Below is the text of the speech I gave to the South County Toastmasters Club, where I was a member from 2011-2017. South County Toastmasters meets weekly at the Sunset Hills Community Center, located in south St. Louis County, Missouri.

“How many people here have a dream, a goal, a target that you want to accomplish? Raise your hand.

Here’s my story how I did that as an entertaining and inspiring public speaker.

‘Fine!’ I said, ‘If I could be anything, I would like to be the “Climate Change Comedian”!’

My friend Naomi nearly fell out of her hear laughing and responded: ‘That great! I would like you to go home and grab that website domain right now!’ I went home immediately and bought the domain, www.climatechangecomedian.com.

This event happened in Ashland, Oregon in the fall of 2009. At that time, I was housesitting for a friend and unsure what to do with my life. At that point, for seventeen years, I worked as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon in the summers and Everglades National Park, Florida in the winters. I absolutely loved every minute of standing in front of an audience giving ranger talks in these iconic places sharing about nature.

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

However, climate change is not just bad for wildlife. It’s also bad for people.

Over the past 10 years, the evidence is mounting for what is now called ‘sunny day flooding.’ This is flooding from ocean water showing up on Miami streets during the highest tides or what’s called ‘king tides’ of the year.

I shared this image in my last South County Toastmasters speech in January 2017. Highlighted in yellow are all the coastal counties in the United States. On the west coast, you can see the coastal counties of Washington state, Oregon, including Multnomah County where my wife Tanya and I live. You also have the coastal counties of Texas and Louisiana, which is highlighted in red because of a very high danger there. Then you have Florida. And on the east coast, just to name a couple of states you have North Carolina, New York, and Maine. National Geographic projects up to a 6-foot sea level rise by the end of this century. I am only 5 feet and 8 inches tall, so this would be higher than me. A 6-foot sea level rise would displace up to tens of millions of Americans who live in these coastal counties.

I became so worried about climate change that I quit my winter job in Everglades National Park in 2008. I moved back to St. Louis 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.

As I was in the process of making the transition from park ranger to climate change organizer, I leaned upon my experience as a park ranger. As a park ranger, I learned two lessons with engaging with audiences.

First, as I shared before, people expect park rangers to know everything.

The second lesson I learned is that visitors want a sense of humor. They don’t want rangers to take ourselves too seriously. They want us to have fun.

As a result, I had to create some of my own jokes as a park ranger, such as:

‘What did one continental plate say to the other after the Earthquake?’

Any guesses?

‘It’s not my fault!’

Yes, I will admit that joke is a bad dad joke groaner.

So, recently my friend and fellow Toastmaster Susan McConnell asked me: ‘Brian, why the title of “Climate Change Comedian?”’

The answer, Susan, honestly comes from Toastmasters.

I once heard a story in Toastmasters that one Toastmaster turned to another Toastmaster to ask: ‘Do I need to be funny to be a professional speaker?’

And the answer is: ‘Only if you want to get paid!’

Seriously, does anyone know where this picture was taken?

This photo was taken on January 1, 2016, New Year’s Day, at Creve Coeur Park, less than two miles from where my in-laws live. It is where my wife, my in-laws, and I like to go hiking a lot, but not that day.

Does anyone know where this picture was taken?

This was taken just west of Lambert International Airport (in the St. Louis area) on June 7, 2019, when the St. Louis Blues hockey team were in the Stanley Cup Finals. Believe it or not, I was not visiting St. Louis at that time. I was flying across country from Portland, Oregon to Washington D.C. and I just had a layover in St. Louis. As we were coming into Lambert, I could not believe the water everywhere from the flooding that was happening at the time. The white dots you are seeing in the picture is actually farmhouses. It really shocked me to see this.

From my experience of seeing climate change in the Florida Everglades, my hometown of St. Louis Missouri, and in my adopted home of Crater Lake, Oregon, I wanted to educate people about the threat and solutions to climate change using my plethora of experience as a park ranger to educate, entertain, and inspire an audience.

In the spring of 2010, a family friend named John helped me create the website, www.climatechangecomedian.com, which is still an active website to this day.

I started giving climate change talks locally in my hometown St. Louis area in 2011 when I joined South County Toastmasters. However, I felt I was not getting notoriety to make a name for myself nationally. To up my exposure, I created a YouTube video in February 2014, with my mom, Fran Ettling, titled, “Climate Change Comedian and the Pianist!”

In April 2016, Comedy Central’s TV show Tosh.o noticed this YouTube video. They flew my mom and me out to Los Angeles to appear on a videotaping to be interviewed by the host Daniel Tosh. The TV show aired nationally on the Comedy Channel on August 2, 2016. Do some of you Toastmasters remember that?

To this day, appearing on Comedy Central’s Tosh.o was one of the highlights of my life. It was a dream come true for me to talk about climate change using humor on national TV to be seen by millions of people.

As the Climate Change Comedian, I did not know how I would top that appearance on the show, nor did I have ambition to top that appearance. The Tosh.o appearance and the title of Climate Change comedian felt like it opened some doors for me. As a with my background as a park ranger, Toastmaster, and Climate Change Comedian, I was was able to reach my dreams to give over 200 climate change talks in 12 U.S. states, Ottawa Canada and Washington D.C. over the past 12 years. Tosh.o even invited me to be back on this show on November 10, 2020.

However, during 2020-21 COVID Pandemic, I did not feel like doing Climate Change Comedy. It was heavy times we were living in. So, the last three years, I switched to political organizing.

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

Robin wrote: “Howdy! Stumbled upon your (ClimateChangeComedian.com) 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.…We want this conference to be inspiring and refreshing instead of depressing like it usually is. I’d love to find out (if you could give) 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.”

As a professional speaker and former park ranger, it seemed like a perfect fit for me. I then spent the next five months preparing for this talk. I flew out to North Carolina in November 2022.

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.

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 the biggest 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.

It felt like I got my groove back with this talk. I was back to my old self before the pandemic of traveling to other states once or twice a year to give educational, entertaining, and inspiring climate change talks. I hope I will get more invitations like this in the future since I am a big step up from talks on “boring HR policies.”

I hope my story of how I became “The Climate Change Comedian” will inspire you to have fun saving the planet.

My involvement with South County Toastmasters from 2011-17, with help from folks in this room, enabled me to become a coast-to-coast paid speaker, giving talks from the Oregon Coast to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. In closing, there’s a classic expression in this club that ‘If Steve Winheim can do it …………anybody can do it.‘

Well, I’m here to say that if Brian Ettling can get paid to be a climate change comedian, you can reach your dreams.”

Want to get the attention of your member of Congress to prioritize effective climate legislation? Then attend one of their town halls. According to Congressional staff and members of Congress, they pay very close attention to the issues and pending legislation that constituents engage with them at their town halls.

In February 2017, my wife Tanya Couture and I moved from St. Louis, Missouri to Portland, Oregon. At that point, I was involved in the climate movement for several years as a volunteer for Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) and a Climate Reality Leader. For several years, I was the CCL volunteer liaison for GOP Congresswoman Ann Wagner (MO-02).

This CCL liaison role involved organizing meetings with Congressional staff twice a year for the CCL lobby days in the Washington D.C. Plus, organizing a spring in district lobby meeting with Congressional staff. As CCL Congressional liaisons, we would let the Congressional staff know if a CCL member had a published letter to the editor or opinion editorial mentioning the member of Congress. We would alert the Congressional staff periodically on legislation we were supporting. In addition, we were available to answer any questions the members of Congress or the staff had about CCL’s policies or other ways we could be beneficial to them.

When Tanya and I moved to Oregon, I gave up my CCL volunteer role as liaison to Republican Rep. Ann Wagner. This liaison role was very challenging because climate change was not a high priority for Rep. Wagner. She co-sponsored Rep. Steve Scalise’s anti-carbon tax resolution and she bitterly opposed the Obama Administration’s EPA Clean Power Plan. It was going to be a huge lift for her to support any legislation supporting clean energy and CCL’s carbon fee and dividend proposal. At the same time, I love an impossible task. Even though I did not shift her position at all when I was her CCL liaison from 2013 to 2017, I still developed a positive rapport with her Washington D.C. and local Ballwin MO Office Congressional staff. I enjoyed that volunteer position and I did not give it up until several months after I moved to Portland.

Once I moved to Oregon, I wanted to new challenge. When Tanya and I moved to Portland, we became the constituents of Democratic U.S. Representative Earl Blumeneaur. At that time, Blumenauer did not seem like much of a challenge for me as a climate organizer. Climate action was a strong priority for him. He introduced his own carbon pricing bill in Congress in 2017. Even more, he joined the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus, a safe space for Democratic and Republican members of the House to exchange ideas for climate policies and possible legislation. Oregon CCL already had a well-seasoned CCL liaison and even an assistant liaison for Rep. Blumenauer. Thus, I was going to need a new challenge.

Attending and asking a question at a town hall for Congressman Greg Walden

For 25 years, I worked as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park during the summers. Crater Lake resided in Oregon Congressional District 2, represented by Republican Congressman Greg Walden. Oregon Congressional District two encompassed all eastern Oregon to the city of Bend and southern Oregon to the town of Grants Pass. Rep. Greg Walden accepted the science of climate change and proudly drove a Toyota Prius. At that time, he was the Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. That is a powerful committee in Congress overseeing our energy supply, electrical utilities, and business policies. It was a likely committee that a carbon fee and dividend policy or other vital policies to address climate change might end up being considered. I was part of a CCL lobby meeting with his Congressional staff in Medford, Oregon in 2013. I decided to focus my efforts on Rep. Walden to see if I could shift his position to support a carbon fee and dividend and other climate policies.

From looking at his Congressional website, I saw Rep. Walden had scheduled a town hall in The Dalles, Oregon late morning on April 12, 2017. The Dalles is a one-hour drive east of Portland, so I figured I could easily drive there and back during the day. I put out the word within Portland CCL to see if anyone would be interested in joining me. Retired NASA scientist and Portland CCL volunteer Kathy Moyd rode in my car with me to the event.

It was a dreary overcast Oregon winter day with light rain showers in Portland on the drive all the way out to The Dalles. It was a good day for an indoor event like a Congressional town hall. When Kathy and I arrived, there was several hundred people there to attend this town hall. I recognized one of Rep. Greg Walden’s staff from the Washington D.C. office from lobbying the previous November at his Washington D.C Congressional office as part of the CCL lobby day. She was friendly, as she was with all the constituents attending. She seemed to remember me.

If we wanted to ask Rep. Walden a question, the staff member greeting folks at the welcome desk said that we needed to take a raffle ticket. I drove a long way to try to ask a question, so I did not want to miss out on that opportunity. I held onto that ticket tightly during the event. I stared at it frequently so I would not miss a chance to ask a question if my number was called.

The very large crowd was very agitated because Donarld Trump was elected President just a few months before and they really wanted to let Rep. Walden feel their rage. Walden gave the impression that he was not enamored with Trump. On immigration, he told the audience that he tried to explain to Trump that many farmers in his eastern Oregon district rely upon migrant undocumented workers. Thus, a guest worker program at the very least was vital for Oregon. Many members of the audience were very worried about losing Obamacare. There was a lot of booing from the audience over his positions, which made him nervous and uncomfortable.

The audience was very irritated with him overall. I could have asked him: ‘What do you think of rye bread? When was the last time that you ate it?’ If he would have responded like most of us: ‘Hmm…When I the last time I had rye bread? Trying to think here. I am not sure…”

The audience would have yelled, “Answer the question! Don’t deflect!”

That is how angry people were that day. A part of me did have compassion for Rep. Walden as I wanted to engage him on climate change.

Towards the end of the town hall, my number was called. I walked up to the microphone in my part of this huge auditorium to ask this question:

“Thank you for coming today to this town hall meeting Rep. Greg Walden. We really do appreciate you holding this event. For the past 20 years, I have been a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park Oregon, where I have seen the impact of climate change with more intense wildfires and I know you care very deeply about Oregon’s forests, and a reducing snowpack which then provides less water for cities in Oregon. With climate change such a serious threat, are you familiar with Citizens Climate Lobby?”

Rep. Greg Walden: “Yes, I have met with them.”

Me: “Citizens Climate Lobby worked very hard to bring your fellow House members together for the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus. It now has 36 members, 18 Democrats and 18 Republicans, meeting to discuss climate change solutions. Would you consider joining this caucus?”

Rep. Greg Walden: “I have never heard of this caucus.”

Me: “I can get you information on this caucus. Even more, would you please consider co-sponsoring the House Republican Resolution 195 calling for climate action for House Republicans?”

Walden sighed and rolled his eyes at me. They then shared how Oregon has done a lot to reduce emissions. He then had a weird answer that according to the IPCC forest fires give off a big percentage of annual carbon emissions.

The audience booed when he made that last comment, causing him to walk it back a tad. Surprisingly, some of the audience then turned on him yelling: “Why won’t you join the caucus?”

I bet nobody in the audience had heard of the House Climate Solutions Caucus (CSC) before that town hall. It was fascinating to see them boo and shout back at Walden when he seemed very resistant to joining the CSC.

When it was over, a small crowd gathered around him to engage with him individually. I gave Kathy my camera to take pictures of me before I positioned myself to shake hands with him. Kathy got a good photo of us shaking hands.

Overall, this was a fabulous experience. Rep. Walden had town halls in Bend and Medford, Oregon on the following days. I conferred with CCL friends in Bend and the Medford area to encourage them to attend. I gave them my reconnaissance of what the crowd was like and how to position oneself to try to get your question asked during the town hall. Even more, I wanted to share the questions I asked and how he responded. I hoped that they would ask similar questions so Rep. Walden would find courage to make climate legislation a priority. Unfortunately, the crowds were extremely large. That reduced the chance of my friends getting a winning raffle ticket number to ask Rep. Walden similar questions to urge him to support climate legislation.

From that experience, I wanted to attend more Congressional town halls in the future. Even more, I hoped to inspire other climate advocates to attend Congressional town halls. It is a great way to urge members of Congress to support climate legislation and to bring attention to the issue to members of the community.

Asking U.S. Senator Ron Wyden a question during his town on February 15, 2019

Unfortunately, I would not have another opportunity to attend a Congressional town hall until 2019. After the Congressman Greg Walden town hall in The Dalles in April 2017, I became busy with other aspects of my climate organizing. I returned to work as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park from May to October 2017. Several weeks later, I was the lead organizer and speaker for the CCL Oregon Stewardship Tour traveling for 12 days across eastern and southern Oregon at the end of October and beginning of November 2017. In June 2017 and November 2017, I traveled to Washington D.C. for the CCL Lobby Conferences and Lobby Days.

February 2018 to July 2018, I worked for Tesla Energy selling solar panels. In June 2017 and August 2018, I was a breakout speaker for Climate Reality Trainings in Bellevue, Washington and Los Angeles, California. July 2018, I started volunteering for Renew Oregon full time to help their efforts to try to pass their cap and invest bill, known as the Clean Energy Jobs Bill or HB 2020 in the 2019 Oregon Legislative session.

In October 2018, I embarked on a speaking tour across his home state of Missouri from October 8 to 17, 2018. During his tour, I spoke at My alma mater William Jewell College (class of 1992), University of Missouri in Columbia MO, St. Louis Community College, Oakville High School in St. Louis (I graduated from Oakville in 1987), and St. Louis University. In June 2018 and November 2018, I traveled to Washington D.C. for the CCL Lobby Conferences and Lobby Days. In addition, in the fall of 2018, I took on the volunteer role as the Program Manager to invite guest speakers and organize the monthly meetings of the Portland Climate Reality Chapter.

While taking all those climate actions, I signed up for the email newsletters for U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon to see when I could attend one of their town halls. Since he became a U.S. Senator in 1996, Ron Wyden pledged open-to-all town meetings in each county in Oregon each year he serves in the Senate. As of April 2023, Wyden has held 970 meetings “where he refrains from speeches, listens to the concerns of Oregonians, and answers questions.” Since taking office in 2009, Senator Merkley has kept a similar promise to hold an open town hall for every Oregon county each year.

On November 27, 2018, the bipartisan Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 7173). CCL lobbied for years for a carbon fee and dividend policy bill to be introduced into Congress. On December 19, 2018, Republican Senator Jeff Flake and Democratic Senator Chris Coons introduced bipartisan U.S Senate companion bill to H.R. 7173. These bills died once the new Congress went into session on January 3, 2019. However, it felt vital to urge more U.S. Senators, such as Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, to support these bills in the next Congress. Attending one of their upcoming town halls was one of the best ways to get their attention to make a carbon fee and dividend bill a priority for them.

While receiving their email newsletters, I noticed Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden had nearby town halls at the beginning of January 2019. On January 2, 2019, I attended a town hall for Senator Merkley at the East Portland Community Center, located less than 4 miles from where I lived. Two days later, Senator Wyden had a town hall scheduled in Sherwood, Oregon at their Center for the Performing Arts. The town hall in Sherwood was about 34 miles away and close to a 45-minute drive from where I live in Portland, Oregon. I went both town halls.

Each town hall was packed with people. In fact, many people show up to ask questions or give comments to the Senators. As a result, each of these town halls had raffle tickets that were handed out by one of the Senator’s staff at the front door if one wanted to ask the Senator a question. During the town hall, individual ticket numbers were announced by a local elected official or VIP on the stage with the Senator. If an attendee had that exact ticket number, they would raise their hand to be seen by all. One of the Senator’s staff would then come to that audience member for them to speak into a portable microphone to ask the Senator a question.

I received a raffle ticket each time. However, my ticket number was not called for either of those town halls. I enjoyed attending to hear what each Senator had to say. I prepared questions that I wrote out urging each Senator to support the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA). I showed the questions in advance to Oregon CCL friends for their input and approval. My heart raced a bit each time a number was called hoping it would be my ticket, but I had no such luck at those town halls. Overall, I enjoyed attending. After attending those town halls, I kept an eye out for future town halls for Senators Wyden and Merkley in my area. I was determined to go to a future town hall to urge one of them to support the EICDA.

Even more, I was a bit disappointed that there were few climate advocates there, especially CCL volunteers. My goal was to motivate other CCL and Climate Reality advocates to attend Congressional town halls to increase the possibility that Senators Wyden, Merkley, or even the local members of Congress would support the EICDA.

The next local town hall that I noticed was for Senator Ron Wyden at the Portland Community College (PCC)) Sylvania campus Performing Arts Center on February 15, 2019. This was going to be a full day for me. I planned to spend the day at the state Capitol in Salem, Oregon. The Oregon Legislative Joint Committee on Carbon Reduction (JCCR) scheduled a public hearing for OR citizens to give oral testimony for their comments about the Clean Energy Jobs Bill (HB 2020). I signed up to give two minutes of oral testimony to the JCCR. This was the first time that I gave oral testimony to a legislative committee. To stay under the maximum allowed time of two minutes for oral testimony, I typed up my oral testimony before carpooling to Salem on Friday morning. My oral testimony before the Committee went well. It felt amazing to participate in our democracy as a climate advocate to testify before a legislative committee to urge legislators to support a strong and effective bill for climate action, such as the Clean Energy Jobs Bill.

My friend and fellow CCL volunteer KB Mercer gave me a ride to and from Salem that day. She did a wonderful job of testifying before the JCCR. After she completed her oral testimony, I began my testimony, joking, “Wow! That’s a tough act to follow!”

