Columbus

A big performance, a big rally, a big grant, a big complaint, and a big arrest — all in one semester

My intensive summer internship doing Ready for 100 work showed me what was possible when you put your mind to a campaign. I was determined to keep up the pace in the fall, not just with Ready for 100 but with other environmental and political activities as well. So much was happening in Central Ohio, it wasn’t possible to do it all, especially balancing work and school. But I did a lot.

The Ready for 100 team tabled at Josh Fox's performance of The Truth Has Changed on September 14.

The Ready for 100 team tabled at Josh Fox’s performance of The Truth Has Changed on September 14.

The Ready for 100 Columbus campaign held its regular steering committee meetings on the fourth Thursdays. In addition, I held one-on-one meetings with key volunteers such as our camapign manager Michael Wang, grassroots chair Raemona Cannon, grasstops chair Scott Bond, volunteer coordinator Angie Santo-Walter, communications chair Brittany Converse, and new volunteer for social media Andrew Keller. We did a lot of planning and pulled off several fantastic events:

  • Tabling and speaking Josh Fox’s performance of his one-man show, The Truth Has Changed, at Wexner Center for the Arts. Afterwards I got to speak about Ready for 100 to the audience of about 500.
  • A research party, maybe the first of its kind, in which a dozen people showed up to eat pizza and go through city documents, looking for information relevant to climate change, carbon emissions, and renewable energy. From the results of this, we were able to create a new Ready for 100 Columbus fact sheet (pdf).
  • A General Meeting in Franklinton that brought out about 25 people, some of whom became new volunteers.
I got to speak along with other local activists after Josh Fox's performance of The Truth Has Changed.

I got to speak along with other local activists after Josh Fox’s performance of The Truth Has Changed. Photo by Paul Becker

We also began sending volunteers to attend area commission meetings in Franklinton and Linden, two neighborhoods identified by the 2018 Franklin County Energy Study as having unacceptably high energy burdens. As in many low-income and communities of color, the percentage of income that people pay for gas and electricity is much higher than average, both because they have lower incomes to begin with, and because they live in inefficient buildings with old appliances. We also met with Council Members Elizabeth Brown and Michael Stinziano.

Rise for Climate

Mother Nature came ready to protest fracking. Photo by Paul Becker

Another major event of the fall was the Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice rally and march held September 8 and sponsored by a broad coalition of environmental and community groups including Sierra Club Ohio Chapter, Simply Living, Defend our Future Ohio, Ohio Poor People’s Campaign, Move to Amend, Central Ohioans for Peace, Columbus Community Bill of Rights, Ohio Interfaith Power and Light, Unitarian Universalist Justice Ohio, Citizens Climate Lobby Columbus Chapter, Central Ohio Worker Center, and more.

Representatives of these groups met several times throughout August to plan the event, but with so many groups, disagreement arose about what kind of event to hold. One group wanted to hold a large rally and march, which another wanted to make it a small teach-in. We were not able to get the park space we wanted, so we couldn’t have tabling or food trucks. But in the end we put together a fantastic lineup of speakers (pdf) from the environmental, faith, indigenous, and labor communities.

Chuck Lynd brought the earth balloons that we popped in front of Sen. Portman's office.

Chuck Lynd brought the earth balloons that we popped in front of Sen. Portman’s office. Photo by Paul Becker

The morning of the event it began pouring rain, and I feared that despite all our publicity, no one would turn out. But 100 people did, some in amazing outfits. We started at the Statehouse with indigenous and labor speakers, marched to Senator Portman’s office, where we popped huge earth balloons while citing all of Portman’s votes to destroy the planet, then went to City Council where we heard from Council Member Emmanuel Remy, chair of the environment committee, Rev. Susan Smith of Crazy Faith Ministries, and were led in song by the Vocal Resistance choir. Here are photos by Paul Becker and Ralph Orr.

City meetings

Throughout the fall I continued to participate in city meetings and events. Each August the Columbus Foundation holds a Big Table event for community conversations to take place across the city. I attended the one on electric vehicles at the Smart Columbus Center, then rode as others test drove EVs including a Chevy Bolt. A reporter from the Dispatch covered the event, quoting me that the Bolt would be my next car.

Majorca Carter explains how her company led development that cleaned up the Bronx and jump-started new business at the MORPC Summit on Sustainability on October 25.

Majorca Carter explains how her company led development that cleaned up the Bronx and jump-started new business at the MORPC Summit on Sustainability on October 25.

On September 7 the Office of Sustainability invited me a meeting to prepare for their interview with the Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of their application for the Bloomberg Climate Challenge Grant. I sat in on that interview September 12. Several VIPs who had not attended the preparation showed up, including Jordan Davis, director of Smart Columbus for the Columbus Partnership, and Laura Koprowski, vice president of Central Ohio Transit Authority. As they took charge of the interview, I realized I was the only volunteer in the room.

On October 25 I attended the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Association’s annual Sustainability Summit. I had never been before, and found the day extremely useful and insightful. The keynote was Majora Carter, who had brought equitable development to the South Bronx. Breakouts included sessions on regional energy, smart agriculture, and social equity.

A few days later I got a message from Alana Shockey, assistant director of sustainability, that the city had won the Bloomberg grant! This grant funds a climate advisor for the city as well as money for energy efficiency and renewable energy, as well as consultation about how to get buy-in from residents for new programs. It was fantastic news that we were more than happy to shout from the rooftops – or at least all over our social media. Ready for 100 team members met with the Office of Sustainability — now with a staff of five — to discuss next steps on November 15. They are not ready to make a commitment, at least not now, but they continue to lay the foundation for making one in the future.

