A personal blog by Brian Ettling. This online journal shows my life's evolution as a climate change communicator and speaker. Along with millions of others with the same dream, I want to inspire Americans to fully act NOW to resolve climate change.
I first attended at Climate Reality Training in August 21-23, 2012 in San Francisco, California to be trained as a Climate Reality Leader to give climate change talks. I then attended Climate Reality Trainings as a mentor in Chicago July 29-August 1, 2013 and in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in May 5-7, 2015. For me, these trainings feel like “rocket fuel,” propelling me to new heights to take more action on climate change. Thus, I highly recommend attending if you can.
Getting inspiration from Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth
July 4, 2006, (ten years ago!) a friend and I drove down to the Varsity Theatre in Ashland, Oregon to see An Inconvenient Truth. I had a deep admiration for former Vice President Al Gore for many years. I was intrigued by his 1988 Presidential campaign, which he ran in part to bring attend to environmental issues, especially climate change. I was impressed when Presidential candidate Bill Clinton picked Al Gore to be his running mate for the 1992 Presidential campaign. At the time, I still considered myself to be a conservative Republican leaning voter. I was not sure about Bill Clinton at that time, so I voted for Ross Perot in that election.
Even when I was a Republican in the late 1980s and early 90s, I still cared deeply about environmental issues. After I started working in the national parks in 1992, I was inspired to read all I could about ecology and environmental issues. While working in Everglades National Park in January 1993, I decided to read Al Gore’s book that he had written a few years before as a U.S. Senator, Earth in the Balance. The information in the book how humans are deeply impacting the planet had a profound influence on me. I remember thinking at the time: “I may be a Republican, but thank goodness Al Gore is our Vice President.”
In 1996, I voted for the re-election for President Bill Clinton largely because of Al Gore’s strong commitment to environmental issues. For years afterwards, I could not wait for Al Gore to run for President in 2000. At the time, I was working in the Florida Everglades. Needless to say, I was very crushed and depressed when Gore’s campaign fell short by just 537 votes in Florida.
Since 2000, I did keep tabs of Al Gore in the media, hoping he would run for President again in 2004. I was disappointed that was not meant to be either. However, in the spring of 2006, I was reading good buzz from the print media about this new documentary about Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth. My friend and I were blown away when we saw the documentary in Ashland, Oregon. It sparked a deeper interest in me to learn even more about climate change. I also bought the companion book from the film and rushed to get the DVD when it came out that winter.
Staring at me while I was watching the credits of the film, was the announcement to get involved www.climatecrisis.net.
I don’t recall ever clicking on that website since I did not own a computer and I had limited access to the internet at that time. Other viewers of the film did and they learned about trainings that Al Gore gave starting in 2007 to teach people how to give his slide show.
A couple of years later, my friend Amelia encouraged me to apply to be a Climate Reality Leader to be trained by Al Gore. For whatever reason unbeknown to me now, I did not think I would be qualified or worthy to apply for those trainings led by Al Gore. Looking back now, I sure wish I had applied for his training years ago. I hate to think that I could now be how much further along I would be on my path as a climate change communicator.
Gaining the courage to apply to be a Climate Reality Leader
By 2011, I finally got frustrated with myself with my timidness for being too shy to act or speak out on climate change. While working that summer as a park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, I created a new campfire ranger evening program on climate change called, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Ranger Brian Ettling giving his climate change
evening campfire program at Crater Lake National Park
For years, I was too afraid to speak up about climate change. I was scared of people wanting to argue and debate with me about the science. I was worried about getting shouted down or booed during my ranger talks, if I brought up the subject. It turns out that I could not have been more wrong. The national park audiences were very receptive and supportive of my talk. This gave me the courage to be even more brave, to step out even more on a limb and speak up about climate change.
During 2011, I finally decided to live by one of my favorite quotes:
“Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.” – Maggie Kuhn
During the summer of 2011, I googled the Climate Reality Project. I noticed Carolyn Treadway, a Climate Reality Leader in the Bloomington-Normal, Illinois area, was featured on their website. I then googled her and got an e-mail address and phone number for her business. I called her phone and sent an e-mail trying to reach out to her. Carolyn and I did chat by phone and I expressed my eagerness to be a Climate Reality Leader. Carolyn then generously contacted the Climate Reality Project to put in a good word for me to be trained as a Climate Reality Leader. At the time, there was no upcoming trainings in 2011, but Carolyn helped put me on the radar for the organization.
Brian Ettling with Climate Reality Leader Carolyn Treadway
December 4-9 2011, I was in San Francisco attending the Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference, one of the largest annual scientific conferences in the world. I was there to learn all I could about climate change by attending lectures by the world top climate scientists. On that Sunday evening December 4th, I was invited to attend a Holiday party hosted by the Union of Concerned Scientists. At that party, I struck up a conversation with Dr. Peter Joseph, a retired physician who had a deep interest in climate change like me.
I quickly learned that Dr. Joseph was a Climate Reality Project Leader. We exchanged business cards and I asked Dr. Joseph to put in a good word for me if he got word of an upcoming Climate Reality Training. That February, Peter did give me let me know about about an upcoming Climate Reality training that August in San Francisco. He did encourage me to apply. Even more, like Carolyn, Peter put in a good word for me with the organization so I would be selected.
Climate Reality Leader Dr. Peter Joseph with Brian Ettling
In late June, thanks to Carolyn and Peter’s lobbying on my behalf, I was selected to attend the Climate Reality Training in San Francisco. This was nearly one year after I had boldly decided it was time for me to get involved with Climate Reality and learn how to give Al Gore’s climate change talks.
The valuable tools and inspiration I gained by attending the Climate Reality Trainings
As I mentioned above, I gained so much knowledge, helpful communication tools and inspiration from attending these trainings.
1. I personally met many Facebook friends who are passionate about acting on climate change like me, like Dr. Peter Joseph, Carolyn Treadway and so many others. At the San Francisco conference, close to 1,000 people attended. It was a huge boost to see that I was not alone in my concern about climate change and my longing to take action. Many other people felt the same way I do.
2. The training provided great tips to share your story about climate change. One of the most notable speakers I remember was Andy Goodman, a nationally recognized author, speaker and consultant on storytelling, presenting, and strategic communications. He advised us to get comfortable sharing your story about climate in order to persuade people to take action. His advice:
“Even if you have reams of evidence on your side, remember: numbers numb, jargon jars, and nobody ever marched on Washington because of a pie chart. If you want to connect with your audience, tell them a story.”
3. The trainings are an outstanding experience to be in the same room with former Vice President Al Gore. He shares his latest climate change talk. Even more, he spends a whole day at the training breaking down his slide show to share how to explain the science and solutions of climate change to an audience. During that day long session, Al Gore shares the stage with Dr. Henry Pollack, emeritus professor of geophysics at the University of Michigan, to make sure the science of climate change is explained accurately.
In my experience of seeing Al Gore in person for the three trainings I attended, I observed Al Gore to be an excellent communicator on climate change. Even more, I found him to be a very engaging, educational, and entertaining speaker. He seemed to really understand the science, problem and solutions of climate change and, most importantly, how to relate the issue to an audience.
To see for yourself, watch this TED talk Al Gore gave earlier in 2016:
The knowledge I gained about climate change was very helpful for putting together my own climate change presentations. Since attending the 2012 San Francisco training, I estimate have given around 100 climate change talks as a park ranger, Toastmaster, and public speaker. Al Gore’s information has been very especially beneficial the continuing adult ed classes I taught on climate change at St. Louis Community College since August 2012. I even blogged about this in December 2015:
4. The training is a way you can help others become more effective taking action to reduce the threat of climate change. At the 2012 training in San Francisco, I met Dr. Lucas Sabalka. His name tag stated he was from St. Louis. At the time, he was a Assistant Professor of mathematics at Saint Louis University. When I saw Lucas was from St. Louis, I encouraged him to get involved with the St. Louis group of Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL). When Lucas returned to St. Louis, he immediately attended attended the local St. Louis CCL group meeting. In June 2013, Lucas attended the Citizens’ Climate Lobby Conference and Lobby Day in Washington D.C. At that conference, he personally lobbied the offices of his members of Congress to take action on climate change by supporting Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s carbon fee and dividend. Even more, Lucas has continued to be an active volunteer with Citizens Climate Lobby to this day.
Climate Reality Leaders Lucas Sabalka and Brian Ettling
In the summer of 2013, Lucas and his wife moved back to their home state of Nebraska. He is now active with the CCL group in Lincoln, Nebraska. On June 30, 2916, Lucas wrote this opinion editorial for the Lincoln Journal Star: Local View: An issue to unite us.
During the winter of 2012-13, Lucas and I worked closely together giving multiple climate change presentations, along with fellow Climate Reality Leader, Larry Lazar, who also trained with us in San Francisco. Larry actually organized and booked the climate change speaking events. The three of us had fun practicing these talks days before we gave them to live audiences of up to 70 people around the St Louis area.
Climate Reality Leaders Larry Lazar, Lucas Sabalka and Brian Ettling
Even more, Lucas also pushed and challenged me to step out of my comfort zone to write an opinion editorial (op-ed) for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Saturday, April 6, 2013 at the monthly CCL meeting. I immediately took up his challenge, wrote out the op-ed and submitted it to the Post-Dispatch that night. The Post-Dispatch published this op-ed on April 19, 2013, close to Earth Day: For Earth Day, a GOP free-market solution to climate change.
Since then, I have written 17 op-eds published: 5 in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and 12 in Oregon newspapers.
Meeting Lucas at the 2012 San Francisco Training was a very fortunate for me to become a better climate change public speaker and writer. Thank goodness I attended that training for just meeting Lucas.
5. At the May 2015 Cedar Rapids Training, I got to personally meet Al Gore. At one of the mentor meetings during the conference, Al Gore met with our group. I asked him the tough question that people have been throwing at me for years:
“Mr. Gore, thank you so much for this opportunity to speak to you. All of us really do appreciate it today. For years I have been giving climate change talks, especially to my Toastmasters group in St. Louis, MO. Some of them ask me questions that are very critical of you. I know we will never convince the Uncle Joe in our family or audience or accept climate change. It is a waste of time. Unfortunately, the moderate folks in our audience are being influenced by conservative Uncle Joe who listens to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. The moderates seem to be easily swayed when Uncle Joe says, ‘we cannot trust Al Gore on global warming because he flies on private jets and lives in a huge mansion.’ How should we respond to that?”
Even more, I got to get my picture with former Vice President Gore as we were getting ready to board the same plane at the airport at the conclusion of the conference. The man was clearly exhausted spending three full days leading the training. However, he could not have been more gracious and generous when I asked him if I could get my picture with him.
With my huge admiration for Al Gore with reading his book Earth in the Balance in 1993, supporting his Presidential candidacy as a Florida Voter in 2000, getting blown away by An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, remembering my excitement watching TV when An Inconvenient Truth won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for 2006 and Al Gore stood as part of the team on stage to accept it, hearing on the radio that Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and seeing Al Gore in person from the previous Climate Reality Project Trainings, it was a dream beyond belief to meet Al Gore, shake his hand, chat with him and get my picture taken with him.
As you can see, becoming a Climate Reality Leader did have a huge impact on my life. I know it can do the same for you. Do consider and do everything you can to apply to attend the Climate Reality Training in Houston, Texas on August 16-18, 2016.
Hope to see you there!
P.S. If your cannot make it Houston for the August Training, keep an eye out for another domestic United States Climate Reality that maybe happening later on in 2016.
Below is the text of my speech for South County Toastmasters delivered on April 5, 2016.
Question: Guess which country invested the most money in renewable energy, primarily solar and wind, in 2015?
According to a Bloomberg News article from January 2016, in 2015 ‘China was the biggest market for renewables, increasing investment 17 percent to $110.5 billion. That’s almost double the $56 billion invested in the U.S. By the way, all of Europe invested $58.5 billion.
One area where the competition between the U.S. and China is fierce is wind power. The non-partisan scientific news website, ClimateCentral.org, had this headline from March 2016, China, U.S. Lead Global Boom in Wind Power.
This article reported, “China built more wind turbines than any other country in 2015, adding 30,500 megawatts of wind power capacity last year, a roughly 22 percent increase over 2014. China surpassed the European Union last year in wind power production capacity after having built enough wind farms by the end of 2014 to potentially power 110 million Chinese homes.”
As of right now, the United States is ahead of China total amount of electricity currently produced by wind. In 2015, U.S. generated 190 million megawatt-hours of wind power, powering about 17.5 million homes. China clocked in at 185.1 megawatt hours. However, with all of its new installations, China could blow past the U.S. this year with total electricity produced by wind. No pun intended!
Image from Brian Ettling taken just outside Great Basin National Park in May 2012.
The article states “China has emerged as the world’s largest market for solar panels.”
It then notes, “China has long been the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels…But now China is buying a lot of its own panels, helping give the country dominance in the global solar economy.”
Image from Brian Ettling of solar panels behind the Cold Strings Station Motel,
RV Park and General Store, Cold Springs, Nevada. May 2012
In March 2014, Investment banking giant Citigroup, released a report titled, “The Age of Renewables is Beginning.” This is because of the explosive growth that has been happening for years with solar and wind energy.
We are now in the Age of Renewables and China has every intention of winning this race.
Yet, within the United States, you will often hear this argument:
We should not take any action on climate change until China cleans up its pollution.
That argument reminds me of this joke. One morning, a mother is cooking breakfast for her two sons. The kids are very hungry and impatient. One boy yells out, “I want the first pancakes!”
The other responds, “No, I do!”
This argument continues on until the mother has had enough of this fighting. She calmly says, “Boys, if Jesus was here, he would say, ‘Let my brother have the first pancakes.”
The older brother then glares at his brother and shouts, “You be Jesus!”
Image from Brian Ettling of his nephews Andrew and Sam.
China Daily, the widest print English-language circulation newspaper in China, had this editorial in February 2014, “[The government’s] inaction in the face of the heaviest air pollution in a month flies in face of their own promises and their own credibility.”
Thus, there is a lot of pressure on the Chinese government to reduce their carbon pollution. You may not know this, but China is taking action on climate change.
The latest news is that for the second straight year, coal use in China has declined. China is looking to the future. China’s President Xi Jinping stated,
“Green and sustainable development represents the trend of our times.”
With all of their investments in renewable energy that I mentioned in the beginning of my talk, China intends to beat us. As Americans, we should be very concerned. How concerned should we be?
Brian Ettling with former South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis. January 2014
In November, 2010, my friend, conservative Republican South Carolina Representative Bob Inglis had these blunt words for his fellow conservative Republicans in Congress in one his last speeches in Congress:
“I would also suggest to my Free Enterprise colleagues — especially conservatives here — whether you think (climate change) all a bunch of hooey…the Chinese don’t. And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century.
They plan on innovating around these problems, and selling to us, and the rest of the world, the technology that’ll lead the 21st century. So we may just press the pause button here for several years, but China is pressing the fast-forward button.
As a result, we may wake up in several years and say, ‘Geez, this didn’t work out very well for us.’”
Sufflolk County Community College Professor Scott Mandia with Brian Ettling, August 2012.
As Americans who love our country and want to be #1 in the world, let’s not let that happen. As my friend, Scott Mandia, professor of meteorology at Suffolk County Community College in New York, explains, in his climate change talks:
“America is great because when we are faced with a challenge and especially with a threat, we collectively take action and we usually do quite well. The energy revolution is akin to the Internet revolution. I want America to take the lead. If we do, we create jobs, we sell products to China instead of buying them, we have cleaner air and water, greater national security, and energy savings put money directly into our pockets.
Imagine it is the Olympics and the event is the Clean Energy Race. The US track team has always won the big events before and appears to be in the best shape to win again.
However, after the starting gun has fired, the American runner is just jogging while China, India, and others are sprinting. Don’t you want the American to win? There is still time for her to step it up but the window of opportunity is getting shorter every year because she is falling farther and farther behind.”
As Scott likes to ask his audience: Which you rather have, China selling renewable energy technology to the United States, or the U.S. selling clean energy technology to China?”
Brian Ettling in front of the U.S. Capitol getting ready to lobby
Congressional Offices on November 17, 2015.
Below is my speech text that I gave at St. Louis South County Toastmasters on March 30, 2016. My speech text is a short summary of the February 16, 2016 Citizens’ Climate Lobby media packet: Supreme Court stay on the Clean Power Plan.
This speech had a total time limit of 11 minutes. I had a 6 minute prepared speech, which is the first half of this blog. I then had a 5 minute question and answer period. I will then cover the questions and how I answered in the second part of the blog.
Part I
The title: Our plan for a healthy planet IS gaining traction with Congress
Good evening, volunteers of Citizens’ Climate Lobby and all of you here.
Today, I want to report on 3 things:
The recent bad news, our next step forward, and then good news.
First, Let me share the background information:
December 2015 in Paris, 195 nations agreed to limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels. This goal was based on the broad understanding that exceeding 3.6 F would result in nasty consequences such as sea level rise, food shortages, worsening storms, and extreme heat waves likely to outpace our civilization’s ability to adapt.
President Obama went to Paris promising that the United States would reduce carbon emissions up to 28 percent by the year 2025. He confidently made that pledge because of a new Environmental Protection Agency regulation, known as the Clean Power Plan. It aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions at new and existing electric power plants. A strong commitment from the U.S. was essential to getting other nations to make pledges of their own.
Image from Brian Ettling from November 2010. Navajo Generating Station, coal electric plant.
located near Page, Arizona. It’s considered to be the 3rd largest emitter of CO2 in the U.S..
Now, the Bad News.
February 9, 2016, U.S. Supreme Court voted, in a 5 to 4 ruling, to delay the implementation of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan until legal challenges are resolved.
Just how disastrous is the Supreme Court’s recent ruling?
Worse than you realize.
Court decision raises uncertainty
The U.S. Paris climate commitment was based on President Obama’s executive action. Unfortunately, it is now facing aggressive challenges in U.S. courts. This Supreme Court stay raises international doubts if the U.S. can now meet its obligations. People worldwide may worry if this regulation will eventually be upheld.
Image from Brian Ettling of the U.S. Supreme Court Building. November 2015.
With this disappointing Supreme Court action, this leads to my second point…
2. Our legislative solution is the best step forward.
What is the meaning of that ruling for us today?
• The court “stayed,” did not overrule, the Clean Power Plan.
• It is a temporary stay or hold.
• It highlights the weakness of addressing climate change through executive action.
• The Supreme Court could knock this executive action down.
• Even if the Court upholds the plan, a future U.S. President could cancel it.
• The best and most permanent solution is Congressional action, which will last across presidencies.