KB was very enthusiastic and helpful carpooling with me from Salem to the Senator Wyden town hall that evening in southwest Portland at the Sylvania Performing Arts Center on that PCC campus. Because it was a Friday evening, I talked my wife Tanya into attending this town hall and then giving me a ride back to our home.

When KB and I showed up to this town hall, it was an audience of mostly young people with the progressive climate group, Sunrise Movement. This grassroots organization advocated for The Green New Deal Resolution in Congress that was just introduced in Congress on February 7, 2019, by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Edward Markey. Many of these climate advocates attended with bright yellow signs that read, “WORK FOR A GREEN NEW DEAL.” The other side of their placard read, “WHAT IS YOUR PLAN?”

Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley were co-sponsors of the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal caused division among climate and environmental groups. On January 10, 2019, a letter signed by 626 organizations that supported a Green New Deal was sent to all members of Congress. The letter contained a statement that the signatories would “vigorously oppose…market-based mechanisms and technology options such as carbon and emissions trading and offsets, carbon capture and storage, nuclear power, waste-to-energy, and biomass energy.”

Statements like that caused six major environmental groups to not sign on the letter, such as the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, Mom’s Clean Air Force, Environment America, and the Audubon Society. It was noted that “Two green groups founded by deep-pocketed Democratic celebrities are also absent: Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project and Tom Steyer’s NextGen America.” In addition, CCL did not sign onto this letter since they were clearly advocating for a market-based solution. The EICDA was a carbon fee and dividend, market-based policy, to address climate change.

KB and I were clearly outnumbered by the Sunrise Movement volunteers dominating this event. My wife Tanya showed up before the town hall started to rendezvous with us. The three of us sat in the front row with a sea of yellow Sunrise Movement Green New Deal signs held up by a very enthusiastic audience behind us. When Senator Ron Wyden started the town hall acknowledging all the folks from the Sunrise Movement there and their support for the Green New Deal (GND). He acknowledged that he did sign as a co-sponsor to the resolution. However, he admitted to this audience that the resolution was unlikely to pass in this Congress. He referred to it as ‘a resolution with goals.’

Even more, the GND did not have the support of many Congressional Democrats. Senator Wyden tried to be realistic where the GND stood in Congress. The audience booed a bit and felt a bit frustrated with Senator Wyden. I understood though that Senator Wyden was walking a fine line of supporting what these constituents wanted with the Green New Deal and realizing what was possible to pass Congress with a Republican controlled Senate.

Like the previous town halls I attended, Senator Wyden’s staff issued raffle tickets to audience members interested in asking questions. My wife Tanya is the opposite of me. She does not like public speaking at a large event like that. Thus, she handed me her ticket, which doubled my chance of a question getting asked. Right before the event started, another audience member changed their mind about asking a question. They asked me if I wanted their ticket and I jumped at the opportunity to say, ‘yes!’

Like the Congressional town halls I attended, I had a question typed out and prepared to read. As the town hall progressed, I nervously kept staring at my three tickets to see if I one of my numbers was going to be possibly called this time. Senator Ron Wyden then announced, ‘Looks like our time is just about over and I have time for just one last question.’

The VIP at the front of the room announced the ticket number, which happened to be the same number as one of the tickets I held in my hand. I then raised my hand to say, ‘That’s me!’

A member of Senator Ron Wyden walked up to where I was sitting and held a microphone just a few inches from my mouth. I tried to grab the microphone, but he was not going to let me have control of the microphone. Looking back, I totally understood afterwards why he did not want me to have possession of the microphone. Some of the people at these town halls would never give back the microphone. They would want to keep sharing their point of view with the Senator. When I understood afterwards what the staff member’s action, we laughed about it immediately after the town hall.

Once I could speak into the microphone, this is what I said:

“My name is Brian Ettling. I live in northeast Portland. For 25 years I was a park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Sadly, I saw climate change while working there with a lower snowpack and more intense wildfire season. Because I am very worried about climate change, I now volunteer with Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Have you heard of them?

Senator Wyden responded that he had heard of CCL

I then continued: “They are a grassroots volunteer led organization lobbying Congress to pass the Energy Innovation & Carbon Dividend Act (HR 763). This bipartisan bill would lower climate pollution by 40% over 12 years, while growing the economy, creating jobs, and improving people’s health. Could you work with your colleagues, especially Senator Chris Coons to create a Senate companion bill for the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act?”

Senator Ron Wyden paused for a moment and then responded, “I have not heard about that bill. I will think about it. Please send me an email and talk to my staff that’s here this evening.”

Then Senator Wyden wrapped up the town hall. Afterwards, a couple of the Sunrise Movement folks approached to thank me for my question and briefly chat. A couple of members of Senator Wyden’s staff also approached me to briefly chat. I asked for one of their business cards. I did send a follow up email to the Field Representative of Senator Wyden two days later. I briefly explained about CCL and the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA). The Field Representative thanked me for my email and said she had a meeting on February 28th with Portland area CCL volunteers to discuss the bill.

Although I did not successfully persuade Senator Wyden to support, introduce a Senate companion bill, or co-sponsor the EICDA, it still felt very empowering to ask him to support specific effective legislation to address climate change. It was my third town hall I had attended for U.S. Senator from Oregon in the first six weeks of 2019. It felt like the third time was the charm to promote the EICDA with a U.S. Senator and the local town hall audience.

Co-presenting about town halls as a Breakout Speaker at a CCL Conference

Directly asking Senator Ron Wyden to support a climate change bill at his February 2019 town hall felt like a glorious moment for me. Two days later, I emailed senior staff at Citizens’ Climate Lobby to pitch the idea of having a breakout session on being effective at attending local Congressional town halls for the upcoming June 2019 CCL Conference. They immediately said yes to my idea. The only suggestion they had for me was to in the interest of meeting their diversity goals, they wanted me to add a woman or a person of color as a co-presenter.

I thought that was a great idea since I had a wonderful time co-presenting over the years at Climate Reality Trainings with Maddie Adkins, Itzel Morales, and Maria Santiago-Valentín. Plus, I had co-presented over the years in St. Louis with other Climate Reality Leaders. I loved co-presenting because it is fun to have a partner to collaborate on a presentation. Even more, when I am giving a presentation, I sometimes find I am stumped by audience questions. Thus, it can be a relief to I have a co-presenter bail me out when there’s a question from an audience member that I don’t know an answer. Even more, I am all about diversity, equity, and inclusion. The speakers on the stage should reflect the audience and the audience should be able to relate to the speakers on the stage.

It was going to be up to me to find a co-presenter. It took over a month, but I found someone that I barely knew from Climate Reality Project and CCL, Eve Simmons. We chatted on the phone in late March. She had some great ideas and we started brainstorming some ideas to make this session a success.

Eve and I met many times over Zoom during the spring of 2019 working very hard trying to stitch our presentations together. We gave our presentation Mastering Town Halls on Sunday, June 9th during the CCL Conference in Washington D.C.

For my portion of the presentation, I began with the question: “Why town halls?”

I defined town halls as “A face to face meeting with your members of Congress (and/or your state and local elected officials, but the whole town is involved.”

I stressed that town halls are “a great way to promote CCL to your members of Congress and your community.”

I warned that if you don’t attend town halls, others will be there to promote their ideas. I included an image on this slide of the February 2019 town hall with Senator Ron Wyden where it was basically a sea of Sunrise Movement supporters promoting the Green New Deal. In the front row, my wife Tanya was seated off to the side. Thus, I advised to “if you can, try to bring your spouse, family and CCL friends to attend.”

For our tips for mastering town halls:

1. Go to Townhallproject.com or subscribe to the e-mail list of your members of Congress to see when their next town hall is located conveniently to you.
2. Get there early! If you can, one hour in advance.
   a. To get a good seat close to the front.
   b. Network with the Congressional staff & community members.
   c. Find out how they are going to do the audience questions.
   *Don’t forget to wear your CCL buttons, t-shirts, hats, etc.
3. If you get a chance to ask a question, keep your question brief, positive, and to the point.
   a. Start with your name and the area where you live.
   b. Show gratitude.
   c. Share your elevator climate story.
   d. Ask the member of Congress if they have heard of CCL.*
   • I put as asterisk there to ask the question quickly, if comfortable to get a quick yes or no response from the elected leader. Don’t let them take over and not give you a chance to ask the rest of your question.
   e. Briefly explain about CCL & our bill (HR 763) to the member of Congress and to the audience.
   f. Ask them to co-sponsor the Energy Innovation & Carbon Dividend Act

I then broke this down with my question for Senator Ron Wyden from his February 2019 town hall:

1. My name is Brian Ettling. I live in NE Portland.
2. Thank you for hard work in Congress and holding this event today to hear from your constituents.
3. For 25 years I was a park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, one of the most beautiful places on the planet. (pause for effect)
   Sadly, I saw climate change while working there with a lower snowpack and more intense wildfire season.
4. Because I am very worried about climate change, I now volunteer with Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Have you heard of them?*
5. They are a grassroots volunteer led organization lobbying Congress to pass the Energy Innovation & Carbon Dividend Act (HR 763).
   This bipartisan bill would lower climate pollution by 40% over 12 years, while growing the economy, creating jobs, and improving people’s health.
6. Could you work with your colleagues, especially Senator Chris Coons to create a Senate companion bill for the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act?”

I then shared types of bad town hall questions:
• Attacks the member of Congress
• Long winded
• Alienates the audience
• No specific ask
• Makes everyone feel uncomfortable.
• Makes CCL look bad to the community.

I then concluded by talking about how Speaking Up at a Town Hall might be out of your comfort zone. I showed a picture of the audience looking very serious before Senator Ron Wyden’s February 2019 town hall that I attended.

I then ended with one of my favorite quotes by Maggie Kuhn, American activist & founder
of the Gray Panthers movement: “Speak Your Mind, even if your voice shakes.”

Eve Simmons had some good advice in her portion of our talk, such as

Practical tips…
• Register for the town hall. Some MOC’s won’t let you in if you are not on their attending list.
• When checking in, ask if stationary audience mics will be used. Sit as near to one as possible.
• Bring a brightly colored pen in case you’ll be given question cards to write on and turn in.
• Write out your concise question ahead of time and practice it.
• Have a secondary question prepared in case someone else asks your question first.
• Bring friends! They can applaud your question, reinforce it, and ask follow up climate questions of their own.
• Be ready to seize the opportune moment, tying in good points that have been made earlier.
• Speak slowly and clearly for dramatic effect.

Eve advised the audience to FRONTLOAD your question with…
• Thank you
• Emotion/feeling, a personal story
• Current or recent event
• Locally relevant connection
• Compelling point
• Credible source
• Memorable or catchy phrase

Like me, Eve shared example town hall questions. She then ended with a very inspiring thought:

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.

One older audience member seemed skeptical that my sample question would be effective for his member of Congress. Senator Ron Wyden is a very progressive Democratic U.S. Senator. His member of Congress was more conservative and possibly a Republican. I acknowledged that when I was a constituent of Rep. Ann Wagner in St. Louis, who is a conservative Republican, I would probably be asking a different kind of question than I did for Senator Ron Wyden. The point of my talk was to help my audience think creativity how to pose a question to their member of Congress at a town hall, not necessarily mimic and copy my style of town hall questions.

Eve and I struggled at times to get our ideas and messaging in our talk in sync. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the audience response seemed to be subdued. 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.

Attending a town hall for Senator Ron Wyden at the end of August 2019.

After asking a climate change question directly to Senator Ron Wyden at his February 2019 town hall and giving the Mastering Town Halls presentation with Eve Simmons, I was eager to attend more Congressional town halls. I especially hoped to attend another town hall in the future with a chance to engage with Senator Wyden or Senator Merkley. Over the next four months, I mostly focused on Renew Oregon’s efforts to pass the Clean Energy Jobs Bill. After I went to the CCL Conference and Lobby Day in Washington D.C. and presented with Eve, I had climate change commitments back in Oregon.

A week after the early June CCL conference, my wife Tanya and I traveled to Crater Lake National Park, where I worked as a seasonal park ranger from 1992 to 2017. I returned there as a guest speaker during the park ranger seasonal training to give a talk how to talk with park visitors about climate change. During the last part of June, I traveled to the state capitol in Salem almost daily to rally support for the Clean Energy Jobs Bill, HB 2020. Unfortunately, the Republican Senators fled Oregon during the last ten days of June to deny the 2/3 quorum rule for a floor vote. Sadly, their walk out killed the Clean Energy Jobs Bill.

For the first half of July, I was very depressed over the defeat of the Clean Energy Jobs Bill. To find a sense of renewal, I became the interim Chair of the Climate Reality Portland Chapter. I took this role to specifically organize Climate Reality events in partnership with other climate groups to pass Renew Oregon’s cap and invest bill in the 2020 Oregon Legislative session. With all the ups and downs with my climate organizing in 2019, Tanya and I were able to take a short vacation in the second week of August to visit North Cascades National Park, Washington.

After I returned from vacation, I noticed that Senator Ron Wyden had a town hall scheduled for the East Portland Community Center on August 29, 2019. This was the same location that Senator Jeff Merkley held his town hall on January 2nd. I had determination to get other CCL volunteers to join me for this town hall. I had at least four CCL friends join me for this town hall, plus Tanya joined me. I conferred with others in CCL to try to put together a great question to see if Senator Wyden would support carbon pricing, returning the revenue to households vs. investing it in solutions, while acting to solve climate change in a timely manner.

Like all the previous town halls I attended for Senators Wyden and Merkley, Wyden’s staff gave out raffle tickets before the start for anyone interested in asking a question. Unfortunately, even with six of us there in this big audience connected with CCL, none of our ticket numbers were called to ask a question. That’s how it goes sometimes. However, we still had a better chance of directly asking Senator Ron Wyden a question by attending his town hall that if we had stayed home.

Giving a climate presentation at Senator Jeff Merkley’s Portland office in November 2019

In the fall of 2019, I was very busy as the interim Chair of the Climate Reality Portland Chapter. I was planning the monthly meetings, creating agendas for the monthly Leadership Team meetings, and organizing large events, such as one that was held at a local theatre in Milwaukie, OR on September 16, 2019. We filled this theatre with over 80 local climate advocates and Climate Reality Leaders. Our event was 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. They talked about what we needed to do to pass strong cap and invest legislation in the 2020 Oregon legislative session.

While I was focused on leading the Climate Reality Portland Chapter, Climate Reality Project announced their 24 Hours of Action campaign scheduled for November 20-21, 2019. In past years, Climate Reality Project hosted a 24-hour webinar called 24 Hours of Reality. That was a live internet broadcast they had hosted for several years each November. Each hour of those previous live webinars focused on how climate changed impacted a country or region in a different time zone on planet Earth. For 2019, Climate Reality wanted as many Climate Leaders as possible giving presentations over a 24-hour period from Tuesday to Wednesday, November 20-21.

To participate, I immediately reached out to a local Portland organization where I previously spoke earlier that year called Thirsters. I asked if I could speak at their weekly meeting, Thursday, November 21st, 7pm- 8 pm. Always looking for weekly speakers, they immediately accepted my offer. I hoped this would inspire other Climate Reality Leaders in the Chapter to reach out to local organizations and schools to give climate change talks. Climate Reality really wanted to make this 24 Hours of Action a success. Thus, the organization reached out to members of Congress, Congressional staff and other organizations to see if they would want a Climate Reality Leader to come speak to them on November 20th or 21st. Senator Jeff Merkley’s Portland Congressional office said yes to this invitation.

Climate Reality Project reached out to me if I would be interested in speaking at Senator Jeff Merkley’s office on Thursday afternoon, November 21st. I immediately agreed to lead this talk. I participated in CCL lobby meetings at Senator Jeff Merkley’s Portland office in March 2018 and 2019. Thus, I knew the exact location of his office in downtown Portland. I met his Portland office staff previously from attending town halls and lobby meetings in the Portland and Washington D.C. offices. On November 21st, I gave this talk to six of Senator Jeff Merkley’s Portland Office staff in a beautiful conference room at their office. Their office is in a downtown Portland high rise building. The conference room has large windows that looks out into downtown, with distant views of Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, and Mt. St. Helens on a clear day.

Senator Merkley’s staff really seemed to like my presentation for them, titled My Solutions for Climate Action. They especially liked one of my solutions to “Regularly call, write and lobby your members of Congress!” As I wrapped up my visit to Senator Merkley’s office, one staff member told me that Senator Merkley and his staff especially pay attention to the issues that constituents urge him to support during their town halls. I then asked Senator Merkley’s Portland Field Representative if he would introduce me to Senator Merkley at his next town hall in the Portland area. This staff person told me he would be happy to do that.

Attending two of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden’s town hall meetings in January 2020

After my two talks for Climate Reality’s Day of Action on November 21, 2019, I next focused on the December Climate Reality Portland holiday meeting. In mid-December, Tanya and I traveled to our hometown of St. Louis, Missouri for over a week to visit family. While we were in St. Louis, I gave two climate change talks for the St. Louis Zoo, plus a Climate Reality talk at Carpenter’s Library in south St. Louis. This was a renovated library that my parents used as children growing up in the 1940s and 1950s in St. Louis.

2020 started as a new year for me for climate organizing and to attend Congressional town halls. My first event I attended for 2020 was a town hall for Senator Ron Wyden held at Roosevelt High School auditorium in northwest Portland on January 5, 2020. Tanya came with me. Thus, I had two raffle tickets to double my chances to double my chances of my raffle number getting called to ask Senator Wyden a question. I talked a couple of CCL volunteers into attending with Tanya and me. Unfortunately, my raffle numbers were not called, neither were the raffle numbers of the other CCL volunteers in attendance. Thus, we were not able to ask Senator Wyden about carbon pricing, supporting the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, or what he would do to act to solve climate change in a timely manner.

I do want to give Senator Ron Wyden credit that in each of his town halls he talks about his solutions to climate change. He always focuses on what he can do as the ranking member or Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He primarily wants to get rid of the 44 fossil fuel subsidies that keeps the U.S. hooks on dirty energy and replacing those subsidies with 3 subsides to incentivize investments in clean energy. Yes, I do applaud everything he wants to do for climate action. He does take the issue very seriously. At the same time, I wish he would listen to climate scientists, like Dr. Michael Mann, who say a price on carbon is needed so we can reach the IPCC goal of reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in half by 2030 and reaching net zero GHG by 2050. In fact, Canada discovered this when they implemented their climate change solutions. They could not reduce their emissions to the IPCC goals without a price on carbon.

Urging Oregon’s U.S. Senators to put a price on carbon kept motivating me to return to their town halls to urge them to support that policy. Thus, Tanya and I went to Senator Ron Wyden’s town hall in Wilsonville, Oregon, less than 30 minutes south of Portland, to attend his town hall on January 18, 2020. Again, I got two raffle tickets for Tanya and me hoping to urge him to support the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. This was another town hall where I struck out. My raffle ticket numbers were not called, and I was not able to ask him a question. Even if I don’t ask him a question, I still fill out a card at the welcome table stating why I am there. Furthermore, I always re-introduce myself to the staff and try to develop a good rapport with them.