Ohio Sierra Club

Raemona Cannon, Vicky Mattson, and I attended the 2018 Sierra Club Grassroots Network workshop at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife training center in Shepherdsville, W.V.

Raemona Cannon, Vicky Mattson, and I attended the 2018 Sierra Club Grassroots Network workshop at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife training center in Shepherdsville, W.V.

Meanwhile my work with Ohio Sierra Club continued. I attended bimonthly chapter Executive Committee meetings and participated in biweekly strategic planning calls to hammer out proposals for chapter communications and leadership development. From October 19-21, I attended the 2018 Grassroots Network campaign planning workshop, held at the training headquarters for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Shepherdstown, W.V. It’s a beautiful campus setting about an hour from Washington, D.C. The workshop covered movement building, equity, justice and inclusion, campaign planning, building campaign teams, online tools, and action planning. Also attending Ready for 100 Columbus grassroots chair Raemona Cannon and Ohio Chapter ExCom member Vicky Mattson.

Another Sierra Club success happened on December 4, when we packed a hearing by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on AEP’s proposal to build 400 MW of utility-scale solar generation in southeast Ohio. About 55 people turned out to testify, with every single person testifying in favor of the proposal. I testified on behalf of Ready for 100 explaining that cities want their electricity to come from renewable energy. My tweet about the hearing got 20 retweets and almost 7,300 views.

Unfortunately not everything regarding Ohio Sierra Club was happy. When I got back from my summer study abroad trip to South Africa, I found messages from four different people telling me about the behavior of the chair of Sierra Club Central Ohio Group, who was also a member of the state Executive Committee. He had literally tried to get the chapter to stop the statewide Ready for 100 training I had spent all last spring planning and that by then had speakers committed and 50 people signed up. He was angry that it hadn’t gone through him.

I had a long history of problems with this man, who had tried to stop everything I wanted to do when I was in Central Ohio Group. Unless he could control it, he didn’t want me doing it. He accused me of running a “rogue campaign” — never mind that I was working with the national campaign and a state planning committee. He wanted me to clear it with him every time I spoke to any public official or said anything about Ready for 100 in public — although he spoke constantly to public officials and represented the Sierra Club publicly without consulting anyone. He had made meetings of Central Ohio Group so unpleasant that I stopped going and ran the Ready for 100 campaign on my own.

I had thought that by holding my meetings separate from Central Ohio Group I would not have to deal with this man, but I was wrong. He had attacked the campaign I had worked on for so long, and he did it while I was out of the country. I decided I could no longer ignore his attacks, and I wrote a 13-page single-spaced letter to the national office of chapter support outlining the years of problems I had with this toxic volunteer. Several other women had previously filed complaints against him, but I still had to check on progress every few weeks to keep my complaint from being dropped.

Ohio Chapter tried to deal with the matter for awhile, but was unable to do so effectively. After several months, it finally went to the top three people at Sierra Club, who conducted an investigation, then suspended this man’s membership. At that point this toxic person who had driven away so many good volunteers for so many years resigned his membership and quit his leadership post. Central Ohio Group still has not recovered, and Sierra Club nationally is working to come up for better procedures for dealing with toxic people like this. Ohio is far from the only chapter to have had these issues. Organizations must deal with toxic conduct like this quickly and effectively, or they risk derailing all the good work their volunteers are trying to do.

Sunrise and politics

Members of Sunrise Movement get ready to interrupt the DNC meeting on August 23, 2018, in Chicago.

Meanwhile, I continued trying to keep participating in national climate politics. I found out that Sunrise Movement planned an action at the Democratic National Committee meeting in Chicago on August 23-25 and decided to go. The action happened on the first day of the meeting, when the Resolutions Committee was discussing a proposal to stop taking large donations (defined as more than $200) from fossil fuel executives and employees. Sunrisers attended the meeting, then in the middle stood up singing and marching, then held a rally outside the meeting. It was a great privilege to be part of this.

Selina Vickers, delegate extraordinaire, and me

Selina Vickers and me at the DNC meeting no April 24, 2018, in Chicago

The next day the DNC had a vote about whether to reduce the power of superdelegates. Many progressives wanted the party to do away with superdelegates altogether, but they were not going to do that. However, they did have a proposal that superdelegates would vote only if selection of the presidential nominee went to a second ballot at the convention. Debate over this proposal was bitter, but I joined with member of Our Revolution Chicago to lobby DNC members to support the resolution, and it passed. The entire meeting was livestreamed by Selina Vickers of West Virginia, who has been livestreaming every meeting of the DNC since 2016.

Canvassing for Democrat Rick Neal in German Village, Columbus.

Canvassing for Democrat Rick Neal in German Village, Columbus.

During the fall I somehow found time to do some local politics. I canvassed for Rick Neal running for Ohio House District 3 in October, then for Richard Cordray and Betty Sutton running for governor. Ohio Sierra Club had interviewed Cordray as part of its political endorsement process, and I was impressed with his plan to increase Ohio’s renewable energy standards while cracking down on fracking violations. I had originally supported Dennis Kucinich, even raising money for him, but supported Cordray after he won the primary decisively. I also helped pass out fliers for the Columbus progressive group Yes We Can on election day.

