“Very few people on earth ever get to say: ‘I am doing, right now, the most important thing I could possibly be doing.’ If you’ll join this fight, that’s what you’ll get to say.”
– Environmental author and activist Bill McKibben speaking about the climate movement.

How would you like have fun getting involved in the climate movement? Heck, you might even meet the person of your dreams. That’s what happened to me!

Since 2008, my life’s mission is to take action to reduce the threat of climate change. From 1992 to 2017, I was a seasonal park ranger in the national parks. I worked in my summers at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon and winters working in Everglades National Park, Florida.

In 1998, I started giving ranger talks in Everglades National Park. Visitors then asked me about this global warming thing. Visitors hate when park rangers tell you, “I don’t know.” Visitors expect park rangers to know everything. Don’t you?

Soon afterwards, I rushed to the nearest Miami bookstore and to the park library to read all I the scientific books I could find on climate change.

The information I learned really scared me, specifically sea level rise along our mangrove coastline in Everglades National Park. Sea level rose 8 inches in the 20th century, four times more than it had risen in previous centuries for the past three thousand years. Because of climate change, sea level is now expected to rise at least three feet in Everglades National Park by the end of the 21st century. The sea would swallow up most of the park and nearby Miami since the highest point of the park road less than three feet above sea level.

It shocked me that crocodiles, alligators, and Flamingos I enjoyed seeing in the Everglades could lose this ideal coastal habitat because of sea level rinse enhanced by climate change.

I became so worried about climate change that I quit my winter job in Everglades National Park in 2008. I decided to move back to my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. I had no idea what I was going to do there. However, I knew I had to speak out, write and organize locally to inspire others to take action to reduce the threat of climate change.

It took me several years to try to figure out what to do. In March 2011, I got a short-term job at the St. Louis Science Center at their temporary climate change exhibit. At that job, I met local businessman Larry Lazar, who was also very worried about climate change. We would regularly meet for coffee early in the mornings to brainstorm. In November 2011, we co-founded the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up (now called Climate Meetup-St. Louis) group to discuss, learn, and take climate action.

At one of the Climate Reality-St. Louis Meet Ups in early 2012, a beautiful slender woman with long blonde hair sat at the bar drinking a birch beer. As one of the founders of the group, I walked up and introduced myself. She was shy and quiet However, she seemed interested to meet me since I was one of the leaders of the group. Her name was Tanya and I asked her how she liked her birch beer soda. She let me try some of her drink. I invited her to a planning meeting for our Meet Up group and she came.

Tanya and I struck up a friendship. I asked her to meet me for coffee to hear one of my climate change talks and she said yes. Thus, we met for coffee at a Starbucks in December 2012 and again in February 2013. I practiced climate change talks for her both times. During the second meeting, I asked her if she would be interested in having dinner and seeing a movie. We ended up eating at a fun local Indian restaurant and seeing the Jennifer Lawrence and Bradly Cooper movie, Silver Linings Playbook.

Right away, there was a wonderful chemistry between us. We started dating in March 2013. She kept coming to my climate change talks around St. Louis. In April 2013, I took the train to see her Little Rock, Arkansas when she performed with the Little Rock Sympathy. One week later, Tanya played the violin for my parents’ 50th Anniversary Party.

Tanya invited me to her parents’ house for dinner in April 2013 so they could meet me. Around that time, I dropped 7 Mentos into 2-liter bottles of diet Coke to make 25-foot fountains to demonstrate how volcanic eruptions work when I was a guest speaker for St. Louis area schools. Tanya has a quirky sense of humor like me. She thought I should bring the Mentos and Coke to demonstrate to her parents in their backyard after dinner. Her parents, Nancy and Rex Couture, didn’t say much about that demonstration in their backyard. They seemed to enjoy it and they liked meeting me.

That summer, Tanya came to visit me at my summer ranger job at Crater Lake National Park. She saw me narrate a trolley tour around Crater Lake. We then went to see Redwoods National Park in northern California. We stayed at a beautiful beachside motel just south of Crescent City just yards from the ocean. It was fun to hike along the beach and along the big trees. She thought it was hilarious how I craned my neck up to look at the Redwoods and remark, “Big Trees!” She then mimicked what I said. When I asked her if we could take a selfie with my digital camera, she had never heard that term. Afterwards, she kept going, “Selfie!” to because the sound of that word sounded so silly.

Through Tanya, I was invited to speak at a climate change event when I returned to St. Louis for the winter that October. In December 2013, her good friend Connie who manages a library in north St. Louis asked me to give a climate change talk at her library. January 2014, Tanya and I started filming goofy videos for YouTube where we promoted ourselves as the “Climate Change Comedian and the Violinist!”

By the summer of 2014, we had so much fun being around each other that each of us was starting to think about marriage. Tanya got a job at the visitor center at Crater Lake for the summers of 2014 and 2015 so we could be together. We had fun driving from Crater Lake to St. Louis in October 2014, briefly stopping for a day to visit Yellowstone National Park. I proposed to her on Christmas Eve, 2014 at Castlewood State Park, located west of St. Louis. My proposal was on one knee at a bench high on a bluff overlooking the Meramec River and a vast Missouri forest.

Throughout 2015, we had so much fun planning our November 1st wedding with Tanya’s mother, Nancy. Tanya and Nancy laughed and approved all my goofy ideas for the wedding. My inflatable Earth Ball that I use for all my climate change talks played a dominant role in the wedding. The minister for our ceremony, Darla Goodrich, talked about our love for the earth and protecting creation from climate change during her homily. Tanya chose to wear a beautiful green dress. The front of our wedding bulletin had an image of the earth.

The day of our wedding was a sunny warm autumn day. We could not have asked for better weather to take our wedding photos outside. Tanya’s mother, Nancy, is originally from Denmark. Nine of her family members flew from Denmark for this wedding. We must have had around 100 people attend our wedding and reception. Nancy gave a fabulous toast at our reception. She welcomed me into the family and stated she admired my climate advocacy.

My best man was Larry Lazar, who I had co-founded the Climate Reality-St. Louis Meetup. Without Larry asking me to co-create this Meet Up, I am not sure if I would have met Tanya. Thus, all the credit goes to him. Larry gave a wonderful toast how Tanya and I met and about all my climate change efforts. During the toast, he invited the reception guests to come to our next meet-up, a screening of the Merchants of Doubt documentary, on Sunday, November 14, 2015.

Surprisingly, two people from the reception came to this event two weeks later. Larry joked during his toast, and I concurred, that people should come because maybe they too might meet the person of their dreams, like Tanya and I did.

Tanya has been so supportive of all my climate change organizing, public speaking and lobbying over the years. She flew with my mom and I in April 2016 to Los Angeles when the Comedy Central TV show Tosh.o taped an episode with host Daniel Tosh interviewing me. I appeared as “The Climate Change Comedian” and my mom played the comedic role as the overbearing mom. In November 2016, Tanya joined me for a short trip to Ottawa, Canada, when I spoke at the Citizens Climate Lobby Canada Conference. Tanya and I then attended separate lobby meetings with members of the Canadian Parliament to lobby them for climate action.

In October 2018, Tanya joined me for a speaking tour across Missouri. During this trip, I gave climate change talks at my alma mater William Jewell College, the University of Missouri in Columbia MO, St. Louis University, St. Louis Community College, and Oakville High School, where I graduated in 1987. Over the years, I have given over 200 climate change talks in over 12 U.S. states. I could not have done all my climate actions without her.

She is my best friend. We have fun hiking together and just hanging out. Today is our 8th wedding anniversary and we are still very happily married.

In all my climate change talks, I share the story how Tanya and I met. I then say, “If you join the climate movement, you might meet the person of your dreams!”

The audience members always laugh. Some of the older men jokingly respond, “Sign me up!”

So, what are you waiting for? It’s time for you to join the climate movement. You might meet the person of your dreams!

“Speak the truth even if your voice shakes.”
– Maggie Kuhn, American activist and founder of the Gray Panthers movement.

On June 1, 2023, I had the opportunity to speak truth to power. I first heard that expression “Speak truth to power” from former Vice President Al Gore from the 2017 documentary about him An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power and his 2017 companion book by the same title.

According to dictionary.com, “The specific phrase speak truth to power is credited to Bayard Rustin in 1942. Rustin was a Black Quaker and a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, advocating nonviolent methods in his fight for social justice. In a letter written that year, Rustin stated that ‘the primary social function of a religious society is to “speak the truth to power.” The truth is that war is wrong.’”

As a climate change organizer since 2010, I found that expression, “speak truth to power,” to be very empowering when Al Gore spoke it in 2017. After I was aware of the phrase, I wanted to find opportunities to “speak truth to power” about the climate crisis and urge elected officials to enact policy solutions to reduce the threat.

On May 31, 2023, Ethan Krow called and texted me. He is the Senior Campaign Strategist at Stuart Collective, a Portland Oregon communications organization that organizes for progressive causes and candidates. Ethan asked me to come to the Oregon Capitol on Wednesday, June 1st at 5 pm to attend a legislative hearing.

Just an hour before Ethan contacted me, Oregon Senate Republican Leader, Senator Tim Knopp, issued a press release. It announced, “The first Joint Committee on Oversight and Accountability will be held on Thursday, June 1st at 5:00 PM in H-174. Members of the Oregon Legislature and members of the public are invited to bring their experiences and observations related to state government and where it requires greater oversight.”

This was a strange public statement. Julia Shumway, Deputy Editor of the Oregon Capitol Chronicle and a media reporter at the Oregon Capitol, tweeted an image of the press release. She commented on Twitter, “As (Oregon Republican Senators’) walkout enters its fifth week, they are holding an unofficial committee hearing about government oversight tomorrow.”

Ethan alerted me that Oregon Republican Senators scheduled to hold an unofficial “sham” hearing with no Democratic legislators planning to attend. As of May 31st, Oregon Senate Republicans had “walked out” the Senate floor for five weeks, the longest legislative walkout in Oregon history. The Oregon Constitution has a quorum rule that 2/3rds of the members of each legislative chamber, the House and Senate, must be present on the floor to vote and pass legislation. The Republican Senators walked out to prevent Senate votes on bills to address abortion access, gun control, and gender affirming care.

Even though they refused to set foot on the Senate Floor to vote on legislation, Republican Senators still joined the Democratic Senators in committee meetings to hold public hearings and work on legislation. Oddly, GOP Senators and their Republican House colleagues created this unofficial Joint Committee on Oversight and Accountability for greater scrutiny of state government without input or an agreement with the Democratic legislators. Thus, no Oregon Democratic Senators or Representatives joined this committee.

With only one-party present, this committee meeting looked to be more of a media spectacle than a committee working on serious legislative business. There was a possibility the committee would invite the public to come forward give comments. Thus, Ethan wanted to pack the room with progressive leaning advocates like me to call out and embarrass the GOP Senators for attending this committee meeting while they refused to end their Senate floor walkout.

In my phone call and text with Ethan, I told him that I could attend. However, I don’t like to drive to Salem. My wife, Tanya, and I share a car. Tanya uses our car daily to commute to work. Even more, I don’t like the heavy traffic on I-5 from Portland to Salem which can make the hour drive much longer. I don’t like the wear and tear on my car to drive to Salem, plus there are parking fees to park by the Capitol Building. Even more, as a climate advocate, I don’t like to burn my own fossil fuels using my car to travel to Salem. Therefore, I made it clear to Ethan that I would be happy to go to Salem the next day if I could find someone to carpool with to the Capitol.

Ethan agreed he would help find a ride for me to Salem. I asked around some of my climate friends. I discovered that Rich Peppers, who I know from the Metro Climate Action Team, planned to go to Salem to attend this committee meeting. Rich offered me a ride in his electric car, a Chevy Bolt. Thus, I was all set to go to Salem for the committee meeting the next day.

Rich and I arrived inside the Oregon Capitol Building around 4:30 pm. Ethan and other paid organizers directed us to the Committee room inside the Capitol where the meeting scheduled to start at 5 pm. Ethan was uncertain if there would be public testimony. However, if there was, he encouraged us to testify to strongly urge the Republican Senators to end the walkout.

When we arrived in the committee room, we saw around 20 people seated. They all looked like Oregon Democratic allies. We were surprised that we saw no Republican supporters. We figured that some would show up, but they never did. It was shocking and amusing that the Republican legislators and their staff were disorganized by not inviting their supporters.

The Republican legislators walked into the committee room and sat in their chairs behind the dais. They called the meeting into session. Each committee member gave an opening statement for why this committee is necessary for more government accountability and oversight. They stated that they hoped their Democratic colleagues would eventually join this committee.

After they finished with all their opening statements, which took 24 minutes, they announced they would open the meeting for public comments. They made it clear that this committee was about promoting a better and more efficient state government. They intended to expose corruption and unethical actions by state government officials and agencies. They wanted to hear from the public at this meeting, especially any potential whistleblowers, to let them know where the state government was falling short on the job.

Yes, all of us seated in the gallery were ready to let them know exactly where we were completely unsatisfied with state government: The Republican Senate walkout. One by one, citizens walked up to the microphone to introduce themselves. Each person expressed in their own words how unhappy we were the GOP Senate walkout. We insisted they end the walkout immediately and start voting on bills.

Julia Shumway from the Oregon Capitol Chronicle was in the room. She posted live tweets with frequent updates about the meeting, including a summary of what each speaker said.

I was the fifth speaker. This was my opportunity to “speak truth to power.” It was my chance to let these Republican Senators I was furious with their walkout. I insisted that they end it immediately to vote on vital bills, including legislation waiting votes for climate action.

This was an unofficial committee with no nonpartisan legislative staff. Instead, Senator Knopp’s and Rep. Breese-Iverson’s aides filled in as staff. Oddly, they did not post agendas or stream video on the official legislative website known as OLIS (Oregon Legislative Information System). However, the Oregon Senate GOP Twitter page posted a video recording of the meeting.

The video camera pointed at the legislators for the entire committee meeting. Thus, you cannot see me or the other individuals who gave oral testimony. However, you can hear us clearly on the video. From that video, I created a video of my oral testimony, that I uploaded to YouTube. Below the YouTube link, I typed out a transcript of my oral testimony for you to read.

My June 1st oral testimony to Oregon Joint Committee on Oversight and Accountability

“My name is Brian Ettling. Members of the committee, thank you so much for this opportunity to be here today. I live in outer northeast Portland.

For 25 years, I was a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park. Hopefully, everyone has been there. One of the most beautiful places in the world. It is such a gem in Oregon. I know with my job that I had to show up for work every day, and I had to do all the duties with my job. I could not choose which programs I could, or I did not want to do. I had to do all the programs assigned to me by my boss.

That’s the same thing for all of you, all the Republican Senators. Show up on the floor. Do your job! You don’t have to vote for the bills. Do your job!

When I was working at Crater Lake, I saw climate change. Climate change is happening here in Oregon. I saw our snowpack going down in the 25 years that I was working there. I saw the fire season getting worse and worse. We need to pass bills for protecting our forests. We need to address issues such as homelessness and affordable housing.

This will only happen if YOU show up on the floor and vote. Please don’t waste this legislative session just to have a tantrum here. Do your job! Be adults in the room. Put on your big boy pants.

That is why so many of us are here today because we are tired of the games that you are playing. Thank you so much for this opportunity.”

The aftermath of my testimony to this Oregon Legislative Committee

Eleven Oregonians gave testimony demanding the GOP Senators end their walkout to return to the Oregon Senate floor immediately to vote on bills. That was the only message from the public. After everyone testified, Republican Senator Tim Knopp gave a statement that the reason for their walk out was that the Democratic Senators were treating them unfairly with an “unlawful, uncompromising, unconstitutional agenda.”

The audience did not buy Senator Knopp’s message. As the GOP legislators stood up to leave the committee room, the crowd clapped and chanted “QUORUM!” I will never forget how the Republican legislators left the room with their shoulders hunched and looking downcast. This committee meeting did not go anything like they planned. The looks on their faces showed it was a publicity disaster. The media accounts that evening and the next day indicated it was.

That evening, local CBS Portland TV station KOIN 6, reported on the committee meeting and quoted me for the story. KOIN 6 noted, “None during public testimony spoke in support of the walkout. As the committee meeting wrapped, there was no direct response to the public testimony pleas.” They showed video footage of us chanting “quorum” as the GOP legislators left the committee room.

On June 2nd, Julia Shumway wrote a story for the Oregon Capitol Chronicle about the committee meeting. This article quoted me and others who gave testimony. Julia reported in the article that “11 Oregonians – most from the area around the Capitol, but some who had driven in from as far as Tillamook County – calling on Republican senators to return.”

This article was picked up by newspapers across Oregon. It was a publicity fiasco for the Republicans. The next day, I received texts and emails from friends who work at the Capitol as legislative aides and lobbyists thanking me for my oral testimony.

A friend working for the Democratic Senate President texted me, “Your testimony looked so cathartic! Thank you for putting words to all our feelings. Your KOIN interview was great too! They ran with it.”

Meredith Connolly, Director of Climate Solutions, an Oregon climate advocacy group that lobbies the legislators emailed me,
“Deep appreciation for you, Brian.
Thanks for all you do, speaking no nonsense truth to these irresponsible ‘leaders’ still in power.”

She added, “I hope your message sinks in too. I think it is reflective of the majority of Oregonians.”

My legislators, Senator Kayse Jama and Representative Andrea Valderrama, complimented me on my testimony when they saw me at public events that summer. At an August 29th town hall, Rep. Valderrama told the audience that she was proud I was one of her constituents when she saw me on TV. She happened to see the KOIN 6 News story about the committee meeting. Her 8-year-old daughter was curious about the story and wanted to meet me at the town hall.

The Republican legislators ended the walkout two weeks later on June 15th. The Democrats watered down their bills on abortion rights, gender affirming care, and gun safety to entice them to return to the Oregon Senate floor. The full Oregon Senate barely had enough time to pass pass hundreds of bills before the legislative session came to its constitutional end on June 29th.

On Saturday, June 28th, it was a relief for me that major climate priority bills for the 2023 passed the Senate before the session ended the next day. On April 8th, I testified to the Joint Ways and Means Committee to support the Natural Climate Solutions Bill. It allows financial incentives for voluntarily managing Oregon’s farms, forests, ranches, and natural lands for carbon sequestration. In addition, I urged them to support the four Building Resilience Bills.

The Building Resilience bills align energy efficiency programs and building codes with state climate goals for rapid deployment of heat pumps, weatherization, and building retrofits for Oregonians. Even more, these bills will improve energy efficiency of existing large commercial buildings and state government buildings, including schools.

On that Saturday afternoon, I watched the Oregon Senate floor session live as those climate bills passed with a few hours to spare before the session ended. I was nervous to see if those bills would squeak through with all the other hundreds of bills that the Oregon Senate needed to pass on the final days of the session. I was very relieved and happy when those bills passed. Whew! I texted the Oregon Senators that I know personally to thank them for their support.

Final Thoughts: pay attention to your state legislature and SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER

The best advice I received as a climate organizer was from my fellow Climate Reality Leader and Citizens’ Climate Lobby friend, Greg Hamra. He once said: ‘Do you know who your member of Congress is? Wait! Better yet: Do they know who you are?’

I extended Greg’s advice getting to know state legislators and local elected officials. I show up at many local events and chat with them, so they know who I am as a climate organizer. I hope I leave an impression to make passing and enacting climate action a high priority for them as elected officials. To be effective at climate organizing or any kind of organizing, one must know who are the key elected officials that can pass significant climate policy.

For members of Congress to know who you are, they want to see that you are reaching out in coalition to other climate or environmental groups. Even more, the members of Congress listen to key stake holders of the community, such as local elected officials when deciding on policy positions. For five years now, I have contacted my Oregon representatives and senators and other Oregon legislators to urge them to pass strong climate legislation. Even more, I organized two large events, one in September 2019 and the other in January 2020 to urge Oregon legislators to pass a statewide cap and invest bill to address climate change.

In 2019 and 2020, cap and invest bills in the Oregon legislature fell short of passage. Not because of lack of Democratic votes. There were enough Democratic votes to pass these bills. These bills failed because of Republican legislative walkouts denying the 2/3rds chamber floor quorum to pass these bills. As with many climate advocates in Oregon, I felt devastated when Republican legislators used that trick to stop these bills.

An Oregon media source, KGW 8 News, noted 10 legislative walkouts in the Oregon Legislature since 1971, over a period of 52 years. However, 7 of those 10 walkouts happened since 2019. A four-year time frame! At a town hall lead by Oregon Senator Michael Dembrow that I attended earlier this year, he shared a quote from a legislator commenting about a walkout that happened decades ago, ‘If they become accepted, they will be expected.’

Sadly, the walkouts have become accepted by Oregon Republican Senators and expected by many of their constituents. In 2021, the Republican Senators decided not to walk out over a gun control bill. As a result, the conservative constituents of Senate Minority Leader Fred Girod and Senator Lynn Findley unsuccessfully tried to organize to file recall petition against them after they didn’t walk out to prevent a vote on a Democrat-sponsored gun control bill. Thus, Oregon Republican Senators face intense heat from their constituents to walk out to prevent passage of Democratic Senate bills on gun control, raising taxes to fund schools, abortion, gender affirming care, and prominent legislation to address climate change.

Many Americans don’t realize the power their state legislators have in shaping nationwide policies. In 1932, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis referred to state governments as ‘laboratories of democracy’ that can “try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.’

In the past century, state legislatures led efforts, such as for workers’ rights in Wisconsin, Louisiana creating a precursor to President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, Mitt Romney’s efforts to healthcare as governor of Massachusetts served as a template for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and multiple states pushed in the legalization of gay marriage. Unfortunately, David Pepper, a political activist, former elected official, adjunct professor, and the Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party between 2015 and 2021, warned in his 2021 book that conservative leaning states have become Laboratories of Autocracy.

In recent years, states with Republican dominated legislatures have passed laws to reverse workers’ protections, ban abortions, loosen gun control laws, suppress voter turnout, and allow for heavily gerrymandered districts to keep themselves in power against the will of the voters.

Why is this happening? According to David Pepper, “Too few people, including those in politics, understand the immense power–the potential for both good and ill–in our nation’s statehouses.” He went on to say, “If the average voter doesn’t know or care what state reps do and can do, but insiders and interests know exactly what they do and can do, that’s dangerous. And a huge vulnerability to the common good.” (his emphasis)

David Pepper then explains the overlooked importance of state legislatures. They distribute federal funding to local communities and citizens. Local governments must operate within the defined powers given to the by the state legislatures. State legislatures write the laws the defines the parameters and duties as well as the laws that must be followed by statewide office holders, such as the Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, etc. They hold the power over how federal, state, and even local elections are administered in the state. They draw Congressional and legislative districts after the U.S. Census is held every 10 years. Oh, and they set the state budget, among their other powers.

The people who are elected as your state legislators matter. Even more, the party that controls your state legislative chambers matter. It is important to know if they are passing effective bills for climate action. If your legislators are, thank them. If they are not, call their offices, email them, write a letter, or attend their town halls to urge them to support strong climate legislation. If they refuse or ignore you, support their opponent in the next election. If they don’t have an opponent, run for office. It is jaw dropping how many state legislative races and even local election races go uncontested with just one candidate running.

When your legislators hold public hearings on good or bad legislation that impacts the environment and the climate, show up to give public testimony. I have given oral testimony to legislative committees numerous times. I enjoyed testifying to look legislators to tell my story why they should support or reject a specific bill. It is a very empowering experience.

Even more, your legislators might hold bogus hearings on oversight and accountability. While they hold that hearing, they could be refusing to perform their required job duties such as showing up on the chamber floor to vote on vital legislation. If they do that, like what recently happened in Oregon, make sure you show up and SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER!

“A man or woman could hardly ask for a better way to make a living
than as a seasonal ranger for the National Park Service.”
– American environmentalist author Edward Abbey from his 1973 book Cactus Country

From 1996 to 2017, I proudly worked as a seasonal park ranger in the national parks. When I write about my life, I mostly simplify to say that I worked as a park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon and Everglades National Park, Florida from 1992 to 2017.

Upon graduating from William Jewell College with a Business Administration degree in 1992, I knew that I did not want to office cubical or for a large corporation in my work career. The idea of making money just to make money just never appealed to me. My desire was to get the most out of life, see as much of the world as I could, while living in beautiful and scenic locations.

My first seasonal summer jobs working at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon 1992-2005

I arrived at Crater Lake National Park on May 20, 1992, to work in the Rim Village gift store for the summer. With the deep cobalt blue color of the lake and the glistening snowcapped mountains surrounding it, I felt like I found my new home. I enjoyed hiking up the mountain peak trails to get a bird’s eye view of the area and the satisfaction of the exercise it took to reach the mountain summits. I loved how quiet the park was during the day, except for an occasional airplane flying overhead. You could hear the wind whispering through the trees. The sunsets over the lower western Cascade Mountains on a clear night were not to be missed. The sky over Crater Lake were so dark on a moonless night that I had never seen the Milky way as clear or so many stars in the sky.

I loved my summers at Crater Lake. I spent the summers of 1992-94 working in the Crater Lake gift store. The General Manager of the Crater Lake concessionaire talked me into working the night auditor position at the rehabilitated Crater Lake Lodge during the grand re-opening summer of 1995. I quickly discovered that working graveyard shifts was not my cup of tea. I was sleeping during the daytime beauty of Crater Lake.

In 1996, the National Park Service (NPS) hired me to be an Entrance Station ranger at Crater Lake. I wore the ranger uniform with pride as I welcomed visitors to Crater Lake and charged them the $5 entrance fee. I was working in a tiny entrance station booth, which was more like a box. The park entrance road was surrounded by the tall skinny lodgepole pine trees. Except for the stream of vehicle traffic in the summer, it felt like I was working in the woods.

For the summer of 1997, it was soul satisfying to return to this Crater Lake entrance station ranger job. That summer NPS changed the job title to Visitor Use Assistant. I did not care what they called me. I was delighted to spend my summers at Crater Lake. I typically worked at Crater Lake from early May into sometime in October. I skipped the summers of 1998-2001 to work year-round as a natural guide in the Everglades. I returned to work summers at the Crater Lake entrance stations from 2002 to 2005.

My first seasonal winter jobs working in Everglades National Park, Florida 1992-1995

The weak point of the Crater Lake jobs was that they were only temporary summer jobs. Thus, I had to find another seasonal job for the winter in those months to mark time before returning to Crater Lake for the summer. Fortunately, the peak season for Everglades National Park visitation in Florida was from late November to early April. I arrived at the Flamingo Outpost in Everglades National Park in December 1992. My first job was working in housekeeping. I then transferred to a Front Desk job at the Flamingo Lodge.

Unlike Crater Lake, I was disappointed with my first views of the Everglades. The sawgrass prairie, which made up much of the park, looked as flat as the eye could see. It looked like a Midwest farm field, not at all like the iconic western national parks with towering mountains. The only high features in the Everglades were the lofty clouds that I had to imagine they were as high and dominating as the Rocky Mountains, Cascades or Sierra Nevada Mountain ranges.

My seasonal housing unit looked out into the subtropical Florida Bay, which made up the lower third of Everglades National Park. Numerous mangrove islands dotted the shallow Florida Bay. In the western part of the bay, the water blended into the Gulf of Mexico. As a child growing up in the landlocked St. Louis, Missouri, I dreamed of living close to the ocean to see that horizon line where the ocean met the sky with no land to interfere. Flamingo was probably the cheapest place in Florida to live next to the ocean, even if Florida Bay was considered an estuary, a place where inland freshwater met and mixed with seawater from the ocean.

It felt very tranquil to live by so much water. Surrounding our housing area and Flamingo were subtropical mangrove trees living in the shallow waters and coconut palms stood by the higher solid grounds of the buildings. The Everglades had a fascinating variety of wildlife with alligators, crocodiles, dolphins, manatees, deer, raccoons, and a wide variety of colorful wading birds. November to April is the dry season in the Everglades where it rains occasionally and is most sunny most of the time. The high temperature from December to April is in the upper 70s to lower 80s. South Florida is a fun place to comfortably wear shorts in the depths of winter.

To mark time until I could return to Crater Lake, I made the best out of working winters in the Everglades. I skipped two winters in 1993-94 and 1994-95 to spend time with family in St. Louis. I returned to Flamingo in the winter of 1995-96 to work as a night auditor at the lodge front desk. I thought I would use my Business Administration college degree to do this accounting job to balance the daily receipts at the lodge. Like my 1995 summer at Crater Lake, I was a glutton for punishment working this overnight job. It was stressful to complete all the office work in time. The computers were finicky and glitchy with no one around to assist if I ran into technical issues. It was a brutal sleep schedule and hard on my dating relationship at that time. I vowed to never do that job again.

Working as an Everglades naturalist boat tour guide 1998-2002

I skipped working in the Everglades in 1996 to 1997 to visit family in St. Louis. It was good to be home that winter because to be at the hospital hours after my oldest niece and goddaughter, Rachel was born. When I returned to Everglades National Park in November 1997, I worked front desk at the Flamingo Lodge. In early January 1998, a naturalist guide position opened to narrate the boat tours in Flamingo. I applied for the position and started in late January 1998.

In the summers of 1992-1994 at Crater Lake, I volunteered to lead church services at the campground amphitheater on Sunday mornings for A Christian Ministries in the National Parks (ACMNP). I grew up as a church going Christian, plus I was influenced by my maternal grandfather, Arthur Johnson Sr, who was a charismatic Baptist Minister. Since I was a child, I enjoyed giving speeches at school. ACMNP recruited me while I was in college to volunteer for them leading church services in a national park and they would find a job for me. They found my first gift store job at Crater Lake in the summer of 1992 and my housekeeping job working in Flamingo in the winter of 1992. Thus, I was an ACMNP volunteer in Everglades National Park during the winter of 1992-93.

I liked the opportunity to do public speaking leading the church services. It was extra responsiblies while working full time in the national parks. The good news was that it was typically a new group of visitors attending each weekend. I could recycle my sermons and not necessarily come up with a new talk every weekend. As I worked in the national parks, I knew that I eventually wanted to become an interpretive park ranger. They lead the public ranger talks, guided hikes, guided canoe trips, narrating boat tours, presenting evening campfire programs, etc. They looked like they had the most fun of any job working in the national parks. Flamingo had the tradition of the ACMNP volunteer leading the sunrise Christmas and Easter boat trip each year.

Everglades did not have an ACMNP volunteer to lead the Christmas morning sunrise tour in December 1997. I volunteered to lead the service. The service went exceptionally well. We had over 40 people on board the boat that held over 97 people. It was an astonishing sunrise over Florida Bay. I spoke briefly on the meaning of Christmas before we experienced a captivating sunrise. Leading that service helped me land the concession naturalist job. The lead naturalist, Rob Parenti, was on board that board that morning as the first mate to assist the boat captain. He saw me in action. Rob noticed I was very comfortable with public speaking. He joked after I got the Flamingo boat tour naturalist guide job that he knew I would be a good fit because he could tell that “I liked to talk a lot.”

This naturalist boat tour guide job was my first time talking full time for a living. I loved that job at the time. I narrated two different boat tours, one into the more open waters of Florida Bay and the other boat tour up the Buttonwood Canal into the backcountry waters of the Everglades. I pointed out alligators, crocodiles, manatees, dolphins, and various wading birds to the boat passengers. It was fun to learn about the history of the Everglades, the Native Americans, and the outlaws that settled in the Everglades.

It was great to talk about how and why the Everglades became a national park in 1947. Unlike western national parks which were protected for their dramatic scenery, the Everglades National Park was the first national park in the world protected for its biodiversity. Florida conservationists wanted it protected because of its wide diversity of plants and animals.

I greatly admired “The mother of the Everglades” Marjory Stoneman Douglas who fought many years to protect the Everglades. She wrote the most renowned 1947 book, The Everglades: River of Grass. She opened the book by writing,

“There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, remote, never wholly known…The miracle of the light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slow-moving below, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades of Florida. It is a river of grass.”

I shared that quote and others from Marjory Stoneman Douglas during my boat tour narrations. She lived to 108 years old. She passed away in May 1998, just months after I became an Everglades naturalist guide. It felt like her torch moved on to me and others in my generation to cherish and protect the Everglades. When possible, I made sure park visitors knew about her during my interactions.

Most of all, this job gave me a great opportunity to talk about the importance of saving the Everglades, our precious environment, and our planet from the harm caused by humans. In most of my programs, I talked about how the Everglades was one of the most threatened national parks in the United States due to over development and over drainage. In December 2000, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed a multi-billion-dollar plan to try to save the Everglades.

I ended most of these narrations with a famous quote incorrectly attributed to Marjory Stoneman Douglas to this day. In fact, a lesser-known Everglades activist named Joe Podgor gave Marjory the iconic quote: “The Everglades is Test. — If We Pass, We May Get To Keep The Planet.”

At that time, I felt like I was doing what I could to save the planet by narrating those boat tours. I hoped I planted some seeds to inspire some individuals, especially younger individuals on these boat tours, to become environmentalists.

Working as an Everglades City winter seasonal interpretation ranger 2003-2007

By the spring of 2002, I was burned out narrating the Flamingo boat tours. I was tired of fighting with boat captains. I had enough their giant egos who were not interested in providing quality customer service and working as a team with me to provide a lifetime experience with the passengers. I detested the 10-hour days in the winter leading up to 4 two-hour tours. It was too much talking for me and started to strain my vocal cords. I became so concerned that I went to see a doctor about that. I had lost faith in the Flamingo management that did not care for my well being and low pay with the long hours and impacts on my health.

On top of all that, I missed Crater Lake National Park and the western part of the United States. I was tired how flat south Florida was. I wanted to see hills and snowcapped mountains again. Fortunately, my friend Amelia Bruno, who oversaw the Entrance Station fee program at Crater Lake, offered me my old seasonal job back of working at the entrance station. Just a few months before, I bought my first car a green (my favorite color) 2002 manual transmission Honda Civic, which I still own to this day. I wanted to go for a long cross drive in my new car.

I never worked at Flamingo again. I had a wonderful summer at Crater Lake. It was a superb summer for me to return because the park was celebrating its centennial. Congress passed a bill establishing the national park and President Theodore Roosevelt signed it into law on May 22, 1902. It was great to make new friends working in the park since I was gone for four years. It was a joy to rediscover all the trails in the park that I enjoyed hiking.

The stressful part was I did not know what I was going to do for the winter of 2002-03. I ended up going back to St. Louis to stay with my parents. I returned to the entrance station ranger job the next summer. In the summer of 2003, I had a new housemate at Crater Lake, David Grimes. He had worked seasonally in other national parks such as Congaree Swamp in South Carolina and Zion National Park. We struck up a friendship. We both applied to work as seasonal interpretation rangers in Everglades National Park that winter.

As summer turned to fall, Grimes (as he likes his friends to call him) accepted a winter seasonal position in the Everglades City district in Everglades National Park. Unfortunately, I received no word for a winter position in the Everglades. I decided to return to St. Louis for the winter, not sure what I planned to do after I returned there.

In late November, I received a phone call from Candice Tinkler, the District Supervisor Ranger at the Everglades City Visitor Center. Someone she hired for the winter declined to work there. She needed to hire a new ranger fast. She saw my name on a list of eligible candidates. Grimes highly recommended me, so she called to offer me an interpretative ranger position for the winter. She needed me to come down fast, within a week if possible. I started throwing my ranger uniforms and other belongs in the car to drive from St. Louis to Everglades City, Florida. I left shortly after Thanksgiving and arrived during the first week in December.

This was my first National Park Service interpretative ranger job. After my four years as a naturalist guide in Flamingo, this new ranger position was a ideal fit for me. I enjoyed narrating the boat tours in Everglades City, narrating the canoe trips, and giving ranger talks on the water drainage issues and the Everglades Restoration plan. I liked spending the winter in Everglades City and I ended up spending three more winters there from 2004 to 2007.

In subsequent winters working in Everglades City, I expanded to do additional ranger programs, such as guided bike tours and an evening program on the birds of the Everglades. At that time, I knew nothing about PowerPoint. Candace Tinkler left Everglades City in 2005 to work in Redwoods National Park. The new District Supervisor, Sue Reese, quickly taught me how to put together a PowerPoint presentation. I became quickly hooked on PowerPoint to create presentations. I am still enamored with PowerPoint to this day, as well as Mac Keynote since 2013, to create over 100 climate change talks since 2010.

Sue gave me an opportunity to be creative to make a temporary display in the visitor center honoring Marjory Stoneman Douglas with pictures, quotes, and brief information about her. She allowed me to create a wooden box with a mirror on the inside. The visitor center had a small display about the ecological damage and restoration plans for the Everglades. The wooden box hung by those displays. On the outside of the box, I printed out a sign, “Look inside at the person most responsible to save the Everglades.”

When the visitor opened the box, they would see a reflection of themselves. The other rangers and park visitors got a good laugh out of my display. I doubt that box with that message is still there today. However, I loved the message I conveyed that each of us is responsible for saving the Everglades, the environment, and the planet. No excuses.

My first seasons as an Interpretative Ranger at Crater Lake National Park 2006-07

I delighted as a winter seasonal interpretative ranger in Everglades City from 2003 to 2007. During those winters, I became eager to become a summer interpretative ranger at Crater Lake National Park. I applied to be a summer interpretative ranger at Crater Lake in 2005. However, Martha Hess, the Interpretative Supervisor Ranger at Crater Lake, decided that I was better suited to stay as an Entrance Station Ranger. I felt dismayed when she shared that with me. However, I was not discouraged. I applied the next winter and Martha called me in May 2006 offer me a summer season interpretative ranger position at Crater Lake. I dreamed for several years hoping to get this position. I felt ecstatic when she extended the job offer to me.

Like my previous winters working interpretation in Everglades National Park, I was overjoyed working as an interpretative ranger at Crater Lake National Park in the summers of 2006 and 2007. After many years of working other jobs at Crater Lake, I felt triumphant leading a lodge talk about the park founder William Gladstone Steel, giving a geology talk, and narrating the boat tours that summer. In late August, I had to debut a junior ranger program and an evening campfire program when other rangers left for the season to return to their teaching jobs.

I loved using PowerPoint, but I found it stressful to pull together an evening program while working full time without much office time to craft it. I pulled a couple of all-nighters without much sleep, and I presented a new evening on the birds of Crater Lake at the campground amphitheater in late August 2006. It was a huge relieve to have this ranger program completed. Most Crater Lake rangers are required to debut their evening program in their second season at Crater Lake. However, Crater Lake was short of rangers to give evening programs in August 2006. Thus, I was required to present an evening campfire program my first summer.

I received good audience responses from my Birds of Crater Lake evening program. It soon became my favorite ranger talk. I loved making the campfire and interacting with the large audience of visitors before, during and after my evening ranger program. When I returned to Crater Lake for 2007, I was eager to give this talk. After I had created this program, I was thankful Grimes pushed me hard to debut it in 2006. Otherwise, like most Crater Lake interpretive rangers, I would have spent the winter worried about constructing this program.

The lead interpretative ranger, David Grimes, was impressed with my Lodge talk I put together about the founder of Crater Lake National Park, William Gladstone Steel. He thought we should videotape my talk. We would then submit the video to the NPS Interpretative Office as Harper’s Ferry to see if they would certify this program. We filmed my talk in August 2006. I waited that winter to see if the NPS Office certified this talk.

When I returned to Crater Lake in June 2007, I received the good news announced during seasonal training that they certified my talk. Twelve years later, I uploaded this video to YouTube so you can see this talk. Learning about William Gladstone Steel when I assembled this talk had a big influence on my life. I wrote about him earlier this year, The historical person who inspired me to be a Climate Lobbyist.

In 2007, I had a terrific summer as an interpretative ranger at Crater Lake. I worked hard the previous summer to create all my ranger programs. Thus, I could enjoy my free time more in early July knowing that my ranger talks were ready from the previous summer. I just had to review my notes for all these programs. I felt like I improved each time I gave these ranger programs. It was a terrific summer, but then tragedy struck.

The tragedy of losing my Everglades and Crater Lake mentor, Steve Robinson

In August 2007, we received news that fellow Crater Lake ranger Steve Robinson had pancreatic cancer. It was stage 4 and incurable. I knew Steve since I attended his ranger evening program in Flamingo in Everglades National Park in February 1993. When I returned to Crater Lake National Park for the summer, he narrated the boat tour I traveled on as a passenger in July 1993. I discovered that Steve and his wife Amelia Bruno were seasonal park rangers like me that spent their winters in Flamingo and their summers at Crater Lake.

In the years that followed, I stuck up a friendship with Steve and Amelia. He became a mentor to me how to be a good ranger, human being, and a man. When I worked in Flamingo and Crater Lake, I came to Steve and Amelia’s house to spend hours with Steve to learn his wisdom.

I learned a lot from Steve trying to absorb his wisdom. At that time, I wrote down inspiration quotes from to pin on my bedroom bulletin board. Steve was an optimist who would respond to cynicism, “Just because it has not happened yet does not mean it can never happen.”

Steve was a fourth generation Floridian who had a deep love for the Everglades and natural world. For 25 years, he worked as a seasonal park ranger in Everglades National Park. Steve had the good fortunate to meet the ‘Mother of the Everglades’ Marjory Stoneman Douglas one time when he worked as a ranger. He happened to see her at one of the scenic overlooks in the park and struck up a brief conversation with her when they were both admiring a scenery. Steve loved to quote Marjory and share her stories.

Steve had the gift of connecting with park visitors and people caught up in momentary short term, knee jerk, superficial thinking. One time, Steve told me, “My goal in life is to remove the rocks that other people’s paths.”

Steve had great stories to try to shift other people’s perspective. At the start of my March 8, 2012 blog and March 2012 Toastmasters speech, I shared this story about Steve. In his spare time as a seasonal ranger in the Everglades, Steve would drive up to a scenic overlook in the park known as Pa-hay-okee. He loved to sit there and look over the beautiful scene of a saw grass prairie stretching out to the horizon as far as the eye could see. One occasion, when he was there for a time, a park visitor drove his car up to the nearby parking lot. The visitor grabbed his camera from the car and quickly ran to the overlook. When he got there, the visitor felt disappointed in the lack of action and the flatness of the plain saw grass vista. He mumbled, “Nothing.”

Steve smiled at him. He looked at the sawgrass prairie, stretched out his arms, and proclaimed “Everything.”

The last several summers that Steve worked at Crater Lake National Park, he worked at the Watchman Peak Fire Lookout. He would scan for wildfires. In addition, he relished the opportunities to engage with park visitors who hiked the trail, which was less than a mile long with over an elevation gain of 420 feet. The view at the summit provided one of the best panoramic views of Crater Lake and the surrounding area. Visitors often were flabbergasted on the summit, unsure of what to say with this 360 bird’s eye of view of the area. One visitor commented to Steve, “Looks like I reached the end.”

Steve was amused by the statement. He responded, “No, you reached the beginning.”

Steve and I laughed at this story because I could totally relate. As a park ranger and avid hiker, I observed that visitors often did not know what to do when they reached a mountain summit. Some look disappointed or restless because they hoped for something more. Others would quickly enjoy the view, but then they hurry down eager to get to their next destination or point of interest at Crater Lake. They use a mountain summit to like a mental check list of something that they conquered and then they wanted to move onto their next goal.

Steve and I both looked at a mountain summit as a place for deep reflection. A place to truly enjoy the view. It’s a spot to truly ponder life and our place in the world. A location to bring a lunch, meditate, read a book, and observe the world. With patience, one might see a bird soaring or other wildlife. It’s a great place to people watch or even start up a conversation with a stranger, as Steve liked to do there. Steve and I both thought of a mountain summit as the beginning, not an end. It’s a place for renewal and to reflect upon our lives.

One of the pearls of wisdom that Steve gave to me was, “Every single person makes the world every single day.”

A mountain summit can be an ideal spot to contemplate that.

In August 2007, I assumed I had years to absorb Steve’s knowledge. It shocked me when I learned he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest and aggressive forms of cancer. I visited Steve often in the hospital as his health deteriorated. During my hospital visits, he was too weak and on too many medications to talk. Sadly, Steve passed away on October 1, 2007.