• This underscores the importance of our work for Congress to pass our proposal. It is market-based approach favored by economists on both the left and the right.
Image from Brian Ettling of U.S. Capitol Building, October 2010.
– This fee starts at $15 per ton of fossil CO2 emitted.
– It is placed at the source, coal mines ,oil wells, and U.S. border.
– It increases each year by $10.
– Clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade.
– All of the money collected is returned to equally American households on an equal basis.
– Under this plan, 66 percent of all households would break even or receive more in their dividend check than they would pay for the increased cost of energy. This protects the poor and middle class.
– A predictably increasing carbon price will send a clear market signal, for entrepreneurs and investors to fully invest in the new clean-energy economy.
This is a market-based solution.
Image from Brian Ettling of solar panels behind the Cold Strings Station Motel,
RV Park and General Store, Cold Springs, Nevada. May 2012
A 2014 study from Regional Economic Models, Inc., (REMI) found our policy would achieve within 20 years a 52 percent reduction in CO2 emissions and add 2.8 million jobs. In 20 years, the dividend checks would also increase household incomes for a family of four up to close to $400 a month or $4800 a year, which would more than cover the increasing fuel costs.
Sounds great, you may be thinking, but what are the chances that this dysfunctional and partisan Congress will take bipartisan action to address climate change?
Actually, there is more hope than you might think.
3. The Good News: the progress happening with Congress
1. In September 2015, GOP Rep. Chris Gibson from New York introduced House Resolution 424. This resolution states that climate change could have a negative impact on our nation and that Congress should start working on solutions.
It is now cosponsored by 12 other Republicans.
GOP Rep. Chris Gibson, NY
Image Source: wikipedia.org
2. A second breakthrough happened last month: the formation of the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus, co-chaired by Florida GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo and Democrat Rep. Ted Deutch from Florida.
With this bad news and good news, here is our take home message for you today:
The Supreme Court’s decision to delay the Clean Power Plan exposes the folly of relying solely on executive action to solve the most critical problem facing our civilization. As more Republicans express a willingness to come to the table, Congress must pass our Carbon Fee & Dividend proposal.
Our solution can bridge the huge partisan divide.
At this point, I will take questions from the audience for the next 5 minutes.
Image of Brian Ettling with his t-shirt promoting Citizens’ Climate Lobby, May 2015.
(As soon as I can upload the images from my speech into the video, I will then post my video on YouTube with a link here)
Part II
I will share below the questions I received from the audience and my attempts to answer the questions.
1. How do I forsee the dividend program continuing when the projection is that fossil fuel usage will decrease? As a result one could see that there would be less money to return to households and eventually it would not be able to sustain the increased costs of fuels.
The was a question asked by my fellow Toastmaster, Erin. While I did spend hours trying to anticipate questions that would be asked of me, I will now admit that I was stumped by this question.
Here is how I tried to answer the question on the spot:
“According to the 2014 REMI study, the dividend keeps going up.”
Since I was stumped, I tried to ask Erin if she meant if the costs of fossil fuels would be higher than the dividend at the end of 20 years.
Erin responded, “If our goal is to move away from fossil fuels and as we use less and less fossil fuels, there would be less money for the dividend.”
“That is a great question. My understanding from the REMI report is showing is that the revenue for the dividend would keep increasing. As the costs of fossil fuels would keep increasing, it would more than cover the costs. I can always get back to you on that.”
Erin still wanted to press me on the point that we would be using less and less fossil fuels. I responded ‘That is the goal to keep using less and less fossil fuels and emitting less and less carbon dioxide. At that point we will have won and the economy will have switched over to nearly 100% clean energy.’ I then reiterated my point that the dividend would more than cover the costs and I promised to get back to her on that.
Erin still wanted to keep pressing me on this. She was still convinced that the increased carbon taxes and the diminishing use of fossil fuels would cause the dividend checks to get smaller. Therefore, it would not cover the increasing costs.
I tried to respond by saying that “We would be using less and less fossil fuels and it would be covered under the fee, if that makes sense.”
Erin then argued that ‘The fee will eventually go away because we will no longer be able to pay out the dividend.’
I then tried to explain that ‘by that time we will have switched to the clean energy economy and we will no longer have to pay out the dividend.’
Fellow Toastmaster Adam then jumped into the conversation saying, ‘By then, the dividend will be diminished and there will not be enough money to cover the fee.’
At that point, a guest visiting the club then spoke out to defend the carbon fee and dividend. It was hard for me to hear his opinion because he turned his back to me to address Erin and Adam.
To regain control of the question and answer period, I then pivoted to the next Toastmaster who had a question for me.
Image of Brian Ettling during his March 30, 2016 Toastmasters Speech
The response I would like to have given:
This was an excellent question from Erin. Since I am not an economist and I do not run economic models for a living, I felt out of my league trying to answer that question. Thus, I did e-mail Scott Nystrom, Senior Economic Associate at REMI, who was the lead author of the study, for a response. If I do not hear back from Scott, I will make sure to ask staff with Citizens’ Climate Lobby more familiar with the details of the 2014 REMI study how they would have responded.
Since I have been a member of South County Toastmasters for the past five years, I have become friends with Erin and Adam. I even invited Erin and Adam to my wedding last November. Adam and I have very different on politics and climate change. I look at the world through a very strong progressive view with a strong acceptance of climate change. Adam considers himself to be a strong libertarian and he is very doubtful of human caused climate change. We have struck up a friendship through Toastmasters. I have even sought out Adam’s advice for my climate change speeches to be able to better reach his segment of my audience. Adam and Erin are dating. In conversations with Erin, she seems to agree with many of his world views. Thus, I was fully expecting to get skeptical questions from Adam and Erin.
In the past, I have met with Adam to practice my climate change speeches and draw out his questions so I would be better prepared. I debated to do this for this speech. Professional speakers do know how to better control a question and answer session where anything can happen. Some use techniques of having friends in the audience ask a question that they will know in advance how to answer. I did not want to do that trick for this Toastmasters speech because I did want to be able to fully think on my feet. I have given around 100 climate change talks over the past five years. I fielded lots of questions from the audience during these talks. Sometimes I felt I succeeded with my answers with the audience. Other times, I failed because I did not know enough information or my response ended up triggering a contentious argument with the audience member.
Adam Kutell and Brian Ettling receiving a reward from Toastmasters, May 2012.
Adam or Erin and I are probably never going to agree on climate change, the policy solutions and other political issues. However, they are still friends and want me to succeed as a Toastmaster and a public speaker. Thus, I wish could have answered Erin’s question more like this:
“Erin, that is an excellent question. Believe it or not, in my previous years of talking about climate change, Citizens’ Climate Lobby and the the REMI Report, nobody has asked me that question before today. I spent many hours trying to prepare for this question and answer period. However, you asked me one question where I will admit my knowledge is limited.
Here is my quick response to attempt to answer your question: My understanding from the REMI report is showing is that the revenue for the dividend would keep increasing over 20 years. As the costs of fossil fuels would keep increasing, it would more than cover the costs.
However, I don’t have any details beyond that so I will do more homework and get back to you. I am fully confident that economists involved with this study are aware of your concern and I have no doubt they have already addressed it.
When Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) commissioned REMI to do this study, CCL deliberately sought out REMI because they ‘are committed to quality data free of ideological taint that you might get from some think tanks.’ REMI is truly nonpartisan advising organizations from the the American Gas Association (AGA) and the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) to the National Education Association (NEA) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. They have a stellar reputation in Washington D.C. and nationally for providing impartial and totally independent economic analysis.
CCL did not attempt to influence the outcome of the report in any way. Their first priority is a livable world, and we can’t get there without an honest and clear-eyed view of the facts.
Having said that, I can still understand how you are skeptical. I would just ask that you let me dig deeper. Let me see if I can contact the author of the study, Scott Nystrom, and get back to you.
You may find this ironic or funny. I have heard from friends in Citizens’ Climate Lobby that Scott Nystrom is a staunch libertarian, like Adam. He is not a tree hugger like me. He would probably agree a lot more with you on politics than me. However, his day job and passion is running economic models. That’s it. However, since Scott has a similar perspective on economics and politics as you, I have no doubt he has already thought of your question. Let me get with Scott or others who are more knowledgable about the 2014 REMI study and get back with you.”
2. I understand you clearly said that this is a market driven solution and not government regulations. My interpretation is that it is not market based. It is not the free enterprise. Corporations are not going to freely volunteer do this. It will only happen with major rigid government controls. Can you please explain that?
This second question was from my friend and fellow Toastmaster Jim Bubash. He freely calls himself a “climate denier,” so I was not surprised that he would ask a question that was critical of my speech.
From the readings I did on the Citizens’ Climate Lobby website, I felt much better prepared for Jim’s question and more confident in my answer.
My response: “That is a great question because already ExxonMobil, Walmart, BP, etc. are already doing their own internal carbon tax. They anticipate that we are going to eventually get a carbon tax. Keep in mind that nearly 50% of global emissions of countries worldwide, they are now doing either a carbon tax or cap and trade. So, this is happening more and more on a global scale. More and more business are saying that ‘we should have a carbon tax’ and countries throughout Europe are doing it. China now has seven provinces with cap and trade. This year they are suppose to implement a nationwide (cap and trade) program. There is actually a global movement towards it. There are actually a lot companies saying that we should have a carbon tax.”
Jim was not happy with my answer, so he then reiterated:
“As far as you explained, worldwide and in the United States, wouldn’t this need major government regulations?”
I replied, “It does not (need major government regulations). It is the simplest plan you can come up with. Are you familiar with former Secretary of State George Shultz?”
“Yes,” Jim responded.
I answered, “George Shultz is on is actually in favor of our plan. He is on the Advisory Board for Citizens’ Climate Lobby. He has said (the carbon fee and dividend plan) is the simplest, most transparent, and the easiest to administer because basically you collect the fee at the source, the coal mine, oil mine or the U.S. border and you return that revenue. It is strictly passing through the government. You do not have to increase any regulations with this.
Former Secretary of State George Shultz. Image Source: newsmax.com
It is a much more efficient plan than President Obama’s Clean Energy Plan. President Obama’s plan only reduces emissions 30% over 20 years, whereas (Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s carbon fee and dividend) reduces carbon emissions over 50% (over 20 years). Thus, it is much more efficient and it uses the market to do that.”
Final Thoughts
For the final minute of my question and answer period, Cathy Bell, a guest who found out about the Toastmasters meeting from an announcement I put on the Climate Reality-St. Louis Meetup.com page, gave this comment to the audience:
“This is not a question but to really address what some people are saying. If you owned a restaurant and you dumped your garbage into the street, you would not be allowed to do that. (Garbage collection) is supposed to be factored into your cost of business that you pay someone to collect your garbage. Yet, we are letting these companies dump what this is, which is garbage, which is going to poison our planet and going to destroy this civilization and the human race. We are letting them dump their garbage into our atmosphere and poison all of us.
They should not be allowed to do that no more than you or I should be allowed to open a restaurant and dump our garbage into the street. As far as the costs going up for households, look at what is happening in California with the costs of solar. The sun is free. The costs of solar is going to come down and it is already coming down. (Unfortunately, the U.S. Government) is subsidizing fossil fuels to the tune of billions of dollars of our tax dollars.”
At this point, my 11 minutes were up, I had to cut off Cathy, end my time, and thank the audience for their time.
Friends who attended my Toastmasters speech from March 30, 2016
From left to right: Ron Trimmer, Don Diekmann, Brian Ettling, Robert Vest, and Cathy Bell.
In that final minute of my question and answer period, I did think that Cathy did a eloquent job of expressing a key point of climate scientists, economists, and climate activists. We must stop using our air supply as an unregulated and unpriced sewer to dump our carbon emissions. Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s carbon fee and dividend is just a tool to correct a market failure. This market weakness could led to very nasty consequence if we don’t act fast to reduce the threat of climate change.
Just like what I talked about in my speech, Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s carbon fee and dividend is a solution that can help create a more livable and sustainable planet.
Who here thinks they can perform heart transplant on a family member or fellow Toastmaster better than a heart surgeon?
My fellow Toastmasters I am here today to tell you that I would not recommend myself if you need urgent heart surgery. You may be surprised by this, but I do not have the skills, knowledge and experience to operate on your heart safely. Instead, I have been working as a seasonal park ranger for the past 20 years.
Ironically, one of I the things I quickly learned when I started giving ranger talks is that people expect park rangers to know everything, don’t you?
Around 18 years ago, I was giving ranger talks in Everglades National Park, Florida. Visitors started asking me about this global warming thing. Visitors hate when park rangers tell you, “I don’t know. ” As soon as I could, I rushed to the nearest Miami bookstore and bought the first book I could find. It was Laboratory Earth: the Planetary Gamble We Can’t Afford to Lose, by the now late climate scientist Dr. Stephen Schneider of Stanford University. At that time, Dr. Schneider was considered to be one of the top and most respected experts on climate change in the world. I soon became hooked reading all I the scientific books I could find on climate change.
I discovered sea level rise along our mangrove coastline in Everglades National Park. The 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.
Image from Brian Ettling of wild Greater Flamingoes in Florida Bay
in Everglades National Park in 1999.
What is causing current sea rise in Florida and globally? Currently the melting of the land-based ice in Greenland and Antarctica primarily causes it. Why is Greenland and Antarctica melting?
NASA scientists meticulously documented that the average global temperature of Earth rose 1 degree Celsius or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit from 1884 to today. They think that the current rise of temperature is due mostly due to humans burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gas. As you burn fossil fuels, carbon dioxide is released. They noticed a 43% increase of carbon dioxide in our air supply over the past 130 years.
More carbon dioxide in our air causes more extreme weather. In other words, we are putting our weather on steroids. It is contributing to drier droughts, such as the extreme 2012 Midwest drought and heat wave, which centered here in St. Louis. Who remembers that event?
Climate change also causes wetter rains and stormier storms, such as the 2016 New Year’s Day flooding we just experienced in the St. Louis area. Who was impacted by that event?
Photo from Brian Ettling of flooding by Creve Coeur Park near St. Louis, MO.
Taken on January 1, 2016.
Besides that, I brought the ultimately proof of climate change with me today. Are you guys ready? The change is underwear fashion from what our grandparents were wearing to what the kids have been wearing today.
The agreement among climate scientists about human caused climate change is incredibly high. Researchers at University of Illinois interviewed 79 of world’s top climate scientists. Stanford University researchers interviewed over 908 climate scientists, and University of Queensland in Australia surveyed over 10,306 climate scientists. All of them determined that over 97% of climate scientists agree that human caused climate change is happening.
Yet, even with the 97% agreement, polls from the Pew Research Center show that 55% of Americans still think scientists are still in disagreement or don’t know about the strong scientific agreement. This public misunderstanding is frustrating for climate scientists. Dr. Marshall Shepard, Climate Scientist at University of Georgia Athens had this comment:
‘This gap is like saying that 97% of heart surgeons agree how to do heart transplant, but the public disagrees.’
Despite all I have learned about climate change as a park ranger and private citizen, my Toastmaster friend James Bubash likes to ask me: ‘What can I do to get you to ‘see the light’ to change your mind about climate change?’
For Jim or others are looking to change my mind about climate change: here is my winning proposal for you. I am challenging you today to meet with a climate scientist, just like I have done. In December 2011, I briefly got to meet NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen.
Brian Ettling with NASA Climate Scientist James Hansen
Photo taken at American Geophysical Union meeting, December 6, 2011.
When you meet a climate scientist, I wan you to give them your best Toastmasters speech. Lay out your best case for them why they are wrong and you are correct. There are a couple climate scientists here in St. Louis I could introduce you to give your talk.
There is a catch though. After they hear your talk how they are wrong and you are correct, they get to evaluate the evidence and content of your speech. They get to critique your argument. Just like a tough Toastmasters evaluation from Carl Hendrickson, you must be able to politely accept their evaluation of the weaknesses of your argument.
St. Louis South County Toastmasters member Carl Henrickson
If you are not willing to agree to that, then there is no deal. Climate scientists don’t have time to just argue with people. Neither do I. You have to be able to show us that the weight of your evidence is stronger than their evidence in order to disprove science.
If you meet with a climate scientist and then convince them that they are wrong, that human caused climate change is not real, then I will gladly change my mind. You will have won.
It’s just like if one of us here needed heart surgery. You are convinced that that all heart surgeons are wrong and we should not listen to them. We would want you to meet with one of the top heart surgeons to convince them and us that the field of cardiology is completely false.
I caution you though this will be a very difficult task if you accept this proposal.
lecture at the St. Louis Science Center, January 31, 2011 about disproving climate change:
“I continue to think is there anything wrong with this picture (of climate change science) because scientists become rich and famous not by agreeing with everyone else. They become recognized by doing something different by showing that everyone else is wrong and doing something new, so I think about this all the time.
For 35 years, I have not been able to crack this thing (find ways to prove it as wrong). A lot of people who are smarter than me are always looking for new explanations. However, the consensus has come down stronger than ever that what we are seeing is due to the human enhanced greenhouse effect.”
Again, Jim and my fellow Toastmasters, my winning proposal to you is to meet with one of the top climate scientists and prove to them and me they are wrong. Just like performing heart surgery on a family member or fellow toastmaster, let’s see if you are up to this very difficult challenge.
“Politicians don’t create political will. They respond to it.” – Mark Reynolds, Executive Director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
Are you alarmed about climate change but you are unsure what to do? At some point, you must decide to become part of the solution. You must rise up and take action. The famous quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi famously says, ‘You must be the change you seek in the world.’
Wow! That is a very broad statement. But, how are we to be the change? What must we do?
For me, the road map for action with a very complex problem like climate change comes from this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr:
“Through education we seek to change attitudes; through legislation and court orders we seek to regulate behavior. Through education we seek to change internal feelings; through legislation and court orders we seek to control the external effects of those feelings. Through education we seek to break down the spiritual barriers to integration; through legislation and court orders we seek to break down the physical barriers to integration. One method is not a substitute for the other, but a meaningful and necessary supplement. Anyone who starts out with the conviction that the road to racial justice is only one lane wide will inevitably create a traffic jam and make the journey longer.”
The clear message in this quote is that change on any complex societal issue happens with both education and legislation.