(left to right) Me, Carolyn Harding, and Elizabeth Hixson had to get our photo outside after we could not get in to Rep. Joyce Beatty's office in November. I went back later myself but could not get her to support the Green New Deal.

(left to right) Me, Carolyn Harding, and Elizabeth Hixson had to get our photo outside after we could not get in to Rep. Joyce Beatty’s office in November. I went back later myself but could not get her to support the Green New Deal. Photo by Paul Becker

After the election, Sunrise sent out a call for people to visit their local members of Congress and ask them to support the Green New Deal. I made an appointment with Rep. Joyce Beatty’s office and invited local progressives to attend. Two others showed up. Unfortunately, when we got there, we were told we did not have an appointment, and the security guards would not even let us drop off our materials. I posted about this on social media, and the next day, Beatty’s office called me and made another appointment. I had to go to that one by myself, and I tried to explain the urgency of climate change and why we need a Green New Deal. However, Beatty is close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who does not support the Green New Deal, and I could not get her on board.

Arrested in support of the Green New Deal on December 10, 2018, in Washington, D.C.

Arrested in support of the Green New Deal on December 10, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Paul Becker

Finally in December was the highlight of my fall: I got arrested with 165 other Sunrisers for the Green New Deal. This was a planned civil disobedience action in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of people met for training the night before at Luther Place Church. That morning we lobbied our local members of Congress — about a dozen of us visited Rep. Joyce Beatty.

That afternoon I went to get arrested in front of Rep. Steny Hoyer’s office. I was designated as a “door holder” — one of three people to hold open the door during occupation of the office so people could come in and out to deliver letters and tell their stories. When that was done, I sat with a few dozen others in front of the office and waited to be arrested. I was handcuffed, taken outside (where it was very cold), patted down, and taken to the police holding station, where I had to wait for over six hours to pay a $50 fine.

Washington, D.C., sees so much civil disobedience that the Capitol Police have a special procedure called Post and Forfeit, in which you pay a fine and avoid a conviction going onto your record. It is low risk but takes a looooooong time. By the time I got out, it was dark and I was starving. Sunrise had a meeting place with snacks, then called a Lyft to take me back to my hotel where I got a good dinner and finally some rest.

Ohioans lobby Rep. Joyce Beatty's office in Washington, D.C., asking her to support the Green New Deal.

Ohioans lobby Rep. Joyce Beatty’s office in Washington, D.C., asking her to support the Green New Deal. Photo by Paul Becker

Me with my fellow door holders at the Sunrise action in Washington, D.C. on December 9, 2018.

Me with my fellow door holders at the Sunrise action in Washington, D.C. on December 9, 2018. Photo by Paul Becker

Occupying Rep. Steny Hoyer's (D-Md.) office during the Sunrise action on December 9, 2018, in Washington, D.C.

Occupying Rep. Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) office during the Sunrise action on December 9, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Paul Becker

Me (near the center) singing and chanting with a few dozen Sunrisers as we wait to be arrested outside Rep. Steny Hoyer's office on December 9, 2018, in Washington, D.C.

Me (near the center) singing and chanting with a few dozen Sunrisers as we wait to be arrested outside Rep. Steny Hoyer’s office on December 9, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Scott Applewhite.

 

Green New Deal banner at Luther Place Church in Washington, D.C., on December 9, 2018.

Green New Deal banner at Luther Place Church in Washington, D.C., on December 9, 2018.

 

Summer internship with Ready for 100 Columbus

ENR 7191 is the required internship course for the Master’s in Environment and Natural Resources. Students can fulfill this requirement through their jobs in an environmental field, through a formal full-time internship, or through part-time volunteer opportunities.  I chose the third way to do this by working on the Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 campaign in Columbus.

Although I have been working on the Ready for 100 Columbus campaign for the past 1.5 years, I had not made it the center of my activities due to work and other courses. This summer I had the chance to spend my coursework time on the campaign. It was a great experience, and I learned that I love doing this kind of work.

Tom Foley, sustainability manager for Cuyahoga County, speaks at the Clean Energy for All Ohio Training on June 2, 2018.

Mike Foley, director of sustainability for Cuyahoga County, speaks at the Clean Energy for All Ohio Training on June 2, 2018.

The objectives I had for the summer were:

  • Hold a successful 100% Clean Energy for All Ohio training on June 2. We achieved that goal, training about 50 people who heard from energy leaders in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Oberlin, as well as Tom Foley, sustainability manager for Cuyahoga County. As a result, five new Ready for 100 campaigns got started around the state.
  • Restart the grasstops part of the campaign by doing power mapping of the mayor and members of city council, and community mapping in neighborhoods of Columbus. We got this done with the help of two other interns for the campaign.
  • Identify and start a new communications chair. We promoted Brittany Converse, a longtime volunteer who works for the city.
  • Speak about Ready for 100 at community and neighborhood events. I spoke at the Clean Energy for All Ohio training, a projection art event at Flowers and Bread in Clintonville, and led the panel discussion following a showing of Reinventing Power. I was also invited to be part of the city’s application for the Bloomberg Climate Challenge Grant, pulling together information about tax abatements for sustainability.
  • Hold tours of several renewable energy facilities in Columbus and Ohio. I was not able to do this. But I did make it to the Growing Local Solar workshop on August 1 at Denison University, where I learned about aggregation in Ohio, the carbon tax in Athens, how to overcome barriers to solar, and toured the Denison solar array.
We held a showing of Reinventing Power with a panel discussion on August 9, 2019. About 45 people attended.

