CCL Monthly Conference Call, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2014
Groups meet at 9:45am PT/12:45pm ET
The international conference call starts at 10:00 am PT/1:00 pm ET
The conference call part of the meeting is a little over an hour long and the groups meet
for another hour after that to take and plan actions.
Call-in number: 1-866-642-1665, passcode: 440699#
Callers outside U.S. and Canada, please use Skype: 719-387-8317, passcode 440699#
Guest is Jon Haidt, author of
‘The Righteous Mind’
Jonathan Haidt, a professor in the Business and Society
Program at NYU-Stern, is a social psychologist and
author of The Righteous Mind and The Happiness
Hypothesis. He’ll discuss how we came to be so politically
polarized as a nation and what needs to happen to
restore a more cooperative system of governing. “To live
virtuously as individuals and as societies, we must
understand how our minds are built. We must find ways
to overcome our natural self-righteousness. We must
respect and even learn from those whose morality differs
from our own.”
Actions
1. Report which congressional districts your group is covering and the liaison for
each office.
2. Have your group come up with a plan to generate letters to members of Congress
and write a letter to your member of Congress requesting support for a carbon tax
that gives revenue back to households.
3. Start practicing laser talks in preparation for CCL’s summer conference and
lobbying.
Link to CCL’s video, filmed at last summer’s conference: bit.ly/cclfilm
ACTION
Report congressional districts your group
covers and the liaisons for those districts
One of CCL’s goals for 2014 is to cover every congressional by the end of the year. To
do this, we must first determine all the districts we currently cover and who is
responsible for communicating with those congressional offices (the liaison).
At your meeting this month:
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List the congressional districts your group is covering.
List the liaison who works with the congressional office in each district –
including Senate offices1 – and include the contact information (email and
phone) for each liaison.
Send the list of districts and liaisons to Joe Robertson –
joseph.robertson@citizensclimatelobby.org -- and to your regional
coordinator
In states where there is more than one CCL chapter, report your group’s Senate
liaison. Your regional coordinator will help coordinate Senate liaisons in states with
multiple chapters.
1
ACTION
Plan how your group will generate letters to
members of Congress and write a letter
Another goal CCL set this year is to send more letters from constituents to their members of
Congress on the subject of climate change. By generating personal letters from as many
people as possible, we create political will by demonstrating to representatives and
senators that there is a growing constituency for climate action.
At your meeting this month, decide what activities your group will schedule to generate
those letters and then jump-start the process by writing your own letter at this month’s
meeting.
Some suggestions to generate letters:
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Organize monthly letter-writing parties – potluck dinners, perhaps – where friends
and neighbors are invited to hear a short presentation and then write letters to their
representative and senators.
Incorporate letter-writing into presentations that are given to churches and
community groups, or other outreach events like movie showings.
At outreach events where your group is tabling, invite people to write a short,
personal postcard to their member of Congress.
Organize a "letter brigade" in which people commit to writing once a month in
response to emailed suggested topics and report back when they've written. (Good
for people who want to help but don't have time to join the chapter.)
Organize an ongoing group of people who meet for an hour each month, perhaps at
a coffee shop, to write letters to their member of Congress.
Resources:
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Basic outline and talking points for writing a letter to a member of Congress.
Postcards for tabling events.
How one volunteer organized her monthly letter-writing group.
Don’t know who your member of Congress is? Look it up here.
Addresses:
Rep. NAME HERE
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Sen. NAME HERE
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
LASER TALK
Jobs – fossil fuels vs. renewables
In 2010, there were a total of 174,000 permanent coal-related jobs nationwide [1], and
806,831 oil and gas jobs as of 2011 [2]. By contrast, there were 3,129,112 green jobs in
2010 [3]. The Department of Energy predicts using conservative estimates that by 2030
there will be over half a million wind jobs alone [4].
The overall job story is that renewable energy will provide more and higher paying jobs,
with more diverse opportunities [5]. This is because $1 million dollars worth of oil and
natural gas output directly creates 0.8 jobs, and $1 million of coal produces 1.9 jobs.
Compare that to building retrofits for energy efficiency (7 jobs per $1 million of output),
mass transit services (11 jobs), building the smart grid (4.3), wind (4.6), solar (5.4), and
biomass power generation (7.4) [6].
The green economy already supports more jobs than the fossil fuel economy, and has for
years, even though renewable energy accounts for only 13.2% of our domestically produced
energy [7]. The writing is on the wall: the key to creating American jobs now and in the
future is not investment in fossil fuels, it is investment in the green economy.
Carbon Tax-Skeptic Claim: Putting a price on carbon will cost jobs.
One-liner: wind, solar, and biomass generate 2.5 – 9.25 times as many jobs as coal, oil, and
gas for every $1 million contribution to GDP.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Robertson, Joseph. “Building a Green Economy.” 2010. The Citizens Climate Lobby. p. 22.
URL: http://issuu.com/hotspring/docs/building-a-green-economy
Rob Sentz. “BLS Releases 2010 Green Job Estimates”. March 27, 2012. Blog Post. Economic
Modelling Specialists International.Last accessed: 5-19-13.
URL: http://www.economicmodeling.com/2012/03/27/bls-releases-2010-green-jobestimates/
Josh Wright. “A Broader Look at America’s Fossil Fuels Jobs Boom”. Mar 16, 2012. Blog
Post. Economic Modelling Specialists International. Last accessed: 5-19-13.