I was in a daze for a year after Steve’s death. His mortality made me re-exam my own life. Steve’s quick passing at the age of 57 years old showed me that tomorrow and a long life is not guaranteed. Steve truly made the most of his life as a park ranger, musician, husband, father, friend to many, someone who loved all people, and a mentor to me. He loved life and lived everyday like it was a gift to be alive. After Steve’s death, I felt lost no longer having my mentor around. I needed to do something different with my life to overcome the loss, make the most of my life. I wanted somehow be beneficial to the world as Steve was when he was alive.

Transitioning away from spending my winters in Everglades National Park 2007-08

In early September, around the same time that my mentor Steve was tragically losing his battle to pancreatic cancer, I received an email from my Everglades City District Supervisor Sue Reece. She told me that she would be happy for me to return to Everglades City for the winter. However, she had an opening for a winter seasonal ranger in the Shark Valley area in Everglades National Park. She thought I could be a good fit to work there. The Supervisor Ranger at Shark Valley at that time, Maria Thomson told Sue, ‘I want a good seasonal interpretative ranger to work at Shark Valley this winter. Someone who cares about the Everglades and can relay that to visitors. Someone like Brian Ettling.’

With Steve’s prospects of recovering from pancreatic cancer looking dim in September 2007, I needed some good news. It was heartwarming to hear that I was needed in Shark Valley. Therefore, I decided to work at that location in Everglades National Park for the winter. I would be narrating the tram tours, giving a short ranger talk, leading bicycle tours, and possibly providing a guided bird walk. This looked like a good opportunity to try a new location in the Everglades. Maria hoped I would work there. I had an opportunity to make a difference there.

When I arrived in Shark Valley in November 2007, it did not feel like a good fit for me. I had a housemate with a very surly personality. I missed my friends in Everglades City and other parts of the park. I felt like I was living in the middle of nowhere off of Hwy 41, the Tamaimi Trail. The park housing was just a few miles west of Shark Valley, but it felt very isolating there. I could not sleep at night, and I fell into a very bad depression. I wanted to leave the Everglades, but I did not know where I wanted to go.

In my sleeplessness, depression, and restlessness, I found my life’s purpose. I wanted to carry forth my mentor Steve’s message of protecting our Earth and environment since he could no longer share that vision with others.

I recalled 1998 when I started giving ranger talks in Everglades National Park. Visitors then asked me about this global warming thing. Visitors hate when park rangers tell you, “I don’t know.” Visitors expect park rangers to know everything. Don’t you?

Soon afterwards, I rushed to the nearest Miami bookstore and to the park library to read all I the scientific books I could find on climate change.

The information I learned really scared me, specifically sea level rise along our mangrove coastline in Everglades National Park. Sea level rose 8 inches in the 20th century, four times more than it had risen in previous centuries for the past three thousand years. Because of climate change, sea level is now expected to rise at least three feet in Everglades National Park by the end of the 21st century. The sea would swallow up most of the park and nearby Miami since the highest point of the park road is three feet above sea level.

It shocked me that crocodiles, alligators, and Flamingos I enjoyed seeing in the Everglades could all lose this ideal coastal habitat because of sea level rinse enhanced by climate change.

By the winter of 2007-08, I had read a number of books on climate change. I saw the documentary film about Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, and read the companion book in 2006. I knew I needed to do something on climate change, but I did not know what. I was very clear though that I was not going to find the answer by continuing to work winters in the Everglades. It was time for me to move on with my life. In the winter of 2007-08, I was burned out of the south Florida climate, flatness, and the long cross country drive to spend the winter in the Everglades. Even worse, as a single man, it seemed like I was not going to find a wife there.

I said goodbye to the Everglades at the end of April 2008. I decided I would spend my winters in my hometown of St. Louis Missouri to organize for climate action. I had no idea how I was going to do that, but I was excited I found my life’s purpose.

Creating a Guided Ranger Hike in Summer of 2008 using my wisdom and Steve Robinson’s

In late May of 2008, I returned to work at Crater Lake National Park for the summer. Soon after I arrived in the park, I mentioned to my superiors that I wanted to give a ranger program about climate change. My Crater Lake supervisor, Eric Anderson, and the lead interpretive ranger, David Grimes, supported and encouraged my idea. I just did not feel like I knew enough or was brave enough to do such a program. It would take me three more years before I felt courageous and had enough knowledge to give my climate change evening program at Crater Lake.

For the summer of 2008, David Grimes announced in early June that we had a large enough staff for the first time in years to lead ranger guided hikes up the Watchman Peak. Standing barely over 8,000 feet tall, the Watchman Peak is located on the western side of the Crater Lake rim. It receives the deepest snow accumulation in the park with snow drifts up to 50 feet thick. In some years, the West Rim Drive does open for the season until late June. This is due to the time it takes for the road snow removal crew to plow the tremendous amount of snow on the West Rim Drive, especially around the Watchman Peak.

After West Rim Drive opens sometime in June, it takes another month for the snow to melt back for the trail to the Watchman Peak summit to open. Thus, the ranger guided hikes would not start until the end of July. The summer of 2008 would be my first opportunity to lead a ranger guided Watchman Peak hike. I had several months to prepare. Ranger David Grimes allowed me to shadow one of his first hikes for the season at the end of July. I would then have about a week to prepare for my own Watchman Hike in early August 2008.

After I saw Ranger Grimes’ hike, I had ideas how I would create my own guided ranger hike up the Watchman’s Peak. I wanted to give the visitors on my hike a “mountain top experience” using the wisdom I had accumulated as a person, a park ranger, and the advice I received from my mentor Steve Robinson. When visitors went on guided hikes, I used to ask them as a park ranger, ‘Why are you going on this ranger hike?’

Visitors often replied, ‘Because I want to learn something. I don’t feel like I know anything about this national park or trail. I feel like the ranger can share something that I did not know.’

Thus, I determined to construct my hike around the visitor longing to learn something insightful from the ranger. I thought I would even give them something to take home with them for their next hike when I was not with them.

I decided to give each person attending my hike a pocket-sized card to take home with them called “Ranger Brian’s Wisdom.” I would present it to them at the conclusion of my hike. It would be at my last narrated stop, which was a short distance before the Watchman summit and the fire lookout. A tip that you quickly learn as a national park ranger or naturalist guide: don’t talk during a sunset or sunrise. The audience will be absorbed in the moment taking pictures and watching the sun move on the horizon line. They won’t hear a word that you are saying.

I timed my talk so that I would give my gift 10 minutes before the sunset. If I tried to give my conclusion and my pocket-sized card less than 10 minutes from the sunset, the park visitors on my hike would skip my final stop to go to the fire lookout to watch the sunset.

At the introduction of my guided hike, I told my audience that the trail is always open. They are more than welcome to walk past me to hike to the summit. I don’t want to hold them back if they are anxious to see the view from the fire lookout and worried that they might miss the sunset. I assured them that I will be watching the time closely so that we will be at the summit in plenty of time to see the sunset. However, I warned them that if they blew past me to get to the summit, they would not receive my free gift right below the fire lookout.

Like kids waiting for gifts on Christmas morning, the visitors were anxious to know what gift I would have for them. They would even ask me during the introduction: “What’s the gift?”

I would coyly answer: “You will have to stay with me to find out.”

Giving out these pocket-sized gifts became very rewarding for me. I used these cards in May 2011 a Toastmasters speech I gave when I was a member of South County Toastmasters. This speech was a success with this Toastmasters group. I joined this club in February 2011. It was my third speech to the club. The members voted for me as “Best Speaker” for the first time in the three speeches I gave to the group. A fellow Toastmaster filmed most of this speech which I uploaded to YouTube five years ago.

The Significance of the words of “Ranger Brian’s Wisdom”

Steve Robinson passed away just one year previously on October 1, 2007. I started giving my Watchman sunset ranger guided hike in mid-August 2008. It was less than a year since I lost my mentor and friend. He was very much on my mind as I wrote out these words.

I remember Steve remarking,
“For Every Question,
There Is Not Necessarily an Answer.
Yield to the Mysteries of Nature.”

As a park ranger, visitors wanted me to have answers to all their questions. Sometimes there were no answers to some of their questions. The visitors would occasionally give me a frustrated look if I could not answer a question about Crater Lake, the Everglades, the wildlife, the age of specific tree, etc. I never wanted to lie or mislead visitors when I did not know the answer. In fact, there is beauty in the unknown. One can find joy in researching and finding a scientific answer to question. Or better yet, conducting research to answer a scientific question that has not been answered yet.

As far as my second three lines,
“Take Time to Enjoy the View
and Smell the Roses.
Find your Own Sacred Place.”

That might have been a synergy of thought between Steve Robinson and me. I was frequently dumbfounded as a park ranger seeing how rushed people were on a vacation to visit Crater Lake and the Everglades. I often wondered, ‘Are they really enjoying themselves?’

Even more, it astonished me how park visitors would tell me they were on a mission to see all the national parks. To those visitors, I would sometimes respond, ‘Don’t miss the good stuff in between the national parks.’ Or ‘After you see all the national parks, what are you going to do?’

I loved working and living as a summer seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake for 25 years and a winter seasonal ranger in Everglades National Park for 16 years. In between seasons, I cherished visiting Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Arches, Sequoia, Mt. Rainier, North Cascades, Olympic, Death Valley, and other national parks multiple times. I never had the mindset of ‘one and done’ with visiting a national park. I wanted to see the parks that I visited again and again.

Steve and I had many conversations about visitors who seemed to have mental checklists to visit as many national parks as possible and the sights within a national park once. With “Ranger Brian’s Wisdom,” I wanted to slip in a message to “Find your own sacred place.” Even more, it’s good to visit your happy place multiple times.

This was one of Steve Robinson’s favorite observations:
“If Nature is Your Hobby,
You Will Never Be Bored.
You Can Never Step in the Same Stream Twice.”

If one hung around Steve long enough, he would share this deeply held belief he had. He then would give stories of wildlife, weather patterns, and situations he encountered in nature. He was a master storyteller of his interactions in the outdoors.

When given a chance, Steve loved to preach this thought when he had an audience:
“There Are Things We Love, Things We Hate,
And Things to Which We are Indifferent.
However, In Nature, Everything Matters.”

When park visitors and friends would chat with Steve, they would assert that they hated snakes, mosquitoes, insects, wildfires, cold weather, etc. Steve would then get a twinkle in his eye and a charming smile behind his long beard. He would then find a way to politely counter that we might not like those parts of nature. It’s not necessarily his favorite things in the outdoors. However, Steve would point out that the things that we don’t like in nature that are not cute, fuzzy, adorable, and majestic are still a vital part of nature.

This was Steve’s quote, “Every Single Person Makes the World Every Single Day.”

It was an inspiring statement that had a deep impact on me when it heard Steve say it. I matter. You matter. Everyone matters. Every action we take every single day makes a difference in the world. That goodness I received from Steve’s gem of wisdom stays with me to this day..

Finally, I originated the line, “Think Globally, Act Daily.”

Decades ago, I saw that bumper sticker on cars “Think Globally, Act Locally.” My reaction was, ‘That’s nice, but some days I don’t want to act locally. However, I can act daily for the environment, our planet, and for our local neighborhood.’

I loved creating Ranger Brian’s Wisdom. I must have given way several hundred of these cards over the years. I laminated them so they would last longer. I always trimmed off the sharp edges with scissors at the Crater Lake interpretative work room, so visitors would not get paper cuts from handling these cards. Hopefully, these cards have planted some seeds to influence people to care for our parks, the environment, and our planet.

Videotaping my ranger guided Watchman Peak sunset hike

The visitors and David Grimes responded positively to my ranger guided Watchman Peak sunset hike. Grimes scheduled another seasonal ranger, Terra Kemper, to video this hike in September 2008. Like what occurred with my lodge talk in 2006, we submitted the video to the NPS Interpretative Office as Harper’s Ferry to see if they would certify this program.

When I returned to Crater Lake in June 2009, I received the good news announced during seasonal training that the NPS did certify my talk. Nine years later, I uploaded this video to YouTube so you can watch this talk.

I initially inserted the YouTube written transcript into this blog of my ranger guided Watchman Peak sunset hike, but it doubled the length of this blog. Thus, I decided against it. Hopefully, you will take the time to see the video or read the transcript on YouTube.

Final Thoughts

American author and environmentalist John Muir wrote,
“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

My favorite memories as a child were exploring the woods by my parents’ house and hiking in nature by myself during family camping trips. I intuitively lived by the John Muir quote about the fulfillment I received from spending time in nature without an awareness of John Muir or this quote. I did not know about John Muir until I started working in the national parks.

In fact, you can sum up my life in this nutshell: I loved spending time in nature as a child. My first job out of college was working in the national parks so I could be close to nature. As I spent time in the national parks, I wanted to be a park ranger so I could educate others about the national parks and our natural world. As a national park ranger, visitors expected me to be knowledgeable about climate change. As I became informed about climate change, I decided to transition from a park ranger to a climate change organizer. As climate change organizer, I am now deeply concerned about the state of American democracy.

As I wrote this blog, I stumbled across another John Muir quote, “Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.”

That’s what happened to me. I had no idea when I took a seasonal gift store clerk job at Crater Lake National Park in 1992 how much it would change my life. When I hiked between the pine trees there, it completely led to a new way of life for me. I hope that others that visit and work in national parks experience a life transformation.

Even more, I had a mentor seasonal Ranger Steve Robinson who looked like a cross between John Muir and Dr. Suess’ The Lorax who was willing to guide me. He showed me how to be a better man, park ranger and ultimately a climate advocate. He taught and showed me that all my actions and interactions with others matter. As Steve liked to say,

“Every single person makes the world every single day.”

I am deeply proud of my 25 years as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake and Everglades National Parks. Every day was a blessing to work there. On my worst days living in the national parks, I dealt with situations such as feeling lonely, depressed, heartbroken after a relationship breakup, a bad encounters with park visitors, a demanding supervisor unhappy with my work performance, a difficult co-worker making an unhealthy work environment, and upper park or concession management creating toxic politics on the job. With all that, I might get very little sleep that night or subsequent nights. However, all I had to do was to walk outside. The serenity of the national parks renewed me with its peaceful energy embracing me and whispering, “You are going to be ok.”

It’s that energy of the natural world rejuvenating me as a park ranger that inspired me to become a climate change organizer to protect our planet.

Working in the national parks, over 97% of the visitors I met were good people who were happy to be there. They loved their families and partners deeply. They wanted to show their families, children, loved ones, and good friends some of the most beautiful scenic locations on the planet. They cared profoundly about nature, the environment, the outdoors, the national parks, and our world. It was park visitors who insisted I learn and care about climate change. For years, I was scared to talk about climate change, fearing I would receive arguments from park visitors. When I started giving climate change talks at Crater Lake in 2011, it was park visitors who were very supportive, enthusiastic, and encouraging me to keep speaking out on that topic.

John Muir noted, “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”

Last month, on a weekend in September 2023, my wife, her parents, 8 of her Danish relatives, my in-law’s best friends, and I (14 of us total) visited Glacier National Park. It was one of the most magnificent places I saw in my life. I stopped working at Crater Lake National Park in 2017, six years ago. Yet, I felt like I was home when I went to Glacier. I could immediately relate to the John Muir quote that “going to the mountains is going home.”

Sadly, Glacier National Park had little visible signs of glaciers from areas that we traveled by car, boat, and foot. Like my experience working in the Everglades and Crater Lake, Glacier sent a very loud message to ‘Please take action to reduce the climate change threat.’

I understood this clear and loud message. I ensured others got the message with my two previous blogs about seeing climate change at Glacier National Park calls for climate action. Visiting national parks for a day or working in them for 25 years should change us as individuals.

Edward Abbey penned so splendidly, “A man or woman could hardly ask for a better way to make a living than as a seasonal ranger for the National Park Service.”

It truly was a gift to work and live in the national parks for 25 years as a ranger. I hope my experience and wisdom I gained from that experience can benefit others, such as you.

P.S. Should I have given more credit to Steve Robinson in “Ranger Brian’s Wisdom?

As I write this blog in October 2023, I am wrestling with the realization that half of the thoughts on my pocket sized card for “Ranger Brian’s Wisdom” came from Steve Robinson. My original thought was to call it, “Advice from a Ranger.” This title would have been more broad to allow for that the advice was a combination of Steve Robinson’s and mine. I used that title, “Advice from a Ranger” for my first couple of guided hikes on Watchman Peak in 2008.

I showed my “Advice From A Ranger” card to Steve’s widow, Amelia Bruno. She was touched I had written this to honor Steve as well as my own advice for park visitors. She immediately posted it on the bulletin board at her Crater Lake Fee Program Manager Office.

At that time, I was influenced by Ilan Shamir‘s Your True Nature collection that was sold at the Crater Lake Visitor Center gift stores and elsewhere. Ilan’s company is now called Advice for Life by Your True Nature. Ian’s story is that he was a former marketing businessman with 7UP and free-spirit backpacker. One day in 1999, Ilan walked by a tree in his Colorado neighborhood that he frequently noticed. This time he stopped at the tree and asked for advice. Ilan heard the tree say to him: “Stand tall and proud…Be content with your natural beauty… Go out on a limb!”

Ilan turned the tree’s wisdom into a poem, “Advice from a Tree,” He then included it in his book Poet Tree: The Wilderness I Am. In 2000, Ilan started the Your True Nature Company with the “Advice From a Tree” poster. Then came a bookmark, minibook, and postcard giving the tree’s advice. Then inspiration hit him to share the advice of the river, mountain, garden, and hummingbird. He went on to pen the advice of the bear, moose, owl, horse, dog, butterfly, etc. Ilan and his company now offers more than 50 different advice by animals, plants and natural places.

I shared my “Advice from a Ranger” card with Vickie Grieve, Executive Director at Crater Lake Natural History Association, which runs the Crater Lake Visitor Center gift store. Vickie was thrilled that Ilan’s “Advice from a Tree” and the other Your True Nature Advice items sold in the Visitor Center inspired me to write “Advice from a Ranger.” Vickie knew Ilan personally and she gave me his email address.

I emailed Ilan in early 2009 and I did hear back from him on March 9th. He wrote:

“Brian,
Thanks so much for the Advice from a Ranger poem. I will show it around here in the office and be back in touch soon.
Ilan”

The next day, I responded:

“Ilan,
Thanks for the nice e-mail. I am always hoping that when I do a ranger program that I am making a difference and people might remember it months later. I enjoyed composing the Adviced from a Ranger. Half of it was inspired and is attributed to my mentor, Steve Robinson. He was a naturalist ranger at Crater Lake and Everglades National Park for over 25 years. Unfortunately, he passed away from cancer less than a year and a half ago. He used to love to share his thoughts and observations with me. The other half is just thoughts and observations from my time of being a ranger.”

Ilan replied: “Thanks Brian… for sharing about the creation of Advice from a Ranger. What are your thoughts on how you would like to see it used?”

I wrote: “As far as my thoughts for advice for a ranger. I am open to any suggestions you might have. I thought about selling them alongside your Advice poems. I would only want my poem to compliment, not compete against your poems. Your advice poem series certainly inspired me to create my Advice from a ranger. I had never heard of them until I saw Vickie Grieve selling them in the Crater Lake bookstores. Vickie seemed interested in selling my advice poem in the bookstore too when I first showed it to her last fall. However, we both wanted to seek out your input before we proceeded.

I thought selling them as bookmarks, postcards, and possibly even notecards. I have never sold anything artistic before for retail. Thus, I would like your advice. I would be more than willing to split and profits and revenue with you. I am willing to shorten or edit the contents, if you felt that was needed. I am very flexible. I am visioning a green backdrop with mountains and a river, maybe even an arrowhead, similar to the NPS logo. I thought it would be fun to have a drawing of a ranger. Again, I will be curious to your thoughts and ideas too.

Again, I do not want to compete again your advice series. I think they are so beautiful and inspiring. Furthermore, they inspired me when I had to create the content for my ranger sunset hike at Crater Lake. The visitors attending my program have really seemed to enjoy receiving them too. If I could make my Advice from a Ranger Poem marketable and sell them, but in a way that honors your product too, that is my goal.”

Unfortunately, I soon received a cease and desist letter from Ilan’s attorney that I could no longer use the title, “Advice from a Ranger.” I felt crushed. The email was very cold and unfriendly. I went from hoping to partner with Ilan on this project to losing respect for him. Vickie Grieve and Amelia Bruno both advised me to change my card to a different title. Thus, we agreed upon “Ranger Brian’s Wisdom.”

Since half of the thoughts on the card were Steve Robinson’s, I now wonder if I should have called it, “Ranger Brian and Steve’s Wisdom.” However, that seems to be a long title. For Steve Robinson’s quotes on my pocket sized card, I now wonder if I should have directly cited him. However, at that time, Amelia was fine with me calling it, “Ranger Brian’s Wisdom” and how I displayed the information on the card. Thus, I kept the title and content simple to this day. If you watch my Watchman Peak Hike YouTube video where I discussed “Ranger Brian’s Wisdom,” you will notice I talk a lot about Steve Robinson.

With a new title, Vickie seemed interested in selling “Ranger Brian’s Wisdom,” at the Visitor Center Gift Stores. She advised me to create quality artwork with it so she could present it to the Crater Lake Natural History Association Board of Directors. Two years later, I asked fellow Crater Lake interpretative park ranger Ross Wood Studlar, who is a cartoonist and illustration artist, to create artwork for my “Ranger Brian’s Wisdom.” Ross created a lovely color drawing.

In 2011, I presented Ross’ color artwork and my text to Vickie to present to the Board of Directors. Sadly, they voted to decline to sell the product that Ross and I created. Their decision stung, but I quickly forgot about it as I became devoted in 2011 to follow my passion as a climate change advocate.

“Are there really glaciers in Glacier National Park?”

My co-worker Jennifer asked this question during a lunch break while we worked at the gift store at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon in July 1992. This was my first summer working at Crater Lake. The scenery was magnificent with the cobalt blue lake with the snow-capped mountains surrounding it.

The employees, including me, loved working, and living at this marvelous national park. It was a fun park to hike and explore. During our breaks, we chatted about our hikes we completed at Crater Lake. Working at Crater Lake for the summer sparked an interest in us to swap information about other national parks.

When Jennifer asked that question during one of our national park discussions, we busted out laughing. We thought, ‘Of course there’s glaciers in Glacier National Park!’

Jennifer prided herself on being ditzy and knowing as little as she could. She skirted through life on her bubbly personality and her cute attractive looks. She honestly did not know if Glacier National Park had glaciers. She knew by asking this question it would provoke a strong reaction by the deep thinkers and the worldly park enthusiasts in the break room.

I knew nothing about Glacier National Park since it was probably close to 1,000 miles away in Montana. I assumed that it had glaciers by the name of the park. A co-worker who knew much more about Glacier than me sighed and informed Jennifer that Glacier did have Glaciers.

Jennifer’s question sparked an interest me to learn more about the glaciers at Glacier National Park. However, her question faded in my mind as I continued to work seasonally at Crater Lake during the summers for 25 years. Sadly, I worked long enough at Crater Lake to see climate change firsthand. With my own eyes, I could see the annual average snowpack diminishing and the summer wildfire season becoming smokier and more intense. I became so worried about climate change that I started giving my evening campfire ranger program in 2011 on the impacts of climate change on Crater Lake National Park.

At the beginning of this ranger talk, I talked about how climate change impacted other national parks such as Everglades in Florida, Kenai Fjords in Alaska, Joshua Tree in California and Glacier National Park in Montana. While researching this program, I learned climate change is erasing the glaciers at Glacier National Park. During this ranger talk, I showed images of the Shepard Glacier in Glacier. I had a park photo of what that glacier looked like in 1913, compared another photo from 2005. On top of that, I stated to the audience that the “National Park Service and NASA scientists believe the park’s glaciers could no longer exist in 25 years.”

Over the past 30 years, I visited nearly all of America’s most scenic national parks, such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Mt. Rainier, Olympic, Sequoia, Death Valley and others. However, Glacier alluded me because it was just too far out of the way on my cross-country trips in northwestern Montana to visit. I was just not sure if I was ever going to reach it.

This year, my wife’s parents, planned a big family trip to Glacier National Park in September. My in-laws wanted Tanya and I to join them this 10-day trip. Fourteen of us total met in Seattle on September 5th and traveled to Glacier National Park on September 9th and 10th and then returning to Seattle on September 15th.

We were crammed in three large vehicles. It took us several days to drive from Seattle across eastern Washington, northern Idaho and into Montana to reach Glacier National Park.

When we reached Glacier, we had our jaws open with the beauty of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, the road that cuts through Glacier National Park. Nothing prepared us for the magnificent scenery as we climbed in elevation towards Logan Pass of the jagged mountains and deep forested valleys at Glacier.

We had a picnic lunch at the Wild Goose parking and picnic area. Most of our group, including Tanya and me, hiked 2.4 miles one way to St. Mary Falls. We walked the trail along St. Mary Lake with the towering rocky peaks of Glacier National Park dominating on either side of us.

As we hiked, something seemed odd. I noticed it the next day when we were at another area of the park, Many Glacier. None of the mountain peaks had any snow or glaciers on them. It felt eerie. Yes, all these mountains probably get a good snowpack for the winter that melts by mid to late summer. From my 25 years working at Crater Lake and visiting other national parks, I understood seasonal winter snowpack is gone by late summer. At the same time, this was Glacier National Park. Shouldn’t there have been some sign of a glacier somewhere?

A sign on the Going-to-the-Sun Road near the high point of the road point to Jackson Glacier at a distant mountain, but I found it hard to see. As I spent more time in the park, it felt like we were at an excellent party where the host disappeared long ago. The party was fantastic. I would go to this party again. However, it seemed like it was nearly impossible to get a glimpse of the guest of honor.

The next day, I asked a park employee, Captain Nicole, who drove and narrated the boat tour at Many Glacier, “Are there any glaciers are left in Glacier National Park?”

She responded there are currently 25 glaciers in the park. The glaciers are predicted to disappear by 2030, if not earlier. Nicole defined a glacier as a mass of ice so big that it flows under its own weight and has a size about 25 acres. She then commented that around 1850, an estimated 150 glaciers existed within the present boundaries of the park.

Even though I knew for over a dozen years that the glaciers were disappearing in glacier national Park, it was still sad for me to hear this from a Glacier Park employee. I shared with Nicole my analogy that my visit to Glacier felt like we were at an excellent party where the host disappeared long ago. She had no pushback or objections to my observation.

Because of my concerns seeing climate change in the national parks, I stopped working as a seasonal park ranger in 2017. I organized for climate action in Portland, Oregon since then. Barely seeing any glaciers in Glacier National Park in September has inspired me to double my efforts to organize for climate action.

If I ran into Jennifer today, she still might ask: “Are there really glaciers in Glacier National Park?”

My answer would be “Yes! However, they are nearly gone due to climate change. The good news is that can we reduce our pollution that causes climate change. If we switch to 100% clean energy by 2050, we can save our civilization. We can then ensure that we will not then disappear like the glaciers that are nearly gone in Glacier National Park.”

For over 30 years, I had a life goal to visit Glacier National Park in Montana. As a child growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, I dreamed of living somewhere far from my hometown. I considered the local scenery with the rolling Ozark Mountains and the wide dominating Mississippi River to be lovely, but also bland. I wanted to live close to dramatic high snowcapped mountains.

Fortunately, after I graduated from William Jewell College in Kansas City, Missouri in May 1992, I took a summer job working at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. This was my dream came true to live at a high elevation of over 7,100 feet surrounded by majestic mountains topped with glistening snow. It was a magnificent national park to work, hike, explore, and live in for the summer. Working at Crater Lake during the summers from 1992 to 2017, I craved to see other American national parks with spectacular scenery.

When I worked at the Crater Lake National Park gift store from 1992-1994, I would thumb through their picture books of other national parks longing to see those places someday.

Crater Lake was only a summer job. Thus, I worked during the winters in Everglades National Park from 1992 to 2008. During the months of May and October, I traveled across the United States from Oregon to Florida to reach my seasonal jobs in these parks. These cross-country journeys allowed me to see so many iconic national parks multiple times.

One of the best perks as a park ranger was meeting friends who worked and lived in other national parks. It allowed me to stay with friends in their ranger houses for multiple days while I explored these parks. This saved me a lot of money. Even more, it allowed me to reconnect with friends who knew these places well and could easily recommend the best highlights in these parks. I stayed with friends in national parks such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Redwoods, Canyonlands, Death Valley, Capitol Reef, and Sequoia.

One national park alluded me on my cross-country road trips, Glacier National Park in Montana.

Glacier was always too far off my routes to reach it. Even more, the Going-to-the Sun Road that cuts through Glacier National Park was open for the year from mid June to early October. This road had a similar season for when it was open to vehicles as the Rim Road at Crater Lake National Park. Crater Lake’s Rim Road is typically open for vehicles from late June to sometime in October. Therefore, it would be too risky for me to take a very long drive for me in early May or mid-October up to northern Montana to try to see Glacier, only to be turned around with the Going-to-the-Sun Road closed for the season.

I never gave up on my dream to see Glacier National Park. I just never found a way to logistically make it happen as a seasonal park ranger.

Climate Change made me curious to see Glacier National Park

In 1998, I started giving ranger talks in Everglades National Park. Visitors then asked me about this global warming thing. Visitors hate when park rangers tell you, “I don’t know.” Visitors expect park rangers to know everything. Don’t you?

Soon afterwards, I rushed to the nearest Miami bookstore and to the park library to read all I the scientific books I could find on climate change.

The information I learned really scared me, specifically sea level rise along our mangrove coastline in Everglades National Park. Sea level rose 8 inches in the 20th century, four times more than it had risen in previous centuries for the past three thousand years. Because of climate change, sea level is now expected to rise at least three feet in Everglades National Park by the end of the 21st century. The sea would swallow up most of the park and nearby Miami since the highest point of the park road is three feet above sea level.

It shocked me that crocodiles, alligators, and Flamingos I enjoyed seeing in the Everglades could all lose this ideal coastal habitat because of sea level rinse enhanced by climate change.

I was so worried about climate change that I quit my winter job in the Everglades in 2008. I started spending my winters in my hometown of St. Louis Missouri to organize for climate action. Up until 2017, I still worked my summer job Crater Lake. I loved the incredible scenery there and wearing the ranger uniform with pride while engaging with park visitors.

In in the spring of 2008, I first mentioned to my superiors at Crater Lake that I wanted to give a ranger program about climate change. My Crater Lake supervisor, Eric Anderson, and the lead interpretive ranger, David Grimes, supported and encouraged my idea. I just did not feel like I knew enough or was brave enough to do such a program. Finally, in 2011, I felt I was ready. David helped me with the information and images about climate change that he had wrote about for years in the park newspaper. I used the PowerPoint graphs and information I received from the park scientists that they had shared with the ranger staff during seasonal training.

After months I of putting it together in my spare time, I debuted my climate change evening program at campground amphitheater on August 3, 2011.

My evening program title was The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. I stole the title from the old Clint Eastwood 1966 spaghetti western film. With the subject of climate change, I talked about how the lake surface temperature has gone up in recent years due to climate change. However, the lake’s overall condition is “good.” Rising air temperatures from climate change have been “bad” for pikas, a mammal closely related to rabbits living at Crater Lake and in the western mountains. Finally, the “ugly” mountain pine beetles are destroying white bark pine trees at Crater Lake and other trees in the west. Historically, very cold winters kept those insects in check. However, rising temperatures from climate change allows more of them to survive the winter.

I blogged about my Crater Lake climate change evening program elsewhere. David Grimes videotaped the program on September 22, 2012, so I could upload it to YouTube. It’s not easy to travel to Crater Lake. Furthermore, I stopped working at Crater Lake in 2017. It is great to have this program on YouTube so that you can watch it.

Basically, from my 25 years working at Crater Lake National Park, I saw climate change firsthand. With my own eyes, I observed the annual average snowpack diminishing and the summer wildfire season becoming smokier and more intense.

At the beginning of my Crater Lake climate change evening program, I mentioned other national parks experiencing climate change. I gave the examples from Kenai Fjords National Park, with the loss of the Bear Glacier 1909 to 2005, Pederson Glacier 1909 to 2005, and the Northwestern Glacier from 1940 to 2005. I had contrasting photos of the glaciers receding starting from 1909 or 1940 (in the case of the Northwestern Glacier) and 2005. The Northwestern Glacier was especially troubling for me since both of my parents were born in 1940. It was stunning to see the disappearance of the Northwestern Glacier in 65 years.

At the other extreme, I shared that scientists are concerned we could lose all the Joshua Trees in Joshua Tree National Park over the next 50 years due to rising temperatures from climate change. I then talked how climate change would lead to sea level rise in the Everglades.

Among these national park examples, I showed the Shepard Glacier in Glacier National Park, Montana. I had a park photo of what that glacier looked like in 1913, compared another photo from around 2010. On top of that, I stated to the audience that the “National Park Service and NASA scientists believe the park’s glaciers could no longer exist in 25 years.”

In addition, I heard statistics from fellow park rangers and from the NPS that the glaciers in Glacier National Park might be totally gone by 2020.

Thus, from hearing this alarming news about the glaciers disappearing in Glacier National Park, I wanted to see this national park before the glaciers were totally gone.

I stopped working in the national parks after the summer of 2017 so I could organize full time for climate action. My wife and I moved to Portland, Oregon in February 2017. Glacier was too far of a drive from Portland. Before the pandemic, I was too busy with my climate organizing to travel to Glacier. During the 2020-21 COVID pandemic, it did not seem safe to travel to places like Glacier. In recent years, I was uncertain how I would ever see Glacier National Park.

A possible family road trip presents to see Glacier National Park

As I wrote previously, I met my wife Tanya after local businessman Larry Lazar and I co-founded the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet-Up group (now called Climate Meetup-St. Louis) in November 2011. I recall Tanya attending one of our first meetings in January 2012. I asked her out for coffee in February 2013. My pickup line was, “Maybe we could meet for coffee sometime and I could practice my climate change talk with you.”

The line worked! We started dating soon afterwards. As I joke in all my climate change talks: “If you join the climate movement, you might meet the person of your dreams.”

The audience always laughs and an older person in the audience typically responds with humor: “Sign me up!”

Tanya invited me to her parents’ house for dinner in April 2013 so they could meet me. Around that time, I dropped 7 Mentos into 2-liter bottles of diet Coke to make 25-foot fountains to demonstrate how volcanic eruptions work when I was a guest speaker for St. Louis area schools. Tanya has a quirky sense of humor like me. She thought I should bring the Mentos and Coke to demonstrate to her parents in their backyard after dinner. Her parents, Nancy and Rex Couture, didn’t say much. They seemed to enjoy the demonstration and they liked meeting me.

Tanya’s parents have always been very supportive of my climate organizing. They attended a climate presentation I gave that December at a county library in north St. Louis County. They came to see a couple of my Toastmasters speeches on climate change when I was an active member of South County Toastmasters. Even more, my mother-in-law, Nancy Couture, gave a heartwarming toast at our wedding reception on November 1, 2015. In the speech, she said,

“We admire you, Brian and welcome you in our family. The passion that drives you is admirable. You (are) working hard at making people understand the seriousness of climate change and we thank you for this.”

Tanya’s parents, Tanya, and I have always enjoyed our trips together. They typically come visit us for several days every August. We then take day trips to go hiking in nearby areas. Tanya and I visit St. Louis once or twice a year to see them and my parents. Nancy and Rex drive us to great day hikes in Missouri and nearby in Illinois. Nancy is originally from Denmark. All her siblings and cousins still live there. Tanya and I travel to Denmark every other year to see her relatives. We arrange to be there when her parents travel there to attend family events together. While we are there, we like to do some hiking and exploring local sites together.

In August 2022, the four of us enjoyed traveling on a road trip from Portland OR to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state to see Olympic National Park. We had ideal warm clear summer weather to see the highlights of this splendid national park, such as the Hoh Rain Forest, the ocean beach at La Push, Cresent Lake, Marymere Falls, and a panoramic view of the Olympic Mountains at Hurricane Ridge. The last couple nights on this trip, we stayed with Nancy’s cousin Peter and his spouse Karen, in Sequim, WA. At Peter and Karen’s home, we ate outstanding sea food they caught nearby in Sequim Bay.

In addition, the four of us, plus one of Nancy’s older sister, Sonja and her spouse Erik, plus Nancy’s cousin Nils and his spouse Hanna, 8 people total, traveled to Yosemite National Park, California in May 2018. We had a terrific time hiking on the Mist Trail to see Nevada and Vernal Falls, driving to see Glacier Point, and a short walk to see the base of Yosemite Falls up close.

Nancy’s siblings and their spouses are getting up in years. Before the pandemic, it was a loose tradition that Nancy, Rex and Tanya visited Denmark every other year. In the year in between, Nancy’s siblings, their spouses, and some cousins came to the U.S. to explore areas, such as Missouri and Arkansas, the Pacific Northwest, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia.

During our June 2022 trip to Denmark, Nancy asked her siblings if they would be open to traveling in the U.S. in 2023. She thought that they would probably not be interested. Surprisingly, they expressed an interest to see America again. They reached a quick consensus to do a big family road trip to see Glacier National Park in 2023. Tanya enjoyed these big family trips. Thus, it looked like this would be my big opportunity to finally see Glacier National Park.

Traveling from Seattle, WA to Glacier National Park, MT in September 2023

Tanya’s parents, Nancy and Rex Couture, made all the arrangements for this 10-day trip. Their plan was to meet in Seattle, WA and travel to Glacier National Park, MT from September 5th to September 15th. She called me to help her book one of the hotel reservations, such there was a limit of how many rooms at one hotel could be booked under one name. In addition, she asked me contact Glacier National Park to see if I could book one of the days for their vehicle reservation system. Like her, I did not have success booking a vehicle reservation for one of the days. I knew nothing about Glacier National Park, so I left all the planning for the trip up to them.

On September 5th, Tanya and I took the Amtrak Cascades train to the Seattle area to meet up with the group. It was a pleasant 3-hour train ride. We got off the train at the Tukwila train station, not far from SeaTac International Airport. Tanya and I figured that getting off at Tukwila would put us closer to SeaTac than the downtown train station. All of the participants on this trip were flying into SeaTac and picking up their rental cars around that area.

Tanya and I stepped off the train at the Tukwila station at 11:30 am. When we arrived, we saw no restrooms, no Amtrak staff, or other services as we waited for several hours for one of Nancy’s cousins to pick us up by car. This commuter parking lot and station, also used by the local Seattle Sound Transit light rail, was a mile walk to the nearest gas station to use the bathroom. Tanya and I ate our lunch in the shade on the commuter lot benches and read our books. I periodically ran up to the train platform to see the freight and passenger trains roll past the station.

Finally, Nancy’s cousin, Jørgen and his wife Marianne picked us up after 3 pm. The plan was to retrieve Tanya and me after 1 pm, but it took a lot longer at the rental place to obtain their car. We then met up with all 14 people at the scenic Snoqualmie Falls, located about 45 minutes east of Tukwila and SeaTac Airport. Tanya and I saw Snoqualmie Falls on June 30, 2018. However, it rained hard that summer day, making it awkward to stay warm and dry while trying to enjoy the waterfall. After eating an early dinner at the Snoqualmie Lodge, the 14 of us went by our three vehicles to drive an hour and a half east to spend the night in Ellensburg, WA.

From that point forward, three vehicles (a large minivan, a Chevy Tahoe SUV, and a jeep) transported 14 of us towards Glacier National Park over the next three days. We stopped many times over the next three days for sightseeing. Our first stop was Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park for a view of the Columbia River and Native American petroglyphs. These petrographs are some of the best examples of petroglyphic art in Central Washington. They were removed from their original site, below which is now covered by the Wanapum Reservoir.

From there, we drove along Lenore Lake and Banks Lake on Hwy 17. We stopped at the Dry Falls overlook for a picnic lunch. After lunch, we headed up to Grand Coulee Dam to take a guided tour of the reservoir. The dam is one of the largest concrete structures in the world and the largest hydro-electric producer in the United States. We spent the night in nearby Grand Coulee, watching a laser light show projected on the dam that evening.

The next morning, we watched a 45-minute film at the Grand Coulee Dam Visitor about the construction of the dam. Tanya and I felt a bit restless that we wanted to move on to see other sites along the route to Glacier National Park. I worked at Crater Lake National Park as a seasonal ranger for 25 years. Crater Lake’s Park film only takes 17 minutes to explain the Mazama volcano, the climatic eruption, and the collapse of volcano that created Crater Lake. Tanya and I thought, ‘Why would it take 45 minutes to explain the construction of a dam?’

Others in our party wanted to see the film. Tanya and I were stuck at the visitor center since we did not drive our own vehicle. Thus, we watched the film. The film surprised us that it was good. It showed a different time when the U.S. built huge civil projects to improve the way of life for business, farmers, and provide electricity for citizens. It sparked good conversations in the vehicles afterwards why doesn’t the U.S. build massive projects like that anymore.

From Grand Coulee, we drove to take a short hike at Hawk Creek Falls State Park and had a picnic lunch on a tranquil spot near Fort Spokane along the Spokane River. That evening we made it to Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, way up north in the Idaho panhandle. Bonner’s Ferry is less than 30 miles from the Canadian border. I was excited because the next day we were scheduled to travel to Glacier National Park, Montana. Since working at Crater Lake National Park in 1992, I wanted to see Glacier for over 31 years. We were now only about 180 miles or a 4-hour drive away from Lake McDonald Lodge in Glacier National Park. My in-law’s itinerary had us eating dinner there the next day. My dream to see Glacier was coming true the next day. Or so I thought…

My disappointment of not making it to Glacier National Park on Friday, September 8th.

We woke up on Friday morning to have a continental breakfast in the lobby of the hotel. The food available was some toast, cereal, and some fruit. It was minimal for a breakfast, but I was fine with it. I was eager to see Glacier and whatever sights we would see along the way.

Basically, everyone in our group was ready to leave the motel in Bonners Ferry around 9 am. The first item on the agenda was the Boundary County Historical Society Museum in downtown Bonners Ferry. However, the museum did not open until 10 am. Therefore, we had time to kill.

The owner at the hotel at Bonners Ferry recommended that we visit the Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge, located near the city center, while we waited for the museum to open. We went to the Wildlife Refuge took some pictures of the Kootenai River as it meandered and made a sharp curve by the boat dock. We saw a Bald Eagle in a close by in a tree next to the road. However, we saw no other animals as we drove the loop road through the refuge. One member of our party was accidentally left behind at the boat dock as we made the loop drive through the refuge. He was fuming as we returned to pick him up. It was a bit chaotic and not much to see at this refuge. It served the purpose to kill time, but that was all.

In my mind I thought: Can’t we just drive towards Glacier? Why all these distracting side trips?

The Boundary County Historical Society Museum in downtown Bonners Ferry was mildly interesting when we walked inside at 10 am. I enjoyed chatting with the official volunteer greeter of the museum. His name was Howard. He was a lifelong resident of Bonners Ferry in his late 70s or early 80s. Howard sat in a chair and recounted Bonners Ferry stories for anyone who was interested. I was anxious to see Glacier, but the others seemed content walking around the crowded contents of the museum. I made the best of it by having an engaging conversation with Howard and I liked hearing his lifelong account of living in Bonners Ferry. At the same time, I was eager to see Montana and Glacier National Park, the goal of this trip.

It was around noon that we left Bonners Ferry. We did not cross the Montana boundary until around 12:30 pm. At 1 pm, we stopped at the Kootenai Falls Park right along Hwy 2, which was 22 miles east of the Idaho border. We had a picnic lunch there. Afterwards, our more agile group members hiked over a mile to the Kootenai waterfalls and then another mile along the Kootenai River to the “swinging bridge” that spanned the river. The main falls dropped over 30 feet with a series of loud roaring rapids around it that looked too dangerous to kayak or try on river rafting. The river, the falls, and swinging bridge was nestled against a steep ridge of a mountain covered in pine trees that felt like we officially arrived in western Montana. It got me more excited for what we might see that day in Glacier National Park.

