 Yes, you pre-data at CCL, how did you learn about it? Well that's a great question, Thea. There was a showing one night of a film called Facing the Surge, which was about sunny days flooding in Newport News, Virginia, and the impacts it had on everything, on people going to church, going to school, Navy bases for the United States there. And that film was sponsored by three groups, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, and I had worked for them, and the Sierra Club, and I knew all about the Sierra Club, and then this other group I'd never heard of called Citizens Climate Lobby. And then after the film was over there were presentations by each of those three groups, and I was looking for which group had the strongest program for federal governmental action, because that's where I thought action has to take place in order to address climate change. And Sierra Club talked about their mission and hikes you can take with them and this and that, but they didn't talk about a federal program, and the Natural Resources Council of Maine talked about what we should do in Maine. And then this guy got up, who was a Republican candidate for office, and he said, I'm with the bipartisan Citizens Climate Lobby, and we are laser focused on getting Congress to do something about the climate. And I said, voila, that's my group. And they trained me, and six weeks later, I joined them six weeks later, I had a suit and tie on, and I was in Washington, D.C., and I was ready to lobby my members of Congress from here in the state of Maine, because of Citizens Climate Lobby. So I've been, and I've loved it ever since. So who did you meet in that first meeting down in D.C.? Do you remember which lobby meetings you had? Well, there were only four of us from Maine, and recently we've had as many as, what, 15, 18? More than 30. More. Yeah, yeah, close to 30 people recently, just in four years, which shows the growth of Citizens Climate Lobby right there. We met with Chely Pingrian Person and Senior Staff of Senator Collins, and I think we met with Senator King himself as well, yeah. I remember when you first started getting, you went to a meeting and came home and started talking about it, and we decided to check it out. I mean, I thought, the last thing I needed in my life is another meeting, but we went, and they were, it's such a well-run organization. We got so much done in an hour and a half, and that continues to happen first Saturday of every month, and you come away with a sense of hope and a list of things to do, regardless of your strengths and weaknesses, and it really makes you feel like you're doing something meaningful. Do you remember our meetings in D.C.? Thea, you and I were on a team. Mama was off with another group, except for one meeting. Yeah, we did King and Collins. Yep, King and Collins. We also, because they were more Mainers than they knew, you weren't on that one, fall of 2019, but that was the one that had about 30, I think. But there was a bunch of kids there, that trip, and the last time they did it in person before COVID. Who else did we do when we went to other states? We did Democrat Representative Meng. Right, from New York. And then this guy from, I don't know, I want to say Kansas or Kentucky? Yes, it was Kansas. Mama had Kentucky. And what was your experience being on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.? Well, I was pretty shy, because it was my first time being in Washington, D.C., and I was meeting real congressmen and congresswomen. So I felt excited and overjoyed, but when you talked to them, they felt like real people. They listened to us, and it was just a normal conversation. So I felt really good about it. I didn't expect it to be so fun, did you? Yeah, no. I thought this is, you know, a good thing to do, and it's got to be done, and doing my homework, and these are the things we want to talk to them about. And then, regardless of whether it was the senator, congressman, or staff person, it was just a fascinating conversation every time. It's true. I really liked going to the trainings were so well done, too. I felt like I was really new what to say when I got there. There's something to fall back on when you felt nervous. Like, do you remember when the door opened and they said, okay, here comes Susan Collins? I was like, oh, wow, I'm really in a meeting with a well maker I've read a lot about, and, you know, disagreed with and agreed with it sometimes. But do you remember what it was like when Susan Collins walked into a room or when Angus King first, you know, the first time you met him or Pinkery? There were a bunch of kids around the table that day, and Adolf was there from Sacred Heart Church, remember? You're sitting with a bunch of other kids, people from all walks of life, a climate scientist from Africa, and Senator Collins. When people asked me where I first had a, what's the, the beyond burger, I, when I say, have you tried those, they're pretty, they're pretty good. And I was like, ask me where the first time I ever tried what it was. Where was it? Oh, it was in the cafeteria of the Senate office building. Sounds very important. I think it's important to say, though, that although citizens climate lobby is indeed laser focused on Congress, and we do indeed go to Washington, D.C. in non-pandemic years, two or three times a year, that most of our work and most of the year is spent here in the home district. So we actually go to the district offices of our members of Congress. We also write letters to the editor because media has a big and do social media because media has a big impact on what our members of Congress think their constituents would like to see them do. We also develop our own chapters of citizens climate lobby. And there are now, I think a dozen, almost a dozen, say roughly a dozen of them throughout the state of Maine. And we also do grass tops and grass roots. Right. So grass roots would be reaching out to people in general, either through broadcast, perhaps like this one, or at tabling events when in non-pandemic years. And grass tops is getting endorsements from heads of organizations or members of organizations or municipalities that for our members of Congress represent a lot of constituents because they really want to know that when they