URL: http://www.economicmodeling.com/2012/03/16/a-broader-look-at-americas-fossilfuels-jobs-boom/
“20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to U.S. Electricity
Supply.” July, 2008. US Department of Energy. p. 209. URL for pdf
download: http://www.20percentwind.org/20percent_wind_energy_report_revOct08.pdf
Martin, Scott. “Green jobs pay better as clean-tech sector booms”. Published:
7/13/2011. USA Today. Last accessed 4-29-13.
URL: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-07-12-green-jobs-economy_n.htm
Robertson, Joseph. “Building a Green Economy” 2010. The Citizens Climate Lobby. p. 18.
URL:http://citizensclimatelobby.org/node/457
US Energy Information Administration. “Electric Power Monthly”. April 2013. Last Accessed:
5-19-13. URL:http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_1
LASER TALK
China – does it matter what we do?
We should not have any illusions about China’s energy use. This one country with 1.3 billion
people (to our 0.3 billion) accounts for almost half of the world’s coal consumption (and
growing fast) [1], yet is suffering horrible environmental impacts because of it [2-4]. At the
same time, China is also investing heavily in renewables. Last year they invested $65 billion
to our $35 billion [5]. Today they produce more than half of all solar panels, and in 2012
installed more solar panels than any country except Germany [6]. What’s more, they have
debuted a regional cap and trade program that they plan on linking with Australia [7,8], and
also plan to institute a carbon tax by 2015 or 2016 [9].
Because of all this investment in renewables, we risk losing out on jobs, profits, and
production of renewable energy hardware to China. Because of our underinvestment, ideas
that are born in the US become reality in China. The products of those realized ideas are
then manufactured in China and sold to the US, with the majority of jobs and profits staying
in China, not in the US.
This is why we should do all that we can to move away from fossil fuels as fast as we can.
China’s all in, and our economy will suffer for it.
Carbon Tax-Skeptic Claim: Why should we move if China isn’t moving?
One-liner: China is moving, and is already selling their solar panels back to us.
Carbon Tax-Skeptic Claim: It doesn’t matter what we’re doing because China and India are
burning so much coal.
One-liner: They’re also making huge investments in renewables, so if we don’t move, we
will permanently miss the opportunity to establish the jobs, manufacturing, and intellectual
communities that come with being the world leader in an industry.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
“China consumes nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined”. Jan 29, 2013. U.S. Energy
Information Association. Last accessed: 5-22-13.
URL: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=9751&src=email
Will Oremus. “In China, the Pollution Is So Bad It Broke the Air-Quality Index”. Jan 14, 2013. Slate. Last
accessed: 5-22-13.
URL:http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/14/beijing_pollution_breaks_china_s_air_qu
ality_index_why_china_needs_a_war.html
“A Bay of Pigs Moment”. Mar 12, 2013. The Economist. Last accessed: 5-22-13.
URL:http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2013/03/water-pollution
“China wrestles with acid rain threat”. Aug. 27, 2012. United Press International. Last accessed: 5-2213. URL:http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/08/27/China-wrestles-with-acid-rain-threat/UPI54191346094959/
Ramez Naam. “Seven Reasons Why China may be the World Leader in Fighting Climate Change”. May 8,
2013. Slate. Last accessed: May 22, 2013.
URL:http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/05/china_cap_and_trade_carbon_t
ax_the_country_may_lead_the_global_climate_change.html
James Montgomery. “100 GW of Solar PV Now Installed in the World Today”. Feb. 12, 2013. Renewable
Energy World. Last accessed: 5-22-13.
URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/02/100-gw-of-solar-pv-nowinstalled-in-the-world-today
Adam Dean. “China Carbon Debut Defies Carbon Doubters”. Oct 12, 2012. Bloomberg Business Week.
Last accessed: 5-22-13. URL: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-11/china-carbon-debutdefies-emission-doubters-energy-markets
Brad Plumer. “Around the world, cap-and-trade is still alive and kicking”. June 5, 2012. The Washington
Post. Last accessed: 5-22-13. URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/aroundthe-world-cap-and-trade-is-still-alive-and-kicking/2012/06/05/gJQACSKVGV_blog.html
Will Oremus. “Even China Will Have a Carbon Tax Before We Do”. Feb 26, 2013. Slate. Last accessed: 5-22-13.
URL:http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/26/carbon_tax_treasury_nominee_jack_lew_says_oba
ma_won_t_propose_one.html
LASER TALK
Carbon Fee and Dividend
Our revenue-neutral carbon tax works like this [1]:
 A fee is collected on carbon-based fuels at the source (well, mine, port of
entry).
 This fee starts at $15 per ton of fossil CO2 emitted, and increases steadily
each year by $10.
 All of the money collected is returned to American households evenly; one
equal share per adult, and one half-share per child up to two children.
 A predictably increasing carbon price will send a clear market signal which
will free businesses and entrepreneurs to invest in the clean-energy solutions
the world is already demanding.
 A border adjustment compatible with WTO-law. This would refund the fee
only for carbon-intensive goods exported to countries without a comparable
price, and assess the fee on imports from countries without a comparable
price.
1.
The Citizens Climate Lobby. “CCL draft legislation for Carbon Fee and Dividend.” URL for pdf
download:http://citizensclimatelobby.org/files/images/FeeAndDividendLegProposal081811.pdf