After the able-bodied hikers in our group, such as Tanya and I, returned to the parking lot, the Danish relatives gathered at a picnic table having a coffee break and eating ice cream. I was not interested in food or any drinks since we ate lunch less than two hours ago, but I was hungry to see Glacier National Park. We left the Kootenai Falls Park sometime after 3 pm.

We had a two-and-a-half-hour drive to Columbia Falls, Montana to the house we rented for the next three nights. We arrived after 5:30 pm. The original plan was to unload our luggage and then drive to Lake McDonald Lodge inside Glacier National Park for dinner.

We arrived in Columbia Falls to a bright blue sky with no clouds or haze. The weather was in the lower 70s. It was the perfect weather to visit a national park on a late afternoon. The sun was lower in the sky which would make for perfect photos. The park boundary was only about 19 miles away, about a 30-minute drive. It was so close I could almost taste it. I was pumped full of energy to see Glacier National Park. I was within minutes of reaching a life goal.

Then I received the bad news. Almost everyone in our party were tired and did not want to go to the park. My wife Tanya was interested, as well as my father-in-law Rex, but that was it. Everyone else felt worn out from being a car passenger or driving that day. I was livid. I wanted to scream at someone, but I knew it would not do any good.

Instead, I immediately went for a long walk to “cool my jets” and with all the adrenaline I felt in the moment. We stayed at a large house at the back end of the Meadow Lake Resort. I decided to take a long way around the resort area. I regretted I did not drive my own car on the trip to take off at that moment to explore the park on my own with possibly my wife Tanya and my father-in-law Rex. I visited many national parks on my own, so I felt trapped on this trip. I was at the mercy of the group with the coffee breaks, side excursions, slower members taking longer to get ready, and long conversations about how to meet at the next rendezvous point.

Yes, we would travel to Glacier National Park the next day. However, we would never have that chance again to visit Lake McDonald and have dinner at the scenic lodge that Friday afternoon when the weather was perfect. The park enticed me to visit, but I had no means to get there.

My wife texted me that they were walking to the Meadow Lake Bar and Grille for dinner, which happened to be a few minutes away from the spot I just walked past. I turned around to walk to the Bar and Grille. I waited for my wife and the rest of the group to arrive.

The long walk did help exhale those feelings of anger, disappointment, and hurt. By the time Tanya and others met me at the restaurant, I put on a happy face and resigned myself to the situation. I would see Glacier National Park, but it would not happen until the next day.

Finally seeing Glacier National Park for the first time on Saturday, September 9th

The day finally arrived for our group and me to see Glacier National Park. To my ongoing ire, we got off to a slow start that morning. We bought gas, which always took time to figure out the gas pumps at each location. We then ran into a long line of vehicles proceeding to the entrance station. Fortunately, the traffic moved somewhat quickly through the park entrance. It was a relief that it moved much faster than when Tanya and I visited Mt. Rainier National Park in July.

Minutes after we entered the west entrance of Glacier National Park, we stopped at the Apgar Visitor Center. I was on a sole mission to get a tri-fold park map. I asked inside the visitor center store, but they directed me to a box outside that had maps. The box was empty. I then wanted to ask a ranger, but there was a long line to ask the ranger questions. Three different rangers were behind outdoor desks to answer visitor questions. However, the visitors were very longwinded asking the rangers to plan their trips and to go over the junior ranger badges with the kids. Our group was leaving the visitor center to head back to our vehicles. I gave up my place in line to catch up with them. Thus, I could not get a map. My day was not off to a good start.

On the bright side, we had fabulous weather that day, as we did throughout our trip. The weather was sunny and partly cloudy. It felt like a perfect day to go hiking and explore a national park. There was a hint of an autumn breeze in the air to prevent the day from feeling too hot.

A long stretch of the Going-to-the-Sun Road by Lake McDonald for several miles was stripped of pavement and in the process of getting repaved. We were lucky no road crew worked on this Saturday morning to delay traffic and impede our time to travel through the park.

All of us in our group had our jaws open with the beauty of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. I worked 25 years at Crater Lake National Park, traveled to Yosemite several times, driven through Yellowstone more than once, drove along the south rim road at the Grand Canyon, etc. Nothing prepared me for the magnificent landscape as we climbed in elevation towards Logan Pass. The jagged mountains and deep forested valleys of Glacier National Park were mesmerizing.

We had a picnic lunch at the Wild Goose picnic area. Tanya and I, and the more physically able in our group, hiked 2.4 miles one way to St. Mary Falls. We walked on the trail along St. Mary Lake with the towering rocky peaks of Glacier National Park dominating all around us.

As we hiked that day, something seemed odd. I noticed the same thing the next day when we were at another area of the park, Many Glacier. None of the mountain peaks had any snow or glaciers on them. It felt eerie. Yes, all these mountains probably get a good snowpack for the winter that melts by mid to late summer. From my 25 years working at Crater Lake National Park and visiting other national parks, I understood seasonal winter snowpack is gone by late summer. At the same time, this was Glacier National Park. Shouldn’t there have been some sight of a glacier somewhere?

A sign on the Going-to-the-Sun Road near the high point of the road points to Jackson Glacier on a distant mountain, but I found it hard to see. As I spent more time in the park, it felt like we were at an excellent party where the host disappeared long ago. The party was fantastic. I would go to this party again. However, it seemed like it was nearly impossible to get a glimpse of the guest of honor.

We had one more day to visit Glacier National Park on Sunday, September 10th. I was determined to ask a park ranger or a park employee to find out what’s happening with the glaciers.

Visiting Many Glacier area in Glacier National Park on Sunday, September 10th

I must give Tanya’s parents, Nancy and Rex Couture, full credit for planning an excellent itinerary for every day of our trip from Seattle, Washington to Glacier National Park, Montana, and back September 5-15. Sometimes we did not make our marks for places to visit because arranging 14 people to travel together is like herding cats.

Sunday, September 10th was one of the best planned days of the trip. We left the house we where we stayed around 9 am. We arrived at the West Entrance Station for Glacier National Park around 9:30 am. This time, we were stopped for road construction around the Lake McDonald area. With winter coming soon to the mountains, I figured the road construction crew would be under pressed to complete their road re-pavement work soon. The good news was that it was only about a 5-to-10-minute wait.

It was an ideal beautiful day to visit Glacier with just a few clouds and a bright blue sky. The plan was to drive across the park on the Going-to-the-Sun Road and then travel to the northeast area of the park to known as Many Glacier. From Many Glacier, we would have a picnic lunch, travel on two different boats, and then allow folks in our group the option to do some hiking.

On the way to Many Glacier, we stopped at the Lunch Creek pullout on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. This pullout is just past Logan Pass, the highest point on the road and the spot where the Continental Divide crosses the road. The view of the mountains, the cascading creek, and the pine trees was magnificent at Lunch Creek.

My father-in-law, Rex Couture, wanted to look for a specific rock there, called stromatolites. These rocks are the fossilized remains of algae dating back a billion and a half years ago. At that time, Glacier National Park looked more like the modern-day Bahamas, with clear waters holding some of the most primitive life forms on earth—cyanobacteria (blue-green algae)—which these rocks preserve in great abundance. Rex could not locate those rocks, but it did not matter. It was very sublime to taken in the scenery at Lunch Creek before we had to drive further.

From there, we drove to Many Glacier without stopping. Correction: we stopped once so I could take a picture of the Glacier National Park entrance sign at the east entrance on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. When we arrived at Many Glacier, the panoramic view blew us away with the pointy jagged peaks and an emerald dark green reflective lake in front of the mountains. In the foreground was the Many Glacier Hotel. The Great Northern Railway built this hotel in 1914-15 as a Swiss-style lodge. The Many Glacier area is known as the “Switzerland of North America.′′ I have never been to Switzerland to compare it to Many Glacier. However, I could have spent hours staring at the scenery there from the back porch of the Many Glacier Hotel.

The Boat Tours to see Grinnell Lake in Glacier National Park

My in-laws, Nancy and Rex Couture, arranged for all 14 of us to take a boat tour that departed from behind the Many Glacier Lodge on Swiftcurrent Lake. A month before the trip, Nancy emailed the itinerary to all the trip participants. Her description for Sunday, September 10th:

“We have a boat tour scheduled for 2 pm. This is a guided tour. We need to plan on being at Many Glacier 1 hour prior to tour. We will sail one lake then traverse up a relatively steep hill to the next lake. The incline is described as a 5 story climb. Should this be too much for some,
the boat will return to Many Glacier and hikes can be taken there.”

For 20 years of working in the national parks, I narrated boats in the Everglades and Crater Lake National Parks. It felt weird for me to take a boat tour in a national park without narrating the tour. The boat was different than any of the tours I led in the Everglades or Crater Lake. It had an enclosed wooden top and glass windows. Tanya and I sat in the very back away from the others in our group. I wanted the flexibility in the back to take more photos and a chance to be away from the others to enjoy each other’s company during the tour.

Sadly, sitting in the back of the boat, we were right next to the noise of the gruff humming engines. This made it hard to hear the tour. This was my pet peeve giving boat tours in national parks. Why don’t they design the boats to be quieter so visitors can hear the tour narrations?

The boat captain narrated the tour. I never piloted a boat at Crater Lake, with the rare exception of one emergency at Crater Lake. The battery died on the boat and the engine would not start. However, we put the passengers in PFDs to be safe, we got towed back to the dock on the National Park Service research boat. The boat captain secured and monitored the boat lines tied to the research while I boat steered the boat while it was getting towed.

That always seemed like too much mental work for me to be operating a boat while giving a tour narration. Our boat captain was Nicole. I was pleased with the narration that I could pick out over the loud boat engines. Like it or not, some visitors want park employees to have some humor in their tour narrations. Other visitors just want the facts without any corny jokes. With that said, I thought that Nicole nailed the one joke I could hear over the boat engines.

She talked about the Many Glacier Hotel how mountain goats occasionally and accidentally cause damage to the hotel roof during the winter. To monitor the lodge during the winter, she said there was one individual on site all winter. She then dryly remarked, “You might have seen a documentary about this on Neflix. It’s called The Shining.”

I laughed as well as several of the boat passengers. I thought she nailed that joke.

We then reached the other end of Swiftcurrent Lake. Three of the oldest members of our party stayed on board the boat to return to Many Glacier Hotel. They sat in the Hotel’s Great Hall to have cocktails and read while they waited for the rest of us to complete our hikes and return.

The other 11 members of our group walked up the hill, which seemed more like a two- or three-story building to take the other boat tour on Lake Josephine. The boat then let us off on the far side of Lake Josephine for an optional hike 3.5 mile hike to see the Grinnell Glacier up close, a 1.1 mile hike to see Grinnell Lake, or ride the boats back to Many Glacier Hotel. Captain Nicole announced she would lead a guided walk to Grinnell Lake.

Tanya and I decided to hike on our own to Grinnell Lake. The late afternoon sun angling to the west made it hard for us to see the Grinnell Glacier high up on Grinnell Peak as we looked towards the west. I could barely make it out with the dark shadows that the wide shoulders of the mountain refusing to let us get a good look that time of day. From what I could see, it looked like the glacier was hanging on by its fingernails, doomed to disappear soon.

Tanya and I enjoyed the hike out to Grinnell Lake. It was nearly a flat trail through the woods as it headed towards the lake. The lake had a mint green hue from the glacial silt in the water. It was captivating color that I had not seen in a lake before, even glacial lakes that I might have encountered previously. Tanya and I enjoyed taking lots of photos and appreciating the view of the lake with the silhouette of the towering Mount Grinnell directly behind the lake.

Talking to Captain Nicole about the glaciers receding in Glacier National Park

On return hike, we ran into Captain Nicole. She finished her guided walk to Grinnell Lake and spent this time casually chatting with visitors. We talked for close to 15 minutes. As we got off the second boat at Lake Josephine, I asked her a quick question about the glaciers and mentioned that I used to be a national park ranger. She was curious to hear about my story.

I told her that I worked 25 years at Crater Lake and the Everglades as a seasonal interpretive park ranger giving public talks, such as boat tours. I shared how I discovered climate change over 20 years ago working the in Everglades. Even more, I saw the diminishing annual snowpack and a more intense wildfire season working 25 years at Crater Lake National Park. Seeing climate change in the national parks caused me to spend my winters organizing for climate action in my hometown of St. Louis. This was how I met my wife, Tanya, who was standing next to me.

I then elaborated that I started giving evening ranger campfire programs about climate change at Crater Lake over 12 years ago. I began that program by talking about how climate change impacted other national parks, such as Glacier. I gave the example of the Shepard Glacier in this park. In that presentation PowerPoint, I showed a park photo of what that glacier looked like in 1913, compared another photo from around 2005. I relayed my understanding from over 10 years ago that all the glaciers in Glacier National Park might be gone by 2020.

I asked Captain Nicole if she heard that same fact. She affirmed that she had. Nicole said that she was originally from Minnesota and she is 25 years old. She first visited Glacier National Park when she was 9 years old, which would be around 2009. She remembers hearing that fact then and she recalls seeing a difference in the glaciers in the park from 14 years ago until now.

Nicole stated she is very worried about climate change. She likes to share information about climate change at Glacier National Park during her boat tour narrations. However, she struggles internally how much knowledge to share since with park visitors since they are on vacation. She is uncertain the amount of climate change facts to give visitors if they would be truly open to listening to the information.

I had that same dilemma when I wanted to talk about climate change in the national parks over 12 years ago. Some audiences were very receptive, other audiences just wanted to be entertained since they were just on vacation. I then asked her the key question: how many glaciers are left in Glacier National Park?

She responded the park currently has 25 glaciers. She defined a glacier as a mass of ice so big that it flows under its own weight and has a size about 25 acres. She then noted that around 1850, an estimated 150 glaciers existed within the present boundaries of the park.

Even though I knew for over a dozen years that the glaciers were disappearing in Glacier National Park, it was still sobering and sad for me to hear this from a Glacier Park employee. I shared with Nicole my analogy that my visit to Glacier felt like we were at an excellent party where the host disappeared long ago. She had no pushback or objections to my observation.

Nicole announced on the boat tour that it was her final tour of the season. I wished her success in whatever she did next. Nicole informed Tanya and me that she did not know what she was doing for the winter. I understood that feeling 100%. Many seasons when I left my summer job at Crater Lake National Park, I did not know what I was doing for the winter.

Nicole told us that she had an excellent summer. She loved working there, even more than the previous summers. The snow from wildfires was not bad, except for the beginning of June with the Canadian wildfire smoke than impacted much of the eastern U.S. Nicole liked her roommates, but she could almost hear them recite each other’s boat narrations in their sleep. She hoped to return to Glacier next year.

I gave Nicole my business card just in case she wanted to learn more about my climate change comedy. I felt old chatting with her since I was around her age when I started working at Crater Lake in 1992. I turned 24 years old that July. Many of my co-workers at the Crater Lake gift store in 1992 were around my age if not a year or two younger. I am now old enough to be Nicole’s dad and old enough to be a parent of the new generation now working in the national parks.

My conversation with Nicole felt like the future is in good hands, especially with the next generation of park employees. She loved Glacier, enjoyed interacting with the park visitors, cared to share accurate information about the park, and was deeply concerned about climate change. I apologized for taking up to 15 minutes of her time. However, she indicated that I was not interfering with her work, and she liked her conversation with Tanya and me.

Leaving Glacier National Park to see Mt. Shuksan at North Cascades National Park

We hiked all the way back from Grinnell Lake to Many Glacier Hotel. It was a 3.5-mile hike with not much elevation rise or fall. The hike skipped taking the boat tours back. The trails skirted along Lake Josephine and Swiftcurrent Lake. The scenery was astonishing as we stopped frequently to take pictures. Our goal was to pace our walk to return about the same time that Tanya’s parents and others in the group returned to the Many Glacier Hotel riding on the boats. We achieved success that we showed up the same time their boat arrived. Tanya and I were delighted with all the exercise we received that day hiking on the trails.

I felt a bit of sadness that our 10-day trip to Glacier National Park had reached its climax. We were now getting ready to leave the park for the two-hour drive to return to the house we rented Columbia Falls, Montana. The next day, Monday, September 11th, we dropped two members of our group at the Kalispell City Airport. We then had 12 people to travel the next couple of days to North Cascades National Park, Washington.

On Wednesday, September 13th, we reached the Mt. Baker Ski Area at 6 pm to see Mt. Shuksan. The low afternoon western sunset lit up the mountain brilliantly as we saw it. We spent the night at a large house in Glacier, Washington, about a 40-minute drive from the Mt. Baker Ski Area. We then returned to the Mt. Baker Ski Area the next day to drive to the of the road at Artist’s Point. From that location, we had fantastic views of Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan.

I had a poster of Mt. Shuksan on my wall in high school in St. Louis in the 1980s. I had no idea where that mountain on my poster was located. However, I vowed to see that mountain someday. When working in the national parks, I learned Mt. Shuksan is in North Cascades National Park. At the end of May 2009, I took advantage of a two-week vacation break from my Crater Lake job to go see Mt. Shuksan. With the spring snowpack and timeless glaciers clinging to the mountain, I thought it was the most beautiful site I saw in my life. I still think that to this day.

The Mt. Baker Ski Area with the view of Mt. Shuksan is my favorite spot on planet Earth. It is, as they saw these days, ‘My happy place.’ Ironically, the glaciers on Mt. Shuksan are very easy to spot, compared to the glaciers at Glacier National Park. It must be noted that Mt. Shuksan is roughly 50 miles from the ocean waters next to Bellingham, Washington. Mt. Shuksan is a lot closer to the Pacific Ocean than the mountains of Glacier National Park. Therefore, Shuskan gets a lot more snow and potential for glaciers than the mountains of Glacier National Park.

I shudder to think how Mt. Shuksan’s glaciers shrunk due to climate change. There’s documented evidence the snowpack and glaciers have receded on Mt. Baker in recent years.

Final Thoughts

I know from my own life of working at Crater Lake and Everglades National Parks that climate change is real, human caused, scientists agree, and is negatively impacting our national parks. Even more, I know from reading books and published articles from climate scientists and clean energy experts that we can limit the damage caused by climate change if we chose.

I had the good fortune in my life to work 25 years in the national parks, travel to many of the most iconic American national parks, marry Tanya who likes to hike in natural areas, and marry into a family that likes to visit national parks and scenic areas. Spending time in national parks and nature allowed me to become the climate advocate that I am today.

Because it is a remote and difficult location to travel, I am uncertain if I will see Glacier National Park again in my life. My conversation with Captain Nicole at Glacier National Park reminded me that I am getting older. I am now 55 years old and probably have more yesterdays than tomorrows. Thus, a future opportunity to go to Glacier might be unlikely. I wish Tanya and I lived closer to Glacier to enjoy it more frequently.

I do know for sure that my recent trip to Glacier National Park, my ample visits to see Mt. Shuksan at the Mt. Baker Ski Area, and working 25 years at Crater Lake and Everglades National Parks have inspired me to commit my life to take action for climate change.

From my time working in the national parks and hiking in the outdoors, I believe that we have an innate sense of needing nature and to connect with grand scenic beauty.

More than 100 years ago, American naturalist John Muir wrote in his book The Yosemite, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.”

More recently, the late Harvard naturalist Dr. Edward O. Wilson coined the term Biophilia, which he described in his book by the same title, as “the urge to affiliate with other forms of life.” We hope when we spend time in nature to see a large mammal, colorful bird, fascinating reptile or incest, or a majestic forest of trees. Even if we don’t see any wild animals in the outdoors, we still have deep longings to connect to the natural world. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines biophilia as “a desire or tendency to commune with nature.”

Most of us have an internal longing to spend time in nature, love it, protect it, and to find a way to reduce the harm caused by humans. Yes, I acknowledge that some people are solely interested in power, greed, corruption, domination, and pleasure. However, most of us do want to connect with nature. Many of us dream of traveling to remote and iconic places, where we can be in nature and learn about it. Some of us even crave that sense of renewal, peace, and healing from spending time in the outdoors.

Spending time in nature should challenge us to take better care of it. To love and appreciate the natural world should inspire you to want to protect and defend it from imminent threats such as climate change. One should leave nature with a sense of purpose to protect it. I don’t think one should leave nature as the same person who entered it. One should leave nature with a sense of elevated renewal. The gift of communing in the outdoors should inspire us take better care of ourselves, be more caring to others, and be better stewards or citizens of our planet.

This was why I stopped working as a national park ranger in 2017. I loved the national parks and nature. I felt most at home there. At the same time, I learned and saw first hand that nature and our national parks are suffering because of human caused climate change. That awareness called me to be a climate change advocate. My time working in the national parks changed me to become the person writing this today.

My recent visit to Glacier National Park reminded me that I have a lot more work to do in my climate advocacy. My own eyes saw lack of glaciers there. My conversation with Captain Nicole confirmed that the glaciers are disappearing. Recently I read on the Glacier National Park website that ‘the retreat of glaciers seen in recent decades can be increasingly attributed to human-caused climate change.’ With this new insight, Glacier National Park is now challenging me to be a better and more effective climate change organizer.

American writer and environmentalist Edward Abbey wrote in his 1977 book The Journey Home,

“The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.”

I went to Glacier eager to complete a life goal to see it, and spend quality time with my wife and her extended family. I left Glacier with a new determination to take climate action.

Thank you, Nancy and Rex Couture, for this fantastic opportunity to see Glacier National Park!

‘Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and a leave trail.’

– attributed to the 1903 poem “Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers” by Muriel Strode

In 2016, I had a dream to travel around my home state of Missouri to give presentations for climate change. I was inspired by friends and volunteers with Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) who conducted state speaking tours in the previous years.

In 2015, CCL friends such as Peter Bryn, Ricky Bradley, Larry Kremer, and Brett Cease completed the ‘Texas Energy Freedom Tour!’ This group held 71 events: 25 public presentations primarily to identify new CCL group leaders, and 46 meetings with various community leaders including Chambers of Commerce, county Farm Bureaus, mayors, newspapers, faith leaders, and Republican County Chairs. The goal was to promote climate action, recruit new volunteers for CCL, and create support for CCL’s policy solution of carbon fee and dividend.

The 2015 Texas Energy Freedom Tour inspired other U.S. CCL volunteers to organize state tours in 2016 such as in Georgia. Peter Bryn’s team followed up with the ‘2016 Southern Energy Freedom Tour.’ They drove 2,751 miles to visit 22 cities, giving 17 public presentations and 7 media interviews. They had 35 meetings with businesses, political leaders, NGOs and other groups. They hosted 4 CCL group start workshops and a CCL regional conference. Even more, they met with members of Congress 13 times, and generated 245 letters to U.S. representatives.

As a climate organizer, these state speaking tours looked like a fun adventure to make a difference for climate action. I wanted to do something similar in my home state of Missouri. In addition, I spent the summers working as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park. Thus, Oregon intrigued me to undertake a climate change speaking tour.

My struggle to pitch a MO climate speaking tour at a CCL Midwest Regional Conference

As I wrote on a previous blog, I attended the CCL Midwest, officially known as the “Tornadoes Region,” conference on November 12 and 13, 2016. Donald Trump won the Presidential election on November 8th, just days before in that same week. Climate advocates were on edge trying to determine the actions we should take to counter the incoming Trump Administration. There was no doubt they would try everything possible to roll back any progress to address climate change during the Obama Administration. Personally, I wanted to up my game for climate action by pitching the idea of a CCL speaking tour across Missouri, just like CCL volunteers did in Texas in 2015 and 2016. I had no idea about the resistance I would receive.

During a brainstorming breakout session of Missouri CCL volunteers during the conference, we determined that the best way to get more people involved was to organize a state tour across Missouri. It would be composed of speaking events to expose the public to CCL and its preferred climate solution, carbon fee and dividend. A leader was needed to speak at these different cities. I volunteered myself since I had the time and passion to do it. At that time, I was a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park. It was in between seasons from my summer job, so I had the availability and enthusiasm to lead this tour. After I volunteered myself to lead this tour, I immediately got some pushback from the local Kansas City volunteers.

They were concerned about the finances needed to complete this tour. That part didn’t bother me. I figured the money would work itself out, one way or another. As we brainstormed, they wouldn’t let this issue go. It got more contentious. They kept hammering how I was going to pay for this tour. I was annoyed they weren’t supportive and trying to think outside the box how we were going to grow CCL to get more people involved. To get them from stop dwelling on this sticking point, I finally said: “I will do my own fund raising to make this tour happen.”

That seemed to silence the critics, at least I naively thought at the time. However, two weeks later, I received a phone call out of the blue from the Vice President of CCL, Madeleine Para, who attended the conference in Kansas City. Madeleine started off the conversation cordial asking me how I was doing. In that moment, I was very excited talking about an upcoming trip I was planning to Ottawa Canada. I was invited to be a guest speaker and lobby members of the Canadian parliament for a Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada conference. She sounded rather cold and calculated when she said: “Well, I am going to have to burst your bubble.”

She went on to say: “I was just talking to the Executive Director, Mark Reynolds, and we agreed that you can’t do your own fund raising for a state tour. We feel like any fund raising that you would do would interfere with the organization’s fund raising. We can’t let you do that.”

It felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. I didn’t have the words to respond, so I hung up the phone. I did email her to apologize, but I felt deeply hurt. She did seem to understand that in a responding email and relaying a comment days later to a mutual friend. That was it though. There was no other action taken to reach out to me to try to heal the breach. Immediately after Madeleine’s call, I called a few CCL friends across the country, and they didn’t know what to say. They still advised me to do this tour if I wanted to do it.

During that phone call with Madeleine, I had no words to dig deeper into her reasoning. From my interactions with her, I felt an underlying jealousy. She didn’t seem to like my enthusiasm and energy to accomplish big things as a climate organizer. It felt like my plans to organize around Missouri were somehow a threat to her position. Therefore, she had to find a way to get the Executive Director on her side to stop my plans. Her phone call made no logical sense. If I had the words to say in that moment, I would have responded: ‘What was the point of that regional conference? I somehow had the impression it was to think outside our comfort zone to grow our organization to make a difference for climate action. I don’t see your logic how my own fund raising for a tour would compete with fund raising of the national organization.’

I saw for the first time that people involved in the climate movement don’t always have the best intentions to effectively act on climate. They don’t always want to help volunteers like me reach for their full potential to make a difference for climate action. Sadly, I discovered as a climate organizer that others’ politics, power, and jealousy can get in the way of my yearning to make difference. Unfortunately, it was a lesson that I would have to learn repeatedly.

Planning for the 2017 CCL Missouri speaking and lobbying tour

The good news is that I didn’t let Madeleine stop me. In the fall of 2016, the CCL regional coordinator for the Tornados, Carol Braford, invited me to be the CCL Missouri state co-coordinator. I would work closely with the other co-coordinator, George Laur, a retired engineer who lived in Jefferson City, Missouri. George and I met months earlier and we became friends. We looked forward to collaborate as CCL co-coordinators for Missouri. We had regular phone calls after the November 2016 CCL Tornados Regional Conference. George liked my idea of a CCL speaking tour across Missouri. He started making some inquiries about me giving climate change talks in Jefferson City, Kirksville in northeastern Missouri, and elsewhere.

In late January 2017, my wife Tanya had a job offer in Portland, Oregon. We decided we would move to Portland in the first week of February 2017. After our decision, I called climate friends in Missouri, such as George Laur, to inform them we were moving. Thus, I would not be organizing events in Missouri anymore. George was happy for Tanya and me, but he was sad because we enjoyed working with each other. George then said to me: ‘Looks like you will have to fly back to Missouri in March because I plan for you to speak in Jefferson City and Kirksville, MO.’

After Tanya and I moved to Oregon in February 2017, I realized it would be expensive to fly back to Missouri in March to give talks there. I love to travel, especially to give climate change talks. However, I was nervous to pay for this round-trip plane ticket. When I expressed this to George, He generously asked CCL volunteers in Jefferson City and Columbia Missouri to raise money to pay for my airline ticket. They easily raised the funds for my airplane fare. The generosity of George Laur and his CCL friends in central Missouri touched me. This motivated me to take this trip back home to Missouri to give quality climate change presentations. Even more, this gesture of kindness inspired me to see what other climate actions I could bundle into this trip.

In early March, I bought my airline tickets to fly from Portland, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri on Monday, March 27th. I bought my return ticket from St. Louis to Portland on Monday, April 3rd. George planned for me to speak in Jefferson City on Wednesday, March 29th at 7 pm. In addition, George and the new CCL Missouri co-coordinator, Sharon Bagatell, booked me to speak at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO on Friday, March 31st at 7 pm.

Besides those two events, I hoped to bundle in more climate related events to make the most of this trip. For several years, CCL encouraged its volunteers to do spring in district lobby meetings with their local Congressional offices. In between the speaking engagements in Jefferson City and Kirksville, George arranged a meeting with staff of U.S. Senator Roy Blunt at his district office in Columbia, Missouri on Thursday, March 30th. This inspired me to reach out to the Congressional offices of U.S. Representative Ann Wagner to have a meeting with her staff on Tuesday morning, March 28th. St. Louis CCL volunteer David Henry scheduled a meeting with staff of U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill at her St. Louis district office on Tuesday afternoon, March 28th.

I was excited that while I was still in Oregon in mid-March, I coordinated a trip to Missouri to give two climate presentations and three lobby meetings. In addition, I would have a chance to visit family. I would stay with my in-laws while in St. Louis. On Monday evening, March 27th, I would have dinner with my in-laws and parents.

As I planned this trip in March while living in Portland, something serendipitous happened. On February 28, 2017, I got an e-mail from Ian Mason, a senior at Ladue High School, located in west St. Louis County. Today Ian Mason is a Weekend Anchor/Meteorologist in North Platte, Nebraska for NBC Channel 2 in Nebraska since April 2022. In that February 2017 email, Ian wrote:

“Dear Brian,

I’m not sure if you remember me or not, but I was a high school student and I attended your class on Climate Change at St. Louis Community College a couple years ago. I’m currently working with a student organization called Global Student Square and I’m doing a video on the Trump administrations Gag orders to scientists, specifically in the climatology field. I think I remember you saying that you were a Park Ranger at some point so I was interested in your point of view.

I would love to meet up at some point and talk if that is okay with you. Thank you so much!”

I responded to Ian that I would be lobbying Congressional Offices in St. Louis and giving climate change talks in Jefferson City and Kirksville in the last week of March. He was welcome to shadow me for any of these events. Ian was very enthusiastic about this. After I would fly into St. Louis on March 27th, I planned to have lobby preparation meetings with local CCL volunteers who would join me at a local Starbucks. I suggested to Ian that he could join our lobby prep meetings and even the lobby meetings. Ian jumped at the opportunities to attend our lobby prep meetings and attend one of the lobby meetings on March 28th.

On top of all this planning, I booked an Amtrak train ticket from St. Louis to Jefferson City on Wednesday morning, March 29th. I would take the train to Jefferson City to rendezvous with George and his wife Kathy Laur before our event in Jefferson City on the evening of March 29th. I loved taking trains, as well as flying. Therefore, this was shaping up to be a great trip to Missouri to promote climate action and CCL.

First Day of the 2017 CCL MO Climate Speaking and Lobbying Tour, Monday, March 27th

Earlier that month, I booked an early morning direct flight from Portland, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri to arrive early in the afternoon to attend my lobby prep meetings with local CCL volunteers. As I always do on Southwest Airlines, I try to board as early as I can to get a window seat. I love to grab a window seat to get a great view of the scenery as the plane flies. I can’t imagine flying without a window seat.

As I made a beeline for an available window seat towards the back of the plane, a pleasant 30 something couple sat in the seats next to me. At first, we did not make conversation because I focused on looking out the plane window. I was enjoying the silence before I would be talking a lot during this trip to CCL friends, Congressional staff, family, public presentations, etc. Not long into the flight, the man sitting next to me remarked: “I think that I know you.”

His name was Nicholas Bentley and he remembered we are Facebook friends. He attended a Climate Reality Training and admired my climate organizing. He was flying with his partner Kristen Lavelle, who took our photo. This was a great start to my trip. It was great to hear that he liked following on Facebook what I was doing to act on climate. Since this trip to Missouri was all about climate action, this started my trip on a good note.

I forgot why Nicholas and Kristen were flying to St. Louis. According to his Facebook page, Nicholas was a former New Media and Online Resources Officer at Greater Yellowstone Coalition and a former Organizer at Reclaim Democracy. When we chatted, he designed board games as a career. I always loved board games. Nicholas and Kristen live in Madison, Wisconsin. I hope our paths cross again at some point so we can play some board games.

My in-laws, Rex and Nancy Couture happily picked me up at the airport and then dropped me off at Starbucks for my lobby prep meetings. It was great to see them. My lobby preparation meetings went well. I met at a local Starbucks with St. Louis area residents Sue Bell, Liz de Laperouse, Jim Rhodes, and Ian Mason. Congresswoman Ann Wagner is a conservative Republican and U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill is a moderate Democrat, so the planning for these meetings was very different. After we chatted about these meetings, I made time for Ian to see if he had any questions for me with his video project that focused on my climate organizing.

That evening, my in-laws Nancy and Rex Couture had a lovely dinner at their home for my parents and me. I wish that my wife Tanya could have been there. I enjoy traveling and visiting family with her. I did call her on Facetime so that she felt included.

Second Day of this 2017 CCL MO Climate Speaking & Lobbying Tour, Tuesday, March 28^th

The meeting with Congresswoman Ann Wagner’s staff was at 9 pm. This district office was in Ballwin, Missouri, just a few miles from where my in-laws lived in west St. Louis County. My in-laws generously allowed me to use their 2002 Toyota Corolla during my St. Louis trip. Before this meeting, I had an 8:30 am meeting with Steve O’Rourke at a local Starbucks in Ballwin close to the district office. Steve was the only participate who was not able to meet with me the day before to prepare for this lobby meeting.

I first met with staff at Rep. Ann Wagner’s district office on February 14, 2014, as part of CCL’s spring in district Congressional lobby meetings. In the spring of 2013, I volunteered to be the volunteer CCL liaison for Rep. Ann Wagner. This role involved being the point of contact person between CCL and this Congressional office. According to the CCL Community website, “CCL liaisons build relationships with their assigned members of Congress and their staff through regular personal contact, scheduling lobby meetings, and other communications with that office.”

With my role as CCL liaison to Rep. Ann Wagner, this would be my fourth in-district meeting with staff. I also lobbied the Ballwin office in 2015 and 2016. I enjoyed meeting with her Ballwin district staff, as well as her Washington D.C. staff when I lobbied there for CCL in November 2015 and 2016. I consider myself to be a moderate to progressive leaning Democrat. Rep. Wagner, plus her staff are rock solid conservative Republicans. I enjoyed adhering to CCL’s Core Values that we lobby Congressional offices with “respect, appreciation, and gratitude.”

In addition, CCL coaches it’s volunteers to be great listeners during these lobby meeting. It has offered trainings on motivational interviewing to be a more engaged and effective listener. CCL emphasizes motivational interviewing to be a superb listener so that the Congressional staff feels heard. They encourage us to be more “interested than interesting.”

CCL insists its volunteers to start every Congressional lobby meeting with a sincere appreciation for action the member of Congress took to benefit constituents in the district or state. This can be hard if the person lobbying has an opposite political philosophy of the member of Congress or staff whom they are meeting. One might object to nearly everything that member does. However, if one looks at the member of Congress’ website or does a Google search, you can find something to applaud nearly all members of Congress. Maybe it’s their efforts to get funding for veterans, seniors, disaster relief, or a job creating policy for the district. I always sincerely thanked Rep. Wagner’s office for her efforts to stop sex trafficking, a high priority for her.

Congressional offices genuinely appreciates that we start the meeting applauding a specific action of the member of Congress. It helps them let down their guard that we are not there to protest, lecture, yell, and belittle them on areas where we strongly disagree. In fact, as CCL volunteers, we strive to find common ground with these offices. We don’t back down that we are there to promote climate action, specifically a carbon fee and dividend solution. At the same time, we aspire to carefully listen to find what is their objections and sticking points to supporting climate policies, especially carbon fee & dividend. When we find a sticking point or objection where we disagree, we strive not to counter with facts why we think they are wrong. Instead, we attempt use motivational interviewing to drill down further in their objections to find common ground. In those areas of disagreement, we seek to find areas where we can work together.

I followed CCL’s lobbying philosophy for years with meeting with Rep. Ann Wagner’s Baldwin and Washington D.C. staff and I found success with their methods for lobbying. Rep. Wagner’s staff liked meeting with me, and I developed a good rapport with them over the years. Unlike other environmental and climate groups, we don’t shame them for their climate and environmental positions. For instance, Wagner’s staff told me that they felt annoyed when the Sierra Club and other groups would drop off “Worst Polluter” awards or protest in front of their Ballwin Office. It did not shift their thinking on issues. CCL believes “there is a place for protest, but our approach is to build consensus, which we believe will bring enduring change.”

Having said that, my goal for this lobby meeting was to meet with the District Director, which is the highest position in this office. They generally pick up the member of Congress from the airport and are with them for in-town events. Yes, the member of Congress listens to the junior members of the district staff. However, the District Director generally has the ear of the member of Congress for what’s happening in the District and where that member of Congress should put their priorities. A good meeting with a District Director and developing a great relationship with them is very beneficial for trying to influence that member of Congress.

In early March, I learned Rep. Wagner’s District Director, Miriam Stonebraker, would join our lobby meeting. This felt like a breakthrough for me after years of lobbying her office. Since this was a meeting with senior staff, I wanted this meeting to be a success. Previous meetings, I brought in volunteers that were strong climate advocates and local CCL volunteers. The advantage of lobbying with CCL volunteers is that they generally understand the CCL mode of lobbying of appreciation, motivated interviewing, and looking for common ground. The disadvantage is that a conservative Republican member of Congress might dismiss these constituents as not their most loyal voters that they aim to serve their district in Congress. If one reads about Rep. Ann Wagner, you discover she is Catholic, a strong supporter of the U.S. military – her son Raymond is an Army Captain, and an avid supporter of small businesses in the St. Louis area.

Therefore, for this lobby meeting, I networked hard to try to find someone who served in the U.S. Armed Forces, a local businessperson – preferably someone who worked in the solar industry, and a devout Catholic. I failed with my contacts to find someone Catholic who could attend this meeting. Through my Sierra Club contacts, they recommended Sue Bell, who was a Missouri Sierra Club Intern and spent her career in the U.S. Army. Through other climate contacts, I found Steve O’Rourke, who was then VP Business Development with Microgrid Solar, which was rebranded as Pivot Energy in 2018.

The other person joining us was Liz de Laperouse. She was not a Catholic, veteran, and a solar businessperson. However, Liz had an impressive background as a champion of the environment in the St. Louis area. Liz was the Volunteer Chair at the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center. It is known locally as the Harris Center, which is a premier financial supporter of education and research ecology and biodiversity conservation at UMSL (University of Missouri St. Louis), the Missouri Botanical Garden, and Saint Louis Zoo. These are very respected institutions in the St. Louis area. With her work at the Harris Center, Liz was very well connected in the St. Louis.

Even more, I moved from St. Louis to Portland, Oregon one month earlier. Thus, I was no longer a constituent of Rep. Ann Wagner. It was time for me to pass the baton to constituent Liz de Laperouse so she could be the CCL Liaison to Rep. Wagner. From my interactions with Liz in 2017, I found her to be excellent to be my replacement. Having her in this lobby meeting would provide continuity for the positive relationship between CCL and Rep. Wagner’s office.

I felt like I had my lobby dream team assembled. Before the meeting, I just wanted to make sure I had them on the same page as far as CCL’s lobbying methodology. Even more, my priority to make sure that they knew we were lobbying for “the long game.” We were not going to persuade Rep. Ann Wagner in a single lobby meeting with her staff to become a climate champion that supported CCL’s carbon fee and dividend. Rather, my goal was to build a positive rapport with her staff over years to help guide her to shift her position on climate change. I had a great meeting with Liz de Laperouse and Sue Bell the day before to emphasize my lobby plan. They were totally on board and enthusiastic for this meeting.

On the morning of March 28th, I had a positive meeting with Steve O’Rourke. We hit it off immediately. If I had continued living in St. Louis, I would have liked to have become good friends with him. I found him to be very energetic, a great storyteller, passionate about solar, and a fun person to be around. After my meetings with Sue, Liz, and Steve, I felt pumped up we were going to have a terrific lobby meeting.

I was very happy with everything that happened with this lobby meeting. Miriam gave us a full hour for this meeting. In Washington D.C lobby meetings, Congressional staff often only schedules lobby meetings for 15 minutes due to their busy schedules. If they have time or feel like your lobby meeting is important, they will schedule 30 minutes. It was very gracious of Miriam to schedule a full hour for us.

CCL insists that our lobby meetings are confidential to maintain our trust with Congressional staff and members of Congress. Thus, I will limit what share what happened in this lobby meeting regarding discussions about climate change, their positions on climate policies, and their candid assessments of what is happening with Congress.

However, I will share a couple of items that stood out from the lobby meeting.

First, towards the end of the meeting, District Director Miriam Stonebraker said something unexpected to me that I will never forget. She looked right at me and commented,

“By the way I am really impressed with (Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s) website, I went on there it is very clearly laid out. It is very easy to follow. It shows that you know how to get things down. You have clear goals, and you reach them. I am very impressed because lobbying is not easy. Is it Brian?”

The comment left me feeling speechless. Miriam strongly indicated during the meeting Rep. Wagner is NOT interested in supporting any climate action in Congress. Yet, it felt like Miriam admired my tenacity with climate lobbying and she was cheering me on.

After a moment of trying to process her admiration for my climate efforts, I smiled back and quickly responded, “‘No, lobbying is not easy, but is it so rewarding.”

It felt in that moment and afterwards that she understands how hard it is to lobby. It can be just down right totally frustrating at times. Miriam’s comment inspired me to write a blog two months later, “Climate Lobbying is very hard, but it is so rewarding.”

Second, during the introductions, Steve O’Rourke introduced himself as a businessman with Microgrid Solar. Miriam responded: ‘I bet things are not going well for solar these days.’

Steve quickly responded, ‘Actually things are going well these days.’ Steve then explained the good developments happening in St. Louis at that time. Miriam and the other Wagner staff person in this meeting listened intently on what Steve had to say.

As we were wrapping up the meeting, I asked Miriam directly, ‘Who in our district you like to hear more from when it comes to climate change and solutions like clean energy?’

Miriam pointed right at Steve O’Rourke. Miriam indicated she and Rep. Wagner want to hear more from businesspeople like Steve as they consider policies related to clean energy and climate change. That felt like a victory to me that I succeeded in getting Steve, a solar businessman, in this lobby meeting. Even more, it felt like a good roadmap how to approach for future lobby meetings with Rep. Wagner’s office.

To develop more rapport with Rep. Wagner’s staff, I brought in a large plate of my mother-in-law Nancy Couture’s delicious chocolate chip cookies. My in-laws are proud Democratic voters who don’t like Ann Wagner. It was very generous of Nancy to make these cookies. Nancy has always been very supportive of my climate organizing. When I presented the large plate of cookies, Miriam and the Wagner staff did not want to touch them with a 10-foot pole.

“Are these cookies store bought?” she asked with hesitation looking at the cookies. She was leery of anything perceived as a bribe or an unethical lobbying gift over $10.

“No!” I replied. “My mother-in-law made them for you! they are delicious.”

Finally, Miriam and other members of the staff decided they could bravely accept the cookies.

After the meeting was completed, I had a good debriefing with Liz, Sue and Steve outside and around the corner from Rep. Wagner’s office. I wanted to make sure our lobby team could talk frankly without Wagner’s office hearing us. Everyone was very happy how the meeting went, including the photos we got from the meeting. I then had everyone sign a thank you card to Miriam. After Sue, Liz, and Steve left. I dropped off the note inside Rep. Wagner’s office. The hilarious part was that the plate of mother-in-law chocolate chip cookies that Miriam and the staff were initially afraid to accept was nearly devoid of cookies. Apparently, they loved the cookies.

