Dr. Barbara Love, Professor Emeritus of Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, joined CCL’s October call to discuss strategies and tips for building relationships across race and cultural boundaries. “When the temperature gets too hot on earth, it’s not going to get too hot just for white people,” Dr. Love pointed out. “Maintaining this planet with an inhabitable climate is going to be for everybody,” she said, so it’s valuable to build bridges across communities and work toward solutions together.

It may feel a little awkward or uncomfortable to have a blunt conversation about “white people” and “people of the global majority,” (a term Dr. Love explains in her talk). But in CCL, we don’t shy away from difficult or awkward conversations. We pride ourselves on our ability to listen and to find common ground. Dr. Love’s advice will only help us do that better, so check out a recap of her talk on the CCL blog. 

To continue exploring this topic, join the CCL Environmental Justice Action Team’s monthly meeting next Wednesday, Oct. 25 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. Learn more here.

With many CCL chapters sending volunteers to the Congressional Education Day in Washington next month, this would be a good time to send a press release to local media outlets. The objective would be to spark interest in doing a story about your group. Climate advocates from your city going to D.C. to lobby your members of Congress for solutions might be the hook to stir that interest.

In our October Media Tip, CCL Communications Coordinator Flannery Winchester walks through the process of drafting and sending a local press release. We have several resources, including a CED press release template and lists of media contacts. You’ll find links to these resources on the “Send a Press Release” page on CCL Community. 

Each month, CCL’s communications team posts a tip of the month on YouTube. The August tip covered getting meetings with editorial boards and the September tip was about leveraging print media successes with social media. 

The CCL Agriculture Action Team’s six-week webinar series, called “Agriculture at the Table,” continues with its fourth session on Monday. This session is called “How Congress and the Farm Bill are driving climate smart agriculture” and features guest speaker Sean Babington, a Senior Professional Staffer on the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. He will describe how the confirmation process for executive branch nominees and the drafting of the 2018 Farm Bill offer opportunities for the committee to accelerate “climate smart” agriculture practices across rural America.

Tune in on Monday, Oct. 23 at  8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. Join from your computer by clicking here, or by phone by calling (408) 638-0968 and entering meeting ID 532 829 1069. To watch past recordings and join the next one, visit the Agriculture page on CCL Community. 

This weekend, CCL volunteers from across Canada will be in Ottawa, lobbying their parliamentarians on carbon pricing. In addition to lobbying, their conference will include training, keynote speakers and informative panel discussions. Tune in to the conference via live streams on their YouTube channel:

- Saturday, October 21, 2017, from 1 p.m. ET to 3 p.m. ET - Watch
- Sunday, October 22, 2017, from 10:30 a.m. ET to 12:30 p.m. ET - Watch
- Sunday, October 2, 2017, from 1:30 a.m. ET to 5:30 p.m. ET - Watch

This month’s featured op-ed comes from Alfred Bortz, published in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on October 15. Here’s an excerpt:

Crossing the threshold

In my long-ago junior high school years, we read Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield.” I don’t remember much of the novel, but I can’t forget these words of Mr. Micawber:

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

Those words convey this basic truth of life: The difference between good and bad outcomes often depends on whether we have crossed a threshold. In today's world, that is especially true of our changing climate. We see it most notably in the scale of the destruction from tropical cyclones (hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the other oceans) and in the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires, such as those raging for the past week through California wine country.

Recently, meteorologists have begun computing the increase in size or strength of tropical storms that is due to anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming. They call it attribution science.

When I see their numbers, my inner Micawber kicks in. In 2005, if Hurricane Katrina had been just a little less intense, would the levees have held? In 2012, if the storm surge of Superstorm Sandy was a foot or so lower, would the seawalls have protected lower Manhattan and New Jersey? Would the results have been relief rather than tragedy?

Those threshold questions were not part of the public discussion in the aftermath of those storms. But thanks to this year’s Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria — and now the wildfires in California — people are asking whether the world has crossed the line into a more dangerous climate regime.

Read the rest of Alfred’s op-ed. For support writing op-eds and LTEs or working with print media in other ways, join the Print Media Action Team on CCL Community. 

This past weekend, the first of the season’s regional conferences took place in Iowa. It was the North Wind regional conference, held on beautiful Lake Okoboji. Speakers included CCL National Program Director Madeleine Para, CCL Conservative Caucus co-chair Bruce Morlan, and more. Browse through the hashtag #CCLNorthWind on Twitter to see photos from the event and read snippets of the information shared over the weekend.

There are many more regional conferences coming up through the end of the year and into 2018. From the Great Lakes to the Wild West to the Southeast, check out the schedule and find a regional conference near you. 

CCL is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, and we want to include your photos and stories in the celebration!

We’ve set up an online survey where you can upload up to five photo files and include some background information about each image. A select few will be chosen as part of CCL’s 10th anniversary celebration at Congressional Education Day in November. 

The MIT Climate CoLab runs a yearly contest for proposals relating to climate change mitigation, adaptation, communication and engagement. CCL has participated in and won the popular vote in 2014 and 2015, and we're back this year with an updated entry. Here’s where you can see our pitch, called "Revenue Neutral Carbon Fee: Bending the Emissions Curve."

The contest takes place in phases. Semi-finalists are now being selected. Judges will make comments, ask questions, and authors are expected to make revisions. Finalists are then selected and the popular voting takes place from December 18-January 15. Winners will be invited to MIT and will be eligible for a $10,000 grand prize.

Here’s what you can do now: register for the CoLab community and click “Support” on our proposal. This shows the judges that there's a lot of interest in our proposal and may encourage them to take a closer look for the next round of the contest. If we make it to the finals, you’ll be reminded to vote in December. 

Demonstrating that businesses and job creators support federal action addressing climate change is some of the most important support CCL volunteers can provide our members of Congress.

This Thursday, Oct. 19 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT, join Business Climate Leaders (BCL) champions Harold Hedelman, Steve Hams, and Bruce Hagen in discovering the history behind the Business Climate Leaders and what BCL does as part of CCL’s Action Teams. Harold, Steve, and Bruce will explore the many pathways that volunteers can use to engage businesses in their own chapter’s efforts and in CCL’s efforts nationally.

The webinar will highlight success stories from throughout the country and give participants a chance to ask questions and plan their own efforts.

See you Thursday, and sign up to join the Business Climate Leaders team here. 

CCU: Business Climate Leaders - Success with Endorsements (Join)

Add to your Calendar: iCalendar  •  Google Calendar  •  Outlook

Core Volunteer Training is created to help connect new volunteers with each other from across the world and empower them to achieve their larger goals for climate advocacy.

The essential topic covered on Tuesday, Oct. 24 will be “Grassroots Outreach: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Tabling, Scheduling, and Giving Presentations,” led by CCL’s Action Coordinator Todd Elvins and CCL NH Group Leader John Gage.

Todd and John will lead the webinar geared at highlighting the bite-sized best practices in the art of preparing for both tabling and presentations and what to do once you get there. The second part will feature 20 minutes of deeper Q&A time for questions you might have regarding the best grassroots outreach with both a presentation or a tabling opportunity. Come prepared to ask your own questions and email any in advance to brett (at) citizensclimate (dot) org!

The final 15 minutes of the call will cover this week’s takeaway action and provide time to partner into small breakouts to walk through our weekly action plan form and support your goal for getting your first outreach event set up!

You can also listen to the presentation recordings every week afterward on this page.