For many years now, I have devoted my energy to educating others to take action on climate change as a park ranger, teacher, public speaker, Toastmaster, co-founder of the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up, and Climate Reality Project Leader. On my Climate Reality Project Leader page, I have documented presenting nearly 80 climate change talks and spoke to over 3,000 people since I was trained in San Francisco in 2012. Since 2011, I have been writing this blog and contributing over 200 posts to the website Climatebites.org. You can easily say that I love speaking and writing about climate change.However, I know this is not enough. As my friend, Larry Lazar, fellow Climate Reality Project Leader and co-founder with me of Climate Reality-St. Louis Meet Up group, once advised me, “We can facebook and blog all we want, but we stand no chance to solve (climate change) unless we accept the fact that we have to change.”
Yes, individual actions to reduce your carbon footprint are great. Since November 2011, I have been giving this talk about energy efficiency around the St. Louis area called “It’s Easy to Be Green.” In this talk, I definitely encourage people to change their light bulbs and give tips our to cut their energy bills. However, this not enough to save us from the worst impacts of climate change.
“As important as it is to change the light bulbs, it is more important to change the laws.”
Here are two of my biggest heroes, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and former Vice President Al Gore telling me that I am going to have to find a way to change the laws. Gulp. It is so much easier for me to just write and give public talks.
Fortunately, as mythologist Joseph Campbell said about the hero’s journey that you don’t have to do it alone. You can bring friends, partners, and others along to complete the journey. Success on this journey is a creating the political will to change the laws for a stable climate.
Around the time of writing that second blog in November 2013, Carol Braford asked me to be the co-leader of the St. Louis group of Citizens’ Climate Lobby. With my love of public speaking about climate change, Carol then recruited me to speak at the April 2014 Webster University Sustainability Conference.
The title of my talk was Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s central mission: Creating the Political Will for a Livable World. CCL creates this political will by empowering individuals, like you and me, to experience breakthroughs in exercising their personal and political power.
My presentation at Webster began by asking the vital question: Do you know who your Congressperson is?
This was a sophisticated, informed audience attending a sustainability conference at a university, so they did not seem to have trouble answering this question. However, this is a crucial question to ask because CCL is “betting the ranch on relationships,” as Executive Director Mark Reynolds likes to say.
CCL primary focus is to lobby in support of their Carbon Fee and Dividend proposal by friendly relationships with our federally elected representatives. CCL volunteers and staff achieves this positive rapport with members of Congress and their staff by showing respect, appreciation and gratitude for their service.
Obviously, before you can develop a great working relationship with a member of Congess, you have to know who exactly is your member of Congress.
The Success of RESULTS and Sam Daley-Harris
The methodology of Citizens’ Climate Lobby can be traced back to an organization working to eliminate global poverty called Results and its founder, Sam Daley-Harris. To prepare for my Webster talk on CCL, I read Sam Daly Harris’ book, Reclaiming our Democracy. This is book is an excellent resource for those looking for proven models for how to successfully lobby members of Congress to get legislation passed.
This book is a must read because it is about gaining hope and inspiration to become a fully engaged citizen. The subtitle nails how we overcome the pessimism and despair we feel with our current democracy, “Healing the Break Between People and Government.” Sam states early in his own introduction that “Reclaiming Our Democracy’ is a book that challenges this civic despair and offers a new model of citizen empowerment and leadership.”
It is so easy to become cynical about politics when you turn on the TV news, open up the newspaper, and chat with friends. Sam shares his story how he founded and spent years developing the organization, RESULTS. This organization, founded by Daley-Harris around 1980, created a new model for citizen activism with its dedication to create the political will to end world hunger. The achievements of RESULTS highly motivated citizen volunteers regularly engaged their elected members of Congress is beyond impressive.
According to the RESULTS.org website, over the past 35 years, RESULTS has accomplished:
* Child deaths are down by nearly two-thirds.
• The number of children in primary school has doubled.
• TB deaths have fallen by almost half.
• More than 1 billion people have moved out of extreme poverty.
• Safety net programs cut the U.S. poverty rate nearly in half every year.
• Micro nance programs have reached 114 million families living in extreme poverty.
These results may not have occurred without the founding vision of Sam Daley-Harris guiding this organization from the beginning. We tend to think that great people are somehow different than us. Before he decided to become a citizen organizer, in the late 1970s, Sam was a high school music teacher and a percussionist with the Miami Philharmonic Symphony. Early in the book, Sam shares a quote by futurist and inventor Buckminster Fuller:
“The things to do are the things that need doing, that you see need to be done and that no one else seems to see needs to be done.”
While working as a teacher, Sam stumbled across a world hunger presentation from his yoga teacher. He decided to get involved by speaking to hundreds of high school students for the political will to end world hunger. He soon discovered that almost all high school students and adults did not even know their members of Congress. The following chapters then recounts how Sam traveled across the United States and world to recruit people to get involved with RESULTS and form their own local chapters. Sam then writes how he and the RESULTS volunteers continuously lobbied Congress to finally get them to pass funding bills to successfully reduce world hunger.
Carol & Tom Braford
Dedicated former RESULTS volunteers included friends I now know from Citizens’ Climate Lobby: retired San Diego real estate broker Marshall Saunders and St. Louis residents Tom & Carol Braford. RESULTS showed such a successful model for citizen engagement to get Congress to pass legislation. Marshall Saunders then used the RESULTS’ model with the blessing and mentoring of Sam Daley-Harris to create Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL).
As a climate activist, this was the group I was the group I was seeking my whole life. From the template of RESULTS, Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s mission is to “create the political will for climate solutions by enabling individual breakthroughs in personal and political power.” CCL borrowed from RESULTS the political will to regularly engage members of Congress with letters, meetings and letters to the editor in their newspapers. When they met with elected officials they would show them respect, gratitude and admiration so the members of Congress would be more willing to listen to the ideas to end global poverty or climate change.
According to Sam, meeting and fully engaging our elected officials is the best way to be an effective citizen advocate. Early in his book, Sam cites “Soul of a Citizen” author Paul Rogat Loeb for this observation:
“those e-mail petitions are counted in Congressional Offices, but they are also discounted. Yes mouse-click advocacy can and does make a difference, but if you are truly passionate about an issue, once the mouse has been clicked, the Facebook friends alerted, and the action tweeted, there is often a feeling of some emptiness, a yearning for something deeper. The real question is ‘What can be done to provide that ‘something deeper’?”
Whether it is RESULTS, Citizens’ Climate Lobby or other advocacy groups, Sam stresses the importance to get connected with a group. He writes, ““People need to find an organization that gives them a deeper level of support, so they can get to 1st grade, 7th grade, 9th grade and college as an activist, rather than hanging around kindergarten all the time.”
Even more, we need to effectively target our actions as citizen advocates with our letters to the editor and our meetings with elected officials. Thus, he introduced me to the Buckminster Fuller concept of ‘Trimtabbing.’ A trimtab is the small rudder fround on the back of a larger rudder on an ocean liner or commercial jet airplane. The trimtab is easier to turn. Buckminister Fuller coined this term when he said that if you wanted to turn the ship of state, you shouldn’t try to push the ship around the front or even try turning the rudder. Instead, find the trimtab and turn that. Then the rudder and ship will turn more easily.
In Sam’s book and his public appearance, effective engagement to influence our democracy starts with healing ourselves. I once Sam say on a YouTube interview, “If the government is broken, we are part of that brokenness and we must engage in healing ourselves too.”
Next time you or someone you know feels hopeless that Congress does not respond to citizens, remember Sam Daley-Harris. Since he founded RESULTS in 1980 to end global hunger and poverty, the federal funding for childhood immunizations, reducing poverty, tuberculosis, malaria, and starvation increased from $42 million a year in 1984 to nearly $600 million dollars annually.
If you ask members of Congress, how is that possible? They will tell you it is because of the work of current and past RESULTS volunteers, such as Marshall Saunders.
Marshall Saunders
Like his mentor Sam Daley-Harris, Marshall Saunders shows us that one person can make a difference in the world and generate political will. He is 77 year old retired real estate broker in San Diego, Califonria.
Early in his career, he join the Rotary Club. It offers their members an opportunity to learn about the root problems facing the world and the best solutions out there. As a Rotary member, Marshall learned about the problem of global poverty. He also learned about an effective solution of microcredit loans.
Microcredit loans lends people who are so poor in third world countries on one would ever lend them loans of $10, $20, or $50. One woman was lent $50 to buy and fix a broken sewing machine. She then starts a business to lift her family out of poverty. 98% of these loans are repaid. When these loans are repaid, it goes to the next set of loans for the village. Once this gets started, it has a remarkable impact wherever it is generated.
Marshall then became aware of Mohammed Yunis, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Yunis started the modern micro credit loan in Bangladesh when he founded the Grameen Bank. Marshall went to Bangladesh to visit Mohammed Yunis to see firsthand the success of microcredit loans.
When Marshall returned to the US from Bangladesh, he started getting Rotary Club grants to support micro credit loans all over the world. Because of his efforts, Marshall received the Rotary Distinguished Service Award for 1998-1999. He also started microcredit loan program in Mexico.
In 2006, Marshall was retired and he could have just rested on his laurels that he made a difference in the world. However, Marshall went to see the Inconvenient Truth documentary about Al Gore. It really shook him up when he saw it.
Marshall had this revelation that there are millions of families living in poverty in Bangladesh who lifted themselves out with microcredit loans. Bangladesh is one of the low elevation countries in the world. Any sea level rise jeopardizes their ability to grow crops there. Marshall says to himself: ‘Wow! I generated a million microcredit loans and it could all possibly be wiped out because of climate change.’
That was the moment Marshall decided to spend the rest of his life working on climate change. In 2007, he asked Al Gore to train him as a Climate Reality Project Leader. Since 2007, The Climate Reality presentation led by Vice President Gore has now trained over 9,200 volunteers worldwide, including Marshall. In 2012, I became a Climate Reality Leader. After the volunteers are trained, folks like Marshall and me give public talks about the science and solutions to climate change.
Marshall gave 43 presentations in 10 months.
About three presentations in, he started to have serious doubts about what he was doing. He was inspiring people to change their light bulbs, carpool more, be more energy efficient etc. However, one morning he opened up the front page of his newspaper on the kitchen table to see that Congress had just given the oil companies an $18 billion tax break.
Marshall thought, ‘Hmm, I got 23 people to change their light bulbs last night and then oil companies get billions of dollars from the government. How do I match that?’
He then realized that the people he really needed to change were in Congress. That was the bad news. The good news is that the whole time he had been working on microcredit in a long time volunteer with RESULTS. This is what RESULTs proves: if you are organized, structured, disciplined, and have volunteer groups set up in Congressional districts, you can get Congress to make a positive and effective actions.
Marshall then said, ‘Piece of cake. All I have to do is find an environmental group using this same methodology and we can get climate legislation passed.’
He then talked to the big environmental groups to see if they were using the RESULTS model. He found a lot of great people doing great things, like the Sierra Club. What he could not find was anyone with a specific and effective plan to get legislation passed.
Thus, in 2007, he started Citizens’ Climate Lobby with one group in San Diego. By the end of the year, there were 6 groups in southern California. Citizens’ Climate Lobby philosophy: ‘We are going to take a system, an approach, a methodology that has been proven to be successful with Congress. We are then going to apply it to the climate issue.’
The purpose of Citizens’ Climate Lobby
Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) prides itself on having a dual purpose:
1. To create the political will for a sustainable climate.
2. To empower individuals to have breakthroughs in exercising their personal and political power.
This mission of Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a living example of Mahatma Gandhi’s quote:
“When the people lead, the leaders will follow.”
Brian Ettling with Dr. James Hansen
One of the best advocates for CCL is retired NASA climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, one of the most respected climate scientists in the world. He stated,
“If you want to join the fight to save the planet, to save creation for your grandchildren, there is no more effective step you could take than becoming an active member of Citizens Climate Lobby.”
Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s Goal: Get Congress to pass revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend.
• A tax is placed on carbon-based fuels at the source (oil well, coal mine, or U.S. border).
• This tax starts at $15 per ton of fossil CO2 emitted. It increases steadily each year by $10 so that clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade.
• All of the money collected is returned to American households on an equal basis.
• Under this plan 66% percent of all households would break even or receive more in their dividend check than they would pay for the increased cost of energy, which protects the poor and middle class.
• A predictably increasing carbon price will send a clear market signal which will unleash entrepreneurs and investors in the new clean-energy economy.
CCL considered this to be the best market based solution to appeal to conservatives in Congress. Carbon fee and dividend does not grow the federal government, taxes, or federal debt.
1. How is CCL creating the political will for a sustainable climate?
As citizens, the only way you get members of Congress to respond your cause is strength in numbers.
When citizen activists met with President Franklin Roosevelt, there are unconfirmed stories that he told one or more of them, ‘I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.’
One way that Citizens’ Climate Lobby gets Congress to notice them is the total number of groups nationwide. Over the past six years, the growth of CCL is very impressive.
In 2010, they had a total of 13 groups nationwide. 2011, 42 groups. When I first got involved in 2012, there was 74 groups. In April 2014 when I gave my talk Creating the Political Will for a Livable World for the Webster University Sustainability Conference, there was 170 groups. As of February 2016, there are now 312 active groups, with four more groups starting soon.
Members of Congress and their staff read the opinion section of the newspapers in their district to understand the views of their constituents. Thus, another benchmark to be noticed by elected officials is published media, as such letters to the editor or opinion editorials written by CCL volunteers in newspapers. Published media also includes official editorial endorsements of CCL written by the newspaper editorial staff. In 2010, CCL had 65 published media. In 2012, CCL had 646 published media. In 2015, CCL had 3,876 published media.
Several years ago, the e-politics project looked at its first in-depth study of how Canadian MPs use online communication & respond to grassroots campaigns. Even though it is Canadian, I still think lessons can be learned for reaching American politicians.
In 2009, former and current members of the Canadian Parliament were asked in a survey, ‘what motivates you to take action on the based on interactions with your constituents?
As far as personal interactions with constituents, the members of Parliament listed direct meetings with constituents as the best way to influence them. Next was direct phone calls, followed by personally written letters, meetings with organizations, and letters to the editor.
Thus, a top benchmark for Citizens’ Climate Lobby is counting the meetings that CCL volunteers have with Congressional Offices, which includes staffs and/or directly with a member of Congress. For many years now, CCL has also had groups in Canada, so they also include Canadian actions in their statistics. In 2010, CCL had 106 meetings with Congressional or Parliament offices. When I first got involved in 2012, CCL had 534 meetings with Congressional or Parliament offices. In 2015, CCL had 1,273 meetings with Congressional or Parliament offices.
Included in these yearly statistics, I organized a meeting with the district staff and local CCL volunteers of my Congresswoman, Rep. Ann Wagner on February 12, 2014. The year before I helped establish a CCL group in southern Oregon. Thus, it was a big thrill for me to be part of three meetings in one day that local CCL group had with the district staff of Oregon U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, Senator Jeff Merkley, and Senator Ron Wyden on August 27, 2013.
Before I joined Citizens’ Climate Lobby, I had no idea that I would be meeting with the staff of Congressional offices. As I blogged about last November, I traveled to Washington, D.C. and I lobbied five different Congressional over two days, November 17 & 18, 2015. It was a very empowering experience for me to speak directly about climate change to the staffs of 5 Congressional offices, including the staff my congresswoman, Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri.
Brian Ettling (on left) meeting with the staff of Rep. Ann Wagner in front of her
Washington, D.C. office. Erik Rust, Environmental & Energy Aide for Rep. Wagner,
wearing a red tie, with his intern Sarah. Larry Kremer, another CCL volunteer, pictured on right side.
It is not just me that Citizens’ Climate Lobby empowered me. Another area of growth that makes an impact with Congress are the number of volunteers that come to Washington D.C. directly, many at their own expense, to lobby Congress during the annual June CCL Lobby Day. In June 2010, CCL had 27 volunteers lobby 52 Congressional offices. In June 2015, around 900 Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteers from all across the United States lobbied 487 Congressional offices.
2. Empowering me to have breakthroughs in exercising my personal & political power.
Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Sam Daley-Harris encourage climate activists to step outside of their comfort zone because that is where the magic happens.
CCL encourages its volunteers to build positive relations with newspaper editors and the media to build political will. On December 12, 2012, Steve Valk, Communications Director for Citizens’ Climate Lobby, came to St. Louis for a day to meet with our local CCL group. During his visit, volunteers from St. Louis group and I met with the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. We met with Kevin Horrigan, Deputy Editorial Page Editor of the Post-Dispatch. During our meeting, we successfully persuaded Kevin to write an official editorial to endorse CCL’s carbon fee and dividend.
Brian Ettling, Carol Braford, Tom Braford, Steve Valk and Lucas Sabalka
after meeting with the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 12, 2012.
As a result the Post-Dispatch did publish this editorial on December 27, 2012: Editorial: Save the planet. Save Social Security. Save Medicaid. Tax carbon. Since I had the Post-Dispatch since I was a child, it seemed surreal to me to be meeting with editorial staff inside the Post-Dispatch building. During the meeting, Steve Valk asked Kevin Horrigan if we could submit opinion editorials periodically to be published. Kevin responded very positively that they would fully consider running opinion editorials from us.
I can personally attest that Citizens’ Climate Lobby empowered me to step outside of my comfort zone to experience where the magic happens. In my wildest imagination, I hoped I could write a climate change opinion editorial for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. My CCL volunteer friends challenged me to do this in early April, 2013. That evening, I composed it and submitted it to the Post-Dispatch. It was published on April 19, 2013, For Earth Day, a GOP free-market solution to climate change.
Before I knew it, I was on a roll writing opeds for the next year. On July 10, 2013, I wrote an oped for the Post-Dispatch about coal pollution in the St. Louis area, What keeps me up late at night. Even more, I ended up writing 8 opeds for Oregon newspapers, including the Portland Oregonian, in the autumn of 2013. These opeds were written while I was working that summer as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.
Before I got involved with Citizens’ Climate Lobby in 2012, it is inconceivable to me that I would have written 12 opeds for newspapers across the U.S and numerous letters to the editor.
You can create the political will for effective climate action
A favorite source for quotes for Sam Daley-Harris and me, Buckminister Fuller, once said,
“If the future of all civilization depended upon me, what would I do? How would I be?”
Citizens’ Climate Lobby and the model for citizens’ engagement Sam Daley-Harris created with RESULTS has really helped me become a much more effective climate change advocate. If you are concerned about climate change as I am, following the example of CCL and Sam can help you create the political will for effective climate action.To increase your effectiveness, remember what Sam emphasizes: you will need to ‘find an organization that gives you a deeper level of support, so you can get to 1st grade, 7th grade, 9th grade and college as an activist, rather than hanging around kindergarten all the time.’
My friend Larry Schweiger, former President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, once wrote, “It’s not enough to care; we must link our concern to each other and act collectively.”