Later that same day, I joined David Henry, Jim Rhodes, Ian Mason and others for a great meeting with staff of U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill at her regional office in St. Louis. David Henry was the CCL liaison for U.S. Senator McCaskill. After I the work I put into the meeting with Rep. Ann Wagner’s staff, it was fun for me to be a general participant in this meeting. Unlike Rep. Ann Wagner, Senator Claire McCaskill is more firm on her position that climate change is real, human caused, and a priority for action.

At the same time, Senator McCaskill was a very moderate Senator who tried to take positions that she felt reflected her Missouri constituents. In past meetings with the Senator or her staff, she was reluctant to support CCL’s carbon fee and dividend. She was afraid it would increase costs on seniors with fixed incomes. I don’t remember much about this lobby meeting, except that it did go very smoothly. I remembered McCaskill’s staff asking about how a carbon fee and dividend would impact rural and primarily low-income school districts looking to transition their gasoline burning school buses to electric buses.

For me, one of the best parts of lobbying meetings are the questions that I cannot answer on the spot. I use those questions posed to me in the lobby meetings as homework to follow up with answers for the Congressional staff. In the days after this meeting, I emailed CCL staff to ask them how they would respond how a carbon fee and dividend would impact rural communities switching their gas burning school buses to electric buses.

After the lobby meeting, I met with Ian Mason for a short interview about the lobby meeting to provide any help he needed for his video project. I left this lobby meeting feeling tired and very happy from a productive day of lobbying for climate action in my home state of Missouri.

Third Day of the 2017 CCL MO Climate Speaking & Lobbying Tour, Wednesday, March 29th

The day started off well with a beautiful Amtrak train ride from the Kirkwood Train Station in west St. Louis County to Jefferson City, Missouri. It was a lovely overcast spring day in Missouri. My in-laws kindly dropped me off at the train station for this two-hour train travel. I tried to get some work done with my climate organizing using the internet on the train. At the same time, it was enjoyable to watch the scenery go by on the train.

The train went through Castlewood state Park along the Meramec River, where I proposed to Tanya on Christmas Eve over two years before. It was fun to spot Six Flags Amusement Park in Eureka, MO where we went as a family when I was a child. West of Eureka, there’s a tunnel that seems like it is a couple miles long going through the Ozark Mountains. The train emerges from the tunnel paralleling the Missouri River for the rest of the trip, stopping in the historic towns of Washington and Herman, Missouri before dropping me off in Jefferson City.

My friends George and Kathy Laur picked me up at the train station, located just a block from the majestic state capitol building in Jefferson City. We were happy to see each other. In my excitement, I commented: “the Missouri state Capitol sure is a beautiful building.”

George wryly replied: “Yes, beautiful building on the outside. Horrible things happen on the inside.”

Ironically, we noticed small Missouri utilities lobbyists were having a barbecue cookout for legislators at the front of the Capitol building to urge them to oppose any clean energy policies and allow them to continue burning dirty fossil fuels. Point was taken, George! For a healthy planet, it looked like horrible things were happening on the outside of the building that day.

George and Kathy took me to a nearby country diner for a delicious Missouri fried catfish lunch. Yummy! I loved Missouri catfish since I was a child. We then went to their splendid home on the other side of the Missouri River from Jefferson City. Their house sits high on a bluff with a glorious view of the state Capitol and the Missouri River. We spent the afternoon chatting in their comfortable home and working on last minute details for my climate talk that evening.

After dinner, we headed to the venue where I would present my climate talk. It was the auditorium at the Runge Conservation Nature Center just west of Jefferson City. We briefly walked through an impressive nature museum about Missouri on our way to the auditorium towards the back of the building. When we reached the auditorium around 6:30 pm, we made sure that my PowerPoint slides worked, my microphone functioned properly, the projector was properly showing my PowerPoint slides, and other logistics. Everything went fluently.

This auditorium seated well over 100 people. It looked very empty when we arrived. I always had that fear if anyone would show up. George assured me that we would get a big size crowd. He was not sure how many. However, it was well advertised by the River Bluffs Audubon Society, the Osage Group of the Missouri Sierra Club, the Jefferson City/Columbia Chapter of CCL, the Runge Conservation Nature Center, and in the Jefferson City News Tribune newspaper.

It turned out over 100 people did show up for this event. The auditorium looked almost full, yet not overly crowded. My presentation was called “Is Climate Change Affecting Our National Parks?” It was fun to tie in my background of growing up in Missouri and then working in the national parks. Then sharing how I saw climate change in Everglades and Crater Lake National Parks. That observation led me to organize on climate change solutions, such as CCL’s carbon fee and dividend (CF&D). This was an enthusiastic audience that laughed at my jokes.

At the end of my presentation, I asked the audience to fill out and sign CCL constituent comment forms. These forms had the signees urge their members of Congress to act on climate and asked the members of Congress to support climate solutions, such as CF&D. We would then make sure that their filled out copies would go to all three of their members of Congress, U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer or Rep. Vicky Hartzler. The good news was that 52 people wrote comment forms to their MO members of Congress asking climate action. Sadly, we ran out of forms or more people would have filled them out. It was a very empowering evening.

I was delighted Ian Mason and his mom, Gina Kratky, came to this talk. Gina drove Ian from St. Louis to Jefferson City to attend my presentation, which is around a two-hour drive one way. Even more, this was on a school night because Ian was a senior in high school at the time. Ian asked me before my event if he could video tape my presentation for his video project. I happily agreed that he could video my talk. He generously shared the video with me afterwards, which I uploaded to YouTube. I was pleased that Ian shot a good video to document this occasion.

After the event, Gina and Ian drove back to St. Louis so he could attend school the next morning and she could go to work. When George and Kathy drove me back from the Nature Center to their house, it rained hard that evening. Thank goodness we had a short drive of a few miles. When we returned to their house, George turned on the TV local news. It turned out the heavy rains caused some standing water on the roads and flash flooding. I thought about Gina and Ian. I emailed Ian to see if they made it back to St. Louis safely. He responded later that they did make it back to St. Louis. However, the heavy rains did really slow them down that they made it home much later than they would have liked, especially on a school and work night.

This was a great public speaking experience for me. Thanks to George and Kathy Laur, this a highlight among many of the over 200 climate change talks I have given over the years.

Fourth Day of the 2017 CCL MO Climate Speaking & Lobbying Tour, Thursday, March 30th

The next morning, I woke up to see the Jefferson City News Tribune had an article about my talk the previous evening, “Climate change threatens park, ranger says.” It gave a good synopsis of my presentation, especially my emphasis to the audience to contact our Missouri members of Congress, especially the Republicans, to urge them to prioritize climate action.

That talk must have made quite an impression. Besides their article, the News Tribune printed a cartoon from their conservative cartoonist Jim Dyke aimed at me. He had the wrong colors for the ranger uniform, and it did not look much like me. The statements in the cartoon looked like a real head scratcher that did not make any scientific sense. Having said that, I was flattered and honored to have inspired this political cartoon. The cartoonist tried to mock me. However, I thought the joke was on him since he seemed to have a lack of scientific understanding.

George and I then drove from Jefferson City to Columbia, Missouri, which is about a 30-minute drive. We arrived in Columbia late in the morning to attend a meeting with staff of U.S. Senator Roy Blunt at his regional office in Columbia, MO. George arranged for this meeting with Senator Blunt’s staff. Local CCL volunteer Jack Meinzenbach joined us for this meeting. George was the CCL liaison to Senator Blunt. Because George had met with this office several times, he a good relationship with them. Unlike the lobby meeting I led with Rep. Ann Wagner’s staff on Tuesday, I don’t remember any details about this lobby meeting, except that it was pleasant.

After this lobby meeting, George and I then drove to Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Rutledge, Missouri. This was over a two-hour drive from Columbia, Missouri. It was located due north of Columbia, MO in northern Missouri. We were meeting up with Sharon Bagatell. She was the new CCL Missouri co-coordinator, replacing me when I moved to Oregon the previous month. Sharon lived at Dancing Rabbit. She scheduled the climate presentation for me to give at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri the next day.

Dancing Rabbit was a communal living sustainable community. As their website says, “We build our homes using alternative techniques such as straw bale and cob, powering them with renewable energy from the Sun and wind. Vehicles at DR are owned cooperatively and powered by electricity and biodiesel. Overall, we eat an ever-increasing amount of local, organic, and in-season foods including many home-grown vegetables.”

This community was different from anything I had experienced before in my life. Actually, I like the conveniences of modern living, so it was an adjustment spending time there. Sharon arranged for me to stay in one of the vacant houses where one of the village members was traveling off site during my visit. George spent the night in a nearby motel.

I met Sharon at the eco village café. We had dinner there that evening. Sharon was a kind, soft spoken person that you would want as a friend. After dinner, I needed a place with power and internet access to use my laptop. Sharon suggested I use their community center. I wanted look over my talk the next day for Truman State University, make edits to the PowerPoint, catch up on other emails relating to my climate organizing, and touch base with my wife Tanya. In addition, this community building had showers, and lighting in the bathroom to brush my teeth.

Dancing Rabbit had no streetlights, porch lights or any kind of lighting at night. The houses were haphazardly laid out with no street signs, addresses on the homes, etc. The houses were all loosely thrown together and constructed uniquely with scrap wood, straw bale, and cob. No two houses looked the same, yet they all looked like the same hippie abstract art in the dark. I stayed way too long at the community building working on emails, updating my PowerPoint, and connecting with Tanya. By the time I finished all my tasks, it was late in the evening.

A big challenge was feeling home my way in the dark. My headlamp in my backpack did not work and my flip phone (yes, I still used a flip phone in 2017) did not give off much light. I worked 25 years in the national parks, and this eco village was one of the dark places I had seen. That night was overcast with no moon, making it more like total darkness. I was sober. I had no alcohol that day. Yet, it felt like I was drunk going home stumbling into uneven ruts on the dirt road, obstacles on the side of the road and unsure what street I was walking.

I deeply missed Tanya and our well-lit apartment in Portland. As I walked backed and forth by the houses, I could not find the house I was suppose to be sleeping. In my frustration, I became angry. I wondered what I was doing there. I questioned if I was making any difference for climate action. I was uncertain why I was in that situation. Finally, with luck and perseverance, I found the house where my suitcase was located and where I would be sleeping.

Dancing Rabbit did not connect with me, except for making friends with Sharon. The truth was Sharon wanted to leave Dancing Rabbit. She recently lost her life partner there. She was still grieving with daily memories of her partner everywhere at Dancing Rabbit. She wanted to start a new life for herself far away from there. I felt like an outsider visiting an outsider there.

Sharon explained to me that most people living there thought they were doing their part for the planet by living a simple life, “off the grid,” in a more sustainable way. She had a hard time convincing her fellow community members on the importance of contacting their elected officials and lobbying for climate action. Their attitude was “I am already doing my part.”

I have always felt frustrated by climate advocates who solely took individual actions by going vegan, not flying, not owning a car, not having kids, putting solar panels on their homes, living off the grid, buying an electric car, etc. Yes, do those things. I applaud those doing that. They set a good example and they do make a difference. At the same time, it’s not enough. As climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann wrote in USA Today op-ed in June 2019, “You can’t save the climate by going vegan. Corporate polluters must be held accountable.”

As the protest signs at climate marches and protests say, ‘We needs systems change, not climate change.’

In addition to doing those individual actions, we need climate advocates contacting their members of Congress, state legislators and local elected officials. I consistently had Congressional staff of Republican members of Congress tell me in lobby meetings that they don’t hear much from their constituents about climate change. Members of Congress need to hear regularly from more climate advocates to make climate change a top priority. Thus, just living sustainably in an eco village sounded to me like a stifling and ineffective way to address climate change.

Sharon’s perspective shaped my opinion about Dancing Rabbit that it felt cut off from the rest of the world. It was too isolated for me. Sadly, nor George or anyone else briefed me much on Dancing Rabbit before I went there to approach it with an open mind. I went to bed that night in the very dark guest house exhausted and eager to sleep. Yet, I was anxious to leave the next day to give my climate talk and to return to a modern world much more familiar to me.

Fifth Day of the 2017 CCL MO Climate Speaking & Lobbying Tour, Friday, March 31st

I set my alarm before I went to bed to meet Sharon for breakfast at her Dancing Rabbit residence. Waking up to the natural morning light felt like I had been camping the previous night. Yet, I woke up in this strange hippie like commune in Missouri. I had always thought of Missouri as a square Midwestern state. Yes, Missouri has its share of Ozark Hillbillies and low-income white rural residents struggling to make ends meet. However, I never thought of Missouri having hippies living in an eco-commune. This seemed more West Coast Oregon where I spent my summers than Missouri. Dancing Rabbit kind of seemed like an experiment gone wrong to try Burning Man, Woodstock, or the Oregon Country Fair in the conservative Show Me state.

Sharon had some tea and some nourishing food for me for breakfast. I heard wonderful things about her from George Laur and Carol Braford, the CCL Midwest Regional Coordinator. For months Carol indicated to me that she wanted to get Sharon more involved with CCL in a leadership position. Sharon shared with Carol that she wanted to be more active. However, she needed time to grieve while slowly committing to CCL or other interests.

Carol Bradford had great foresight for Sharon Bagatell’s potential. Sharon accepted Carol’s offer to step into my role as CCL co-coordinator for Missouri after I moved to Oregon in February, 2017. Sharon did a wonderful job of organizing my speaking event at Truman State in Kirksville that day, as well as other meetings she scheduled that day with the City’s mayor, business community, students on campus, and a reporter with the local newspaper. Sharon then became CCL’s current Youth Action Team Coordinator.

It was a great conversation with Sharon that morning. This was just my second conversation with her after having dinner with her the previous day. I found her to have a very kind heart, gentle spirit, a calming and centered presence, a great listener, fun sense of humor, and a big smile that she was not bashful to share. I asked her about her life at Dancing Rabbit and her loss. She opened to me how difficult it was to lose her partner.

Sharon had good memories living in Dancing Rabbit, but it was no longer a fit for her. She wanted to move to North Carolina to be with her family and work more with youth. We were not chatting in the public café in Dancing Rabbit like we were the previous day when many of the residents know her. Thus, it was great to have a more natural conversation with her.

We then gathered our belongings for the day. Around 8:45 am, Sharon drove us to Kirksville and Truman State University where we would spend the day. We met up with George Laur in the campus cafeteria to start planning our full day of meetings, capped off with my speaking event that evening. At 9 am, Sharon, George, and I met with the Mayor of Kirksville to see if Kirksville was taking action to address climate change. We then introduced him to CCL and the carbon fee and dividend policy. He was interested and polite with our climate organizing, but not very committal.

Around 10 am, the three of us met with one of the leading businessmen of Kirksville. Just like the 9 am meeting with the mayor, the meeting went smoothly. We were interested in his take on climate change, and he listened carefully about our involvement with CCL. Like the meeting with the mayor, the meeting was a good exchange of information. He was gracious but said he would have to think more about CCL and the carbon fee and dividend.

Around lunch time, Sharon scheduled me to meet with a group of 6 to 8 of science students interested in ecology and climate change. We met at the cafeteria during lunch. I quickly discovered they were interested in astronomy. I talked about the fabulous night sky I saw when working the summers at Crater Lake National Park as a park ranger. They were planning a spring break trip to a western national park to do their astronomy. The national parks are known for their “dark skies” generally away from city lights and air pollution to see the Milky Way and do more astronomy. They acknowledged that the night sky was good when you drive several miles away from Kirksville by the open fields. However, it gets better further out west from Missouri to see more stars and to see more stars clearer with their telescopes.

These Truman State students and I did not talk much about climate change, which was fine. I was interested in what they had to say about astronomy. They indicated that they might come to my talk that evening, but they were not sure. My talk was on a Friday evening. Some had plans with friends, some went home of the weekend, and some had a lot of homework to do complete. They were mildly interested. I mentioned I hoped to see them there, but I did not oversell the event.

During the day, Dr. Peter Goldman, a biology professor at Truman State University joined us periodically, in between his classes and teaching schedule. He did a fabulous job of creating publicity posters for my speaking event that was posted around the University and Kirksville. He sent me a PFD of the poster promoting the event with a mountain pine beetle at the top and a photo of a dead white bark tree at Crater Lake National Park at the bottom. It was so beautifully created that I was speechless when I first saw the 5.5 x 17-inch poster. That evening, I asked Peter for extra copies, and he generously obliged. I gave copies of the poster to my parents, in-laws and kept a few for myself. My parents and I both had these posters professionally framed and hung in our homes. My in-laws proudly displayed their poster on their refrigerator.

Early in the afternoon, Dr. Goldman arranged a meeting with George, Kathy and I with Truman State University’s economics professor and one of his peers from the science department. This was a good meeting as they absorbed the information we gave them about CCL and carbon fee and dividend. They assured us that they planned to attend my presentation that evening.

Later that afternoon, George, Sharon, and I went to the Kirksville Daily Express newspaper office to meet with newspaper reporter Jason Hunsicker to chat about my climate change talk that evening and our involvement with CCL. I remember we awkwardly all stood in the newspaper lobby with Jason while he asked us questions. Later, Jason took us to a newspaper office where a gathering had just ended to ask us a few remaining questions before we wrapped up our meeting. Sharon, George, and I then had dinner at a western looking café in town.

My presentation that evening went great. We had over 60 people in attendance, nearly filling up the classroom where I spoke. It felt like a more subdued audience than when I presented in Jefferson City two days before. I don’t remember who introduced me or the questions from the audience. With two big presentations, three lobby meetings, and a day filled with meetings with a mayor, business leader, students, professors, and a newspaper reporter, I was tired. Sharon, George, and I got a picture of the three of us before we said goodbye to Sharon. George and I then departed to return to Jefferson City. We left close to 10 pm and we returned to George’s home well after midnight. We felt exhausted from our schedule from the last few days.

A week after I returned to Portland on April 10th, Jason Hunsicker from the Kirksville Daily Express wrote an article profiling me included a lovely picture of me at Crater Lake. The newspaper had a scenic picture of Crater Lake on the front page with a small photo of Sharon Bagatell in the lower left side. The article printed in the newspaper was titled, “Citizens’ Climate Lobby tries to make a difference.” The article summarized my presentation at Truman State University in Kirksville on March 31st. The bad news is that there is no online link available. The good news is that Sharon Bagatell, mailed a hard copy of the newspaper to me.

Final Days of the 2017 CCL MO Climate Speaking & Lobbying Tour, April 1st to April 3rd

In planning this trip, George stated that he would drive me back to St. Louis from Jefferson City on Saturday, April 1st. I was happy to take the train, but George insisted that he would drive me back to St. Louis. As we drove back from Kirksville to Jefferson City, George asked me if I could take the train back to St. Louis instead. I love traveling by train, so that was no problem for me. Fortunately, I was able to buy a ticket very late that night after we returned to his home.

Late Saturday morning, George drove me to the Jefferson City Amtrak Station. Before the train arrived, George took photos of me with my camera in front of the Missouri state Capitol Building to help document this trip. I enjoyed spending George and Katy over the last several days.

I arrived at the Kirkwood, MO train station in midafternoon. My parents picked me up. I spent Saturday evening with them and most of Sunday at their home in south St. Louis County. They dropped me off at my in-laws’ house in west St. Louis County late Sunday afternoon. My in-laws live closer to Lambert International Airport. They took me to the airport around noon on Monday so I could catch the 2 pm direct flight from St. Louis to Portland, OR. I missed my wife, so I could not wait to fly back to Portland to be with her. My flight was scheduled to land in Portland around 4 pm and she would then pick me up at the airport as she was getting off work.

Passengers crowded at the gate waiting to board this airplane. In fact, it was too crowded with waiting passengers. This flight was overbooked. The ticket agents announced they needed volunteers to get bumped from this flight to take other Southwest flights to Portland. I ignored the first couple of announcements because I was anxious to see my wife. However, each announcement they increased the number of free credits offered on future Southwest flights.

When they announced $525 credits on future Southwest flights for the next 12 months, I jumped at the offer. I did not have to go to work early the next morning, so it did not matter how late I arrived. The Southwest ticket agents booked me on a flight to Oakland, California.

It was a good flight from St. Louis to Oakland. As always, I grabbed the first available window seat and had a great view flying across the United States. In California, no clouds were below us as the plane flew right over Mono Lake, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and Yosemite National Park. The mountains were glistening white with the robust snow pack they received that winter. I recognized Half Dome from the airpIane window and even took a picture of it. From visiting Yosemite numerous times, it was fun to spot this iconic feature during the flight.

I then had a 6-hour layover, arriving in Portland at 11 pm that evening. I called Tanya in St. Louis earlier in the day to tell her about the change of plans. She found it to be humorous that I jumped at this deal. I figured we would be flying again soon, so these airline credits would come in handy. We were thrilled to see each other when she picked me up at the airport.

I used my free credits to fly to Washington D.C. in June to attend the CCL Conference and Lobby Day. Thus, I spent these airline credits for more climate organizing. Even more, George Laur pooled donations from the Jefferson City/Columbia CCL chapter and others to pay for my airfare to St. Louis for this tour. Thus, I was adept at this trip of turning free airline tickets into more free airline tickets for me. I felt like a shrewd businessman, but hopefully making a difference for the planet.

On April 17th, Ian Mason informed me that the Global Student Square published the article he wrote about me. For that article, Ian created a video report which he then uploaded to YouTube. I was honored to be the subject and to be interviewed by Ian for this project.

Final Thoughts

This tour happened because of George and Kathy Laur. George and Kathy were determined that I returned to Missouri after I moved to Oregon one month previously to speak in Jefferson City and Kirksville, Missouri. I will always be grateful to them for this fun trip back to Missouri.

In addition to George and Kathy Laur, this tour succeeded because of the Jefferson City/Columbia Chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), River Bluffs Audubon Society, the Osage Group of the Missouri Sierra Club, Runge Conservation Nature Center, Sharon Bagatell, Dr. Peter Goldaman, Ian Mason, Gina Kratky, Sue Bell, Liz de Laperouse, Steve O’Rourke, David Henry, Jim Rhodes, Miriam Stonebraker and Congresswoman Ann Wagner’s staff, Jack Meinzenbach, Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, cartoonist Jim Dyke of the Jefferson City News Tribune, my in-laws Nancy & Rex Couture, my parents Frances & LeRoy Ettling, and others I wish I could remember.

Thank goodness George Laur and I did not listen to Madeleine Para, Vice President of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, when she called to say, “You can’t do your own fund raising for a state tour.”

If you want to make a difference in the world on a serious threat like climate change, don’t listen to the naysayers, critics, and people in leadership positions like Madeleine who will try to hold you back. Act boldly! Find friends like I did like George Laur and the others I mentioned above who will support you. You can do it!

This March 2017 Missouri tour led to two other state climate change speaking tours. In October 2017, I traveled across Oregon for the CCL Oregon Stewardship Tour. In October 2018, my wife Tanya and I traveled across Missouri for another climate change speaking tour. I spoke at my alma mater William Jewell College, just outside of Kansas City, MO. I then spoke at Missouri University in Columbia, MO. Then Tanya and I traveled to St. Louis where I gave a talk at my alma mater Oakville High School, taught a climate change continuing adult education class at St. Louis Community College, and gave a presentation at St. Louis University.

I love to travel to give climate change talks. In my previous talk, I wrote how I gave over 200 climate change talks in 12 U.S. states, plus Washington D.C. and Ottawa, Canada over the past 13 years. I hope to give more climate change talks in the future in more locations.

Please consider inviting me to give a climate change talk to a group or school in your area.

“Stand before the people you fear and speak the truth even if your voice shakes.”

– Maggie Kuhn, American activist and founder of the Gray Panthers movement.

Ever since I was in grade school, I loved public speaking. As an adult, I found a dream job giving daily talks as a seasonal park ranger at Everglades National Park, Florida and Crater Lake National Park, Oregon from 1992 to 2017. While working in the national parks, I found my true passion of organizing, writing, and giving public presentations for climate action. Since 2010, I have given over 200 climate change talks in 12 U.S. states, plus Washington D.C. and Ottawa, Canada. This blog is about each of those locations where I gave climate presentations.

I enjoy traveling and giving talks that hopefully inspire people to act on climate. If you are reading this blog, I hope you will invite me to come speak in your area.

My first memories of enjoying public speaking at grade school in 1981

I grew up in Oakville, Missouri which is a suburb on the southern end of the St. Louis metropolitan area. In grade school, I had a hard time distinguishing myself from the other students. I was not athletic. Heck, in gym class I was not even the last kid picked for the sports teams. After everyone was picked, I just had to go to whichever side noticed less that I was on their team.

I was not a very studious or bright scholastic achiever. I would often procrastinate or even forget sometimes to do my homework. I watched way too much TV. My 3rd grade teacher admonished me on my report card that I was more interested in staring at the horses and fields outside the window than what was going on in the classroom. My mom was not happy reading that on my report card. To be honest, sorry teacher and mom, the horses and outside nature was more interesting than anything happening in the classroom.

I was a dreamer in grade school who could not wait to explore the woods and be outside riding my bike during summer vacation. I grew up in the late 1970s. Star Wars was the cultural rage at the time. Hence, my mind was often drifting into “a long time ago in a galaxy, far, far away…”

I took piano lessons late in my grade school years, but I was not disciplined at practicing the piano. Thus, I never developed that talent. I didn’t particularly like Sunday School, Vacation Bible School or going to church. As a kid, I did not connect with religion. Thus, I was a class clown in those settings, always rebelling against any spiritual teaching. My Sunday teachers thought I was ‘hell on wheels’ or the devil incarnate.

At school, I was not witty enough to be a class clown. I was rather shy. My grade school classmates did not know what to think of me, except I was rather odd. Heck, I thought I was unusual. Believe it or not, in 6th grade I was voted as the friendliest and the shyest student. I am still trying to figure out that message to this day.

One school project that gave me an inkling of my future. In 6th grade, we had an opportunity to give a short speech. Whoever was voted as the best speaker would then go onto the school district competition to compete against other 6th grade students from schools around the Mehlville School District. I took on this school assignment with steel determination. I wrote my own speech about the blessing of being an American and the valuable contributions of our immigrants. I practiced this speech several times so I would sound natural delivering it.

When I gave this speech to my 6th grade teacher and classmates, I had their full attention, and they were speechless when I was finished presenting it. The other students did not take this speech assignment as seriously as I did. The teacher and my classmates were in total agreement that I was the best person to represent our class and school at this district speech competition. I don’t remember winning anything before this. My heart was full of pride that I had impressed my teacher and classmates for the first time I was in school.

My mom was so proud. She seemed to hint that I might do something great with public speaking someday. She was so excited to take time off her job as a pre-school teacher to take me to the speech competition held at the nearby high school. She fully believed that I gave the best speech at the competition. As for me, I was not sure. I thought some of the other students may have spoken better than me. All that mattered to me was that I gave the competition my best shot. I put it all out on the floor. I was exhausted when the competition was over. I was too tired to care if I won or lost. I was just honored to compete and represent my class and my school.

In high school, I dabbled a bit in speech and debate. I participated in several extemporary speaking competitions, and I even tried debate once. To be honest, I did not have the desire, patience and dedication to truly be successful at it. I was mostly a band nerd in high school playing clarinet all four years and alto saxophone in the jazz band in my senior year.

Falling in love with acting and performing on the stage when I was in college.

At William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, I entered as a freshman in 1988. I majored in Business Administration, on my father’s advice to “get a practical degree.” I enjoyed my business classes. However, I loved all my communications and public speaking classes: Speech Communications 101, Interpersonal Communications, Voice and Articulation, Basic Acting, and Persuasion. If my college had minors, I would have minored in Communications.

I acted in a couple of plays in college. During my sophomore year, my Speech Communications 101 professor urged me to audition for the spring comedy play, Jabberwock. After I auditioned, it surprised me when I was offered a scene stealing character in the play. I was assigned the role as the “Get Ready Man.” The play’s background notes described my character as “Ichabod Crane riding a bicycle looking like death warmed over.”

I rode a bicycle during the most dramatic moments of the play and yelled to the audience and the other characters: “Get Ready! The end of the world is here! The end of the world is here!”

When I said those lines during the play, it killed the audience, as they say in comedy. It brought the house down. The audience thought it was hilarious. I was the talk of campus for the next week after the play performances. My parents drove four and a half hours from St. Louis to see me act. They beamed with pride watching my acting and the audience’s response.

I acted in more plays in my senior year of college. I was hooked on acting and performing on the stage. My dad would have hated to hear this when he was paying my college tuition. However, if I could do my college years over, I probably would have majored in communications, theater, or acting. I loved being in front of an audience, especially to entertain or just inspire people.

During my senior year of college, I participated in a program where a recent William Jewell graduate mentored me. I was clueless what job I wanted after graduation. However, I knew I loved public speaking and my dream job was to be a traveling public speaker. Thus, this mentor program matched me with a recent alumnus who worked for Fred Pryor Seminars.

This mentor met with me several times and invited me to a Fred Pryor Seminar for free. The speaker at this seminar taught about the value and basics of speed reading. The seminar was enlightening. The speaker was entertaining, educational, and captivating, especially with his stories of famous people who used speed reading to succeed in their careers. At that time, leading a Fred Pryor seminar seemed like an ideal job for me. However, I needed to gain some experience before Fred Pryor would consider hiring me. Unfortunately, I was graduating from college in a few weeks, and I had no career plan how I could get hired by Fred Pryor.

Working at Crater Lake National Park during the summers

In May 1992, I graduated from William Jewell College with my degree in Business Administration. I had no idea what to do with that business degree. I still don’t! While I was in college, I was recruited by an organization called A Christian Ministry in the National Parks (ACMNP). They recruit college students to work jobs for the concession companies in the national parks. The catch was that these college students would then lead the ACMNP interdenominational church services on Sunday mornings. In high school and college, I gave in and became religious since my parents and sisters regularly went to church. I figured volunteering with ACMNP in a national park gave me a chance to do regular public speaking, since I would be leading and preaching during these church services.

ACMNP found a job for me working at the Crater Lake National Park at the Rim Village gift store. I had never seen southern Oregon, so this would be a new adventure for me. I had always loved snow covered mountains and tall pine trees. My high school symphonic band played for the Expo 86 World’s Fair in Vancouver, Canada in May 1986. During that trip, I fell in love with the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. My goal was to someday escape the Midwest and live the in Pacific Northwest. Thus, it was a dream come true to spend a summer working at Crater Lake.

When I arrived at Crater Lake Rim Village, the scenery did not disappoint. Crater Lake was one of the most spectacular sights I saw in my life. The lake was 6 miles across at its widest point with this deep cobalt blue color. The rim mountains that surrounded it were decorated with snow, looking like an amazing cake decoration with the white icing on top. The pine trees were so tall, unlike the much smaller deciduous or leaf producing trees in my home state of Missouri. It was so quiet standing on the rim admiring the lake, except for the very light whistle of the wind and an occasional airplane flying overhead.

My first Crater Lake summer was magical. I enjoyed my job working as a stock clerk at the huge Crater Lake Gift Store at Rim Village. I found friends to go hiking with me to help me explore every scenic trail in the park that summer. If no one was available, I happily hiked on my own.

I enjoyed leading the church services at the campground amphitheater during my first three summers at Crater Lake National Park. It was fun to be in front of an audience and to prepare those brief sermons. It was a different audience of campers every weekend. Thus, I could recycle the same sermons and use them repeatedly.

In the summers of 1993 and 1994, I worked as a gift store lead clerk. In 1995, the General Manager of the Crater Lake Company asked me to work as the night auditor at the newly rehabilitated Crater Lake Lodge, which reopened that year. I soon discovered working all night and sleeping through the daytime splendor of Crater Lake was not my cup of tea. In 1996, the National Park Service (NPS) hired me to be an entrance station fee collection ranger at Crater Lake. I enjoyed this job, except for the occasional angry visitors who were upset when I charged them the then $5 entrance fee that to enter Crater Lake National Park.

I worked this ranger job the following summer in 1997. Around that time, NPS changed the job title to Visitor Use Assistant (VUA). I didn’t care what they called me. I just loved wearing the ranger uniform, as well as living and working at Crater Lake. I did not become financially rich working at Crater Lake, but my life experience seemed so incredibly rich working there.

Discovering Climate Change while working the winters in Everglades National Park

Crater Lake was a summer seasonal job, so I had to find a different national park to work during the winter. Thus, I started working in Everglades National Park during the winters in December 1992. The Everglades could not have been more different than Crater Lake. Unlike Crater Lake, the Everglades had no majestic snow-capped mountains or one of the cleanest and bluest lakes in the world. The Everglades was just flat, and the water looked rather murky, especially in the backcountry mangrove canals and in Florida Bay.

I relished the unique wildlife I saw, such as alligators, crocodiles, dolphins, manatees, and the wide variety of birds. The canoeing in the Everglades was a fabulous experience. My high point was the overnight canoe trip with friends to Alligator Creek and Florida Bay in February 1993.

During the winter of 1999, I saw a flock of wild Flamingos standing in the shallow waters of Snake Bight when I canoed to that area in Florida Bay. There must have been 50 to 60 in this flock. They stood around 4 feet tall. You could not get too close to them. However, when I did, it was breathtaking to see them take off in flight. They had to awkwardly run across the water for a bit to take off on a runway like an airplane. Then they would fly exposing their long black wings, which sharply contrasted the light pink feathers on the rest of their body, neck and head.

The Everglades then became my winter home. My first winter, 1992-93, my first job was in housekeeping for the Flamingo Lodge. I then transferred to a Front Desk Clerk Position. In the winter of 1995-96, I worked as a night auditor at the Flamingo Lodge.

In 1998, I started giving ranger talks in Everglades National Park. Visitors then asked me about this global warming thing, which I knew nothing. Visitors hate when park rangers tell you, “I don’t know.” Visitors expect park rangers to know everything. Don’t you?

Soon afterwards, I rushed to the nearest Miami bookstore and to the park library to read all I the scientific books I could find on climate change.

The information I learned scared me, specifically sea level rise along our mangrove coastline in Everglades National Park. Sea level rose 8 inches in the 20th century, four times more than it had risen in previous centuries for the past three thousand years. Because of climate change, sea level is now expected to rise at least three feet in the Everglades by the end of the 21st century. The sea would swallow up most of the park and nearby Miami since the highest point of the park road less than three feet above sea level.

It shocked me that crocodiles, alligators, and Flamingos I enjoyed seeing in the Everglades could all lose this ideal coastal habitat because of sea level rise enhanced by climate change.

I became so worried about climate change that I quit my winter job in Everglades National Park in 2008. I started spending my winters in my hometown of St. Louis Missouri to find some way to organize for climate action. Up until 2017, I still worked my summer job Crater Lake National Park. I loved the incredible beauty there and wearing the ranger uniform with pride while engaging with park visitors. I had a hazy plan to give public speeches and create greater climate awareness during my winters in St. Louis.

Becoming ‘The Climate Change Comedian’ to promote myself as a climate change speaker

During the summer of 2009 while I worked as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, I became lifelong friends with fellow seasonal park rangers Graham Hetland and Aubrey Shaw. They lived permanently in Ashland, Oregon where they attended Southern Oregon University at the time. Graham’s mother lived in Ashland, and they needed to find someone to housesit for his mom, Barbara, for the winter. Barbara planned to go on a cross country road trip in a RV. Thus, they needed someone to watch her home and her friendly cat, Poppy. I planned to return to St. Louis, but they persuaded me to housesit for their mom.

I moved from Crater Lake to Ashland, Oregon in October 2009. Ashland, Oregon is a beautiful small city in southern Oregon nestled right against the Siskiyou Mountains. The leaves turned brilliant autumn colors while I was there. The weather had ideal Indian summer days while slowly getting cooler as the calendar immersed into fall. It was fun to walk around Ashland for exercise and take pictures of Ashland experiencing autumn. At the same time, I found myself restless. I wanted to pursue my climate change calling, but not knowing what to do about it.

One day, I visited my friend Naomi Eklund who lived in Ashland, Oregon then. She was pressing me on what exactly did I want to do with my life. She kept pushing me harder. Finally, I snapped, “Fine! If I could do anything, I would like to be ‘The Climate Change Comedian!”

Naomi was a tough audience, but she nearly fell out of her fell out of her chair laughing. She responded: ‘That’s perfect! I want you to go home and grab that website domain name now, www.climatechangecomedian.com.’

I went home and did that. Barbara soon sent news that she did not like RVing across country. She decided to return to her home where I was housesitting in Ashland. Around Thanksgiving, Barbara announced that she did not want to share her home with me. My parents just moved into a new home in St. Louis,. They wanted me to return home to spend the winter with them.

In mid-December, I then drove from Ashland Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri. I stopped in Flagstaff, Arizona to visit friends in who worked in Grand Canyon National Park. They talked me into hiking solo to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on a two-day backpacking trip, one of the best experiences of my life. I then raced to arrive in St. Louis late in the evening on Christmas Eve to spend the Holidays with my family.

During that winter in St. Louis, Naomi advised me to fully develop my website and create my own climate change PowerPoint that I would use for my presentations. Early in 2010, I developed my first climate change PowerPoint, “Let’s Have Fun Getting Serious about Climate Change.” I showed that PowerPoint to friends and family in the St. Louis area. A family friend helped me launch my www.climatechangecomedian.com website that is still active to this day.

State #1: My first climate change talks in Missouri in 2010

During the early months of 2010, my sisters in St. Louis wanted me to speak at my nieces’ and nephews’ schools. My younger sister first booked me to speak at my nephew Sam’s second grade class in St. Charles, Missouri on February 5, 2010. This was my first presentation outside of working as a ranger in the national parks.

For this presentation, I brought my inflatable Earth Ball, which is my symbol for caring and appreciating our planet. I used an Earth Ball for years in my Everglades and Crater Lake ranger talks. The symbol of me holding an Earth Ball is the image I use for my website and all the social media platforms I use (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn). The young students liked seeing the inflatable Earth during my talk.

I aimed to keep my talk kid friendly by focusing on the animals I saw working in the national parks, such as alligators, crocodiles, dolphins and birds, such as Bald Eagles, Woodstorks, Mangrove Cuckoos, and Gray Jays. I just stressed the general importance of taking good care of our national parks. The title of this talk was “It’s Your World to Discover and Protect.”

To attempt to make this program relatable to my audience, during the program I had an image of my nephew Sam and his height at the time of almost 4 feet tall. I compared Sam’s height to the height of the Gateway Arch, 630 feet tall, which is also a national park. It’s now known as Gateway Arch National Park in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. I showed the kids that you would have to stack up 157 Sams to create the same height as the Gateway Arch.

I then talked about Crater Lake as the deepest lake in the U.S. at 1,943 feet deep. One could stack 3 Gateway Arches in Crater Lake and still have 42 feet of water covering the highest stacked Arch or 483 Sams stacked vertically on top of each other. After the presentation, my nephew Sam came up to me in the most adorable way and said, “You embarrassed me.”

I apologized that I did not intend to embarrass him in front of his classmates. He seemed to forget it and he was ok. I doubt that was the worst thing that ever happened to him in school.

Exactly one month later, March 5, 2010, I gave a similar program to oldest niece and goddaughter Rachel’s seventh grade class in St. Louis. I used the same title, “It’s Your World to Discover and Protect.” Like the program at Sam’s school, I had a picture of Rachel in my talk and how she was 5 foot 2 inches tall at that time. I showed that 122 Rachels stacked vertically on top of each other would be the same height as the Gateway Arch. Or, 376 Rachels stacked vertically on top of each other would be the same height as Crater Lake. I thought the teachers introduced me before the talk as Rachel’s uncle or I assumed Rachel’s teachers and classmates knew I was her uncle. However, when I finished my talk, Rachel raised her hand to say, “Could you please tell them how you are related to me? None of these students seem to know about that.”

Like my previous talk, I ended this talk with a 25-foot Mentos and Coke fountain demonstration. This talk was a breakthrough for me because this was the first time I talked about climate change in a public talk. I showed that the average annual snowpack had gone down over the last several decades at Crater Lake. I defined global warming as humans trapping more carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. As a result, the average temperature of the planet has increased since the Industrial Revolution started in 1880.

On month earlier, in February, Rachel and Andrew came to my parents’ house for the day. They brought with them their individual blue Snuggie blankets that you wear like a robe to lounge around the house on a cold winter’s day. I took pictures of Rachel and Andrew without their Snuggie blankets sitting comfortably, pretending to be freezing without their Snuggie blankets, sitting comfortably with their snuggie blankets, and then I piled more blankets on top of them while their expressions turned angrier and sadder. I used those pictures to demonstrate the earth without greenhouse gases (both pretending to be freezing), the earth with greenhouse gases (both of them enjoying wearing their Snuggie blankets indoors on a cold winter’s day), and then piling blankets on them to demonstrate more greenhouse gases trapping heat causing climate change. I loved showing these pictures in climate change talks I gave to kids.

At my March presentation at Rachel’s school, I then talked about how climate change could cause problems with less snowpack, greater heat waves, and sea level rise. I then urged them to reduce the threat of climate change by recycling, unplugging voltage vampire appliances in their homes, and turning down the heat by putting on a sweater or snuggle blanket. Hopefully, this message on climate change somehow planted a seed in the minds with these students. I will always be grateful that my older sister, my oldest niece, her classmates and school gave me an opportunity to talk about climate change for the first time in a public talk.

At Crater Lake National Park that summer, I gave my climate change PowerPoint informally to some of my ranger friends one evening and I shared it with a few other ranger friends. During my cross-country drive from Crater Lake National Park, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri in November 2010, I showed this PowerPoint twice. I shared it to some ranger friends in Page, Arizona and to my college friend Brent in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. These friends gave me some helpful tips and feedback to improve my talk.

Joining South County Toastmasters St. Louis, Missouri in January 2011

To improve my skills as a public speaker and climate change communicator, I joined a local Toastmasters group, South County Toastmasters, in January 2011. When I submitted the application to join Toastmasters, the tradition is that a club member with the position of the sergeant-in-arms escorts the visitors and applicants requesting to join out of the room. This allowed the existing members to candidly discuss and vote to approve the new members. While I waited in a different area, I could hear the members laugh when the Club President read my application that I was joining Toastmasters “to be a better climate change communicator.” Up to a third of this Toastmasters Club were conservative climate change deniers. Thus, this would be a tough audience to give climate change talks. It was exactly what I needed to improve.

On February 16, 2011, I gave my introductory speech to South County Toastmasters called, “I Would Rather be Here than in Paradise.” My first Toastmasters speech turned out to be a weird experience. I asked a fellow club member to video my speech using my digital camera. Sadly, I did not have an enough available space to record the speech on the camera’s SD card. The other pictures and videos on it took up too much room. Thus, I did not get all the speech recorded. However, I was able to get my introduction by club member George Kiser on video, as well as a couple of minutes of my speech. Later, I uploaded it to YouTube to document this occasion.

This was one of the few Toastmasters speeches that I did not turn the text of the speech into a blog. Therefore, I will include it here:

My icebreaker Toastmasters Speech: “I would rather be here than Paradise”

“’The only courage you need in your life is the courage to follow your dream.‘

I heard Oprah Winfrey say this on her show eight years ago. I am here tonight giving my icebreaker at South County Toastmasters because I am taking the courage to follow my dream in life. Following my dream led me to some strange twists: from leaving the Florida Everglades, to currently visiting St. Louis, and to eventually returning to Crater Lake. The first twist you will think is odd and crazy.

I gave up a dream job as a winter ranger in Everglades National Park in Florida to be with you here tonight. What? Does that sound crazy? Today, in south Florida it was sunny with a high of 78 degrees. Compare that to the snowy and icy weather in St. Louis this past month. Raise your hand if you would rather be in sunny, warm south Florida this winter than St. Louis?