About 45 people attended our showing of Reinventing Power with a panel discussion on August 9, 2018.

One of the best things about the summer was getting to work with two other interns for the campaign, one from the Glenn College and one from School of Environment and Natural Resources. Suddenly work that we had been wanting to do for months, like power mapping and community mapping, got done. We couldn’t pay these interns – we could only offer course credit – but it was amazing to have them on board. I wanted to get more interns in the fall, but national Sierra Club changed its policy and now requires paying interns $15 an hour. We don’t have money for that.

It is not an exaggeration to say this summer was pivotal to the direction of the Ready for 100 Columbus campaign. When we started, we were trying to get sign-on letters from local businesses in Clintonville and the Short North. It was a disaster. Employees couldn’t sign, managers were never there or too busy, and most were hesitant about signing. Quickly we realized that approach was not working and switched to gathering signatures on our AddUp petition to the city. We got 300 signatures at Comfest alone, about 1600 during the summer.

We also did some serious campaign planning work, identifying our theory of change, targets, tactics, partnerships, and budget. This laid the groundwork for our campaign moving forward.

A whirlwind summer of climate advocacy

Summer 2017 was extremely busy with environmental advocacy work, most of it centered around the Ready for 100 Columbus campaign and my work as a Climate Reality leader. I also participated in several progressive political events.

Ready for 100 Columbus

My work on the Ready for 100 campaign got underway in earnest this summer with two Sierra Club training conferences: the National Gathering of all Ready for 100 leaders in Miami on June 21-23, and a Connect the Dots training for four Ready for 100 team members in Oakland on July 13-16. Both trips to train local activists were paid for by Sierra Club.

Aerial Art Action in Miami

The Ready for 100 National Gathering was held in Miami in conjunction with the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which passed a resolution supporting cities committing to 100% renewable energy. At the gathering we got presentations on the vision for Ready for 100, creating a public narrative, campaign principles, effective practices, roles and capacities, and community dialogues. We also did an aerial art action on Miami Beach, coordinated by John Quigley, who organized the famous aerial art action at the Eiffel Tower during the Paris Climate Conference.

Yosemite Summer 2017

El Capitan in Yosemite, Summer 2017

I was the only one from Columbus to attend the Ready for 100 training in Miami, but in July I got to take a team of four people to a Connect the Dots training in Oakland. Whereas the Miami training was more about high-level campaign principles and story, the Oakland training concentrated on the nuts and bolts of how to run a campaign. Another Columbus group attended a second Connect the Dots training in Washington, D.C., and together our teams were assigned to put together the same Connect the Dots training in Columbus in the fall.

Muir Woods Summer 2017

Muir Woods, Summer 2017

Since I rarely get to the west coast, I decided to go early and use two days before the conference to tour Yosemite National Park and Muir Woods National Monument. I stayed in a hostel in downtown San Francisco and caught a daylong tour to both places. I got hundreds of great photos at both Yosemite and Muir Woods, but photos cannot do either of these two natural wonders justice. You have to go and see them for yourself.

I wasted no time in putting what I learned at these trainings into practice with the Ready for 100 campaign in Columbus. This summer I started being asked to speak about Ready for 100 at multiple events, including:

My Ready for 100 Columbus team also organized a coalition launch on July 18, designed to reach out to supporters and like-minded advocates in other environmental groups in Central Ohio, to start building our base moving forward. About 20 people showed up, and a couple of them became core volunteers.

Climate Reality

Me, Kristen Ricker, and Preeti Jaggi gave a presentation of "The Climate Crisis and Its Solutions" on June 17.

(left to right) Me, Kristen Ricker, and Preeti Jaggi gave a presentation of “The Climate Crisis and Its Solutions” on June 17.

After mentoring at the Climate Reality training in Denver in March, I worked hard to keep up with my leadership commitments. Upon returning to Ohio, I worked with Preeti Jaggi and Kristen Ricker, two other Climate Reality leaders in Columbus, to host a presentation of the slideshow at Upper Arlington Public Library on June 17. We each took a third of the presentation and gave it to an audience of about 40. Given how much we had to fit planning, publicity, and rehearsal of the presentation between other activities, we were thrilled to get that many people.

Also this summer, Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power was released. I was invited to a special showing of the film for city leaders in Cleveland on June 24, then attended free showing in Columbus at the Wexner Center on August 2, Gateway Theater on August 3 where I spoke as part of a panel after the film, and Lennox Town Center on August 9. At the three Columbus showings, we had postcards for people to sign asking City Council to commit Columbus to 100% renewable energy. We got about 100 postcards at each event.

Climate AbandonedFinally, in August journalist Jill Cody put out a call over the Climate Reality intranet for authors of book chapters for her forthcoming book Climate Abandoned. One of the chapters needing an author was on the “Product of Doubt.” Between school and other environmental activities, I didn’t have much time to write a book, but this is a topic I have read about extensively, and I couldn’t resist. I signed up to write the chapter, which ended up dominating my winter, spring and breaks until I turned in the 51-page manuscript in August 2018. The chapter was so substantive, covering climate denial campaigns of Exxon and the Koch brothers, that Jill broke it into three sections for the published book, which you can find here.

