Climate Activists: A Reminder of What We’re Protecting

Emily Qian is a rising high school senior at Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, OH. She has been involved in her school's Green Team since sophomore year. This year, she will be taking over as one of the team's co-presidents.

We’re protecting green spaces. Woodlands filled with elegant white-tailed deer and scampering brown squirrels; streams where colorful minnows dart around smoothed over rocks and uncountable aquatic insects flit over the water’s reflective surface; protected parks crisscrossed by trodden trails and community hikers. These are places of gentle nature where trees grow and flowers bloom, where parents take their children on sunny afternoons, where artists draw inspiration, and where people think. Places uninterrupted by the harsh asphalt and glinting metal of mankind’s “progress.”

We’re protecting our planet’s resources. Not only the plants and animals which surround us, but elements so integrated into our concept of comfortable living that to be without them seems unimaginable. Those such as energy, where we must act not only as faithful guardians of what remains, but innovators of new technology to ensure sustained delivery for decades to come. We seek to preserve that which is not merely convenient, but essential to human survival: access to oxygen-rich unpolluted air, a nutritious and plentiful food supply, and water uncontaminated by lead, algae, and salt.

We’re protecting global health. As our climate changes, so too does its impact on our population. Steady temperature increases, sea level rises, more frequent and catastrophic natural disasters, and dangerous air pollution represent only a mere fraction of the challenges facing our world community. These mean consequences for global nutrition as crop yield decreases and marine fisheries suffer; for global infections as water-borne and vector-borne diseases adapt; for global migration as people flee from their now uninhabitable homes. It’s the immunocompromised, the asthmatic, the heart-diseased, and the pregnant. It’s the children, the elderly, and everyone else. This is who will bear the repercussions.

We’re protecting social equity. The climate crisis is anything but a great equalizer. While we all will be affected, it’s the poor and destitute – those who have contributed least to our environmental problems – who will face a disproportionate brunt of the ramifications. Their health, their jobs, and their livelihoods are threatened by the very conditions that the well-off can easily avoid by cranking the AC and paying off medical bills. The climate fight is a social justice fight. A social justice fight is a human fight.

We’re protecting future generations. The youth – my peers – we are the ones who have unwillingly inherited the buildup of decades of reckless, selfish, and ignorant living. We are the recipients of an unwelcome coming of age present thrust into hands who have yet to be allowed to vote on a presidential ballot. Us, our children, and those who follow, face uncertain futures tainted by the possibilities of an earth distorted utterly different than the one our parents were born into.

Our world is changing in ways that are unexpected, terrifying, and in some cases unavoidable. We’ve seen the damage that’s been done and can only imagine what is to come if we continue as we have. But it’s not too difficult, too expensive, too late to change the trajectory. For the people who are fighting, we can’t lose focus. We are climate activists, and this is what we’re protecting.

Volunteer Spotlight: Jaclynne Polcino

Jaclynne Polcino is the Regional Fellow for the Mid-Atlantic Region. She is a hydrologist currently living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

What sparked your interest in climate work?

Growing up, I was always fascinated by Earth Science. The way that life works and forms on Earth has always interested me as well. I have been a dancer my whole life and I think about how the flow of energy through our bodies when dancing is like the flow of energy and life throughout our planet. I began studying oceanography which combined my interests in physics, science, and dance. A lot of times in STEM fields, we are told that our work should be factual and objective, and this was not satisfying enough for me. I wanted to do more with the information I was learning about the rising sea levels and how climate change affects our environment.

How did you get involved with CCL?

I first became involved with Citizens’ Climate Lobby while studying oceanography. A senior friend of mine who was also studying marine science started a CCL club on campus which interested me since a lot of what we were learning revolved around how climate change has changed our oceans. My friend ended up graduating and after having helped her out a bit with CCL, I decided to take over and then attended the June conference. From there, I became a co-sponsor for my local South Jersey chapter, which led to me becoming the mid-atlantic regional fellow!

What do you like about being a Regional Fellow?

I love a lot of the people I have been able to meet and work with through CCL and becoming a Regional Fellow. At the June conference during the lobby meeting, I was able to meet and talk to one of the original co-sponsors of the EICDA bill about climate change and policies. This experience showed me how important what CCL and its volunteers do is so important. That I as an individual can make a change and be in conversation with important people that can help us make a difference in climate policy. 