vote in favor of something like a carbon pricing bill to stabilize the climate, that people in Maine understand why they're voting for that and are in favor of their voting for that. So there are a lot of different things we can do depending on our skill sets. And in fact, now we have a procedure where if you're interested in joining Citizens Climate Lobby, your name is forwarded back to the local chapter and you get an interview usually asking you how much time you have, what your interests are, what your aptitudes are. And we try to match up aptitudes and interests with time available to for the purpose of lobbying members of Congress. That's a great point. Yeah, it's there's plenty of room for introverts to do stuff. Yeah, like the letter writing and that kind of stuff is fantastic. Yeah, CCL has a lot of you can choose what you want. And there's you don't have to get forced to do anything you do what you like and what you feel is important. I remember there were rarely any kids my age. So I thought what to do. And then our chapter leader, Sarah Bray, came up to me and said, you want to take pictures? So I got to take pictures and I felt really good about it because I'm doing something as well. Yeah, what have you done for CCL? Like in the past week or month, what are you working on? Now I'm involved in the Shelly Pingree meeting. That's led by youth, actually. I did a mini presentation of a site called En-Roads. And you told my teacher and he said I could do a presentation to my class. So I'm really excited about that too. Yeah, and when I you'll maybe find the same thing I did. When I do these presentations, I end up getting a lot of great feedback. First, when you show people En-Roads, the first thing this is like, oh dear, we're in deep trouble because it's so much work to get to where the scientists say we need to get to, right, to get from 3.6, which is business as usual, 3.6 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels. It's bad news to get that to two degrees or lower takes a lot of work. But the nice thing, but then when you show them carbon pricing, I'm always amazed that people, oh, wow, that does so much more than I thought it would. It's when you have to explain why and how to make it so that doesn't hurt poor people and et cetera, et cetera, but all that stuff really does make people feel empowered that they can, at least there's some hope they can, instead of being overwhelmed by the problem, they can try to grab ahold of that. And I remember I'm thinking about James Boyce, the economist just recently made a presentation at the University of Maine in Arno and he said, he gives presentations all the time. He's always gets the same questions like, why have I not heard of this before? And he says, well, it's because no one's going to get super rich off of this, but it's going to stabilize the climate and it's going to put us in the right direction where we can mitigate the problem and try to go in the right course for the future. I mean, one of the most exciting parts is that not only does it not hurt poor people, it's really good for poor and middle class people. Yes. We're talking about carbon fee and dividend, which is a bill that has been introduced in Congress twice with Republican support. And it would put a constantly rising price on carbon emissions, the things that are driving the greenhouse gases that are driving the increase in global temperatures and take all the money from the fossil fuel companies that were paid for by this price and divided into equal shares for all Americans. And it's called carbon fee and dividend. And it turns out it is, it meets the two tests that citizens climate lobby has for any bill that we support, which is on the one hand, it will be effective in driving down global temperatures and stabilizing the climate. And second, it will be helpful to poor and middle class people in terms of paying for the cost of transition. Yeah, you know the story of Marshall Saunders. Could you tell them? Because I don't think any of you have heard that story about how it was founded because it didn't start with carbon. Citizens climate lobby didn't come out of the gate with carbon fee and dividend. They settled on that after having those two prerequisites. It had to stabilize the climate and it had to help or not heard at least, and in this case, significantly benefit the poorest. But tell the story of Marshall Saunders because you know that story better. Sure. CCL was founded by Marshall Saunders, who was a real estate agent in San Diego. And he made enough money to essentially retire and go into philanthropy. His first philanthropy was making microloans to poor people around the world. So if a woman in Bangladesh just needed, you know, $50 to get a sewing machine to start a seamstress business, he would try to, he would provide the microloans. And in fact, he was so successful using International Rotary Club as one of the extenders of that effort that it is said he made a million microloans in his career. But he noticed that the storm surges and sea level rise in Bangladesh was causing people to have to move inland. So sewing machine or no sewing machine, they were homeless. So he realized the major problem was climate change. And he decided he needed to focus on that. And he had a friend in San Diego who was a, this is an old reference, but a dare to be great motivator for corporate Fortune 500 companies. A guy named Mark Reynolds had his own consulting business trying to increase the efficiency of major corporations and their leadership teams. And he went to Mark and he said, listen, I'm trying to start this thing about climate change. Would you be willing to run the organization for five or six months? And Mark Reynolds said, I think I could spare five or six months. Well, it's 13 years later and Mark is still running Citizens Climate. And and it's it's been in the early years in membership, it doubled in size almost every year, you know, from 50,000 to 100,000 and 100,000 to now it's nearly 200,000 volunteers throughout the United States and dozens of other countries. But it's it's primary focus is the United States of America. And we are still the second largest polluter of greenhouse gases driving the disruption of climate. So but and the other model was there was