A Dumbledore's Army, of sorts

My passion about climate change comes from a desire to protect my children's future. I have always been a green-minded person, but after my babies were born I would lay awake at night worrying about climate change and how it would negatively affect their future. Will their world as adults resemble the world I have known? What can I do now to help them have a safer future?

My first answer was to become a Climate Leader.  I attended The Climate Reality Project's Leadership Training in Chicago and it was empowering. Suddenly I felt like I had permission to go out and do what I already wanted to do: be a leader in the fight against climate change. By giving me access to Al Gore's slideshow and asking me to do a minimum of 10 community presentations over the course of a year I felt powerful, like suddenly I was a member of Dumbledore's Army, except it was a Climate Army. 

The Climate Reality Project aims to restart the grassroots conversation about the threat of climate change so we can win the conversation and get moving in the right direction despite the recalcitrance of our world leaders and the fossil fuel industry. The Climate Reality Project is strong on climate change science, challenging climate change deniers, and offers broad solutions (wind and solar).

Then I saw a quote from Jim Hansen, a top climatologist and former head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies who has now devoted his time to being an activist for the cause of global climate change. His recommendation is for concerned citizens to join the Citizens Climate Lobby.

Citizens Climate Lobby strives to help people to feel powerful on the issue of climate change, instead of fearful. Turns out, Marshall Saunders, the Founder of Citizens Climate Lobby, was also trained as a Climate Leader by the Climate Reality Project. He came to the same conclusion I did, and started a non-profit organization that is growing in size and influence to speak with community, state, national, and even international leaders about climate change and its solutions. Current Citizens Climate Lobby members have talked to leaders at the World Bank convincing them to stop funding new coal projects; talked to Mayor Bloomberg in NYC about climate legislation, and is even in contact with the Pope.

The Climate Reality Project gave me the power to start the conversation with the community, Citizens Climate Lobby will give me, and You, the power to talk with our leaders, at all levels, and win them over on this paramount issue.

So my next project, dear readers, is that while I am going out in the community to give my Climate Reality Project inspired climate talks, I am also going to recruit concerned citizens like me and you to start a Burlington VT Citizens Climate Lobby (VT doesn't yet have one). But I can't do it alone. Will you please join me? Please 'Like' this post, comment, or message me if you are interested in joining the Burlington VT Citizens Climate Lobby! 

Geeking Out & Saving the World

As a capstone to 24 Hours of Reality I finally dove in and and did my first climate presentation this past Wednesday night. I invited 40 of my closest friends, family, and neighbors to come to my house and hear my version of Al Gore's slideshow. 5 showed up, but at least they came, especially since it was the first night of the World Series. It also forced me to stop stalling and edit Al's 360+ slides into something a bit more manageable. Deadlines are great friends sometimes.

I edited the slideshow to make it less overwhelming/depressing because climate change research is sobering to say the least. I focused on general worldwide data and trends and included examples primarily from the US. I added my own anecdotes about what I have personally experienced in this changing climate which is definitely different than when I was a child in the 1980s and 1990s.  Audience members related their personal experiences as well. It was wonderful to hear people relate this big, abstract issue to their own personal lives.

Though the turnout was small, it was a great event. My audience liked the presentation, understood the content, and it held their interest for the 22 or so minutes that I talked pretty much nonstop--so they reported back to me afterwards. It didn't end there. We chatted more about energy and politics and I certainly got my geek on about things like nuclear power, geothermal heating/cooling and natural gas/fracking. My husband had to remind me that it was getting late and I had better let my poor friends eat, drink and be merry while thinking about other, lighter topics before bed. I could go on and on.

So now I feel ready to go out and do more presentations around my community. I have agreed to do at least ten as part of my attendance at the Climate Reality Project's Climate Leadership Training back in July. So, if you know of a potential audience send me a message. Mama of Ma'at's climate change presentation coming soon to a public venue near you!

Yup, I wore my pin

A Conversation with the Speech Therapist

My daughter was born with a submucous cleft palate, which meant that she needed surgery when she was 14 months old to correct it. Then about a month after surgery a speech therapist started doing home visits to help her learn how to make more consonant sounds. All she said prior to surgery and speech therapy was 'Mama.' No other sounds or babbles.

