The Citizens' Climate Lobby with David Cain

Disclaimer: Unedited AI Transcription

Larry (00:07):

You are listening to specifically for Seniors, a podcast designed for a vibrant and diverse senior community. I'm your host, Dr. Larry Barsh Join me in a lineup of experts as we discuss a wide variety of topics that will empower, inform, entertain, and inspire as we celebrate the richness and wisdom of this incredible stage of life.

Larry (00:40):

The news that the Trump administration plans to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency offices and the future implications of Trump's energy policies on the environment and climate led to my concern about how will it affect my children and grandchildren and yours. I wondered if there was anything we can do. So I invited David Kane from the Citizens' Climate Lobby to talk to us about the organization, what it does, and how he became active in the CCL. Welcome to specifically for seniors, David.

David Cain (01:23):

Well, thank you, Larry. I, I very much appreciated the opportunity to join you this afternoon, and I want to thank the audience, all of you that showed up, and we're gonna be talking on about a topic that can be controversial.

Larry (01:43):

Llet's start off by you telling us about your professional background and how you became a full-time climate change activist.

David Cain (01:55):

Sure. My story is about climate hope and possibility, and I want to share with you and hope you will become part of my story. I'm a grandfather with five grandchildren. I'm not an environmentalist nor a climate scientist. I'm just a fellow citizen. I'm an electrical engineer and former climate skeptic, and I became aware of its possibility back in the 1980s. My PhD is in communications theory is used to detect weak signals obscure by noise, sort of like detecting emerging climate change in northern weather. I ran nuclear reactors for the US Navy and later worked in nuclear safety analysis.

David Cain (03:13):

I was a part of an Industry V review team after the three Mile Island meltdown in 1979. This was a study of human unwillingness to accept a role in causing the unthinkable at the time. You can connect the dots to climate change today. Later. I co-founded a successful Silicon Valley company providing environmental management software heavy industries worldwide. I had no skin in the game on the climate controversy, but I concluded on the weight of the evidence that human cause climate change is the real deal hazard to my community, to my country and the world. By 2014, I realized that I was making a good living off of the climate change issue, but I was not solving this climate change problem.

David Cain (04:44):

So I retired and subsequently discovered and joined the Silicon Valley North Chapter of C-C-L-C-C-L is the climate. CCL is Citizens Climate Lobby. By the way, computer models in the 1980s predicted that we were beginning to see the effects of climate change by the first decade of the 21st century. And it arrived right on time. So two years later, I'm a part of a lobby team at the Capitol. I'm sitting next to my member of Congress where we were advocating an important piece of climate legislation. She was very reluctant. I was sitting right next to her when she said, yes, I'll support you. I was totally blown away since we just moved the Climate Change solution needle just a little bit. And from that, I became a CCL lifer volunteer. By the way, if you've never done so, consider checking the box on the meeting with your elected officials being part of a CI citizen lobby team on any issue that matters to you. You'll never regret it.

Larry (07:03):

Let's go back a little bit and explain what the Citizen's Climate Change lobby is.

David Cain (07:11):

Well CCL is a nonprofit 5 0 1 C3 education institution and a 5 0 1 C four lobbying organization. That's the, that's the legalese one of our activities. Yes. Our mission is building the political will for a livable world. It's all about building relationships. What's political will? It's yeah. It's engaging the engine of democracy to drive durable and peaceful change. Last month's podcast featured Sam Daley Harris, who mentioned the Citizens Lobby, climate Lobby and his reclaiming democracy. CCL is first of all, a bottom up, not a top down organization. We are a climate organization, but not an environmental one. We're a civic organization, both at the local level and at national level. We're 99% volunteer, all ages, all walks of life. Absolutely amazing people like all of you. Our values, what we believe in are focus, optimism, diversity, relationships, integrity, being nonpartisan, and what I like the best personal power. We believe that people of all political stripes are basically good lobby day next June, and you're part of a group of a thousand fellow citizens gathered on the steps of the capitol capital. People of all ages, backgrounds from every state. Our lobbying is very sophisticated. We track everything that representatives and senators do climate wise.

David Cain (10:35):

We have more than 200,000 members. We're organized in more than 350 chapters across the country and worldwide. We meet every month and we have lots of activities in between. We're luck together by something we call CCL Community. It's really what's known as a Salesforce application. And I would love to get you on community to show you around what impresses me about CCL is as a smart learning organization that's resilient and versatile. It's been the best organization I've ever been part of, professional or otherwise. It is funny

Larry (11:52):

You mentioned Sam Daley Harris. We had him on a podcast just a couple of weeks ago and he mentioned your organization and that's how I got in touch with you.

David Cain (12:05):

I've met Sam Daley, Harris Harris in Washington DC and I have a signed autograph of his book, one of my favorites.

Larry (12:18):

So what are ccls Climate Solutions? What's the policy agenda?