Progressive Politics

This summer I have not been able to do much direct political organizing, but I did attend three memorable events: the People’s Summit held June 9-11 in Chicago, a Bernie Sanders rally to save our health care on June 25 in Columbus, and the Mobilize 88 summit held July 22-23 at Deer Creek Park in Ohio.

I was somewhere in the upper deck of this audience to the right witnessing history.

I was somewhere to the right in the upper deck of this audience witnessing history.

The People’s Summit, organized by Our Revolution, People for Bernie, and the National Nurses Union, was full of amazing and inspiring speakers like Nina Turner, Van Jones, Nomiki Konst, RoseAnn DeMoro, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Linda Sarsour, Thomas Frank, Larry Krasner, Chokwe Lumumba, and of course Bernie Sanders. You can see the recorded sessions here.

Bernie Sanders leads a rally to save our health care in Columbus on June 25, 2017. That's my friend Puja with her arm raised on the upper left.

Bernie Sanders leads a rally to save our health care in Columbus on June 25, 2017. That’s my friend Puja with her arm raised on the upper left.

Bernie’s Save Health Care Rally was held inside Lifestyle Communities Pavilion, which only holds about 4,000 people, but it was packed. I worked the media table with my friend Puja Datta, who was also chosen to be on stage with Bernie. The atmosphere was electric, as local politicians Mary Jo Kilroy and Betty Sutton turned out.

Mobilize 88 featured keynotes by three women of color – Nina Turner, Anoa Changa, and Stacey Hopkins. Look up their work. Several local progressive activists also spoke. Here is coverage from Real News Network.

Why Columbus needs to commit to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050

This article appeared in the July 2017 newsletter for Sierra Club Central Ohio Group.

On June 1, Donald Trump stunned the world by withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. Reaction was sharp and swift. Twelve states, more than 200 colleges and universities, and more than 1,000 businesses (including two dozen Fortune 500 companies) have pledged to honor the goals of the Paris accord whether Trump is on board or not.

Also committing to the Paris goal of reducing carbon emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 are almost 300 cities in the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, including Athens, Bexley, Cleveland, Columbus, Gambier, Lakewood and Toledo in Ohio.

Of those, 30 cities – including Atlanta, Grand Rapids, Mich., Madison, Wis. Rochester, Minn. and most recently Pittsburgh — have gone further by committing to get 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2050 or earlier.

Sierra Club Central Ohio Group urges the city of Columbus to join its peer cities in committing to 100 percent renewable energy. Science tells us that climate change is real, caused by human activity and poses an imminent threat to civilization and all life on earth. We have the solutions, but the window of opportunity to implement them is starting to close. We must act now.

Columbus has taken several positive steps to address climate change. Initiatives include:

  • The GreenSpot program that encourages businesses to save energy, reduce waste and promote green transportation.
  • The Columbus Region Energy Fund to help businesses and nonprofits improve energy efficiency.
  • The Green Fleet Action Plan to reduce the carbon footprint of city vehicles and maintenance.
  • Blueprint Columbus, which uses green solutions to mitigate stormwater runoff.
  • Branch Out Columbus, the goal of which is to plant 300,000 trees by 2020.

Columbus has also received a Smart Cities grant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through modernizing the grid, promoting electric vehicles and boosting the charging infrastructure. And on June 9, Mayor Ginther signed on to the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda.

All of these things are great steps forward, and we want to recognize the good things the city is doing. But it is not enough. Columbus can’t just enact green programs; we need to become a national leader on climate.

The Paris Agreement that the city has now signed has a stated goal of holding global warming as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius and no more than 2 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists have said is the highest we can go and still have a chance of an inhabitable climate.

However, if you add up all the pledges that every country has made under the Paris Agreement, that doesn’t get us to 1.5 degrees. It gets us to about 3 degrees Celsius, which is better than 5 degrees if we do nothing, but not good enough.

We have to do more than what the United States pledged under the Paris Agreement. Science is telling us that we must reduce emissions to zero by 2050.

In other words, we must transition to 100 percent renewable energy.

Some may think transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy is impossible. But that is not the case. Consider these facts:

  • $58.6 billion was invested in clean energy in the United States in 2016.
  • Enough solar energy reaches the Earth every hour to fill the entire world’s energy needs for a full year.
  • The cost of solar power has fallen from $79 per watt in 1976 to 41 cents per watt in 2016 – a staggering drop of 99.2 percent.
  • Wind generates enough energy to supply worldwide electricity consumption 40 times over.
  • The cost of wind power has fallen from 55 cents per kilowatt hour in 1980 to 2.5 cents in 2013 – a drop of over 95 percent.
  • The current fastest-growing job in the United States is wind turbine service technician.
  • The cost of lithium ion battery storage has fallen from $1500 per kilowatt hour in 2006 to $273 in 2016, a drop of 80 percent.
  • Renewables accounted for 90 percent of new electricity generation in 2015.

So the solutions are at hand, and adopting a target of 100 percent renewable energy community wide is within our reach.

100 percent renewable energy would also improve the health and well-being of the people of Columbus. According to the Columbus Department of Public Health, climate change will bring more extreme heat, which results in poorer air quality. This increases the number of people diagnosed with asthma and at risk of asthma attack.

Stronger, more frequent and more severe storms will increase chances of injury and death in a natural disaster. Warmer temperatures and flooding also increase the risk of diseases such as West Nile virus, Lyme disease and even Dengue fever.