Briefly chatting with Senator Jeff Merkley at his March 2020 Clackamas County Town Hall

Like the Energizer Bunny, I will never give up. Like Sisyphus in Greek mythology, I will continue to try to roll the giant boulder uphill. In January 2020, I went to town hall events for members of Congress from Oregon, Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, Kurt Schrader, and Earl Blumenauer, whom I am a constituent. I was not able to ask a question at their events. However, the most important thing for me is to show up and try. You just never know when you might be able to have a conversation with a member of Congress and ask them to support carbon pricing.

On March 7, 2020, I attended a town hall for Senator Jeff Merkley at the auditorium at the National Guard Recruiting at Camp Withycombe, Clackamas, Oregon. It was located about 10 miles south or a 20 minute drive from where I live. I found out about it on www.townhallproject.com the day before. Tanya could not make it nor could anyone else make it from CCL. It was just me.

The rumored threat of Covid-19 or coronavirus was starting to hang over everything. People were a little leery to shake hands, stand close together, and the seats at this town hall were spaced a few feet apart from each other. People were advised that if they had symptoms of any kind of cold to not come to an event like this. Like all the previous town hall events I attended, there were probably over 100 people or more at this event. I did receive a raffle ticket from Senator Merkley’s staff at the welcome table before the event. However, my raffle ticket number was not called, and I was not able to ask a question.

At this town hall, I had a breakthrough moment. I recognized Senator Merkley’s Field Representative from the Climate Reality 24 Hours of Action that I gave at Senator Merkley’s Portland Office last November. He recognized me when he saw me before the town hall. He was friendly and glad to see me. I asked him if he could introduce me to Senator Merkley after the town hall. He responded that he was happy to do that.

I waited patiently after the town hall to chat with Senator Merkley. Lots of other people were gathered around him to ask him to informally chat with him. Some of the individuals looked like Senator Merkley knew them for years and he was thrilled to see them. I enjoyed watching the Senator interact with people. He is shy and reserved, but he enjoys being around people. Those sticking around after the event were excited to have a chance to interact with him.

The Field Representative waited patiently for a chance to introduce me to Senator Merkley. While we were waiting, I gave the Field Representative my iPhone to get a picture of us. The staff person was happy to help me with this. Finally, there was a break in line of people wanting to talk with Senator Merkley that the Field Representative walked up to Senator Merkley to introduce him to me. I remember he was hesitant to shake hands or stand too close because of the possible threat of coronavirus. At the same time, Senator Merkley was very kind and generous with his time with me. He allowed me to get several pictures with him. I was able to urge him to support CCL’s Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA).

The Senator looked exhausted from chatting with all the people one on one, thinking on his feet for over an hour with this town hall, plus the town hall he did in Marion County earlier that day. He did not have a response to my request to urge him to support Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s EICDA. He did look at me very sympathetically though like he really did appreciate what I am doing and the very steep uphill climb to get anything passed on climate in the Senate right now.

I did not have a problem with this interaction with the Senator at all. I know that tired look after I have given presentations and chatted with audience members one on one afterwards. I could relate to his facial expression how hard it is to get anything passed on climate in Congress right now. Still, I wanted to get this idea on his radar and hopefully other CCL friends are doing the same thing. Even more, I wanted to be an example of reaching out to our members of Congress to support climate legislation.

This was probably Senator Merkley’s last in person town hall before the full shutdown of the covid-19 pandemic happened in March 2020. Thus, this was the last opportunity to speak with him directly until the pandemic subsided. On October 15, 2020, I went to an outdoor campaign event when my Oregon Senator Shemia Fagan ran for Oregon Secretary of State. U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley were in attendance. However, they were leery to have anyone stand close to them and we all had masks on at this outdoor event due to the pandemic. It was hard to ask questions or engage with them on policy issues because of that.

I left that March 2020 town hall feeling great. After our conversation, Senator Merkley did not shift his position supporting carbon fee and dividend or the EICDA. I did the best thing you can do in a democracy: petition and speak directly with an elected official to urge them to support climate legislation. I did my part.

Now it is up to others, especially anyone reading this (you), to call, write, email, and attend town halls to directly urge members of Congress to support effective climate legislation. Even more, I challenge you to be even more effective than me. If you are more effective than me, we will have even a better chance of success of reducing the threat of climate change.

Now that the pandemic is over and in person Congressional town halls are happening. I encourage you to attend Congressional town halls if your members of Congress or U.S. Senators are holding them. It is a great way to learn about the issues impacting your fellow citizens in your community and to hear the perspective of your member of Congress.

Maybe, if you are just lucky, you might be able to ask them a question or even urge them to support effective climate legislation.

Brian Ettling April 2023 ©

Since I became involved in the climate movement around 13 years ago, my aim was to be a top climate organizer and speaker. I wanted to inspire others to take action to reduce the threat of climate change. One place that helped me be a more effective climate advocate was attending a Climate Reality Training in San Francisco in August 2012. After attending that training, I was very proud to become a Climate Reality Leader and become active in the Climate Reality Project. 

I was honored when Climate Reality selected me to be a mentor to assist the new trainees at seven Climate Reality Trainings: Chicago, IL 2013, Cedar Rapids, IA 2015, Houston, TX 2016, Denver, CO ­2017, Bellevue, WA 2017, Los Angeles, CA 2018, Atlanta, GA 2019, and a virtual training in 2020. On top of that, the peak experience for me was the three trainings that Climate Reality invited me to be a breakout speaker, Bellevue 2017, Los Angeles 2018, and Atlanta 2019. I will always be grateful to Climate Reality Project for those opportunities. 

Taking Climate Action to be Noticed by the Climate Reality Project 

To grab an opportunity, you have got to get your foot in the door. To get your foot in the door, you have got to get yourself noticed somehow. After I became a Climate Reality Leader in 2012, I was determined to be one of the best Climate Reality Leaders. 

Former Vice President Al Gore founded the Climate Reality Project in 2007 from the proceeds he received from the 2006 Academy Award winning documentary film An Inconvenient Truth and other sources. To this day, Al Gore actively oversees Climate Reality and leads their annual U.S. and international Trainings. Thus, one incentive for me to be recognized as a top Climate Reality Leader was the possibility to meet Al Gore. Fortunately, I had a chance to do that at the May 2015 Cedar Rapids Trainings. Even more, I asked him directly how to respond to his critics. 

Besides meeting Al Gore, another motivation for me to strive to be a great Climate Reality Leader was the chance to be a breakout speaker at one of the Climate Reality trainings. These Trainings typically had the attendance of over 1,000 people who come from across the U.S. and internationally. The Trainings were an outstanding place to network among other top Climate Reality Leaders and advocates. Even more, it was a great place to be seen “on the stage” giving a breakout talk to advise the attendees how they could give impactful climate presentations and inspire others in their community to join them in the climate movement. 

After we are trained as Climate Reality Leaders, the Climate Reality staff urged us to log our “Acts of Leadership,” on the Climate Reality Project hub website, the resource access website for Climate Reality Leaders. Thus, I logged various actions to get myself noticed. I recorded each time I presented my ranger climate change evening program that I performed at Crater Lake National Park during the summer from 2011-2017. I submitted each of the climate change speeches I gave during the winter in St. Louis as a member South County Toastmasters. 

In Addition, 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 website 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. 

Another type of Leadership Action I did was recording the four YouTube videos with my wife Tanya Couture, my mom Fran Ettling, and my dad, LeRoy Ettling. My YouTube videos inspired Climate Reality to invite me to speak as part of a webinar panel with fellow Climate Reality Leaders Dr. Cara Augustenborg and Stian Rasmussen. Cara was a assistant professor at the University College in Dublin and the Trinity School of Business in Ireland. Stian was a videographer, photographer, and music producer. This webinar was called Inspiring Action through Video. It streamed internally on the Climate Reality Hub website on July, 29, 2016. This brief training encouraged Climate Reality Leaders to create short videos to promote climate action and a build up for Climate Reality’s 10 Year Anniversary Project they were planning for 2017.  

On the Climate Reality website Hub, the organization encouraged Climate Reality Leaders to log their Acts of Leadership. Climate Reality urged us to log these Acts to keep track of the actions of their volunteers to determine how they could best support us. Even more, they wanted us to log our Acts of Leadership as a metric to show their large donors the effectiveness of funding Climate Reality. Thus, I gladly logged all my Acts of Leadership to see how many I could post and to be supportive in supporting the metrics tracking of the volunteers. This did not go unnoticed by Climate Reality. In August 2016, they acknowledged me on their website as one of “THE TOP TEN CLIMATE REALITY LEADERS HELPING US REACH 10,000 ACTS OF LEADERSHIP.”

In February 2017, it felt like I was really on a roll with Climate Reality. They featured me in their February 2017 online newsletter report in their Climate Reality Leader Spotlight section. At his opening remarks of the February 2017 Climate Reality Training in Denver, Climate Reality President Ken Berlin mentioned me and two others as good examples of Climate Reality Leaders. As Ken briefly spoke about me, he showed this image to the screen to the audience: 

During the Denver training on March 2-4, 2017, Al Gore led a panel discussion called CLIMATE REALITY LEADERS: WHO WE ARE. Climate Reality selected three Climate Reality Mentors join him on the stage to discuss their experiences as Climate Reality Leaders and their advice to the new Climate Reality Leaders. Al Gore asked the mentors on the panel how they stay motivated to take climate action. Totally unexpected to me, one of the mentors, Lucia Whalen remarked: “I don’t know if you ever Facebook stalk your friends, but the same thing can happen on the Climate Reality Hub website. Go on Brian Ettling’s page and it will be like, ‘What am I doing with my life?’” 

Lucia was very kind to say that in front of an audience of over 1,000 people at the training. Immediately afterwards, I thanked Lucia for her very gracious extemporaneous comment. When I took various climate actions and reported my Acts of Leadership, I always hoped that I could have been selected for the CLIMATE REALITY LEADERS: WHO WE ARE discussions led by Al Gore at one of the trainings I attended as a mentor. Lucia Whalen is a great Climate Reality Leader and a stand-up comedian in Chicago, Illinois. Therefore, when she mentioned me from the stage to Al Gore and to a huge audience of Climate Reality Leaders, that was a big thrill for me. 

Presenting as a breakout speaker at the March 2017 Climate Reality’s Denver Day of Action 

Because of all the climate change talks I gave beforehand in Oregon, Missouri, Illinois, Virginia, Arizona, and Ottawa, Canada, 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. When I lived in St. Louis, I would stress that I was born and raised in St. Louis. For conservatives, I shared that I was the President of my College Republicans in my sophomore year of college. In addition, I shared my love of nature and quoted Ann 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.’” 

From Rotary Clubs, I included their Four Way Test: 

From working in the national parks for 25 years, I included their mission statement in my evening climate change program: “to conserve the natural scenery, historic objects and the wildlife and to provide for the enjoyment that leaves them unimpaired for future generations.” 

When I spoke at the Shepherd’s Center in St. Louis, I shared their motto of “where neighbors help neighbors.” I then wove it into the title of my talk How to be a Good Neighbor for Our Planet.

4. Include your audience in your talk.
I then talked about how I would show up at meetings of an organization before my talk to get permission of individual club members to weave them into my talk. The audience loved seeing their friends and themselves in my PowerPoint images. In the training presentations I gave to the Crater Lake rangers how to chat with park visitors about climate change, I would include a picture of my friend and fellow Crater Lake ranger David Grimes. In that picture, Dave is shrugging his shoulders with the Dan Miller TED talk quote above him, “Talking about climate change is like flatulence at a cocktail party.” 

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 St. Louis South County 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. 

Co-presenting with Maddie Adkins at the June 2017 Climate Reality Bellevue, WA Training 

After this Denver presentation, Climate Reality staff kept in contact with me. They invited me to be a breakout speaker for an April 2017 webinar for Climate Reality Leaders, called Settled Science: Speaking to Climate Deniers. Like the August 2016 Climate Reality webinar that I participated, this was a panel presentation of Climate Reality Leaders that included Greg Jones, Dr. Joe Silverman, Laura Schmidt, and me. Greg Jones was a Climate Science Advisor at Climate Reality. Joe Silverman had a PdD in school and counseling psychology. Laura Schmidt founded the Good Grief Network.  Sadly, this was internal Climate Reality training, so I don’t have access to share any video from that webinar. However, participating in that webinar inspired me to write my own blog in April 2017, My 9 tips to Respond to Climate Denial when giving a Climate Change Talk.

The Climate Reality staff was very 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, Washington on June 27-29, 2017. 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 so 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 great 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 playful 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: 

“The most important person who can make the biggest impact reducing the threat of climate change is the person sitting in your chair.” – Brian Ettling

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 seemed very pleased with our talk. It felt like the organization really appreciated all my climate advocacy. 

I loved contributing to Climate Reality Project in their efforts to create publicity for climate action, Al Gore, and the organization. In the spring of 2017, Climate Reality asked for my permission to use a 2015 photo of me giving a climate change presentation in St. Louis for their companion book to the 2017 documentary about Al Gore, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. Local bookstores started selling the published book in mid-July 2017. I rushed to the nearest bookstore when it was available. It was so exciting to see my picture as part of a photo collage of Climate Reality Leaders in action on page 314. The picture showed me giving a climate change presentation at at John Knox Presbyterian Church in Florissant, Missouri on April 26, 2015.

The documentary film about Al Gore, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, was released in theaters nationwide on August 4, 2017. Tanya and I went to see the film in Portland, Oregon on August 5, 2017. The scenes with Al Gore presenting his climate change talk to a live audience were filmed at the Climate Reality Training in Houston, Texas in August 16-18, 2016. I happened to be seated in the front row of the audience on the left side of the stage. When Tanya and I watched the film, we were able to spot me for a very brief second smiling in reaction to something Al Gore said to the audience. This felt like a celebration for Tanya and me since it might be the only time that I will be seen in a Hollywood film. 

Climate Reality Project continued to utilize me to promote their organization. The Climate Reality staff asked for my permission to use images of me for a fundraising promotion at the end of July 2018. I was very honored to be a face representing Climate Reality in their 2017 fundraising campaign. That same month for my 50^th birthday, I raised over $1000 as a Facebook birthday fundraiser for Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL), the other climate organization that I volunteered. Even though I raised money for CCL that month among friends and family. I hope my picture spurred someone open their checkbook to give money to the Climate Reality Project. 

Co-presenting with Itzel Morales at the August 2018 Climate Reality Los Angeles, CA Training 

Climate Reality thought my 2017 presentation with Maddie Adkins was very successful. Their next step was to invite me to be a breakout speaker for the 2018 Climate Reality Training in Los Angeles, California in August 2018. 

For this training, Climate Reality had me co-present with Itzel Morales Lagunes. She was a blessing and a joy to partner with on this presentation. Itzel was from Mexico. She was originally trained as a Climate Reality Leader in Chicago in 2013. Since May 2018, Itzel is the Climate Reality Engagement Coordinator for Mexico and Latin America. She had an impressive background as a biochemical engineer who received a master’s degree from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2016, the U.S. Department of State awarded her the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship at UC Davis for the 2016-17 academic year. During her fellowship year, she had a professional affiliation with the United States Forest Service and the international Center for the Environment at UC Davis. 

Itzel was extremely intelligent, poised with self-confidence, and very focused on what she precisely wanted to share in our joint presentation. Like Maddie, Itzel has a great and generous heart, giving a warm and caring vibe making one feel great to be around her. We first met briefly when we were mentors at the 2017 Denver Training. We enjoyed briefly chatting at the end of the training. Like many mentors who struck up friendships with each other during the training, we got a picture with each other. I was honored at the chance to co-present with her. 

A few weeks before the August 2018 Los Angeles Training, we met on Zoom to practice our talk. Itzel was very dedicated to make our talk a success. She was very professional, detailed oriented, and well centered. Her calm and mature demeanor helps project confidence to those around her, including me. She knew exactly what she wanted. She did not need any advice from me. She was generous with her time to practice with me often before and during the evenings of the conference so we had confidence our talk would go smoothly. 

Because of Itzel’s steady and optimistic confidence, our presentation was a success. I don’t really remember any glitches except I struggled pronouncing the names of a couple of Climate Reality friends that I mentioned in that talk. I shared the same information from my 2017 Climate Reality Training breakout talks in Denver and Bellevue. However, for this 2018 Los Angeles talk, I included information on the October 2017 speaking tour I led across Oregon for CCL. In addition, I showed an image of my friend and fellow Climate Reality mentor Rachel Molloy and her daughters standing in front of her house with the solar panels on her roof. I then shared how Rachel saved a lot of money on her electric bill by installing solar panels on her home. 

Itzel and I gave this presentation along with Tim Ryder, who was the Associate Project Manager at The Climate Reality Project. Tim shared with the audience how the new Climate Reality Leaders could find, access, and utilize Al Gore’s presentation on the Climate Reality Hub website. In my presentation slides, one of my tips advised new Climate Reality Leaders to join and partner with local climate and environmental groups. After Itzel, Tim and I practiced our breakout session before giving it live, Tim urged me to encourage the Climate Reality Leaders attending this talk to join or even create a local Climate Reality Chapter in their community. I was happy to include that in my portion of the presentation. 

In her portion of our talk for creating your story to share in a presentation, ltzel had great advice learning about who is your audience before your climate talk to create a talk that will appeal to them. She advised the Climate Reality Leaders to determine the aspects of your background and personality that best connects with an audience. Itzel nailed the conclusion of this talk with a very inspiring quote that I heard for the first time: 

According to Itzel’s notes in her PowerPoint: “Ijeoma Umebinyuo is a Nigerian author. She was born in Lagos, Nigeria. She is the author of Questions for Ada, her first published collection of prose poems and poems. Her writings have been translated to Portuguese, Turkish, Spanish, Russian and French. In 2016, Ijeoma Umebinyuo was named one of the top ten contemporary poets from sub-sharan Africa by wrtivism.org.” 

Itzel had a beautiful and stunning dark milky way night sky background behind that quote that made the quote look even more captivating. I took a screen shot of that quote on the day of our presentation and shared it on social media. After that quote, Itzel had a great audience interaction directing the audience to stand and clap with her in unison to motivate them to give their own climate change talks. She would even pretend she was putting her hands together to see if she could trick the audience into clapping before she was ready to clap. The audience loved that moment of deception and that burst of interactive energy at the end of her talk that basically gave the message: You got this! You can do it! 

Climate Reality staff gave very 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 organizations. 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.

Co-presenting with Maria Santiago-Valentín at March 2019 Atlanta, GA Training 

In the fall and winter 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 is from Clark, New Jersey, and she was originally from Puerto Rico. She had a very 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 presented 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 very modest about her accomplishments and background. She seemed to have limited experience with public speaking and speaking in front of large audiences. Unlike Itzel or Maddie, Maria relied much more on me to create and edit our presentation. Maria had a very kind heart and gentle spirit. I was happy to help her feel comfortable giving this presentation. She was very appreciative of everything I did to help us prepare for this Atlanta presentation. Speaking to hundreds of Climate Reality Leaders at this training seemed quite 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 being 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, then getting involved with the 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 then tag teamed for the rest of this presentation with me providing tips and examples and then Maria responding with her own examples. She was lovely to co-present with as a team.  She really 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 a huge honor and pleasure to present with Maria. 