It is very rewarding to get involved with a group like Citizens’ Climate Lobby because you gain friends and a sense of hope.
Singer and songwriter Joan Baez once said, “Action is the antidote for despair.”
Dr. David W. Orr, Professor of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College, Ohio, proclaimed, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.”
Former Vice President Al Gore likes to quote this old African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
If you are as concerned about climate change as I am, I challenge you today to commit yourself to take action. Even more, consider joining a group making an impact like Citizens’ Climate Lobby which is creating the political will for effective climate change action.
As I like to say, “Think Globally, Act Daily.”
Thank you Carol Braford for getting me involved with Citizens’ Climate Lobby in 2012.
I am sure you have heard the expression, ‘It’s not enough to talk the talk, you must walk the walk.’ Basically, speaking out about an issue of deep concern is not enough, we must take action.
My friend David Henry did just that. He walked over a thousand miles to talk to people about climate change. From June to August 2013, David walked by foot from Boston, Massachusetts to South Charleston, Ohio. It’s a distance of 1,042 miles over 60 days. He kept his belongings inside a large covered cart, which people he encountered thought it looked like a giant mailbox. Hence, the title of the book he wrote, David and the Giant Mailbox.
In 2012, David Henry started feeling restless in his home in St. Louis Missouri that he must do something about climate change. He had read enough news reports about extreme weather and learned enough about the science of climate change from sources like skepticalscience.com. Through his interest in this subject, David learned that climate change is real, caused by human activity currently, it impacting people right now, and we must act fast to reduce the nastiest consequences.
It worried David that people did not seem to care. He then discovered how Americans perceive climate change. He read the September 2012 Yale Project for Climate Change Communication published report, Global Warming’s Six Americas. This report based on several public opinion surveys notes that Americans fall into six categories of attitudes on climate change: Alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful, and dismissive. According to that report, only about 16% of the population was alarmed like David. As far as the other 84% the population, David felt angry they were not as alarmed as him. He wrote,
“I envisioned all of humanity sleepwalking down a narrow path to the edge of a cliff. That made me pissed. I couldn’t just sit back and let it happen. I decided it was time to do something.”
My Struggle to ‘Walk the Walk’
I can totally relate how David felt in 2012. The same awareness about climate change happened to me working during the winter of 2007-08 in Everglades National Park in south Florida. As I share in my current climate change talks and speeches, I became a naturalist park ranger narrating boat tours in Everglades National Park in 1998. At that time, I knew nothing about climate change. However, park visitors were starting to ask me about this global warming thing and they expect park rangers to know everything.
Thus, I went to a Miami bookstore in 1999 my first book on climate change, Laboratory Earth: The Planetary Gamble We Can’t Afford to Lose by the late Dr. Stephen Schneider of Stanford University. I then got hooked reading books and articles about global warming in my spare time. I saw Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 and it deepened my interest even more. By the winter of 2007-08, I could not sleep at night working in the Everglades. I felt I had to do something about climate change.
To this day, I still work my summer job at Crater Lake National Park. However, I gave up my winter job in the Everglades to return home to St. Louis for the winter. I had no idea what I was going to do in my hometown. However, I knew I had to speak out, write and organize locally to inspire others to take action to reduce the threat of climate change.
Over 8 years later, I am still trying to figure how to take bold action on climate change. The question that still bothers me is: How can I take enough action to create awareness among Americans to inspire them to take effective action on climate change? How was I going to not just talk the talk but walk the walk so all of us would be inspired to reduce the threat of climate change.
Part of me thought about walking across country like my friend David. I love to travel and see different parts of the United States. For over 20 years, I have driven across country from Oregon to Florida while working in the national parks. The thought has occurred to me to travel across by foot to see the country more up close. It seemed like such dream adventure too. Forrest Gump walked across country in one of my favorite movies. Doris Haddock, known as “Granny D,” achieved national fame when she walked over 3,200 miles across the United States to advocate for campaign finance reform. She walked from southern California to Washington D.C. from January 1, 1999 to February 29, 2000. Even more, she did it when she was between the ages of 88 and 90!
This is still a dream of mine to walk across the United States. It would be great to see the changing scenery. At night, I would then speak at college campuses, town halls and public meetings about climate change.
In August 2013, I was a mentor at the Climate Reality Project Training in Chicago, Illinois. While mingling with the other attendees during the conference, I met Zac Heffernen. He was one of the organizers for the 2014 Great March for Climate Action. It was a 3,000 mile march that started March 1, 2014 in Los Angeles, California, and ended on November 1, 2014 when marchers arrived in Washington, D.C.
In my conversation with Zac, this march sounded like a wonderful idea to raise awareness on climate change while having the safety in numbers and supporting logistics to successfully walk across the U.S. It was very tempting for me to join. Zac was very eager for me to join the march with my experience as a park ranger and climate activist. Despite Zac’s besting persuasion, I turned down the march due because I did not want to give up my summer ranger job at Crater Lake Nat. Park. Even more, I was not thrilled with the idea to be away from then girlfriend/now wife Tanya for many months.
Still, I have thought often about ‘walking a walk’ across the U.S. to raise awareness about climate change and I still may do so one of these days.
Climate Walker David Henry is a lot more courageous than me
Like David’s restlessness, I have struggled for years with the question of what bold action should I take on climate change. What brave act should I do to inspire people to take action on climate change? If climate scientists have been warning us that climate change is a very serious threat to our civilization, then what daring act do I need to take as a climate change communicator and activist to make a difference?
Ironically, I did not think David Henry was so courageous when I first met him a couple of years ago. My impression was that he was friendly, kind, and humble when we met. He introduced himself to me as “the Climate Walker.” Sadly, my first impression was ‘So what!’
Many of us who are climate activists have given ourselves titles and tag lines. Since grabbing the website domain in December 2009, I have called myself the Climatechangecomedian. I do that to promote myself as a public speaker on climate change that is educational, inspiring and entertaining.
My friend Harriet Shugarman calls herself the Climate Mama, since she is mother concerned about her kids’ future living on Earth. Her website climatemama.com focused on informing “Climate Mamas and Papas of all ages from all around the world about the realities of the climate crisis” and inspiring and empowering “Climate Mamas and Papas to work together.”
My Canadian friend Rolly Montpellier calls himself the Boomer Warrior. He gave himself this title because “I’m a Baby Boomer and now a Warrior outraged by the kind of world we’ve created.” His climate change website boomerwarrior.org aims at “Raising Awareness to the vast challenges we face” and then “Creating a Sense of Urgency to galvanize people into positive activism.”
A Facebook friend of mine calls herself CelloMom. Her climate blog CelloMom on Cars is about “The quest for the fuel-efficient car that fits the planet and the budget – and the cello.”
Thus, since I knew climate activists besides David who had given themselves titles, I was not that intrigued that with his climate walker title. However, I got to know David over the last two years as were both volunteers with the local St. Louis group for Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL).
As I got to know him, I was more impressed by his kindness and dedication to take action on global warming. In March 2014, he happily agreed to my request to meet with the energy aide of our U.S. Representative, Congresswoman Ann Wagner of Missouri, about climate change when he traveled to Washington, D.C. on business. Even more, David met with me before the trip so he would have a positive meeting with Rep. Wagner’s staff about to lobby them to support CCL’s carbon fee and dividend proposal.
When David’s book was published in December 2015, he asked me to read it and give it a review. With my very positive impression on him, I was very happy to oblige.
I may pride myself on giving around 100 climate change talks over the past 5 years. In May 2013, Grand Canyon National Park invited me to give my Crater Lake ranger climate talk to an audience of over 200 visitors at their Shrine of the Ages Auditorium. After that talk and many others, I had a few audience members want to fierce argue with me about the science of climate change. I have also given around 15 speeches to my St. Louis South County Toastmasters Club on Climate Change. After the speech, The Debate is Over, I had a question and answer session with a few of the audience members that you can observed on YouTube who are very hostile to the science of climate change. Local businessman Larry Lazar and atmospheric scientist Dr. Jack Fishman of St. Louis University and I gave a live interview on the St. Louis local NPR station on April 15, 2014.
Guest speaker Brian Ettling at Grand Canyon Nat. Park
May 7, 2013.
In December 2014, National Journal interviewed me about giving climate change talks in national parks. I did not think it was so bold at the time. However, a conservative blogger wrote a very critical response, A dose of ideology with your National Park vacation? For a couple of weeks, I worried conservative radio and TV shows would find his blog and they would then start harassing me. Fortunately, no other conservatives noticed the National Journal article or the conservative blogger.
Yes, I have take some bold actions to speak out on climate change awareness and promoting action. However, none of my actions are as brave as David Henry walking over a 1,000 miles to talk about climate change.
Reading David and the Giant Mailbox
The book was a fascinating page turner about David’s 1,042 mile journey on foot. It may been been over 300 pages long, but it was a very quick read. The chapters, averaging about 5 to 6 pages long, were basically an account of what happened each day. As an aspiring cross country hiker, I quickly learned that a cross county hike is not easy.
David had to confront many busy streets with no sidewalks, intense thunderstorms, sore feet, fatigue near the end, sunburn, trying to find a place to camp each night, flat tires on his cart, etc. With all of the frustrations, he add ask himself multiple times if it was worth it to continue.
Friends warned him to be leery of people. However, David found numerous people willing to help him out on a pinch. In his everyday life, David is more of a quiet and reserved guy. Conversations are not always easy for him. In my past interactions with him, David is warm, generous and friendly, Yet, it felt like he was a private individual, not willing to share more than he absolutely had to share.
Therefore, part of the wonder of the book is seeing David break out of his comfort zone and engage people. The cart shaped like a mailbox was an amazing conversation starter or ice breaker for people he encountered. In walking long distances, David got to experience firsthand the Anne Franck quote:
“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
David’s quote though was not just to walk to meet people. His big goal was to have a conversation with as many people he could find about climate change. His specific plan was to have at least 100 global warming conversations while he walked across the country. As David shares his stories of the conversations, he provides a great example how to converse with people about climate change.
After folks would approach him about what he was doing, David would gently explain he was walking across to create more awareness about climate change. Some folks took a genuine interest, others just changed the subject, some were disinterested and just a few wanted to argue with David in a hostile manner.
In the few cases where folks wanted to strongly disagree with David, he would completely listen to them in a heartfelt way. He would then quietly to try correct their misconceptions about the science by quoting such sources as the Consensus Project, which affirmed that 97% of climate scientists agree climate change is hapening and it is mostly human caused.
Through the book’s recollection of his conversations, David gives a great lesson to not get angry, lecture, or insult the people when he occasionally met people who wanted to engage him in a hostile way. Although he imagined before and during the walk of wanting to grab someone by the scruff of the neck if they dismissed climate change, he never does that. He always tried to find common ground in every interaction while holding on to his conviction that we must act on the climate crisis.
From his courage of taking this long journey by foot and his open heart when encountering people, it felt like even the most hard core climate contrarians seemed like they still found a way to like, help, and even admire David. He found other ways to relate to folks when the conversation of climate change was a non-starter. His audacious walk and friendly interactions gave climate doubters a positive perspective that they do not experience when global warming is mentioned on TV or the radio. Thus, he does become a good ambassador for caring for our planet during his trek.
From his many interactions, David learned a new faith and optimism for humanity. He witnessed enough good, caring, concerned and open minded people like him that we just may avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
David’s experience reminded me of a quote from Julia Butterfly Hill. She is best known for having living in a 180-foot (55 m)-tall, roughly 1500-year-old California Redwood tree, affectionately known as “Luna,” for two years between December 1997 and December 1999. Hill lived high up in the tree the entire time to prevent Pacific Lumber Company loggers from cutting it down. Julia documented that experience in another book I recommend reading, The Legacy of Luna. The second book wrote by Julia, One Makes a Difference, she proclaimed:
“Eternal optimism joined with loving action is the most powerful tool I own.”
Even if I not able to personally walk across country, David’s bold action gave me optimism that one person (I) can make a difference. Even more, his journey showed that people do have enough good and generosity inside of them that we can reduce the threat of climate change.
My friend, Melissa, who is Native American (Apache), with Brian Ettling
I met her while traveling across country in May 2013.
‘It is time that we heard the voice of all the indigenous communities around the world and protected this planet for future generations.’ – movie actor Leonardo DiCaprio accepting his Best Actor award at the 2016 Golden Globes on January 10, 2016.
Leo’s comment struck a chord with me. For years, I have though it is so important to listen to the voices of native peoples as we think about climate change and how to live on planet Earth.
Conversations with the Earth Exhibit
This realization first happened to me when I visited Washington DC in October 2011. I had just attended an Earth-to-Sky climate change Conference in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. That meeting had been sponsored by NASA and the National Park Service. It focused on NASA scientists providing the best science available for communicating about climate change with national park visitors. For year, my interest was learning and seeing how Climate Change is impacting our National Parks. The thought had not occurred to me how it could be impacting indigenous peoples around the world.
This was my first time visiting Washington DC in 31 years. It was very exciting for me to see the tourist sites: The White House, The Lincoln Memorial, The Vietnam Memorial, The Korean War Memorial, The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, etc. While I visited DC, someone recommended I visit the National Museum of the American Indian, which is only about two blocks from the Capitol.
When I walked inside, I was amazed to see they had a special exhibit Conservations with the Earth. It was about indigenous voices on climate change from around the world. It showcased pictures of native people from USA, Canada, Central & South America, Africa, Australia, Asia, ocean islands, etc. and how climate change impacted each of them.
One of the first images to greet me was Sarah James. She is part of the Gwich’in People, who are a Athabaskan-speaking First Nations of Canada and an Alaska Native people. They live in the northwestern part of North America, mostly above the Arctic Circle. Speaking about climate change, was this quote from Sarah:
“There is a solution. It’s not the end of the world yet. One thing we have to do is gain back respect for the animals, for all nature. We pray and give thanks to everything that we use. But if it is going to work, it has to be both Western and traditional. We have be meet halfway—and we need to find balance.”
The exhibit then had a sign about “The Price of Carbon.” It stated how “Corporations bought the rights to a forest’s carbon to offset their emissions, but the locals are paying the cost.”
The people caught in the middle are the Guarani, an indigenous people from South America’s interior of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia. The sign stated,
“On the southeast coast of Brazil, American companies with significant carbon footprints are working to preserve 50,000 acres of the Atlantic Forest. The idea is simple: by protecting these trees, which soak up carbon dioxide, the companies hope to obtain carbon ‘credits’ that will allow them to pollute elsewhere. But, this practice, called avoided deforestation, is controversial, especially in nearby indigenous communities.”
The next sign talked about Quara Quara Island, Brazil. It read,
“After centuries of development, just 7% of the original Atlantic Forest remains. While it seems a good idea to preserve the remaining trees by designating them as carbon offsets, avoided deforestation creates many complicated situations.
Between 2000 and 2002, American companies donated millions of dollars to establish a carbon-offset reserve near Quara Quara, the island home of several Guarani families. The companies do not own the land or the trees, but they receive carbon offsets for the emissions the trees absorb, which they can use to offset their own pollution elsewhere or sell to other companies seeking profits.”
One specific story from Quara Quara was Antonio Alves. It stated,
“In 2008, Antonio Alves, a fisherman and carpenter, cut down a tree at the edge of the carbon-offset reserve to repair his mother-in-law’s home. The Green Police, or Força Verde, arreste Alves and put him in jail for 11 days. He was defended by the town’s mayor, a lawyer who has represented scores of residents arrested for similar acts.”
This left a quandary for me. Yes, we do have to protect the last remaining natural areas of the world to reduce the threat of climate change. However, we must do it in a way that respects the local native people and their traditions. They must feel like they are valued stake holders, not intruders, in protecting wilderness areas.
On a sadder note, an exhibit focusing on the Mansus people living in the Manus Island of Papua New Guinea. In the past, the Mansus read the skies to decide when they could fish or travel safely. However, over the last decade, the seas have been rising and scientists and islanders alike report that climate change is becoming evident in the form of chaotic and unseasonal winds, unpredictable rains, and more intense storms. According to resident John Semio of the Mansus people,
“We can’t reach our fishing grounds safely. We find it more more difficult to live now.”
Nothing in their history prepared the islanders for the unprecedented fury of the 2008 storm they call ‘King Tide.’ The sign noted that “quick thinking saved most house from the waves – for now.”
Unfortunately, I just have a few pictures left from the exhibit that I was able to share above in this blog. If you do go on Conversations with the Earth website, you can find more examples in pictures and videos how climate change is impacting Native peoples across the world.
While touring the exhibit, I spotted a special announcement of an evening reception at the museum with members of the indigenous communities from across the world showcased in the exhibit. I came back to the exhibit that evening. It was amazing to see the native people from Africa, South America, Alaska, etc. in person and in their native costumes. I got to mingle among them in the reception and attend some lectures how climate change impacted them.
It’s a mystery to me now why I did not take any pictures of that event. I felt very fortunate to be there. I felt very lucky since I did not know about exhibit or reception prior to my trip to Washington DC or checking out this museum on a whim. Seeing from the exhibit how climate change impacted some of these native people and meeting them in person, I promised myself I would not forget their stories. I meant to blog about it when I returned to St. Louis, but my mind and writings ended up focusing on other aspects of climate change. Thank goodness for the Leonardo DiCaprio quote to remind me not to forget.
The Pachamama Alliance
The Leonardo DiCaprio quote to hear the the voices of indigenous people also reminded me of the Pachamama Alliance. Around the year 2010, a friend encouraged me to attend a Pachamama workshop, called Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, which are actually held all throughout the United States and world.
The Pachamama Alliance focus is about weaving indigenous wisdom and modern knowledge for a thriving, just, and sustainable world. Its purpose empowered by its partnership with indigenous people, is dedicated to bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet.
At the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, participants learn:
* Human beings are not separate from each other or Nature. We are totally interrelated and our actions have consequences to all. What we do to others we do to ourselves. What we do to the Earth we do to ourselves.
* Indigenous people are the source of a worldview and cosmology that can provide powerful guidance and teachings for achieving our vision—a thriving, just and sustainable world.
* If present trends continue, the probable future for life on Earth will be defined by periods of substantial social, environmental, and economic disruption, if not complete collapse.
* Humanity already possesses sufficient resources, technology, and know-how to reverse these trends. What is missing is the sense of urgency and the popular and political will to act.
* Without concentrated human intervention, certain tipping points will be reached that will make our present trajectory irreversible.
Deep in the pristine Amazon rainforest, spanning the borders of modern-day Ecuador and Peru, the Achuar people have lived and thrived for centuries. With their deep devotion to their land, the Achaur kept had their sophisticated culture and worldview remarkably intact as late as the mid-20th century.