Hardest hit will be the most vulnerable populations: the poor, very old and very young; those with mental or physical handicaps; and those with chronic health conditions. In other words, the people suffering most from infant mortality in our community will also be most affected by climate change. We must keep that from happening.

Finally, it is our duty to act. Although climate change is an international issue, we unfortunately have a federal government that has abdicated its responsibility to solve this problem.

In that vacuum, cities must step up. Cities account for 76 percent of carbon emissions from energy use. More than half the world’s population lives in urban areas, with more than two-thirds projected by 2050. Columbus is now the largest city in Ohio with almost 1 million people, but is projected to have up to 3 million by 2050.

All of these reasons are why 30 cities have passed legislation committing to 100 percent renewable energy. In addition, 90 mayors have pledged to support a vision of 100 percent clean and renewable energy in their cities, towns, and communities and across the country.

Columbus is well-positioned to join these forward-thinking cities. Besides the green programs we already have, the city is also home to several businesses that have a 100 percent renewable energy policy, such as Ikea, Anheuser-Busch and BMW Financial Services. A 100 percent green portfolio would attract more future-oriented businesses to locate here.

As a community, we can come together and deal with the climate crisis. The Department of Defense calls climate change a national security threat, but within this crisis is also an opportunity: to make our city stronger, healthier and more vibrant than ever before.

For all these reasons, we urge city leaders in Columbus to commit to getting 100 percent of our community’s energy from clean, non-polluting and renewable sources by 2050 or sooner.

Monday, November 30 – Opening Day of COP 21

Members of Climate Action Network watch the opening of COP 21.

Members of Climate Action Network watch the opening of COP 21.

Today was a lot calmer than yesterday but no less busy.  It was the opening day of the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, known for short as COP21.  Because of all the security measures, Le Bourget, the converted airport north of the Paris city center where COP21 is taking place, was closed to the public.  So I went with several members of the Citizens Climate Lobby delegation to the hub for the Climate Action Network, or CAN, a network of organizations from around the world working on climate change.  The CAN hub is about a 10-minute walk from my hostel at Place to B, but my phone got confused at an intersection where several streets came together.  Eventually I found it, and several of us congregated in two rooms to watch the ceremonies, which were being livestreamed on the Internet.

After the so-called “family photo” of all the visiting world leaders, more than 150 country presidents, prime ministers, and other heads of state were scheduled to speak at the Leaders Event starting at noon.  Even though each leader was only given three minutes to speak, there were so many of them that speeches ran in two rooms simultaneously and still went on into the evening.

President Obama speaks at COP 21.

President Obama speaks at COP 21.

President Obama spoke about 12:45 and gave what I thought was an excellent speech.  He called the Paris climate conference a “turning point … the moment we finally determined we would save our planet.” “I’ve come here personally, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and the second-largest emitter, to say that the United States of America not only recognizes our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it,” Obama said.  He talked about his recent trip to Alaska and called for an ambitious and transparent agreement.  He talked about how this is life or death for island nations and said he was meeting with their leaders tomorrow. He also mentioned the multibillion-dollar investment fund in clean energy research and development to be launched by Bill Gates and others today.

You can see video of Obama’s speech here and read statements by all the world leaders here.

My CCL colleague Chuck Lynd leads the Global Climate March in Columbus.

My CCL colleague Chuck Lynd leads the Global Climate March in Columbus.

While I was listening to the various leaders speak, I was also paging through my social media accounts and saw that my CCL colleague Chuck Lynd had pulled off quite a march for climate in Columbus. As I was trying to avoid arrest at Place de la Republique in Paris, Chuck and others had gotten over 100 people to come out as part of the Global Climate March organized by 350.org.  I was amazed because before I had left, only a handful of people were signed up.  In less than a week, Chuck got the word out to environmental advocates across Central Ohio, and they turned out in droves, resulting in a great photo in the Columbus Dispatch.  That made my heart sing.

See video of the Columbus march from Carolyn Harding and photos from David Roseman via the Sierra Club Central Ohio Group.

On the frustrating side, the keys on my iPad stopped working.  I had planned to live tweet the Leaders Event, and even posted that I would on my Facebook page. but was unable to.  This was a cause for some panic, as I had not brought a laptop to Paris but was relying on the iPad to do the heavy lifting.  I was worried it had crashed even though it was only six months old.  Perhaps the blog posts and photos from yesterday had worked it too hard.  I wasn’t sure what to do, so I sent out a query through the CAN-talk listserv asking if anyone had a laptop I could borrow.  Most people recommended that I take the iPad to an Apple store in Paris, which I finally decided to do.  One was about a mile away, which gave me my first chance to truly walk around the city.  Once I got to the Apple store, it took awhile to figure out the system for getting some help, but when I finally did, the technician simply told me to call Apple support.  Well, I could have done that from the CAN hub!  But unfortunately I did not buy international minutes from Verizon.

Then I noticed that the operating system for the iPad needed to be updated.  I prayed that would solve the problem and pressed the button.  It was an entire new install of the IOS operating system and took a long time to work. After that, I sat at the store playing with the keys again for awhile.  Eventually I decided the iPad was indeed fixed, though I considered buying a new laptop in France anyway. Posting blogs and processing photos is so much easier from a laptop, and I will not travel to an event like this again without one.  But not only is the electrical outlet on French laptops different, the keyboard is different — it is not a QWERTY keyboard but AZERTY.  So I decided not to.

