Marin CCL Newsletter

May 4, 2024

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Join us on Saturday, May 11 at 11 AM for the combined Marin/Sonoma CCL chapter meeting

We'll have a lively discussion of:

California bills dealing with electricity rates and solar deployment
Your "climate conversations" during Earth Month -- how did they go? Over 25,000 were reported.
June national conference in DC -- who's going?
Open discussion of how you're feeling about our efforts to stem the tide of global climate disruption

Here's the zoom link

passcode 123

Ahead of the Marin/Sonoma meeting,

tune into the National call, Saturday, May 11 at 10 AM.

CCLusa.org/meeting

This one, refreshingly, will be run by our students.

CCL’s Youth and Higher Ed programs are taking over this call (with permission!) to feature success stories from our youngest leaders doing climate advocacy. CCL Fellow Sara Eyassu, sophomore at the University of Southern California, will host. We'll also hear from other young CCLers about their initiatives on school electrification, voter mobilization, youth lobby days, and the first-ever Student Summit at this year's CCL Summer Conference & Lobby Day. This will be fun and inspiring. Join at

Wee're Baack!

CCL's National Conference in DC

(Always intense in a big election year)

Summer Conference and Lobby Day

in Washington, D.C., June 8-11

Details here

If you would like to attend, please register online and let us know here as soon as possible. Youth scholarships are available.

Earth Day, 2024 at the Mill Valley Community Center

On a gorgeous day, two of our outstanding high school students engaged the crowd with a game of "Climate Jenga," (showing how tricky solving climate is, while avoiding collapse...) to the delight of steering committee members Jonathan Marshall and Peter Joseph and many attendees.

Former economics editor at the S.F. Chronicle and CCL economics policy coordinator Marin's Jonathan Marshall has graciously compiled his numerous essays into this handy, readable collection. Whether you're a seasoned lobbyist or just getting started, this concise reference addresses all the issues in its title, while dispelling persistent myths. Download it here.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse:

Meeting climate goals through tax reform

The tax code, where much of U.S. climate policy is implemented, will likely be the subject of intense policy debate in 2025 as Trump tax cuts expire. Listen to CCL ally, Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), describe the need for effective carbon pricing in reducing GHG emissions. "Without carbon pricing, we don't make it as a species...One of the cool things about it is that you can start quite small...and frankly, it ain't that complicated."

Watch 30 minutes of informative and lively discussion here.

Here is Sen. Whitehouse's conversation with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, both advocating a carbon tax.

(almost 2 min)

Wonks: Here's the study being discussed at the Brookings event above:

Climate tax policy reform options in 2025

Authored by 5 experts from: the Electric Power Research Institute, UCLA School of Law, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Harvard and MIT

With the expiration of many tax cuts and unmet climate targets, 2025 could be a crucial year for climate policy in the United States...The model shows: The emissions reductions of the Inflation Reduction Act are significantly augmented under scenarios that add a modest carbon fee...fiscal costs can be substantially reduced in scenarios that include a carbon fee...the carbon fee and clean electricity standard scenarios achieve our goals between 2030 and 2035.

Read on, then do whatever you can to insure we have a climate friendly government in 2025!

Activate Your Community Network with a CCL talk!

We're available for speaking opportunities in our community. Can you help spread the word?

Our chapter is fortunate to include several accomplished climate educators who are ready to engage your network with a customized presentation (at no cost.)

If you have contacts at local schools, universities, community clubs (service, social, hobby, professional), faith communities, town councils, local government agencies and the like, please contact us at marincclchapter@gmail.com.

Here's another path to activism in this election cycle: get involved with the nonpartisan EVP, whose mission is to get environmental voters to actually vote. "We identify inactive environmentalists and transform them into consistent voters to build the power of the environmental movement." Their leader, Nathanial Stinneit will address the DC conference on Sunday, June 9 at 2 PM ET. Join EVP here.

Do Not Miss This Series!

If you've already seen it, watch it again. You'll then understand how we got into this mess and what it will take to get us out it: Massive political pressure supporting robust solutions that this industry will inevitably oppose.

And speaking of denial, here's some state-of-the-art climate denial in action. Those zombie arguments (it's not warming, CO2 is plant food, it's natural, etc., etc.) just never seem to die despite all the evidence.

Watch the exchange here. (12 fun minutes! And BTW, all the specious arguments put forth are expertly rebutted at SkepticalScience.)