For ten years, during the winter I was a naturalist park ranger in the Everglades. I wish I had a dollar for every person, even from some of you in this room, who told me they would love to be a park ranger. As an Everglades ranger, I lead canoe trips to show people dolphins, alligators, birds, and manatees. I also presented ranger talks about the birds and history of the Everglades. If you love public speaking and nature, I had the perfect job and I loved it. So, why on earth, as crazy as it sounds, would I walk away from the perfect job three winters ago?

Two words: CLIMATE CHANGE

Over twelve years ago, visitors started asking me how climate change was affecting the Everglades. People expect park rangers to know everything. Thus, I added climate change to my reading list so I can be the all-knowing park ranger. However, the more I read about climate change, the more alarmed I became. In November 2007, while I was still working in the Everglades, I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to the issue of climate change. Now I want to use my skills I gained as a public speaker as a park ranger to humorously educate and inspire people, like you, to take action to resolve climate change.

In May 2008, with the courage to follow my dream, I said goodbye to the Everglades. I have not looked back. It is three years later, and I am still working on my life’s mission. Last winter in St. Louis, I developed my own humorous power point on climate change, entitled “Lets Have fun Getting Serious about Resolving Climate.”

I developed my own website that I am still building www.climatechangecomedian.com (…Oops! Kevin, are we allowed to plug our own personal ventures during our Toastmasters speech?)

Anyway, the goal of my website will be to humorously promote me as a speaker who will entertain, educate and inspire people on the problem and solutions to climate change. I hope to talk to any group willing to listen to me: such as students of all ages, seniors, church groups, business groups, dentists, lawyers, IRS agents, Hells Angels, and whoever else wants to join my dream to make this a healthier planet.

I want to start this conversation on climate change with you and my hometown of St. Louis. I was born and raised here. When I am working in the national parks, I miss the Cardinals, Imo’s Pizza, Ted Drewes, Chuck Berry, my family, and what else am I missing?
Why the Arch of course!

However, there is one thing about St. Louis that I will never like? Any guesses:
(Pause)

THE SUMMERTIME HEAT AND HUMIDITY. I have not spent a summer here in 18 years, and I cannot stomach the thought of spending this summer here either.

Thus, I have not totally given up my day job as a ranger. For the past 18 years, I have spent my summers as a naturalist ranger in Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. From May to October, I narrate the boat tours, guide sunset ranger hikes, provide geology and history talks, and present an evening campfire program. Even better is the summertime weather at Crater Lake. Since the park is in the mountains, a normal summer temperature is around 67°F with very low humidity. So, in July and August, I would rather be in Paradise than here.

Fellow Missourian, Mark Twain once said, “You should live your life so fully, so that when you die even the undertaker will be sad.”

For years, I had the dream to be a national park ranger. Now I am taking the courage to follow my dream to humorously educate people about climate change, starting in St. Louis. I appreciate you, fellow toastmasters and honored guests, allowing me to share my dream with you in my icebreaker here tonight. Mr. Toastmaster.”

My second speech for South County Toastmasters in April 2011

After my speech was completed, the club had an evaluator assess my speech. Each Toastmasters speech is assigned an evaluator, which is a fellow club member. The Evaluator gives a short speech to the club what they liked about my speech and my areas for improvement.

I was exhausted after giving this speech. Like anything I do, I put it all out on the court with nothing left. My evaluator said that I looked at my notes too much since this is my life’s story. It’s me. I should not need any notes to tell it. I thought that was good advice to not rely upon notes and have the speech memorized to make a more authentic connection with the audience.

After the speech, it was announced that some of the members were going to a nearby restaurant to hang out and chat. My parents came to see my Icebreakers speech. My mom planned to go home and go to be early, like she normally does. My dad wanted to go to this social event. I just intended to go home. However, since my dad wanted to go hang out with the Toastmasters, I grudgingly went along with him. I sat by some of the Toastmasters at the far end of the table. I felt spent after giving that speech.

However, two of the members, Adam and Dee, made their feelings very plain to me that they were conservatives, and they did not ‘believe in global warming.’ Adam loyally listened to FOX Business News and Dee loved listening to Rush Limbaugh. They wanted to lecture me how I was wrong. They were irritating me more by the minute. Dee decided to give me an ear full that I needed to listen to the people on the other side who did not agree with me.

I finally had enough. I gently took her by the arm and hand. I look her fully in the eyes. I kindly but firmly said, “Dee, I have already listened to people on the other side. Their positions are simply wrong. They have no evidence to back up their claims.”

She did not like that I was holding her arm and hand as I pushed back on what she said. She retorted, “Stop treating me like an old woman!”

I didn’t say anything more. I bit my tongue. Internally, I wanted to say, ‘Stop acting like an old woman! You are not used to someone standing up to you. However, I am going to stand up to you when I think you are wrong, and you are wrong right now.’

It would have thrown gasoline on the fire to say that. My speech was an Icebreaker. That’s it. However, Dee and Adam wanted to hear the key evidence for climate change in a future speech.

Right there, they gave me an idea for my next speech. Even though I was ticked off in this interaction with them, they had laid down the challenge for me for my next speech.

I decided if I was going to go for it to talk about the key evidence for climate change, I was really going to for it. In a sense, this speech would be like passing a very loud and smelly fart at a fancy cocktail party.

To address the uncomfortable elephant in the room, I called my second Toastmasters speech, “I am going to drop a stink bomb on you!” One of my friends that I practiced my speech with was fellow Toastmaster, Nilsa Scott. She thought my speech title and concept for my speech was hilarious. I practiced this speech many times with my Nisla, my Toastmasters mentor Rob Van Winkle, my godmother Jeanette Dantico, and my parents.

This speech did not go as well as I hoped. My Toastmaster evaluator pointed out that I had trouble with the Club’s remote control to change my slides. Therefore, he recommended that I get my own remote control to be more fluid to advance the slides. In addition, he did not like that I turned my back to the audience to point out specific items on my PowerPoint. He advised me to buy a remote control with a laser pointer and to not turn my back on the audience. Although I did not feel like my speech delivery went smoothly, I thought the evaluator gave good advice.

The good news was that I was voted as “The Most Improved Speaker.” At the same time, this was the second speech where I was not voted as the best speaker. I was determined to stick with Toastmasters until one of my speeches was voted on by the Club as “The Best Speaker.”

Unfortunately, I did not get a video from this speech. However, I did turn the text of that speech into a blog later that year.

I made plans to leave St. Louis in late May to head back to Crater Lake National Park for the summer. Thus, I was determined to give one more speech and to do what I could to make the third speech ‘a winner.’ I was going to make the third speech the charm.

My third and winning Toastmasters speech in May 2011

Since the stink bomb speech was serious and technical about climate change, I decided to go lighter for my next speech in May 2011. It was called “Time to Say Goodbye.” This speech was about saying farewell to my temporary job at the St. Louis Science Center’s climate change exhibit, saying goodbye to my fellow Toastmasters as I was leaving St. Louis to return my summer seasonal ranger job at Crater Lake National Park, and my dream of saying goodbye to my ranger job so I could work full time on climate change communications and organizing.

Like my previous speech, I practiced very hard on this speech with Nilsa, Rob Van Winkle, my godmother, Jeanette Dantico and my parents. Unfortunately, my parents were out of town on a vacation trip, so they were not able to see this speech. It was a shame. I wish they could have been there because I was voted as “Best Speaker” for this speech. Yes! I finally was voted “Best Speaker” by my Toastmaster peers. I felt elated! I was leaving for Oregon on a high note.

I uploaded to YouTube a partial video of this speech. Sadly, this time, the beginning was cut off. The person who I asked to film me forgot to turn on the video at the beginning of my speech. Like the first speech, I was glad I got a partial video at least to document this speech.

Similar to my first Toastmasters speech, I forgot to turn that speech into a blog. Thus, I will include the text of that speech here:

Time to say goodbye!

“It’s time to say goodbye. That’s the goal of this speech is to get right to the point! That’s what I am going to do my speech tonight: Say goodbye to my present job, to you and to my present career.

First of all: I wanted to say unlike my previous speeches I am saying goodbye to PowerPoint, tonight only, so I can speak directly to you and not hide behind any technology. So for tonight only, it’s goodbye PowerPoint, and hello fellow toastmasters!

Next, I must say goodbye to my present job. As you may recall, when I joined Toastmasters in January, I was unemployed and struggling to find my calling to educate people about climate change. Well, in mid-March, I got a job at the St. Louis Science Center engaging visitors and answering questions at their temporary climate change exhibit. Over the past two months, I absolutely loved this job. It was a dream come true to be able to talk about climate change all day and be surrounded by the detailed science posted in the displays throughout the exhibit. I also loved my boss and co-workers and I chatted with so many adults and school groups around the St. Louis area who were accepting or critical of the concept of climate change. Their positive or negative opinions did not bother me.

I just relished being able to talk about climate change all day at work. I did literally feel like a kid in a candy store. Unfortunately, I have to say goodbye to this job on Sunday, May 15th. That is when this temporary exhibit ends and moves on to Cleveland in mid July. I hope you are can stop by the exhibit when I am working on Friday or Saturday before St. Louis says goodbye to it on Monday. This goodbye will be sad because how much I loved this job and how much it connected to my passion to inspire people to resolve climate change.

Next, I must say goodbye to you guys. You were all so welcoming when I joined in January. I made so many good friends and all of you were so helpful in critiquing my speeches. I think I will be able to make it to the next two meetings. However, I will miss you guys as I say goodbye to you and my hometown of St. Louis and head to my summer job at Crater Lake. So, if you are not able to make it to the next two meetings it will be time to say goodbye tonight.

Where am I going to is to my summer and spiritual home of Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. I am a naturalist ranger there leading various presentations, such as the boat tours, trolley tours, geology talk, sunset guided hike, evening program, etc. You all are more than welcome to come to my programs. You can count and tell me how many ahs and ums I accidently use during my ranger talks.

As I have hinted before, after nearly two decades, it may be time for me to say goodbye to Crater Lake also. I am getting tired of being a seasonal ranger. The moving and isolation in the national parks has reached its limits for me. Also, I really want to pursue my passion about educating, entertaining, and inspiring people about climate change as a public speaker. Thus, it may be time for me to really say goodbye to Crater Lake.

Also I have personally witnessed the effects of climate change while working in the national parks. When I worked in the Everglades, I saw the marine bays getting saltier and saltier with more erosion happening with sea level rise. At Crater Lake, I have personally seen our annual snowpack diminish over many years. Just like in Colorado, I have seen mountain pine beetles destroying our lodge pole pine trees. The beetles are surviving increasingly mild winters and having quite a party with our lodge pole pine trees and whitebark pine trees. With all these signs of climate change, I feel like I can no longer be the happy ranger just entertaining people in national parks. I feel called to say goodbye to Crater Lake and take this message to the cities.

Before I say goodbye to my current job, you and Crater Lake, I want to leave you with a gift. In one of my ranger programs, a guided sunset hike, I end the program with a collect of wisdom that I gained from all my years of spending time in nature and observing the park visitors. Somehow, I doubt you will be able to join me on my hike. So, if you flip over the paper, I am going to share and even let you keep:

RANGER BRIAN’S WISDOM

Would ___________ read the first three lines:

For Every Question,
There Is Not Necessarily an Answer.
Yield to the Mysteries of Nature.

Would ___________ read the second three lines:

Take Time to Enjoy the View
and Smell the Roses.
Find your Own Sacred Place

Would ___________ read the third three lines:

If Nature is Your Hobby,
You Will Never Be Bored.
You Can Never Step in the Same Stream Twice

Would _____________ read the fourth three lines:

There Are Things We Love, Things We Hate,
And Things to Which We are Indifferent.
However, In Nature, Everything Matters.

Would _______________ read the final three lines:

Every Single Person Makes the World
Every Single Day.
Think Globally, Act Daily.

I hope you have a wonderful summer here in St. Louis. Be thinking of me when you enjoy that Ted Drewes or Imo’s Pizza or other local amazing Italian food or go to a Cardinal’s game. I will be missing these luxury items in my mountain paradise home. Anyway, Mr. Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, it’s time once more for me to get to the point and close by saying: IT’S TIME FOR ME TO SAY GOODBYE!
Mr. Toastmaster.”

I could write a lot more about my Toastmasters experiences, especially with giving climate change talks. I will stop though because it is covered in a separate blog from 2016, Want to be effective on climate change? Join a Toastmaster group.

State #2: My first climate change talks at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon in 2011

As I witnessed from my Toastmasters group, giving climate change talks can be brutal. You never know if you will have climate change deniers in the audience who will make the speech or your interaction with them afterwards very uncomfortable. I initially learned about climate change working in Everglades National Park in 1998. By 2008, I wanted to do something about it. For years, I feared giving a ranger program in the national parks focused on climate change because I worried about conservative visitors would want to get in a fierce argument about it.

I first mentioned in 2008 to my superiors at Crater Lake that I wanted to give a ranger program about climate change. My Crater Lake supervisor, Eric Anderson, and the lead interpretive ranger, David Grimes, were supportive and encouraging of my idea. I just did not feel like I knew enough or was brave enough to do such a program. Finally, in 2011, I felt that I was ready. I had been doing my evening program centered on the birds of Crater Lake for five years. I enjoyed giving that program, but I was motivated to transition my evening program to climate change. David Grimes helped me with the information and images about climate change that he had wrote about for years in the park newspaper. I used the PowerPoint graphs and information I received from the park scientists that they had shared with the ranger staff during training.

Working as an interpretive park ranger at Crater Lake is a full-time job of giving programs such as boat tours, trolley tours, lodge talks, geology talks, step on tours, guided hikes, and working at the visitor center desk answering questions. Engaging with visitors and working outside in the sun all day was exhausting, even if I loved my job and put 110% effort into it. Thus, I came home in the evenings from work flat out tired. Yet, I was motivated to create an evening program on climate change.

After months I of putting it together in my spare time, I debuted my climate change evening program at campground amphitheater on August 3, 2011. The program went extremely well. To my surprise, the audience responded very positive to my program. As a matter of fact, the park visitors really seemed to like it as I gave it numerous times over the next 6 summers.

I blogged about my Crater Lake climate change evening program elsewhere. I was always very proud of this program. Even more, I was delighted when the lead interpretive ranger, David Grimes, videotaped the program on September 22, 2012, so that I could upload it to YouTube. It’s not easy to travel to Crater Lake. Furthermore, I stopped working at Crater Lake in 2017. Therefore, it is great to have this program on YouTube so that you can watch it.

State # 3 Virginia: Speaking at the NAI Conference in Hampton, Virginia in 2012

In June 2008, National Park Service ranger John Morris from Alaska came to Crater Lake to attend our annual ranger interpretation training. One evening, he gave a sample climate change program how climate change impact our national parks. He had great humor in this program, even showing an image of the ultimate proof of global warming. It was a change in the underwear fashion over the decades. John chuckled as he showed that image and the audience laughed at that comical image. John was the first person to show me that one could have fun giving a climate change talk while educating the public the seriousness of the issue. I knew then that I wanted to be like John and give climate change talks like he did that evening.

I stayed in touch with John afterwards to see if he could advise me. In 2011, he suggested that I apply to the Earth-to-Sky V Training that would be held in Shepherdstown, West Virginia on September 26 – 30, 2011. During the summer of 2011, I did apply for that training and was invited to attend. Earth-to-Sky is a partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Park Service (NPS) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

Earth-to-Sky offers training conferences where NASA scientists share their research about climate change, how Earth systems operates, and astronomy. The NASA scientists and the conference facilitators from NPS and the USFWS give climate change information and communication tools to help NPS interpretive rangers, USFWS educators, and government scientists to better educate the public about climate change. Earth-to-Sky V Training focused exclusively on climate change. The information provided by the NASA and other government scientists about climate change was extremely valuable to me. They challenged each of us at the training to come up with a solid action plan how we would implement the information they provided us about climate change and how to engage the public about it.

My action plan was to create a Crater Lake climate change park handout, which I completed in 2012. In addition, I would petition my supervisor to include a climate change training for the ranger naturalist staff that I would lead during seasonal training. My supervisor approved of this idea. As a result, I gave a climate change hour long training to the park staff from 2012 to 2019. In 2018 and 2019, I returned to Crater Lake to lead this training, even though I no longer worked there. That felt like a big honor for me to be invited return to Crater Lake to give this climate change training, even though I stopped working there.

It felt like that 2011 Earth-to-Sky V Training was like a gift that kept giving. It helped advance me as a climate change communicator. I wanted to give back to the Earth-to-Sky partnership somehow. Through John Morris and other Earth-to-Sky facilitators I met in Shepherdstown, I learned that Earth-to-Sky would give a climate change seminar before the NAI (National Association for Interpretion) Conference in Hampton, Virginia in November 2012.

I applied to be a speaker at this breakout training, and I was accepted. This was my first business trip traveling to a different part of the U. S. to give a climate change talk. NASA paid for my lodging, rental car, and airfare to speak at this conference. I felt like a true business trip as a professional speaker. It reminded me of when I went to see the paid professional speaker at the Fred Pryor Seminar weeks before my college graduation in 1992. When I saw that speaker, my thought was: ‘I want to be a professional speaker someday for something I had a passion.’

Around 20 attendees, including me, participated in this Earth-to-Sky seminar before the start of the NAI conference. Earth-to-Sky brought a couple of NASA scientists who were terrific speakers to explain the basics of climate change. I gave my talk towards the end of the conference. The title of my talk was “Pump You Up to Talk about Climate Change.”

My theme was the specific things that inspired me to give climate change ranger talks in the national parks. I focused on five specific items that inspired me:
• The location of working in the national parks
• Knowledgeable: Visitors expected me to know information on this subject – similar to how they expect rangers to be fluent in all subjects relating to a national park they are visiting,
• Passion: From my knowledge came a passion for the subject of climate change.
• Peer pressure: some of my ranger colleagues at Crater Lake and other parks were already giving climate change talks.
• Courage: After interviewing the Crater Lake scientists how climate change impacted Crater Lake, borrowing information from my fellow rangers, and becoming comfortable sharing my personal story how I discovered climate change working at Everglades National Park, I became comfortable to give my ranger evening program at Crater Lake on climate change.

I remembered as I wrapped up this talk, two of the audience members were skeptical of my information. They doubted that visitors they would engage in their national park would have a positive reception to hearing about climate change. My assurances that Crater Lake visitors were complimentary about my program did not give them confidence. This was a learning experience for me that I encountered again when I spoke at the Association of National Park Rangers Conference in St. Louis, Missouri exactly one year later. The lesson: park rangers can often be tougher and more cynical audiences to talk about climate change than park visitors.

One of the perks of this trip to give a climate change talk was setting aside time for sightseeing and visiting family. One of my dad’s cousins, Paula and her husband Tom, invited me to stay with them at their home in Williamsburg, about 40 miles from Hampton , Virginia. They took me to see Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown Settlement, and the Yorktown Battlefield. For years, I hoped to see these locations in my travels. Without NASA inviting me to give a talk at the Earth-to-Sky seminar at the NAI conference, I am not sure if I would have made it to Virginia.

State #4 Illinois: Speaking at the Piasa Palisades Sierra Club in Alton, IL in February 2013

In 2011, a month after I joined South County Toastmasters in St. Louis, I started working at the St. Louis Science Center at their temporary climate change exhibit in March. This exhibit closed in mid-May 2011. Before the exhibit shut down and packed up to its new location, I was determined to use the time working at the exhibit to network for climate action.

At one of the evening events that the St. Louis Science Center hosted during the spring of 2011 about climate change, I met St. Louis businessman Larry Lazar. After the event, Larry and I struck up a conversation since we both agreed we were very worried about climate change. We knew we wanted to do something, but we were not sure. We decided to stay in touch and regularly meet for coffee. I left St. Louis for the summer to work at Crater Lake, but we stayed in touch. We continued to meet for coffee in the fall of 2011.

At one of our very early coffee meetings, Larry announced: “Brian, I want to start a climate change meet up group. Will you join me?”

“Absolutely!” I responded.

Larry: “Great! Can you please sign up on the meetup.com website right now? I am going to call it Climate Reality St. Louis.” (currently known as Climate Meet Up St. Louis)

After I signed up on the spot, Larry proclaimed: “I have decided that I am going to make you the co-founder of the group!”

I felt very honored and thrilled that I possibly inspired Larry to start this climate meet up group. I was happy to be at the right place at the right time when Larry started this group. Furthermore, I was determined to make this meet up group a success. Larry and I had monthly meetings started in December 2011. We then invited local and nation climate speakers to come speak at our meet ups during the winter and spring of 2012.

In 2011 and into 2012, Larry and I became very interested in the Climate Reality Project (CRP), founded in 2007 by former Vice President Al Gore. I networked with friends involved with CRP to see if I could attend one of their trainings. In the spring of 2012, I applied to attend their next three-day U.S. training that was scheduled in San Francisco in August 21-23. In June 2012, CRP invited over 850 applicants, including Larry and me, to attend this training. As trained Climate Reality Leaders, Larry and I started giving climate change talks in the St. Louis area that winter.

Larry and I became known individually and as a team for giving climate change presentations in the St. Louis metro region. In December 2012, Chris Krusa, Program Chair for the Piasa Palisades Sierra Club in Alton, Illinois, invited me by email to give a climate change talk at their chapter meeting on February 11, 2013.

I gave a similar presentation to the one I presented in Virginia in November 2012 and to talk I gave to my fellow Crater Lake rangers in June 2012. Akin to those speeches, this talk was called “Pump You Up to talk about climate change.”

Overall, the reception to this presentation was positive. The interesting part was the difference of opinion during my talk. Halfway into my speech, I noted the severe drought in our Midwest region. I shared a November 29, 2012, St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline, “Drought threatens to close Mississippi to barges.” It was an Associated Press article that ran as the front-page story in the Post-Dispatch that day. I mentioned it as an alarm story for how bad climate change can impact weather. It was an example for me why all of us need to up our game to act on climate.

I grew up less than a mile from the Mississippi River in Oakville, Missouri, just south of St. Louis. My impression from my dad, grade school, and elsewhere was that the Mississippi barge traffic was vital for the U.S. economy to ship agricultural and mineral products in large quantities.

Chris informed me during my talk that this Sierra Club group did not like the Mississippi River barge traffic due to what they perceived as negative environmental and pollution impacts. My knowledge on the environmental and pollution impacts of large barges compared to other modes of transit was zero. Therefore, I had no basis to accept, reject or be skeptical of Chris’ response. I found it intriguing that we had different opinions on that subject since I assumed river barge traffic to be good for the economy and pollute less than other forms of large transit.

Similar to my talk in Virginia, this talk in Illinois allowed me to do some sightseeing. Alton, Illinois is about an hour drive north of downtown St. Louis. It is an old river town located on the Mississippi River just a couple miles west from the Confluence Point State Park. That state park sits at the point where the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers meet. Before my presentation to that Sierra Club Chapter that evening, I went to the confluence point where the two rivers join to take some photos. After stopping there, I briefly walked around old historic downtown Alton with its narrow streets and photograph the majestic Clark Bridge that spans the Mississippi River.

As a climate speaker, I loved how I got invitations to go to scenic places locally and nationally that I might not get the time or opportunity to visit otherwise.

State #5 Arizona: Giving a climate change presentation at Grand Canyon National Park

As I wrote earlier on this blog post, in November 2012, I spoke at NASA’s Earth-to-Sky climate change seminar before the NAI (National Association of Interpreters) Conference in Hampton, Virginia. One month later, District Supervisor Ranger Pete Peterson at Grand Canyon National Park commented to me on Facebook:

“Brian, I need you to come to Grand Canyon National Park and jump start our interpretive climate change program. Let’s talk.”

With my fantastic memories of visiting Grand Canyon National Park over the years, I was not going to pass up this offer. Let me counter that, even if I had never visited Grand Canyon National Park, this was a huge opportunity not to be dismissed because it is the Grand Canyon.

Pete Peterson and I kept in touch over the next few weeks to brainstorm when I could come to speak at Grand Canyon National Park. In early 2013, we finally settled on a date of Tuesday, May 7th. At that time, I still worked as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park. Thus, it was ideal to fit in a talk at the Grand Canyon during a cross country drive from St. Louis, where I spent the winters, to Crater Lake.

I did not know if I would get back to the southwest. In fact, I have not returned to the southwest since 2013. Since it was uncertain if I would return to this part of the U.S, I made the most of this cross-country trip driving from St. Louis to Crater Lake via the Grand Canyon.

On the first night of this journey, I stayed with my college friend, Brent Isaacs, at his home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I then made a long drive to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I visited my Climate Reality and Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) friend, Maria Rotunda and her family. I enjoyed walking around the old downtown area in Santa Fe before meeting my friend Maria and her family for dinner. Maria was the CCL Chapter Leader for the Santa Fe group. I joined CCL exactly one year earlier after attending a monthly chapter meeting in St. Louis. I wanted to see the monthly meeting for the Santa Fe chapter. They graciously to allowed me to sit in on their meeting.

From Santa Fe, I drove to Canyon De Chelly National Monument in Arizona to spend a day there. I took numerous pictures of the rock formations and the ancient ancestral Pueblo ruins as I hiked up and down the canyon on several short trails. Some of these ruins were high up on a cliff, which reminded me of visiting the ruins at Mesa Verde National Park over 10 years earlier. While working in the national parks for over 20 years at that point, some park employees told me Canyon De Chelly was their favorite NPS site to visit. I enjoyed the rugged desert beauty of that area. I felt grateful for the opportunity to visit this national monument.

The next day, May 6th, I arrived mid-morning at the eastern entrance, also known as Desert View, of Grand Canyon National Park. Within minutes of my arrival, I noticed a flyer advertising my evening program at the Shrine of the Ages Auditorium at Grand Canyon Village (or Canyon Village as the park employees call it) on the south Rim. Desert View is a 23-mile drive from Canyon Village. It was great to see advertisements for my talk greeting me as I entered the park.

The 23-mile drive from Desert View to Canyon Village only takes about 36 minutes without stopping. It took me over three hours to drive it to stop at the numerous overlooks to get awe inspiring views and photos of the Grand Canyon. It was partly cloudy at Desert View. As the day progressed, it became more overcast, and the canyon looked a bit hazy that day. It was clear enough to see across the Grand Canyon and visibly see all the rock formations.

In 2009, I hiked on an overnight trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. In 2010, I completed a solo three-day backpacking trip from the north to the south rim on the Grand Canyon. Not only was it beyond words to admire the magnificence of the Grand Canyon, it brought back great memories when I hiked to the bottom in 2009 and 2010.

In late afternoon, I met up with my friend Pete Peterson. He briefly me about my schedule for the next day at the Canyon. I planned to give a version of my Crater Lake climate change evening program, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” for my talk. I sheepishly asked him if he wanted me to include climate change information about the Grand Canyon in my presentation. He said yes. He wanted information about climate change at the Grand Canyon in my talk. Gulp. I got a knot in my stomach since I had no depth of knowledge about the Grand Canyon.

Pete then informed me that the next day he planned to give me a tour of the park’s facilities in Canyon Village that utilized solar and energy efficiency. Even more, he scheduled meetings with me and park researchers so I could quickly learn how climate change impacted the Grand Canyon. Then, in the evening of Tuesday, May 7th, Pete estimated I would probably be giving my evening ranger program to several hundred people at the Shrine of the Ages Auditorium.

My stomach was churning hard. It felt like I had about 24 hours to cram for a final exam on climate change at the Grand Canyon to give to an audience of several hundred park visitors and rangers attending. My head was spinning and my stomach had butterflies to pull together a presentation so quickly, but it was a lovely evening visiting with Pete and his partner Carrie. They cooked delicious home cooked meal. It tasted splendid after spending a week on the road.

While hanging with Pete and Carrie at their park house in Canyon Village, we saw an elk not far from their back porch. This amazed me because I had not really seen any elk in all my years working at Crater Lake National Park and just a few times visiting other national parks. This might have been the closest I had ever been to seeing and photographing an elk.

As dusk approached, Pete and his wife Carrie took me to see a wonderful sunset of the Grand Canyon from Yavapai Point in the Canyon Village area. The overlook was crowded with lots of visitors to get a glimpse of the sunset. The Canyon and the sunset were so captivating with the bright orange glowing colors that you could not blame anyone for being there, even if it felt like I had to out elbow others to get a photo.

As I blogged about previously, Tuesday May 7th was an intensely hectic day to meet with park researchers and tour park climate friendly facilities to quickly learn information about the Grand Canyon to include in my evening program. By late afternoon, I had more than enough information about the problem and solutions of climate change at the Grand Canyon to squeeze into my talk. My stress level was off the charts when my 5-year-old Toshiba laptop froze up and crashed as I tried to piece together a PowerPoint talk with less than 3 hours. I was safely in the ranger park library. However, my laptop struggles felt like I was hanging dangerously over the edge of the Grand Canyon and about to fall several thousand feet.

To my relief, my laptop functioned well enough to complete my revised ranger presentation with information included about the Grand Canyon. I finished my PowerPoint with about two hours to spare before the start of my presentation. Fortunately, my ranger talk that evening went smoothly. Sadly, we did not get a video of my talk. It was a packed house of over 200 people, the largest in-person talk I have ever given. As far as I remember, they were a receptive audience. It was amazing to be able to reach that many people with a message about climate change. It seemed to be a whole section of park rangers in one part of the audience, which I hoped to chat with afterwards.

After my talk was completed, some people lined up to compliment me on my talk. To my dismay, I had a climate denier who wanted to argue about the scientific details in my talk. He wanted to hog my attention. I was very happy when Pete rescued me to break up the conversation so I could chat with other Grand Canyon rangers who wanted to meet me.

I did little sightseeing that day, but it still felt like a roller-coaster adventure. Pete had an ice cream dessert at his house afterwards to unwind and celebrate the day’s achievement.

It was a tough but rewarding opportunity speaking to over 200 people at the Grand Canyon about climate change. I recently thanked Pete Peterson again for one of the best experiences of my life. The next day, I enjoyed the view of the Grand Canyon from the Bright Angel Trailhead overlook before leaving the park to continue my road trip. The canyon was a bit hazy that day. At the same time, the Grand Canyon looked even more rewarding for me with my memories of hiking to the bottom twice and then speaking to my largest audience about climate change.

After leaving the Grand Canyon, I drove to Lake Havasu City, Arizona to visit my friends Steve and Melissa, who I used to work with in Everglades National Park. They took me to see the London Bridge and a boat ride across the lake to see Havasau City, California. The next day, I drove to California to spend five days visiting friends in Yosemite National Park. I had sunny weather and blue skies the entire time I visited. That gave me a perfect opportunity to hike the Mist Trail to see Vernal and Nevada Falls, hiking in the Glacier Point area, visiting the sequoia trees at Mariposa Groves, and hiking in the Yosemite Valley underneath Half Dome.

This was a massive gift from my friend Pete Peterson to give a climate change presentation at the Grand Canyon. It allowed me to go sightseeing and visit friends along the way from Tulsa OK, Santa Fe NM, Canyon De Chelly National Monument AZ, Lake Havasu AZ, and Yosemite National Park CA. I might have planned a much simpler and direct cross-country route from St. Louis, MO to Crater Lake, OR without that invitation to speak at Grand Canyon National Park. I possibly would not have visited as many friends as I did or spend the quality of time at Canyon De Chelly or Yosemite without that chance to give a climate talk at Grand Canyon.

Yes, that was extra driving and more carbon emitted by my manual transmission fuel efficient Honda Civic. At the same time, it is spending time in nature in the fantastic scenery like Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Canyon De Chelly and other natural areas that inspires me to give talks and organize for climate action. My remaining cross country seasonal trips from St. Louis to Crater Lake in the spring and vice versa in the fall were much more direct because I did not have another opportunity like that to give a big presentation during a cross country drive.

State #6 California: Appearing as a TV guest on Comedy Central’s Tosh.o

After I developed the www.climatechangecomedian.com website in 2010 and giving some climate change talks in St. Louis, Crater Lake, and elsewhere, I struggled with what to do with the Climate Change Comedian title. My climate change talks as a park ranger, Toastmaster, Climate Reality Leader, and Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteer were not leading to any notoriety.

To up my exposure, I created some YouTube videos. On January 10, 2014, I created my first minute and a half video, “Climate Change Comedian and the Violinist!” with Tanya Couture, my girlfriend then and wife now since 2015. I tried to promote her as a professional violinist and highlight me as a climate change public speaker.

One month later, on February 6, 2014, I shot the second video with my mom, Fran Ettling, “Climate Change Comedian and the Pianist!” This two-minute video showcased my mom as a professional pianist and promote me as a climate change public speaker. In both videos, I developed my tag line with Tanya in the first video and my mom in the second remarking: “You’re not that funny!”

One year later, my dad was tired of his role as the cameraman. He asked if he could be in a video. The next video, I filmed on March 6, 2015, “Climate Change Comedian and his Skeptical Dad!” It was the longest video I created with family at 4 and a half minutes. In this video, my dad and I chat about his story how he went from doubtful on the science of climate change from listening Rush Limbaugh to accepting the science. He stated that he shifted his thinking from my information about seeing climate change in the national parks. Like the previous videos, I attempted to be funny. This time, my dad gave the tag line: “No, you are not that funny!”

It was a funny family project to do these videos with Tanya and my parents. I forgot about them and moved onto other projects.

Then in April 2016, something unexpected and magical happened. I spent the winter of 2015-16 getting married to Tanya in a big celebration wedding attended by family and friends on November 1, 2015. I gave lots of climate change talks that winter and I was planning on returning to Crater Lake for the summer. In mid-April, I was getting ready to start packing up my belongings for the summer when the phone rang at my parents’ house. My mom informed me that “someone from Los Angeles wants to chat with you.”

I picked up the phone and the person identified himself as a staff member of Comedy Central’s Tosh.o. We had a very friendly conversation where he asked me about my background such as “The Climate Change Comedian,” and making the YouTube videos with my parents and Tanya. He then got to the point asking me: “We would like to fly you and your mom out to Los Angeles to appear on a taping Comedy Central’s Tosh.o next week to be interviewed by our host Daniel Tosh. Would you be interested?”

“Yes!” as I serendipitously jumped at this opportunity.

We then wrapped up the phone call. I then approached my mom about this invitation and shared that they wanted to include her. I asked if she would be interested in getting flown to LA to appear on a national TV show.

Her response was a coy and very intrigued response of “Yes.”

The show felt bad they invited my mom and I to LA when Tanya planned a brief honeymoon trip to Augusta, Missouri that week. As a wedding gift the previous November, we received a gift certificate for a two-night stay at a bed and breakfast there. To rectify this, the show invited Tanya to join us. They paid for our airfare and hotel in Los Angeles for the three of us to briefly visit and video tape this interview. Don’t worry! Tanya and I then took the trip to Augusta, MO after this overnight trip to Los Angeles.

This TV interview on Tosh.o was not like one of my traditional climate change talks. Daniel Tosh dominated the interview with his jokes and roasting of me as the Climate Change Comedian. While I played the straight man to his skillful use of humor, I inserted information how climate change is real, caused by humans, and we can reduce the threat if we act now.

My mom, Tanya, and I nervously waited for the show to be aired on August 2, 2016. To our delight and relief, the segment was hilarious. We were very satisfied how we appeared on national TV. To this day, appearing on Comedy Central’s Tosh.o was one of the highlights of my life. In one sense, I never dreamed when I gave myself the title “Climate Change Comedian” back in Ashland, OR in 2009 that it would lead to a TV appearance seen by millions of people. This reached an audience, especially of young high school and college age Gen Y and Z viewers, primarily male, that regularly watch Tosh.o. These are folks that might not ever attend a park ranger program on climate change or see a scientific lecture on the climate crisis.

Even more, this show episode immediately went into syndication where it was shown several times over the next few months and years on Comedy Central. I had friends tag me on Facebook when they saw my episode months or even years later. My appearance on the show paid extremely well. My mom said she was able to pay to get dental work done from the check she received from the show. Years later, I continued to receive residual Screen Actors Guild checks from my appearance on Tosh.o.

Giving a climate change talk at 2016 Citizens Climate Lobby Conference in Ottawa Canada

Like so many people, I felt sick to my stomach when Donald Trump won the Presidential election on November 8, 2016. I felt naueous like years of all my climate organizing, writing and public speaking went down the drain. For a couple of days, I had no energy to do anything.

Then I exchanged Facebook messages with my Climate Reality and Citizens’ Climate Lobby friend, Cathy Orlando. In September 2010, Cathy founded and became National Director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada (CCL Canada). For years, I admired her leadership in CCL Canada. I had friends who enjoyed attending the CCL Canada lobby days in Ottawa, Canada to engage with Canadian members of Parliament. I wanted to directly participate, so I signed up in September to attend their November 2016 conference.

In November 2016, Cathy reached out to console me the day after Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential election. Somehow, we talked about a Toastmasters speech I gave in April 2016, “Hey U.S.A! Let’s win the Clean Energy Race!” The theme of the speech was that the U.S. could either be a leader or a laggard to compete with China on clean energy. Cathy read my blog about the speech and watched the YouTube video. She then asked me to present this speech at the CCL Canada conference in Ottawa on November 27, 2016.

For this presentation, Cathy asked me to expand it to include Canada. Thus, I renamed the speech, “Hey North America! Let’s win the Clean Energy Race!”

I arrived in Ottawa on the day after Thanksgiving, on Friday, November 25, 2016. Not surprising, it was a bone chilling overcast day in Ottawa. The gruff Canadian customs officials asked me what I was doing in Canada. I told them I was there to give a climate change talk at a conference happening that weekend. They did not believe me. They had me turn on my laptop and show them some of my PowerPoint slides. When they saw a small part of my presentation, they decided I was legitimate. They then thanked me for my efforts as a climate organizer.

Tanya decided two weeks earlier to join me on this trip. Unfortunately, she could not book the same flight as me, so she arrived at the Ottawa airport a couple of hours after me. She missed all the drama I had with the Canadian customs officials. When she arrived in Canada, she simply told them that she was there to visit friends. They immediately waved her through.

After Tanya arrived, my Climate Reality and CCL Canada friend Rolly Montpellier picked us up at the airport and generously let us stay at his home during the conference. As an active volunteer with CCL Canada, Rolly planned to attend the conference and lobby day. He kindly let us ride with him to the conference each day.

A CCL conference and lobby day in Washington D.C typically has over 1,000 people. The population of Canada is only about a tenth of the U.S. population (40 million vs. 330 million). It made sense that around 100 people, nearly all Canadians and a couple of Americans, such as Tanya and me, attended this conference.

My talk, “Hey North America! Let’s win the Clean Energy Race!” went well for this conference and the attendees seemed to like it. The conference video recorded all the speeches, so I uploaded my speech to YouTube afterwards. Tanya captured some good photos of me speaking.

The next day and a half, Tanya and I joined over 55 CCL Canada volunteers to lobby members of Parliament at their offices. The Parliament buildings and downtown Ottawa is charming. As an American, it looks very British. If Great Britain and the U.S.A. had a child, it would look like Canada. My parents took my sisters and I to drive through Ontario, Canada as part of a family vacation to see Niagara Falls in 1983. We saw Ottawa in July and I always wanted to see it again. In between the lobby meetings, Tanya and I explored the majestic, Gothic style, Parliament Building and the surrounding grounds.

All our lobby meetings were face-to-face with members of Parliament. Tanya and I were split up to attend separate lobby meetings. In October 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party announced a plan to establish a carbon fee and dividend in 2018. The priority of our lobby meetings was to thank the Liberal Party members and to urge full implementation of the carbon fee and dividend.

Tanya and I were often the only Americans in these lobby meetings. The election of Donald Trump happened just a couple of weeks previously. The members of Parliament often turned to Tanya and I in our lobby meetings to ask: ‘What just happened in your election?’

I was still stunned by the 2016 U.S. Presidential election result. This was the first time Tanya participated in climate lobbying anywhere. She felt amused and uncomfortable that she was put on the spot in these meetings to answer why the U.S. elected Donald Trump as President.

This was another peak experience for me as a climate speaker and organizer to give a talk in Ottawa and lobby members of Parliament in Canada. After this talk, I could now brag that I was an international climate change speaker.

#7 Colorado: Breakout speaker at 2017 Climate Reality Day of Action Training in Denver.

After I was trained as a Climate Reality Leader in San Francisco, California, in August 2012, I was an active Climate Reality Leader and mentor. I attended Climate Reality Trainings as a mentor in Chicago IL in 2013, Cedar Rapids IA in 2015, and Houston TX in 2016. Climate Reality Project asked their volunteer Leaders like me to log their “Acts of Leadership” on their Hub website so they could track our actions. Even more, logging our climate actions enabled other Climate Reality Leaders to see how we took specific climate actions to inspire them to do the same.

Therefore, I logged all my climate change talks, as well as the opinion editorials I wrote that were published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and newspapers across Oregon. I recorded each of my blogs from my climatechangecomedian.com and my writing contributions for the climatebites.org website. I submitted each time I taught a continuing adult education class for St. Louis Community College and the Oasis Continuing Education Center in St. Louis. I logged each time I lobbied a member of Congress, wrote a letter to them, emailed them, and called their office. I recorded each time I attended climate related meetings and organized climate events. Because of all the times I submitted climate actions, I became known from 2014-2020 as one of the top Climate Reality Leaders for my recorded Acts of Leadership.

Because of all of my logged “Acts of Leadership,” the Climate Reality staff invited me to be a guest speaker at their March 5th Denver Day of Action. This event took place after the March 2017 Climate Reality Training in Denver, Colorado March 2-4. The staff asked me to speak about “Spreading the Word: Mastering Presentations.”

In that talk, I shared my 6 tips for Mastering Presentations such as:

1. Sharing your story.
   I told my story I how saw climate change working as a park ranger in the national parks.
   
   
2. What common values do you share with your audience.
   I shared how I related to my audiences with their love of the national parks and nature. I quoted Holocaust victim Anne Frank from her book, The Diary of a Young Girl:
   “The best remedy for for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be…amidst the simple beauty of nature.”
   
   
3. Include the mission statement for the group that invited you.
   When I spoke at Second Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Missouri in January 2017, I included their website statement that they are “a certified Earth Care Congregation in the Presbyterian Church (USA) since 2012. ”
   
   From Rotary Clubs, I included their Four Way Test:
   
   

4. Include your audience in your talk.
   I then talked about how I would show up at meetings of an organization weeks before my talk to get permission to take photos of individual club members to weave them into my talk. The audience loved seeing their friends and themselves in my PowerPoint images.
   
   
5. If possible, Include some humor.
   I would share the viral image Positive proof of global warming that shows the changes in underwear fashion over the years. I also included the Bloomberg Business article that I had the unfortunate experience to wake up to the day after my wedding on November 2, 2015, “Climate Change Kills the Mood: Economists Warn of Less Sex on a Warmer Planet.”
   
   
6. Share local stories of the problem and solutions to climate change.
   I showed the image of the extreme flood that I saw in St. Louis on January 1, 2016. I then shared the story in the Webster-Kirkwood Times, “Living Green With Solar Energy,” from December 14, 2012. The article highlighted St. Louis residents Jim and Judy Stroup. They installed solar panels on their house the year before and saved around 87% on their electric bill. I included the quote from Jim Stroup:
   
   “This past month, I spent more beer & pistachios than I did on gas & electric. And I am not a big drinker. It’s amazing how much (solar) cuts down on your bills and how economical it is to install.”

I then wrapped up my presenting by listing my 6 tips for mastering the presentation for the audience to see it one last time.

This presentation was well received by the audience of primary Climate Reality Leaders and staff. I remember seeing fellow Climate Reality Mentors there such as Harriet Shugarman, Jill MacIntyre Witt and Maria Rotunda. They gave me positive feedback about my talk. Maria’s son, Ian Marchegiani, took a great picture of me speaking.