From the conversations and email exchanges with Climate Reality staff afterwards, they seemed very pleased with this presentation. Sadly, 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 the trainings. 

The crushing defeat of the Clean Energy Jobs Bill in Oregon in 2019

After Atlanta, the next Climate Reality Training was in Minneapolis, Minnesota in August 2019. 

In May, I applied to attend this training as a mentor. Even more, I hoped to participate in this training in roles such as a breakout speaker, master of ceremonies for one of the training days, or a mentor for the VIP table. Because it’s Al Gore and Climate Reality has earned a stellar reputation for training climate advocates, there are celebrities, prominent individuals, major donors, and prestigious scientists who are typically seated in a table at the front of the room. Climate Reality assigns a mentor to their table to answer their questions and assist their needs. 

My biggest dream was to be selected as one of the CLIMATE REALITY LEADERS: WHO WE ARE panel discussion led by Al Gore. Two of the Climate Reality Leaders that I mentored at previous trainings, Maddie Adkins and Sara Vargas, were panelists for this discussion. As their former mentor, I was so proud of them. At the same time, I always hoped to be part of that panel. I logged hundreds of Acts of Leadership hoping to be selected for that panel, but it was not meant to be.  

After Atlanta, I became very involved volunteering to Renew Oregon to urge Oregon legislators to pass a cap and invest bill. It was known 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. 

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 that 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. 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 was looking bleaker each day.

On Tuesday, June 25^th, 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 28^th 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. I just needed some good news. Any good news!  

I hoped to hear if I had been accepted to the Climate Reality Minneapolis Training in August. Unfortunately, this email arrived from Climate Reality on that ride to Salem on Friday, June 28th: 

“Dear Brian: 

Thank you for applying to serve as a mentor at the upcoming Climate Reality Leadership Corps training in Minneapolis. Due to overwhelming interest from many exceptional Leaders, we regret to inform you that we are not able to invite you as a mentor to this training.

Several key factors are considered in the review process, including geographic need (matching registered attendees to mentors from their area), travel budget, carbon footprint, application responses, and logged Acts of Leadership. The selection process can be extremely difficult with so many qualified applicants, and this training was no exception.

Please know we value your important work as a Climate Reality Leader and are honored to count you among our volunteers. Though the criteria for putting you on the mentor list did not align this time around, it is possible that another mentor might have to cancel and we would need someone to step in on short notice. Would you be willing to serve as a back-up mentor for the Minneapolis training? If so, we would contact you in the event of a last-minute cancellation to see if you’re available to fill in. Let us know soon if you’d like to be a back-up mentor.

These decisions are never easy, and we greatly appreciate your understanding in the application review process. Thank you for your incredible work and dedication to the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.” 

Climate Reality had no idea what was happening with the timing. However, receiving this email on the car ride to Salem that morning felt like a kick in the stomach when I was already feeling so numb. I always considered the Climate Reality Trainings, even more the honor of being a breakout speaker for three of the trainings, as jet fuel for me to help me with my climate organizing. I could have really used that good news on a day where the Republicans had officially killed the climate change legislation. 

No matter how hard one works as a Climate Reality Leader, you don’t get recognition from Climate Reality Project for climate legislation that does not pass. You don’t get to be on a CLIMATE REALITY LEADERS: WHO WE ARE panel discussion led by Al Gore when you help pass major climate legislation in only one legislative chamber. You don’t get to be a Breakout Speaker or a Master of Ceremonies if you are unable to stop a Republican walkout that kills climate legislation. You don’t even get to be a mentor of the VIPs or even just a mentor if you spend many months lobbying Oregon legislators, encouraging many Oregonians to contact their legislators, attending many legislative hearings at the Capitol, testifying numerous times for climate legislation, and organizing events to urge legislators to support strong climate bills. Sadly, you get nothing. 

I understood that Climate Reality wanted to offer their trainings to other exceptional mentors besides me. Just like Climate Reality, I believe it’s important that we grow the movement. As we grow the movement, it’s vital that we provide support for new Climate Reality Leaders a chance to be mentors. Even though I felt very disappointed, I emailed a gracious response: 

“Thank you for letting me know about the status of my mentor application for the Minneapolis Training. Understandably, I am sad I was not selected as a mentor. However, I totally understand the selection process is extremely difficult with so many qualified applicants. 

Yes! I would absolutely love to be willing to serve as a back-up mentor for the Minneapolis training.
Yes, please do keep me in mind and do contact me immediately if any mentor positions become available. (my emphasis) 

Stay in touch.

Give my best to everyone on the Climate Reality staff.” 

Unfortunately, I was not selected as a backup mentor for that training. 

After the Clean Energy Jobs Bill failed, I spent weeks on the couch at home with no energy to do anything. However, I had to pull myself back up to help Renew Oregon pass a cap and invest bill in the 2020 short session. 

My success and heartbreak as the Chapter Chair of the Portland Climate Reality Chapter

When Tanya and I moved to Portland, Oregon in February, 2017, I became very involved in the Climate Reality Portland Chapter. In the fall of 2018, I joined the Leadership Team for the Chapter. In June 2019, Deb Lev, the Chapter Chair at that time, announced to 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 Manager 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. 

Unfortunately, I had three people on the Leadership Team questioning and nitpicking everything I was doing. They did not have any constructive ideas of their own, just criticizing every decision that I made. They were relentless. Half of the leadership team were supporting me, and half were not. The friction grew worse as the summer turned to fall. I contacted a local Climate Reality staff person for advice. Her only feedback was basically, ‘In the organizing world, volunteers can be brutal and vicious and even make you cry hard on some days.’ 

Even though the chemistry on the Leadership Team was bad, I organized two very successful events. The first was held at a local theatre in Milwaukie, OR on September 16, 2019. We filled this theatre 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. 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 be having a workday in Salem two days after our event. 

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.

Yet, some members of the Leadership Team endlessly criticized me while offering few ideas of their own. When I incorporated their ideas, it was never enough. They wanted to be in charge, but they said they did not have time to be in charge. We desperately needed to recruit new Climate Leaders in the chapter who would be team players and great at collaborating. Thus, I applied in December 2019 to attend the Climate Reality Training in Las Vegas March 8-10, 2020.  

On February 10, 2020, I received this message from Climate Reality: 

“Dear Brian: 

Thank you for applying to serve as a mentor at the upcoming Climate Reality Leadership Corps training in Las Vegas. Due to overwhelming interest from many exceptional Leaders, we regret to inform you that we are not able to invite you as a mentor to this training.

Several key factors are considered in the review process including geographic need (matching registered attendees to mentors from their area), travel budget, carbon footprint, application responses, and logged Acts of Leadership. Additionally, if you’ve served as a mentor as a recent training, we may have offered the spot to a first-time mentor or someone who has not mentored recently. The selection process can be extremely difficult with so many qualified applicants, and this training was no exception. 

These decisions are never easy, and we greatly appreciate your understanding in the application review process. Please know we value your important work as a Climate Reality Leader and are honored to count you among our volunteers.

Thank you for your incredible work and dedication to the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.” 

That letter looked the same as the first letter in June 2019 that rejected me for the August 2019 Minneapolis Training. 

My feeling of being letdown and pushed aside by the Climate Reality Project 

At that point, I felt done with the Climate Reality Project and the Climate Reality Portland Chapter. I was burned out of putting a tremendous amount of work into organizing meetings and events, plus logging my Acts of Leadership. Yet, I felt no reward. 

I put so many hours into Climate Reality’s Pricing Pollution campaign to turn out CCL volunteers and Climate Reality Leaders for the cap and invest rallies in 2019 and 2020 at the Oregon Capitol in Salem. On February 6, 2019, Renew Oregon had a huge rally and lobby day in Salem. Al Gore even sent in a video message endorsing the Clean Energy Jobs Bill. 

The next day Sonny Mehta, Field Director for Renew Oregon, called me to say over 700 people turned out for that event at the capitol and he wanted to thank me for all my efforts. Numerous attendees told him they came because they were involved with CCL and the Climate Reality Project. Along with others, I went through long spreadsheets of calling CCL volunteers and Climate Reality Leaders to get them at that rally. With his phone call, Sonny thought that I had played a key role. Whenever I showed up at any Renew Oregon planning meeting, I would always say: ‘I am here as a volunteer with Citizens Climate Lobby and the Climate Reality Project.’ 

I became a liaison between Renew Oregon and CCL and Climate Reality to make sure both of those organizations were fully coordinating with Renew Oregon during the efforts to get the Oregon Legislature to pass the cap and invest bills. Climate Reality looked at Renew Oregon’s efforts to pass the Clean Energy Jobs Bill to advance their Pricing Pollution campaign. 

I became interim Chapter Chair of the Portland Climate Reality Chapter in July 2019 to specifically organize Climate Reality events in partnership with other climate groups to pass Renew Oregon’s cap and invest bill. Some of the members of the Leadership Team were lukewarm about these efforts, which created tremendous friction within our Leadership Team. I felt like I received very minimal support from Climate Reality when I was receiving a very hard pushback about this in the fall of 2019. 

I came extremely close to resigning as the Chapter Chair in October 2019 because of all the fighting. However, Oregon Senator Michael Dembrow and Representative Karin Power said yes to a big event where I planned to have them speak on January 21, 2020. We needed this event to be a success and to work closely with other groups in the Renew Oregon coalition. The leading climate champions in the Oregon Legislator were Senator Dembrow and Representative Power. They needed to see that the Renew Oregon coalition, including Climate Reality, had their full support as they attempted another very difficult push to pass a cap and invest bill in the 2020 Oregon legislative session. This was a time for concentrated and coordinated action for Oregon Climate Reality Leaders. 

In November 2019, I attended the Citizens Climate Lobby Conference and Lobby Day in Washington, D.C. On the day that CCL volunteers had scheduled lobby meetings with Congressional Offices on Capitol Hill, I organized a breakfast meeting of CCL volunteers who are also Climate Reality Leaders to meet with Climate Reality Project staff. We met for a breakfast meeting at a coffee shop located just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. During that meeting, Climate Reality staff person thanked me for leading the chapter. She then told me how sorry she was how I had been treated by some of the Portland Chapter Leadership Team. Those were comforting words that I heard, but that was the minimal support I received from Climate Reality. 

Sadly, we have members of our Leadership Team that did not have their own vision for the chapter. They just wanted to attack my vision. However, my vision for the Climate Reality Portland Chapter was aligned with Climate Reality Project’s Pricing Pollution Campaign. Their Pricing Pollution Campaign Toolkit had a picture that included me on Page 20. We needed new Climate Reality Leaders within the Chapter and Leadership Team that could see the big picture and had great team building skills. It was important for me to attend the Climate Reality Trainings in Minneapolis in August 2020 and Las Vegas in March 2020 to try to recruit some new Climate Reality Leaders from the Portland area into the chapter. Or at the very least, I hoped to receive some ideas how we could make our chapter more effective. 

Thus, I felt crushed when I received that letter on February 10, 2020. For all I did over the years of being loyal and dedicated to Climate Reality, it did not feel like Climate Reality was supportive to me. No matter how many large events I organized. No matter how many speaking tours I led. No matter how many elected officials I lobbied. No matter what I did to try to guide the Portland Chapter. No matter how many people I helped turn out for rallies to try to pass climate legislation. No matter how many letters to the editor and opinion editorials I wrote to my local newspapers.  It did not feel like Climate Reality was there for me anymore. 

The part that hurt the most is that they said nothing after the Atlanta Training about the possibility to be a breakout speaker at a future training. It felt like all of that was forgotten. I would have understood if they would have said, ‘We want to go in a different direction with the NOW PRESENTING: THE MASTERING THE PRESENTATION breakout session. Is there any way you could help us with another role instead at the training?’ 

Part of me would have been thrilled because it took a lot of work to put together these joint presentations for the Climate Reality Trainings. I would have been so honored to be a mentor for the VIPs who attend the trainings, a Master of Ceremonies, or other roles. Even more, I pushed myself so hard to do so many acts of leadership with giving presentations, lobbying elected officials, organizing events, writing letters to the editor, meeting with fellow Climate Reality Leaders, etc. It was my dream to be on the CLIMATE REALITY LEADERS: WHO WE ARE panel that was led by Al Gore or to receive some acknowledge that I was positively contributing to Climate Reality. It just did not seem like no matter how hard I pushed myself or what actions I did that I was going to achieve those things.

My depths of despair and a beginning sense of renewal as a climate organizer and writer 

When I resigned as Chapter Chair of Climate Reality in March 2020, it was around the time that the COVID-19 pandemic started. Global and American society went into extreme social isolation to try to contain the spread of the virus. That same month, the 2020 Oregon Legislative session ended with the GOP legislators of both chambers fleeing the state over a week before. That action killed all the legislation scheduled for votes in both chambers, especially Renew Oregon’s cap and invest bill. Just like 2019, the Republicans succeeded in killing climate legislation. After all the work that I and so many others put into that effort, that was a heartbreaking defeat. 

The 2020 defeat of Oregon’s cap and invest bill, my disappointment with Climate Reality, and the pandemic triggered a very bad depression for me. For many years before, I received joy and purpose from giving climate change presentations, lobby elected officials, organizing events, and attending meeting. All of that was suspended indefinitely and I felt like I lost my purpose. 

Climate Reality decided to cancel all their in-person trainings for 2020, including Las Vegas. That provided no solace for me. It just made me sad. I really loved attending those trainings as a mentor and breakout speaker. I was selected as a mentor for their virtual July 2020 training, but that was it. They did not seem interested in offering me additional roles for their trainings. 

Before the pandemic, if I felt like I had suffered a defeat or setback, I would just jump to another project. If I got thrown off the horse, I would just jump back onto another horse and ride away. However, I felt like I could not do that during the pandemic. 

The good news is that I did not give up. I started lobbying Oregon Legislators in the summer of 2020 to endorse a bill in Congress, The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA). Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) asked their volunteers to meet with grass top leaders such as state legislators to endorse the EICDA. CCL figured that more local endorsements would motivate members of Congress to support the EICDA. Working with other CCL volunteers, I led the efforts to get over 30 Oregon Legislators to endorse the EICDA. 

During our meeting in September 2020, 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 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.

Even though SJM 5 fell short from passing in the Oregon Legislature, it was one of my best experiences as a climate organizer. At the same time, I struggled to find a new sense of purpose after that happened. In August 2020, I reached out to Climate Reality Leader and Mentor Jill MacIntyre Witt for her advice for my next steps forward. Jill responded in an email: “I am getting certified to be a wellness coach, focusing on climate action coaching. Would you be willing to participate in my practice coaching sessions (Zoom calls)?” 

Jill and I spoke regularly for the next couple of months. In her advice as a wellness coach to me, she urged me to start writing again. I had blogged for over 10 years, but I had completely stopped writing for the previous two years. I was not motivated to write during the pandemic. 

Thus, I took Jill’s advice and started writing in the fall of 2021. I began to write 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 really scared me that we came close to losing our democracy. Former Vice President Al 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. However, 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 on November 14, 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. It reminded me of the days when I was a very active Climate Reality Leader. 

In January 2023, I signed up for a Writing Your Story Continuing Education Class at my local community college. This class really sparked my interest and focus on writing again. I decided to go back to write and blog about my highest and lowest moments as a climate organizer. Like the title of this blog suggests, one of my highlights was the three times Climate Reality invited me to be a co-presenter at three of their Trainings. It was such an honor to co-present in the breakout sessions with Maddie Adkins, Itzel Morales, and Maria Santiago-Valentín. 

It was extremely painful to write about my low times as a climate organizer. In this blog, I talked about how incredibly difficult it was to lead the Climate Reality Portland Chapter in the fall of 2019. Even more, it felt very demoralizing for me when Climate Reality stopped inviting me to be a mentor and breakout speaker at their trainings in 2019 and 2020. 

Writing about my high and low points as a climate organizer helped me with some much-needed healing. I can now see that I did accomplish a lot as a climate organizer, especially as a Climate Reality Leader. Even more, I had so much fun! It was a grand adventure along the way.

 My final thoughts 

In 2023, I decided to regularly write and blog to account for the missing chapters of my life’s story. I hope to take these writings and turn it into a memoir to publish as a book. I hope it can be a historical account of what I witnessed in the climate movement. Even more, I hope that the ups and downs of my story can provide helpful lessons for other climate organizers.

To be honest, writing about the low points has been incredibly painful, but cathartic. At the same time, it is a relief to document my peak experiences into writing. 

Looking back over my past 13 years as a climate organizer, I am very proud to receive a beautiful award for giving a climate change lecture at my alma mater William Jewell College in October 2018. At the May 2015 Climate Reality Training in Cedar Rapids, I chatted with Al Gore and asked him a vital question of how to respond to his critics. I appeared on national TV Comedy Central’s Tosh.o as The Climate Change Comedian on August 2, 2016. As I wrote this blog, I recalled the occasions where Climate Reality acknowledged all my hard work as a Climate Reality Leader several times over the years.  

Finally, I had the honor to be a breakout speaker for three Climate Reality Trainings. For each of those occasions, I co-presented with fantastic Climate Reality Leaders: Maddie Adkins, Itzel Morales, and Maria Santiago-Valentin. Each of them taught be valuable lessons in the joy, confidence, and teamwork in giving a great climate change presentation. 

Thank you, Maddie Adkins, Itzel Morales, Maria Santiago-Valentín and Climate Reality Project, for those fantastic opportunities to be a breakout co-presenter at three of your Trainings. 

* Correction: In writing this 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.”

Brian Ettling April 2023 ©

Is anyone willing to buy and learn about my journey organizing for climate action?

Country singer Willie Nelson wrote a song years ago, “Who’ll Buy My Memories?” It’s a track on his 1984 Music From Songwriter, an album he co-created with his friend, songwriter and musician Kris Kristofferson. The song became the title track from Willie’s 1991 album, The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories? Willie released that album as an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the album’s sales to pay off his large tax liability he owed the IRS.

It is a beautiful song and one of my many favorites by Willie Nelson. These days, the lyrics reminds me about how I feel about my life currently as a climate organizer:

“A past that’s sprinkled with the blues
A few old dreams that I can’t use
Who’ll buy my memories
Of things that used to be?

There were the smiles before the tears
And with the smiles some better years
Who’ll buy my memories
Of things that used to be?”

With my life, I feel like I have had many peak experiences, as well as low times, as a climate organizer. I hope to share it all in a book. It is a thrilling ride so far, with hopefully more adventures to come. I hope people would be as interested in reading it as I enjoyed living it.

On a deeper level, I want to be in command of telling my life story. A year ago, I listened to a NPR Fresh Air podcast interview guest host Dave Davies conducted with Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa. They wrote a book His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life, and the Struggle for Racial Justice.

It struck me during that interview how one of the tragedies about George Floyd is that he never got to share his life story. His death at the hands of Minneapolis Police was such a shocking and totally preventable loss of life due to systemic racism. Like so many people, the video of his death shocked me beyond words. George Floyd never had a chance to tell us his story. The authors pieced together his life story with “hundreds of interviews and countless public and private records to reconstruct the course of Floyd’s often-troubled life.”