Since the early 20th century, individuals and corporations from the so-called “modern” world have sought to exploit Achuar land for its oil, disregarding its irreplaceable ecological and cultural wealth. From contact with neighboring tribes, the Achuar knew that oil companies were poisoning the rainforest and everything alive in it, steadily moving closer and closer to their home. Thus, the Achuar made the courageous decision to reach out to form partners in the modern world that was threatening their very existence.
Since 1995, the Pachamama Alliance, named for the Kichwa word for “Mother Earth,” has collaborated with the Achaur and all of of their indigenous neighbors to preserve their cultures and protect this very biodiverse region of the Amazon basin. The Alliance has empowered these indigenous groups with legal, financial, and technical assistance, including mapping and land titling to secure ownership of their lands. It has also provided trainings and workshops to guide them in asserting their rights and economic development sustainable local products and ecotourism.
For two decades, this partnership has enabled the indigenous people to preserve millions of acres of pristine tropical rainforest. The Alliance’s work to include legal rights for nature in Equador’s constitution provides a powerful precedent that is now being replicated globally.
Lynne Twist,
co-founder of the Pachamama Alliance
Image Source: lynnetwist.com
According to the co-founder of the Pachamama Alliance, Lynne Twist,
“From the very beginning, the indigenous partners told us that it was really great that we were working in the Amazon with them shoulder to shoulder but that is only half the battle. They told us that if we really wanted to protect their lands permanently, we would need to go to work in our part of the world.
As they put it, we would need to change the dream of the north, the dream of the modern world. A dream rooted in consumption and acquisition, without any regard to the natural world or even to our own future.”
Since 2005 hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have attended the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium. Now this interactive program is offered in an online course as well.
The live symposium or online course offers a challenging and inspiring curriculum that exams the root causes of humanity’s most pressing issues. It then encourages people to participate in key grassroots movements are can actually making a difference, such as Move to Amend and Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
After years of curiosity to attend a Pachamama training, I finally had an opportunity in the summer of 2013. Earlier in 2013, I founded a Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) group in Ashland, Oregon. A friend attending the CCL meetings, Lorraine Cook, was also involved with the Pachamama Alliance. She invited to speak at the end of an Awakening the Dreamer Symposium held at the University of Southern Oregon on July 9, 2013. I immediately jumped at this invitation to attend.
The two and a half hour Awakening the Dreamer Symposium was a very positive experience for me. I highly recommend attending if you have a chance. Pachamama’s message really connected to me. The symposium focused on hope for the future, emphasis on sustainability, and a belief that humans can take the necessary actions to reduce the threat of climate change. Even more, the goal of this training is to inspire participants to get active with local grassroots organizations like Move to Amend, SOCAN (Southern Oregon Climate Action Now), and Citizens’s Climate Lobby.
As a climate activist, I admire how it presented the issue of climate change from an indigenous perspective of caring for our Mother Earth, creation, and healing our natural world that sustains our lives. There was much audience participation so we felt like we were vital participants. It did not feel a dry and gloomy lecture. The symposium offered opportunities to chat with a partner sitting next to us and group discussions to go over concepts we just learned from Pachamama.
At the end of the training, we are awarded a handwoven friendship bracelet. My understanding is that members of one of the South American native groups, especially the Achaur, hand make these bracelets. Another person attending the training ties it around your wrist towards the end of the symposium. We are encouraged to wear the bracelet daily to remind ourselves daily of the symposium. Even more, we wear the bracelet as a reminder of our importance to take action to protect our planet.
Because the training did have a deep impact on me, I have worn it everyday since attending that July 2013 symposium. I even wore it to my wedding. It has been a constant reminder for me to follow my mantra to “Think Globally Act Daily” to climate change. Thank goodness for the Pachmama Alliance Awakening the Dreamer Symposium to reinforce my passion.
Tanya Couture and Brian Ettling at their wedding. November 1, 2015.
Indigenous People are impacted the most by climate change
Even though I received much inspiration and a broader perspective from Conversations with the Earth and the Pachamama Alliance, it still really troubles me how climate change negatively impacts indigenous people.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s quote at the Golden Globes was a reminder for me how native peoples across the world are on the front lines of climate change.
Keep in mind that DiCaprio’s speech was criticized for mentioning indigenous people. Slate writer Aisha Harris referred to DiCaprio’s speech as “awkward and cynical” and even doubted its sincerity. She wrote,
“The Revenant is only the latest in a long history of major Hollywood studio films featuring indigenous characters that is told from the white male perspective.”
Even more Harris is critical of the portrayal of the Pawnee tribesman (played by Arthur RedCloud) who later assists DiCaprio’s character in his journey home? According to Harris, the Pawnee character is typical of the Hollywood stock Native American character. She wrote, “He’s much more a mysterious, kind person of color than any real, flesh-and-bone character.”
Fair enough. However, DiCaprio’s full remarks at the end of his Golden Globes speech really spoke to me:
“And lastly, I want to share this award with all the First Nations people represented in this film and all the indigenous communities around the world. It is time that we recognize your history and that we protect your indigenous lands from corporate interests and people that are out there to exploit them. It is time that we heard your voice and protected this planet for future generations.”
DiCaprio’s statement recalled a statement I heard from this YouTube video, Dr. Hayhoe’s Keynote Address at the June 2015 Citizens’s Climate Lobby Conference. Towards the end of that video, Texas Tech University climate scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe refers to a map released by the Washington Post on February 3, 2015 of countries most vulnerable to climate change.
Basically, poor third world and politically unstable countries, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, North Korea and central African nations are the most vulnerable to climate change.
Living in the most vulnerable and even not so vulnerable countries are indigenous people who are the least responsible for creating this problem. Even for those of us do not not have the same culture, religion, values, and traditions as indigenous people, it is still vital that we reduce the threat of climate change for the most vulnerable native peoples as well as our children.
As Katharine Hayhoe argues in that same YouTube talk:
“Why do we care (about climate change) if we’re Christians? We care because the number one commandment is to love God and number two is to love your neighbor. We are told to love others as Christ loved us. And, how did Christ love? Sacrificially. Not saying we’re equal, but saying ‘I am putting you above my own life and I am willing to give my life for your life…When we look at who is impacted, it is in the places where it is not fair. It is not the people who created this problem.”
What we do to the Earth we do to ourselves
As we live in modern civilization with all of its luxuries, we forget that all of us are descendants of ancient indigenous people. We live today because of accumulated wisdom over many generations. We discard their wisdom at our peril.
I want to close this blog with the thoughts and wisdom attributed to Chief Seattle. Historians do not think the text below is historically accurate or even something that Chief Seattle said. Even if he did not, these words speak of a wisdom for the ages. They speak of caring for the Earth. Even more, what we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves.
CHIEF SEATTLE’S LETTER
The only known photograph
of Chief Seattle, taken in 1864
Image Source: wikipedia.org
“The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.
The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?
We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.
As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.
One thing we know – there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all.”
May we do all we can to reduce the threat of climate change to respect our ancestors, our fellow humans that we share the planet especially indigenous people, and our children.
It started with the heavy rains on Christmas evening, December 25, 2015 in the St. Louis area. It was raining so hard that it was hard to see when my wife and I were driving home from my parents’ house to stay with my in-laws’ that night. I remember driving slow and griping the steering wheel hard. It gritted my teeth hoping with the poor visibility. My concern was not sliding off the very wet pavement or an accident with another car. It was not easy navigating the pounding rain on the while driving on interstates I-270 and Highway 40/west I-64.
I remember feeling very relieved when my wife (Tanya) and I made it safely to our in-laws’ house. I remarked, “Tanya, I hope I don’t have to drive through weather like that again anytime soon.”
December 26th, was more pounding rain. Early that week, I expressed my internal frustration to Tanya that I felt like I was not doing enough to organize and write on climate change. To boost my morale, my wife then booked an appointment with the nearby Tesla store to test drive the 100% electric Tesla Model S. As I noted in my previous blog, Tanya and I had a blast test driving this car. Tanya’s action did lift my spirits to see this could be the future for automobiles: 100% electric with no carbon tailpipe emissions.
Brian Ettling and his wife, Tanya Couture, test driving a Tesla Model S
While that Tesla test drive was a fun bonding experience for Tanya and me, the weather was blah. It continued to rain all morning from the previous night. The rain did not pound during our test drive, thankfully. However, the pounding came back that Saturday afternoon, all day Sunday, and into Monday. It rained so hard it felt like someone had fully opened a water spigot on full blast for hours.
The rain just beat on the roof and the outside pavement like fire hydrant fully opened. All the noise made it hard to sleep. With no end in sight, I was starting to feel like the various characters in the Star Wars movies who say, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
As a native life-long St. Louis resident, I started commenting to my wife and in-laws that we are going to see some bad flooding from this. I had no idea just how bad the flooding was going to be.
I remember that I kept checking the weather report to see when it would stop raining because it was starting to feel like the relentless pounding of bombings in a war zone. The endless rain felt very wearisome. It was hard to sleep through it and no joy to go walking in it.
Finally, the rain did end on Tuesday, December 29, 2015. It was such a relief to see overcast skies without rain. However, the rain gauge reports looked grim. The St. Louis region received anywhere from 8 to 12 inches of rain. This would be far more than the major area rivers, Mississippi, Missouri and Meramec, could hold in their flood banks, warned local meteorologists.
“For those of us living in St. Louis, MO, this is what climate change looks like: above normal winter temps, record rains, and very stressful flooding.”
The images became more personal for me when my local friend, Karl Frank posted news images of the flooding of Union, MO on Facebook. As the images showed flooded McDonalds, gas station, motels and businesses, Karl commented, “Climate change is expensive. Cheaper to mitigate than to pay for the consequences.”
Responding to what Karl wrote, I posted the same images on my Facebook wall with my remarks,
Photo from left to right: Larry Lazar,
Dr. Johann Bruhn, Corinne McAfee
and Brian Ettling
“A year and a half ago, Larry Lazar, Corinne McAfee, Johann Bruhn, and I gave a climate change presentation in Union, MO. It is a shame there was a few folks in the audience who refused to accept that climate change is real and thought acting to reduce the threat is too expensive. Well, this flood looks mighty expensive to me. My prayers tonight go out to the folks in Union MO and all of the folks dealing with this current flood.”
Let’s be clear. Climate change did not cause the heavy rains and floods in Missouri. Climate scientists and meteorologists will tell you that climate change makes extreme weather worst and more common.
As I talk about in my climate change classes, climate scientist Kevin Trenberth from the National Center for Atmospheric Research stated,
“Global warming is contributing to an increased incidence of extreme weather because the environment in which all storms form has changed from human activities.”
Meteorologist Jeff Masters explains, “The Climate Has Shifted to a New State Capable of Delivering Rare & Unprecedented Weather Events.”
What is this “new state” that the climate has shifted?
1. Warmer Air = More Moisture
2. Arctic Amplification = “Stuck” Jet Stream
3. Warmer Oceans = More Heat Energy
All three factors combine to create Wetter Rains, Drier Droughts and Stormier Storms.
As the rivers rose high above flood stage in St. Louis, I kept thinking about the storm surge after Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey and New York City. No, climate scientists do not think climate change caused Superstorm Sandy. My friend, Scott Mandia, professor of Physical Sciences at Suffolk County Community College on Long Island, New York, stated on his blog soon after the storm hit:
“One way that global warming made Sandy worse is because global warming is causing sea levels to rise. Sea levels have risen more than a foot in the New York City region since the Industrial Revolution. So what difference did this extra foot make for the citizens of New York City? Quite a lot. 6,000 more people impacted for each inch of rise!”
Scott then estimated that close to 71,000 New Yorkers and 30,551 more homes flooded during Superstorm Sandy because of sea level rise caused by climate change.
During this recent flood, Meramec River at Arnold, Mo, not far from where I live, crested at more than 47 feet. This was a new record, breaking the old record high by 2 feet. Nearby Valley Park, MO crushed the previous record its Meramec River flood level from December 6, 1982 by about 4.4 feet. Eureka, Missouri crushed the previous Meramec record flood level from December 6, 1982 by just over 3 feet. As I heard these stats and recalled Superstorm Sandy, I thought: how many more houses and residents were impacted by this flood because of more intense rain due to climate change?
On December 30, 2015 my good friend, Larry Lazar from Eureka, Missouri posted an image from NBC News of downtown Eureka businesses and homes getting swallowed up by this flood. Larry posted this statement on Facebook, “Waters should crest later tonight. We are fine but all the devastation is heart wrenching.”
December 30th just happened to be a big day for my family. Weeks earlier, my Mom & Dad invited my in-laws (my wife Tanya’s mother, father, and brother) and Tanya and I over for a holiday dinner. Just three days before, Tanya and I had finally received our official photos from our November 1st wedding. We were eager to show them to my parents. All of us looked forward to recalling over dinner how much fun all of us had planning and celebrating the wedding in 2015.
My mother wanted me to come home from my in-laws early in the afternoon to help her clean and prepare for the dinner. I left my in-laws around 2 pm. It is normally a 30 minute drive from my in-laws to my parents house. Because I-44 was closed west of St. Louis as well as other state highway and local highway bridges due to the flood, drivers scrambled to find alternative routes to travel thru and leave the city. Traffic was a crawl on I-270. It took me over an hour and fifteen minutes to get home.
Once I reached home, I called my mother-in-law, Nancy to suggest an alternative route of surface streets, not I-270, to get to my parents’ house that evening to avoid that traffic. She took my advice. My in-laws and wife all met up to carpool together in West County around 5:30 pm. The plan was for them to arrive around 6 pm. My in-laws and Tanya did not arrive until after 7 pm. A normal 30 minute drive from my in-laws to my parents house took nearly one hour and a half. The gridlock from traffic due to the flooding made it very difficult for traffic to move through and around St. Louis.
Tanya called me several times to tell me how the traffic was moving at a snail’s pace. The very long delay in their arrival for dinner had me feeling concerned. I knew my in-laws and wife would make it to my parents house fine. However, the long traffic tie ups had me very worried about climate change.
Interstate 44 & Hwy 141, west of St. Louis. Image Source: news.yahoo.com
The flood waters had not peaked yet. During the Holiday week, a section of I-70 was shut down west of St. Louis in St. Charles CO for a couple of days. Floodwaters from the Meramec River forced the shutdown of I-44 for a 24-mile stretch for several days. Even more, flooding from the Meramec forced closure of a 3-mile stretch of I-55 south of St. Louis, tying up traffic for commuters and travelers on the eve of the new year.
Around 180 roads in Missouri were closed during the peak of the flooding. That day, my college friend, Brent Isaacs, was traveling through St. Louis from his home in Tulsa, OK to visit friends and family in Indianapolis, IN. I called Brent that day to warn him to have alternative routes ready, since a long stretch of I-44 was closed.
All of these traffic closures had me concerned. When was it going to end? Probably within a couple of days. What if it doesn’t? We would be screwed in St. Louis. We rely upon these interstate highways to delivery food to our grocery stores and gasoline to our gas stations. Furthermore, our railroad tracks, which parallels the flooded rivers, delivers the coal on trains for our power plants. St. Louis currently gets up to 84% of its electricity from coal.
To me, that seemed just a tiny taste of what climate disruption could bring to our very delicate and complicated egg shell that we live on top off called “civilization.” It reminded me of scientists say if we don’t act now to reduce the threat of climate change. According to Adam Frank, an astrophysicist at the University of Rochester, “The danger (of drastic climate change) is not to the planet, but to our civilization on the planet.”
Dr. Richard Somerville, now retired Climate Scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, once stated, “The very elaborate infrastructure that has been put together: the damns, pumps, reservoirs, and canals, won’t work (with the increased chances of more extreme heat waves, droughts and floods) because they were designed for the climate we have had, not the one we are going to have.”
At the same time I was worried about the theoretical. My good friend and best man from my wedding, Larry Lazar from Eureka, MO, was dealing with the reality of the flooding. This is what he wrote as a guest post on Greg Laden’s science blog:
“If you have had the news on the last day or two you may have seen stories and images about the Missouri floods. Many of those images are from Eureka (where we live)…
We are dry, mostly, and doing okay. The basement was flooded during the initial 3 day rain event due to a failed sump pump and a couple of downspouts that came unattached from the drain pipes during the heavy downfall. We fixed the drain spouts and had a new sump pump installed on Sunday and that stopped any more water from coming in. We are fortunate that we returned home on Saturday instead of Sunday or the water would have been much higher.
Unfortunately it doesn’t take much water to ruin carpet pads and drywall. We were able to get the carpets up and the pads out the back of the house without too much trouble. There are now 14 high powered and very noisy blowers and a super-sized dehumidifier running non-stop in the basement at a cost of $30 per day per machine (disaster capitalism is quite profitable). We are really hoping everything will be dried out by tomorrow as the noise from the basement can make television watching and conversation difficult.
We have learned a painful and expensive lesson about not having a sump pump rider on our home insurance. The rider would have covered damages from the failed pump. We also would have been covered if our dishwasher had overflowed but not from ground water. Fortunately we didn’t have any content damage so the only costs will be drying the place out and installing new pads under the salvaged carpets. Kellie thinks she is getting some new furniture out of the deal. I have no idea how less fortunate folks that have far more damage are going to get through this financially.
Downtown Eureka is a true disaster. The sand bagging effort was futile against the record water levels as most of the businesses downtown have water over their front doors. Our favorite Irish pub will be out of commission for a long time so now we have to go across the freeway to have a beer from the tap.
We have now had two 500 year floods in the last 20 years. The increasing frequency of these “500 year” (or more) type events really brings home what James Hansen wrote about in “Storms of my Grandchildren”. I’m pretty sure these frequency estimates will be a meaningless descriptor in the future. It will be interesting to see what the spring brings as the climate change fueled El Nino really kicks in.
All the roads out of Eureka are closed except for one and that one is a parking lot most of the time. Many subdivisions have been isolated for a couple days now. The river crested this evening around 6 so we should see water levels, and media coverage, receding starting tomorrow. We are looking forward to returning to some type of normalcy, and increased action on climate change, for the new year.
If you want to help please demand action on climate change by supporting a price on carbon that is being proposed by the non-partisan Citizen Climate Lobby. It is, by far, the most important thing you can do to reduce the risks of these types of events in the future.”
In another Facebook post, Larry summed up his flooding experience this way, “We are dry but many others are not. Climate Change sucks.”
My in-laws, my wife, and I may have been inconvenienced by the snarled traffic from the floods. However, our situation was so minor compared to what Larry and so many others in St. Louis. I still cannot imagine losing my home, business or loved one to that flood. The news reported that 24 people lost their lives in this 2015 Missouri flood.