Giving climate change talks in Washington D.C. at Citizens’ Climate Lobby conferences

In February 2017, my wife Tanya and I moved to Portland, Oregon. My wife’s job transferred us to Portland, but I was unsure what to do with my life. I knew I wanted to be a climate organizer. I was uncertain what I was precisely going to do and how I would make a living doing that. For the previous 24 years, I worked as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park during the summers. For 16 years, from 1992 to 2008, I worked as a winter seasonal ranger in Everglades National Park. People knew me as a park ranger. That job opened doors for me to give climate change presentations. I loved that job.

By 2017, I wanted to transition out of being a seasonal park ranger to be a full-time climate organizer. In May, I blogged “My struggle to transition from a park ranger to a climate lobbyist.” I had a hard time weening myself away from the ranger job. I worked at Crater Lake in May 2017 as the park needed ranger staff during that month to start ramping up for the summer visitation. At that time, I did not commit to work at Crater Lake beyond the first week of June.

For the summer of 2017, it was time to do something different. I did not want to attend the Crater Lake interpretative ranger seasonal training. I was eager to attend the June Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) Conference and Lobby Day, June 10th to June 13th. This was a couple of days after my final day of work at Crater Lake. Even more, I wanted to do more than just participate in this June CCL conference. I asked CCL if I could be a breakout speaker for this conference.

In January 2017, I gave a Citizens’ Climate Lobby online training about climate change in our national parks. I described this training as:

“Unsure how to find common ground when you meet with a member of Congress or Congressional staff? Most likely, a National Park Service (NPS) unit exists in the district of your member of Congress or inside your state. It is vital to know how climate change negatively impacts these national treasures and how the NPS works to reduce their carbon footprint in each of their units. National parks and monuments may be an economic linchpin for many Congressional districts.

Join seasonal park ranger and Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteer Brian Ettling as he discusses how he has witnessed climate change while working in the national parks. He will share how he has used his experience and love of our national parks to achieve common ground in meetings with Congressional staff. Even more, he will share examples of two national parks working to reduce their carbon footprints.”

My lobbying experience showed me that one of the best ways to find common ground with Congressional staff was to talk about nature and national parks. In addition, climate lobbying can seem discouraging looking at the news with worsening weather events and Congressional inaction. CCL often likes to use the quote from E.B. White,

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first.”

For the June 2017, I wanted to lead a breakout session on the importance of protecting nature and our national parks as we lobby for Congressional offices to pass climate policy. The CCL staff went along with my idea.

We agreed on a panel breakout session called, “Protecting and Conserving Species in the Face of Climate Change.” CCL suggested two panelists, Dr. Brooke Bateman, Director of Climate Watch for the National Audubon Society, and Leah Donahey, Senior Campaign Director for the Alaska Wilderness League. My responsibility was bring in a third speaker from NPS.

My NPS friend from Earth-to-Sky, John Morris, suggested that I contact Jon Jarvis, the recent Director of the National Park Service from 2009 to 2016. I then emailed Jon Jarvis. He replied that he must graciously turn down the invitation. He was interested in the June 2017 conference panel, but he had to decline to observe by law “a one year ‘cooling off’ period where I cannot be engaged in any ‘matters of substance’ related to the NPS.”

I then offered the spot to John Morris. He accepted the invitation, but then he had to back out due health issues. Other NPS rangers I approached where not available. Thus, I was the third speaker and the moderator. My talk was about the pika, a small mammal that is closely related to the rabbit. Because it lives in cool mountain high elevations in the western U.S, it is an indicator species for detecting climate change. I shared how Crater Lake and the national parks are attempting to switch to clean energy for its facilities to reduce the threat of climate change.

I remember having around 30 people in the audience for this breakout session. I was pleased that it went smoothly, since I wore two hats as the moderator and a panelist speaker for this presentation. I did not notice I was filmed when I moderated the breakout session. Ashley Hunt-Martorano, a friend and the CCL Marketing and Events Manager at that time, came into this session and shot a quick video on her phone during the question-and-answer portion with the audience. I appreciated her recording this short video to document the occasion.

For the June 2019 CCL conference in Washington D.C, CCL approved for me to co-lead another breakout session on “Mastering Town Halls” with fellow Climate Reality Leader and CCL volunteer Eve Simmons. For the last couple years, I had attended several Congressional town halls in Oregon. I had some success of engaging with Oregon’s U.S. senators and a member of Congress. Sadly, I was the only CCL volunteer present at some of these town halls. Therefore, I wanted to lead a breakout session about tips I discovered to engage members of Congress, their staff and the community at local town halls.

Eve and I did not get a big audience for this breakout session. I remember us having less than 20 people in a room that could have probably held around 40 people. Except for a couple of people who had questions for us and gave us feedback that it was helpful, we did not seem to get much of a response from the audience.

Eve and I struggled at times to get our ideas and messaging in our talk in sync. However, I was very proud to give this talk on the importance of “Mastering Town Halls.” In my experience in Oregon, I had not seen much climate advocates, especially CCL volunteers, at town halls. I hoped to raise awareness about that in some way that I could.

#8 Washington state: Giving a breakout talk at the Climate Reality Bellevue Training

Just two weeks after the June 2017 CCL conference in Washington D.C, Climate Reality Project invited me to be a breakout speaker for their Training in Bellevue, Washington on June 27-29, 2017. After my March Climate Reality Day of Action breakout presentation in Denver, Colorado, Climate Reality staff kept in contact with me. They were pleased with my volunteer actions.

As a result, they invited me to be a co-breakout speaker with Maddie Adkins at the Climate Reality Training in Bellevue. This was very exciting because I was Maddie’s mentor at the Climate Reality Training in Houston, Texas in August 2016. She was 17 years old when I met her in 2016. I helped her with her mentor application for the February 2017 Denver training. I was happy for her when Climate Reality invited her to be a mentor. Even more, it was very exciting when she was selected as one of the panelists, along with Lucia Whalen, David Ellenberger, and Nana Firman CLIMATE REALITY LEADERS: WHO WE ARE panel discussions led by Al Gore at the Denver Training. From meeting her at the Houston Training, we developed a good rapport.

Maddie Adkins is the name she is known by her family, friends and Climate Reality. She writes and promotes herself professionally under her given name of Madison Adkins. As a teenager, she created a lot of buzz when she lived in Carmel, Indiana. She worked with her mayor and city council on a climate change resolution. She gave speeches at schools and universities to educate young people about climate change and their power as citizens. In 2017, she worked at iMatter, an international youth-led organization that empowers youth to join the climate movement. Before I left for the training in Houston, I received messages from friends telling me how excited they were that I was her mentor and the great things she was doing for climate action.

It happened to be very beneficial that my wife Tanya and I moved to Portland, Oregon in February 2017. Maddie lived in Portland with her parents at that time. Thus, we met in person to prepare and practice our presentation in early June. We were scheduled to give this talk in Bellevue at the Climate Reality Training at the end of June. I really did appreciate her bubbly, joyous youthful enthusiasm, and excitement to give this joint presentation with me. Her playful and exuberant personality helps bring out the fun and creativity in those around her, especially me. I fed off her impish teen energy and she enjoyed my goofy and wacky personality. We practiced hard to do a great job giving this presentation at the training.

We enjoyed weaving together our presentations together in a cohesive talk. Maddie focused on how to speak to youth and schools. I focused on how to speak to adults. I shared the six tips for mastering the presentation and finding an audience that was from the Climate Reality Day of Action talk I gave in Denver just a few months before this June talk. I added a new original quote I created that I have used in the conclusions of my climate change talks since then:

Maddie had great tips for our talk that she later wrote about for an August 7, 2020 article for Medium.com, “How I Grew My Public Speaking Audiences from 10 to 1,000.” In her 2020 article, her helpful tips included: practice, invite your friends to your presentation, expect tech issues, tell your story, follow up, and your authenticity is what makes your presentation powerful.

As we practiced our talk in Bellevue the day the day before we gave it, I mentioned to Maddie one of my all-time favorite quotes associated with the poet and author Maya Angelou:*
“People will forget what you said…but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maddie loved hearing that quote. She decided on the spot that would be the conclusion of our talk. She ended her 2020 Medium article with that same quote. With the busyness of our lives, Maddie and I lost contact after that talk. It seemed we were two energetic atoms bouncing off each other. We each received an inspirational boost in our climate advocacy since that collaboration and giving this talk in Bellevue together in 2017. I will always be grateful for Climate Reality Project pairing me up with Maddie to give this talk.

The large audience of Climate Reality Leaders who attended our breakout talk gave us a very positive response. Even more, the Climate Reality staff was delighted with our talk. It felt like the organization appreciated all my climate advocacy.

#9 Florida: Giving a climate change talk at the CCL regional conference in Tampa

In January 2014, I attended the CCL southeast regional conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Former Congressman Bob Inglis was the main conference speaker. I wanted to see him speak live and possibly meet him, so I registered to attend this conference.

At this conference, I met Abhaya Thiele, the CCL Southeast Regional Co-Coordinator and the Florida Co-Coordinator. Abhaya and I struck up a friendship with our love of Florida. She lived part of the year in the northern part of the state in Gainesville. I lived for sixteen years in Everglades National Park at the southern end of the state. Because I first learned about climate change when I started giving ranger talks in the Everglades in 1998, my dream was to return to Florida to give a climate change talk. Since our 2014 meeting in Atlanta, Abhaya and I kept brainstorming how I could return to Florida to give a climate change talk and promote CCL.

In December 2017, Abhaya invited me to be a guest speaker at the Florida Regional Conference for CCL that was held on February 24, 2018 in Tampa, Florida. This was a dream come true for me to return to Florida to give a climate change talk. I first learned about climate change when I started giving ranger talks in the Everglades in 1998. Ten years later in 2008, I stopped working in Everglades National Park because I was so worried about climate change.

Over my 16 years of working in the Florida Everglades, I made many friends. One friend, Steve Robinson, a fourth generation Floridian who worked in Everglades National Park from 1980 to 2005, became a mentor to me. Sadly, Steve passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2007. During that heartbreaking time when Steve fought cancer, I met Steve’s family, such as his brother Michael and his cousin Paul “Steb” Sedwick. Both Steb and Michael lived in the Tampa area. The day before the Tampa conference, I spent the day visiting with them.

On February 24, 2018, I gave my talk at the CCL Florida Regional Conference. My topic was “Storytelling: Reaching People Through Common Values.” My first point was that everyone has a climate change story, even if they don’t think they have one. I shared my story how I became aware of climate change while working in the Everglades as far back as 1998.

My second point was telling a local story about climate change that relates to your audience. As an example, I gave my story that I share in Oregon how I saw climate change while working at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon with the summer wildfire season becoming more intense.

My third point was sharing a personal story for why pollution is bad. I told my story how my dad has stage 4 bladder cancer. For years, my family lived just a couple of miles from the Meramec Coal Power Plant. I cannot say with certainty that the pollution from that plant caused my dad’s cancer. However, the air pollution from that plant certainly increased the risk of cancer for my dad and many others in the nearby St. Louis southern metropolitan area.

My fourth point was encouraging the audience about to talk about conservative Republicans who support climate solutions, such as carbon fee and dividend. I gave examples of former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and former Congressman Bob Inglis.

My fifth point was telling stories how CCL helped them have breakthroughs in their political power. My example was my success getting opinion editorials published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Oregonian, and other newspapers.

My final point was urging them to share the story of Pennsylvania businessman Jay Butera. He made numerous trips to Florida and Washington D.C. to convince Republican members of Congress such as Carlos Curbelo, Ileana Ros-Lehtinem, and others to join the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus.

Around 75 people attended this conference. They gave me a grateful response for my talk. After the conference, my friend Climate Reality and CCL friend Susan Nugent and her partner Roland Fisch drove me from the conference in Tampa to their home in Gainesville, Florida.

The next day, Susan drove me from her home to the nearby Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park. That park reminded me of Everglades National Park, with the wide variety of wildlife we saw that day, such as alligators, Glossy Ibis, ducks, a Limpkin, a brown snake, Moorhens, a ribbon snake, horses, Cattle Egrets, Woodstorks, Great Egrets, a Snail Kite, a soft shelled turtle, and even bison. Yes, you read that correctly: bison. My wife was floored when she saw my photos of bison. She did not think that bison lived in Florida. They are not found in south Florida where the Everglades is mostly marshy and swampy. However, a small heard of bison thrives in the large area of this state park and the higher dry ground of northern Florida.

The next day, Susan and her partner Roland drove me to Cedar Key, on the Florida Gulf Coast. Cedar Key is about an hour and a half drive from Gainesville. I enjoyed seeing this coastal nature preserve that was nestled on the Gulf of Mexico. Cedar Key had some archaeological shell mounds, rising up to 28 feet above sea level. Scientists date them as nearly 6,000 years old, built over a 3,500-year period (2500 B.C.-A.D. 1000) by the first native Floridians.

Like my previous climate change speaking trips, it was a fabulous perk to meet up with friends and go sightseeing in the days after giving a climate presentation. Even more, I got to visit Florida in the middle of winter when the temperature was around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but much colder in most of the United States, including our home area in Portland, Oregon.

#10 Idaho: Speaking at 2018 CCL Greater Northwest Regional Conference in Boise

Just two weeks after I traveled to Florida, I went to Boise, Idaho to attend the CCL Greater Pacific Northwest Regional Conference, March 9-11. The organizer of this conference was Roberta D’Amico. My supervisor at Crater Lake National Park, Marsha McCabe, was good friends with Roberta. They knew each other as career National Park Service employees. Marsha encouraged me to get to know Roberta since Marsha knew we were both involved with CCL.

I had a good conversation with Roberta and her partner John at the November 2017 CCL conference in Washington D.C. She was the lead organizer for the March regional conference and unsure who to recruit as speakers for the conference. I offered to help any way I could, including as a guest speaker if she needed me. In November 2017, we promised to stay in contact to exchange ideas. In January 2018, Roberta decided that she wanted me as a guest speaker at the conference. Even more, she determined that I would speak twice during the conference.

First, I gave a recap of the CCL Oregon Stewardship Tour that I led the previous October and November. This was a 30-minute presentation that talked about the lessons I learned for the tour. The main lessons I learned:

1. Develop a planning team for a tour.
2. Recruit a marketing team.
3. Share your climate change story
4. Emphasize local impacts your audience witnessed, such as the wildfires in Oregon.
5. Every audience is different: From high schoolers to seniors, liberals to Trump supporters
6. It was an adventure of a lifetime for me to lead that tour.

In addition to the lessons learned, I debriefed on items we could have done better for the tour:
• Don’t list Congressional lobby meetings on the official tour site. Very confusing for the media.
• If possible, try to have more than one presenter on the tour.
• Try to sponsor a tour with another group, like the Audubon Society.
• Put constituent comment forms and postcards on each seat before the event.
• We built goodwill with Renew Oregon promoting their state level cap and invest proposal. However, it made the talk more awkward and confusing since Renew Oregon and CCL’s solutions are completely different.
• Faster follow up with new supporters to become active volunteers – line up mentors in advance.

Second, Roberta thought it would be good for me to give an entertaining talk during dinner. My 10-minute talk centered on “What’s Your Story?’ A friend of mine recorded a video of this speech that I later uploaded to YouTube. Furthermore, I took the text of that speech and turned it into a blog, “For effective climate action, tell your story.”

Since the Northwest is much more geographically spread out than Florida, I remember this Greater Northwest Conference as having a smaller attendance of around 50 to 75 people than the conference I attended in Florida the previous month. The attendees at this conference liked my talks. Unlike other speaking engagements, I was not able to do any sightseeing in Boise. The good news though was that this was the first climate conference I attended where I was asked to present twice on two different subjects. That alone felt like a victory.

#11 Georgia: Co-presenting at the 2019 Climate Reality Training in Atlanta

After presenting as a guest breakout speaker at the Climate Reality Denver Day of Action in March 2017 and as a co-presenter for a breakout session at the Climate Reality Training in Bellevue, Washington, Climate Reality Project staff invited me to be a co-presenter along with Itzel Morales Lagunes at the Climate Reality Training in Los Angeles, California. Itzel and I presented on the same topic I presented in June 2017 at the Climate Reality Bellevue Training, “Mastering the Presentation and Finding Your Audience.”

Climate Reality staff gave positive feedback they received from the Climate Reality Leaders who attended this joint presentation with Itzel. During this Los Angeles Training, I wanted to promote Climate Reality Project and CCL. I loved volunteering for both organizations and encouraging climate advocates to get involved with one or both amazing groups. Thus, Steph Zhu a blogger for CCL wrote a blog about me, “One person’s journey to Climate Change Activist” for the Red, Green, and Blue website on September 12, 2018.

In the fall of 2018 and the start of 2019, I stayed in touch with Climate Reality staff. They invited me to be a co-presenter with Maria Santiago-Valentín for their March 2019 Training in Atlanta, Georgia. Maria lives in Clark, New Jersey. She was originally from Puerto Rico. She had an impressive background as a doctoral student in education, a learning disabilities consultant. She is the author of a 2019 book that is available in English and Spanish, Bipolar Disorder: Etiology and Treatment Overview: Mindfulness, Medication, Digital Psychiatry and Classroom Accommodations.

Maria attended the Climate Reality Training in Chicago in 2013. Climate Reality noticed her activism as a co-leader of the New Jersey People’s Climate Rally in 2017 and 2018, and a steering committee member of the 2018 New Jersey March for Science. In July 2018, Maria presented at the Global Mental Health Congress in Paris, where she shared her research entitled “An Overview of the Neurological Base of Bipolar Disorder” published by the Journal of Childhood and Development Disorders. She was the treasurer of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, New Jersey Chapter and vice chair of the New Sierra Club Environmental Justice Committee.

Maria was very humble and shy. She was worried about giving our joint presentation to a huge group of Climate Reality Leaders during the Atlanta Training. She was modest about her accomplishments and background. She seemed to have limited experience with public speaking and talking in front of large audiences. Unlike Itzel or Maddie, Maria relied more on me to create and edit our presentation. Maria had a kind heart and gentle spirit. I was happy to help her feel comfortable giving this presentation. She was appreciative of everything I did to help us prepare for this Atlanta presentation. Speaking to hundreds of Climate Reality Leaders at this training seemed daunting to her. I did my best to be her rock of support. I had someone take a picture of both of us in Atlanta with our fists pumped, with the attitude of “WE GOT THIS!

In fact, that became our theme for the new Climate Reality Leaders attending this talk, “YOU GOT THIS!” Maria even had a picture of herself in the talk not smiling with the text: “OMG!!! I am freaking out! The content and my accent!!!”

I used that phrase “YOU GOT THIS!” several times in this presentation. I started this talk borrowing from Tim Ryder’s presentation that he gave with Itzel Morales and me at the Los Angeles Training in 2018. I showed an overview of images of Al Gore’s 518 slides from his long presentation. Al Gore gave his nearly three-hour climate presentation using most of those slides the day before. In our breakout presentation, I walked through how they could find Al Gore’s slide decks on the Climate Reality Hub. I then encouraged them to use the 59 slides of Al Gore’s “Truth in 10” slide deck that is available to everyone, not just Climate Reality Leaders. It is accessable on the public Climate Reality website. The Truth in 10 slides do not have any copyright limitations. They can be shown to anyone anywhere, especially if the climate presentation is livestreamed, video recorded, or uploaded to YouTube.

I then used a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr quote:
“Everyone can be great. Because anybody can serve.
You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.
You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.
You don’t have know about Plato and Aristotle to serve.
You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve.
You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics to serve.
You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

This seemed very appropriate to use a Dr. King quote since this presentation was given in his hometown of Atlanta, GA. After I used that quote, I repeated the theme: “YOU GOT THIS!”

I might have even had Maria say it out loud for effect. I then gave my 6 tips for Mastering Presentations that I which I had been sharing since my Denver breakout talk.

When I shared my story as my first tip, I then turned to Maria and asked her to share her story.
She talked about her background with Organizing for Action (OFA) and her involvement with the Climate Change State Team at OFA in New Jersey. She then told the audience how her and her family were impacted by Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey in 2012. Even worse, her relatives were devastated by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in September 2017.

In my second tip, Finding Your Audience, I gave my examples of forming a Climate Reality Meet Up Group in St. Louis, getting involved with the local Climate Reality Chapter, joining a Toastmasters Club in St. Lous, and leading the CCL tour across Oregon in October 2017. Maria gave her examples speaking to OFA, lobbying her New Jersey Assemblyman, and speaking at Columbia University. Maria also shared how she organized and spoke at environmental marches People’s Climate Movement, NJ Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, NJ March for Science and as a panelist for a public screening of the 2017 National Geographic documentary, From the Ashes.

Maria and I tag teamed for the rest of this talk. I provided tips and examples. Maria responded with her own examples. She was lovely to co-present with as a team. She gave it her all, stepping out of her comfort zone to speak to this large group of Climate Reality Leaders.

I started the conclusion with my standard quote: “The most important person who can make the biggest impact reducing the threat of climate change is the person sitting in your chair.”

For the final slide, I showed a quote from former President Barack Obama, “We are the ones we have been waiting for!” Then Maria once more proclaimed, “YOU GOT THIS!”

Like Maddie Adkins and Itzel Morales, it was an honor and pleasure to present with Maria. From the conversations and email exchanges with Climate Reality staff afterwards, they seemed pleased with this presentation. Unfortunately, Atlanta was the last Climate Reality Training I attended in person. I hoped to participate as a breakout speaker in trainings after that, but I was not even invited to attend future in-person trainings.

#12 North Carolina: My climate talk at NC State Parks Superintendents Conference

Sadly, when the COVID Pandemic came to dominate our lives in 2020, it killed my enthusiasm for giving public talks for climate change. I didn’t feel like speaking out about climate change when COVID was raging due to the reports of all the people dying, the economic downturn, and President Donald Trump advising people to ingest bleach. The social isolation took a huge psychological toll because I am a people person. I love to be around people to chat, network, organize, attend meetings for climate action, and entertain. With the heaviness of the pandemic hanging over everything, I felt no motivation to do anything, especially climate comedy.

Out of nowhere, Robin Riddlebarger, Park Superintendent of Hanging Rock State Park, North Carolina sent me an email in May 2022.

Robin wrote: “Howdy! Stumbled upon your (Climate Change Comedian) website as I was searching for inspiration about a guest for our annual conference of superintendents for North Carolina State Parks. I am organizing this year’s conference with three other superintendents…We want this conference to be inspiring and refreshing instead of depressing like it usually is. I’d love to find out more about your prices for doing an in-person…presentation to a bunch of crusty superintendents.”

This looked like a good opportunity to jump on, so I immediately emailed Robin back. I expressed an interest to speak to her group. In that email, I asked why they were interested in me as a speaker. Why me?

Robin’s response: “Myself and three other superintendents are brainstorming guest speakers that will inspire us. We found that we usually leave the conference feeling more burnt out than we were when we arrived. (We) are determined that this year will be different. We will at least learn something. Instead of listening to boring HR polices that could have been handled in an email.

Our staff has endured great suffering since the pandemic and morale is at an all time low. We even had a ranger take his life recently. The parks were the only thing open during the pandemic and have been loved to death. Are you sensing a theme here? We need to learn something meaningful and we need positive inspiration. The superintendents live for their parks…We care a lot. But we’re dysfunctional as heck. We don’t need team building. We are already an awesome team. We need something GOOD. Is this anything you would want to tackle? (I’m laughing because obviously climate change is not good, but you know what I mean).”

Robin’s email touched my heart. As a professional speaker and former park ranger, it seemed like an ideal fit for me. I decided to give a presentation that could provide hopefully some healing, entertainment, and inspiration for them.

The North Carolina State Parks Superintendents Conference scheduled me to speak on November 14, 2022. My title for this talk: “Our Parks: Places of fun, healing, and inspiration to change the world.” This was my first in person talk in almost three years. The superintendents laughed at some of my jokes, but my timing was rusty since I had not performed live in years.

With her approval, I included Robin’s email to me in my PowerPoint why she thought I would be ideal to speak at this conference, “Instead of listening to boring HR polices that could have been handled in an email.”

When I shared Robin’s HR comment, it received a big laugh from the audience. The organizers of this conference joked about that line afterwards. They were still making jokes about dry HR presentations the next day.

I felt like I got my groove back with this talk. I did not know when I would return to North Carolina. In October, I messaged friends that I knew for many years that lived on Ocracoke in the Outer Banks if I could stay with them. They said yes. However, they insisted that I ‘sing for my supper’ by giving a climate change talk to over 50 middle and high school students in Ocracoke. Thus, I ended up giving two climate change talks on this 8-day trip to North Carolina.

While I was in North Carolina, I rented a car from Raleigh to the Outer Banks. The drive from Kill Devil Hills on the northern part of the Outer Banks to Ocracoke was stunningly beautiful with the beaches, lighthouses, and impressive bridges and ferries connecting the islands on the Outer Banks. My talk for the middle and high school students in Ocracoke went well overall. Teens are generally much tougher audiences for the jokes I like to share during my presentations.

It felt like I was back to my old self before the pandemic of traveling to other states once or twice a year to give climate change talks and doing sightseeing in between those talks. I will keep my fingers crossed that I will get more invitations like this in the future since I definitely seem to be a big step up from talks on “boring HR policies.”

Final Thoughts

Ok. I will admit. This blog is more like a book than a blog. My intention was to write about my breakthroughs of speaking on climate change in new states, as well as Washington D.C. and Ottawa Canada. Bless you if you made it all the way to the end. I wrote this blog for me. For me to document in one spot all the states, plus the world capital cities where I spoke.

When I gave my first climate change talk at my nephew Sam’s school on February 5, 2010, I had no idea that I would end up giving over 200 climate change talks in a dozen U.S. states and even outside of the U.S. I had no way of knowing that I would end up on national TV a couple of times, speak to over 200 people at the Grand Canyon, and be a breakout speaker at three Climate Reality Trainings led by Al Gore. I hoped something like this would happen to me. It is always completely unknowable what will happen in the future.

I still hope to give more climate change talks in more U.S. states, unusual locations and even internationally. I hope to give a TED talk and speak at prestigious locations. The invitations I receive come out of the blue very serendipitously. They just happen when they happen. The key is putting myself out there so more opportunities do happen. If you are reading this, I hope you will take a chance on me.

I want to use my life energy to create a higher consciousness for more climate action while having fun doing that. Most of all, I want to inspire you to up your game to act on climate.

Thank you for reading this!

• Correction: In writing a previous blog, I discovered that quote is misattributed to Maya Angelou. According to the Quote Investigator website (QI), which “records the investigatory work of Garson O’Toole who diligently seeks the truth about quotations.” According to QI, the quote actually originates from “1971 collection titled “Richard Evans’ Quote Book”. The statement was ascribed to Carl W. Buehner who was a high-level official in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.”
– Joseph Campbell from the 1987 book, Joseph Campbell and Power of Myth with Bill Moyers

A birthday is a good day to reflect upon what have I done with my life and where do I want to go from here. Five years ago, I did a blog of life reflection, “On turning 50 years old, reflections for my climate advocacy.“

In that blog, I wrote about pivotal years of my birth, age 10, 20, 30, 40 and turning age 50. I then focused on the advice I would give my 40-year-old self, since I grew up hearing my parents and their friends say, “Life begins at 40.”

My advice to my younger self: “Believe in you and keep your eye open for opportunities and people to meet because you will accomplish far more than you can even envision right now.”

I then listed and described my accomplishments, adventures and highlights from the age of 40 years old to 50 years old. I then ended the blog thinking about my own mortality. It is possible I have more yesterdays than tomorrows since it is statistically unlikely that I will reach 100 years old or now even 110 years old. It could happen. I am not fatalistic or pessimistic. I love life, but tomorrow is never guaranteed.

Here is how I ended that blog: “Now I am looking forward to my next 10 years. I sure hope to do something big in my 50s, like giving a TED Talk. If life begins at 40 and my life certainly felt like it did, I am eager to see what my 50s and beyond have for me. Let the adventure begin!”

I have not accomplished a TED Talk yet, but I hope to do that. However, I am now halfway through that ‘next 10 years.’ I had some fabulous high points and some crushing low points.

Earlier in 2023, I blogged, “For Climate Action, who’ll buy my memories?” That blog was a potential introductory chapter when I eventually write my autobiography or memoir about my life as a climate organizer. My goal is to write a memoir called From Park Ranger to Climate Activist: My peaks and valleys on this Journey. In that blog, I touched upon highlights and low lights from life from the past five years. This blog expands upon my life’s journey of the past five years.

July 2018 – Transitioning from a Tesla Motors employee to a Renew Oregon volunteer

In July 2018, I was in a mid-life crisis. Just nine days before my 50th birthday, I quit my job at Tesla Motors. That job was not a good fit for me. From January to June 2018, I worked at Tesla Energy selling solar panels at nearby Home Depots. As my first sales job in my career, It presented a big challenge for me to sell home solar systems to often skeptical and uninterested Home Depot customers.

This Tesla Energy job felt strange after working 25 years a park ranger in the national parks. People love park rangers. They treated me like a celebrity as a park ranger. I loved my seasonal park ranger job in the Everglades and Crater Lake National Parks, but I stopped working as a park ranger in October 2017. I wanted to organize for climate action. This Tesla sales job allowed me to set my own hours and schedule, enabling me the flexibility to be a climate organizer.

On June 12, 2018, I was lobbying Congressional Offices at the U.S. Capitol as part of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) Lobby Day. Suddenly, my iPhone exploded with texts and messages with my job. In the messages, I learned Tesla laid off my supervisor, the advisor manager, their regional boss and 9% of Tesla’s staff, mostly in the Tesla Energy Division.

When I returned to Portland days later, I received the news that my job transferred to Tesla Motors, located just south of downtown Portland. Sadly, the new job felt relentless and demoralizing for me with the long hours, long commute, unsupportive work environment, and stifling work culture. Therefore, I decided to leave that job on July 9, 2018.

That day I resigned from Tesla, my mind was in a fog. I was not sure what to do with my life. The Tesla store was in the south waterfront district just south of downtown. I decided to go to the Powell’s Books downtown store to restore my soul. Powell’s Books is a big landmark, institution, and tourist destination in Oregon. It claims to be “the largest used and new bookstore in the world, occupying an entire city block and housing approximately one million books.” After spending two hours there to cheer myself up after quitting a very stressful job, I walked towards a MAX commuter train stop to take public transit home.

During this walk, I ran into Sonny Mehta, an organizing Field Director for Renew Oregon. I first met Sonny October 22, 2017, two days before I departed Portland to start the 2017 The Oregon Stewardship Tour. In autumn 2017 and 2018, Renew Oregon was in the middle of organizing a campaign to lobby the Oregon Legislature to pass cap and trade legislation in the upcoming 2019 session. When I led The Oregon Stewardship Tour, Oregon CCL leadership wanted me to include information in my talks on Renew Oregon’s cap and trade policy. Thus, I stopped by the Renew Oregon office in downtown Portland just before I left for the 2017 tour. As I chatted with Sonny, he gave me handouts from Renew Oregon to share with Oregonians during my tour.

When I ran into Sonny on July 9, 2018, he asked what I was doing. I shared that I just quit my Tesla job. Sonny and I agreed to meet for coffee in a couple of days. He encouraged me to volunteer for Renew Oregon in their organizing efforts to get the Oregon Legislature to pass a cap-and-trade bill in the 2019 Oregon Legislative session. Looking to do the most effective climate action, I jumped at the opportunity to get involved with Renew Oregon. I soon joined their weekly organizing calls late in July.

July 2018 – My first efforts to fund raise for climate and political action

It took several weeks for me to be fully involved with Renew Oregon’s campaign. A few days before my 50th birthday, I choose to do something new to boost my morale. I posted a birthday fundraiser on Facebook for CCL on July 13th. My initial goal was to raise $200. I actively promoted this fundraiser and encouraged friends and family to contribute.

To my surprise, I blew past that $200 goal within a couple of days. I then set a goal to raise over $1000 by the time of my birthday. By the time of my birthday on July 18th, I raised over $1,137 for CCL. That far surpassed any expectations I had. I discovered a new talent and skill for myself: fundraising. Two years later in the fall of 2020, I co-hosted two virtual fundraising house parties for the campaign for Chris Gorsek for Oregon Senate and Shemia Fagan for Oregon Secretary of State. Those house parties went above expectations for fundraising.

In 2022, I co-hosted a successful fund-raising house party for my Oregon Senator Kayse Jama. From April to September, I was the Outreach Coordinator for the Raz Mason for Oregon Senate Campaign. I co-organized three house parties for her campaign. Furthermore, I encouraged local and national friends and family to contribute to her campaign. I helped raise over $7000 to her campaign. All my efforts for fundraising started with that 2018 fundraiser for CCL.

Around the time of my CCL birthday fundraiser, the Climate Reality Project (CPR) asked my permission to use my image for their fundraising campaign. CRP was originally known as the Alliance for Climate Projection. Al Gore established CRP in 2006 with the proceeds he received from the 2006 documentary film and book, An Inconvenient Truth, plus the prize money he received as the co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. CPR’s mission is “to recruit, train, and mobilize people of all walks of life to work for just climate solutions that speed energy transition worldwide and open the door to a better tomorrow for us all.”

Along with over 850 other climate advocates, I first attended a Climate Reality Project Training led by Al Gore in San Francisco in August 2012. Since then, I was a mentor to help train other Climate Reality Leaders in Chicago, Illinois in 2013, Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 2015, Houston, Texas in August 2016, Denver, Colorado in March 2017, and Bellevue, Washington in June 2017. After I became an active Climate Reality Leader after the 2012 San Francisco training, I frequently promoted CRP as a great organization to get involved with the climate movement.

By July 2018, CRP appreciated my efforts to promote them as I organized for climate action. Thus, I was honored when they selected two Climate Reality Leaders and me as the faces to represent their summer 2018 fundraising campaign.

August to November 2018: Actions as a public speaker, canvasser, and volunteer lobbyist

Around the time of that July fundraiser for Climate Reality Project, they invited me to be a breakout speaker for a co-presentation with another Climate Reality Leader for their upcoming training in Los Angeles August 28-30, 2018 . That took time to prepare that presentation and schedule time with the co-presenter Itzel Morales to get our talk ready for the training. Itzel and I gave this breakout session, “Mastering the Presentation” to several hundred people during this Climate Reality Training. We were very pleased how the presentation unfolded and the positive responses we received from fellow Climate Reality Leaders and mentors.

In September and October, I devoted consider time to canvass in Washington state for their 1631 ballot initiative to put a price on carbon. I knocked on many doors of the homes in Vancouver, Washington to urge these residents to vote for this carbon pricing initiative. This ballot measure lost by a vote of 43% to 56%. I was very proud of my efforts to engage with Washington state voters to support this climate action.

In mid-October, I organized a climate change speaking tour across my home state of Missouri. I gave presentations at my alma mater William Jewell College, Missouri University in Columbia, my alma mater Oakville High School, St. Louis University, and teaching a Climate Change 101 continuing education class at St. Louis Community College. It was a very successful tour with the presentations I gave across Missouri. The student newspaper for William Jewell College, The Hilltop Monitor, published an article on October 26, 2018 about my talk on the campus, “Brian Ettling presents the conservative case for a carbon tax at the 2018 Truex Economic Lecture.”

Before the 2018 Missouri climate speaking tour and while I canvassed for the 1631 ballot initiative, I deepened my involvement with Renew Oregon as they ramped up their efforts to urge Oregon Legislators to pass a cap-and-invest bill in the upcoming 2019 Legislative session.

During the summer of 2018, I started reaching out to my Oregon Legislators. In August 2018, fellow CCL volunteer and Climate Reality Leader KB Mercer and I met for coffee with our Democratic nominee for the Oregon Senate, Shemia Fagan. As constituents, we urged her to support the cap-and-invest bill in the upcoming 2019 Oregon Legislative session.

In addition, I wrote letters to my Oregon Representative Diego Hernandez. I met him for the first time on September 25, 2018, on a legislative working day at the Oregon state Capitol. We met for a second time on December 18, 2018 to urge him to support a Renew Oregon cap-and-invest bill. Both of my legislators were strong climate champions and dependable supporters of the legislation, so my meetings with them were positive experiences.

As a side note, I will point out that Shemia Fagan was elected as Oregon Secretary of State in November 2020. She resigned from that position in May 2023 because of ethical violations while serving in that position. In March 2021, Diego Hernandez resigned serving as a Representative from the Oregon Legislature due to multiple accusations of sexual harassment.

In both cases, the professional conduct of these two public servants disappointed me. I thought they took the appropriate position to resign their elected positions because they lost public trust with their ethical violations. Having acknowledged this, I still want to note both of these individuals were very supportive and generous with their time with me when I started lobbying them in 2018 to support the cap-and-invest bills.

Besides lobbying my state legislators, I wrote op-eds for Renew Oregon’s cap and trade bill for Oregon newspapers in the fall of 2018. On September 25, 2018, Klamath Falls Herald and News published a guest opinion that I wrote. “To reduce wildlife smoke, let’s act on climate change.” At that time, I was an active volunteer with Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Renew Oregon. Thus, it was fun for me to promote CCL’s carbon fee and dividend proposal and Renew Oregon’s Clean Energy Jobs Bill in one op-ed.

On October 6, 2018, the Bend Bulletin printed my guest column, “2018 drought and smoke should push us to act on climate change.” My op-eds for the Herald and News and the Bend Bulletin both referenced recent articles about the intense heat and smoked happening in Oregon that summer. In writing those op-eds, I then pivoted to the solution of supporting CCL’s carbon fee and dividend and Renew Oregon’s Clean Energy Jobs bill. These op-eds were published just days before I left for my October speaking tour in Missouri.

2018-19: Inviting guest speakers for Climate Reality Portland Chapter Monthly Meetings

On September 17, 2018, around the same time I volunteered with Renew Oregon, I attended the Climate Reality Portland Chapter monthly meeting. I was active with this group since I first moved to Portland in February 2017. At this meeting, I volunteered to be the Program Director recruiting guest speakers for the monthly meetings. For over the next year and four months, I enjoyed booking the local monthly speakers for the chapter meetings.

• For the October 2018 meeting, my friends Marvin Pemberton and Ken Pitts talked about how they give climate change presentation to the schools in the Portland area.
  
  
• At the November 2018 meeting, I booked Climate Reality Leader Katy Eymann from Bandon, Oregon shared about her latest efforts to stop the proposed Jordan Cove LNG pipeline and Sonny Mehta from Renew Oregon gave an update about the Clean Energy Jobs bill to price carbon pollution in Oregon.
  
  
• For the January 2019 meeting, I asked Lenny Dee, co-founder at Onward Oregon and Just Energy Transition Campaign Co-Coordinator for 350PDX, to share the latest about the Portland Clean Energy Fund and Climate Reality Leader Jane Stackhouse gave a summary on what was happening with Renew Oregon’s Clean Energy Jobs Bill.
  
  
• At the February 2019 meeting, I recruited 15-year-old organizers Jeremy Clark and Charlie Abrams to talk about their achievements in climate organizing and my friend Francine Chinitz gave a 10-minute presentation about Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
  
  
• For the March 2019 meeting, I reached out to Charlotte Shuff from the Community Energy Project, to share how her organization helps low-income renters in Portland with weatherization to reducing their utility costs. This also helps them lower their carbon footprint.
  
  
• For the May 2019 meeting, we invited chapter member Kate Gaertner, founder of TripleWin Advisory to present the necessity and opportunity of pursuing deep corporate sustainability measures within business. During the second half of the meeting, I gave a sample Truth in 10 Climate Reality Talk on the problem and solutions to climate change.

Organizing in 2019 to urge Oregon Legislators to pass the Clean Energy Jobs Bill (HB 2020)

For the first half of 2019, I was very involved volunteering to Renew Oregon to urge Oregon legislators to pass a cap and invest bill. It was introduced in the Oregon House as the Clean Energy Jobs Bill or HB 2020 on February 4, 2019.

Just two days after the bill’s introduction, I helped Renew Oregon turn out volunteers and participants for their Lobby Day at the Capitol in Salem on February 6th. Along with other CCL members and Climate Reality Leaders, I called over 160 volunteers across Oregon with CCL and Climate Reality Project to attend this rally and lobby their state legislators to pass HB 2020. Over 700 people attended this rally. The day after the rally, Sonny Mehta called me to thank me for all my efforts. He shared that many people told him that they were there because of CCL. He was blown away by CCL’s involvement and participation in the event.

Renew Oregon and their many volunteers, including me, lobbied the legislators extensively before and during the session to build good relationships with them. Therefore, we were confident we had the votes among the Democratic legislators in the Oregon House and Senate to pass this bill before the end of the legislative session. One of the highest moments of my climate organizing and for all the Renew Oregon climate organizers was the moment HB 2020 passed on the Oregon House floor on Tuesday, June 18, 2019.

The Clean Energy Jobs Bill moved on to the Senate floor where we had the Democratic votes to pass this bill. On June 20, 2019, it was very disheartening when Oregon Senate Republicans fled the state to deny the required 2/3 quorum for a floor vote for HB 2020. Over the next ten days, it felt more depressing as Republicans Senators refused to return to work until the Democrats agreed to kill HB 2020. It felt like a year of effort for me of numerous lobby meetings with legislators, attending organizing meetings, testifying at hearings, helping to organize events and rallies, encouraging residents across Oregon to contact their legislators, and countless trips to the Capitol in Salem was all going down the drain. It was a helpless feeling that a bitter defeat was about to happen and there was nothing we could do about it.

The bill had to pass the Legislature before the Sunday, June 30, 2019, the last day of the session or it would die. The last day of the session is known on the Oregon Legislative calendar as Sine Die. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary Sine Die means, “without any future date being designated (as for resumption): indefinitely. the meeting (or legislative session) is adjourned.” We hoped for a miracle that the GOP Senators would come to their senses and return to Oregon. However, it looked bleaker each day.

On Tuesday, June 25th, Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney announced that he did not have the Democratic votes to pass HB 2020. Therefore, the bill was dead. On Friday, June 28th the Republican Senators returned to Salem to vote on the remaining legislative bills before the Sine Die happened. I felt so numb that a major bill on climate action failed. I had no energy in July 2019. I did not want to get off the couch for weeks. Fortunately, I had other climate actions happening at that time that gave me some hope.

June 2019 to February 2020: Persuading a Member of Congress to co-sponsor a climate bill

From November 2015 to November 2018, I attended 6 Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) Conferences and Lobby Days in Washington D.C. I participated in numerous CCL lobby meetings with Congressional staff to ask them to support CCL’s preferred policy of a climate bill that included a carbon fee and dividend. On November 27, 2018, a small bipartisan group of House members and U.S. Senators introduced Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA).

This climate bill was first introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Democratic Reps. Ted Deutch (D-FL-22), Charlie Crist (D-FL-13), and John K. Delaney (D-MD-06), as well as Republican Reps. Francis Rooney (R-FL-19) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA-08), On December 19, 2018, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) introduced bipartisan Senate version.

Those versions of EICDA died when the new session of Congress started on January 3, 2019. However, the House version of the EICDA was re-introduced on January 24, 2019. In the 6 previous times I lobbied with CCL in Washington D.C, I never persuaded the staff of a member of Congress to support or co-sponsor climate legislation.

I only had one face to face meeting with a member of Congress, U.S. Senator Clair McCaskill of Missouri, on November 17, 2016. This meeting happened just 9 days after Donald Trump was elected President. During a morning coffee meeting with her and other constituents, I voiced my concerns about climate change. She retorted, ‘Good luck with anything good happening with climate policies for the next four years.’

This face-to-face meeting did not go well. My hunch was that I would probably have better success persuading Congressional staff to support a climate bill than a member of Congress. If the Congressional staff likes your policy, you may have a powerful ally that can help sway the Representative or Senator to support your position.

This strategy turned out to be successful for me in June 2019 when CCL volunteers and I met with the Washington D.C. Congressional staff of Representative Frederica Wilson, Florida District 24. We had a very productive conversation with her Legislative Correspondent, Devin Wilcox. Devin seemed very supportive of the EICDA. I very distinctly heard Devon say towards the end of the meeting that he felt his boss Rep. Wilson could easily co-sponsor our bill.