I like being able to share my own experiences and thoughts with others. It’s very rewarding seeing how spreading my own knowledge can be impactful and bigger than just me. It’s also so rewarding seeing students and clubs on various campus blossom!

What do you want to do in the future? What are your goals?

Whenever anyone asks me what I want to do, I always tell them that my end goal is to save the world! I would like to continue my career in oceanography to continue to learn about what the carbon emissions are doing to our atmosphere. I’d like to focus on how our earth changes in terms of temperature and weather patterns. For example, this past summer we in the Philadelphia area got more tornado warnings than usual, with data and hydrological surveys we can measure what’s going on with water and flooding patterns also. Through working with CCL, I feel like I am now better prepared to share the data and information from my work to others in a more impactful way.

Volunteer Spotlight: Jivahn Moradian

By Jess Wilber

Jivahn is an Economics major and Sustainable Energy minor at Princeton University. He was also President of the Princeton Climate Initiative, a student coalition affiliated with CCL’s Campus Leader Program that works on local and state level carbon pricing initiatives, a role he recently passed on to someone else. Though he was born in Colorado, he grew up in Paris, where he attended high school. He feels a strong connection to France, India, and the US due to his time living abroad and his parents roots. Part of his drive to get involved with climate advocacy was a direct result of the knowledge that the carbon emissions associated with traveling to visit family and friends in other countries was ethically questionable. The rest of his motivation stems from his love of the outdoors. When he is not working on climate initiatives, he can be found participating in French theatre, giving tree climbing tours to friends on campus, leading wilderness backpacking trips through the Princeton Outdoor Action Program, and making crepes.

What do you like about CCL and what inspired you to join?

Last year, I became President of the Princeton Climate Initiative. I was recommended for the position by Jonathan Lu, the previous president, who also worked with CCL’s Higher Ed Action Team. I appreciate the fact that CCL’s work in the US has a nationwide reach, since many other environmental groups have a more local focus. I think that the decentralized structure of the organization has allowed for fantastic coordination and organization amongst local chapters working towards the same goal. CCL does this by providing access to key resources that can be applied to operation strategies that best fit different localities, rather than pushing one specific way to organize. In my experience, the trainings and online resources are great!

I also appreciate CCL’s nonpartisan nature. Climate change has become a divisive political issue, so for CCL to use nonpartisan language and avoid excluding members of one side or the other allows for politicians and everyday people to start reaching across the aisle. In the past, when I would say that I support climate action, people would make immediate assumptions about my political ideology. I always find these situations demonizing a particular side to be very dangerous; they immediately rule out the option for constructive conversation.

Why do you support a Carbon Fee & Dividend model for carbon pricing?

The general reason CF&D works is because it’s a good economic model. As an Economics major, it just makes sense. It’s not banning fossil fuels- which we will need during our transition to a green economy- it’s just marketing them at a fair price. It’s a good policy for not going “too overboard”, and as such, it is more likely to appeal to conservatives.

What kind of work have you done with the Princeton Climate Initiative?

The group’s focus and development has undergone two phases since I joined over two years ago. Jonathan Lu was the first president of the group and one of its founding members. At the time, the group was focused on passing CF&D in the state of New Jersey. I previously had negative opinions about the efficacy of campus organizations, but I stepped up to the plate and decided to take on a small leadership role: organizing a research team to focus on the effects of CF&D in our state. I structured an assembly line system in which a political strategist would be sent a research task that could be delegated to someone else in the group. This would continue on until each person had a task that fit their level of involvement in the group and their unique skill set, or until we had exhausted all necessary research projects. That system was very efficient and helpful for our project. I also coordinated a team of students to summarize our legislative proposal at the 1st International Conference on Carbon Pricing in 2019.

By the time I became the new president of the group, the group had three main working groups: climate entrepreneurship, zero waste initiatives, and the Princeton Climate Action Plan. I once again recognized that the structure of the group as a whole was inhibiting independent members from tackling their work. To address this, I started by having dialogues about recruitment, pooling resources, and funding for each working group. I thought about CCL’s decentralized structure and decided that applying the model to our organization could allow individual groups to have more autonomy. I organized one meeting to have people brainstorm about the group structure and various positions we could have. Once we had come to a consensus, I decided to make general meetings shorter and more efficient to ensure better attendance and morale. Since each person knew what their exact role was, all we had to do at meetings was to provide brief updates and discuss upcoming events. In the end, this decentralized model allowed us to maximize our time and planning constraints.

