volunteers (27:10)
Future Plans (30:44)

Action Tracker link: https://cclusa.org/actiontracker

Presentation slides: https://cclusa.org/action-tracker-slides

CCL’s Training Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/183

CCL Training: A Social Psychological Framework For Climate Advocates

Join psychologists David Sherman and Leaf Van Boven (CCL's Sept 2018 monthly speakers) as they review the main findings and framework for their recent research. Deepen your understanding of how to utilize the strategies of affirmation, norms, immediacy and legacy in your own climate advocacy and citizen lobbying. Dr. Van Boven is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Dr. Sherman is a professor of psychology and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

 

Skip ahead to the following section(s):

Theoretical Background (4:19)

Framework For Overcoming Barriers (27:10)

Data & Findings (42:07)

Implications for Advocacy & Training (52:49)

 

• Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/social-psychological-slides
• Recent Sherman, Shteyn, Han & Van Boven research article: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioural-public-policy/article/exchange-between-citizens-and-elected-officials-a-social-psychological-framework-for-citizen-climate-activists/0220FD5EE016383DB2B9D46C10C751D0
• Behavior Climate Policy Conference: https://sites.google.com/colorado.edu/bcp2020/home (online, UC-Boulder, Friday, October 23)

CCL Training: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in CCL

Join CCL's Diversity Outreach Coordinator Karina Ramirez for a training that reviews CCL's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plans, internal processes that have been reviewed and developed over the past several years to ensure that we are living our values and we are committed to continuous improvement.

Diversity, equity and inclusion are natural outgrowths of our values of relationships, integrity, personal power, and being nonpartisan. Enacting our core values is an ongoing process and diversity helps all of us as CCL volunteers develop the best solutions to climate change and broadens the base of support needed for passing legislation. 

Skip ahead to the following section(s):
What Do We Mean When We Say DEI? (4:15)
National Diversity Work (6:44)
Local Examples (17:30)
What You Can Do  (24:27)

Presentation Slides: https://cclusa.org/diversity-plan-slides

CCR Ep 52 Doug Parsons on Adaptation, Resilience, and Bouncing Forward

Climate change related work often comes down on one of two sides: 1. Mitigation to reduce or end human causes greenhouse pollution in order to slow down and lessen the impacts of global warming. 2. Adaptation of our communities and infrastructure in order to prepare for the impacts of climate change and respond to extreme weather and other consequences of climate change.

Doug Parsons, the host of the America Adapts Podcast talks to us about what he has learned from nearly 100 episodes interview adaptation experts. He will discuss differences between adaptation and resiliency. He highlights efforts to adapt to sea level rise, wildfires, and flooding, and points out an impact of climate change that will affect almost everyone at some point in their lives—extreme heat.

You will also hear an excerpt from a conversation Doug Parsons has with s Dr. Carolyn Kousky, the Executive Director at the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania. They discuss how wildfires in California drove their utility into bankruptcy and what policy reforms are needed to prevent this from happening again.

Doug also reflects climate adaptation in light of the Coronavirus Global Pandemic. What lessons are climate adaptation experts learning? What challenges do they face?

The Art House

Joining us in the Art House is Musician and composer Jason Davis. Jason curates ClimateStoriesProject.org. The site hosts videos from people all over the world. They reveal the impacts of climate change in their lives, and how they are responding. Jason takes some of these stories and composes music to accompany them. You will hear a moving and powerful testimony from John Sinnok, Inuit elder in Alaska. Woven around the story is Jason’s haunting and beautiful composition for the double base. He calls the piece Footsteps in Snow. You will also learn how you can share your own story on the website.  

Jason wants to hear your climate story. He invites you to explore his site to read other climate stories then consider contributing your own. That website is climatestoriesproject.org

We always welcome your thoughts, questions, suggestions, and recommendations for the show. Leave a voice mail at 518.595.9414. (+1 if calling from outside the USA.) You can email your answers to radio @ citizensclimate.org. 

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.

 

CCL Training: Working With Business Climate Leaders From Prospect To Advocate

Join Business Climate Leaders as they present an interactive workshop where you will learn how we target, research, make first contact with and actually meet with businesses, both big and small.  You will be able to be part of an actual role playing exercise to demystify meeting with executives and sharing the work we are passionate about.  

Skip ahead to the following section(s):
Developing Your Team (3:02)
Bringing Trusted Messengers & Making First Contact (5:11)
Running An Effective Meeting (8:38)
Role-Play Practice (17:19)
Following Up (24:37)

Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/bcl-workshop

Main Website: http://BusinessClimateLeaders.org

Volunteer Resources: http://BCLresources.org

CCL Training: Youth Outreach & Engagement

Join CCL's Youth Action Team leaders Destiny Loyd, Sharon Bagatell, and Jess Wilber for a training designed to assist chapters to build effective and vibrant Youth Teams across the country.

The focus of CCL's Youth Action Team is to support young people under 18 years of age to be active, engaged, and empowered in building political will for climate solutions.  We welcome young people and their adult allies to join us!  Youth face disproportionate impacts from climate change and believe that empowering them as future leaders is key to CCL’s long-term strategy.

 

Skip ahead to the following section(s):

Youth Resources (2:56)
Conducting Youth Outreach (5:30)
Integrating Youth Into Your Chapter (11:53)
Creating a Youth Team (17:30)
Mentoring Relationships 101 (27:41)
Youth Leadership: Benefits & Beyond (30:50)
Be Smart, Think Legality (32:41)

Presentation Slides: https://www.cclusa.org/youth-engagement-slides

CCL Community Training: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/455

Youth Guide: https://cclusa.org/youth-guide

Sept. 2020 | Tina Johnson | Citizens' Climate Lobby

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, we see disproportionate numbers of Black people becoming infected and dying from the disease. Leaders in the environmental justice community know this disparity all too well, and in June the National Black Environmental Justice Network was relaunched to help communities of color address the inequities that place them in harm’s way. Tina Johnson, director of NBEJN, joins us to talk about those disparities and how the network is fighting for environmental justice.

 

Helpful Links:

National Black Environmental Justice Network: https://www.nbejn.com/

Join CCL: http://cclusa.org/join

CCL's Climate & Environmental Justice Action Team: https://community.citizensclimate.org/groups/home/953

CCL Training: Encouraging Existing Endorsers To Champion Their Support To Congress

As we finish out 2020, one of CCL’s top priorities is to build up public awareness of the solid support for the Energy Innovation Act in the public eye across the political spectrum and among members of Congress and their staff.  We encourage you to be creative and strategic in your outreach to community influencers.  After you've done research to focus your group's grasstops engagement, this training walks you through how to best highlight Energy Innovation Act support from local community leaders on both sides of the aisle and provides specific examples of other CCL groups' success stories.

Skip ahead to the following section(s): 
Why Now? Why Grasstops? (2:25)
Who To Reconnect With? (4:51)
Public & Private Statement Formats (8:43)
Endorsers in Lobby Meetings (22:43)
Getting Creative (Mayors & Town Halls) (31:14)

Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/encouraging-existing-endorsers

CCL Community Training Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/420