The Florida CCL volunteers and Washington D.C. CCL staff stayed in touch with Devin for months afterwards. I reached out to Florida CCL volunteers periodically to make sure they were in contact with Devin regularly. That June 2019 meeting, plus CCL volunteer and staff follow up conversations with Devin led to Congresswoman Frederica Wilson to join with 95 of her U.S. House colleagues to co-sponsor the EICDA on February 24, 2020.

Inviting Kelsey Juliana to speak at our June 2019 Climate Reality Portland Chapter Event

As Program Director for the Portland Climate Reality Project Chapter, I asked the Chapter Leadership Team in the spring of 2019 for suggestions for a speaker for the June 2019 meeting. Someone suggested that we reach out to Kelsey Juliana one of the lead plaintiffs for a Youth vs. Gov court case, officially known as Juliana vs. the United States. Their complaint asserts that the federal government’s affirmative actions cause climate change. Therefore, it violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources.

Kelsey is originally from Eugene, Oregon. In June 2019, she was a college student at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She is the oldest of the youth 21 plaintiffs taking on the federal government. The plaintiffs in this lawsuit were represented by the non-profit Our Children’s Trust, located in Eugene, Oregon. Hence, that’s why her name is on the lawsuit. The CBS TV show 60 minutes featured these plaintiffs, including Kelsey Juliana, on their March 3, 2019 broadcast.

I emailed Kelsey at the end of April 2019 and she responded that she would be “be happy to come up and present.”

Our leadership team decided to go big for scheduling this event on June 18, 2019. We secured an event space in northeast Portland, known as Tabor Space. The Sanctuary Room at this venue could hold up to 250 people. One member of our Leadership Team, Jonathan Bailey, was able to persuade the City Club of Portland to help co-sponsor the event. The City Club was a terrific partner helping to split the rental costs of the large room at Tabor Space with us. Everything was falling into place for a fabulous event to happen.

The turnout exceeded our expectations. We estimated over 220 people at this event. We had a professional videographer record the event to Vimeo. The Leadership Team chose me as the MC (or Master of Ceremonies) to give the introductions and announcements during the event.

Overall, the event went fantastic. I was very proud to have participated in it, sent the initial email to invite Kelsey Juliana to the event, and to be the MC for the event. I was honored to get my picture with Kelsey Juliana. The full credit to making this event a success really goes to Amy Hall-Bailey and her husband Jonathan Bailey, as well as Brenna Burke, Deborah Lev, Wally Shriner, Brittany Kimzey, Jane Stackhouse, Steve Holgate, the Portland City Club, and many others. My friend and fellow Climate Reality Leader Ken Pitts took wonderful pictures of the event. It was great to be at the right place at the right time to see this event come together.

We really did appreciate Kelsey Juliana and Our Children’s Trust for their time and participation. Kelsey was an enthusiastic and engaging speaker with the audience.

Organizing two big climate events in Portland OR in August 2019 and January 2020

In June 2019, Deb Lev, the Chapter Chair of the Portland Climate Reality Chapter, announced to the Leadership Team that she intended to step down. She quickly needed an interim Chair for our Chapter to replace her. I wanted to take the chapter up to the next level so I asked The Leadership Team if I could take on the role. At that time, I served as the Program Manager on the Leadership Team. That role organized the monthly meetings and inviting guest speakers. I would continue as Program Manager, along with performing as the interim Chapter Chair.

As Chapter Chair, I wanted to organize two big events over the next six months to urge legislators to take another shot at a cap and invest bill. With these two big events, my goal was for the Climate Reality Portland Chapter to become well known in Portland, Oregon. I hoped that more recognition would help us attract more members and energize our membership. Even more, I intended that we partner more closely with other climate and environmental groups in the Portland area to help get climate legislation passed in the 2020 Oregon legislative session.

With approval of the Leadership Team, I organized two very successful events. The first was held at a local theater in Milwaukie, OR on September 16, 2019. We filled this theater with over 80 local climate advocates and Climate Reality Leaders for an event called: “Climate Legislation: Where do we go from here in Oregon?” We had a panel of three speakers: Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba, Dylan Kruse from Sustainable Northwest and Shilpa Joshi from Renew Oregon.

At this event, we encouraged folks to fill out post cards to their legislators. We ended up with 50 postcards and 11 letters. Two days later, I took the train to Salem. I delivered the postcards and letters to legislators at their offices at the state Capitol. They just happened to be having a workday in Salem that same day.

We had another large Climate Reality Portland Chapter event on January 21, 2020, attended by over 100 people. We packed the meeting space at the Hollywood Senior Center in northeast Portland. The speakers were Oregon Senator Michael Dembrow and Oregon Representative Karin Power, the chief sponsors of the 2019 Clean Energy Jobs Bill. At this gathering, I encouraged attendees to fill out postcards to their legislators urging them to support the cap and invest bill for the 2020 legislative session. I had another huge stack of filled out postcards to take to the Oregon Capitol. I was exhausted from organizing these events.

At both events, I shot 4 second videos with the packed audience hold up pieces of paper that read, “CLIMATE ACTION NOW!” I then had the audience shout in unison with their fists pumped: “CLIMCATE ACTION NOW!” I sent these videos to Climate Reality staff to use these videos as they see fit, but I did not get much of a response.

Similar to the Milwaukie event, I had a big stack of postcards and letter filled from the attendees to their Oregon senators and representatives urging the legislators to pass the cap and invest bill during the 2020 legislative session.

Organizing an Oregon legislative resolution for climate action

I did not know it at the time, but this was the last Climate Reality Portland Chapter event or any kind of climate event that I organized. At the end of February 2020, the House and Senate Republicans walked out of the legislative session killing all the bills waiting to be passed that session, including the cap and invest bill. For the second legislative session in a row, Republican legislators used a walk out to deny a 2/3 required quorum to kill a climate bill. It was another kick in the stomach and depressing defeat.

On the bright side, Oregon Governor Kate Brown did not take that bad news lying down. On March 10, 2020, she signed bold climate executive orders aimed to cut Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions. Governor Brown signed her climate executive orders surrounded by youth active in the climate movement. Governor Brown’s office invited climate advocates from around the state to attend, such as Renew Oregon volunteers. Thus, I was part of the group in her office to watch her sign the climate executive orders. That day provided hope and some solace, but the defeats of the cap and invest bills still felt like open wounds.

The bright spot of Governor Brown’s executive climate orders soon ended. Within a couple days, by the the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns loomed over everything. All events, meetings, and indoor activities soon cancelled indefinitely. For years, I was very active in the climate movement planning meetings, organizing events, lobbying, attending hearing, etc. All my climate organizing seemed like it fell off a cliff overnight. I was not sure what to do. I was very depressed.

In March 2020, I resigned as the interim Chair and Program Director of the Climate Reality Portland Chapter. I was burned out from the feuding within the Leadership Team over the previous six months. Fortunately, the bad apples within the Leadership Team who caused the strife left, but I then I had no energy or motivation left to lead the chapter after all the battles with them.

At the same time, I found ways to bounce back from the lowest times. During the summer of 2020 while the COVID pandemic was still raging, I met with numerous Oregon legislators by phone and Zoom. I led the efforts with Oregon CCL volunteers for over 30 Oregon legislators to endorse the CCL federal bill, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA). During one of these meetings, Oregon Rep. Tiffiny Mitchell asked if she could introduce a state resolution endorsing the EICDA. Representative Mitchell did not run for re-election. Thus, Senator Michael Dembrow proudly introduced the resolution on the Oregon Senate floor on February 4, 2021, when it officially became known as Senate Joint Memorial 5 or SJM 5.

SJM 5 passed the Oregon Senate on April 7th by a vote of 23 to 5, with 6 Republican Senators, half of the Oregon GOP Senate caucus, joined all the Democratic Senators present to vote to support it. Unfortunately, SJM 5 fell short of receiving a floor vote in the Oregon House in June 2021. It was exciting was that 30 House members, including 7 Republicans, signed on to co-sponsor it. The Oregon House has 60 members. Half the chamber was SJM 5 co-sponsors.

The worst part of this defeat was Oregon CCL leadership becoming very angry when the OR House Democratic Leadership refused to give SJM 5 a floor vote. After I experienced two dreadful GOP walkouts that defeated the 2019 and 2020 cap and invest bills, I never believed SJM 5 would pass until I saw it with my own eyes. The Oregonian published an opinion editorial (op-ed) from Oregon CCL leadership and I disagreed with the tone. Former Rep. Tiffiny Mitchell advised us not to publish it since it seemed to attack OR House Democratic Leadership.

I pleaded with the Oregonian and Oregon CCL leadership to re-edit the op-ed to be more gracious, but they ignored my input. Oregon CCL leadership then organized a protest at the Capitol that I did not want to participate. It looked pointless. OR House Leadership conveyed to me in a clear message that SJM 5 would not receive a vote. The reactions of the CCL Leadership Team after SJM 5 died left me feeling disenchanted with CCL and the climate movement.

My comeback after the COVID Pandemic setback and defeat of the Oregon resolution

In autumn of 2021, I began writing a blog which turned into over 82 pages of writing. It looked like a possible book with the title Why I Quit the Climate Movement. However, that title and those writings felt too pessimistic. I set those writings aside in 2022 to work on political campaigns for state legislators. I focused on trying to elect local Democratic candidates who would protect our democracy. The violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021 frightened me that we came close to losing our democracy. Former Vice President Gore said it best years ago, ‘In order to fix the climate crisis, we first must fix the democracy crisis.’

As a climate organizer, I devoted my energy in 2022 to elect local Democratic candidates who would be strong on enacting climate policies and protecting our democracy. Out of nowhere, Robin Riddlebarger, Park Superintendent of Hanging Rock State Park, North Carolina sent me an email in May 2022. She asked me if I would speak to a group of crusty park superintendents at their annual conference of North Carolina State Parks Superintendents in November 2022.

I jumped at this opportunity to travel to North Carolina to give a climate change talk to these state park superintendents. I had a great time speaking at this conference on November 14, 2022. It felt like I had my groove back giving an in-person climate change talk for the first time since before the COVID pandemic started in March 2020.

In August 2022, my South County Toastmasters group, where I was a member from 2011-17, invited me to be a guest speaker. I gave a short climate change talk to them on April 19, 2023, Reaching for Your Dreams, when I traveled to St. Louis to visit with family for over a week.

In June, I traveled to Washington D.C. for the Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) conference and lobby day. Because of the COVID 19 pandemic, this was first scheduled in-person conference and lobby day since November 2019, about 3 and a half years ago. I had many frustrations with CCL over the years, especially how the SJM 5 resolution ended. Thus, I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to go to Washington D.C. to attend their conference and lobby day.

The key factor that pushed me to register to attend the CCL conference and lobby day was the CNN town hall with Donald Trump on May 10th. It upset me that CNN allowed this twice impeached, indicted, disgraced former president to say a lot of false information with very little real time fact checking. Even worse, the audience cheered with approval when he lied about the 2020 Presidential election was stolen from him. It still seemed like our democracy was under severe threat from Donald Trump and this modern Trumpist movement.

Thus, I chose to lobby with CCL in Washington D.C. for climate action to celebrate our democracy and stress the importance of climate action. Yes, I felt raw how CCL treated me over the years. However, my love for our democracy and passion for climate action was a higher priority for me than my misgivings about CCL. Thus, I bought my airline tickets and registered for the CCL conference and lobby day just a couple of days before the May 21st deadline. I really do try to live my life by the Winston Churchill quote:

“It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”

I was glad I attended this CCL conference and lobby day. It was great to see fellow climate advocates that I had not seen in over three and a half years. Even more, my three lobby meetings on Capitol Hill were productive. The best part was a brief conversation that two other CCL friends from Oregon and I had with Congresswoman Andrea Salinas. We were originally scheduled to have a face-to-face meeting with her. However, on the CCL lobby day, that meeting changed to a staff level meeting when the time of one of her committee meetings changed.

My friend Walt and I spotted her in a Congressional hallway. She recognized us from when we lobbied her on climate during her time as an Oregon legislator. We asked if we could chat with her as she walked briskly to her office. She happily agreed. During this quick chat, I asked her if she would co-sponsor the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA), if it was re-introduced. Rep. Salinas endorsed the EICDA as a state representative in 2020. Even more, she was one of the first legislators to co-sponsor the SJM 5 resolution in 2021. She indicated that it was a possibility co-sponsor the EICDA, but she would want to read the bill first.

Then she was nearly at her office. I wanted to give her time and space to go to her next scheduled commitment. In the rush of everything happening, I asked if we could get a picture with her. She graciously obliged to get a selfie photo on with her along with Oregon CCL friends Walt Mintkeski and Tamara Staton.

Final Thoughts

In 2023, I am focusing my efforts on writing blogs that I hope to eventually turn into a memoir. As I wrote in the opening paragraphs of this blog, my working title for a book is From Park Ranger to Climate Activist: My Peaks and Valleys on this Journey. I hope someone would be interested in reading my life stories as a park ranger to climate organizer.

As I look forward in my life, I hope to turn my blogs on the www.climatechangecomedian.com website into a book or two. I still hope I to do something big in the last five years of my 50s, like giving a TED Talk. For many years, I dreamed of going to grad school to learn how to become a better climate organizer. I still would love to get a dream job as a climate organizer. I don’t have a clue how to do that yet. I hope that path becomes more apparent in the next few years.

Life is a gift. I believe that Joseph Campbell said it best:

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.”

I want to use my remaining years, which is hopefully many years, to experience life fully that I can inspire others, hopefully you, to make a difference to reduce the threat of climate change.

“Fight for the things that you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”

– Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

As a climate organizer, one of my proudest accomplishments was organizing three large climate events. I am a climate change speaker who has given talks to groups of over 200 people. At the same time, it was fun for me to plan three separate events where I packed a large room with over 80 and even 100 people to see speakers that I had invited. All of these events happened before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when it was easier to gather large groups of people. I organized one of these events in St. Louis, Missouri in 2017 and two in the Portland, Oregon area. My final large event happened in Portland in January 2020, less than 6 weeks from when the COVID pandemic shutdown started.

I learned a lot from organizing these events. These events would not have been a success without friends from the Climate Reality St. Louis Meet Group (now known as Climate Meetup-St. Louis), the St. Louis Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) the Climate Reality Portland Chapter, the Metro Climate Action Team, and the CCL Portland, Oregon Chapter. I wanted to share my story of organizing these three large events with this blog as I aim to document about my life as a climate change organizer.

My Climate Change story

As I blogged about previously, I was a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon and Everglades National Park, Florida for 25 years from 1992 to 2017.

In 1998, I started giving ranger talks in Everglades National Park. Visitors then asked me about this global warming thing. Visitors hate when park rangers tell you, “I don’t know.” Visitors expect park rangers to know everything. Don’t you?

Soon afterwards, I rushed to the nearest Miami bookstore and to the park library to read all I the scientific books I could find on climate change.

The information I learned really scared me, specifically sea level rise along our mangrove coastline in Everglades National Park. Sea level rose 8 inches in the 20th century, four times more than it had risen in previous centuries for the past three thousand years. Because of climate change, sea level is now expected to rise at least three feet in Everglades National Park by the end of the 21st century. The sea would swallow up most of the park and nearby Miami since the highest point of the park road less than three feet above sea level.

It shocked me that crocodiles, alligators, and Flamingos I enjoyed seeing in the Everglades could all lose this ideal coastal habitat because of sea level rinse enhanced by climate change.

I became so worried about climate change that I quit my winter job in Everglades National Park in 2008. I moved back to my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri in the winters to give speeches and organized about climate change. However, up until 2017, I still worked my summer job Crater Lake National Park. I loved the incredible beauty there and wearing the ranger uniform with pride while engaging with park visitors.

During my winters in St. Louis, I started organizing slowly for climate action because I was unsure how to go about it. I started giving climate change talks at my nieces and nephews grade schools in the spring of 2010. In the winter of 2011, I joined South County Toastmasters to become a better climate change communicator. That same winter, I worked at the St. Louis Science Center at their temporary climate change exhibit from March to May 2011.

Up until 2017, I still worked my summer job Crater Lake National Park. While working there for many years, the impacts of climate change became apparent with the average annual snowpack diminishing. I noticed more mild winters with below average snowpacks. The summer wildfire seasons became more longer, hotter, dryer and more intense. By August 2011, I had gathered enough information to start giving a climate change ranger evening program at the campground amphitheater to the park visitors.

Getting involved with Citizens Climate Lobby and The Climate Reality Project

In April 2011, while attending a St. Louis Science Center lecture about how climate change is impacting the weather , I met and became friends with St. Louis businessman Larry Lazar. We had a mutual longing to do something about climate change. Thus, Larry and I co-founded the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up group in November 2011 (now called Climate Meetup-St. Louis) to organize regular meetings and promote events in the St. Louis area to create more awareness about climate change.

Larry and I had our first meeting at Cafe Ventana in St. Louis on December 11, 2011. Larry organized the meeting around all of us getting to know each other and our concerns about climate change. We had about 16 people attend the meeting, including Tom and Carol Braford. Larry did a great job making our initial Meet Up meeting a success. After the meeting, I will never forget Carol personally inviting me to a Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) conference call meeting.

Over that winter of 2011-12, Larry Lazar and I led our Climate Reality Meet Up meeting on the third Sunday of each month. Up to 20 people attended our meetings, including Tom & Carol Braford. Carol was very persistent in promoting CCL and inviting me to their meetings. I felt in a bind because attending a CCL meeting intrigued me, but my job schedule made it hard.

Finally, the timing was right when my winter seasonal job ended at the Science Center at the end of April. I was free Saturday, May 5th. I was very impressed with CCL and immediately became involved. At the close of the meeting, I boldly told Carol that I was going to establish a CCL group in southern Oregon when I returned to Crater Lake National Park to work as a park ranger that summer. It took all summer, but I eventually helped establish the southern Oregon CCL chapter that regularly meets in Ashland, Oregon.

In 2011 and into 2012, I also became very interested in the Climate Reality Project (CRP), founded in 2007 by former Vice President Al Gore. I networked with friends involved with CRP to see if I could attend one of their trainings. In the spring of 2012, I applied to attend their next three-day U.S. training that was scheduled in San Francisco in August 21-23. In June 2012, CRP invited over 850 applicants, including Larry and me, to attend this training. As trained Climate Reality Leaders, Larry and I started giving climate change presentations in the St. Louis area that winter. Larry and I gave several joint presentations with Lucas Sabalka, a mathematics professor at St. Louis University who had also attended the Climate Reality San Francisco Training.

In the winter of 2012-2013, Larry, Lucas, and I gave several joint Climate Reality Presentations to large audiences at churches in the St. Louis area. Lucas and his wife left St. Louis in May 2013 to accept a job in his hometown on Lincoln, Nebraska. Up until January 2017, Larry Lazar and I continued to organize monthly meet up events and give regular joint Climate Reality presentations in the St. Louis area. Larry and I gave climate change presentations at some of monthly meet ups, but we mostly invited other speakers.

Because of the magic of Skype and Zoom, we brought in national speakers such as

• Scott Mandia, Professor of Earth and Physical Sciences and Assistant Chair of the Physical Sciences Department at Suffolk County Community College, Long Island, New York. He co-authored the book, Rising Sea Levels: An Introduction to Cause and Impact highlighting the impact of sea level rise on 25 major cities around the world.
  
  
• Dr. Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of several books. Dr. Mann is well known as creator of the “Hockey Stick” temperature graph, an icon in the intense political battle over human-caused climate change.
  
  
• John Cook, founder of the Skeptical Science website in 2007. He is now a Senior Research Fellow with the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change at the University of Melbourne. John authored several books on climate changes, such as Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. More recently, in 2020 he wrote and drew the cartoon illustrations for the book, Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change: How to Understand and Respond to Climate Science Deniers.
  
  
• Peter Sinclair, a Michigan-based videographer, specializing in climate change and renewable energy issues. He has created hundreds of educational videos correcting climate science misinformation, including his independent “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” series, and the monthly “This is Not Cool” series for Yale Climate Connections, which has run since February 2012.
  
  
• Brian Malow, Earth’s Premier Science Comedian (self-proclaimed). He was featured on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, co-hosted shows on The Weather Channel, and been profiled in Nature, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. “Brian worked in science communications at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, and blogged for Scientific American. His website describes Brian “as currently freelancing as a speaker, performer, consultant, writer, producer, and whatnot.”
  
  
• Dr. Richard Alley, a Professor of Geosciences at Penn State. He was presenter for the PBS TV miniseries on climate and energy Earth: The Operator’s Manual and author of the book. His book The Two-Mile Time Machine, tells a riveting history of global climate changes that is discovered by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland.
  
  
• Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon, a clinical psychologist turned climate activist who founded and directed The Climate Mobilization from 2014-2020. She is the Founding Principal of Climate Awakening, a project to help foster the power of climate emotions through meaningful small group conversations. She is the author of Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth, a self-help guide for the climate emergency.
  
  
• Karen Street, a science writer and retired teacher who helps educate the public on climate change science and solutions, sharing the best understanding of scientists and economists. She has a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from UC, Berkeley. She worked as an electrical engineer for several years before becoming a high school math and physics teacher until 1994. As she transitioned to become a science writer, Karen researched the differences between coal and nuclear energy and became aware of the serious threats from climate change. Since then she has become a strong proponent of nuclear energy as a key solution to address climate change.
  
  
• Sam Daley-Harris, an organizer, author, and founder of the anti-poverty organization RESULTS. He wrote a very inspiring book for organizers, Reclaiming Our Democracy, Healing the Break Between People and Government. In 2012 Daley-Harris launched the Center for Citizen Empowerment and Transformation to help organizations more deeply engage their supporters and create champions in Congress and the media for their cause. With his background of creating and building RESUTS, Sam was a mentor to Marshall Saunders over 15 years ago when Marshall created Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
  

I met nearly all these speakers at scientific or climate conferences. However, Larry had a genuine gift of recruiting nearly all these guest speakers and turning out good size audiences in the St. Louis area. The exception was I successfully invited Peter Sinclair, Brian Malow, and Sam Daley-Harris to speak to our Climate Reality St. Louis Meet Up. Because of Skype and later Zoom, I marveled how fabulous it was to be able to invite these national speakers to chat with us by video over 10 years ago, before it became commonplace today.

Organizing my first large meet up event in St. Louis with over 80 people in attendance

In January 2017, my wife interviewed for a job in Portland, Oregon, so we knew we had a good chance of moving there. She accepted the position towards the end of the month, so we decided to move to Portland in early February. Before we knew for sure we were moving, I wanted to start off 2017 on a positive note as a climate organizer.

January 2017 felt very gloomy with Donald Trump’s inauguration as President. Trump vowed to reverse all of Obama’s climate policies. Climate advocates viewed this with a sense of doom and a heaviness of not knowing what to do next. I believed I had the perfect speaker in mind to provide hope and inspiration to St. Louis area climate activists: Jay Butera. He was a volunteer with CCL from Gladwyne, PA. In 2016, after years of effort, “Jay was the concept-originator and driving force behind formation of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.” For several years, Jay served as CCL’s Senior Congressional Liaison in Washington, working to maintain a continuous year-round presence for CCL in the Halls of Congress.

In November and December 2017 it took several emails to Jay and a few mutual friends reaching out to him for Jay to say Yes to speak to our Meet Up. We met via Skype in mid-January to plan this event.

Jay and I agreed upon the date of Sunday, January 29, 2017. He would speak to us live by video link at Schlafly’s Bottle Works in St. Louis, Missouri. Before Jay spoke, he wanted me to play the 2016 National Geographic Years of Living Dangerously episode, “Safe Passage.” This episode featured former West Wing TV star Bradley Whitford returning to Washington D.C. to try to lobby Republicans to act on climate change. In the process, he learns about Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) and CCL’s Senior Congressional Liaison in Washington D.C, Jay Butera.

Larry Lazar and I found a way to pack the room with 80 people to hear Jay Butera speak that evening. You could have heard a pin drop when I played that Years of Living Dangerously episode for the audience. They gave Jay a resounding applause when the video stopped. The audience seemed to hang onto every word that Jay spoke. He seemed to have gained a deep respect from this audience. Many folks in this audience were progressives, deeply cynical about Republicans or any politicians solving climate change. They felt deep hurt by the outcome of the 2016 election with the recent inauguration of Donald Trump as President. You could feel Jay giving them a sense of hope and a way to step forward on climate. Jay showed a way to reach Republicans on the issue of climate. It had a sincere impact on this audience.

As a climate organizer, it felt like a peak moment for me. Around that time, I found that that Madeleine Para, then Vice President of Programming for CCL, reluctantly approved of Jay speaking to our Climate Reality St. Louis Meet Up. However, she made it clear that she did not want Jay to speak to any other CCL or climate group. She strictly wanted him to be focused on lobbying members of Congress in Washington D.C.

I wish Madeleine could have been in that room that evening to see how Jay was impacting progressive, more cynical climate advocates. That felt bittersweet at the event that I successfully persuaded Jay Butera to speak this this St. Louis group. At the same time, there seemed to be a bit of resentment from national CCL that I persuaded Jay Butera to speak to this CCL group. When Jay spoke at that meeting, I could not think of a better speaker at that moment. I was very proud of what I had accomplished in that moment and place for climate action.

Unfortunately, everything soon went sideways at this meeting and this era of good feelings quickly fell apart. After Jay spoke, Larry Lazar took over for the second half of the meeting. Early that week, Larry asked me if he could invite a new group to attend this meeting. It was a group I had never hear of before called Indivisible. At that time, I thought they were called Invincible.

Early that same day, there was a protest rally at Lambert International Airport to express over the ban of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. that the new President Donald Trump had just imposed with an execute order. Most of this audience came directly from that protest. They were still simmering with anger over this recent decree by Donald Trump.

They made those feelings very clear when the break was over and we moved into the second half of this meet up. The good vibe that Jay Butera had dispelled over the room suddenly evaporated. One of the first speakers said: ‘I am mad as hell at Donald Trump and something must be done immediately to stop him. We need to impeach him!”

The room then burst into a strong applause. I urged them to follow the path that Jay Butera laid out for us just a few minutes earlier. I tried to counter with a sense of reason that even if we impeached Trump, we would then have a President Mike Pence. I pleaded with the audience that a President Pence would also be terrible for America, especially on the issue of climate change.

Someone yelled out from the audience at me: “I DON’T CARE!”

It felt like I lost control of this audience that they just wanted to grab some pitch forks and storm the castle. Someone else got up to speak that he creates puppets for protest movements, and he wanted to know if anyone would join him. That felt like a face palm moment to me.

It looked like Jay Butera’s message got drown out by the anger towards Donald Trump. I kept thinking: ‘Where were these people in 2016 to organize with the Democrats to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President?’ Most of these folks knew in 2016 that Trump was a threat to climate action, women’s rights, immigration, and our democracy. Yet, they seemed to understate the threat and were super angry now. I felt speechless in that moment.

After another round expressing how angry they were, I responded than you cannot just be against something. Then you automatically have opposition and resistance. You must be smart about your protest, or you can fail. Internally, I was thinking about the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protest. In my view, the 2016 Bernie Sanders movement did not seem to comprehend this.

From a 2016 Toastmasters speech I gave, I shared with this audience an example of something to be in favor of: China plans on spending $361 million dollars on clean energy in the next several years. By that time, they were the world’s largest market and manufacture of solar panels. They also installed more wind turbines than anyone else in 2015 (not sure about the figures for 2016 then). China plans on kicking our ass in the renewable energy race. If we really jump all in on the renewable energy race we clean up our air, provide tons of jobs, grow our economy, become truly energy independent, and best of all, reduce the threat of climate change.

Sadly, my words just seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Larry Lazar soon wrapped up this meeting. Before he adjourned the meeting, Larry announced that my wife Tanya and I were moving from St. Louis to Portland, Oregon in a few days. He shared how much he enjoyed co-organizing the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up group with me. His voice seemed almost choked up as he was announcing this. I sure did appreciate Larry saying that. At the same time, I felt deflated from the second half of the meeting. It felt like we lost all momentum for folks in the room to join CCL or try to follow Jay Butera’s example.

After the meeting, I walked up to Larry Lazar who was relaxed and enjoying a beer with an attendee. I asked Larry if he knew inviting the Indivisible or Invincible folks could lead to an uneven meeting like that. Larry responded that if he had not invited Indivisible, we would not have had that huge crowd that evening. He went on to very coldly say, ‘To be honest, I invited them because I doubted most of those folks would be interested in coming to see Jay Butera.’

Larry’s words stung. I had nothing left to say and I just left. Our relationship never seemed to be the same. It was a shame because he was the best man at my wedding on November 1, 2015. I asked him to be my best man because of the great relationship we had co-founding the Climate Reality St. Louis Meet Up group.

A few days later, Tanya and I moved to Portland, Oregon. Larry then dropped out of the climate movement. We lost touch soon afterwards. Larry and I exchanged emails this year. In April 2023, Tanya and I went to St. Louis for a week to celebrate my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. During this visit, I accepted an invitation to give a climate change speech to my old Toastmasters group, South County Toastmasters. I sent Larry an email inviting him to my speech.

He did respond that he would try to make it. He went on to say: “I’m taking classes (on-line) to learn about solar with the hopes of becoming involved in the solar industry. Maybe even becoming an installer or sales person. I’m open to either and will be starting from the ground up. I think it will be the best use of my time and skills going forward.”

Larry did not come to my Toastmasters speech. However, I was happy to hear that he found a new way to be involved in the climate movement. When I knew him well 10 years ago, he constantly organized climate events and gave climate change talks in the St. Louis area. I was sorry to see that he dropped out of the climate movement in recent years. I assumed that he became very busy with work as a businessman, and he could not handle the distraction of climate organizing anymore. If he puts his mind into solar installation like he did for creating and organizing the Climate Reality St. Louis Meet Up group, I know he will be a success as a solar installer.

As time passed, I am now incredibly proud of that Climate Reality St. Louis Meet Up event with Jay Butera as the guest speaker. I have not seen Jay at the most recent CCL conferences in Washington D.C. He seems to have dropped out of CCL, except for now just being a member of CCL’s Advisory Board. I was delighted to show that Years of Living Dangerously episode with Jay Butera and to see how it positively touched the audience.

The first half of that event went beautifully. I don’t dwell about the second half of the event now. I chalk it up to the anger and despair that all of us climate advocates were feeling when Donald Trump became President in 2017. Thank goodness all of us climate activists and so many other Americans found a way to defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election.

Leading Climate Change speaking tours in Missouri and Oregon in 2017

After Tanya and I moved to Oregon, it would be a couple of years before I would organize a large climate event like I did in St. Louis in January 2017. When Tanya and I decided that we were moving to Portland in February 2017, I had to call climate friends in Missouri to let them know we were moving so I could not organize events in Missouri with them anymore. At that time, I was the co-state CCL Coordinator in Missouri with George Laur, who lives in Jefferson City, Missouri. George was happy for Tanya and me, but he was sad because we really did enjoy working with each other. George then said to me: ‘Looks like you will have to fly back to Missouri in March because I am planning for you to speak in Jefferson City and Kirksville, Missouri.’

After Tanya and I moved to Portland in February 2017, I became very active as a volunteer in the Portland, Oregon Chapter of CCL. I immediately loved living in Portland, but it felt like ‘a blue bubble’ with many people living there who are passionate about climate change and taking climate action. Thus, I envisioned a road tour to travel to central, southern, and eastern Oregon to inspire Oregonians in those more rural areas to organize for climate action and join CCL.

The CCL volunteers and I who organized this tour called it The Oregon Stewardship Tour. We thought that taking climate action, especially with urging Congress to pass a carbon fee and dividend, is one of the best ways to be good stewards of Oregon’s precious air, and and water.

It was also one of the bravest and boldest feats I have done driving 1,600 miles myself in my car to 11 cities for this 12-day tour from October 24 to November 4, 2017. I traveled to give presentations in La Grande, Baker City, John Day, Burns, Prineville, Redmond, Lakeview, Klamath Falls, and Grants Pass to talk to rural and conservative Oregonians about climate change.

This tour was a huge undertaking for me. For a recap, I had

9 public outreach events
2 lobby meetings with district offices of Rep. Greg Walden
2 newspaper editorial board meetings
2 live radio interviews
4 published articles in Oregon newspapers featuring the tour
4 press releases published announcing local tour events.

Like the Missouri tour I completed in March, I did not organize any of the local events of the Oregon Stewardship Tour. All those events were organized by local volunteers in those Oregon cities, plus the CCL volunteers on our tour planning committee. Thus, I can’t take credit for organizing those events. All these events took place in small cities in eastern, central, and southern Oregon. Therefore, we were happy when we had 20 to even 30 people show up at these events. This was quite an adventure for me to give 9 climate change presentations in 12 days while driving over 1,600 miles alone in my car to reach all these destinations. I was running so ragged with this intense schedule that I was exhausted and had a cold by the end of that tour.

Just one week after that tour ended, I traveled to Washington D.C. to attend a CCL conference and lobby day. I gave a presentation about the tour at the December Portland Climate Reality Chapter meeting. Fortunately, my schedule in November and December was much lighter for me to rejuvenate after the intense schedule of the Oregon Stewardship Tour.

Briefly working for Tesla Energy and then volunteering for Renew Oregon

In January 2018, I started working for Tesla Energy. For the next six months, my job was selling solar panels at nearby Home Depots. This was my first full time sales job, much different my ranger jobs or any previous jobs I held.

It quite an adjust for me. I had grown very comfortable having seasonal jobs as a park ranger working the national parks for the previous 25 years. I got used to nearly everyone loving me as a park ranger. In sales, it seems like nearly everyone hates you for bothering them and occasionally you find someone who likes you. It took all my energy to succeed in this job. There was no time, interest or desire to plan large events especially for climate action.

Sadly, Tesla laid off my supervisor, the advisor manager, their regional boss and 9% of Tesla’s staff, mostly in the Tesla Energy Division, on June 12th. My job transferred to Tesla Motors, located just south of downtown Portland. Sadly, the new job was not a good fit for me with the hours, commute, work environment, work culture, so I decided to leave that job on July 9, 2018.

The day I quit Tesla, I ran into Sonny Mehta, an organizing Field Director for Renew Oregon. I just happened to see Sonny when I was walking in downtown Portland as I was getting ready to catch public transportation to go home. I met Sonny the year before on October 22, 2017, just two days before I departed Portland to start The Oregon Stewardship Tour. I stopped by the Renew Oregon office in downtown Portland on that beautiful October day and he gave me handouts from Renew Oregon to share with Oregonians during my tour.

Sonny recruited me to volunteer for Renew Oregon in their campaign to urge legislators to pass cap and trade legislation in Oregon Legislature during the upcoming 2019 session. Looking to do the most effective climate action, I jumped at the opportunity to get involved with Renew Oregon. I soon joined in on their weekly organizing calls. Sonny encouraged me to get involved in various ways such as writing op-eds and letters to the editor (LTE) in newspapers in Oregon.

On September 25th, I attended a Renew Oregon lobby day at the Oregon Capitol in Salem. This lobby day focused on attending a public hearing of the Legislative Carbon Reduction Committee. This would be the joint legislative committee created by the Senate President and Speaker of the House to craft a legislative cap and invest bill in the 2019 legislative session. That same day of the hearing, I lobbied my state legislators for to support a cap and invest bill. This lobby day would be the start of many lobby days over the next 9 months to attend many public hearings of the Joint Carbon Reduction Committee and to lobby state legislators to do whatever I could to help Renew Oregon pass their cap and invest bill.

On February 4, 2019, the cap and invest bill was introduced in the Oregon Legislature as the Clean Energy Jobs Bill or HB 2020. Renew Oregon and their many volunteers, including me, lobbied the legislators extensively before and during the session to build good relationships with them. Therefore, we were confident we had the votes among the Democratic legislators in the Oregon House and Senate to pass this bill before the end of the legislative session. One of the highest moments of my climate organizing and for all the Renew Oregon climate organizers was the moment HB 2020 passed on the Oregon House floor on Tuesday, June 18, 2019.

Recruiting guest speakers for the Climate Reality Portland Chapter Monthly Meetings

On September 17, 2018, around the same time I volunteered with Renew Oregon, I attended the Climate Reality Portland Chapter monthly meeting. I was active with this group since I first moved to Portland in February 2017. At this meeting, I volunteered to be the Program Director booking guest speakers for the monthly meetings. For over the next year and four months, I enjoyed booking the local monthly speakers for the chapter meetings.

• For the October 2018 meeting, I had my friends Marvin Pemberton and Ken Pitts talk about how they give climate change presentation to the schools in the Portland area.

• At the November 2018 meeting, I booked Climate Reality Leader Katy Eymann from Bandon, Oregon shared about her latest efforts to stop the proposed Jordan Cove LNG pipeline and Sonny Mehta from Renew Oregon gave an update about the Clean Energy Jobs bill to price carbon pollution in Oregon.

• For the January 2019 meeting, I asked Lenny Dee, co-founder at Onward Oregon and Just Energy Transition Campaign Co-Coordinator for 350PDX, to share the latest about the Portland Clean Energy Fund and Climate Reality Leader Jane Stackhouse gave a summary on what was happening with Renew Oregon’s Clean Energy Jobs Bill.

• At the February 2019 meeting, I recruited 15-year-old organizers Jeremy Clark and Charlie Abrams to talk about their achievements in climate organizing and my friend Francine Chinitz gave a 10-minute presentation about Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

• For the March 2019 meeting, I reached out to Charlotte Shuff from the Community Energy Project, to share how her organization helps low-income renters in Portland with weatherization to reducing their utility costs. This also helps them lower their carbon footprint.

• For the May 2019 meeting, we invited chapter member Kate Gaertner, founder of TripleWin Advisory to present the necessity and opportunity of pursuing deep corporate sustainability measures within business. During the second half of the meeting, I gave a sample Truth in 10 Climate Reality Talk that went for 20 minutes on the problem and solutions to climate change.

Inviting Kelsey Juliana to speak at our June 2019 Climate Reality Portland Chapter Event

All the planning and recruiting speakers for these meetings led to our Climate Reality Portland Chapter Leadership Team deciding to go big for a June 2019 event. We decided to reach out to Kelsey Juliana one of the lead plaintiffs for a Youth vs. Gov court case, officially known as Juliana vs. the United States. Their complaint asserts that the federal government’s affirmative actions cause climate change. Therefore, it violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources.

Kelsey is originally from Eugene, Oregon. In June 2019, she was a college student at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She is the oldest of the youth 21 plaintiffs taking on the federal government. The plaintiffs in this lawsuit were represented by the non-profit Our Children’s Trust, located in Eugene, Oregon. Hence, that’s why her name is on the lawsuit. The CBS TV show 60 minutes featured these plaintiffs, including Kelsey Juliana, on their March 3, 2019 broadcast.

Someone on our Chapter Leadership Team had connections to Kelsey Juliana, so they asked me to email her to see if she could be the speaker for our June event. I first emailed her in March 2019, but I did not get a response. In April, our Leadership Team started to worry since we had not heard back from her, so I emailed her again in late April. On April 30, 2019, she responded:

“Hi Brian!

I will have just finished my finals by that time, so I’d be happy to come up and present to you all, thanks for the invite. Let me know how to best prepare, however if we could touch base a little closer to the date that would be appreciated. Thanks!
-Kelsey”

With this confirmation, our leadership team decided to go big for this event. We secured an event space in northeast Portland, known as Tabor Space. A member of our Leadership Team, Jonathan Bailey, was able to persuade the City Club of Portland to help co-sponsor the event. The City Club was a terrific partner helping to split the rental costs of the large room at Tabor Space with us. Everything was falling into place for a fabulous event to happen.

As of late May, we had not heard anything more from Kelsey Juliana. We needed a short bio, a photo, and a brief overview of her topic for promotional purposes. On June 4th, a massive rally happened in downtown Portland supporting the Juliana vs. the U.S. lawsuit as the court case was argued in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Afterwards, many of the plaintiffs, including Kelsey Juliana, spoke to huge crowd that was assembled. Since we had not received a recent confirmation from Kelsey about the June 18th event, I hoped to chat with her very briefly.

I stood around for a long time among all attendees hoping to get a brief word with her. As I was just about to say hello to her, Jo Rodgers, Plaintiff Engagement Coordinator for Our Children’s Trust stopped me. She very briskly said to me, ‘I am very sorry, but Kelsey does not have time to talk. She must catch a train back to Eugene right now.’

I responded, ‘I totally understand, Jo. However, Our Climate Reality Leadership Team is planning a big event with Kelsey. We have not heard from her in over a month. We still need items from her like a photo, a short bio, and confirmation that she will be able to make it by 6 pm before the event starts at 6:30 pm.’

Jo replied, ‘She will be there, and I will pass along this information to her.’

Then Jo, Julia and others were whisked away from this rally. It was one of my most frustrating moments as a climate organizer. Our Climate Reality Portland Leadership Team had put hours into planning this event, including me. I felt like I had just been blown off, belittled, and felt very unappreciated. It hurt. At the same time, I was going to have to swallow my pride, and continue doing what I could to make that event a success.

I did send a friendly email to Jo Rodgers the next day and she did apologize for rushing Kelsey out of the rally. She did appreciate my understanding and said that they just made the train on time. I then explained that I would be flying to Washington D.C. to attend the CCL conference June 6th to 12th, plus traveling June 13th to 16th to Crater Lake National Park to be a guest speaker. Thus, I would not be available to answer any questions during that time. During my absence, my friend and fellow member of the Portland Climate Reality Chapter Leadership Team, Amy Hall-Bailey, would be the point of contact.

While I was in Washington, D.C. attending the CCL conference, the Leadership Team did an amazing job putting the final touches on organizing this event for Kelsey Juliana on Tuesday, June 18, 2019. The emails were really flying back and forth between the Leadership Team members as the final details were hammered out. I received an email from Jonathan on the Leadership Team two days before the event on Sunday, June 16th asking if I would MC (be the master of ceremonies) for the event. My wife and I were driving all day from Talent Oregon back to Portland, Oregon, so I was not able to respond until that evening. However, I did respond that I would be happy to be the MC.

On Monday, June 17th, I spent the day at the Oregon Capitol in Salem. It was an exciting day to witness history. I sat in the Oregon House gallery for over six and a half hours while the chamber debated the Clean Energy Jobs Bill when the bill finally passed the chamber that evening. In the meantime, on this same day, emails were flying back and forth for the final logistics of this event. One Leadership Committee member Brenna wrote:

“Has Brian had any time to go over what he plans to say? I know he’s been busy today. With such a short timeline, we need to keep all speaking succinct and maximize our time with Kelsey.”

My friend and Climate Reality staff member Brittany responded: “If Brian is in the Capitol today, I’ll check with him.”

Amy Hall-Bailey replied: “Thanks, I know that you, Jane and Brian are probably really occupied with the events in Salem, but it looks like we have a full house for tonight’s event- 250 people, if they all show. I hope everyone is prepared!”

Fortunately, I did have all day on Tuesday, June 18th to prepare for this event. The turnout was amazing. We estimated we had over 220 people at this event. We did have a professional videographer record the event to Vimeo.

Even though I printed out the prepared introductions that Amy sent me, I was still a little nervous speaking in front of this very large audience. Lee van der Voo, an award-winning investigative journalist, interviewed Kelsey Juliana. Lee covers the youth in climate change movement for The Guardian and Reuters. She is the author of The Fish Market: Inside the Big-Money Battle for the Ocean and Your Dinner Plate and she was in the process of writing a book for Timber Press about the Juliana v U.S lawsuit.

Liv Brumfield, field representative for U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, (D-OR) was in attendance and sitting in the front row. As the MC, it was my job to introduce her so she could read a brief statement of support from the Portland Congressman Earl Blumenauer. I was so nervous in the moment that I could not pronounce her name correctly. Understandably, she corrected me in front of the entire audience.