It’s too bad we don’t have a firsthand autobiographical account how George Floyd interacted with the world around him. We might have liked him if we had met him. The Fresh Air synopsis of the interview says that he was “A gentle man who sometimes worried that his size intimidated people, George Floyd grew up in poverty, and had big aspirations.” Unfortunately, “the authors argue his opportunities were limited time and again by the effects of systemic racism.”

A lesson from George Floyd’s life is that tomorrow is not guaranteed. Death can cruel to the least deserving of it. If I am struck down tomorrow, God forbid, I intend to leave behind lots of writings. My hope is that writers and researchers putting together my life’s story would have plenty of firsthand material to best portray who I am. In no way do I want to compare myself with George Floyd and his heartbreaking death that awakened a social movement across the U.S. in 2020. I want to honor him with my life energy to somehow making the world a less cruel place. In my life, climate change really scares me. I hope that my writings and life experiences can inspire someone to take climate action so we can have a livable planet.

Hopefully, someone will want to “Buy my Memories.” I had so many fantastic life experiences so far, which I try to summarize in this blog.

Is anyone willing to “Buy My Memories”?

I grew up exploring nature and forests by my childhood home in Oakville, Missouri. I worked and lived 25 years as a summer seasonal park ranger in Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. In addition, I worked and lived in Everglades National Park, Florida off and on for about 16 years. I saw climate change while working in those national parks. I became so worried about climate change that I stopped working at my winter seasonal job in Everglades National Park in 2008.

I was unsure what to do with that climate change life purpose. However, I took on the title of The Climate Change Comedian from a dare from a friend in Ashland, Oregon in the fall of 2009. A family friend helped me create the www.climatechangecomedian.com website in the spring of 2010. Around that same time, I developed my own PowerPoint, Let’s Have Fun Getting Serious about Climate Change. I showed that Powerpoint to a couple of friends that spring and to my fellow park rangers during the summer of 2010.

While spending the winters in my hometown of St. Louis, I joined South County Toastmasters in February 2011 to improve my public speaking skills and to enhance my abilities as a climate change communicator. Over the next five years, I gave 20 climate change speeches to this local Toastmasters Club. My fellow Toastmasters voted for me as “The Best Speaker” for 8 of these speeches. Some of these members were climate change deniers. They ended up giving me great tips how to reach folks like them who disagree strongly with the science and reality of climate change. A few of the deniers despise me to this day. On the other hand, I helped sway some of the members who were uncertain and doubtful about climate change to be more open to accepting vital facts about the climate crisis.

In March 2011, I had the fortuitous luck to work at the Climate Change exhibit at the St. Louis Science Center, one of the few climate change museum exhibits in the United States at that time. While working there, I met St. Louis businessman Larry Lazar. We decided to co-found the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up in December 2011 (now known as Climate Meetup-St. Louis). While co-organizing this group, I met Tanya Couture, while she attended the events. Tanya and I started dating. We got married on November 1, 2015. As I joke in my climate presentations, ‘If you get involved in the climate movement, who knows, you might meet the person of your dreams.’

In August 2011, I gave my first climate change ranger evening program at Crater Lake National Park, called The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Over the past 13 years, I ended up giving over 200 climate change talks in 12 U.S. states, Washington D.C, and Ottawa, Canada.

One of those speeches was at the Shrine of the Ages Auditorium at Grand Canyon National Park to an audience of over 200 park visitors and park staff in May 2013. Due to my ranger connections of working in the national parks for 25 years, my friend Pete invited me to give this talk. This opportunity meant a lot since the Grand Canyon held a special place in my heart. Another ranger friend, Steve, arranged for me to solo hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon five days before Christmas in 2009. One year later, Steve and his wife Melissa made all the arrangements for me to hike from the north rim to the south rim on a three-day solo backpacking trip.

Besides speaking and hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, I had many other adventures and exciting moments as a climate change organizer. In 2012, I attended a Climate Reality Project Training led by former Vice President Al Gore to become a Climate Reality Leader. I loved attending that training and was honored to be a mentor for 8 addition trainings to guide others become effective Climate Reality leaders. At the May 2015 Cedar Rapids Training in front of the group of my fellow mentors, I personally asked Al Gore the elephant in the room question. I wanted to know how to respond to his climate denial critics who don’t like him. Those critics use Al Gore as an excuse not to accept the science of climate change. Al Gore was very generous with his time and response to help me answer his critics.

After I became The Climate Change Comedian, I created four YouTube videos with Tanya, my mom Fran Ettling and my dad LeRoy Ettling. Comedy Central’s Tosh.o noticed these videos. This TV show flew my mom and I to Los Angeles in April 2016 to appear on their episode airing on August 2, 2016. I never dreamed that when I gave myself that title that it would be on a TV show seen by millions of people. My 2016 guest appearance met the satisfaction of Tosh.o because they invited me back for a second time for their November 10, 2020 episode.

In April 2012, Carol Braford, the St. Louis Chapter Leader for Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) recruited me to volunteer for CCL. I immediately became deeply committed to CCL. While working as a park ranger at Crater Lake National Park during the summer of 2012, I reached out to various climate and environmental advocates in the Ashland, Oregon area. As a result of these interactions, I co-founded the Southern Oregon CCL chapter in 2013 that still regularly meets in Ashland. In 2013, CCL inspired me to write 10 published editorial opinions, two in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and eight in newspapers throughout Oregon.

CCL inspired me to attend 8 of their Washington D.C. conferences from 2015-19 to lobby Congressional offices on Capitol Hill. I loved attending lobby meetings with fellow CCL volunteers to urge Congressional offices to support federal climate legislation. A highlight and odd moment was my conversation with U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri. I spoke to her just a week after the November 2016 Presidential election, which elected Donald Trump as President. During our chat, she made sure I knew she was gleeful the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline would pass with Donald Trump as President and with her support. To pour salt on the wound, she bitterly added, ‘Good luck getting anything done on climate change for the next four years!’

Sen. McCaskill’s intellect impressed me when she engaged with everyone during the meet and greet in her office. Sadly, I felt like she was not much of a climate ally or champion when I left her office. On the other hand, I participated in a very successful CCL lobby meeting with the Congressional staff of Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida District 24 in June 2019. I was part of a team of CCL volunteers that successfully urged her to co-sponsor the climate bill we advocated then, The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. In my numerous lobby meetings with Congressional staff, that was the only time I persuaded a member of Congress to co-sponsor a bill. It might have been my one and only time so far, but it still tasted like a very sweet victory.

My CCL involvement led me to three climate change speaking road tours. My first road tour in Missouri in March 2017, I spoke to large audiences of 100 people in Jefferson City and over 60 people at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. In October 2017, I led a speaking tour across eastern and southern Oregon. I ended up driving over 1,600 miles to speak over 11 talks in 9 different Oregon cities.

In October 2018, I gave my third climate change speaking tour. I traveled across Missouri from one end of the state to the other. My first stop was speaking at my alma mater, William Jewell College, where I graduated in 1992. I spoke to an audience of over 200 people including students, faculty, and friends. The next stop was a climate talk at the University of Missouri in Columbia MO. I then returned to my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. I spoke to around 1,000 students and teachers at my alma mater Oakville High School, where I graduated in 1987. I then gave a talk at St. Louis University. My final stop was teaching a three-hour continuing adult education class, Climate change 101, at the St. Louis Community College Meramac campus.

During the 2017 Missouri tour, It felt like a badge of honor when a local newspaper cartoonist with the Jefferson City News Tribune created political cartoon about me. This cartoonist was a climate denier who seemed clueless about science. In the cartoon, I was wearing a ranger uniform explaining how ‘Missouri was covered by a shallow sea about 500 million years ago.’ A boy responds, ‘”Man” wasn’t around 500 million years ago, so who got blamed for the change in climate?”

The cartoon made no sense to me as this cartoonist was clearly aiming to lampoon me. I never had the chance to ask him directly to explain it because it was a real head scratcher. Anyway, I thought it was funny and I was honored I had been depicted in a cartoon for the first time. It reminded me of the Victor Hugo quote that is often misattributed to Winston Churchill: “You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea.”

After I returned from the October 2018 Missouri tour, I spent the rest of 2018 to March 2020 volunteering for Renew Oregon. Their campaign was to urge Oregon Legislators to pass a cap and invest bill, known as the Clean Energy Jobs Bill or HB 2020 during the 2019 Oregon legislative session. This was a very empowering endeavor to attend legislative hearings at the Oregon state Capitol in Salem, lobby legislators, testify at hearings, participate in weekly phone meetings, assist in organizing rallies, and organize large events. As I attended numerous legislative hearings on the Joint Committee for Carbon Reduction, I enjoyed having a great front row seat to watch the HB 2020 take shape in committee, successfully pass out of committees, and even pass on the House floor on June 18, 2019.

The victories felt huge to watch the bills progress towards passage. At the same time, it was a devastating and heartbreaking loss when the Republicans fled Oregon in the last week of June 2019 to prevent a Senate floor vote, which killed HB 2020. In late February 2020, Republicans in both the House and the Senate fled Oregon fled Oregon to kill that cap and invest bill. After the first defeat in the summer of 2019, I felt so low I did not want to get off the couch for weeks.

I pulled myself out of that depression by climate organizing a large event attended by over 80 people on September 16, 2019 and another large event on January 21, 2020 attended by over 100 people. The theme of those events was urging Oregon legislators to pass cap and invest bills. Obviously, Renew Oregon’s campaign and all of my organizing efforts failed when Oregon GOP legislators fled Oregon in February 2020 to kill the cap and invest bills. All of us wish we had the wisdom we have now to possibly prevent a conservative legislative walkout. At the same time, it was an honor and thrill to be part of Renew Oregon’s efforts.

Sadly, the second failure of a cap and invest bill by the Oregon Legislature happened just days before the gloom of the COVID pandemic happened. Renew Oregon and all of us organizing for climate action received good news on March 10, 2020. Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed strong climate executive orders directing state agencies to reduce their carbon emissions and to consider carbon reduction in all their decision making. She did that in response to the Oregon Legislature’s failure to pass the cap and invest bills in the 2019 and 2020 legislative sessions. That did provide a momentary solace.

The arrival of the COVID pandemic brought a very dark cloud over everything. Personally, it brought all my climate organizing to a halt. Before the pandemic, I was always on the go with attending meetings, giving speeches, lobbying legislators, and organizing climate events. All of that ended in mid-March 2020. As a result, I slipped into an overwhelming depression. It took me many months to reclaim my life and to return a sense of normalcy years later.

On top of the defeat of the cap and invest bills, I encountered months of bitter internal fighting within the Leadership Committee of the Portland Chapter of the Climate Reality Project. This happened in the latter half of 2019 when I served as the interim Chair. The social isolation of the COVID pandemic on top of the burnout I felt from leading the chapter, it was too much for me to handle emotionally in the spring of 2020. I had writer’s block for a couple of years. I had no energy to write about anything. My sense of life purpose, especially as a climate organizer, disappeared during the first several months of the COVID pandemic in 2020.

Reflecting on my involvement in the climate movement looks like moments of triumph and very bitter low points. Since 2012, I loved volunteering for Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) and the Climate Reality Project. Even more, I tried to be a bridge between both organizations. I had moments of splendor, such as Climate Reality inviting me to be a breakout speaker for three of their national trainings. CCL invited me to be a breakout speaker for several of their lobby day conferences. At the same time, it felt like these groups and individuals within the climate movement wanted to keep me at arm’s length.

I asked influential people within CCL to mentor me to be an even more effective climate organizer. However, they turned me down and were not interested. Climate Reality and CCL seemed to have labeled me as ‘just a volunteer.’ They were not interested in mentoring me to develop a stable career as a climate organizer. No matter how many large events I organized, road speaking tours that I gave, lobby meetings where I led, and published newspaper opinion editorials that I wrote, none of my efforts were seen as worthy enough to help me on my journey.

No matter what I contributed as a volunteer, it never seemed like it was enough. Even worse, the President of CCL discouraged me in November 2017 for my plan to lead a CCL promotional tour across Missouri. I did not let it stop me, but the discouragement stung. I gave so much of myself to the climate movement that I suffered a physical injury in November 2015. The emotional toll was brutal when the defense attorneys subpoenaed me for a court deposition in January 2016 when I was a plaintiff in a Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal lawsuit suing a local major polluter. By the time the defense attorney finished grilling me over two and a half hours, my brain felt like I had been in a bar fight and got my ass kicked. I remember the deposition happened on a Friday and I spent the whole weekend in bed not feeling up to doing anything.

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 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 were 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 very disenchanted with CCL and the climate movement.

In the fall, I started to write 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 really scared me that we came close to losing our democracy. Former Vice President Al 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. However, 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 the summer of 2022, my South County Toastmasters group, where I was a member from 2011-17, invited me to be a guest speaker. I will be giving a short climate change talk to them on April 19th when I travel to St. Louis to visit with family for over a week.

In the past several months, I decided to give the working title of my autobiography, From Park Ranger to Climate Activist: My Peaks and Valleys on this Journey. I hope someone would be interested in reading about the stories I included here. I am writing about this blog as a precursor to an introductory chapter of a memoir about me.

The question still must be asked:
Would anyone be interested in reading about my life’s story in a book?

Like the Willie Nelson song, would anyone be interested in ‘buying my memories’?

Would anyone be interested in a firsthand account of my life?

I hope someone is interested because I am determined to put together a memoir of my life so far especially as a climate organizer. I think my life is one hell of an amazing adventure so far. I hope my story with inspire others, possibly you, to take climate action. Even more, my wish is that it motivates you to be the hero of your story to act on climate so that someone will want to ‘buy your memories.’

Brian Ettling March 2023 ©

‘Do you know who your member of Congress is? Wait! Better yet: Do they know who you are?’
– Educator, Climate Reality Leader and Citizens’ Climate Lobby organizer Greg Hamra

I first heard Greg’s advice on a YouTube video, PEOPLE’S CLIMATE MARCH, that was created by Producer and Director G.J. (Gerald) Clarke with his production company, The Ledge Media. I met GJ Clarke at a Climate Reality Project Training in 2017 and discovered this 12-minute video around that time. This video was a short documentary of the 2017 People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C.

This march took place on April 29, 2017, marking the 100th day of Donald Trump’s Presidency. It was a huge protest by climate organizers across the United States to speak out against Donald Trump and his administration’s rollback of climate and environmental policies. It was estimated that over 200,000 people participated in the D.C. march, as well as a million locations throughout the U.S. and other parts of the world. My wife and I attended a People’s Climate March in Medford, Oregon on that same day.

Somehow, I had discovered Gerald’s video through Climate Reality Project soon after he had released this documentary on YouTube on May 29, 2017. The video was enjoyable for me to watch to see how many friends I could recognize since this short documentary centers around Climate Reality’s involvement with this march. In the video, I spotted friends Laura Betts, Olena Alec, Tim Ryder, Joshua May, Harriet Shugarman, as well as Greg Hamra. Even more, it was great to see former Vice President Al Gore shaking hands with some of the march attendees and participating in the March. I met and chatted with Al Gore at the 2015 Climate Reality Training in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I found him to be very kind, friendly, and engaging. He thanked me for my climate organizing. I blogged about it afterwards.

A humorous moment in the PEOPLE’S CLIMATE MARCH video comes when Greg Hamra is wearing his purple octopus costume. Greg’s costume represents when an octopus washed up in a Miami, Florida parking garage in November 2016 during one of the highest “king tides” during the year. A high tide no doubt made worse by sea level rise caused by climate change. Greg’s flamboyant costume caught the attention of billionaire Richard Branson who was attending the march with Al Gore. The video shows Richard Branson getting his picture while shaking hands with Greg wearing his octopus costume. Greg steals the show in this video. Not only with his costume, but also with what he has to say.

I have known Greg for years, primarily through Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL). I met him in person when we were attending the CCL Conference in Washington, D.C. in November 2015. We total agree on the actions needed to solve the climate crisis. Thus, I fully applaud what he says on this video.

Greg stated: “Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a 60,000 plus volunteer organization and we are the only NGO (nongovernmental organization) that’s solely dedicated to educating members of Congress about economically viable solutions to climate change. A lot of people are emersed in personal lifestyle greening. We’ve been doing that for 40 years. We are losing the war…

What we need is political will for a livable world. It’s not enough to change your lightbulbs. We must change our leaders and our laws…

Poking holes in the planet, to set on fire what comes out to power our industry, buildings, and vehicles. We have to reduce our emissions. So, there is no amount of personal lifestyle greening that you are going to do that’s going to stop that. There’s one thing that will and that’s putting a price on carbon. A tax or a fee and returning the money to citizens. That’s one way to do it. A carbon fee and dividend. Some people say that you shouldn’t call it a tax if the government is not allowed to keep it. And if you return it back to citizens and money goes back into the economy, that’s good for everyone.

Protesting, shouting, complaining, marching. Is it effective? Maybe. Maybe not. When it’s The People’s Climate March and there’s 400,000 people and it’s all over the media, I think there’s an impact to that. That’s one day a year ago and (today) and last week, the Science March. But, if we don’t take that and get active and all we are doing is just spending our time making ourselves feel good (he demonstrated patting himself on the back) by changing our lightbulbs, taking a shorter shower, and taking our bikes to work, and getting loud once in a while, and carrying a placard in the street, and you don’t know your representative. Wait! And, they don’t know your name, you’re not doing a good job.”

To make his point even more clearly to the audience at home, Greg stopped looking at the interviewer and looked directly into the camera to say: And you don’t know your representative. Wait! And, they don’t know your name, you’re not doing a good job.”

That final sentence in Greg’s long statement for the camera is the best advice I have ever heard for climate action. This is something for all of this to ponder: Do you know who your U.S. Senators and your member of the U.S. House of Representatives is? Do you know who your state legislators are? Greg’s words have been bouncing in my head ever since I saw this 2017 video.

The Importance for Climate Action of knowing the name of your Member of Congress

Greg had reinforced something I read in 2013 edition of Sam Daley-Harris’ book, Reclaiming Our Democracy: Healing the break between people and government. Sam Daley-Harris is the founder of RESULTS, an anti-poverty and anti-hunger NGO that regularly lobbies Congress since 1980 to fund tens of billions of government funding for the fight against poverty and hunger. In the first chapter, Sam writes about speaking hundreds at high schools in 1978 about world hunger. He was talking about building “political will” to end hunger. He wrote:

“I didn’t have any sense of what “political will” was, but I knew it might start with a basic awareness of who represented us in government. So, at the beginning of the first class, I asked 25 students a simple question. The responses changed my life.

The question was: ‘Who knows the name of your member of Congress?’ I added: ‘I don’t want to know if you’ve written them or met them, just their names.’
Five hands went up.
‘Only five hands?’ I thought.
But it got worse. I called on the first student. He named the governor.
‘No’ I said, ‘I’m looking for the name of the person who serves you in the U.S. House of Representatives.’

He didn’t know. Four out of 25 did. In the next classroom none of the 28 students knew. I was hooked. Over the next two years, 1978 and 1979, I asked 7,000 high school students to name their member of Congress¬––200 knew the answer, 6,800 didn’t. Later, when RESULTS started and things got difficult, this experience served as part of my foundation, part of my grounding. It gave me a direct sense of what needed to be done. We had to find a way to generate the political will–¬–we had to teach the skills of democracy and acquaint people with their government, starting at the most basic level. The seed had been planted.”