On New Year’s Eve, December 31st, my wife, Tanya had the day off from work. Whenever we have spare time, Tanya and I love to go on long walks in nearby St. Louis area parks. Unfortunately, the most scenic and walkable St. Louis county parks are along bluffs and river plains. Almost all of our favorite parks, such as Castlewood State Park, where I proposed to Tanya just one year earlier, were buried under flood waters.
One park that was high enough to avoid the floods was Bee Tree Park in south St. Louis County. It will always have a special place in my heart since I had been going there since I was a child. I have vivid memories going there as a child on family outings, church picnics, high school band picnics, one of my first high school dates, etc. The good news was that it was open. The bad news was that traffic was a slow crawl to go there since it was the alternative route across the Meramec River since I-55 was closed.
Tanya and I drove around Oakville, the area where I grew up and went to high school to see the flooding. I remember lots of other floods in Oakville, but none of the previous ones were that high.
On New Year’s Day, Tanya and I wanted to spend the morning walking the path around Creve Coeur Lake County Park. As we drove towards it, Mother Nature basically told us, “No! You ain’t hiking there!” The lake lies in the Missouri River flood plain. The roads were closed and underwater for miles around it. Tanya and I did find a way to drive to the bluffs overlooking the lake.
It was stunning to see the path, parking lot and access road by it buried underwater and the lake swelled way above its normal shoreline. Tanya and I did enjoy our hike above the bluffs. However, it took much creativity and flexibility to fulfill our exercise walk.
For as we saw firsthand, experiencing a taste of climate change is no ‘walk in the park.’
This tiny taste of what climate change could like with the MO flooding with just traffic disruption certainly motivated me to step up my actions on climate change for 2016 and beyond. Thank goodness the rivers slowly returned to their banks during the month of January. Except for the flood victims, life is returning to normal in the St. Louis area.
Three weeks have now pasted since those menacing floods. One thought continues to annoy me. On Facebook, I regularly see people accept climate science, yet they are so pessimistic about climate change. It annoys me when they feel like there is nothing we can do to limit the worst aspects of global warming. Even more, they don’t trust the government, Republicans, elected officials or humanity to take action in time to reduce the threat.
To me, I think that is nothing more than a cope out and excuse to not take action. Future generations will judge us harshly if we hide behind excuses such as, ‘It was too hard so I gave up!’ ‘I did not think the government, politics, or people were going to change.’ ‘I did not know what to do.’ ‘I did not like the solutions that were proposed.’ ‘The fossil fuel industry was too strong.’ etc.
My friend, Claire Cohen Cortright just posted on her Facebook wall, “Cynicism is morally indefensible when the world depends upon our willingness to believe that our actions can make all the difference.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Image Source: biography.com
I am writing this on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Recently, this quote from Dr. King has been speaking to me:
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there “is” such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
Now is the time to take action. Getting a taste of climate change with the recent floods and gridlocked traffic did really scare me. There are millions of actions you can take to reduce the threat. You can join groups like Citizens’ Climate Lobby, 350.org, Beyond Coal, Avaaz.org, Climatemobilization.org, and others who are making a difference. You can do what you can to be energy efficient. As I have said for years in my speeches, It is Easy to be Green.
As I like to say, “Each and everyone of us can change the world. We do this by the way we vote, the products we buy, and the attitudes we share with each other.”
Tanya Couture and Brian Ettling at their wedding ceremony. Nov. 1, 2015.
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” – John Muir,
This is one of my favorite quotes by John Muir, who lived from April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914. He was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His writings and activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. He seemed to be happiest and most at home exploring Yosemite and the surrounding areas. If you spend time at Yosemite, like I have done a few times, you can seek why. It won’t take you long to see will see why he wrote that.
In my 23 years working as a park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon and Everglades National Park, Florida, I love quoting John Muir during my ranger talks and interactions with visitors. Yes, I have lived his quote spending time in the great outdoors of our national parks. I have received far more wonder for my heart and soul than I will ever know. While experiencing the inspiration, I have been deeply troubled Seeing Climate Change in my 22 years as a Park Ranger.
My Struggle as a seasonal park ranger and off-seasonal climate advocate
By the winter of 2007-08, climate change was really tugging at me to take action. I had read and seen enough of sea level rise in the Everglades and its impact on the amazing wildlife, such as the alligators, crocodiles, birds, dolphins, manatees, etc. I decided to give up this wonderful winter job and move back to St. Louis for the winters. I had no idea what I was going to do in my hometown. However, I knew I had to speak out, write and organize locally to inspire others to take action to reduce the threat of climate change.
I still spend my summers at Crater Lake National Park leading ranger talks and hiking in nature. Since 2011, I have been giving my climate change evening program at Crater Lake. From 1992-2008, my old routine was Crater Lake in summer and Everglades in winter. By 2008, I found it a little confining to be a ranger year round seasonally in two different national parks. I like to jokingly call myself a “city slicker who works in national parks.” I need my winters in St. Louis to reacquaint myself to the zany, urban civilization where I grew up.
Giving up my winters in the Everglades was not a smart move financially. It was giving up a middle class salary and to live on half of the money. It was forfeiting half of my annual experience in the National Park Service, which could have helped me land a permanent ranger job. It meant giving up independence to live with family. It meant always being somewhat of a stranger in my hometown since I am gone half of the year. Add up all of those factors, less financial security, less of a stable career, and living dependently on family, does not make for a good dating situation.
Brian Ettling working as a ranger at Everglades National. Park
Besides being a seasonal park ranger and climate change advocate, my other dream was to find a wonderful woman and get married. Yes, I have had many dates and some girlfriends. However, it was hard to maintain those relationships and settle down due to my insane migratory summer Crater Lake park ranger/winter St. Louis climate change activist lifestyle.
The Reward of Following my Climate Change Bliss
While working in the Everglades around the year 2000, I first discovered the quote Joseph Campbell quote, “Follow your bliss!”
In my spare time from immersing myself in the Everglades, a friend recommended that I listen to the 1988 PBS documentary Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. I then bought the six cassette one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) and journalist Bill Moyers.
Their conversation focused on Campbell’s knowledge of ancient mythology. They discussed how mythology still influences society and individuals today.
During their discussion of the Hero’s Adventure, Bill Moyers asked, “How do I slay that dragon in me? What’s the journey each of us has to make, what you call ‘the soul’s high adventure’?
Joseph Campbell responded, “My general formula for my students is ‘Follow your bliss.’ Find where it is, and don’t be afraid to follow it.”
Thus, I took this quote to heart to follow my bliss as a climate change communicator. In 2009, I spoke to my nephew’s second grade class and Cub Scout Troop, my younger niece’s girl scout troop, and my older niece’s seventh grade class. A local Catholic grade school asked me to speak to their third and fifth grade classes.
Brian Ettling speaking at the school of his nephew Sam, February 2009
As I mentioned in my previous blogs, I taught around 7 continuing adult education classes for St. Louis Community College. These classes were about 3 hours in length. In addition, I co-taught or taught 3 climate change classes for the OASIS Center of St. Louis, which is a non-profit educational organization promoting lifelong learning for adults over 50 years old.
I joined my local Toastmasters group, where I have given over 15 speeches on climate change. My fellow Toastmasters voted for me as “Best Speaker” for 6 of those speeches. I co-founded the Climate Reality-St. Louis Meet Up with local area resident and businessman Larry Lazar. I got a short term job at the St. Louis Science Center interacting with folks at temporary Climate Change exhibit. I became co-leader of the St. Louis Citizens’ Climate Lobby group.
As I followed my passion engaging my hometown St. Louis on climate change, I started understanding this advice of Joseph Campbell.
For Bill Moyers asked him directly: “What happens when you follow your bliss?”
Joseph Campbell replied: “You come to bliss.”
Later on Bill Moyers asked, “Do you ever have this sense when you are following your bliss, as I have at moments, of being helped by hidden hands?”
Joseph Campbell: “All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as the result of invisible hands coming all the time — namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
Taking action on climate change was leading to bliss for me. Furthermore, it helped me find the woman of my dreams.
Climate Change work leading to romance
At one of the Climate Reality-St. Louis Meet Ups, there was this beautiful slender woman with long blonde hair sitting at the bar drinking a birch beer. As one of the founders of the group, I walked up and introduced myself. She was shy and quiet However, she seemed interested to meet me since I was one of the leaders of the group. Her name was Tanya and I asked her how she liked her birch beer soda. She let me try some of her soda. I invited her to a future planning Climate Reality-St. Louis event and she came.
Tanya and I struck up a friendship. I asked her to meet me for coffee to hear one of my climate change talks and she said yes. Thus, we met for coffee at a Starbucks in December 2012 and again in February 2013. I practiced climate change talks for her both times. During the second meeting, I asked her if she would be interested in having dinner and seeing a movie. We ended up eating a a fun Indian restaurant and seeing the Jennifer Lawerence and Bradly Cooper movie, Silver Lining Playbook.
Tanya and Brian Ettling. Trip to Little Rock, Arkansas. April 2013.
Right away, there seemed to be a wonderful chemistry between us. We started dating in March 2013. She kept coming to my climate change talks around St. Louis. In April 2013, I took the train to see her Little Rock, Arkansas when she performed with the Little Rock Sympathy. One week later, Tanya played the violin for my parents’ 50th Anniversary Party. Her parents had me over for dinner a few weeks later. That summer, Tanya came to visit me at my summer job at Crater Lake National Park.
Through Tanya, I started getting invited to speak at climate change events. In December 2013, her good friend Connie asked me to give a climate change talk. January 2014, Tanya and I started filming for YouTube goofy videos where we promoted ourselves as the Climate Change Comedian and the Violinist!
By the summer of 2014, we had so much fun being around each other that each of us was starting to think about marriage. I proposed to her on Christmas Eve, 2014 at Castlewood State Park, located west of St. Louis. My proposal was on one knee at a bench high on a bluff over looking the Meramec River and a vast Missouri forest. One month later, we made another goofy YouTube video with my mother, Climate Change Comedian, His Mom, & His Fiancée.
A Climate Change Wedding
Throughout 2015, we had so much fun planning our November 1st wedding with Tanya’s mother, Nancy. Tanya and Nancy laughed and approved all of my ideas for the wedding. My inflatable Earth Ball that I use for all of my climate change talks played a dominant role in the wedding. The minister for our ceremony, Darla Goodrich, talked about our love for the earth and protecting creation from climate change during her homily. Tanya chose to wear a beautiful green dress. The front of our wedding bulletin had an image of the earth.
On the back of the bulletin, Tanya and her family were very positive on what I had printed for the back page:
Tanya, Brian and their parents are delighted that you joined us today.
Hope you have a ball at our wedding!
The Marriage of Brian and Tanya:
Where Everyday will be Earth Day!
Quotes from Brian to meditate
for today and everyday:
“Each and everyone of us
can change the world.
We do this by
The way we vote,
The products we buy
And the attitudes we share
with each other.“
“Think Globally, Act Daily.”
“Never leave home without
your Earth Ball.”
Quote from Tanya:
“It is never dull with Brian,
but I am not sure
if he is actually from this planet.”
Our friends and family who came to the wedding thought all of this was hilarious and fit with our personalities and my passion for climate change. It was so special to see so many friends and family members who had been so supportive of me with my climate change work over the years at the wedding.
Receiving sublime affirmation for my climate change work at the wedding reception.
The wedding was nothing to compared to reaffirming bliss I received at the reception.
My best man was Larry Lazar, who I had co-founded the Climate Reality-St. Louis Meetup. Without Larry asking me to join him in creating this Meet Up, I am not sure if I would have met Larry. Thus, all of the credit goes to him. Larry gave a wonderful toast how Tanya and I met and all of my climate change advocacy. During the toast, he invited the reception guests to come to our next meet-up, a screening of the Merchants of Doubt documentary, on Sunday, November 14, 2015.
Brian Ettling with his Best Man, Larry Lazar
Surprisingly, two people from the reception actually came to this event two weeks later. Larry joked during his toast and I concurred that people should come because maybe they too might meet the person of their dreams, like Tanya and I did.
Tanya’s Matron of Honor, Anne, next got up to speak. Anne joked, ‘Tanya, you have a lot of patience, much more than most women would tolerate. There seems to be three in your relationship: You, Brian, and his Earth Ball.’
The audience, including Tanya and me, laughed hard at that comment. That was hilarious, Anne!
Next, my Mother-in-law, Nancy got up to speak. She totally surprised me by what she said:
My mother-in-law,
Nancy Couture
“Tanya, we are so happy you have found in your life companion in Brian and gained someone who appreciates nature and the environment…
We admire you, Brian and welcome you in our family. The passion that drives you is admirable. You working hard at making people understand the seriousness of climate change and we thank you for this.
(Tanya) and you are both make an impact on your surrounding in positive ways through music, work, and advocacy.
We love you both and wish you the very best for your future together.”
Her speech was a sublime affirmation for all of my climate change work. Her speech left me stunned and speechless for her heartfelt words that I had followed by bliss. At that moment, Nancy showed me that I truly had received far more than I have ever given with my climate change work.
Support for my climate change work from my wife
Since our wedding two months ago, Tanya has been so supportive of my climate change work.
On November 29, 2015, my new wife scheduled both of us to attend the People’s Climate March in downtown St. Louis. It was organized by Avaaz.org, a group I did not know existed before this march. On social media, there was conflicting reports where the march started in St. Louis. Some of the announcement said the Arch grounds, other announcements stated in front of City Hall. One rumor on social media said the march had been cancelled. All of these confusing reports left me very frustrated if I wanted to attend. Tanya insisted that we go downtown and attend anyway.
St. Louis People’s Climate March, November 29, 2015
Image Source: avaaz.org
I was so happy that Tanya pushed us to go and I did not cancel. According to Avaaz, around 75 people attended this march. It was a cold, damp, blustery day, not the most ideal conditions for an outdoor march. Immediately after our arrival, I introduced myself to the even organizer, Devon Rae Hartwig. I mentioned my efforts as the co-founder of the Climate Reality-St. Louis Meet Up and a Climate Reality Project Leader.
Before I knew it, Devon asked me to be the main speaker at the beginning of the march. It was a thrill for me to briefly speak to the marchers. Many of them complimented me on my words after the march. Thank goodness for Tanya for seeing the importance for us attending this event.
This past week, Tanya heard my frustrations of not feeling I am effective enough as a climate change communicator. Her response was to schedule a test drive of a Tesla Model S at the St. Louis Tesla store the day after Christmas. Tesla Product Specialist, Matt Daniel sat in the car with us during the test drive. Tanya and I were amazed how the vehicle performed. It drove very smooth, comfortable, and quiet. We liked the computer GPS, back up camera, and parking sensors. Even more, we were amazed by the automatic pilot feature that self steered the car on the interstate. It even changed lanes safely when we put on the change lane signal.
Best of all, this was a moral boost as a climate change communicator for me to test drive a 100% electric car. Hopefully, this is the future for transportation to eventually have all of our vehicles not emitting carbon pollution and contributing to climate change. Again, I cannot thank Tanya enough for scheduling this Tesla test drive for us.
Tanya is always fully supportive of my work to write, organize, and give public speeches on climate change. I could not ask for better spouse as I follow my bliss with climate change activism.
With climate change action, you can receive far more than you can seek
Some folks reading this are not interested in finding true love or a spouse. I have no problem with that. The point of this blog post: If you get involved with taking action on climate change, you may receive far more than you seek.
In my case, I met my wife after I have been following my passion. Even if I had not met Tanya, I have had the blessing of meeting so many friends, such as Larry Lazar, who have inspired me and given me hope. Through the Climate Reality-St. Louis Meetup, Citizens Climate Lobby, South County Toastmasters, etc, I have met countless friends that are way too numerous to mention here. If you are a friend reading this, you probably inspired me with my climate change work.
During the Power of the Myth with Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers asks: “When I take that journey and go down there and slay those dragons (finding and acting on your life’s purpose), do I have to go alone?”
Joseph Campbell: “If you can find someone to help you, that’s fine too. But, ultimately, the last deed has to be done by oneself. Psychologically, the dragon is one’s own binding of oneself to one’s ego. We’re captured in our own dragon cage. The problem of the psychiatrist is to disintegrate that dragon, break him up, so that you may expand to a larger field of relationships. The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down.”
One of the rewards I have received from climate change action is the hope I have received from friends. Besides Tanya, many others have also pushed me beyond my personal limitations and comfort zone. Through their actions, I can see that action leads to more climate actions.
As Joan Baez once said, “Action is the antidote for despair.”
At a Citizens’ Climate Lobby meeting on Saturday April 6, 2013, my friends Juli Viel and Lucas Sabalka challenged me to write a climate change opinion editorial for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They directly needled me saying, “We know you want to do this. If you don’t do this, one of us will write this oped.”
They threw down the gauntlet and I had no choice but to respond. Late that evening, I threw myself into composing an editorial that I completed and submitted around 3 am. To my astonishment, the Post-Dispatch published my oped, For Earth Day, a GOP free-market solution to climate change, on April 19, 2013.
As wise men and women have shared with us for years: ‘As you step outside of your comfort zone, that is where the magic happens.’
As we all know, it must take action to make a difference.
As Dr. David Orr says, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.”
With climate change, a wide range of actions is available for you to make a difference. You can write your elected member of Congress, write a letter to the editor or oped to your newspaper, support a candidate willing to take strong action on climate change, divest your investments from fossil fuels while encouraging your university and other organizations to do the same, organize to force your local utility to not use coal and switch to clean energy for your local electricity, weatherize your home if you have not done this already, etc.
As I like to say, “Each and everyone of us can change the world. We do this by the way we vote,
the products we buy, and the attitudes we share with each other.” and “Think Globally, Act Daily.”
As we take action on climate change, we can gain hope, friends, and love. Similar to spending time in nature, we may even receive far more than we seek.
As Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, stated,
“Very few people on Earth ever get to say: I’m doing, right now, the most important thing I could possibly be doing.’ If you join this fight, that’s what you will be saying.”
Thank you Tanya, Nancy, Larry Lazar and so many others for helping me to see that I have received far more by taking on action climate change than all of the effort I invested!
Nancy Couture, Brian Ettling, Tanya Couture and Rex Couture
Since October 2012, I have taught around 7 continuing adult education classes for St. Louis Community College. These classes were about 3 hours in length. In addition, I have also co-taught or taught 3 climate change classes for the OASIS Center of St. Louis, which is a non-profit educational organization promoting lifelong learning for adults over 50 years old.