She has made amazing strides in just two short months. The sophistication of her babble has skyrocketed. She says Ds, Fs, Bs, Ps, and her Zs sound more like actual Zs rather than just spit flying out of her mouth. She says a ton of words now, even giraffe of all things!

So last week the speech therapist and the program director came to check in about how we felt speech therapy was going.We talked about my daughter's progress and then the program director suddenly asked:

"How did weaning go?" (perhaps I had mentioned it at a previous visit? I forget).

"Very well," I said, "but it helped that she was fully weaned for 3 days when I went away in July, but we started again when I came back. We officially weaned a week ago and it was surprisingly easy."

"Where did you go again?" she asked.

"To the Climate Reality Climate Leadership Training in Chicago."

"How was it?"

"Great." Then I explained a bit about it, and how I am now a climate leader, and still need to do some public presentations in my community about climate change.

"So, give me your presentation." said the program director.

I was surprised and a bit incredulous. Someone who wants to talk climate change? Amazing.

I didn't quite know where to begin. Both the program director and the speech therapist indicated that they understood at least some of the basic science of climate change (the greenhouse gas effect, why it is enhanced by human activity), so I mentioned the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest report, we talked about renewable energy strategies, and about the big financial interests that are responsible for the climate policy standstill despite the fact that we know better.

"So was the conference inspiring or just depressing?" asked the program director. "Because the topic is very scary."

"Inspiring." I said, and I meant it. To be in a room full of people who acknowledge and understand climate science, and the state of our warming world enough to actively seek out some way to help even when politicians won't--that is inspiring. To hear about successful renewable energy stories, and projections for solar parity with fossil fuel sources of electricity in the near future, stories about tipping points and change being adopted sooner and faster than expected (eg: cell phones), inspires hope that we will solve this crisis in time.

The science is established, but now we need to win the grassroots conversation on the climate crisis. We need everyone to realize that climate change is something we all need to care about because it will affect everything we know and rely on. We need to demand change from our leaders, and the companies we do business with. People from all walks of life need to be actively opposed to fossil fuels, and actively asking for alternatives. To remain silent on the matter is no longer an option if we want a better future. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr:

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth103526.html#17Oe72b8sOBLr6WJ.99

Ok, enough grandstanding for now. But that impromptu conversation with the program director and the speech therapist...that was fantastic.

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The Homecoming After My First Kid-less Trip

Last month I left my kids for the first time since they were born. This was a big deal. Realistically speaking, I had every confidence that things would go fine in my absence. A few more tears at bedtime perhaps, but nothing my husband and/or mother-in-law couldn't handle.

I was scheduled to be gone for about 72 hours. The Climate Leadership Training kept me too busy to think about home that much. By the time I got back to my friend's house to sleep each night it was too late to call home and check in. The mornings were too busy, and the one hour time difference between Chicago and home didn't help either.

For my kids it was a treat to play with their grandmother all day (they adore her), then be with their father when he got home for dinner and bedtime. I got adorable pictures of them playing, and a video of my son saying "I love you, Mommy." and my daughter saying "Ma ma ma, Mama" in the same intonation. Melt my heart adorable! I sent back texts telling them I loved them and couldn't wait to see them.

On my last day in Chicago I called home and spoke to my son, telling him "I will be there when you wake up tomorrow." Shortly after that I received a robo-call from my airline that my flight was cancelled and my new flight would get me home TWO DAYS LATER!? I immediately thought of my son, who has the memory of an elephant. Suddenly, I had lied to him. Not intentionally of course, but I could not follow through on my promise. What sort of meltdown would this cause? Oh, Mommy guilt.

Thankfully I was able to get a flight the next day after all. I basked in comments from my husband expressing how he and the kids couldn't wait for me to get home. He left work to pick me up at the airport so he could see me himself before the kids "ate me up." I got home and both kids ran to me saying "Mama, Mama!" and gave me big hugs. Then, suddenly, my son broke into tears about a splinter in his foot. It was more than the splinter though, it was all the emotions he had experienced over the past four days, wondering where his mother was, bubbling to the surface. He talked about how he much he had missed me. I was glad I had bought him and his sister Chicago souvenirs to redirect some of his tearful energy. I assured him I had missed him and his sister greatly and wouldn't be going on another trip without them any time soon.