RESULTS volunteer Marshall Saunders asked Sam Daley-Harris to advise him when Marshall founded Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) in 2007. Marshall wanted to try to duplicate the success of RESULTS had in successfully lobbying Congress to fund billions of dollars in anti-poverty programs. Marshall wanted Sam to mentor him to copy the ongoing lobbying success of RESULTS so CCL could persuade Congress to pass effective climate legislation. Sam was happy to coach Marshall. When I first became involved with CCL in 2012, they often talked about Sam. CCL would sometimes invite Sam come in as a guest speaker on their monthly conference calls and Washington D.C. conferences to share his wisdom.

Thus, CCL inspired me to read Sam’s book Reclaiming Our Democracy soon after I joined them in 2012. CCL trains its volunteers, such as Greg Hamra and me, to develop positive relations with our members of Congress and their staffs to try to urge them to pass CCL’s policies to address climate change, primarily a carbon fee and dividend. With my involvement in CCL, I started meeting with the staff of my members of Congress as far back as August 27, 2013.

My first attempts at lobbying Congressional Offices for Climate Action

After I became involved in CCL in May 2012 while spending the winter in St. Louis, Missouri, I was determined to launch a chapter in southern Oregon, preferably Ashland, Oregon. While working as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, I loved driving down to Ashland on my weekends to do my grocery shopping and see friends. I noticed that it had a very progressive, save-the-earth vibe that would be perfect for an active CCL chapter. I networked during the summer of 2012 with various Ashland folks who were concerned about climate change to see if anyone would be interested in forming a CCL chapter. I did find some interested folks who formed a chapter in January 2013.

At that time, the chapter was led by Susan Bizeau. During the summer of 2013, Susan pushed hard to have meetings with the district staff of Republican Congressman Greg Walden (OR-02) and Democratic U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon. I drove an hour and a half from Crater Lake to these district offices in Medford, Oregon to join them in their lobby meeting. I remember it as a fun and empowering experience, even if we could not find much agreement in our meeting with Walden’s Deputy Chief of Staff. Merkley’s staff was pleasant and totally agreed with us that climate change is a huge concern. However, they did not seem to have much to say about the carbon fee and dividend policy.

As the expression goes, ‘Rome was not built in a day.’ This lobby meetings showed me that it was going to have to take a lot more relationship building, encouraging more constituents to write letters and contact their members of Congress, and more lobby meetings before either of these offices could begin to shift their positions to support carbon fee and dividend.

Following the positive experience of lobbying in Oregon, I first lobbied the district office of my Missouri Republican member of Congress, Rep. Ann Wagner (MO-02), on February 14, 2014. That meeting was 9 years ago. I don’t have memories of what was said in that meeting, since so much time has passed. However, I remember it being a great experience that we respectfully listened to Rep. Wagner’s staff, and they listened to us. We agreed to meet again in the future to have more discussions. I remembered the staff telling us that they had received a ‘biggest pollutor’ award from the Missouri Sierra Club, which was just handed to the office and then the local Sierra Club just left. Wagner’s office much preferred CCL’s approach to listen and try to find common ground.

For me, it felt like the most empowering thing I could do for climate action was to have these lobby meetings with the staff of my member of Congress to urge them to pass legislation for climate action. It mystified me then and today why more people who are concerned about climate change do not call, email, write letters, and lobby their members of Congress. Yes, I have enjoyed over the years marching in the streets with thousands of other climate advocates and attending a street protest now and then. However, I always wanted to do something to act on climate on a much deeper level. As much as possible I want to be in The Room Where it Happens as they sang about in the Broadway Musical Hamilton:

No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in the room where it happens

No, I was not planning to run for office. For years, I have been intrigued about being a Congressional or legislative staff person. At the very least, I wanted to be in on the Congressional lobby meetings for climate action to try to sway them to support climate legislation. As I blogged about after my first lobbying trip to Washington D.C. in 2015, there are frequent protests outside of the Congressional Offices Buildings and the U.S. Capitol Building. Enough protests that Congressional staff do not really pay attention. They even know which building exits to leave to avoid them. Thus, to me, it always seemed more effective to be meeting with Congressional staff and even face to face meetings with members of Congress than just protesting.

I do get that many climate advocates think it is a waste of time to lobby because their members of Congress are conservative Republicans who are resistant to passing climate legislation. Or their members of Congress are progressive Democrats who already agree with them that climate legislation must be passed. In both cases, they think, ‘Why bother?’ However, I have my own response to that. After I moved to Portland, Oregon, I created this meme on social media to respond to those excuses:

Over the years, I really have enjoyed lobbying Congressional offices with Citizens’ Climate Lobby since 2014 and lobbying state legislators in Oregon since 2018. When I spent my winters in St. Louis, Missouri up until 2017, I would regularly meet with the staff of my Republican member of Congress. The staff would tell me how much they enjoyed meeting with me. They even expressed disappointment when I shared in June 2017 that I had moved to Oregon and would no longer be lobbying their office. They said I was still more than welcome to participate in future lobby meetings with the office. No, I didn’t persuade them to support any climate legislation, but I still learned a lot.

Behind closed doors, they admitted to me that they knew that climate change is real and a threat to our economy and health. They shared that they would be following what happened with the United Nations COP (Conference of Parties) Conferences, COP21 in Paris, France in November 2015, where delegates from nations across the world would be negotiating international agreements for climate action.

Even more, they expressed some interest in the CCL carbon fee and dividend policies that I lobbied their offices to support. However, they would share that they did not get phone calls, emails and letters from constituents urging them to support that policy. Even more, they had concerns about getting in front of their conservative most loyal voters. Thus, they wanted to make sure that we were engaging them and persuading them before they could support such a policy. I thought that was a fair and square demand. They wanted to see there was “political will” before they felt like they could bravely go out on a limb to support our policy.

As Sam Daley-Harris discovered in the late 1970s, members of Congress need to see “political will” before they would decide to support a certain piece of legislation or policy. I always felt like I learned so much from lobbying.

In the 2017 People’s Climate March video, my friend Greg Hamra said it so beautifully and succinctly about the importance of lobbying: “(if) you don’t know your representative. Wait! And, they don’t know your name, you’re not doing a good job.”

Thus, there is another part of the formula or secret sauce. It is not enough to regularly lobby your elected officials, you should be lobbying and engaging with them enough that they know your name.

The Congressional Management Foundation’s insights on lobbying members of Congress

In November 2015, I attended a CCL conference in Washington D.C. The guest speaker was Brad Fitch, deputy director of the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF). Their mission is to work directly with Members of Congress and staff to enhance their operations and interactions with constituents. build trust and effectiveness in Congress. CMF also works directly with citizen groups, such as CCL, to educate them on how Congress works, giving constituents a stronger voice in policy outcomes. In addition, Brad Fitch from CMF spoke at the June 2017 CCL Conference in Washington, D.C.

At the 2015 CCL Conference, I remember Brad Fitch shared a compelling story about a conservative Republican member of Congress meeting directly with a constituent who is struggling with a disease. Before he met with that constituent, he had every intention of voting against that bill that would provide funding for medical research to find cures for that disease. However, after he met with that constituent, heard their story, got to know the person, and learned their name, that member of Congress could not bring himself to vote against that bill.

The lesson was that impactful stories directly from a constituent can move members of Congress. It can be the most effective tool to change the mind of a Congressperson. During his presentation, Brad showed a survey poll of Congressional staff asking them, “If your Member/Senator has not already arrived at a firm decision on an issue, how much influence might the following advocacy strategies directed to the Washington office have on his/her decision?”

The top answer by far from Congressional staff was that 46% said an in-person visit from a constituent would have “A lot of influence.” This was a huge margin over 8% of Congressional staff saying that a lobby visit would have “A lot of influence.” Thus, Sam Daley-Harris and Brad Fitch held vital messages for me that it is so important to know who our members of Congress are are and to regularly engage them. Greg Hamra’s cemented that point further that they should know us and our names for those key moments when they are deciding to support specific climate legislation bills.

Thus, after Greg Hamra’s statement on the 2017 People’s Climate March video, I made it my mission in life that I was going to show up to lobby my members of Congress and state legislators that they would know my name. Even more, they would know my name when deciding to support which pieces of climate legislation.

My determination that my congressman and state legislators will know my name

Just a few days after the 2017 PEOPLE’S CLIMATE MARCH was released on YouTube, I wrote a letter to my member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR-03) in early June 2017. In the letter, I thanked him for his leadership in the U.S. House of Representative for introducing a carbon pricing bill and strongly voting for climate legislation. I then shared my history of working as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park for 25 years. I wrote how I saw the impacts of climate change there with the annual average snowpack diminishing and the summer fire season getting more intense. Therefore, I urged him to support the carbon fee and dividend policy to address climate change.

One week later, I attended a CCL conference in Washington D.C. and was part of a group of CCL volunteers that lobbied his office. During the meeting, Blumenauer’s Energy and Environmental Aide told me that Congressman Blumenauer had seen my letter and had appreciated me writing to him. It felt good that Rep. Blumenauer read my letter and wanted to pass along to his staff during the lobby meeting to let me know he had read it.

Since then, I ran into Rep. Blumenauer numerous times at various events and even attended an in-person lobby meeting with him in Portland, Oregon in October 2019. I am not sure if he knows who I am by now. He has never called me by my name or acted like he remembers me from previous encounters. Still, he sees so many people in Washington D.C. and Portland, Oregon that many people and names becomes a blur after a while. Having said that, I am still grateful that I have put myself out there to promote climate solutions when I see him. No, I was not able to persuade him yet to support carbon fee and dividend or specifically the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA). At the same time, no one else has had success to convince him to support carbon fee and dividend or specifically the EICDA. For me, trying but not yet succeeding feels much better than not trying at all.

In the summer of 2018, I started volunteering with Renew Oregon with their efforts to work closely with Oregon state legislators to pass a cap and invest bill. For Renew Oregon volunteers like me, much effort would be needed to regularly lobby state legislators to urge them to make passage of the cap and invest bill a high priority. That summer fellow CCL and Renew Oregon volunteer met with our Democratic nominee for Oregon Senate, Shemia Fagan. The meeting went amazingly well, and she indicated that she would be a strong supporter of the cap and invest bill, which she was. I always had wonderful interactions with her and her staff. She knew me by name and knew me as a constituent who wanted strong climate policies passed.

Because of the solid relationship I built with her, I was proud to co-host a Zoom fundraising house party for her in October 2020 when she ran for Oregon Secretary of State and won in the November 2020 election. All indications are that she is performing well as Oregon’s Secretary of State. She still seems to be a rising star in the Oregon Democratic party. Who knows if she will have a future opportunity to run for Congress, U.S. Senate, Governor of Oregon, etc. She has certainly proved she is a talented, energetic, charismatic, and successful political leader. If so, I know she would be a strong climate champion from my past conversations with her.

That summer, I also started writing 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. I always enjoyed my interactions with him. We had a great rapport. He even showed me some tricks on my iPhone for taking selfies before we took a selfie. Diego was always very supportive of my climate lobbying and organizing. We met for coffee in December 2018 and 2019 to discuss his support for the cap and invest legislation for the upcoming legislative sessions.

Periodically, I would send him letters and cards urging him to support the cap and invest bill, which became known as The Clean Energy Jobs Bill or HB 2020 in the 2019 Oregon Legislative session. From my conversations with him, I had no doubt that he would be a final yes on these climate bills. If he perceived there was strong environmental justice measures in these bills, he was a strong advocate to support them. I would still write to him though to keep the bill on his radar, to know that he has constituents behind him to support strong climate legislation, and to serve as an example to others.

On February 6, 2019, Renew Oregon had a lobby day at the Oregon state Capitol to meet with the state legislators to urge them to support The Clean Energy Jobs Bill. When I met with Rep. Hernandez inside his office, he said, ‘Look right behind you, Brian.’

When I looked right behind me on his bulletin board, he had attached with push pins all the letters I sent him over the previous months. There were at least 3 letters from me. Apparently, Diego liked to display letters from constituents, and most of the letters tacked up on the bulletin board were from me. This showed me very clearly that elected leaders do read letters from constituents and hang on to them when considering policy decisions and votes.

Rep. Hernandez laughed with delight as I was amazed seeing my letters and taking pictures of them hanging from his bulletin board. In my climate PowerPoint presentations later that year, I would stress as an effective climate action of writing to your elected officials. I shared the story of Diego hanging my letters on his bulletin board and show the picture. It would get a big laugh from the audience that most of the letters were from me. I have friends who have seen my climate change talks from 2019 who still talk about those images to this day.

Rep. Hernandez continued to be very supportive of my climate lobbying and strongly supporting the climate bills I advocated. He probably would have supported those bills even without my lobbying. However, I think he liked that he had constituents like me cheering him on and strongly urging him to support climate legislation.

Unfortunately, Rep. Diego Hernandez resigned from office on March 15, 2021 due to sexual harassment charges filed against him from staff and lobbyists at the Capitol. The House Ethics Committee planned to recommend a House floor vote to expel him. It is important to believe the women and I thought he should be fully accountable for his actions. I was very disappointed that he did not act in a professional manner towards women in his position of power. I considered him to be a friend. I texted him on the day he resigned to offer that I am there for him if he ever wanted to talk. It was sad and totally understandable why he had to resign from the legislature.

Relationships with Oregon legislators with SJM 5 Resolution and ongoing to this day…

The good news was that I had also built up very good relations with other state legislators in the Oregon House and Senate. As I blogged about previously, during the summer of 2020, I started meeting by Zoom and phone with Oregon Legislators that I had met during my lobbying for the cap and invest bills in 2019 and 2020. As a Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) volunteer, I urged them to endorse the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA).

As I organized CCL volunteers across Oregon, we successfully urged over 30 Oregon legislators to endorse the EICDA by early 2021. September 17, 2020, I met by phone then Rep. Tiffiny Mitchell to ask her to endorse the EICDA. In addition to her endorsement, Tiffiny asked if she could introduce a statewide resolution supporting the bill. Because of a great rapport I had built up with Senator Michael Dembrow and his friendship with Tiffiny Mitchell, he proudly introduced the resolution on the Oregon Senate floor 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 Republican Senate caucus, joined with all the Democratic Senators present to vote to support SJM 5. Unfortunately, SJM 5 fell short of receiving a floor vote in the Oregon House in June 2021. The exciting part was that 30 House members, including 7 Republicans, signed on to co-sponsor SJM 5. The Oregon House has 60 members. Thus, half the chamber were co-sponsors of SJM 5.

Even though House Democratic leadership did not allow for a vote on SJM 5 because they thought it was “too bipartisan,” all the House co-sponsors who supported SJM 5 showed we could have easily passed this resolution through the Oregon House.

Many these co-sponsors that signed on because of Zoom lobby meetings and phone calls I had with them. Many of these state legislators still knew my name from the 2019-20 lobbying I did for the cap and invest bills. Getting to know many of these legislators and the positive efforts that many legislators took to help with this effort was a fantastic experience, even if SJM 5 failed to get a floor vote in the Oregon House.

In the middle of this lobbying effort, my new Oregon Representative and Senator turned out to be very supportive. In January 2021, Shemia Fagan resigned as my Oregon Senator to become Secretary of State. Community organizer Kayse Jama was appointed as the Senator replace Shemia soon afterwards. Before his appointment as Oregon Senate, he called me in January 2021 to get to know me. After Kayse Jama was appointed, I met with him, and he seemed positive about supporting SJM 5.

During the April 7th Oregon Senate floor vote on SJM 5, I still had his personal cell number from his January phone call. I texted him to thank him for his vote. He texted back with a very lovely response, “NO! Thank you for all your advocacy! It was my pleasure to vote for this.”

When I saw Senator Jama at an Oregon Democratic Party fundraiser in December 2022, I mentioned to him that I hoped to meet in January to discuss top priority climate change bills. He responded that he always enjoys meeting with me to hear about about climate bills that are important to me. He seems to take my views into consideration. He would probably vote for these bills anyway but seems happy that he has constituents like me advocating for these bills.

In January 2021, a friend talked me into briefly becoming a Multnomah County Democratic Party Precinct Committee Person (PCP). When Diego Hernandez resigned in February 2021, the Multnomah County Democratic PCPs were scheduled to take a vote for a recommendation to the Multnomah County Commissioners to appoint a replacement. In early March, only one candidate called me, Andrea Valderrama, to ask for my vote.

It was a great phone call. She immediately impressed me that she would be an excellent Oregon Representative for my district. Even more, she took an interest in me as a community member and person to learn about my interests. I mentioned to her about the SJM 5 resolution. She immediately took an interest in supporting it and co-sponsoring it. In her earliest days as an Oregon Representative, she was very helpful in co-sponsoring SJM 5.

More recently, Oregon Legislators representing the nearby Gresham area, have asked me which climate legislation I would be supporting for the 2023 Oregon Legislative session. They know me by name. They have told me that they like to converse with me about climate legislation when they see me at community events, their town halls, and lobby meetings.

Thus, Greg Hamra’s advice, ‘Do you know the names of your members of Congress and state legislators? Wait! Better yet: Do they know your name?’ is still bouncing around in my head 6 years later and having a huge impact on me.

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

This was a very intriguing question posted to me by my friend Pete Peterson on December 5, 2011 on Facebook. I had just posted an update attending the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in San Francisco, California, one of the most prestigious annual scientific conferences in the world. I was there to network and see the presentations of the world’s best climate scientists and communicators in the world.

At that time, Pete was a Supervisory Park Ranger at Grand Canyon National Park. I knew Pete from when both of us worked for the National Park Service at Crater Lake National Park from 2003 to 2005. We had struck up a friendship and had reconnected just a couple of years before on Facebook. I was at AGU to see if it could lead to new opportunities for me as a climate change communicator. Although Pete was not attending AGU, an opportunity like what Pete was throwing out to me was something I hoped could be gained by spending time at this AGU.

In the previous two years, I had developed the www.climatechangecomedian.com website in 2010 and I started giving my climate change evening ranger program at Crater lake National Park in August 2011. Pete was following my developments as a climate change communicator and giving climate change ranger talks at Crater Lake. He shared my deep concern about climate change. He thought my efforts could be helpful to inspire the park rangers he supervised at the Grand Canyon to chat with the public more effectively about climate change.

My first two times seeing the Grand Canyon

I latched onto Pete’s invitation because I loved Grand Canyon National Park. I first saw the Grand Canyon on a family cross country vacation in the summer of 1987 and thought is was stunningly beautiful. Afterwards, I jokingly said that we did the Clark Griswald 1983 Vacation Movie thing of just visiting the south rim of the Grand Canyon National Park for a few hours. I recall we were only at Grand Canyon Village (or Canyon Village as the park employees like to call it) on the south rim for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, we had a lot to see on this very long looping road trip from St. Louis to Denver, Rocky Mountain National Park, Salt Lake City, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Las Vegas and then back home.

We were there on a beautiful sunny day, late in the afternoon and we only had a couple of hours there before we need to drive a couple of hours to Flagstaff to spend the night. The late afternoon sun seemed to shine a light on the beauty and cast dark shadows of the canyon formations. Although it was way too quick, we relished the time we got to there and I vowed to return for a longer visit.