Moving forward, I want to collaborate more with other campus groups. I have an idea for coordinated events of dialogues or demonstrations with other CCL campus chapters across the Mid-Atlantic region, though I worry about the difficulties associated with coordination across states and universities with different schedules.

What do you struggle with most as a leader? How have you begun to overcome those difficulties?

 I just ended my term as President, I have taken on more of an advisory role, rather than an active leadership one. I fill in the gaps wherever is needed and encourage other people to participate when they can. I am trying to respond more to what people want instead of imposing a structure on them. At the start of my leadership, I had so many ideas, but I would have to push hard for people to accept them. I had to decide to let point people from each working group make decisions. By doing so, it was less work for me, and it encouraged others to step up. I have found that people need to have skin in the game. Sometimes, when organizing, the people who I thought would be less likely to participate would be encouraged to step into a position of leadership. By giving people positions of responsibility, even if it is not an official leadership position, they can more easily identify the importance of what needs to be done.

Something else I have struggled with is knowing what to do when a person is not right for a particular task even though they think they are. Recognizing who the right person for the job is instead of just blindly asking for volunteers is so important because there has to be some element of evaluation in mind to play to the strengths of each volunteer. During Johnathan’s leadership, he would have introductory meals with new group members to establish a relationship with them. I decided to expand on this tradition by organizing meals with existing members once a semester to see how they were feeling about their work and position in the group. At these meals, they could say things they wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable voicing during meetings. It helped build and maintain relationships so that I can better understand the strengths, ambitions, desires, and personalities of each member. It also allowed me to have a better idea of how the group was going for everyone beyond the tangible results of our work.

How do you see your work with CCL and the Princeton Climate Initiative tying into your future career?

In the long run, I see myself gravitating towards the fields of entrepreneurship and policy formation. The things that I will bring with me from my time in climate advocacy are the mindset of sustainability and social consciousness. I will undoubtedly benefit from the leadership skills I have developed as well, as I have gained a lot of insight on communicating and working with people. I have learned that you cannot please everyone, but even so, you have to keep in mind that the entire world matters. People you don’t agree with still matter, and though you may not want to, it is important to reach out and be willing to communicate with them. Finally, I have learned that no project is ever the result of a single person’s effort. Every student in the Princeton Climate Initiative is invested in the work we were doing, and that is what allows us to succeed.

I’ll believe it when I…

Violette Ballecer is the Northeast Regional Fellow and a sophomore at Boston University studying Environmental Analysis and Policy (BA) and Energy and Environment (MA). She can be reached at violette.ballecer@citizensclimatelobby.org

Photographs taken around the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic give the world a sneak peak at how nature thrives in the absence of humanity. As people shelter in place for the safety of others, pollution decreases dramatically. For instance, in Punjab, India, people stare in awe at the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas, a sight unseen for decades. For the first time in ages, the city of Beijing, infamous for its smog, is experiencing a forecast of clear skies. Some see this substantial shift as a turning point for climate change, but we must not be jaded. While these images may serve as a wake-up call for climate change-deniers, the positive does not outweigh the negative. The scenes that they depict are fleeting, and, despite the hope they inspire, any positive environmental impacts of this global crisis are unsustainable. Why?

Well, the majority of air pollution is caused by personal vehicles and factories. Cars are collecting dust in the driveways of those heeding the “shelter in place” warnings, and as a result, carbon dioxide emissions are dropping significantly. As the panic worsens, more and more people are choosing to self-isolate, perpetuating this change. Furthermore, all non-essential factories which would normally contribute greatly to greenhouse gas emissions are now unstaffed and thus out of commision for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, what happens when we all emerge from our Netflix-fueled hibernation and are forced to *gasp* put on pants again? Once life as we know it continues, pollution will revert back to its previous state.

Another important thing to remember is that we are experiencing an economic crisis. As people stop spending their money at shops and restaurants and instead save it only for truly essential items such as toilet paper and beer, economic stimulation grinds to a halt. Businesses, large and small, are at a loss as consumers stop consuming. Millions of people around the world have lost their jobs and the ability to provide for their families. On top of this, trade is also stunted due to travel restrictions. The sum of these actions, or lack thereof, will have repercussions for years to come.