Members of the Citizens Climate Lobby delegation meet in Paris.

Members of the Citizens Climate Lobby delegation meet in Paris.

Finally tonight I ended up at the dinner and meeting for Citizens Climate Lobby.  Both took place at apartments that CCL members had rented out for the conference through Air B&B.  I’ve never used Air B&B, but after seeing their apartments, I decided to try it next time I am traveling internationally.  Their setup looked much more comfortable than the hostel, which is basically a dormitory, and they have access to full kitchens so they can cook their own food.  This is cheaper than buying every meal out as I have to do.

The highlight of the CCL meeting was hearing from Joe Robertson, the global strategy director, about the launch today of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition.  CCL’s entire platform is carbon pricing, specifically a proposal called carbon fee and dividend that would tax carbon at the source of extraction and return all proceeds to American households.  There is a lot of talk nationally about a carbon tax, but a formal discussion of pricing carbon was taken off the agenda for COP 21 in October.  Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, said at the time that countries had too many different carbon pricing schemes for them to be reconciled into one document.

Even so, the launch of the CPLC on the first day of COP 21 put carbon pricing front and center in the conference. Consisting of 15 national governments (including Canada, Germany, and France), five subnational governments (Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and California), and more than 60 businesses (including BP, Enel, and Shell), the CPLC has a goal of adding carbon pricing to all national strategies by 2020 — only five years away!  And they just may be able to do it.  At the launch was a powerhouse of leaders: World Bank President Jim Kim, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Philippines President Benigno Aquino III, and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Joe saw the entire thing inside the Blue Zone.

CCL has two blog posts about the launch of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Forum, one by Peter Joseph, leader of the Marin County Chapter, and one by Jessica Langerman, a volunteer from Massachusetts.

CCL National Conference

Last month I traveled to Washington, DC, for the 2015 meeting of Citizens Climate Lobby, for which I am a co-leader of the Columbus chapter.  The conference was absolutely inspiring.  The plenary speakers included:

  • Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist at Texas Tech and CCL board member
  • James Hansen, former director of Goddard Institute for Space Studies and CCL board member
  • Bob Perkowitz of ecoAmerica, a climate opinion survey and communications group

I met several people in person who I have become friends with through the Global Warming Fact of the Day group on Facebook.  I got to know several of the other leaders of CCL chapters in Ohio.  And most empowering, I got to meet with four different Ohio representatives, all Republicans, to talk about CCL’s proposal for carbon fee and dividend.

Although I have lobbied my state and federal legislators before with other groups, CCL has probably the most effective lobbying strategy I’ve experienced.  People are assigned to groups of five or six for each legislator meeting, and each person in the group gets a role.  I led the group meeting with my representative, Steve Stivers, OH-15, while for other meetings I did time keeping, told a personal story, explained the basics of the proposal, made the ask, or did follow-up.  Assigning each person in the group a role and knowing what your role was allowed you to concentrate on doing that one thing well while not stepping on the toes of others as they did their part.

After I got back, I sent a letter about the meeting to the Dispatch, which I was happy to see given prominent space in a Saturday paper.  Here is the text:

Carbon fee, dividend good for air, economy

Recently I joined a group of Ohioans who, along with 800 volunteers from Citizens Climate Lobby, traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with more than 500 members of Congress. Our 13 volunteers from Columbus, Delaware, Springfield and Cincinnati met with aides for 16 of Ohio’s 18-member Senate and House delegation.

We were there to ask our members of Congress to consider a new proposal for addressing climate change: carbon fee and dividend. The proposal has three parts: first, place a steadily rising fee on the carbon content of fossil fuels, collected at the point of extraction and entry into the economy; second, return 100 percent of the fee equally to American households in the form of a monthly dividend check; and third, enact a border adjustment on goods coming in from countries that do not have a similar carbon fee to discourage U.S. companies from relocating jobs.

A study by the nonpartisan Regional Economic Modeling Inc. finds that by 2035, a carbon fee and dividend would provide $396 a month to a family of four, add 2.8 million jobs, increase gross domestic product by almost $1.4 trillion, lower carbon emissions by 52 percent and prevent 227,000 premature deaths. REMI also found that the Great Lakes region, which includes Ohio, would benefit more than any other in job creation, economic stimulus and cleaner air.

Most congressional offices we met with were Republican, and most of the aides we spoke with had not heard of carbon fee and dividend. Most started off cool to the proposal, but gradually warmed up as we explained its benefits. Everyone knows that something must be done to address climate change. The debate isn’t about the science but about finding a solution acceptable to everyone.

To find out more about carbon fee and dividend, visit citizensclimatelobby.org.

CATHY COWAN BECKER

Co-leader

Columbus chapter

Citizens Climate Lobby

Costa Rica – Day 7 – End of home stay, ecolodge, hot springs

Our group with the Laureles farm family. From left to right: Becca, Leesha, Fernando, Lidia, Carla, me, and the Laureles grandson in sunglasses in front.

Our group with the Laureles farm family. From left to right: Becca, Leesha, Fernando, Lidia, Carla, me, and the Laureles grandson in sunglasses in front.

My preparations the night before paid off, as I slept really soundly and not worrying about bugs. The whole thing with the dogs must have bothered me more than I thought because I dreamed that I was walking by a busy street in back of the UNC campus (where I did my undergrad) and found two dogs in different places who had been hit by cars and were lying by the road with broken legs. In the dream I scooped them up and was taking them to get medical care when I woke up.