I promoted these classes on social media to inspire others passionate about climate change across the U.S. to approach their community college for teach their local citizens about climate change. The response I received from some of climate change communicators was: “Great idea! Can I see a copy of your syllabus?”
I did mail the class agenda to anyone who was interested. I will keep doing this for others asking me the same request. In this blog, I will expand more upon what I cover in my class agenda. Hopefully, this will help others borrow or steal ideas to create their own climate change classes.
Because of this length and details, I had to break this blog up into two parts. I freely admit this blog post will not be for everyone. However, it is my Christmas gift to my Facebook friend, Andrise Bass, and others looking for materials to teach a similar class.
In the Part I of this blog, I covered the first half of the class:
A. My introduction to the class: Why am I teaching this class?
B. Get to know the Partipciants
C. What is Climate Change? What is the Problem?
In that section, I covered the 5 Essential Messages About Climate Change:
• Climate change is real.
• People are causing it this time.
• There is widespread agreement among climate scientists;
more than 95% of scientists are convinced that human-caused climate change is occuring.
• It is harmful to people.
• People can limit it, if we choose.
D. We take a 15 minute break.
This is about the halfway point of my 3 hour class.
In the second half of my class (covered on this blog post), I cover:
How do Americans really feel about climate change? (The 6 Americas Report)
How do you effectively chat with your neighbors, family, friends, and co-workers on climate change?
How do you engage someone who strongly disagrees with you about climate change?
Looking at “unusual suspects” who accept climate change.
Answering climate myth questions.
Ending by showing humorous climate change videos.
E. How do Americans really feel about climate change?
I start this section by introducing the class to 6 of their neighbors: The Yale & George Mason Universities 6 Americas Reports. These reports that give an insight into American perspectives on climate change have been regularly published since July 2010.
The 6 Americas gives the titles for the six different groups as: Alarmed Alice, Concerned Claudia, Cautious Carl, Disengaged Diane, Doubtful David, and Dismissive Dan. I then show the most recent poll from the 6 Americas graphed out from most motivated, most concerned, and highest belief in global warming on the left to least concerned, least motivated, and lowest level of belief on the right.
As of October 2014, the latest poll of the 6 Americas showed the Alarmed (13%), Concerned (31%), Cautious (23%), Disengaged (7%), Doubtful (13%), and Dismissive (13%).
Starting in October 2011, I exchanged e-mails with Dr. Connie Roser-Renouf and Dr. Ed Maibach, two of the authors of the 6 Americas. They each e-mailed their powerpoint slide decks about communicating climate change messaging strategies from Global Warming’s Six Americas.
From their information, I then give a brief description to each of these 6 groups:
Alarmed Alice is highly certain climate change is real, caused by humans and is a serious threat right now. She is uncertain by the effectiveness of her actions and she considered an opinion leader by those around her. She is taking steps as an energy user, consumer, and citizens to advocate for change. Alice supports a wide range of policy responses to address global warming.
Concerned Claudia is very sure global warming, is happening, human caused, but feels less personally threatened that Alice. She believes global warming will harm people 10 or more years from now. She is average in reducing her energy consumption. However, she is well above average in using her consumer power to advocate for change. She supports aggressive government policies, but is currently unlikely to contact her elected officials.
Cautious Carl is only somewhat sure global warming is happening, and he is equally like to see it as human caused or natural. He sees global warming as a distant threat – primarily to other people – that begins to her people in another 25 to 50 years. He is taking average steps to reduce his energy consumption, but isn’t involved in addressing global warming in other ways. However, he is modestly supportive of a range of green policies.
Disengaged Diane thinks global warming may be happening, but she is unsure. She has given it very little thought, not personally important, and doesn’t know much about it. She has done relatively little to reduce her use of energy at home. She has lower that average income and not likely to rely on her own car. In my own conversation with Dr. Ed Maibach, one of the authors of the 6 Americas, he told me ‘The Disengaged are the one segment most likely to be non White, although they are not majority African American.’ Despite her low of personal concern, Diane is more supportive than Carl of a national response to global warming.
Doubtful David doesn’t know if climate change is real or not, but he is pretty sure it is not human-caused. He is not worried about it. He sees it as a very distant threat that won’t harm people for at least 100 years. He is not in favor of a national response to global warming, but he is modestly in favor of a range of energy-saving policy measures. He is improving energy-efficiency in his home.
Dismissive Dan believes global warming is a hoax. He thinks many scientists share his views. He rejects any form of government action against global warming, although he does support efforts to develop renewable energy sources. He is more likely than average to be making energy-efficient improvements to his home.
All of these groups feel very differently about climate change. Therefore, the key question is
How do you effectively reach different segments of the 6 Americas?
In the polling of the 6 Americas, research asked the different segment groups:
“If you could ask an expert on global warming one question, which question would you ask?”
The result was that different segments have different questions for climate change experts:
a. Alarmed Alice & Concerned Claudia want to know: “What can the U.S. and I do to reduce global warming?”
b. Cautious Carl & Disengaged Diane want to know: “What harm will global warming cause?”
c. Doubtful David & Dismissive Dan want to know: “How do you know global warming is occurring?”
With Doubtful David and Dismissive Dan, keep in mind that question is a trap. They tend to have deep internal reasoning for rejecting any scientific explanation about climate change. Thus, as I will explain in an upcoming section, it is much better to shift the conversation how David and Dan can save money with energy efficiency. From research and my own personal experience, they are very interested on tips for saving money.
From research from the 6 Americas, these are the topics to engage the different segment groups:
a. Teach Alarmed Alice & Concerned Claudia what actions they can take right now.
b. Tell Cautious Carol & Disengaged Diane stories that bring home the threat of global warming and engage them with characters who are addressing the problem.
c. Teach Doubtful David & Dismissive Dan how they can save money through energy conservation.
F. How do you effectively chat with your neighbors, family, friends, and co-workers on climate change?
In this section, I focus on how engage Disengaged Diane and Alarmed Alice. I leave engaging Dismissive Dan for the next section.
1. Tell Diane & Carl stories that bring home the threat of climate change and show them characters who are addressing the problem.
On December 31, 2012, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, my hometown newspaper, had this headline that grabbed my attention: One in five kids in parts of St. Louis area struggles with asthma. Underneath the headline was an 8 year old African American boy, Xavier Miles, with a big smile on his face before receiving his spirometry test, which shows the function of the lungs, at his school. The caption stated that “Xavier has asthma and met with various educators who reminded him how to take of himself during an asthma attack.”
The article then mentioned that St. Louis has twice the national average of children suffering with asthma. What causes asthma?
According to the website MedicalNewsToday, environmental factors are one of the top causes of Asthma:
“Pollution, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, ozone, cold temperatures, and high humidity have all been shown to trigger asthma in some individuals.
During periods of heavy air pollution, there tend to be increases in asthma symptoms and hospital admissions. Smoggy conditions release the destructive ingredient known as ozone, causing coughing, shortness of breath, and even chest pain. These same conditions emit sulfur dioxide, which also results in asthma attacks by constricting airways.”
Just a few months later, St. Louis Public Radio reported “St. Louis area 12th worst among U.S. metropolitan regions for particulate pollution” according to the annual report State of the Air by the American Lung Association. What is causing our dirty air?
It turns out that St. Louis gets around 84% of its electricity by burning coal, that is over twice the national average of 39%. Even worse, Ameren, the local electric utility, operates 4 three coal-fired power plants in the St. Louis metro area, 3 of which run without modern pollution controls.
According to the Clean Air Task Force, retiring one coal plant prevents annually 29 premature deaths, 47 heart attacks, 491 asthma attacks, and 22 asthma emergency room visits.
Just a couple of miles from where I live is the Meramec Coal Plant. It was originally built in 1953. Its health costs to society is larger than profits from production. According to the Environmental Integrity Project, the plant causes about 1,000 asthma attacks and 57 to 100 premature deaths each year.
Meramec Coal Power Plant, south St. Louis County, Missour
The good news for Missouri and the planet is that we don’t need to burn coal. Missouri ranks 13th in available wind resources. In 2008, the small town of Rockport, Missouri, over 1,300 residents, announced that it was the first 100% wind powered community in the United States.
Even more, there are local characters making a difference. In the South County Times, December 14, 2012, was this story, “Living Green With Solar Energy,” about Jim and Judy Stroup. Earlier in 2012, the Stroups installed solar panels on their roof. As a result, their electric bills fell drastically by up to 87%. n 2011, their annual electric bill was $882.60. In a full year of providing up to 87% of his electric needs, Stroup estimated his solar array will cover $767.86 of his electric bill. As a result, their electric bill dropped to roughly $115 a year, or $9.56 a month.
Commenting on his new solar investment, Jim Stroup remarked: “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.”
In December 2013, I met up with a friend Jim Seko who drove up to visit me in his electric Nissan Leaf. Jim told me that his electric car was so economical that it would be “too expensive” for him to go back to gas powered car.
St. Louis resident Jim Seko with his electric Nissan Leaf car.
2. Tell Alarmed Alice the actions she can take right now.
Unfortunately, Alice feels all alone at home when she reads stories about climate change or sees them on TV. The great news to share with Alice is that she is not alone. As my friend, Larry Schweiger, former President of the National Wildlife Federation, once wrote, “It’s not enough to care; we must link our concern to each other and act collectively”
a. Citizens’ Climate Lobby
One group that has given me hope is Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL). It was started in 2007 by retired San Diego real estate broker Marshall Saunders. CCL is a a non-profit, non-partisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change. With over 307 active chapters in the US and worldwide, CCL lobbies Congress in support of its Carbon Fee and Dividend proposal. Its thousands of volunteers do this by building friendly relationships with our federally elected representatives and senators.
CCL’s purpose:
1. To create the political will for a sustainable climate.
2. To empower individuals to have breakthroughs in exercising their personal and political power.
According to retired NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, “If you want to join the fight to save the planet, to save creation for your grandchildren, there is no more effective step you could take than becoming an active member of Citizens Climate Lobby.”
Brian Ettling with NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hanson
CCL’s goal: get Congress to pass a carbon fee and dividend.
The fee would be placed on carbon-based fuels at the source, which is the coal mine, oil well, or U.S. border. The fee starts at $15 per ton of fossil carbon dioxide emitted. It increases steadily each year by $10, so that clean energy is then cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade. All the money collected is then returned to American households. Two thirds of all households would break even or receive more in their dividend check than they would for the increased cost of energy. A predictably increasing carbon price would send a clear market signal which will unleash entrepreneurs and investors in the new clean-energy economy. It is considered to be a market-based solution geared towards conservative Republicans serving in Congress.
Revenue neutral carbon taxes have been tested in outside of the United States and have proven to be successful. The best case is British Columbia. Since it was first implemented in 2008, British Columbia now has the lowest personal income tax rate in Canada (with additional cuts benefiting low-income and rural residents) and one of the lowest corporate rates in North America.
This tax been amazingly effective in cutting the root of carbon pollution: the burning of fossil fuels. Since B.C. implemented it, fuel use dropped by 16 per cent. In the rest of Canada, it’s rose by 3 per cent.
In 2014, Regional Economic Models, Inc (REMI) did a study of Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s Carbon Fee and Dividend proposal. REMI concluded that CCL’s proposal would create between 2.1 to 2.8 million jobs, reduce carbon pollution by 50%, increase household incomes, save up to 230,000 lives that would otherwise be lost from the pollution of burning fossil fuels, and add up to 1.3 trillion more to the GDP over a 20 year period. Basically, there was no economic case against this proposal.
1. To create the political will for a sustainable climate.
Congress is more likely to take a lobbying group seriously if they are growing in numbers and influence. When I first got involved with Citizens’ Climate Lobby in 2012, there was 74 groups. Now they have 310 groups and over 20,000 volunteers. In June 2015, around 900 Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteers from all across the United States went to Washington DC for an annual conference. They met with 487 offices. In November 2015, I joined around 140 volunteers to meet with nearly 170 Congressional offices. As the CCL volunteers and I met with the staff with 6 Congressional offices, it felt like they were taking us seriously because of our group size and commitment.
Brian Ettling meeting with 6 different Congressional Offices November 17 & 18, 2015.
CCL also tries to build positive relations with newspaper editors and the media to build political will. On December 12, 2012, volunteers from Citizens’ Climate Lobby and I met with the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to persuade them to endorse CCL’s carbon fee and dividend. As a result the Post-Dispatch did publish this editorial on December 27, 2012: Editorial: Save the planet. Save Social Security. Save Medicaid. Tax carbon.
Brian Ettling, Carol Braford, Tom Braford, Steve Valk, and Lucas Sabalka
after our meeting with the St. Louis Editorial Board, December 12, 2012.
2. To empower individuals to have breakthroughs in exercising their personal and political power.
Singer and songwriter Joan Baez once said, “Action is the antidote for despair.”
I can personally attest that Citizens’ Climate Lobby has empowered me to do things I only dreamed I would be doing. In my imagination, I hoped I could write an opinion editorial for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. My CCL volunteer friends challenged me to do this in early April, 2013. That evening, I composed it and submitted it to the Post-Dispatch. It was published on April 19, 2013, For Earth Day, a GOP free-market solution to climate change.
Just one year later, The Post-Dispatch published another oped I wrote for Earth Day 2014, For Earth Day: Asking our elected officials to be climate heroes. The print edition even had a beautiful picture of Crater Lake National Park to go with my opinion editorial.
As we take bold actions by getting involved with groups like Citizens’ Climate Lobby, it does change the world around us. As Mark Reynolds, CCL Executive Director likes to say, “We adamantly believe that politicians don’t create political will, they respond to it.”
Mark Reynolds, Executive Director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby with Brian Ettling
b. Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign
Another group I found to be effective was Beyond Coal Campaign. Their primary objective is to close coal power plants in the United States, including at least one-third of the country’s more than 500 coal plants by 2020, and to replace them with renewable energy sources.
How is this campaign going so far? According to article in Politico this year: “Beyond Coal is the most extensive, expensive and effective campaign in the Club’s 123-year history, and maybe the history of the environmental movement.”
Since this campaign began several years ago, Beyond Coal has helped successfully retire 222 coal plants and 85,500 Megawatts of dirty coal electricity retired. This helps avoid 313 million metric tons of carbon pollution each year.
Brian Ettling speaking at a Beyond Coal Rally, April 25, 2013.
Why move beyond coal?
As I mentioned earlier, the Clean Air Task Force notes that retiring one coal plant prevents annually 29 premature deaths, 47 heart attacks, 491 asthma attacks, and 22 asthma emergency room visits.
Just a couple of miles from where I live is the Meramec Coal Plant. According to the Environmental Integrity Project, the plant causes about 1,000 asthma attacks and 57 to 100 premature deaths each year.
According to U.S. Energy Information Administration*, coal accounts close to 80% of the greenhouse gas emissions from the electric sector. Thus, targeting a reduction in coal emissions and replacing those emissions with renewable energy could produce a huge reduction in carbon pollution.
Even more, according to the Environmental Projection Agency, the Meramec Coal Plant accounts for over 95% of the fixed source greenhouse gas emissions for St. Louis County. Thus, retiring the 62 year old Meramec Coal Plant would go along ways toward cleaning up our local air and reducing local greenhouse gas emissions. Learning all of this in 2013 inspired me to write this oped about Meramec, What keeps me up late at night, that was published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on July 10, 2013.
After my involvement with Beyond Coal on this issue, it was great news to read exactly one year later in the St. Louis Business Journal that Ameren to close Meramec power plant. Ameren now plans to convert two units at Meramec to natural gas in 2016, and retiring Meramec completely by the end of 2022.
While this is very positive news for south St. Louis County, Ameren still has 3 other coal plants on the Missouri side of the St. Louis area and 3 others in Illinois side of the St. Louis metro area. Closing Meramec is a good step forward. However, we still have lots to do locally to clean up our air and reduce our carbon pollution from area coal plants. Thus, it is still good to get involved with Beyond Coal.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
c. 350.org Go Fossil Free Campaign
November 1, 2012, I went to see environmental activist and founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben, give a public lecture at Washington University in St. Louis. During his lecture, I heard him say, “Climate change is the single biggest thing humans have ever done to this planet. One thing must get bigger:
our movement to stop it.”
Bill McKibben speaking at Washington University in St. Louis, November 1, 2012
During the audience question and answer time with McKibben, I directly asked, “Bill, what is our marching orders once we leave here tonight?”
Bill McKibben responded, “I need all of you to ask your college or university as a student, professor, alumni to divest its financial endowment fund from fossil fuel companies.”
I immediately took this up as a challenge. As an alumni, I wrote a letter to Dr. David Sallee, President of William Jewell College, where I am a 1992 graduate. I mailed this letter on February 8, 2013. I never heard back from my alma mater. Thus, I called several times that summer to speak to Dr. Sallee’s administrative assistant. Dr. Sallee called me directly in August, 2013. I did not persuade him, but I looked at it as an ongoing conversation to plant this idea.
Dr. David Sallee, President of William Jewell College
Image Source: jewellalumni.com
Than exactly one year later, February 8, 2014, the Hilltop Monitor, published an opinion editorial I wrote in their “Sound Off” section to try to persuade the college to divest its endowment from fossil fuels. The college still has not made this commitment yet, but it still felt empowering for me to speak up.
As Dr. David W. Orr, Professor of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College, Ohio, likes to say, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.”
To sum up this section, I repeat that in a nutshell:
These are the topics to engage the different segment groups of the 6 Americas,:
a. Teach Alarmed Alice & Concerned Claudia what actions they can take right now.
b. Tell Cautious Carol & Disengaged Diane stories that bring home the threat of global warming and engage them with characters who are addressing the problem.
c. Teach Doubtful David & Dismissive Dan how they can save money through energy conservation.
I then open it up to questions before I focus on how to engage with Doubtful David and Dismissive Dan.
G. How do you engage someone who strongly disagrees with you about climate change?
When I have given talks about climate change over the years, one of my most common questions is: “Yes, I get all of your information, but how can I respond to my uncle, brother-in-law or friend who refuses to accept climate change.”
I start off with the best news of today:
IT IS A WASTE OF TIME TO TRY TO CONVERT CLOSED MINDED DISMISSIVE PEOPLE!
At worst, research shows IT WILL BACK FIRE AND MAKE THEM MORE CONVINCED TO REJECT CLIMATE CHANGE!
I pause and let this information sink in because many of these folks come to my talks looking for a tool to hit back against their dismissive friends or family members.
I then share this advice from Mahatma Gandhi: “Whenever you are confronted by an opponent, conquer him with love.”
