Climate Chatterboxes

This past weekend I joined fellow Citizen Climate Lobby members at the largest ski race in the country, the Birkiebeiner in Hayward WI.  We manned a booth at the Expo, and I was able to practice what I preach.  If you want to change people’s minds, start a conversation.  I started conversations for eight hours with some of the 10,000 attendees. It was rewarding because cross-country skiers know the score. Without human intervention to reduce emissions, skiing on natural snow will go away. I was preaching scientifically and morally to the choir. What made all of us happy was skiers saw Citizens Climate Lobby as an organization they could rally around to move the climate agenda forward in a non-partisan fashion.

What was satisfying is cross-country skiers have, in just one year, become more comfortable talking about climate change.  Young skiers voiced appreciation and many skiers donated to Citizens Climate Lobby.

I walked through the crowd delivering this pitch, “Do you have five seconds for your planet?” Who can reject that pitch?  They would give me a funny look and tell me to go ahead. I would tell them to start their watches and say, “We, Citizens Climate Lobby members, go to Washington and lobby our representatives to put a price on carbon pollution. AND, we insist all the proceeds be returned to the people as a dividend.”

Then I would hand them a leaflet and say, “That is it!” followed by, “Where are you from?”

That is when it got interesting.

There were people from all over the world with interesting stories to tell. An engineer from Denmark entered the race with his Norwegian wife. He works in Atlanta, Georgia as a consultant to large companies on energy efficiency.

A couple was kelp farming in Alaska. There is a large and growing market for kelp from cold pure water. Many cultures have an appetite for kelp.  It is nutritious for us and beneficial for the climate if cows are given it as part of their feed. Kelp, if fed to cattle, dramatically reduces a cow’s greenhouse gas methane pollution which is a by-product of cow digestion.

Another fellow gave me a short course on electric cars, and two others on electric pickup trucks. And so it went. The payoff for talking climate was the gift strangers gave me; dozens of interesting stories I would never have heard had I not initiated a climate conversation.

I can’t honestly tell you all climate conversations will go so well every time you initiate one, but I can tell you the social awareness of climate change has dramatically improved. There is hope. Young people are especially well educated. They expressed their appreciation, which I can say, keeps me positive.   

When I speak with folks, I occasionally bring up Thule’s imaginary law of physics. (Which applies to the pursuit of any truth). Thule’s first law says if you push on something hard enough, it will fall over. All you climate chatterboxes, keep it up! We will push it over and solve this crisis.

To help your conversations I have started this blog.  The blog will contain past and future columns I have written and provide you with information to start conversations about climate change.  I hope you have been able to learn from these columns and will be able to share them with friends and family members to start what might otherwise be a difficult conversation.

www.citizensclimatelobby.org

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