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Climate Leadership Training Day 3: Moms Weathering the Storm

Originally written on August 7, 2013  

The third and final day of Climate Reality's Climate Leadership Training the sessions focused on how to reach out to our communities about climate change. It is the most critical issue of our time. Without the predictable, hospitable climate that humanity has enjoyed for about 10,000 years, our society cannot exist. Climate change is also unique because it requires global cooperation. To some this is an overwhelming and frightening thought. Despite this, Al Gore, and other climate leaders see it as an opportunity. As a way to cooperate and shape a new, better future. My husband is watching Star Trek Deep Space 9 reruns on Netflix as I type this, and it occurred to me that if we can solve the climate crisis as a species, the world depicted in Star Trek doesn't seem quite so far off. Maybe we can finally work together as humanoids and catapult ourselves into a higher existence. But I digress.

Back to reaching out to our communities.... There were breakout sessions on the final day of the training. The session I attended was called Moms Weathering the Storm. Three panelists spoke about how they, as mothers have amplified their voices for a cause by reaching out to other mothers, and to other women.

One panelist was Harriet Shugarman who attended a Climate Leadership Training in 2007 and found her passion: climate change education, awareness and action. Like me, becoming a mother made her feel like she had to do something to make the world a better place. Her answer was starting the blog Climate Mama. Turns out she was not the only one, there is also a blog called Climate Mom, founded by Mary DeMocker, a mom who went "from worrier to warrior." Rather than being upset that these woman beat me to great blog names, I am so happy that there are other moms who are concerned about the same issue as me. Strength in numbers!

A second panelist was Emily McKhann, founder of The Motherhood, an online community of mothers wanting to make a difference. Emily shared her recent post called 9 Ways to Use Social Media to Support Your Causes and Charities. You can read her blog yourself, but it was inspiring to know that mothers can, and are already, using social media to amplify their voices for positive change.

A third panelist was Vanessa Lopes-Janik, a representative from the World Bank's Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). The particular story she shared is of their work with AFREA that seeks to include women in energy projects. The program helped women in sub-Saharan African countries access and use efficient cooking stoves that reduced the amount of fuel required to cook a meal. It also taught women how to turn dead branches into charcoal, which burns more efficiently than wood. In turn, women saved time cooking, and saved money because they didn't have to buy as much fuel for their fires. That extra money is being reallocated to buy more food to feed their families, and medicine when their families get sick. Women were also included in energy businesses such as turning dead tree branches into coal that they could sell. Thus reducing deforestation, reducing energy use, and providing income to families. Triple win.

One final story that wasn't part of the breakout session, but is worth telling, is the story of Kim Wasserman.  She is sometimes called "the new Erin Brockovich" because as a young mother she fought for both the environment and social justice in Little Village-- a predominantly Latino neighborhood on Chicago's Southwest side in the shadow of two of the dirtiest coal-fired power plants. She went door to door asking people about their neighborhood and realized that they were suffering from asthma but didn't know why. After 15 years of listening, researching, and community organizing she and her organization Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) got the coal-fired power plants shut down--a victory for the residents of Little Village, not to mention a victory for the fight against climate change.

The overarching point of this post is to emphasize that mothers have a long history of rallying around important causes and getting things done. One of the most famous modern examples is probably Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and one of my personal favorites is Moms Clean Air Force, but there are countless others. We, as mothers, have a unique role in society: raising the next generation. We can connect to other mothers because we see the future in our children, and know we have to fight for a better future on their behalf. Mothers (and fathers and grandparents!) can rally around climate change too. We are just one subset of the population fighting for climate justice whether directly through climate education and action, or indirectly by shutting down power plants that blight the community, or bringing better fuel and fuel efficiency and economic opportunity to mothers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Climate change is an issue that touches every facet of life. There are many small, sometimes seemingly unconnected, actions happening everywhere that help get us closer to the goal. We need to reach out to each other, celebrate our wins, and keep on working. This blog is my humble way to try and start doing just that.

