Tag: faces of the campaign

Faces of the Campaign: Meet Michael Riley Place

Faces of the Campaign: Meet Michael Riley Place

Faces of the Campaign is an ongoing series featuring our key organizers and stakeholders involved in “Put A Price On It, D.C.” Our coalition of 70 organizations is comprised of racial justice activists, union workers, health advocates, moms, dads, kids, retirees, and business-owners alike. Michael Riley Price is a student fellow working on the campaign. Here’s his story.

What is your name and what do you do?

My name is Michael Riley Place and I am a graduating senior at St. John’s High School in DC. I am an Our Climate Fellow working on the campaign as part of the steering committee. 

What woke you up to the climate crisis?

When I was 13, my family moved to New Zealand. Although I have been passionate about the environment my entire life and had learned about climate change, the implications a changing climate has on our Earth never really struck me until I was standing in a ravine carved out by the Fox Glacier. While the glacier still exists, century old images showed it to be significantly larger, stretching through the entire ravine. I realized then, that in only one hundred years, a relative blink of an eye, human society changed the world so much.

Besides the melting of glaciers, there has been intense melting of the ice caps, bleaching of coral reefs, and desertification of rain forests, all because of climate change. The government of New Zealand has always been a leader on environmental issues, recently ratifying the Paris climate agreement and banning offshore drilling. I have come to realize that while the United States has endangered ecosystems just like New Zealand, it has not taken the same action to ensure these places are preserved.

Why does the campaign to put a price on carbon in DC and rebate the revenue matter to you?

The tricky thing about climate change is that no matter where someone lives, their carbon footprint affects the entire world community. As climate change is the product of billions of people emitting carbon in their daily lives, a few individual decisions to bike to work or switch light bulbs is not going to make a significant difference. Entire communities must come together to move towards sustainability, by ensuring that people pay for their pollution. I believe that putting a price on carbon would not only discourage carbon pollution in the district and allow Washingtonians to reduce climate change as a united community, but by being passed in the nation’s capital it would set a national precedent for more cities to follow. Also, the rebate would ensure that communities unable to pay for the increased heating and transportation costs are not stifled by them financially.

How is this campaign different from other environmental campaigns you’ve experienced in the past?

This is the first campaign, environmental or otherwise, that I have played a role in. I love the positive energy of the people involved with the campaign. Although everyone has been working for a long time to ensure that climate change is addressed, and lately it seems our government is taking a step back in environmental progress, everyone still has hope. Hope that if we keep working towards a sustainable future, we will get there.

The steering committee is also made up of a very diverse group, with members hailing from government, businesses, faith-organizations, nonprofits, or grassroots backgrounds. I have learned a lot about the different perspectives that go into forming a successful campaign.

How has climate change impacted your own community?

The effects of climate change are so numerous and far-reaching that it plagues various communities differently. The United States has been experiencing increasingly hotter temperatures and irregular weather patterns. While many of us have the power to manipulate temperatures using air conditioning, there are many Americans who cannot afford this luxury, and billions around the globe who do not have access to it, these people are forced to deal with these rising temperatures. Irregular weather patterns are not only an inconvenience, those who lie in the path of storms face complete devastation. Additionally, many species are adapted to certain climate patterns, causing them to experience the changes intensely.

What was your favorite moment in this campaign?

My favorite moment was participating in the lobby day in March. This was my first experience lobbying and I found it extraordinary to see elected officials speak directly with their constituents about the changes they want to see in their community. Council members Robert White and Stephen Grosso showed their support for the policy and this was really cool.

Tell me about a time you’ve witnessed community power.

I witness community power every meeting of the steering community. The diversity of groups represented in the committee is amazing. Student groups, clean power businesses, environmental networking groups, a youth run political action committee, faith organizations, grassroots community groups, and even the Citizens Climate Lobby come together to plan the next steps. This ensures the policy is addressed from all angles. Furthermore, volunteers from the campaign have promoted the policy everywhere from ANC meetings to church events, bringing news of the policy directly to the community. This collaboration was apparent during the youth lobby day, where many people turned out for meetings with representatives and a rally in front of the Wilson Building. It was extraordinary to see so many different people united around one vision.

What was your biggest accomplishment on this campaign?

There have been so many great moments of this campaign, and with the introduction of the bill just around the corner, I know the best moments are yet to come. One of my biggest personal accomplishments of the campaign was writing a speech about why “the bill is late” and delivering the speech at the rally preceding the youth lobby day. As a high school student, it is my generation that will witness the worst parts of climate change, yet we lack the vote and attention of policy makers, I feel as if this is lost on our government. It was extraordinary to give my perspective and then meet with the policy makers directly, giving me hope that in time our leaders will come to realize the importance of protecting the environment for the sake of future generations.

One word summing up your experience with this campaign:

Optimistic

If you could tame a wild animal to do your bidding, what would it be?

A Parrot. This parrot would be fluent in several languages and help me to translate, it would spy on people, deliver food to my house, and be able to have deep and philosophical conversations.

Faces of the Campaign: Meet Barbara Briggs

Faces of the Campaign: Meet Barbara Briggs

Faces of the Campaign is an ongoing series featuring our key organizers and stakeholders involved in “Put A Price On It, D.C.” Our coalition of 70 organizations is comprised of racial justice activists, union workers, health advocates, moms, dads, kids, retirees, and business-owners alike. Barbara Briggs is a volunteer for the campaign. Here’s her story.

What is your name and what do you do?