After I graduated from college in 1992, I worked summers at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon and winters in Everglades National Park, Florida. Working in the national parks, inspired me to fall in love with all the national parks. I wanted to see as many of them as I could during the travel times in April and October when I traversed across country on road trips from Crater Lake to the Everglades. My first girlfriend and I traveled to see Grand Canyon National Park in October 1995.

This time, we made a point to spend the night in lodging at the most inexpensive place at Canyon Village to give the national park a bit more time than when I saw it on our family vacation in 1987. This time, my then girlfriend and I drove the entire length of the Desert View Drive, which skirted along the south rim 23 miles from Canyon Village to Desert View. Like my first visit in July 1987, it was a clear sky and lovely day to take in the magnificence of the Grand Canyon.

In the years that followed, I kept bouncing back from Crater Lake National Park, Oregon to Everglades National Park, Florida, driving a different cross-country trips in between to see other national parks and scenic places. I had always wanted to return for a visit to the Grand Canyon, but I didn’t seem to have the time in at least other trips that I drove across Arizona.

Hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in December 2009

In December 2009, I visited my friends Steve and Melissa who lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, on a cross country trip from Oregon to St. Louis. Steve worked as a back country law enforcement ranger at Grand Canyon National Park. The three of us became good friends spending several winters as next-door neighbors in Everglades City while working in Everglades National Park. During my visit, we were swapping ranger stories from our experiences working in the national parks.

At one point, Steve just said to me out of the blue, ‘Would you like to hike to the bottom of Grand Canyon National Park?

“Yes!” I quickly responded. “I would love to do that someday.”

“No,” Steve sighed. “I am talking right now, while you are visiting us.”

“But, I don’t have backpacking gear,” I sheepishly confessed.

Steve then explainded, “I will set you up with a backpack and all the equipment. You will spend the night at the Phantom Ranch Ranger Station at the bottom. There’s a guest room there at the law enforcement housing there where you will stay. You will just need to bring a change of clothes and lots of food.”

Immediately, my gut told me that this was a once-in-a lifetime experience that I could not refuse, so I instantly said yes. Steve went to the grocery store with me to help me stock up on lots of food. He advised me that I will be burning a lot of calories hiking down and then back up the trail. Thus, he recommended that I bring the amount of food I would normally eat, plus 20% more for the energy my body would need. Even more, he recommended lot of carbohydrates such as crackers, bread, etc. that will keep me fueled up and retain water. His advice was vital since I did not have a clue how to hike the Grand Canyon. I adhered to every tip he gave me.

Steve even generously lent me his YakTrax Traction Device or “shoe chains” to slip over my hiking boots for the upper part of the trail. I just shorten the name to “YakTrax” whenever I use them. Canyon Village is over 7,100 feet above sea level. It had snowed there recently. Thus, the upper part of the trail was a sheet of ice with well over 1,000-foot drop offs on one side of the trail. When I started walking the trail, those YakTrax were a life saver because the ice did not look forgiving at all. It wanted to cause one to slip and go shooting off the edge. With the YakTrax and my trekking hiking poles, I felt I was in full command of the icy trail. The YakTrax helped me feel like I was walking on a hard dirt surface.

Steve advised me to park my car at Canyon village near the Bright Angel Trailhead. I would then ride a free shuttle bus from Canyon Village a couple of miles to the South Kaibab Trailhead. I was there one week before Christmas, and I was amazed how many other hikers and backpackers were using the shuttle bus and were at the trailhead. The Grand Canyon bus shuttle felt more like an airport city bus service at rush hour. Even more, it was fascinating to see all the people at the South Kaibab trailhead with their hiking and backpacking gear, probably most of them knew a lot more about how to plan for this trip than I did.

By this time, I had worked 17 years in the national parks. During much of that time, I had issued backcountry permits to visitors wanting to overnight backpack in Everglades National Park. The park trained me on the advice to give the back country campers on the gear they would need and how much time to allow to travel to various backcountry camp sites. Thus, I knew some, but my lived experience was still very little. I did join friends and co-workers on overnight canoe trips in the Everglades and once I overnight backpacked with a girlfriend in Redwoods National Park. As long as someone else planned all of these trips and lent me some of their gear, I was always a ‘yes’ to do a trip like that. As far as me planning an overnight backpacking trip, never.

I had grown very spoiled to hiking on day trails in the national parks and then returning to sleep in my park housing comfortable bed at night. I also enjoyed staying in a motel in or near a national park to do day hikes and sleeping in a comfortable bed at night. Or I would visit a friend during a cross country trip who lived in or near a national park to do day hikes and then stay in their spare bedroom at night. The closest to ‘roughing it’ for me was driving my car to a park or nearby campground, pitching my tent, and then hiking all day in a national park. Even when I was camping in a tent, I would still go out of a nice meal at a lodge restaurant in a national park or eat in a nice restaurant for dinner and breakfast in a nearby town.

Thus, when I was seeing all these serious backpackers and hikers on the shuttle bus and at the South Kaibab Trailhead, I got a momentary churning in my stomach with an internal voice saying to me: ‘What the hell are you doing? You are out of your league!’

At the same time, I was in safe hands with Steve. He loved his job of working as a backcountry ranger at the Grand Canyon and regularly hiking down and up the canyon. He knew exactly what I needed to pack and which trails to use to have an excellent trip. Steve was one of the smart rangers I had met. A man of great intelligence and a very deep thinker. He really should have been a scientist. Sometimes, I felt intimidated by all of his knowledge, but honored that he would let me hang around him as a friend. With Steve advising me on this trip, I felt like a pro.

As far as trail options, Steve advised me to take the South Kaibab Trail down and then return the next day on the Bright Angel Trail. The South Kaibab Trail is considered much more scenic than the Bright Angel Trail. From the Canyon Village trailhead to Phantom Ranch, the South Kaibab Trail is 7.4 miles long and has an elevation drop over 4,900 feet. The Bright Angel Trail is 9.9 miles long and has an elevation drop of almost 4,500 feet. Thus, the Bright Angel Trail is a bit less strenuous and steep going back up to Grand Canyon Village.

I started down the South Kaibab Trail late morning on December 20, 2009, just five days before Christmas and around the time of the winter solstice. It looked like winter at the top with the upper portion of the Grand Canyon covered and snow. There was high wispy clouds that made the sky looked overcast. It looked and felt like winter at the upper part of the Grand Canyon.

As I walked down the trail, the beauty of the Grand Canyon was beyond words. For the previous four summers at Crater Lake National Park, I had walked down and up the Cleetwood Trail once or twice a week to narrate the boat tours as a park ranger. The Cleetwood Trail is 1.1 miles long and drops in elevation around 700 feet and has some lovely views of Crater Lake. The Cleetwood Trail is noted as a strenuous trail in Crater Lake information sources, not recommended for visitors with health issues. At 7.7 miles long and an elevation drop the South Kaibab Trail felt like ‘many Cleetwoods’ with the physical exertion going down the trail with many incredible views. It felt like every time I turned a corner on a switchback on the trail, I got a new view of the Grand Canyon. I could not take enough pictures.

This was a life changing experience and one of the highlights of my life to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. This was something that I hoped to do in my wildest dreams, but I probably would not have been able to do without the connections of my friend Steve. He set up the backcountry permit for me, got me a reservation at the spare bedroom at the ranger station, loaned me the gear, advised me on what food and trails to take, and gave me the confidence that I could do this. I will always be grateful to my friends Steve and Melissa for this opportunity.

There were surprises on this trail such as tunnels, especially as one gets close to the bridge that goes across the Colorado River. Except for the occasional planes flying overhead and hikers that I ran into less and less the further I got down the trail, it was a very peaceful and quiet experience. I had also never been on a trail with so many switchbacks on a trail. Even more, this was the most water bars I had seen on a trail, especially the last couple miles of the trail. A water bar is defined as a rounded wooden or rocky ridge in the trail or ridge and channel constructed diagonally across a sloping road or utility right-of-way that is subject to erosion. Used to prevent erosion on long, sloping right-of-way routes by diverting runoff at selected intervals.

With the steepness of the South Kaibab Trail, plus the water bars, turning the trail into steep steps, I started getting shin splints or cramping on the sides of my legs on the last mile or so down the trail. It started to hurt to walk in that last mile, even though the scenery was still incredibly beautiful, and every step got me closer to the destination of Phantom Ranch. I was certainly looking forward to a good night sleep to rest my legs and I knew I was going to sleep well from all the exercise.

The bottom of the Grand Canyon was fascinating. The Colorado River made an ever present sound of water rushing by in a hurry. The foot bridges across the river almost looked like a miniature New York City span bridge, like the George Washington Bridge. I got there a half hour before it got dark to take in the scenery there. It was fun to touch the purplish colored Vishnu rocks along the trail as I got close to Phantom Ranch. Geologists consider those rocks to be almost 2 billion years old, probably the oldest rocks on Earth I have touched and seen up close. As I was losing daylight at the bottom, I photographed 4 deer foraging on grasses and leaves of the bushes along the shoreline of the Colorado River.

The two law enforcement rangers at the park housing were pleasant but surprised to see me inside the shared housing unit. I shared that their co-worker and my friend Steve Rice had reserved the extra bedroom for me for the night. They made me feel right at home as one was cooking and the other one was sitting on the couch watching TV. I brought from deep inside my backpack the packaged food for my dinner. It all tasted so good after a very big day of hiking.

Not much to do at Phantom Ranch and I was wiped out from the long hike, so I went to bed early and got a very good sleep. The next day, I woke up early but very rested, eager to complete the over 9 miles and the 4,500 feet elevation gain of the Bright Angel Trail. The weather was overcast for the second day, which was fine for me. I just didn’t want it to be cold and rainy on the slog back up the trail.

One of the changes I noticed going back up the Bright Angel Trail, as opposed to the South Kaibab Trail, was that the mule trains went up and down the trail. The first mule train I saw just had a lead rider and they looked like they were carrying supplies down to Phantom Ranch. The mule trips had a person riding on each mule down to Phantom Ranch. The riders looked so thrilled to be riding the mules, posing for pictures that I took of them. Maybe I had been hiking too long and getting delusional, but I could have sworn that some of the mules on the mule train were even smiling at me.

Lots of switchbacks going up the last few miles of the Bright Angel Trail. In a sense, it feels like you will never get to the top. It felt like I was getting closer when I started seeing the snow covering the upper Grand Canyon on the last upper mile or so on the trail. However, when I reached the trailhead of the Bright Angel Trail and soon saw my car, I was never so happy to see my car after such a long hike. I called my younger sister and a few friends from one of the rim hotels lobbies in Canyon Village to let them know that I had just conquered the Grand Canyon.

I then drove over two hours to Flagstaff to treat myself to a lovely Thai dinner, since Flagstaff has some great Thai restaurants. The next day, I woke up it was December 22nd, and I was going to have to make efficient time traveling on the road to make it home in time for Christmas to see my parents, sisters and their families. With encountering some snowy and icy road conditions in Missouri, I barely made it home on time on the evening of Christmas Eve. This first trip down and up the Grand Canyon was a fantastic experience that I did not know how I would top in my life.

Hiking the Grand Canyon, North to South Rim, November 2010.

One year later, I visited my friends Steve and Melissa in Flagstaff. This time, they had a six-week-old baby Henry and Steve’s sister was visiting to see Henry. Steve and Melissa were happy to see me, but they looked overwhelmed having a new baby. Even more, Steve’s sister was visiting, in addition to me. It looked like they just wanted to get me out of the house, and I did not blame them. Steve then suddenly asked me: “Hey Brian, would you like to hike the Grand Canyon again?”

“Sure!” I quickly responded. “I was really hoping you would ask me that again.”

Steve replied: “Since you just hiked to Phantom Ranch last time, I think you should try hiking hiking from the north to the south rim.”

“Wow!” I responded. “How would we make that work?”

Steve: “This is what I am thinking. We will drive separately to the north rim tomorrow. We will need to camp in a campground, somewhere north of the North Rim. You will park your car at the parking lot at the North Rim. Melissa will drive your car to the South Rim, to the South Kaibab Trail parking lot. It will take you about 3 days to hike Rim to Rim. I will supply you with a tent, sleeping bag, and water filter if you don’t have one. How does that sound?”

This sounded like another incredible adventure that I could not say no. The next day, we did leave Flagstaff with Steve, Melissa and Henry in one car and me driving my car. This was an impressive drive into northern Arizona. We stopped at the Navajo Bridge, which crosses the Colorado River 470 feet (143 m) above the water, spanning the steep cliffs of Marble Canyon on either side. Steve, Melissa, Henry and I stopped to walk the Old Navajo Bridge. With the high elevation of the bridge that seemed to soar above the river like a bird, I felt high anxiety walking on that bridge. I was afraid to take any pictures with the thought that a puff of wind or an unexpected bump could send my camera falling into the deep river canyon below. Thus, I clung to my camera instead of taking any pictures of this engineering marvel.

While walking halfway across the Old Navajo Bridge, I momentarily forgot my intense fear of heights. I was excited to spot some endangered California Condors nesting and hanging out under the new bridge. I bravely got out my camera while safely standing several feet back from the bridge railing. Even with the fear of heights I experienced on the bridge, I could not pass up this opportunity to take a picture. This was the first time I remember seeing and photographing California Condors, one of the most endangered bird species in the world.

That evening, we did camp north of the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. I remember that it was quite windy and even a bit cold that night. Steve, Melissa, and Henry were in a tent not far from me. Henry did cry a couple of times during the night. However, Steve and Melissa seemed thrilled to be taking Henry on his first camping trip of probably many in the future.

The next day, we drove to the parking lot of the North Rim of the North Kaibab Trailhead. There was not another car in sight. It was a huge parking lot that looks like it is probably bustling in the middle of summer. That day it looked like a deserted place that no one dares to visit this time of year. Steve and Melissa were eager to get back to Flagstaff, so I handed Melissa my keys and soon they were gone.

I actually had some fear in my stomach doing a solo backpacking trip for the first time in my life. I asked as many questions as I could before they left. At the same time, I got the feeling that they got tired of my questions and just wanted to leave. It was time for them to set me free on this journey. I was now completely on my own without another person in sight. Steve and Melissa had just given me one of the best gifts in my life. Yet, part of me was wondering: What in the hell did I get myself into?

The North Kaibab Trail was spectacular in its own way, different than the South Rim Trails. It starts at a higher elevation of over 8,000 feet, but it did not feel as steep going down, However, there were still lots of narrow switchbacks and several bridges connecting the switchbacks to wind down into the Grand Canyon. The solitude was fantastic. I don’t think I saw another person the whole time I was hiking that day. Maybe one or two other people hiking or at the campsite that evening. The only sound I heard the entire day was the late fall wind whistling through the canyon. The sound seemed to warn that winter is coming and won’t be avoided if one spends too much time in the canyon. The north side of the canyon looked lusher with some small trees, bushes and some grass than I had remembered walking on the south rim trails a year before.

I made it to Cottonwood Campground to spend the night. Not far from the campsite, Steve advised me before the trip to fill up on water for the next day, using the water filter he lent me. to get It ended up being kind of a warmish night without a cloud in the sky. The stars were fabulous without hardly any city lights. I remember pulling down the tent for part of the night just so I could fall asleep seeing the stars. The next day was a relatively flat seven-mile hike to Phantom Ranch, with some interesting short side trail to see a waterfall, Ribbon Falls. I did see a small number of hikers that day, primarily by Ribbon Falls

I made it to Phantom Ranch by late afternoon. Steve arranged for me to stay at the VIP cabin at Phantom Ranch, one of the nicest places I have stayed anywhere. This is the cabin where the park superintendent stays when visiting Phantom Ranch. Its where other dignitaries liked to stay when they hiked the Grand Canyon, such as the late Senator John McCain. Recently, it had been renovated. It felt like the Hilton there with a four-poster full size bed, a washer/dryer, automatic dishwasher, a phone and plenty of outlets to charge the battery of my digital camera, my cellphone and my iPod. Steve heavily emphasized in his authoritative law enforcement ranger voice, but also speaking as a good friend going out of a limb for me, that I will leave the cabin “as immaculate as I found it, if not cleaner.”

I could not help myself that I called my mom and my then girlfriend from the land line phone at the VIP Cottage using my long distance calling card. The reception was great as I shared with them that I was at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Phantom Ranch primarily had tent camping sites, cabins, and four hiker dormitories (two for men and two for women). It felt like I was staying at the best place by far at Phantom Ranch. I was certainly not roughing it that night.

That evening, I went to a ranger campfire talk led by a ranger named Mandy Toy. She shared how she typically works around two weeks straight in the canyon and then she gets two weeks off. The starting day of her shift is walking down the Grand Canyon and her ending shift day is walking back up the Grand Canyon. She loved her job but reflected that it gets hard on the knees. She informed us that one of her co-workers had to quit after doing that job for years because it became too hard on her knees.

The next day, I went back up the South Kaibab Trail, doing the trail in reverse from the previous year. As I walked across the bridge that goes above the Colorado River, I got to wave and briefly say hello with some of the water rafters below me. They were full of enthusiasm to be rafting down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. I then had to hike up the South Kaibab Trail, 7.4 miles from Phantom Ranch with an elevation gain of almost 4,900 feet.

With my fully charged iPod, I listened to my favorite music most of the day to motivate me to go up this steep trail while seeing and stopping for the magnificent scenery along the way. The weather was mostly sunny that day, with lots of blue sky, but still, lots of small puffy clouds for dramatic effect for photos. With the bright sun, the different colors of the rocks in the canyon seemed to pop out more to make fabulous photos.

From the year before, I learned firsthand that November and December are ideal months of the year to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. In the winter, in those months the average high temperature at Phantom Ranch is around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. In the summer, the temperature at Phantom Ranch can be well over 100 degrees. My friend Steve told me the well-worn joke at the Grand Canyon that ‘Only fools and rangers go down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the summer.’

In late afternoon, I was so happy to see my car parked not far from the South Kaibab Trailhead. Melissa and Steve did a fabulous job of getting my car their safely so I could drive it away from the canyon.

This was a life changing experience for me. It was the first time I had overnight backpacked by myself. I had really stretched myself out of my comfort zone. It was very rewarding to jump at an opportunity that may never come again and to be open to big opportunities that can appear out of nowhere. It reinforced my deep love for the national parks, the outdoors, and connecting with world class wilderness areas. Even more, it reminded me of the incredible planet where we live. Finally, it inspired me on a higher level to want to protect our planet from the threat of climate change and other human caused harms.

After this successful trip hiking from the North to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, I did not know how I would top that for a Grand Canyon experience. Fortunately, my friend Pete Peterson had an idea for me that could top that.

Giving a climate change talk to over 200 park visitors at Grand Canyon National Park

Just one year later, December 5, 2011, Supervisory Ranger Pete Peterson asked me in a Facebook post:

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

With all 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 still a huge opportunity not to be dismissed because it is Grand Canyon National Park.

Pete Peterson and I kept in touch over the next year 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 arrived the day before I was scheduled to speak driving into the East Entrance on Hwy 64. I drove on The Desert View Drive, stopping at the Desert View and other pullouts to get views of the Grand Canyon that day. The canyon looked at bit hazy, but it was still a magnificent site, bringing back great memories of hiking to the bottom just a couple of years before.