People are suffering, and thousands are dead. The idea of any kind of silver lining, environmental or otherwise, amongst this mess is naïve and distracts from the gravity of our situation. Sustainability cannot be the product of hardship and mayhem, no matter how breathable the air becomes. The word itself implies a certain degree of equilibrium, the likes of which are currently eluding us. This pandemic is not curing climate change, it is simply treating the visible symptoms. The underlying disease is still very much alive.

What this crisis can bring is hope for the future: hope that the tangible decrease in pollution photographed in places like India, Italy, and China serve as a wake-up call to climate change non-believers; hope that one of the outcomes of this mess will be a push for more progressive environmental legislation; hope that we will be more conscious of how our actions impact the earth after seeing it firsthand. It is okay to hope. In fact, it is encouraged. While it is easy to take stock of our situation and be pessimistic, the entropy, or chaos, we are experiencing will eventually be reined back into order. Simply put, things will get better. If we believe Bob Marley, everything will in fact be alright.

While the positive environmental shifts we have experienced during this crisis are only temporary, we have the power to make real change. We can make clear skies and fresh air a reality if we invest in our future. In order to do this, we must throw our support behind renewable energy and transportation. If this seems intimidating, think about what you as an individual can do. What small choice can you make today that will help the planet

If this virus has taught us anything, it is that we are all in this together and that uniting for a common cause can make a monumental impact. As soon as society is back on its feet, we must take action and advocate for sustainable climate solutions which will benefit us in the long run. The way we rebuild ourselves after this pandemic will determine the kind of world our great-grandchildren inherit. At the end of the day, COVID-19 will not solve global warming, but I hope it inspires us all to get off our butts.

Precautionary, Not Reactionary

Jess Wilber is a junior at Oberlin College double-majoring in Environmental Studies and East Asian Studies. She can be reached at jwilber@oberlin.edu.

The world is experiencing an incredibly stressful, confusing, and chaotic time. As someone who dedicates a large amount of time to climate advocacy work, I was accustomed to those around me not sharing the same level of alarm I felt over the climate crisis, but now that others are suddenly in crisis mode, everything feels so surreal. 

Many people across the US have the privilege of taking the societal structures they exist in for granted, not feeling an immediate threat to their safety or well-being. For some, this is the first time  that they have encountered such a deeply rooted sense of insecurity. It's ironic how this feeling will only become more constant in their lives as the climate crisis worsens when it could have been prevented through earlier action. And it is beyond devastating that others have already endured so much injustice and pain as a result of that inaction.

This epidemiological crisis has pushed us to change our habits and mindsets to protect ourselves and our loved ones. We limit our contact with others, monitor our food and drink intake, and encourage each other to rest and be constantly mindful of our well-being. As of April 7th, residents of at least 42 states have been ordered to shelter in place. These same habit and mindset shifts should apply to our climate crisis. 

In the same way that federal response to COVID-19 pandemic had to come from bipartisan means like the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, federal response to the climate crisis will require collaboration and participation across party lines. 

We must be precautionary and not reactionary; acting before we no longer have access to the medical equipment or essential services. We must acknowledge the damage already dealt to the global community and pool together our resources before the situation becomes even more dire. We can do the same for climate change. 

What World Will We Leave Behind?

Nancy Dong is a Sophomore at Stony Brook University from Flushing, NY .

Almost all parents have an innate desire for the next generation to live a better life than their own. It has worked well for the past few centuries, with technological and medical advances improving people’s life generation after generation. But what about this generation and after? Hidden in all the happiness and convenience that modern life brings is the toll on the environment. Large corporations so consumed with profits, people stubborn in their comfortable, unsustainable habits, and a short-sighted government has sickened our environment. This is a slow ticking time bomb, one that has not warranted enough action and attention the way COVID-19 has. 

The measures that the government has taken for COVID-19 suggest that we have the ability to change our systems for what we perceive as threatening. Will it be too late to take action when we realize that the world we leave behind will be worse than the world that generations before lived in? To decrease the rate at which Earth’s temperature is increasing and to decrease the air and marine pollution that threatens biodiversity as well as our own health, we must push to implement policies that will reduce our carbon footprint. This includes a bill that requires net zero greenhouse gas emissions and the use of 100% renewable energy as well as a pollution fee on companies that choose not to be sustainable, either through their solid waste production or emissions.