a guy named Sam Daly Harris who ran a group called Results, which was about providing support for poor people around the world. And he he's written about direct democracy and how we as citizens can actually empower our government to do things. And in his case, he got the United States to I'm not sure the exact numbers, but more than quadruple our aid to poor countries around the world, one of the most effective lobbying groups in Congress. And so that model has proved to be the model for citizens climate. I remember sharing him speak a couple of years ago at the up in New York at the regional. Yeah, he was he was wonderful. And it's true because I think I mean, you've preceded me in this and I've only done this. I'm going up. We're going up on three years this summer, I guess. But in that amount of time is the story has evolved already. I remember how difficult it was to try to explain to people carbon dividends that this money that was going to be going into this carbon fee was going to be redistributed as an equal monthly dividend check. And that seemed like a preposterous idea. Like there's no way we could trust the IRS to do that or the government to do that until COVID happened. And all of a sudden people have real experiences with this. And now we're talking about doing this instead of having money that's being borrowed in order to send that out. We're now talking about money that has is actually paid for with this carbon fee. So it not only mitigates the problem, but you're getting something good from from the government and people as they found in Canada appreciating that that that that policy quite a bit because that money helps them in other means of their life that has nothing to do with climate change. And it's fully fair because the polluters are the ones we're asking to pay and they've known for decades that they were causing a problem and they've continued to cause the problem. So do you think it's funny that well because now we've got like to traditionally conservative groups or business friendly groups ever want to classify them like the US Chamber of Commerce and another like the AP with the American Petroleum Institute for crying out loud is now actually coming on board. Does that give you any pause that like is that the folks who are responsible for so much pollution do you think that that that wait a second there there must be something wrong with the policy if they're coming on board. No I think it's a recognition that what all of us can see happening all around us which is the climate is being disrupted and its effects are negative. They are not positive. So they're they're even Republicans or even extreme conservatives are convinced that the government is going to do something about the climate and for the purposes of business they want a predictable plan. They don't want something to suddenly be sprung on them or to be highly variable and some approaches to climate control or climate stabilization like cap and trade produce highly variable prices and businesses can't can't plan based on that. So this is a program where the increase every year is known. It's a base price of ten dollars more per year every single year and and more if we're not reaching the targets of reducing emissions that we want and business says OK that's a model we can work with we know what the price is going to be of our supplies and our and our products in the next year the next five years the next 20 years so they're in favor that I think they see you know they see the tide moving they see how general opinion is moving and much in the same way that some conservative lawmakers a few years ago wouldn't it was dangerous for them to admit that this was a human caused problem and now they've already moved to say yes we acknowledge this that the problem is what we're going to do about it. Oh tell the story about when you were lobbying. Am I allowed to. I don't think it's I don't as long as you don't specify who it was. You were in a cool country meeting. Yeah I was in a cool country meeting. I was so meeting with a representative yeah I was also a representative member from cool country at his aid actually and we you know it was cool for me because I still think of myself new on the lobbying end because that was my first and only live lobbying session but you know prepping for the meeting with these very experienced constituents or people who live near his district saying you know just be careful what kind of language we use because they don't want to hear they don't want to hear about solar panels they don't want to hear you know anything that could be remotely negative about coal and and immediately the young staffer said okay we now acknowledge that this is a big issue and and so we've we've made that step forward. It reminds me a little bit I mean on the opposite end of the extreme is like the environmental justice folks that are concerned you know they have some concerns about carbon pricing because you just think of it from the very the the veneer of it seems that oh if you're going to increase the price on carbon that's going to hurt people who are living paycheck to paycheck and also it doesn't address some of the kind of the the injustice historical injustices that have happened to folks who are really taking climate change on the chin already and a lot of that has parallels with injustices of cars income and race and stuff but where there is a lot of overlap on this this does help us on the fact that it predominantly helps the poorest and there's an overlap between that and the other injustices. Right. Yeah and so just climate citizens climate lobby agrees that they'll have to be complementary policies this is not a one-shot deal this is not a silver bullet it'll require silver buckshot a range of programs and so for instance having to do with coal country there will be a shift away from coal very dramatic shift but we supported last year the reclaim act which will help support cold coal based communities as their their jobs are lost as they have been lost over the last 20 years but as they will increasingly be lost and I guess I'll add one other thing which is these these companies the the oil companies and gas companies are very well managed companies and they all know how to shift it's not as though they're going