Read more about the conference using these links:
Day 1 of Climate Leadership Training
Day 2 of Climate Leadership Training
Day 3 of Climate Leadership Training

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Climate Leadership Training Day 2: All Al, All Day (on the science)

Originally written on August 5, 2013 

The first day of Climate Leadership Training focused on storytelling and sharing a personal connection to the threat of climate change.

The second day of Climate Leadership Training focused on climate science. Former Vice President Al Gore took the stage, and opened by giving the latest version of his slideshow made famous in the 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth. He is very clearly a man who has been studying climate change for decades. He spoke eloquently and with passion about the complex science, and explained the impacts of carbon (dioxide) pollution in the atmosphere--how it manifests as melting ice caps, increased floods, droughts, fires and superstorms. He was joined by two leading scientists Dr. Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs at the Climate Institute, and Dr. Henry Pollack, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at the University of Michigan, and constantly asked them to weigh in on any statements he made and to elaborate when necessary. 

  Al Gore at the podium, July 31, 2013                                            


Al Gore with Drs. MacCracken and Pollack
 
 
It was interesting to me that climate science has stayed by and large the same since I first took a college course on it in 2000. It has only gotten richer, more in-depth, better understood, and some of the predictions made by complex computer models have actually come true already, such as the flooding of Manhattan. In 2012 superstorm Sandy caused widespread devastation in New York City and New Jersey.

As the day went on AG (as he known around The Climate Reality Project) broke down the slideshow into parts and spoke in more detail about the slides. He also took questions from the audience, and further discussed topics with input from Dr. Pollack and Dr. MacCracken. It was like taking a college course with a very lively and passionate professor--or really a panel of professors. He spoke from 8am-6pm, with just a few breaks.

I debated if I should go into the science in this blog post, but I feel it is more important to first focus on the fact that climate science is not up for debate.  97-98% of the 10,000 climate scientists around the world have concluded that climate change is real and is caused by human activity. Even the American Association of Petroleum Geologists does not dispute "the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change.” Therefore, "no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's consensus], (source).

 
97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global climate change. 
Data from Doran et al, (2009) and Anderegg et al (2010). Graphic from Skeptical Science.

An apt analogy that was offered at CLT is this: Suppose you are having chest pains. You surround yourself with 100 of the best cardiologists and ask them what to do. After examining you, 97 or 98 of them say "I think you are having a heart attack. You need to take immediate action to protect your health including diet and lifestyle changes, medication perhaps, and possibly even surgery." However, 2 or 3 of them say "You're probably fine. Don't worry about it." What would you do? Who would you listen to?

Unfortunately, oil, gas and coal companies have waged an expensive, and successful, public misinformation campaign to discredit climate scientists and cast doubts on their findings. For example, in 1992 a coalition of coal and utility companies created the Information Council on the Environment (ICE) and began a campaign to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact," (source). Exxon Mobil and the notorious Koch Brothers (source), and even Google whose motto is "Do no evil" have also funded climate climate deniers, (source). The media has also been an accomplice in this misinformation campaign by 1) under-reporting it in general, and 2) by referring to the issue as "so-called climate change" and portraying the opinion of the tiny percentage of deniers as equally valid to the overwhelming majority of scientists who conclude that humans are the drivers of modern climate change.

Climate change is real. It's man-made. I, and everyone else who acknowledges the science, wish we were wrong about this. We are already seeing its effects.The choice we have is to act quickly to limit just how bad it will get. It's not too late, but it will be difficult. I'm sorry. Let's get fired up and do something, fast. Silence is no longer an option

Read more about the conference using these links:
Day 1 of Climate Leadership Training
Day 2 of Climate Leadership Training
Day 3 of Climate Leadership Training

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CLTD1: Storytelling

Originally written on August 3, 2013

I just returned from the Climate Leadership Training hosted by The Climate Reality Project in Chicago. It was, in short, an amazing experience. There were over 1,400 participants that came from all 50 states and over 70 countries around the globe. During the two and a half day training, we sat in a large ballroom at McCormick Place around 144 tables. The tables were organized by geographical region. I sat with two fellow Vermonters and a recent graduate from Massachusetts. The others were from New Hampshire and included two high school science teachers, a mother and teenage son duo, and a young brother and sister pair (ages 12 and 15) accompanied by their aunt.

