Citizens' Climate Lobby

Bob Inglis | Citizens' Climate Lobby | February 2020 Monthly Speaker

Our February guest, Bob Inglis, is no stranger to Citizens' Climate Lobby. A member of CCL's advisory board and the governing board of Citizens' Climate Education, Bob served as a Republican Congressman from South Carolina from 1993 to 1999 and again from 2005 to 2011. During his tenure, Bob introducing the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act — a revenue-neutral carbon tax. After leaving Congress, he started republicEn.org, an organization devoted to persuading conservatives to address climate change with market-based solutions. Bob has been a featured speaker at CCL national and regional conferences, coaching volunteers on how to effectively engage conservatives on climate change.

Featured Links:
Register for June Conference: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/2020-june-conference/

RepublicEn: https://www.republicen.org/

CCL February Action Sheet: https://cclusa.org/actionsheet

Join Us! http://cclusa.org/join

CCL Training: How To Work With Existing Cosponsors

So your member of Congress is a sponsor on the Energy Innovation Act. Hooray! But now what? Join CCL Great Lakes Regional Co-Coordinator for a training provides guidance for continuing to maintain and build your relationship with your member of Congress.

Skip ahead to the following section(s):
Constant Love (2:26)
Champion Scale (9:40)
In Your Lobby Meetings (14:26)
Communication Skills (25:35)
Beyond Your Representative (28:06)

Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/work-with-existing-sponsors
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

CCL Media Basics [Core Volunteer Training]

Join CCL's State and Local Media Coordinator Charlotte Ward for a training that will be focused on how you can best utilize CCL's amazing suite of media resources to amplify the importance of including an ambitious price on carbon in the emerging reconciliation process, including customizing and submitting one of CCL’s op-ed templates, asking an editor for an editorial, writing more local letters to the editor and amplifying your media work on social media.

To skip ahead to a specific section go to the time indicated in parenthesis.

• (0:00) Intro & Agenda
• (2:45) Why is media work important?
• (3:30) Messaging for our media work
• (6:28) Signing up for media manager alerts
• (10:01) Finding stories to respond to locally
• (17:02)  Boosting availability with an op-eds
• (19:55) What's your climate story?
• (26:30) Compiling your media list
• (31:04) Action Time! Write a LTE!

Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/media-basics-slides 
CCL Community Training Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/topics/media-relations/media-basics 

CCL Training: In-District Lobbying Plans

Join CCL Southeast Regional Director Don Addu for a training that walks through the process of planning and setting up a successful meeting with your member of Congress back home in your community. Meeting in the local district of a member of Congress is an essential element to building connections with Congress as it increases the likelihood of a face-to-face meeting while allowing more CCL volunteers and local people of influence to participate in lobbying.

Skip ahead to the following section(s):
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)

Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/in-district-ccu

CCL Community Training Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/267

CCL Training: Generating Editorial Endorsements

Join Flannery Winchester and Steve Valk, CCL's Communications team, for a training that will detail how you and/or your group can prepare for, structure and facilitate an editorial board meeting. Meeting with and developing a relationship with a newspaper’s editorial board is one of the most highly leveraged things volunteers can do to generate political will for the Energy Innovation Act.

Skip ahead to the following section(s):
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)

Presentation Slides: http://cclusa.org/meeting-editorial-boards

CCL Community Training Page: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/114

CCR Ep 44 The Extraordinary Marshall Saunders

On October 20th 2007, after having a revelation about the severity of climate change, Marshall Saunders launched Citizens Climate Lobby. He then inspired over one hundred thousand everyday citizens to appeal directly to members of congress. He helped empower them to offer a bold and straight forward solution to address climate change. Everyone who met Marshall, heard him speak, and worked beside him walked way with determination and a deeper belief in their own ability to change in the world. On December 27th, 2019 at the age of 80, Marshall Saunders passed away at his home in Coronado, California.

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

• A history of Bipartisanship : BipartisanPolicy.org
• Cooperation: Congress Simply Has to Bring it Back : Brookings Institute
• Five myths about bipartisanship : The Washington Post
• Marshall Saunders Obituary : Coronado Times
• Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy : Good Reads

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!

CCL Training: Developing Your Chapter Action Plan

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

 

John Wood | Citizens' Climate Lobby | January 2020 Monthly Speaker

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.”

CCL Training: Starting A Monthly Calling Campaign

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/19/390
Presentation slides: http://cclusa.org/calling-campaign

CCL Training: Outreach To Faith Communities

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/