Tag Archives: Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Reforming Climate Change Policies

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During the pandemic, besides the growing public concern over the rapid spread of the disease, news about the sharply falling greenhouse gas emissions and energy demand in China because of the mandatory stay-at-home order drew my attention and raised my interest to join the Citizens’ Climate Lobby action group.

The fundamental purpose of the CCL is to work toward the adoption of fair, effective, and sustainable climate change policies, and the piece we have been working on is the Energy, Innovation & Carbon Dividend Act, which aims to put a fee on fossil fuels and use that money as a dividend and allocate to every American. My group’s objective is to participate in lobbying for the passage of the Energy Innovation Act. I have never known something about lobbying, let alone have the chance to participate in a real Lobby Day Event at a conference. Surprisingly, we will have a precious opportunity to join a lobby team preparing for and attending the conference. This experience also taught me how to interact with members of congress and government representatives.

As the project proceeded, I found that it is closely related to our course material and what we are doing now really matters in real life. The Act is trying to take political action to influence legislators and major oil companies to reduce carbon footprint through a top-down approach. At the same time, it uses individualized actions as a supplement to the policy change. Thinking systematically, citizens are core elements of the Act, and we will make a difference through a bottom-up approach in a way that individuals unite as teams to lobby for a real systematic change in climate policy. Meanwhile, the taxes collected will be allocated back to individuals, helping them live a more sustainable life. It works as a reinforcing feedback loop that accelerates our progress in fighting climate change.

Also, I learned to cooperate with group members. Teamwork is an essential element of the success of a project. Instead of doing all the weekly training on our own, we decided to each take one training and summarize for the group. Therefore, we were able to grasp the main ideas in the most efficient way. I’m really impressed by my members, they are confident, knowledgeable, and brave. Rachel is a really good leader; she takes notes and organizes every meeting for us. Dakota integrates course materials with the project very well, Tebow and Alan always give us thoughtful ideas. Thanks to Karen, Ryan, my group members, and other classmates for a great and meaningful quarter.

Turning Individual Action into Systemic Change

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During this course I had the opportunity to work with Citizens’ Climate Lobby on HR 763, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend act. CCL is a national, bipartisan, grassroots lobbying organization that supports volunteers through online trainings and connects them to groups in their area. We started social media campaigns on Facebook and Twitter and learned how to lobby.

HR 763 would put a price on carbon that would reduce US emissions by 40% in the first 12 years. Economists agree that this is the most effective and cost-efficient way to reduce emissions which is why it has drawn support from Republicans and Democrats. Additionally, the Act is revenue-neutral which means that the government doesn’t keep the tax collected. Instead, it gets sent back to low- and middle-income American taxpayers who will be most affected by the higher prices of a green economy.

Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. Effective, good for people, good for the economy, revenue neutral.

In working with CCL, I found that the politics of food and the politics of climate change are similar in many ways. People tend to be very opinionated on both sides, both issues are complex and affect everyone differently, and both require a combination of personal choices and systemic government change to be solved.

It is key that the Act is bipartisan because the only way that we can fight climate change is together. A resolution such as this is only the first of many legislation actions we will need to take, so it is important that everyone is behind it.

Systems theory shows us that everything is connected, and climate change is no different. A lifecycle analysis of any product shows the ecological impacts along the entire commodity chain. Ecological impacts are usually higher during the production/processing stages, so the externalities are often placed on low income communities. This is just one example of the Triple Inequality of climate change.

Scene of the Oncler's factory from the Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

Stories like the Lorax teach us that it’s okay to replace traditional citizenship duties with purposeful individual consumption, and it shifts the blame from producers to human nature (Maniates). When people are made aware of a dangerous product, they can make the individual choice not to buy it (Szasz). This protects them from the product but does nothing to address the problem for others. We need more than individual choices to combat climate change. HR 763 is one way of collective change, but people still have to make the individual choice to be politically active.

This is a picture from Environmental Lobby Day in Olympia, WA in 2019 that I went to with WashPIRG.

Collective Action and Change: A Reflection

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2020 has been exhausting. Between murder hornets, escalating tensions among adversarial countries, a global pandemic, and racism, it’s getting harder and harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel – and the year isn’t even half over yet.

As tempestuous as the world seems right now though, I’ve gained levity in working with my Citizens’ Climate Lobby action group, to lobby for the passage of the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. I’ve built on my collaborative work skills and gleamed valuable insight into the process of collective action and deliberation, and had the chance to work with a diverse coalition of people from across the country and the globe to relate the knowledge we gained in the course to the real world. This work has given me hope that systematic change is possible through collective action.

Citizens' Climate Lobby - take action on climate change solutions

Citizens’ Climate Lobby, via https://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/CCL-Logo.gif

Group work has, no doubt, been complicated by the fact that we’re living through a global pandemic. However, my group mates and I made the best of a difficult situation and flexibly scheduled our weekly Zoom and Whatsapp meetings. Arranging a time for a videoconference that worked for people in Washington State, Ohio, and France was not easy, but we made do. To ensure equal distribution of work, we collectively decided to finish one training per person, per week, and then summarize that training for the rest of the group.

Our work for CCL builds upon Michael Maniates policy prescription in “Individualization”. Rather than plant trees or ride our bikes to work, we will be lobbying for systemic change in policy. Our work will necessarily invoke systems thinking in this way. By considering the inputs and outputs of the act, as well as its potential downstream effects (both economic and environmental), we’ve taken a holistic approach to the understanding the act, systems thinking in essence.

Citizens' Climate Lobby | Our preferred climate change legislation

via https://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/eicda-2019-benefits.png

Ultimately, I’ve walked away from this experience with a feeling that I can make a material difference in the world. Although my lobby session isn’t until June 17th, I am confident in my abilities to persuade my member of Congress, and look forward to being a force for real good in the world – something that I could not have accomplished without the hard work of my group mates, and the volunteers at CCL.

Rain, Thibault, Rachel, Alan, and Jess: thanks for a great quarter.

– Dakota