David Cain (12:25):

Yeah, so as I mentioned before, it's not about what you're against. It's all about what you're for. And just as a, a, a, a introduction, imagine later in that day in Washington dc you're standing in the hallway with a Kentucky lobby team doing a recap after a meeting with Mitch McConnell's staff. It's amazing what we learn from these meetings. We have a confidential, trusted relationship with Congress. And what we hear is often very different when politicians are saying to the public, our climate solutions are deliberately bipartisan. They rely less on regulation and more on market mechanisms.

David Cain (13:41):

We verify them using climate and economic models, then we balance what's economically efficient with what is politically efficacious. And that's the secret sauce. Our specific climate policy agenda consists of four focus areas, focus areas, the first of which is pricing carbon. As you know, when you burn fossil fuels, it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Arthur Pago is a British economist who mathematically proved over a hundred years ago. When you have an external phenomenon like climate impacting our economic system, the most efficient way of managing it is putting a price on it of carbon tax.

David Cain (15:14):

Taxes are not very popular, but they're very effective. Think of what happens when we're trying to control inflation that we've been experienced. The Fed raises the interest rate. It's a tax, it's a blunt, very effective instrument to do with economically impactful things that are external, such as the covid experience that we just went through. What I'm getting around to is this one of our main pillars of policy, very efficient, but not very efficacious politically because people don't like taxes. The second policy area is healthy forest, the ultimate green solution, both in the wilderness and also urban forest.

David Cain (16:28):

One of my favorite urban forests is just a few miles away, nestled next to a freeway. One of examples of that is they fix our forest act, which currently pending in Congress, it's really intended to dealt with wildfires, which you've heard about in California, but you're also seeing now on the East coast and the Carolinas and in Canada and everywhere, this is bipartisan. There are both Democrats and Republicans who are for this act, and we're last hoping to pass it in the current Congress of all things with your help. <Laugh> Healthy Forest is the third I'm sorry, the fourth is building efficiency in electrification.

David Cain (17:42):

A couple of years ago there was a piece of legislation called the Inflation Reduction Act. It didn't have as much to do with inflation, but had a lot to do with, with clean energy and electrification and things you can even do in your own home. The fourth policy agenda item and focus area is permitting reform. We just can't build things in our country anymore like we used to. Our national transmission system is old and worn out. It's antiquated. It's not ready for the 21st century. So the idea is to re reduce bureaucratic red tape intelligently.

David Cain (18:50):

And so with permitting reform, we have a bipartisan bill that almost passed in the last Congress called the Energy Permitting Reform Act, ER look for it. So far, so far we've been instrumental at CCL in passing legislation that could get us to about 50% of where we need to be in addressing climate change in our country by mid-century. But as you know, Larry, there's work in the current administration to claw all of that back. And so we at CCL are in a defensive mode to help protect the gains that have been g achieved. So that's an overview of our policy agenda.

Larry (20:13):

So now a listener has listened to this these solutions that are bipartisan in nature and wants to become involved. How does that happen?

David Cain (20:31):

Ah, <laugh> many ways. I talked earlier about the personal power, personal power and getting involved, but the personal of a single individual is limited. As all you know, there's all kinds of organizations involved in climate. There are people involved in protests and activism on the streets, which calls attention to the problem. Or you can join an organization like CCL, which is focused on the solution. All good. It's really all good. We all kind of think of it as proceeding and progressing in parallel lanes, but I'll give you some examples of things that we do. One of my favorites is tabling.

David Cain (21:41):

You might see people on the street in front of a farmer's market or out on Earth Day that's coming up in one of the community things. Tabling is a great way to meet and interact with people. We don't stand behind the table. We stand in front of it and we strike up conversations with passers by. It really is a great way to find your climate voice <laugh>, make mistakes, and learn how to connect and relate. And by the way, CCL does a lot of training on climate conversations. Another example that you see is young volunteer at a fair where they're staffing a climate anxiety counseling booth.

David Cain (22:53):

This is like a lemonade stand, 5 cents for consultation <laugh>. And it is so much fun to work with mentor young people who really get it. I'll, I'll return to this in a bit. Another is Legion a church event on the spiritual imperative of climate action. We have a whole kaleidoscope of church organizations that we work with. We also have film, movie nights, tree planning on trails, just all kinds of activities. I mentioned that L's a bottom up organization and the innovation and genius of my fellow volunteers continues to amaze me. We have so much fun together. It's all about building interpersonal relationships with set us with fellow citizens and each other.

David Cain (24:13):

Now we also do a lot of training and I mentioned that besides outside experts in conferences and our national calls, which we do monthly, we do core volunteer training. We call it the CCL, climate Change University, self-paced online basic in advance. You can track your pro progress. And this is all available on that CCL community that I mentioned. We also do interactive group training online. I do the training on grassroots outreach, like presenting and tabling so much fun. But some other topics, we have formal training on how to communicate with conservatives. By the way, we just held our annual conservative conference in Washington dc. We train on climate science basics, multimedia, understanding Congress, engaging with communities, climate economics, story, storytelling, and effective communication. We do training at chapter meetings and training at lobbying events and training at conferences. Training is a mainstay, but it's also a prime opportunity for you and me for personal growth. And you can too, Larry.