to close up shop all together first of all they're 80% of the economy energy source right now and second of all a company like Stato oil which was the Norwegian offshore oil company as was which was the largest builder of offshore oil platforms is now called equinoa same company same leadership and it's now the largest producer of offshore wind turbines so you can see there's there's a lot of these companies will move they're already moving they're already pricing carbon internally so this is just adding an external price to carbon the world is getting ready for this even as we speak even if we don't understand all the mechanisms that are involved just can we do it in time yeah how fast can we do this that's then CCL's job we say we know we're going to get there we're just trying to get there faster that's what we're when you talk to friends at school go ahead sorry I was just saying about the job thing when people are losing jobs we have to tell them we just have to tell them the EICDA the carbon dividend act will not just hurt cool it will also bring other jobs there's nothing really to worry about we can do this and we can be okay yeah it's going to help people I guess I would add you made a video of your presentation isn't that right yeah because that's I've actually seen your presentation yeah well as someone said you know if Greta Thunberg had just sat outside her school in Sweden nobody would have known about it but she publicized the fact that she sat outside the school and you've publicized the fact that you've gone through this training and have this experience so that's that's a critical part of what we do what do you think your class reaction is going to be when they learn those figures and well they we we they already know that climate change is an issue issue and because and I think that King and other and other schools that they've been moving towards like green silverware and composting they know that's important I think when they hear about carbon pricing they'll sort of think what's that that's where we all start is thinking oh this is a big problem I'm gonna do what I can in my house so you like you get your compost together or you try to recycle better do a better job of you know reusing and all that stuff fish and light balls fish and light balls try to save some money on that stuff or heat pump if you can do it and getting off of heating oil but after that's done that's like you can still do all those things but it doesn't mean and you know you can convince your neighbors or like set a shining example but you can't have it be just voluntary and expect us to get there in time even the great stuff that mains doing right what the stat is 0.32 percent of the US emissions come from Maine so it's great that the governor's and the climate council is doing all this wonderful work and I hope that the causes the nation to follow suit but to ensure that the nation follows suit and that we can meet those goals we need that carbon price is like the biggest thing to do and in elementary school and I talked about climate change I didn't have that everyone's model and I was just saying climate change is important we should do all this stuff people will go home and tell their parents and say let's get garbage to garden and let's get recycling they it's it's very critical that we tell them what is the most important what we need to do first yeah and you know those the your classmates have cousins all around the world and some of them move to other states and it slowly the word spreads they'll tell other people those people will tell other people right in fact one of the most important things I've learned from my citizens climate lobby is that I can have a conversation with someone that I'm sure disagrees with me quite strenuously about climate and a lot of other things I've been in an office where every symbol of the room was for those people and we had a great conversation and I remember the state who was South Carolina but that and it turns out that conversations about climate is one of the most important things to do is to have conversations so that people become aware that I care a lot about it and it turns out they do too we may have different approaches to what we want to see done about it but the first thing we need to do is to start having conversations and citizens climate lobby deliberately because we're bipartisan we go to every member of commerce we learn how to be respectful how to show gratitude how to have a civil conversation with people who differ from us or disagree they have different underlying values and as a result they have different ideas about where we should go next doesn't matter we can have useful important conversations and civil conversations respectful conversations and we do we prove that over and over I just want to say that in the meeting that I'm going to do soon with Shelly Pingry that's you flood there's different roles and I'm the appreciator so there's many like there's the person asking her will you endorse this bill or and or will you support it and but there's also the appreciator and so we're not just only asking them we're also thanking them right and she's already in a sponsor so it's just seeing that she does it again in the next session right mm-hmm yeah and we here in Maynard so privileged to have two senators senator King who's an independent and senator Collins who's a Republican both on the small Senate climate solutions caucus discussing what what kind of legislation they can agree on to put forward and there will be a package of climate legislation in the next month or two and we're all hoping that it'll actually involve both Democrats and Republicans because as it goes through the Senate it will probably need at least 10 Republican votes to become law and yeah and since I did the Enred's presentation for that was probably part of this document or the the this show senator Romney has come out in favor of it yeah we know that Susan Collins has supported something very similar to this a dozen years ago she just needs to be brought back to that senator King has said some very great statements about climate and the climate action business friendly people he's inching closer and closer yeah yeah I think a lot of people are inching closer I think Enred's is helping a