At the Desert View Visitor Center, I saw the signs advertising the upcoming ranger evening programs at Grand Canyon Village. It was exciting to see my name and ranger talk listed on the posted public announcement of the scheduled evening ranger programs.

As I arrived to stay with Pete and his wife Carrie at his home in Canyon Village in late afternoon, Pete informed me that I would be speaking at the Shrine of the Ages Auditorium in Canyon Village. Pete shared that many of nearby Grand Canyon Park rangers were excited for my talk and planned to attend tomorrow. Even more, these talks were well attended by park visitors, so I should expect an audience of over 200 people.

My talk, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, was geared for a Crater Lake audience, so we agreed that I needed to include some information about the Grand Canyon. Gulp! I only had 24 hours to learn some facts how The Grand Canyon was impacted by climate change and how the Park Service is responding to the threat of climate change. Pete had a busy day for me the next day to meet with park scientists and give me tours of Park buildings that were recently designed to be energy efficient and park friendly.

Tomorrow was going to be a very stressful day. It was really sinking in that I only had hours to learn about the impacts of climate change on the Grand Canyon and how the park was taking action to be part of the solution. I would then be presenting this information to an audience of over 200 park visitors, staff and even park scientists in the audience. Most of this park staff and scientists probably had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Grand Canyon. It felt like I had only given myself a few hours to put together and defend a masters dissertation for a huge audience. Just like each time I start my hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, part of me wondered: What in the hell did I get myself into?

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.

At the end of the day, Pete and his wife Carrie took me to see a wonderful sunset from an overlook of the Grand Canyon somewhere in the Canyon Village area. The overlook was crowded with lots of other 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 wanting to be there, even if it felt like I had to out elbow others to get a photo.

Tuesday, May 7th turned out to be me a very busy day for me. Pete first scheduled me to speak briefly towards the end of the weekly park ranger staff meeting about my efforts talking about climate change using humor. This was the first thing in the morning of a required staff meeting. I felt a little intimidated because I did not know these rangers and they didn’t know me. Pete had me speak right before the meeting adjourned, so many of these folks were eager to just start their work assignments for the day. Basically, I was nervous. I didn’t feel funny in that moment, and they didn’t feel like laughing with any humor I might have wanted to share at that moment. It did not feel like my day was off to a good start.

I had to shake off that morning experience that got off to an ok start and go with the agenda that Pete had planned for the day. One of our first meetings was with Stephanie Sutton, District Interpretive Ranger for Canyon Village. She briefed me on the science of phenology, which is the study how seasonal life cycle events for plants and animals are impacted by variations in climate. Of special concern at Grand Canyon are the gambel oaks.

According to Stephanie, with the warming climate temperatures, gambel oaks are now putting out their leaves earlier in the spring. The winter moth caterpillars then emerge earlier to take advantage of the earlier leaves. Unfortunately the Pied Flycatcher still arrives around the same time during the spring migration only to find all the caterpillars gone into their cocoon stage. As a result of no food, scientists noted up to a 90% population decline of the Pied Flycatcher.

This helped to share how climate change was impacting the Grand Canyon. It was good evidence to latch onto how climate change was impacting the trees and birds of the Canyon area. The Grand Canyon itself is hundreds of millions of years old. The rocks don’t care about modern climate change. Heck, the rocks have seen many climate changes. On the other hand, climate change can literally spell death for some of the trees and plants that calls the Grand Canyon home. Thus, I had something to point out how climate change was impacting the park’s ecosystem.

As I continued to quickly learn and cram to give my Grand Canyon Evening program that evening, I learned that Grand Canyon National Park is doing what it can to be a Climate Friendly Park. Pete showed me where The South Rim Visitor Center has multiple solar panels to provide most of its electricity. He then took me to see a large cistern tank next to the visitor center to reclaim rainwater for landscaping and restroom toilets. Pete then showcased on this tour how South Rim Village has a very convenient shuttle bus service and bike rentals so visitors can drive less and not idle in traffic jams.

Next Pete showed me the recently constructed maintenance and natural resource offices are LEED certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) by the US Green Council. According to Grand Canyon Park signage, “All new buildings in the park meet strong standards for sustainable materials and energy efficiency. Building features include:
· Passive heating and cooling
· Low-flow plumbing fixtures.
· Efficient lighting
· Recycled materials

I spent time in the park library throwing these images in talk of photos I had just taken with Pete hours early on our tour. While I was doing this, my old Toshiba laptop was periodically crashing and not cooperating. This was sending my blood pressure through the roof since it was just counting down to a couple of hours until my talk. Internally, I was really wondering what I had gotten myself into this situation. I felt way in over my head at that moment.

Around 4 pm in the afternoon, Pete scheduled for me to meet with an air quality researcher in the park. For years, The Grand Canyon was known for having poor air quality due to its proximity to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, The Navajo Coal Plant by Page, Arizona, and other sources of air pollution. The good news is that the Navajo Coal Plant, the largest coal plant in the western US when it was in operation, was demolished in 2020.

When this researcher met with me, she was devastated because she had just been ordered within the last day or two to remove her scientific air monitoring equipment from the Canyon. She had to walk into parts of the Canyon herself to remove some of the equipment. In a sense they were her “babies.” She was a mom herself and she did not know how she was going to explain this to her kids someday.

Thus, she did not know what she could share with me for my evening program happening in a couple hours about the air quality issues in the Grand Canyon. I felt sad and outraged for her. However, it was also a relief that she did not have any ready information for me since I had so much to cram in my presentation happening soon. My stress level was off the charts with my laptop computer not performing well as I was trying to piece together a PowerPoint talk in less than 3 hours. Yet, I found myself consoling and trying to give hope to this career scientist who felt very despondent in that moment. We both were extremely worried about climate change. I encouraged her to join groups that gave me hope at that time and now, Citizens’ Climate Lobby and The Climate Reality Project.

After my meeting with this researcher, my laptop worked well enough to put the final touches on my Power Point happening in less than 2 hours. I then went to the Shrine of the Ages Auditorium to meet up with Pete Peterson and another ranger that would be assisting me that evening, his name was Shawn Eccles. It turned out that he had a climate change talk that he was giving regularly at the Grand Canyon. We had time before my talk for Shawn to show it very briefly to me. It was a great talk. I asked if he could give me a copy of his PowerPoint and he very graciously shared it with me.

Pete, Shawn and I made sure my slides worked well on the big screen, which they did. I was ready for my 7:30 pm ranger talk. Pete lent me a National Park Service polo shirt to wear that evening. The program was a blur. Unfortunately, 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. Their 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. Unfortunately, I had one gentleman who was there with his wife that asked to see some of my slides. I generously pulled up some of my slides, and he started nick picking on the climate science on some of my graphs, saying, ‘That’s misleading!’ ‘Where did you get that information?’ ‘You are not showing the complete picture here.’

It took me a few minutes to comprehend that he was a climate and science denier who strongly objected to my talk. A small group of rangers waited patiently to chat with me after my talk, but they finally gave up and left as this climate denier hogged this time with me. I found the climate denier to be very draining. I should have said to him as he kept droning on with all the critiques of my talk, ‘Sir, I hope you don’t mind, I hope we can continue this conversation at a later point. However, right now I want to chat with some of my fellow rangers who came to this talk to see what they have to say.’

Finally, Pete interrupted to introduce me to a high school science teacher at the Grand Canyon who really liked my talk. Yes, there is a large enough staff and families living in Canyon Village and the surrounding area that the Grand Canyon has its own high school. We started having a great conversation. However, the climate denier was still standing next to me. He chimed in to offer his unsolicited opinion that “scientific consensus does not matter.”

The high school teacher just rolled her eyes. However, this had been a very long and stressful day for me. By this point, I had enough of his comments. I retorted, “Scientific consensus does matter. It is how we get to all our new understanding of science. It does not look like you understand the basic concept of science. I am sure that this teacher or her students would be happy to explain it to you.”

The climate denier then became more irritable. His wife gently led him out of the auditorium acting like she wanted to go home for the evening. It was great to finally to have a lovely conversation with the science teacher and another park ranger that wanted to briefly chat with me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the climate denier having a strained conversation with his wife by the auditorium entrance looking like he wanted to engage with me more, but she was not having it.

Pete later that evening told me that he thought I went too far in admonishing that park visitor and found it to be unproductive. The National Park Service really tries to maintain positive relations with the public, even when visitors disagree with NPS policies and actions. The NPS really does want park rangers to treat visitors with the upmost respect. NPS trains its frontline interpretation rangers that interact with the public in a way showing that “The Visitor is Sovereign” and has a “Visitor’s Bill of Rights:

To have their privacy and independence respected.
To retain and express their own values.
To be treated with courtesy and consideration.
To receive accurate and balanced information.”

Pete felt like I had been a bit harsh with the climate denier, even if he disagreed with everything the climate and science denier was saying. He didn’t think that debating the denier was helpful as the scientific community has already made up its mind.

I did agree with Pete that I let my conversation with the science denier go on too long, which probably led me to argue with him. By arguing with him and strongly pushing back against his opinions, all I did was alienate him. That was a shame. At the same time, I still thought it the image was funny of him hanging out at the auditorium entrance wanting to argue more with me, but his wife would not let him. I sure wish I could have heard what his wife and him were saying.

It was a very 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 day afterwards, I was able to enjoy 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 as even a more rewarding place for me with my memories of seeing it the first time with my family, hiking to the bottom twice, and then speaking to my largest audience ever about climate change.

I once worked with a ranger at Crater Lake National Park who said that he thought that the Grand Canyon just looked like a ‘giant hole in the ground. That’s it.’ I can share from personal experience that the Grand Canyon is not ‘just a hole in the ground,’ but one of the most beautiful, awe inspiring, rewarding, and challenging places I have ever seen.

“We have a hot tip for you!” my friend John Van Leer and I shared with staff of a member of Congress on June 11, 2019.

We just came out of a productive meeting with the staff of Democratic U.S. Representative Frederica Wilson, Florida District 24. During the staff indicated to us that there was a good possibility Representative Wilson could be open to co-sponsoring a climate bill we met with her office to urge her to support a climate bill, The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA).

John Van Leer and I were part of a lobby team that met with Rep. Wilson’s office during the lobby day happening with Congressional Offices as part of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) June 2019 Conference in Washington D.C. At that conference, over 1,000 CCL traveled from across the United States to lobby 528 Congressional Offices on Capitol Hill.

At that time, we lobbied members of Congress to support and even co-sponsor the EICDA. This bill would have put a fee on carbon pollution to speed up the switch to 100% clean energy. The money collected from fossil fuel companies would then go back to Americans in the form of a monthly dividend check so that all Americans could afford the transition.

As a climate organizer, I have volunteered with CCL since 2012. Thus, for years, I believed that putting a price on carbon is a top solution to reduce the threat of climate change. As long as I had been involved with CCL, they affirm that putting a price on carbon with a carbon fee and dividend is “the single most powerful tool available to reduce America’s carbon pollution.”

U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch from Florida introduced the first version of this carbon pricing bill in Congress in 2018. He re-introduced the EICDA in April 2021, with along with 28 House co-sponsors. It was a big priority since 2018 for CCL volunteers to help Rep. Deutch get more co-sponsors for this bill. Eventually, through our lobbying he enabled Rep. Deutch to have 96 co-sponsors for the EICDA.

As a very committed and enthusiastic CCL volunteer, I was personally determined to persuade a member of Congress to co-sponsor the EICDA. These CCL Congressional Lobby days happen twice a year, typically the second Tuesday in June and the second Tuesday in November. For those of us attending these conferences, we would typically have around 4 to 5 Congressional lobby meetings on Capitol Hill. CCL would generally assign a lobbying team for each meeting of around 5 CCL volunteers, with a priority for constituents of that member of Congress to attend those meetings.

CCL tries to email a schedule of which Congressional offices the attendees will be lobbying on Capitol Hill several days before the conference. This helps the volunteer participants to start planning their meetings and organizing with the other lobby team participants in advance. With these schedules, the participants know the times and locations of the Congressional Offices beforehand. This information is helpful to know where to go for the lobby day to navigate the 535 Congressional offices spread out over five office buildings.

Occasionally, CCL assigns participants Congressional lobby meetings with the note of “TBD”, meaning “To be determined.” That means the Congressional Office has not yet scheduled a time for a lobby meeting. The Congressional office usually does find a time on their schedule for the lobby day, sometimes giving the meeting time the day before. This was the case for the meeting with staff of Rep. Fredericka Wilson. I received my CCL Congressional Lobby Day schedule on Thursday, June 6th with a TBD noted.

The lobby leader for this meeting, John Van Leer, did not get a confirmed meeting from Rep. Wilson’s office until 2:21 pm on Monday, June 10th. It was set for 10:30 am the next day, Tuesday June 11th. Until I received that meeting time, I was unsure if I would fit into my schedule with the other lobby meetings that I would be attending on the lobby day. The good news is that it did fit into my lobby day schedule for June 11th. The bad news was that I was not able to make the preparation meeting for the lobby team at 7 pm on that Monday, due to other lobby prep meetings I was participating. Thus, I would be “winging it” for this meeting on Tuesday.

I was able to meet with the other five lobby team participants in front of Rep. Wilson’s Congressional office 15 minutes before the meeting started to develop a lobby plan. I had no idea before I stepped into this Congressional office that this turned out to be the most rewarding lobby meeting that I had ever attended. Since 2015, this was my 7th time attending a CCL Congressional Lobby Day on Capitol Hill. During that time, I lobbied the staff of progressive and conservative members of Congress. Before that meeting, I never had any luck persuading them to support carbon fee and dividend or the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA).

CCL heavily emphasizes to lobby participants not to share what happens inside these meetings so that we can maintain a trusted level of confidentiality with these offices. Having noted that, I still want to share what I saw in the lobby meeting since it was such an amazing experience. Besides the six CCL volunteers including me, two interns and a Legislative Correspondent, Devin Wilcox, from Rep. Wilson’s staff met with us in the meeting room in her office.

The interns and Devin asked excellent questions about the EICDA to see if this could be something that Rep. Wilson could possibly support. They were “kicking the tires” to look for any weaknesses that could be a deal breaker for them. As the meeting progressed, we got a very positive vibe from Devon. He even explained one aspect of carbon fee and dividend to the interns better than an answer that we could have given them. He seemed to be clearly on our side.

I very distinctly heard Legislative Aide Devon Wilcox say towards the end of the meeting that he felt his boss Rep. Wilson could easily co-sponsor our bill. John Van Leer and I kept chatting with Devon even after the meeting was over.

I asked Devon if he would have a conversation with Rep. Ted Deutch’s staff about the EICDA.

His response: ‘That’s easy! They are right next door.’

I told Devon that CCL has an office nearby in Washington D.C. and asked him if it was ok if CCL reached out to him. He was very agreeable and receptive to that.

When I mentioned that Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee was a co-sponsor of our bill. Devon got excited: ‘We really like her!’ He seemed very impressed that Rep. Lee was on board.

I remembered Devon wanted to get in the weeds with us on a level that the paid experts, such as Rep. Ted Deutch’s staff and CCL DC staff should be answering his questions.

John Van Leer and I left the meeting in total agreement that Rep. Frederica Wilson and her office, especially with Legislative Assistant Devon Wilcox, was amiable with our policy and bill. We agreed that Rep. Wilson was a great candidate to be a co-sponsor for our bill.

John and I both felt like ‘the iron was hot’ after our conversation with Devon Wilcox. We believed strongly that this should be on the radar of CCL Washington D.C. staff and Rep. Ted Deutch’s staff. We felt like CCL DC office and possibly Rep. Ted Deutch’s office should reach out to Devon and Rep. Frederica Wilson’s office soon.

Thus, John and I immediately walked across the hall to Rep. Ted Deutch’s office to see if we could meet with his Energy Aide, Josh. The receptionist tracked him down for us.

“We have a hot tip for you!” John Van Leer and I shared with Josh as we recalled what just happened in Rep. Fredericka Wilson’s office. This aide took notes and a keen interest from our meeting. We encouraged him to reach out to Devon as soon as possible to answer the questions that we could not.

During the lunch break at one of the Congressional cafeterias, I shared with Danny Richter, then the CCL Vice President of Government Affairs, what happened at the meeting in Rep. Wilson’s office. Danny seemed skeptical at first. He thought maybe I was exaggerating how well the meeting went. However, I did follow up with an email to Danny, including sending a screenshot of Devon’s business card.

One week later, Danny did respond to my email in a more receptive way:
“Thanks Brian,
appreciate you following up. We have a meeting with Josh scheduled to follow up on highlights from the conference, and this is on our list to discuss.
Good to see you again!
-Danny

After the June 2019 conference, I would check in with John Van Leer and other Florida CCL friends around once a month to see if they were having any success in persuading Rep. Frederica Wilson to co-sponsor the EICDA (also known then as H.R. 763). Nothing much seemed to be happening, but my Florida CCL friends appreciated when I would prod them now and then for any progress. The situation felt hopeful that if a volunteer or staff person from CCL could meet with Devin, I felt confident that we could close the deal for Rep. Wilson to co-sponsor our bill.

In January 2020, my friend, Greg Hamra, who lives in Miami, Florida, sent me an email that “Apparently Frederica Wilson is coming along.” He shared an email thread from another CCL volunteer that “This is exciting news that Rep. Wilson indicated that she is planning to co-sponsor H.R. 763”

Finally, on Febuary 24, 2020, I saw on the EICDA website that Rep. Frederica Wilson had officially co-sponsored the EICDA. It was such a joy to announce this publicly on my Facebook and Twitter. I shared that “I was (part of a team) lobby meeting with her DC office last June that helped persuade her to become a co-sponsor. This is one of my proudest moments as a #climate organizer!”

Why am I telling you this now?

To this day, this is still one of my proudest moments as a climate organizer to play a role in persuading a member of Congress to co-sponsor a climate bill. In my numerous other lobby meetings, I had no success like that. It felt like in some small way I had made some kind of difference in the world for climate action.

I meant to blog about this as soon as it happened in 2020. At that time, I was super busy lobbying on the state level volunteering with Renew Oregon to push a cap and invest bill during the Oregon Legislative session. Unfortunately, during the first week of March, Republicans walked out of the Oregon Legislature to prevent a vote, which killed the bill. This left me feeling very deflated. Even more, the COVID pandemic shutdown happened in mid-March 2020. That sent me into a very deep depression since I was no longer able to meet with people for climate action, organize events, attend lobby meetings, give climate presentations, and stay busy traveling outside of the home to act on climate.

My depression during the pandemic was so consuming that I did not write another blog entry until December 30, 2021. I am now determined to go back to tell the high and low parts of my climate change organizing story that I may have missed writing about previously over the years.

Looking back now, I feel very blessed to be able to accomplish what I have been able to achieve as a climate organizer. Now, I can say that I am very proud to be part of a team that helped persuade a member of Congress, Rep. Frederica Wilson, to co-sponsor a climate change bill.

I hope you will get involved with the climate movement to accomplish something as big or surpass me to achieve something bigger. Hopefully, you will out do me. If you do, I will be the first to congratulate you. If we can compete against each other for bigger climate actions, this will be a competition where the planet and all of us wins.