Larry (26:22):

Yeah. I wanna ask you two very specific things that I found out at your website, citizens climate lobby.org. It had several actions that people can take now directly from your website, links to 'em. I'm gonna put in the show notes, but let's talk a little bit. You have a section where you suggest write Congress to protect Noah. Yeah, I'll put the link to that in the show notes for people who want to do something now while they're getting trained.

David Cain (27:06):

That's right. That's right. You can do it.

Larry (27:08):

The other the other one was Right, Congress to defend IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act. Climate provisions of that. And again, I'll put the link in the show notes. <Laugh>, that's again, climate citizens climate lobby.org.

David Cain (27:33):

Yes. Thank you for that, Larry. 

Larry (27:37):

Well, one more thing I want you to do for me is to tell people where your podcast and your monthly speakers are and how to get involved with those.

David Cain (27:51):

Okay. well, let me, let me start with a first. And that is contacting your members of Congress. It takes about 2000 citizens to flip a Congress member from someone that's agnostic or not enthusiastic about taking climate action to a more positive point of view. And that starts by writing letters and making phone calls, personal appeal. You don't have to be a climate expert. You don't have to be a member of CCL to just express your concern about climate change and ask them to take action. Even better is to go down to your representative's office, meet the staff, and share your concerns individually or more importantly, with your family and friends.

David Cain (29:02):

Now, one of the big advances in climate change is something you mentioned, Larry, which is the Inflation Reduction Act. It's particularly important because the Trump administration is busy clawing back funds that Congress already allocated. It's a big part of that 50% of progress that was on tap to meet our climate goals by 2050. So by meeting with Congress, but most specifically calling and writing them, you can make a difference. If you're a constituent of a member of Congress and you call 'em up, you can just read from a script. It just takes a couple of minutes. They're gonna be very polite, very receptive, and you'll be very glad you did it. It'll make your day. I guarantee it. CCL has tools. Yeah. with suggested scripts. Yeah.

Larry (30:43):

I was just asking if those scripts are available on these links that I'm providing.

David Cain (30:51):

Yes. they should be. And if you put your zip code, it sets you up to have ability to write or say as scripts for each, each representative and Senator just takes a few minutes.

Larry (31:21):

Okay. CCL has a climate change. CCL has a climate change podcast and it presents monthly speakers. I know people can listen to the podcast if you tell us how and where it's available, but can we also hear the monthly speakers if we're not members?

David Cain (31:48):

Yes. the podcast is available. And I provided a link where that it's all publicly. Most of CCL conferences and the podcasts are available on on community, but also you can find them on Google, YouTube.

Larry (32:20):

What, what's the name of the podcast?

David Cain (32:23):

It's called CCL Climate Radio. Now I might have that wrong. I'll need to check on it. Climate Radio.

Larry (32:39):

And the monthly speakers are available through the website.

David Cain (32:44):

They're a avail available through the website. And we also have a YouTube channel with all the speakers going back for, for years. So if you Google and you go to YouTube and you put Citizens Lobby in, you'll be able to find all those videos.

Larry (33:12):

Okay. anything we missed

David Cain (33:16):

Yeah.

Larry (33:16):

That you'd like to talk about?

David Cain (33:18):

<Laugh>? Oh, I wanna say that I really enjoy this. I have a couple of things. One is because you're senior citizens and we're senior citizens, you have a special gift both to mentor young people and also be a volunteer. You bring a certain amount of earned wisdom that we all share. You may have read Daniel Kahneman's book, thinking Fast and Slow. It's reflective, contemplation, slow critical thinking and judgment over our lifetimes. Something you all have in spades. Just talking about climate with everybody at every opportunity is something we need. And you can break the climate science because of the controversial nature of climate by just talking about it.

David Cain (34:35):

The third thing that you can do is invest in the future. There's all kinds of 21st century clean energy technologies ranging from electric vehicles, rooftop solar panels, right up here, above my ceiling of my rooftop, solar panels. I don't pay anything for electricity, haven't for 10 years. 10 heat pumps, induction, cooktops, battery lawnmowers, you name it, is what in Silicon Valley we call Cleantech. There's a book by Paul Hawkin called Drawdown. It's extensive encyclopedia of things, large and small that you can do to reduce your image. So my final takeaway, <laugh>, if I may, there's a, a climate solution within our grasp. If we reach for it, there would be a place for everyone affording lifestyles that are safer, healthier, prosperous, with an abundance of affordable, clean energy that will keep us energy independent. The transition would be graceful. Whether or not you believe in climate change, we would all be in a better place. So what's the difference between wishing for a better climate future and hoping hope comes with agency? And action. Your climate agency, your climate action. You. So, Larry, I want to thank you and thank you all for this opportunity,

Larry (37:00):

David, and thank you for a wonderful presentation. I just hope we all can do something to get a solution of governmental activity that isn't in the negative direction.

David Cain (37:25):

Yes.

Larry (37:26):

Thanks again for coming on specifically for seniors, David.

David Cain (37:30):

Absolutely. My pleasure.

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