lot of people also compare which ones do what you know who else is on there's 14 people on that Senate climate solutions caucus yeah yeah six Democrats plus senator King and seven Republicans yeah including Mitt Romney right and Mike Braun is another one who's a support of it or at least it's right he's a Republican from Indiana we're always looking for the Republicans they're the yeah they're the ones that are trickier to find but it's great and we know we know too just as a political matter that Chris Coons who's the senator from Delaware and a very close friend of Joe Biden's course being Delaware fellow Delawareans they must know each other it's like a two-stay they're just on two different train cars right we know he's actually the sort of the kingpin in the Senate for the development of new bills and he has a bill of his own but he's working with others to create bills around carbon pricing we also know that three members of Biden's cabinet or cabinet level positions John Kerry in charge of climate Janet Yellen and Treasury and Pete Buttigieg in transportation are all in favor of carbon fee and dividend so we now we now have positions in Congress on both parties and in the White House that are in favor of this as one of the policies that'll be in a climate package that will be coming up in the next month or two so there's a real sense of urgency now that anyone who's interested in having an impact on what our national climate policy might be that they enter the fray now and if you want a lot of education around how to do that I can't I can't suggest anything better than Susan climate lobby and no and we've heard a lot about carbon pricing recently yeah yeah I think it's also a couple of the things that's important is that the carbon pricing unlike other you know other laudable ideas to try to get mitigate the problem it's expedient it's quick we can put that in place in nine months whereas other thing like how long have we been working for the clean transportation sector yeah it takes years for those kind of things to be implemented and on top of that with a Supreme Court that is got a 6 3 conservative majority and maybe skeptical of overreach by the legislative branch we know that pricing you know the the purse strings are controlled by the legislature and that's very explicit in the Constitution so it's kind of resilient to any kind of attacks from the judiciary or from the from lawsuits yeah and I guess it's worth saying that we were talking very technically and very specifically about political this and that and so forth so on and believe me if you'd approached me four years ago and asked me about this I would have known nothing about it so that this is the result of a of a citizens climate lobby alleges education great and in fact the website which is either citizensclimatelobby.org or climate citizens USA climate USA always CCL USA CCL USA.org was the first one is a bearable University of Education about climate so but a more enjoyable way to find out about it is to enter your name and zip code in the on the website and you'll be directed to your local chapter and then you can actually get together with other folks yeah virtually or in reality hopefully by the time this airs maybe in reality reality right and find out what the opportunities are for service and the opportunities are for education and the opportunities are for influencing your members of Congress it's really it's it's it's it's it's I must say it's a special experience in my life to be important to be part of this before I saw that film and went to Washington I had never contacted my member of Congress about anything I had not written a letter phone call visit nothing I lived in Washington DC a couple times never did this so I would suggest that you you probably think that the federal government is really distant from but in fact it's kind of right next door and the fact that it's so close to you and you have such access to it will be made clear if you join and become active in citizen's climate yeah and you get I didn't think go ahead yeah sorry I was just going to say like the skills that you like if you're it can make you cultivate skills you never thought you were capable of like being communicator to a in a lobbying meeting those people make six figures and here I am trying to build the same skills and on top of that you know so you you make good friends you learn a lot about climate you feel like you're making as big of a difference as you can by actually moving the people who can control the most and creating a solution in the right direction and and do you sleep better at the end of the day because you've you've done that so did you mention you have fun and you have a lot of fun yeah not only is is acting on climate and CCL for congressmen and going to lobby but also just to just to get back to like talking about the other day with what will happen if this doesn't happen and we won't ever build a snowboard again or go skiing yeah it's not just about lobbying it's about so many other things yeah and everybody has their own special reason for what makes them the saddest or what motivates them and we tell the story all the time but in my family we used to get together on New Year's and by wholesale shrimp off the boat main shrimp and spend a lot of time shocking 10 pounds of shrimp and then stick them in the freezer we had shrimp for weeks months a year whatever and then and now we can't do that anymore there are no more main shrimp to be fit you know you can get them from Nova Scotia again from Newfoundland yeah that's where our lobsters will end up coming from yeah right to stabilize things pretty quickly yeah but you have to make sure that you do it balance right I get scolded for spending too much time trying to save winter then and to make sure I turn around and savor it and go for a good Nordic ski or do something you know make a snowman or you know it's a nice place to live in Maine and I just wait I don't want to imagine all the things that are going to go away from Maine you know winter outdoor recreations healthy lifestyle in the summer instead of have to worry about as many ticks and other diseases blueberry crops whatever me lobsters all that stuff is just like quint essentially Maine how weird will it be if that all goes away