My name is Barbara Briggs. After over 20 years running campaigns focused on international labor rights (child labor and sweatshop abuses in factories making clothing and consumer goods for the U.S. market) I am in the process of a professional shift, to work on climate issues. I am supposedly “taking a break” for the first time in my adult life, but busier than ever working on efforts to transition our society away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources.

What woke you up to the climate crisis?

I’ve always cared deeply about the environment, but the issue of climate change took on screaming urgency for me after I moved to Pittsburgh late in 2008. Western PA was in the middle of a huge resurgence of gas and oil extraction made possible by fracking. I started meeting people who could no longer use the water in their wells, whose kids were sick, whose livestock was dying.

I went to an opening of Josh Fox’s documentary Gaslands, really not knowing what to expect, and 2,000 people showed up! Many weekends we would go to a family place in the Allegheny National Forest and the destruction was horrible: bulldozed roads and gas pads all over the forest, silted streams, the smell of gas everywhere. It really drove home the damage that the fossil fuel industry is doing, on the ground in communities and natural areas all over the country, and contributing to global warming.

Why does the campaign to put a price on carbon in DC and rebate the revenue matter to you?

The campaign to put a price on carbon in DC is winnable, concrete and would allow us to make a substantive contribution toward moving our society away from fossil fuels. Something we must do and quickly, to prevent catastrophic climate disruption.

We are already losing species at a record rate. What we do now can save species, ecosystems, arable land, and communities that will otherwise be lost to sea-level rise. Economists tell us that pricing carbon is the most efficient way to accelerate the urgently needed transition away from fossil fuels and many business leaders agree. Meanwhile, using a substantial proportion of the funds to provide a rebate to citizens will help assure that this does not turn into a regressive tax that (once again) leaves low income and working families bearing the cost of change.

How is this campaign different from other environmental campaigns you’ve experienced in the past?

The Put a Price On It campaign is unique in that it is very concrete, local and winnable, yet would have significant environmental and economic impacts. We are pushing for real change, in a major U.S. city that also just happens to be the nation’s capital.

How has climate change impacted your own community?

I grew up in New England and my family is still there, mostly in Massachusetts. Winter is not normal or predictable anymore. It is warm when it should be consistently cold. Then in April this year we got hit with four major storms. The spring bulbs don’t know what to do. The trees don’t know what to do either. Fruit blossoms become frozen and collecting maple sap for syrup is impossible some springs. There’s more and more tree loss, due to stress and weird weather. Tree diseases, and human diseases like West Nile virus and Lyme disease, are becoming much more prevalent–moving up from the south and without good, hard freezes to kill them off.

What was your favorite moment in this campaign?

My favorite moment? I think that would have to be jumping into the Potomac River in January. Finally succeeding in cleaning up the spreadsheet to organize our outreach to the neighborhood ANCs–that would be a close second, but it took longer.

Tell me about a time you’ve witnessed community power.

I think we are witnessing growing community power right now, in the Put a Price On It campaign. We–a growing number of volunteers and coalition members–are raising public debate about climate change and taking responsibility into our own hands, right here in our own city. We are taking that discussion to every ward, every neighborhood, every local elected official. It’s too broad to see all at once. Often the specific events seem small. But taken all together, it is a remarkable display of growing community power.

What was your biggest accomplishment on this campaign?

I think my biggest accomplishment to date would have to be the climate event I organized at Friends Meeting of Washington to build support for the Put a Price on It campaign. The room was full. The panel, including Camila Thorndike, was really powerful. The discussion was really energized: People didn’t want to stop. And we ended up getting a lot of volunteers.

Best place to get breakfast in DC?

Best place in DC to get breakfast?: Definitely The Diner on 18th Street, open 24-7. I’ve had my bacon and eggs and coffee there at the crack of dawn, before heading to CCAN’s Polar plunge, and late at night after long ANC meetings.

Faces of the Campaign: Meet Assata Harris

Faces of the Campaign: Meet Assata Harris

Faces of the Campaign is an ongoing series featuring our key organizers and stakeholders involved in “Put A Price On It, D.C.” Our coalition — more than 45 groups as of this writing — is comprised of racial justice activists, union workers, health advocates, moms, dads, kids, retirees, and business-owners alike. Assata Harris is the Climate Justice Organizer the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.  Here’s her story.

Why does the campaign to put a price on carbon in DC and rebate the revenue matter to you?

When I think of climate justice, I have to be honest with you…. racial and economic justice are not typically the first thing that pops into my mind. However, after I became involved with the “Put A Price On It, D.C” campaign I realized that climate justice and environmental justice don’t have to be either/or they can be both. This policy matters to me because, like you, I recognize climate change as a central issue of our time that affects us all. This campaign goes to the next steps and tackles economic justice at the same time.

What has been your favorite moment in this campaign so far?

I think my favorite moment of this campaign was different moments of interacting with amazing volunteers of all different backgrounds who are really committed to fighting climate change while lifting up our most vulnerable communities. It feels wonderful everyday to wake up and know I am a part of a movement that reflects the diversity of the world we live in.

What was your biggest accomplishment on this campaign?

My biggest accomplishment thus far is really learning how carbon pricing actually works, not just in a theoretical level but in a way that makes sense for our communities. I must admit, it can be very complicated. But with all of the support that CCAN has provided, this journey to understand carbon pricing has been very straightforward and informative! Carbon pricing is the most creative way to tackle two issues of our time: economic justice and climate justice.

Who is your inspiration?

Assata Shakur, my namesake, a personal hero of mine! She was a great community organizer, who used passion as her strategy.