The first day of the conference focused on storytelling and how to engage in conversations about climate change with people who are in varying degrees of understanding or acceptance about the science and the climate crisis in general. We were urged to find our own story that we could relate to others to make concerns about climate change resonate from a more personal space. This is not about political parties or ideologies. It is about real people who are already seeing the impacts of climate change on their lives now through superstorms, droughts, fires and floods.

I first learned about climate change when I took a college course on it in 2000. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had just come out with their report with the strongest verbiage to date linking human activities and climate change. It was an eye-opening course and led me to do an independent greenhouse gas emissions inventory of my college campus during my senior year. By 2003, I remember having conversations about climate change with my very concerned sister. At the time I was working on sustainability issues at the UVM Environmental Council and felt generally optimistic that the world see the light and fix things in time. How could they not? The science was there and it was strong. I was a newly minted graduate working on the issues for my job, surely people were getting the message. Life went on, I went to graduate school for urban planning and got immersed in the planning world and all but forgot about greenhouse gases and their global warming potential.

I thought about climate change less and less until 2010 when my son was born. We moved to our new house when he was 6 months old and worries about climate change started keeping me up at night. What kind of world had I brought him into? What kind of future did he have? Would his world resemble the one I grew up in or the one his grandparents knew? Eventually my fears faded a bit again, perhaps out of sheer exhaustion. But in 2012 when my daughter was born the same thing happened. I laid awake each night for several months worrying about climate change, global warming and positive feedback loops such as methane releases from melting permafrost as the Arctic ice reached record lows faster than expected. Globally, weather has gotten weirder and weirder. Here in Vermont we had record spring flooding in 2011. Later that summer we were hit hard by Hurricane Irene. 2012 was incredibly dry with a very mild winter, then this summer we had record rains and flooding again. Last November my son played in our sandbox, surrounded by green grass with beetles roaming around, and a red rose blooming nearby. This was not normal for November in Vermont. Anyone could see that and connect the dots. Couldn't they?

Then I got an email from The Climate Reality Project inviting me to become a Climate Leader. For the first time I felt like there was something I could do other than sign endless petitions and anxiously watch political leaders repeatedly fail on the issue. My story to reach out to the world about climate change centers on my kids. I need to know that I am actively working to protect them and their future from man-made climate change. (And yes, it IS man-made.) I know this is a common thread that many Climate Leaders attending the training shared. There were so many parents and grandparents there who are concerned about their own children and grandchildren's futures, not to mention many youth ages 22 or younger who were there for the sake of their own futures.

What's your story?

Northern New England tables at Climate Leadership Training

Read more about the conference using these links:
Day 1 of Climate Leadership Training
Day 2 of Climate Leadership Training
Day 3 of Climate Leadership Training





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Getting Ready: Leaving my kids for the first time

It's Sunday night and I'm sitting at my computer researching Chicago: researching transit options on how I will get around during my three-day whirlwind trip there for The Climate Reality Project's Climate Leadership Corp Training; and figuring out what I want to see during my one morning of sightseeing before the training starts. I'm excited to be in the same room as Al Gore and more than 1,000 other people who feel as passionately as I do that climate change is the biggest threat humanity faces. I'm excited to learn how to speak more articulately about it, and how to inspire others to get involved. I'm also just excited see Chicago, a city I've never been to except for the airport back in 1998. I'm excited to reconnect with old friends, albeit briefly, who have established roots there.

I'm also a bit nervous. Nervous to navigate a new city by myself, and to be in a large conference setting where I don't really know anyone. But the biggest reason is because I will be leaving my kids for the first time ever. It will be a shock to my system, as well as theirs, to be without them for 72 hours. I'm the kind of mom who, even after a difficult day when all I want is for them to just go to sleep already, will settle down after the bedtime routine is done and scroll through the pictures I took of them that day playing and smiling. They will be fine in the good care of their dad and grandmothers. I know we will all be better off for having a little time apart. They will quickly learn that Daddy, Grandma, and Nini can do many of the things for them that I do. It will be a chance for me to remember (or prove) that they can function without me for a few days. Afterall, one of the badges of a good parent is giving/allowing your child the self-confidence to be independent. It will also feel good to be an adult functioning in the adult world, and will give me renewed energy to come back home and be Mommy.