Overall, the event went fantastic. I was very proud to have participated in it, sent the initial email to invite Kelsey Juliana to the event, and to be the MC for the event. I was honored to get my picture with Kelsey Juliana. The full credit to making this event a success really goes to Amy Hall-Bailey and her husband Jonathan Bailey, as well as Brenna Burke, Deborah Lev, Wally Shriner, Brittany Kimzey, Jane Stackhouse, Steve Holgate, the Portland City Club, and many others. My friend and fellow Climate Reality Leader Ken Pitts took wonderful pictures of the event. It was great to be at the right place at the right time to see this event come together.

We really did appreciate Kelsey Juliana and Our Children’s Trust for their time and participation. Kelsey was an enthusiastic and engaging speaker with the audience. Lee van der Voo had great questions that allowed the audience to get to know Kelsey, her thoughts on the lawsuit, and her ideas how we should reduce the threat of climate change.

Organizing my second large climate event in Milwaukie, Oregon in September 2019

The day after the Kelsey Juliana climate that felt so triumphant, disaster happened in Oregon.

The Clean Energy Jobs Bill moved now moved from the Oregon House to the Senate floor where we barely had the Democratic votes to pass this bill. On June 20, 2019, it was very disheartening when Oregon Senate Republicans fled the state to deny the required 2/3 quorum for a floor vote for HB 2020. Over the next ten days, the mood was more depressing as Republicans Senators refused to return to work until the Democrats agreed to kill HB 2020. It felt like a year of my effort of numerous lobby meetings with legislators, attending organizing meetings, testifying at hearings, helping to organize events and rallies, asking residents across Oregon to contact their legislators, and countless trips to the Capitol in Salem went down the drain. It was a helpless feeling that a bitter defeat was about to happen and there was nothing we could do about it.

The bill had to pass the legislative before the Sunday, June 30, 2019, the last day of the session or it would die. The last day of the session is known on the Oregon Legislative calendar as Sine Die. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, Sine Die means, “without any future date being designated (as for resumption): indefinitely. (Example) the meeting (or legislative session) is adjourned sine die.” We hoped for a miracle that the GOP Senators would come to their senses and return to Oregon. However, it looked bleaker each day.

On Tuesday, June 25th, Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney announced that he did not have the Democratic votes to pass HB 2020. Therefore, the bill was dead. On Friday, June 28th the Republican Senators returned to Salem to vote on the remaining legislative bills before the Sine Die happened. A friend talked me into going to the Capitol to at least look at the weak-kneed Democratic Senators in the eye. I felt so numb that a major bill on climate action failed.

The peak experience of the Kelsey Juliana event was just one week previously, yet it felt like a very distant memory under the weight of this very bitter defeat. I felt so depressed by this letdown that I did not want to get off the couch for weeks.

On June 26, 2019, Deb Lev, the Chapter Chair at that time, informed the Leadership Team that she intended to step down to work full time for another environmental organization. She quickly needed an interim Chair for our Chapter to replace her. I liked Deb a lot. I was her mentor at the 2016 Climate Reality Training in Houston. However, I wanted to take the chapter up to the next level so I asked The Leadership Team if I could take on the role as an interim Chapter Chair. At that time, I served as the Program Director on the Leadership Team. My role was organizing the monthly meetings, so I would then be performing two roles as the Chapter Chair.

As Chapter Chair, I wanted to organize two big events over the next six months to urge legislators to take another shot at a cap and invest bill. With these two big events, my goal was for the Climate Reality Portland Chapter to become well known in Portland, Oregon. I hoped that more recognition would help us attract more members and energize our membership. Even more, I intended that we partner more closely with other climate and environmental groups in the Portland area to help get climate legislation passed in the 2020 Oregon legislative session.

The Kelsey Juliana Event took a lot of effort and energy for the Leadership Team to successfully create. It showed that we could achieve a large event with a great turnout. After the disaster of the Clean Energy Jobs bill getting killed by the Oregon Senate walkout, I needed some event to devote my energy to heal from that devastating loss. I suggested at the June 26th Leadership Team meeting an event in September called Climate Legislation: Where do We Go from Here?”

The group seemed sort of ho hum about it. When I suggested various speakers that I had in mind, a member of the leadership team, Sally remarked in a condescending tone: “I think you need to noodle it some more and then get back to us.”

Ouch. I tried not to dwell on her remarks. I envisioned a panel discussion. The person I approached to be a speaker was Climate Reality Leader and the Mayor of Milwaukie, Mark Gamba. Milwaukie is a suburb town nestled against the southern city boundary of Portland. Mark and I met for lunch on July 8th at the Milwaukie Food Court Station Pod. I took public transit, MAX light rail commuter train – the orange line, to meet up with him. That was the first time I remember showing up to a town or city for the time and immediately having a meal with the mayor. I first met Mark at the 2017 Climate Reality Training in Bellevue, WA.

Mark is a former National Geographic photographer who has traveled the world. These experiences made him deeply appreciate our natural world and “acutely aware of the changes in our climate.” He is a strong climate champion. As Mayor of Milwaukie, Mark led the effort for Milwaukie to become the first city in Oregon to declare a climate emergency. Mayor Gamba and City Council members unanimously passed the resolution in January 2020. The resolution speeds up by five years the city’s timeline for achieving the goals it previously adopted in its Climate Action Plan. In addition, the resolution calls for the city to become carbon neutral by 2045.

I knew Mark Game would be a great speaker for our panel discussion. He immediately said yes. The catch was we would have to schedule our event on Monday, September 16th because Tuesday evenings is when Milwaukie has their city council meetings.

I knew securing Mark as a speaker would help attract other speakers to the panel and would draw in an audience. The point of this September event would be to energize climate advocates to push their legislators to pass a cap and invest bill in the 2020 Oregon Legislative session. After Mark agreed to be a speaker, I next approached Renew Oregon for a speaker. Shilpa Joshi, Coalition Director for Renew Oregon, said she was available to speak at this event. I still struggled to find the third speaker.

My friend on the Climate Reality Portland Leadership Team, Amy Hall-Bailey, suggested that I ask Dylan Kruse, Director of Government Affairs & Program Strategy for Sustainable Northwest. Amy set up a meeting for with Dylan at Sustainable Northwest’s downtown Portland office in early August. I was very impressed with Dylan’s knowledge of Oregon’s politics and rural Oregon. Dylan immediately said yes when I asked him. Whew! We had our three panel speakers!

I next needed a venue, and I was really racking my brains on this problem. Every place I considered was already booked or too expensive to consider. Someone suggested that I approach Mark Gamba to see if he had any places in mind that could seat up to 100 people. Mark recommended the Chapel Theatre in Milwaukie. With Mark’s permission, I contacted the owners of the Chapel Theater and they generously offered to host the event for free. I asked if I could check out their venue. They graciously met with me at their Theater on Tuesday, August 13th. My in-laws were visiting from St. Louis. Thus, my wife and her parents joined me as I met with the owners of the Chapel Theatre.

I thought it was a beautiful old church that was converted years ago into a dramatic, multi-purpose theatre. It was a very well-kept theatre that looked to be a fun place to stage a play or a community event like ours. When the owners let us inside, there were no seats in the main part of the chapel. Yet, they informed me that the chairs could be set up any way we liked, and the facility could hold up to 99 people depending on seating layout. It seemed like the perfect event space for us. Even more, they did not want to charge us. They seemed like they wanted to help us as a favor to Mark and our cause for environmental activism.

Now that I had the date, the speakers, and the location with over a month to go, we now had to promote the event and invite as many people as possible to pack the house. As always, Amy Hall-Bailey came up with lovely graphic designs artwork to promote the event online. I would have liked to have found an MC, but it looked like it was going to fall onto me. The members of the Climate Reality Leadership Team helped me on the day of the event with setting up the chairs, signing people in as they came in the doors, networking during the event, etc.

I reached out to my friends in Citizens’ Climate Lobby, the newly formed Metro Climate Action Team, Renew Oregon, Climate Reality Leaders who had not attended an event in a while, and basically anyone I knew in the Portland area to attend this event. The good news is that over 80 people showed up and the Chapel Theatre looked packed.

Mark Gamba, Shilpa Joshi, and Dylan Kruse all did a great job answering questions. I appreciated how they spoke to the audience why it is still important to press forward to urge our Oregon legislators to pass a cap and invest bill in the upcoming 2020 Oregon Legislative session.

Unlike the Kelsey Juliana event, we did not get a video recording of this event. It was a shame because I was very happy how the event happened. I tried something new at the beginning of the program. I printed over 70 signs on white paper with green letters that said, CLIMATE ACTION NOW! I took a short video of the audience shouting those words in unison.

I started the program with a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quote:

“Through education we seek to change attitudes; through legislation and court orders we seek to regulate behavior. Through education we seek change internal feelings (prejudice, hate, etc.); through legislation and court orders we seek to control the external effects of those feelings. Through education we seek to break down the spiritual barriers to integration; through legislation and court orders we seek to break down the physical barriers to integration. One method is not a substitute for the other, but a meaningful and necessary supplement. Anyone who starts out with the conviction that the road to racial justice is one lane wide will inevitably create a traffic jam and make the journey longer.”

I wanted to make the point with this event that I won’t solve the problem of climate change by just changing our own hearts and other people’s hearts to kindly be more sustainably. We also must do the heavy lifting of changing the laws to alter people’s behavior to live in a more sustainable way to reduce the threat of climate change. Leadership Team member Wally Shriner complimented me on that quote. I was shocked and pleased to hear him say anything positive because he always seemed to be critical and nitpicking everything I did as the Program Director and interim Chapter Chair.

The most effective part is that we encouraged folks to fill out post cards to their legislators. We ended up with 50 postcards and 11 letters. I took the train to Salem and delivered them to legislators. They just happened to have a workday in Salem two days after our event. It felt very fulfilling to deliver these constituent postcards to the offices of Oregon Senators and Representatives on a beautiful fall day on September 18th.

Organizing my third large climate event in Portland, Oregon in January 2020

Even as I organized this event in Milwaukie Oregon on September 16, 2019, I planning months ahead. The 2020 Oregon Legislative session started on February 3, 2020. In even years in Oregon, the legislative session only goes for 5 weeks. It is very compressed with Senators and Representatives only able to introduce a couple of bills, as opposed being able introduce multiple bills in the long, odd year sessions. Thus, any kind of cap and invest bill must be ready to be introduced at the start of the session so it can pass in that short 2020 Legislative session. In early September, I envisioned having a Climate Reality event around the third week of January 2020. That would be just less than two weeks to the start of the 2020 Legislative session, to urge legislators and energize climate advocates to support another Clean Energy Jobs bill.

Thus, on August 30, 2019, I sent emails to the two Oregon legislators that led the efforts for the Clean Energy Jobs Bill in the 2019 legislative session, Senator Michael Dembrow and Representative Karin Power. In the emails, I asked if they would speak at a Climate Reality event on January 21, 2020. Both immediately said yes to speaking at such an event.

I thought it might be easier organizing a second event since the first event I organized in Milwaukie on September 16th went well. Unfortunately, open warfare broke out among the members of Climate Reality Portland Chapter Leadership Team in August. Some of the Leadership Team were unhappy that I was the interim Chair of the Chapter.

They were critical of everything I was doing, but they had no big ideas of their own. They accused me of having no vision. However, they did not consider that I was organizing a big event in September 2019 and January 2020 while working with them to recruit monthly speakers in between. I thought it was vital for the Climate Reality Portland Chapter to work in coalition with other Portland climate groups, such as Renew Oregon, Metro Climate Action Team, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, etc. to organize to get effective climate legislation passed.

Even more, half of the Leadership Team voiced frustration with the way I moderated the September 16th event. They thought that I talked too much, and I used the word ‘I’ and instead of ‘we’ too much. This was my first time moderating a panel discussion. Overall, I was very pleased how the event happened. It felt like we had plenty of time for the speakers to talk about themselves and answer my questions, answer audience questions, and make community announcements during that event. Everyone who attended seemed satisfied with the event. Most importantly, we got attendees to fill out over 50 postcards and letters to their legislators to urge them to support another cap and invest bill.

Half of the team though supported my leadership. Sadly, it was very hard to lead a group of a house divided. It started to wear me down that I started to dread the Leadership Team meetings. The infighting led to a point where I wanted to resign in early October, but two members of the Leadership Team talked me out of it. I was committed to making this event a success with Senator Dembrow and Rep. Power on January 21, 2020. That focused me to grind it out.

The Climate Reality Project seemed supportive of my chapter leadership since I was very committed to the organization, their Pricing Pollution Campaign, and the chapter. Their Pricing Pollution campaign worked closely with Renew Oregon to urge Oregon legislators to pass a cap and invest bill. At the same time, they did not want to get in the middle of our strife. Sadly, this did not help because we really did need a good meditator with this stressful situation.

The best way to resolve the tension among the Leadership Team was to bring in new members to serve on the Team. The optimal way to recruit new members to serve on the Portland Chapter Leadership Team was to invite new Portland Climate Reality Leaders who had just attended a training. New members could possibly bring positive energy, fresh ideas, and team building skills. After new Climate Reality Leaders just attended a training, they are at their peak enthusiasm to join a Climate Reality Chapter or even a Leadership Team. Unfortunately, there were no upcoming Climate Reality Trainings until sometime in 2020.

As the autumn turned to winter, the January 2020 event started coming together. Like the Milwaukie event, I struggled with trying to find an event space. In November, Senator Dembrow and his staff recommended the Hollywood Senior Center (now Called the Community for Positive Aging) in northeast Portland. This community venue could hold over 100 people and they were willing to not charge us a fee since this was an open community event. I had attended some of Senator Dembrow’s monthly town halls at the Hollywood Senior Center. I thought it would be a great facility to hold this event.

Just like the Milwaukie event and other events, plus climate meetings that I organized, now was the time in December and early January to try to turn out my friends and fellow climate organizers. I called friends and emailed that attended the Milwaukie event. I contacted climate advocates I knew with Citizens’ Climate Lobby, the Metro Climate Action Team, Renew Oregon, etc. to ask them to attend this event. Like the previous events, Amy Hall-Bailey created an excellent online graphic to promote this event that I could include in my emails. This graphic was primarily used in the email newsletter to Climate Reality Portland Chapter members, on Meetup.com, the Climate Reality Portland Chapter Facebook page, etc.

Over 107 people RSVPed on the Eventbrite page for this event. Over 100 people showed up for the event. The room was packed. Senator Dembrow and Representative Power did an outstanding job of addressing what they hoped the next cap and invest bill would accomplish and how we can help them try to get this bill passed in the Oregon Legislature. They did a terrific job of answering audience questions. My friend and fellow Climate Reality Leader, Ken Pitts, took fabulous pictures of the event. My wife Tanya also took superb photos.

Like the Milwaukie event, I MCed this event. Just like before, I had my printed signed on white paper with the words printed in green, “CLIMATE ACTION NOW!” Once again, I made a very short video of the audience hold up the signs and yell in unison “CLIMATE ACTION NOW!”

I injected some impromptu humor into this event by remarking that I planned play that video clip on a repeated loop to my wife later that evening. As I closed out the event, I thanked Senator Dembrow and Representative Power for all their leadership in the Oregon Legislature on the cap and invest bills. I attempted to joke that I sometimes fell asleep when I attended the Joint Legislative Carbon Reduction Committees meetings that they co-chaired because I could not always follow the fine details of the bills. Senator Dembrow chuckled and said that he forgave me, understanding that the public does not always understand the minute details in these bills.

I do not think that Representative Power got my sense of humor. She did not seem to laugh at that joke. After the event, when we were chatting, she asked me point blank: ‘Are you really going to play that video for your wife on a repeated loop this evening?’

I tried to explain to her that it was a joke and that my wife and I like to tease each other. However, I don’t think she was buying it.

Like the previous events, I very proud how everything unfolded. Everyone who attended the event seemed to enjoy it. Because of the fighting within the Climate Reality Chapter Leadership Team, it was basically just Amy Hall-Bailey and I who organized this event. I thought we were a great team putting this event together. I could not have accomplished it without her.

Similar to the Milwaukie event, I had a big stack of postcards and letter filled from the attendees to their Oregon senators and representatives urging the legislators to pass the cap and invest bill during the 2020 legislative session.

Final Thoughts

I did not know it at the time, but this was the last Climate Reality Portland Chapter event or any kind of climate event that I organized. Amy Hall-Bailey did a great job of recruiting speakers and organizing the February 2020 meeting.

At the end of February 2020, the House and Senate Republicans walked out of the legislative session killing all the bills waiting to be passed that session, including the cap and invest bill.
For the second legislative session in a row, Republican legislators used a walk out to deny a 2/3 required quorum to kill a climate bill. It was another kick in the stomach and depressing defeat.

On the bright side, Oregon Governor Kate Brown did not take that bad news lying down. On March 10, 2020, she signed bold climate executive orders aimed to cut Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions. Governor Brown signed her climate executive orders surrounded by youth active in the climate movement. Governor Brown’s office invited climate advocates from around the state to attend, such as Renew Oregon volunteers. Thus, I was part of the group in her office to watch her sign the climate executive orders. That day provided hope and some solace, but the defeats of the cap and invest bills still felt like open wounds.

The bright spot of Governor Brown’s executive climate orders was soon overtaken within a couple days of the shutdowns with the COVID-19 pandemic. All events, meetings, and indoor activities were soon cancelled indefinitely. For years, I was very active in the climate movement planning meetings, organizing events, lobbying, attending hearing, etc. All my climate organizing seemed like it fell off a cliff overnight. I was not sure what to do. I was very depressed.

In March 2020, I resigned as the interim Chair and Program Director of the Climate Reality Portland Chapter. I was burned out from the feuding within the Leadership Team over the previous six months. Fortunately, the bad apples within the Leadership Team who caused the strife left, but I then I had no energy or motivation left to lead the chapter after all the battles with them.

Amy Hall-Bailey graciously took over as the interim Chapter Chair. She wrote a very sweet and kind note in the April 2020 Climate Reality Portland Chapter online newsletter:

“Brian Ettling is stepping down as Interim Chapter Chair. He offered to be Interim Chair in July 2019. He has done a great job with organizing and leading our chapter including two large successful events around Climate Legislation. He and Amy Hall have been working to keep a Portland Chapter presence as we lost many of our Leadership Team in November 2019. We are grateful for his leadership, and grateful that he has offered to continue to work with us on presentations and other needs!

First of all, thank you to Brian for all your work. It’s been a challenge and I appreciate you staying on longer than you planned.”

With the pandemic and lack of any climate organizing on the horizon, I did fall into a very deep depression. I found a way to pull myself out of it by organizing an Oregon legislative resolution supporting federal carbon pricing during the first half of 2021. After that, I did a lot of writing and journaling in the second half of 2021. In 2022, I worked on legislative campaigns to try to get Democratic candidates who would protect our democracy, climate, and a woman’s right to choose. In 2023, I am writing and blogging a lot to try to document all my climate actions over the years, especially before the pandemic.

In writing this blog, it was fun to reflect on the 3 large climate events that I organized. No doubt there was exhilarating and painful moments. At this point, I still have no plans to organize another large climate event or even a climate meeting in the future. However, anything is possible when inspiration strikes!

“It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”
– Winston Churchill

As a climate organizer, one of my favorite actions is traveling to Washington D.C. to lobby Congressional Offices to urge them to pass effective climate policies. Since November 2015, I traveled eight times to Washington D.C. to attend Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) conferences and lobby days on Capitol Hill. In 2015, I blogged about my first experience lobbying in Washington D.C. In 2016, I wrote about lobbying in Washington D.C. and Ottawa, Canada . Plus, I blogged about lobbying on Capitol Hill with CCL in 2017. That same year, I shared how climate Lobbying is very hard, but it is so rewarding. Indeed, it has been very meaningful to lobby at the U.S. Capitol because I once persuaded a member of Congress to co-sponsor a climate bill in 2020.

I got injured the first time after I lobbied as I returned from Washington D.C. for climate action, but I have no regrets. I love traveling to the U.S. capital, but it is a very long flight from Portland, Oregon. Washington D.C. is a very beautiful city, with similar weather as my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. It can be quite humid and hot in the summer and frigid at times in the winter. The iconic monuments to Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, the Vietnam Memorial, the White House, the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Capitol Building are all sacred sites to see. It is very convenient to get around the city with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority commuter rail system (or the Metro). The trains roar like a lion as they loudly enter the subway stations. They carry up to 8 passenger cars that seems to stretch for over a mile.

On the lobby day, I love walking out of the Metro Union Station to be greeted by the shiny white Capitol dome above the trees several blocks away. It is a hassle but a necessity to go through airport like security to get inside the Senate and House office buildings. Walking inside the Congressional office buildings, it is a fun and complicated maze to try to find the exact offices of Senators and Representatives to arrive at our CCL scheduled lobby meetings. Arriving inside the offices of the members of Congress, one is greeted by friendly staff and exquisite artwork, photography and mementos that represent that Congressional district or state.

The best part is the scheduled meeting with the Congressional staff or possibly even a member of Congress to urge them to support specific climate legislation. It feels very empowering as a citizen to petition them to support climate bills. At the same time, the Congressional staff often provides valuable information where the member of Congress stands on a particular bill. The staff or member of Congress can be very helpful on what information they need before supporting or co-sponsoring a bill, who they like to work with across the political aisle, and what’s happening in Congress that can help or impede getting a climate bill passed. It is very fascinating to hear what the staff or member of Congress has to say.

Many other things make lobbying Congressional Offices in Washington D.C. amazing. The shiny marble hallways and floors with people walking about and talking in quiet voices. The national media gathered at various spots to try to snag a quote from a U.S. Senator. Recently, I playfully posed in front of them for a second pretending like they were interviewing me for a story.

The Congressional cafeterias have an amazing variety of food for whatever you are in the mood to eat that day: pizza, sushi, tacos, spaghetti, hamburgers, garden salads, wraps, soups, ice cream, etc. You name it!

You never know who you are going to run into walking down the Congressional hallways. On my most recent visit on June 13, 2023, I said hello to U.S. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and John Kennedy of Louisiana. In addition, many other groups are lobbying Congressional offices the same day as the CCL lobby days. I chatted with volunteers with the Susan G. Koman Foundation in a Congressional cafeteria as they lobbied Congress for funding to research to prevent and cure breast cancer the same day CCL was there. As you can tell, I love everything about lobbying the Congressional Offices for climate action in Washington D.C.

My disillusion with Citizens’ Climate Lobby in recent years

Sadly, with the 2020 COVID pandemic I was not able to travel to Washington D.C. for the last three and half years. During the pandemic, I participated in some Zoom lobby meetings with Congressional staff. That was enjoyable, but it was not same as traveling to Washington D.C. and the U.S. Capitol to lobby Congressional offices.

Since I last lobbied in Washington D.C. in November 2019, I became disillusioned with CCL. As I blogged about previously, it always felt like national staff in the organization and leaders in Oregon CCL kept me at arm’s length. They emphasize a core value of treating people with appreciation, gratitude, and respect. However, it never felt like the organization treated me that way.

By far, my lowest moment in my climate organizing, was in 2016. Then Vice President of CCL, Madeleine Para, did not want me to do my own fund raising to organize a speaking tour across Missouri to promote CCL and climate action. My friend and Missouri state CCL Coordinator, George Laur, organized a Missouri speaking tour for me in March 2017. It left a bad taste in my mouth though that Madeleine and CCL national did not want to support me for devoting myself to a tour across Missouri to promote them.

In October 2018, I organized a climate action speaking tour across Missouri. I spoke to over 200 students, faculty and alumni at my alma mater William Jewell College, just outside of Kansas City, Missouri. I then gave talks at Missouri University in Columbia, my alma mater Oakville High School, St. Louis University, and teaching a Climate Change 101 continuing education class at the Meramec campus of St. Louis Community College. It was a very successful tour with my presentations across Missouri. By giving these talks, I hoped it might inspire other climate organizers to speak to their alma mater colleges and high schools. I requested to write a blog on the CCL website to report on this Missouri tour, but CCL was not interested. They offered to feature me on their Citizens’ Climate Higher Education website, but not their main website.

In 2017, I decided that I really loved climate lobbying and wanted to a career doing this. I was very impressed at that time with Jay Butera, a volunteer with CCL from Gladwyne, PA. In 2016, after years of effort, “Jay was the concept-originator and driving force behind formation of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.” For several years, Jay served as CCL’s Senior Congressional Liaison in Washington, working to maintain a continuous year-round presence for CCL in the Halls of Congress. In January 2017, I invited Jay to be the guest speaker at the last St. Louis Climate Reality Meet-Up event I organized before moving to Portland, Oregon a week later. Over 80 people attended this event, packing the room at Schlafly’s Bottleworks in St. Louis.

In April 2017, I emailed the Vice President of Government Affairs at CCL, Danny Richter, and Jay Butera to see if I could shadow Jay and learn how he lobbies in Washington, D.C. Both flatly turned me down. Their responses really stung. I felt like neither one of them wanted to advise me at all to be an even more effective climate lobbyist and make a career out of it.

Feeling like I frequently got the door slammed in my face by CCL hurt badly. However, I kept picking myself back up to try again. My last straw with CCL when I organized a state resolution in the Oregon Legislature in 2021 to urge members of Congress to support the federal bill, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA).

This Oregon resolution became known as became known as Senate Joint Memorial 5 or SJM 5.
It passed the Oregon Senate on April 7th by a vote of 23 to 5, with 6 Republican Senators, half of the Oregon GOP Senate caucus, joined all the Democratic Senators present to vote to support it. Unfortunately, SJM 5 fell short of receiving a floor vote in the Oregon House in June 2021. It was exciting was that 30 House members, including 7 Republicans, signed on to co-sponsor it. The Oregon House has 60 members. Half the chamber was SJM 5 co-sponsors.

The worst part of this defeat was Oregon CCL leadership becoming very angry when the OR House Democratic Leadership refused to give SJM 5 a floor vote. After I experienced two dreadful GOP walkouts that defeated the 2019 and 2020 cap and invest bills, I never believed SJM 5 would pass until I saw it with my own eyes. In June 2021, the Oregonian published an opinion editorial from Oregon CCL leadership, and I disagreed with the tone. Former Rep. Tiffiny Mitchell advised us not to publish it since it seemed to attack OR House Democratic Leadership.

After that happened, I lost nearly all respect for CCL and I stepped away from volunteering from the organization. I then focused my energy on my climate writings, volunteering for the Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV) and canvassing for Democratic legislative candidates in 2022. CCL challenges its volunteers to ‘step out of their comfort zone’ because ‘that’s where the magic happens.’ However, whenever I tried to step out of my comfort zone to promote and organize for CCL, I felt like I only received pushback from the organization.

To this day, I still love CCL. They are the only environmental and climate organization that I know that truly strives to empower their volunteers to build positive relationships with elected officials, the media and their local community for climate action. I learned so much volunteering with them. At the same time, they have broken my heart at times and left me feeling demoralized as a climate organizer. I first wrote a blog about them in February 2013, Want to change the world? Be Persistent! If I could go back in time to when I wrote that blog or when I first became involved with CCL in May 2012, I would have lots of words of caution for myself.

Deciding to attend the CCL Conference and Lobby Day in Washington D.C. in June 2023

In early 2023, CCL announced it would be lobbying for the first time in person in Washington D.C. since November 2019. This would be their first in-person conference and lobby day on Capitol Hill since before the COVID-19 pandemic. After my setbacks interacting with CCL, I was not sure if I wanted to attend.

In late April, I reached out to friends in the Washington D.C. are to see if I could stay with them. In my previous eight times that I attended CCL conferences and lobby days in Washington D.C, I stayed with friends in the D.C. metro area. If either of my friends indicated that I could stay with them, that would be a deciding factor if I would register and attend the conference. If those friends did not offer for me a chance to stay with them, I would not travel to Washington D.C. because I cannot afford the hotel rooms in the D.C. metro area.

On May 2nd, I heard from my friends Tom and Reena that I could stay with them. Sadly, that same day, I received the news that my car needed over $2000 in repairs. On May 18th, I started crafting an email to Reena to say that I could not afford to travel to stay with them. On the bright side, my wife felt bad seeing how much I had to pay to repair my car. Thus, she bought me a brand-new Mac Book Pro laptop because I desperately needed a new and faster laptop. To my relief, the final car repair bill turned out to be a little less expensive at $1650. May 21st was the final day to register, so I needed to decide to attend or not to attend quickly.

The final straw that pushed me to register to attend the CCL conference and lobby day was the CNN town hall with Donald Trump on May 10th. It upset me that CNN allowed this twice impeached, indicted, disgraced former president to say a lot of false information with very little real time fact checking. The day before, a New York jury found Trump liable for battery and defamation in the lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll. She claimed that Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store in the mid 1990s and the jury basically agreed. Trump used that townhall to call her a “wack job.” It was appalling that town hall audience laughed and clapped when Trump called her that name. Even worse, the audience cheered with approval when he lied about the 2020 Presidential election was stolen from him. It still seemed like our democracy was under severe threat from Donald Trump and this modern Trumpist movement.

Thus, I decided I was going to Washington D.C. to lobby for climate action to celebrate our democracy and stress the importance of climate action. Yes, I felt raw how CCL treated me over the years. However, my love for our democracy and passion for climate action was a higher priority for me than my misgivings about CCL. Thus, I bought my airline tickets and registered for the CCL conference and lobby day just a couple of days before the May 21st deadline. I really do try to live my life by the Winston Churchill quote:

“It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”

Attending the CCL Conference in Washington D.C. in June 10-12, 2023

My flight arrived in Washington D.C. around 5:40 pm on Friday, June 9th. I told Tom and Reena that I would not be arriving at their house until sometime after 7 pm. In the previous days, Washington D.C, New York City, and much of the northeast U.S. coast experienced hazardous and smoky air due to wildfires in western Canada. I felt a sense of dread receiving that news.

In past years, my wife and I experienced very unhealthy air from western wildfires while living in Portland and Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. It was very dispiriting to be trapped indoors, especially during the 2020 pandemic, due to wildfire smoke causing awful air conditions. I would not wish those smoky conditions on my worst enemy. I had compassion for people living on the northeast coast experiencing this extremely poor air quality in the second week of June. I worried about experiencing those smoky conditions when I arrived in Washington D.C.

I was very fortunately the Canadian wildfire smoke had mostly dissipated when I arrived in Washington D.C. The weather was pleasant and sunny. I hopped on the Metro to head to Tom and Reena’s home in Tacoma Park, Maryland, which bordered Washington D.C.. The outdoor conditions were nice enough that I decided instead to get off the Metro at Union Station to walk a couple of blocks to the U.S. Capitol to see the building for the first time since November 2019.

The U.S. Capitol Building looked majestic and peaceful on that lovely late Friday afternoon. I loved seeing the exterior of this temple for democracy in all its glory. The building and the Capitol grounds looked very serene and relaxing. As a climate organizer, the U.S. Capitol area seemed like it was welcoming me back to do my first in-person lobbying there in three and a half years. A positive spirit was in the air as I took several “selfies” with my iPhone. A friendly person asked me if I wanted my picture taken. At the same time, it felt heavy and sad that January 6th took place there only a year and a half before. It was hard to believe that a very dangerous and unruly mob wanted to vandalize the building and hurt elected officials on the inside.

I then took the Metro to Takoma Park, Maryland to stay with Tom and Reena. They were happy to see me for the first time in three and a half years. They very generously had a comfortable guest room for me to stay. They were one block from a local food co-op where I could buy all my own groceries to make my own breakfasts while I stayed with them.

Late the next morning, I planned to attend the first sessions of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby conference. On the way there, I got off the Metro near the White House to walk by the building on Pennsylvania Avenue and view it from Lafayette Square. As always, the President’s Executive Mansion looked beautiful, a bright color in the summer afternoon sun. Seeing the building in person, looked different how it is seen on TV. It looked a bite like a southern slave plantation house in keeping to the style when it was first completed around 1800. The scene on Pennsylvania Avenue was lots of tourists admiring the building and taking pictures. A religious man shouted into a megaphone deriding gay pride as a sin, since June is Gay Pride month. Nearly everyone there ignored him and his message as they enjoyed the scene of seeing the White House.

I then took the Metro to the first day of the CCL conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel where author and environmentalist Bill McKibben spoke via video from his home in Vermont for the CCL monthly conference call. Bill promoted his new group, Third Act, to build “a community of Americans over the age of sixty determined to change the world for the better.” The goal of Third Act is to use the resources and energy of people over 60 years old to “use our life experience, skills and resources to build better tomorrow” in areas such as divesting large banks from fossil fuel investments, safeguarding our democracy, and powering up communities with clean energy. In addition, McKibben spoke in favor of CCL’s top priority for reforming the permitting process to speed up the pace to build new clean energy projects.

After Bill McKibben’s presentation, I enjoyed attending the CCL breakout session for the En-ROADS climate Workshop. For years, I found the En-ROADS climate solutions simulator to be an excellent tool to model the various solutions needed to reduce the climate crisis. I enjoyed the Saturday and Sunday sessions of the CCL Conference to prepare us to lobby Congressional Offices at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, June 13th. It was invigorating for me to see friends from across the U.S. who volunteer and work for CCL that I had not seen in three and a half years.

Lobbying Senator Ron Wyden’s D.C. office on permitting reform on June 13, 2023.

Over 850 CCL volunteers registered to lobby Congressional offices on the CCL Lobby Day of Tuesday, June 13th. As with all previous June CCL lobby days, all the volunteers lined up on the steps of the Capitol at 8:15 am for a large group photo. We then went our separate ways to our scheduled lobby meetings.

I had three scheduled lobby meetings that day with the staffs of Senator Ron Wyden, Representative Earl Blumenauer, and Representative Andrea Salinas, who are all members of Congress from Oregon. My first lobby meeting was not scheduled until 10 am, so I had time to call my wife Tanya, plus my mom and dad to let them know I was in front of the U.S. Capitol Building getting ready to lobby Congressional offices that day.

My first scheduled lobby meeting was a 10 am lobby meeting with staff of Senator Ron Wyden. Ten of us Oregon CCL volunteers were scheduled to attend this meeting. All of the roles for this meeting, such as appreciator, time monitor, notetaker, asker, follow-up, and listener, were divided up at a planning meeting on Friday, June 10th. I could not attend that meeting since I was flying from Portland to Washington D.C. that day. From that meeting, the remaining role assigned to me was the photographer. My task would be to make sure that we took of picture of all of us CCL volunteers by or in Senator Wyden’s Office, plus the staff member if they were willing to be in the group photo with us. At the lobby meeting, I made sure we got the group photo.

On Sunday afternoon, June 11th, Tamara Staton, Education and Resilience Coordinator for CCL, announced that that she had to back out of our Tuesday Wyden lobbying meeting. The leader of this meeting, Teresa Welch, asked for someone to step into Tamara’s role for this meeting to share with Senator Ron Wyden’s staff CCL’s position on permitting reform. I immediately jumped at the opportunity. I felt like I absorbed CCL’s detailed reasoning why permitting reform was a top priority during the CCL Conference that happened between Saturday, June 10th to Monday, June 12th. From what I learned about performing reform at the CCL conference, I was eager to share understanding of this issue in the lobby meetings.

When I texted Teresa on Sunday offering to explain CCL’s stance on permitting reform during the Wyden lobby on Tuesday, Teresa responded “Are you OK with doing that whole job (introduce the topic, share CCL’s perspective, and ask a question to start the conversation)?”

I texted back that I was. I then wrote out CCL’s position on permitting reform, which is:

CCL’s position that clean energy permitting reform is a top priority for us:
• We can’t implement the IRA without it. Over 80% of the potential emissions reductions delivered by IRA in 2030 are lost if transmission expansion is constrained.

• We can’t reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 without it. It’s a key policy action if the US is going to meet the 2015 COP Paris commitments.

• More than 92% of new energy projects currently awaiting permits are solar and wind, and just 7.5% are natural gas. We need permitting reform to get the good projects implemented more quickly.

• It takes an average of 4.5 years for federal agencies just to complete environmental impact statements for major energy projects. That’s way too slow! These are important assessments, but we need speed up the pace with which we build new clean energy projects.

• We want a bill that will be:
– bipartisan
– improves community engagement.
– makes federal agencies more efficient,
– allows transmission lines to be permitted and built much faster.

We want a permitting reform bill that allows for the good clean energy projects to be approved more quickly and the bad ones to be rejected faster.

Basically, we want a permitting reform bill that speeds up approval of clean energy projects with community engagement.

In addition, I shared with Senator’s Wyden’s staff a printed graph from CCL that shows the U.S. is projected to have a 28% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. However, if we enact permit reform, we could get to a 40% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. With permitting reform, it gets the U.S. a giant step closer to its 2015 Paris commitment of a 50% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions below the 2005 level by 2030.

When I was finished explaining all of this, I asked Senator Wyden’s legislative aide what the Senator’s position was on permitting reform. The aide’s response was very positive. I can’t say anything beyond that because the CCL meetings with Congressional staff and members of Congress is confidential. Overall, all the Oregon CCL volunteers and I in the meeting with Senator Wyden’s staff felt like we in near agreement about permitting reform.

Meeting with staff of Rep. Earl Blumenauer about CCL’s carbon pricing bill

For our noon meeting with staff of Rep. Earl Blumenauer, the meeting leader, Walt Mintkeski, asked me to do the brief asks at the end of the meeting. Specifically, I would be asking Congressman Blumenauer to support permitting reform. Even more, we were asking him to support our carbon pricing bill, The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA) when it is re-introduced soon in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The EIDCA was introduced in the two previous Congressional sessions in 2019 and 2021. In the previous Congressional session (2021-2022), the EICDA reached 95 House co-sponsors. I strongly support their advocacy for a price on carbon such as the EICDA bill. This policy puts a steadily rising fee on carbon at the source, such as the oil well, methane well, coal mine, or fossil fuel imports at the U.S. border.

The fee starts at $15 per metric ton of greenhouse gas emissions and increases by $10 or $15 each year, depending upon future emissions. The revenue from the fee is then returned to American households in a monthly dividend check. It is one of the best policies to protect American businesses while holding international polluters accountable with a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM).

The EICDA targets 90 percent emission reductions by 2050 compared to 2016 levels. The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) urges all nations of the world, especially the U.S, to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 to avoid possible catastrophic consequences from climate change.

In the graph on U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from CCL that I showed above in the previous section, a carbon price is a vital tool to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Implementing effective permitting reform, plus a carbon price, help the U.S. reduce its GHG emissions by 52% by 2030. As I mentioned previously, the U.S. has a 2015 Paris commitment of a 50% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions below the 2005 level by 2030. Permitting reform, plus a carbon price, helps the U.S. exceed its 2030 goal to reduce GHG emissions.

The United States and Australia are the only developed economies without a nationwide carbon price in place. The European Union, the largest foreign market available to U.S. producers, will begin implementation of a CBAM on imports (including American exports to the E.U.) this year based on its existing carbon price. Thus, a carbon fee and dividend with a CBAM, such as with the EIDCA, can help the U.S. reduce its harmful greenhouse gas pollution that causes climate change while helping make American products more competitive in the E.U.

Climate change is a high priority for Congressman Earl Blumenauer. In past years, he introduced his own carbon pricing bills. In our previous lobby meetings with Rep. Blumenauer and his staff, he has indicated that he would vote for the EICDA on the House floor if it came up for a vote. However, with his concerns about environmental justice, he resisted co-sponsoring the EICDA. On our June 13th lobby meeting, we asked his staff to pass along to Rep. Blumenauer that the EICDA will most likely be introduced soon. We asked that he please consider voting for it if it came up for a floor vote in the U.S. House, like he indicated in the past that he would do.

Like the meeting I attended with Senator Ron Wyden’s staff, we felt like we had a positive exchange of information with the staff of Congressman Earl Blumenauer.

Briefly Chatting in the Halls of Congress with Rep. Andrea Salinas about carbon pricing

After my meetings with staff of Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Earl Blumenauer, I had over two hours before our 2:15 meeting with staff of Rep. Andrea Salinas. My friend and fellow CCL volunteer, Walt Mintkeski, who led the Rep. Blumenauer meeting and would be leading the Rep. Salinas meeting, decided that we would hang out together until the Rep. Salinas meeting.

Walt informed me that our meeting plans for the Rep. Salinas meeting had changed. Originally, we were scheduled to meet with her office staff for 30 minutes. However, halfway in this meeting, the legislative aide would then walk us to the door of the nearby committee room, where we would have a brief chat with Rep. Salinas as she came out of her committee hearing.

Unfortunately, the committee meeting time had changed the day before. The legislative staff then informed Walt that the brief meeting with Rep. Salinas was cancelled. We felt a little disappointed since we hoped to say hello to Congresswoman Salinas. At the same time, we totally understood because the schedules of members of Congress change quickly. When that happens, face to face meetings with the Senator or Representative then gets cancelled.

As Walt and I walked towards one of the Congressional cafeterias, Tamara Staton, a staff person for CCL, joined us. She also was scheduled to be at the 2:15 pm meeting with staff of Rep. Salinas. As Walt, Tamara, and I waited for an elevator to go to a Congressional cafeteria around 12:48 pm, I noticed Rep. Salinas walk right by us. I said to Walt: “That’s Andrea Salinas!”

Walt is in his mid 70s, but he bolted after her like a kid running on a racetrack. I then ran to catch up to both of them in a quick instant.

Walt said hello to Rep. Salinas and she quickly remembered Walt and me. Walt mentioned that we were supposed to have a brief chat with her at 2:30 pm, but that was cancelled. Rep. Salinas confirmed that. Walt then asked if we could chat with her while she was briskly walking to her office. Rep. Salinas welcomed that idea and seemed very happy for us to walk with her.

I lobbied in Washington D.C. eight previous times. However, this was my first time directly lobbying a member of Congress while they were very quickly walking to their next scheduled event. Walt brought up permitting reform. She had interesting but confidential thoughts on that.

I was very excited to chat with her in person. I thanked her for being one of the first Oregon Legislators to endorse the EICDA in October 2020. I then thanked her for agreeing to be one of the first co-sponsors Senate Joint Memorial 5 (SJM 5) in the Oregon Legislature when it was first taking shape in December 2020. SJM 5 urged Congress to pass the Energy Innovation & Dividend Act. She was very supportive of all my climate organizing in Oregon in 2020 and 2021. Thus, this was a dream come true for me to talk with her directly on Capitol Hill. When I asked if she would support the reintroduction of the EICDA in this Congress, her response was positive. However, she said she wants to see the bill first.

She was then nearly at her office. I wanted to give her time and space to go to her next scheduled commitment. In the rush of everything happening, I asked if we could get a picture with her. She happily obliged to get a selfie photo on my phone with Walt, Tamara, me, and her.

It was a sublime and exhausting experience to briskly walk to directly engage with her. She explained to us the political atmosphere in Congress. She had good insights on what was happening in Congress. At the same time, it frustrated me because I could not hear her well with the background noise. The acoustics of the Congressional hallways were terrible with lots of other people walking by and the sounds bouncing off the marble floors and hallways. Overall, I was very thrilled for a chance to chat with her and directly ask her to support climate legislation.

We then had over an hour to debrief from that experience and then get ready for our 2:15 pm meeting with staff of Rep. Andrea Salinas. Unlike the hallway frantic chat with Rep. Salinas an hour earlier, it felt much more relaxing to be sitting in her office exchanging information with her staff about permitting reform, carbon pricing, and other climate bills that CCL supported.

Final thoughts

That evening, I enjoyed attended the CCL reception at the Omni Shoreham that evening to see Congressman Scott Peters from California speak. It was great to connect with friends that I got to know from over the years in CCL and scarf down some free appetizers at the event. I then took the Metro back to Takoma Park to briefly visit with my hosts Tom and Reena before they went to bed. I flew back from Washington D.C. to Portland, Oregon the next day.

After feeling burned over the years with my involvement with CCL, I feel rather leery to be involved with them again. I do really love lobbying in Washington D.C and possibly attending a future CCL conference there. As a climate organizer, I am not sure what the future holds for me. I hope to find a way to successfully urge Rep. Andrea Salinas to co-sponsor the EICDA if it is introduced soon, but we shall see. I know for sure that I will find some way to feel productive and useful in the climate movement, whether I am involved with CCL or not.