A howler monkey brought her baby out to see us.

A howler monkey brought her baby out to see us.

I got up before dawn, and three of us (Carla, Leesha, and me) went to watch the sun rise over the farm. Just as at the beach at Tortuguero, the sun didn’t come up in a ball like we are used to seeing at home. It just got light. Fernando’s cattle were mostly sitting down (which cattle here seem to do a lot) or grazing peacefully. Leesha tried to make friends with one of their horses in the pasture, but he was shy and didn’t want to get too close. On the way back we stopped by the howler monkey trees again. The monkeys had been very active just before dawn howling to greet it. They were still active getting their breakfast when we stopped by the trees. We probably watched them for a half hour. At first they hid, but after a bit a few came out where we could see them, including a mom with a baby on her back. She sat watching us for a long time, and I got a ton of pics.

Fernando showed Carla how to milk a cow.

Fernando showed Carla how to milk a cow.

Then we went back to the farm where we got to help Fernando milk the cow. That was fun – Leesha was a natural, and I got the hang of it but am glad I don’t have to do it every morning. Fernando put the calf into a separate enclosure while we got a bucket full of milk. When we were done, he let out the calf, who made a beeline for his mom. I’m glad they let the calf stay with the mom.  The mother-offspring bond is the strongest in nature, and to talk the calf away so that we can take the milk does not seem right. It was enough to make me switch mainly to almond milk, though it’s hard to avoid dairy entirely. While we were milking the cow with Fernando, Lidia came out with a glass that we filled up straight from the cow. She then used that to make some of the very best pancakes I have ever eaten, which we had along with eggs, juice, and of course rice and beans.

<Optional thoughts about the book I was reading>

While the rest of the group walked for a swim at a river spot with difficult access, I got some reading done in This Changes Everything. Naomi Klein makes the case that climate change will require us to abandon unregulated free market capitalism to enact the collective solutions needed to address carbon emissions. She thinks it is a great opportunity to reshape human relations to be more just, equitable and fair, to enact protections for workers and poor people around the world.

It’s a compelling argument, but I’ve also read some interesting critiques. Basically the critiques say Klein was anti-capitalism before she started writing about climate change – she wrote about clothing factory workers in South America and about disaster opportunism, in which big companies use the opportunity of a disaster to make a windfall profit. The critiques think her current book is more of the same vein, and that she doesn’t give enough credit to some of the market solutions being proposed such as a price on carbon.

Klein says we need a mass social movement to force governments to take the steps needed to address climate change. I agree with that, but I think we need market solutions too. A carbon tax, preferably with the proceeds being returned equitably to everyone in the form of dividend checks or tax cuts as proposed by Citizens Climate Lobby, is a must. Klein thinks this idea is okay but not nearly enough. I think it’s just a start too, but it’s a vital one. We have to disincentivize fossil fuels and incentivize renewables if we want people to make the switch.

Klein seems to talk mostly about mass movements but decentralized control with communities taking charge of their own energy, transit and food systems. I would love to see that, and mass movements are important. That’s what stopped the Keystone pipeline, which is of huge symbolic value, and having participated with the Sierra Club in the People’s Climate March in New York City, I feel like the march helped provide immediacy and momentum to the UN talks that week.  It was shortly after that when Obama announced the first-ever agreement with China to lower emissions. Of course none of this is enough and the work is not done, but you have to start somewhere.

This year will be huge for climate agreements leading up to the talks in Paris in December where everyone is hoping for the first time to get a binding agreement across all nations. That will be a tall order. Klein is right that social movements will make a huge difference in the climate debates, and she is right that control needs to come down to the local level.

I’m pleased to live in Columbus, which has a very ambitious green plan.  But this leads to my critique of Klein’s focus on social movements.  As important as they are, in the end it is governments, whether local state or national, that will decide if, when, and how we address climate change.  This is why I’m studying public policy. I’m not exactly sure where this course of study will lead, but climate change is the most important issue not just in my lifetime but maybe in of all human civilization, and I want to be in a place where I can help address it.

<End of thoughts about the book and back to the trip>

Becca made friends with a rescued deer fawn.

Becca made friends with a rescued deer fawn.

So most of Friday afternoon was spent on the bus driving to the Villa Finca Tina ecolodge in the mountains, then to the Baldi hot springs. I’m pretty sure this will get changed up next year, since we didn’t make it to the hot springs until after 9 p.m. so had less than an hour. They were absolutely amazing though, as was the lodge which had several rescued orphan deer and even planted special grasses for the deer to eat.

In Ohio it is against the law to rescue orphan deer. I understand about wildlife rehabilitation needing to be licensed, but we should allow people who care – and most people do – to help animals that need help. Even if those orphans go to a sanctuary to live out their lives, that’s better than being killed just because they were unlucky enough to lose their mother. In one case, a police officer and his wife rescued an orphan deer whose mother had been hit by a car.  When the authorities came and take it, the couple claimed the deer had escaped the day before and showed their torn screen door. In reality I’m thinking they probably found a sanctuary out of state to take the deer.

It’s a ways until retirement, but it liked the ecolodge area and hot springs so much, I would give serious consideration to retiring there. The community seemed to have a lot of natural healing practitioners, and as of now it’s affordable. I’ll have to come back with my husband and investigate this idea more thoroughly before making any decisions, but this is now a possibility on the list.