For years, my friend and fellow park ranger, Larry Perez, focused on communicating about climate change at Everglades National Park, Florida. In my e-mail exchanges with Larry and access to his powerpoint presentation, Larry gives this advice in his climate change talks:
Know when to disengage when people strongly disagree with you about climate change.
Learn to recognize when emotions and opinion hijack conversation.
During these rare occasions, it is sometimes best to walk away.
Ranger Larry Perez speaking to park visitors at Everglades National Park.
Image Source:www.miamitodaynews.com
Sometimes you can’t just walk away though if you are in a family situation or giving a presentation to a group of people. You might be forced to respond on the spot for the disengaged and cautious folks in the room looking to still be persuaded about climate change.
Therefore, how do you talk to someone who strongly disagrees with you about climate change?
Quite frankly, it is easy to encounter people who think it is a load of crap. Even worse, it can be a difficult subject to talk about even among friends who agree with you or who are confused about it.
In his TEDx talk, A simple and smart way to fix climate change, Dan Miller, clean technology venture capitalist and frequent climate speaker, confessed chatting about climate change can even be awkward for him. Miller remarked, ‘Society conspires to suppress the discussion of climate change. Someone once said that talking about climate change is like flatulence at a cocktail party.’
I then go through to the class how I use each of these techniques:
1. Establish Common Ground:
Most people I know love nature and our national parks. If they live in St. Louis like me, we have the common civic pride of our own community. They probably have kids or grandkids and I have nieces and nephews are very significant to me. Besides talking about all these to establish common ground, quoting humorist Mark Twain has been effective for me to lessen the tension. For Mark Twain once said, “Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.”
2. Treat them with Respect
George Marshall strongly advises against using the term “denier.” It tends to make people who are dismissive of human caused climate change hostile and defensive. They tend to be even more closed minded then to an idea you would want to share with them about climate change to persuade them.
Marshall advices “consider using the term ‘dissenters’ rather than ‘deniers’ or ‘skeptics.’ I personally like call them “contrarians” or “dismissive,” since the 6 Americas Reports uses the later term.
From personal experience, never call them “crazy.” I had one presentation where a young woman confronted me afterwards. She kept quoting dismissive climate scientist John Christy and kept questioning all of my facts. When she asked me questions, she was not interested in learning from my answers. She only wanted to refute everything I said. When I tried to correct her misstatements, she did not want to hear it. After 15 minutes of this, I was tired and wanted to go home. It was late and my body just wanted to crawl back to my bed for a good night sleep. In my tired and grumpy state, I accidentally said, “You are crazy.”
The young woman then stormed off with her brother and father, and snapped, “He is never going to listen to us.” While my body was very relieved she left, my mind was very nervous. She could complain to the organization that hosted me and I could then not be invited back. Well, the next day I did run into her. Surprisingly, she apologized to me for being too spirited. I apologized to her for calling her crazy. We then laughed in agreement that it would be a boring world if everyone agreed on everything all of the time. I learned a lesson right there never to call anyone crazy.
Brian Ettling chatting with a confrontation park visitor
in Everglades National Park, in 2004.
3. Own and Hold your own views.
From this class and an overwhelming amount of scientific peer-reviewed literature, it is very obvious that current climate change is
• Real.
• Us.
• Scientists agree
• It is bad.
• We can limit it, if we choose to act now.
Therefore, we do not have any need to apologize or back down from our views. We can stand tall because the full weight of the science stands behind us.
4. Describe Your Own Personal Journey
None of us, especially me, are born saying,
“There is way too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We have got to solve climate change!”
Brian Ettling as a baby, 1968
For all of us, it is a lifelong process of coming to the realization of climate change.
For people who are dismissive of climate change. They tend to see individual actions to reduce their carbon footprint, such as buying local & organic foods, weatherizing their home, and buying a much more fuel efficient car, as way too expensive. They see government actions, such as mandating auto makers to increase the fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards and the EPA Clean Power Plan, as squashing their personal liberty and freedom. They worry about actions on climate change raising their taxes.
Conservative Republican former member of Congress, Rep. Bob Inglis has a great response to those concerns. He starts off by saying, “I share your values.” In an interview with This American Life from May 17, 2013, Inglis “says conservatives feel like their version of the American dream is under attack, that somehow, parents driving their kids through the suburbs in SUVs to soccer practice are being blamed as the cause of global warming, when in fact, everyone uses a lot of electricity and gasoline. Everybody flies on planes.”
Brian Ettling meeting former Rep. Bob Inglis
Physicist and energy expert, Amory Lovins, offers these two great responses to objections from conservatives:
“Once people understand climate protection puts MONEY back into your pocket because you do not have to buy all that fuel, the political resistance will melt faster than the glaciers.”
“You don’t have to believe in climate change to solve it. Everything we do to raise energy efficiency will make money, improve security & health, and stabilize climate.”
As the 6 Americas informs us, folks who are dismissive about climate change tend to believe that
• climate change is natural.
• action on climate change as a threat to their personal freedom.
• unlikely to change their beliefs about climate change.
However, the good news is that
THEY ARE WILLING TO REDUCE ENERGY USE TO SAVE MONEY.
Thus, the most important tip of all of these is
6. Offer Rewards.
November 30, 2011, I gave a speech, recorded on YouTube, to my South County Toastmasters Club called It’s Easy to be Green. In this speech, I talked in depth about the tips from the title article of the October 2010 issue of Consumer Reports, 7 Ways to Slash Your Energy Bills.
I chatted how Kermit the Frog is wrong. It is easy to be green. Making changes to reduce your home costs is $green$. I added up all the tips in the article to show that following Consumer Reports’ advice could save someone close to a $1,000 a year.
The article reported that City of Palo Alto, Calif. recently began including Home Energy Reports in residential utility bills to empower their customers save energy and be greener. Each report compares a household’s energy use with their 100 closest neighbors in homes of similar sizes, and also provides targeted energy conservation tips. The bill reported that the author, Nicole’s energy bill was “ranked as the 23rd-most-efficient household in the neighborhood, based on the previous month’s electricity and natural gas use.” They were listed in the good, but not the great category.
Nicole and her husband wanted to be listed in the Great category, so they immediately dusted off the caulking gun that had been sitting for over two years. This couple then spent the next two hours caulking the windows and weatherizing their home. They then waited patiently for their next utility bill. To their excitement, they were now classified as “Great,” having moved up in the standings to become the ninth-most-efficient house among their neighboring peers, and saving about $50 per month relative to the average household, or about $600 a year.
My fellow Toastmasters reacted very positive to this speech, especially the ones who are very dismissive of climate change. One member, Roy, even told me after my speech, “You know I don’t accept global warming. However, I really liked your speech because you gave me ideas to save money. As everyone knows, I am cheap and like to save money.” Roy and the other Toastmasters even voted for me as the Best Speaker that night among four speeches that were presented.
Brian Ettling after he was voted “Best Speaker” by his fellow Toastmasters November 30, 2011.
I then conclude this section by repeating the 6 Tips How to Talk to a Climate Change Dissenter:
1. Establish Common Ground
2. Treat them with Respect
3. Own and Hold your own views.
4. Describe Your Own Personal Journey
5. Be aware their worldview.
6. Offer Rewards.
With the most important of all these steps Offering Rewards, if one engages a climate change dissenter.
Depending upon the classes I taught, I have sometimes opened this part of for a discussion to practice how to respond to a dissenter with each of these steps. Some classes I taught were not interested in this exercise. That did not bother me at all. At the very least, I open it up to questions that the participants may have at this point.
As conclude this section, I lately have shared this quote from evangelical Christian climate scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe. “Climate change is an opportunity to express our faith through love.”
Dr. Hayhoe’s quote reminds me of what I think is George Marshall’s goal for his 6 Tips: reducing the conflict with those who disagree with us about climate through through love and understanding.
I give E. How do Americans really feel about climate change? about 30 minutes and G. How do you engage someone who strongly disagrees with you about climate change? about 15 minutes.
By this time we are up the the 2 hour and 15 minutes in my 3 hour class. At this point, I ask the class for questions. I stress that we have 45 minutes left and I want them to leave with their money’s worth.
Depending upon their interests, I offer other topics to help them feel more informed about climate change:
1. “Unusual Suspects” who accept climate change
2. Climate Zombies! The Mythical Arguments That Never Die!
H. “Unusual Suspects” who accept climate change.
In this powerpoint, I show my collection of organizations and individuals outside of the scientific community who accept climate change. I share direct quotes from them on the need to take action on climate change. These groups or individuals include:
This report warns that as temperatures rise and severe weather increases, food and electricity shortages could create instability in many countries, spreading disease, causing mass migration, and opening the door for extremists to take advantage of fractures in already unstable countries.
Upon the release of this report, Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense at that time, stated “Climate change is a ‘threat multiplier’ because it has the potential to exacerbate many of the challenges
we already confront today – from infectious disease to armed insurgencies.”
“On climate change, there is a clear, definitive and ineluctable ethical imperative to act.” – Pope Francis.
“Climate change is a problem we can no longer be left to a future generation.” – Pope Francis.
“At its core, global climate change is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pressures. It is about the future of God’s creation and the one human family. It is about protecting both ‘the human environment’ and the natural environment.” – US Catholic Bishops.
3. Wal-Mart
“Our goal to be supplied 100% by renewable energy is the right goal and marrying up renewables with energy efficiency is especially powerful.” — Wal Mart President & CEO Mike Duke.
‘If Climate Change Isn’t Real, I’ll Give You My Beretta’ – Todd Tanner, an accomplished angler and serious deer hunter , Field & Stream, February 15, 2012.
“The study being released today by Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance firm, sees climate change driving the increase in weather disasters.” – USA Today, October 10, 2012.
6. ExxonMobil
In ExxonMobil‘s Engaging on Climate Change statement:
“We believe that the risks of climate change warrant action…That is why it will be essential to find ways to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with energy use.”
“ExxonMobil believes a revenue-neutral carbon tax would be a more effective policy option than cap-and-trade schemes, regulations, mandates, or standards. A properly designed carbon tax can be predictable, transparent, and comparatively simple to understand and implement.”
“The climate change threat warrants bold action – and the world must respond with comprehensive, far-reaching solutions. A global climate change strategy is necessary to outline clear steps toward slowing, stopping and reversing the growth of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.”
– Dow Chemical, Energy and Climate Change Statement.
8. Big Business
As of December 1, 2015, 154 companies signed the American Business Act on Climate Pledge. This demonstrated their support for action on climate change and urged that the recent Paris climate change agreement take a strong step forward toward a low-carbon, sustainable future.
Over 700 businesses have signed the Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP)’s Climate Declaration asking federal and state policymakers to take action to seize the economic opportunity of addressing climate change.
“(We) support the findings of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which states that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that these changes will negatively affect public health…
The potential exists for devastating events with serious health implications, including extreme heat and cold events, flooding and droughts, increases in vectors carrying infectious diseases, and increases in air pollution. The health effects from these events should be of concern to the medical community and require action.”
10. NAACP
NAACP ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATE JUSTICE PROGRAM official statement:
“Global climate change has a disproportionate impact on communities of color in the United States and around the world. The NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program was created to educate and mobilize communities to address this human and civil rights issue.”
In November 2012, NAACP released this report, Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People. It focused on how coal U.S. coal pollution disproportionally impacts the health, economy and environmental on those who can least afford it – low income communities and communities of color.
“The USW has long believed that the goals of stopping the threat of climate change and creating thousands of clean energy jobs can and should be two sides of the same coin.”
— Leo W. Gerard, USW International President.
“There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities…
Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life.”
“More than a century’s worth of detailed climate observations shows a sharp increase in both carbon dioxide and temperature. These observations, together with computer model simulations and historical climate reconstructions from ice cores, ocean sediments and tree rings all provide strong evidence that the majority of the warming over the past century is a result of human activities. This is also the conclusion drawn, nearly unanimously, by climate scientists.”
14. National Geographic
For many years, National Geographic has extensively covered climate change, including the November 2015 magazine devoted entirely to it. Their numerous articles had a deep influence on me.
15. China
Yes, China has been the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter since 2006. The air pollution was so unhealthy recently that Beijing issued its most severe air pollution ‘red alert’ warning for only the second time in its history.
However, according a June 15 2015, Fortune Magazine article, “China has emerged as the world’s largest market for solar panels and in 2015 is expected to be home to a quarter of the planet’s new energy capacity from solar panels.”
This article went on to say, “China has long been the world’s largest manufacturer or solar panels…
But now China is buying a lot of its own panels, helping give the country dominance in the global solar economy.”
According to a 2014 Greenpeace report, “12 of China’s 34 provinces, accounting for 44% of China’s coal consumption, have pledged to implement coal control measures.”
“Green and sustainable development represents the trend of our times.” – China’s President Xi Jinping in April, 2010.
According to January 9, 2015 BloombergBusiness, “China was the biggest single contributor among the major markets for renewable energy.” China invested $89.5 billion, compared with $66 billion for Europe and close to $52 billion for the United States in renewable energy investments.
Clearly, China wants to sell renewable energy to itself and the United States, rather than the U.S. selling renewable energy to China.
17. National Park Service
Director of the National Park Service, Jon Jarvis stated, “I believe climate change is fundamentally the greatest threat to the integrity of our national parks that we have ever experienced…
We have helped the public understand the essential role of predators in the environment by bringing back the wolf and we have shown them that fire is essential to ecosys- tem health. We are unafraid to discuss the role of slavery in the Civil War or the imprisonment of American citizens of Japanese ethnicity during WWII. We should not be afraid to talk about cli- mate change.”
Climate Change Position of the Saint Louis Zoo: “Scientific consensus holds that climate change is interrupting natural cycles, causing habitat loss and prompting more extreme weather patterns. All of this affects animals.”
19. Conservatives
This last part is a list of notable conservative scientists or politicians who have publicly stated that climate change is real and currently caused by humans. Included on this list is Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, who has never publicly stated her political beliefs. Thus, she cannot be exactly classified as a conservative. However, she always has been very open about her evangelical Christian faith. She has given numerous climate change talks and interviews to conservative evangelical Christians while sharing her common bond of faith with them.
a. Dr. Richard Alley, Penn State climate scientist, has publicly stated he is a conservative Republican.
b. Dr. Kerry Emanuel, MIT climate scientist, is a Republican leaning voter. However, he received lots of attacks against him rejecting climate science by conservative Republicans. All of those attacks pushed him to more recently thinking of himself as “an independent.”
c. Dr. Barry Bickmore, Brigham Young University geochemist, has publicly stated he is a conservative Republican.
d. Paul Douglas, meteorologist in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a conservative Republican and an evangelical Christian.
e. Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist at Texas Tech University, has never publicly stated her political beliefs. However, she always has been very open about her evangelical Christian faith.
f. George Shultz, former Secretary of State for President Ronald Reagan and conservative Republican, wrote this March 13, 2015 editorial in the Washington Post, A Reagan approach to climate change.
g. Bob Inglis. He was a member of Congress representing South Carolina’s 4th District from 1993-1999 and 2005-2011. The Republican voters in his district voted him out of office in June 2010. One of the top reasons primary voters turned against Inglis for his actions supporting climate change science and legislation.
After I share the story about Rep. Bob Inglis, most classes I showed this YouTube video of Rep. Inglis giving one of his last speeches in Congress. He attacks his fellow GOP colleagues on their stubborn refusal to accept the science of climate change. This video has been very effective in reaching conservative members of the class. It shows someone who agrees with them politically defending the science of climate change.
After this section of “Unusual Suspects” who accept climate change, I typically have 20 to 30 minutes left in the class. This is another opportunity to open it up wide for class questions. I stress again that I don’t want them leaving without getting their money’s worth.
As time is getting shorter, I mention I have another powerpoint that is a collection of the most common climate change myths. Time may not be long enough to go through all of the myths. Thus, I ask them if there is any particular myths they wanted answered.
I. CLIMATE ZOMBIES! SLAYING THE MYTHS THAT NEVER DIE!
In this final section, I have collected the most common misconceptions about climate change that I have heard over the years and put them in this section. I have a title for each myth and background information explaining why each myth is wrong.
I got the idea for calling this section Climate Zombies from University of Georgia climate scientist Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd. In 2013, he did at TEDx talk in Atlanta called Slaying the “zombies” of climate science. This talk was so inspiring for me that I gave my own Toastmasters speech and blog using Dr. Shepherd’s zombie theme.
On that TEDx talk, Dr. Shepherd defines zombie theories as “One of those theories that scientists have refuted or disproven time and time again, but they live on like zombies on in blogs, radio stations, and tweets.”
Here are all of the myths I am ready to address if anyone in the class needs an answer to take home:
“Recently the name was changed from global warming to climate change!”
“We’ve been warmer in the past.”
“Scientists have over exaggerated the threat”
“It has not warmed since 1998.”
“Climate Change is natural.”
“It’s very cold outside, so global warming is not real!”
“There is no way humans can cause change climate.”
“There is nothing we can be do to stop climate change.”
“Taking action on climate change will bankrupt the economy.”
“Climate change is just a theory.”
“In the 1970s all climate scientists believed there was an ice age coming!”
“The Antarctic is Gaining Ice.”
“Wind Turbines kill a lot of birds.”
“We’ll Adapt to climate change.”
After answering some of these questions, I then have a few minutes before the class officially ends. I always offer in any speaking engagement I do to stay around as long as it takes to answer any questions. However, my goal is always to end my class on a positive note.
J. Have Fun!
Climate change can be a very heavy and depressing subject. Thus, I like ending with humor. I do want them leaving with a smile on their face and laughing.
Thus, I have two comedy videos I like to show:
1. Comedian David Crowe doing a comedy routine called “GASOHOLICS” from Comedy Central Standup.
2. Comedian Robin Williams talking about climate change from the TBS comedy special from June 30, 2005 called Earth to America.
This videos received lots of laughter from the participants and they set a positive mood for everyone as we wrapped up the class.
Final Thoughts
I realize this blog and Part I of this topic are extremely long. Because of the incredibly long length, they are not meant for everyone. These blogs are my Christmas gifts to those who possibly have a dream of teaching a climate change class, but they don’t know where to start gathering up resources. This is also for folks who want to learn more about climate change. To all of these folks, I just wanted to share all of the knowledge that had been given to me over the years. They are treasured gifts. I hope it will be a special gift for you!
Happy Holidays!
Brian Ettling
*Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, monthly energy review reports, table 12.6, Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Energy Consumption: Electric Power Sector. This was information I received from the Sierra Club. Yes, I looked at the table and computed the math myself to confirm this statistic. I looked at the most recent Monthly Energy Review report pdf file for December 2015.
