Author: Eric J

January 2021 Meeting Notes

January 2021 Iowa City CCL/ICCA Meeting Notes

CCL Speaker: 

  • Social Cost of Carbon is too imprecise to give good guidance
  • Developed a new way to determine the “right” cost while still incorporating costs/benefits, transparency, policymaker objectives, and credible precision
  • Several interesting graphs, but the main takeaway is that CCL’s carbon pricing and annual increase is almost exactly what this study would recommend.
  • https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0880-3

National CCL Updates

  • 3 climate-related bills were passed due to CCL volunteers as part of Covid relief package in December (BEST Act, USE IT Act, Climate-Ready Fisheries Act)
  • 405 meetings with MOCs in December, 25% with actual MOC
  • $1.1 million raised, beating the $1 million goal for CCL’s fundraiser
  • The Environmental Voter Project estimates it turned out 115k voters in the Georgia runoff who wouldn’t have voted otherwise (!)
  • Lobby week in March! (March 22-26)
  • Day of action on inauguration day
  • North Wind Virtual Conference Jan 30-31, RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2021-citizens-climate-virtual-north-wind-regional-conference-tickets-134533333823

Matt Russel, the Iowa Interfaith Power & Light leader attended! (https://iowaipl.org/)

  • Educates rural communities and asks farmers to help us figure out to solve the climate crisis
  • 99 Counties initiative dove-tails nicely with IIPL’s work
  • IIPL gets people into the climate conversation and then directs them to CCL when they express interest in doing more
  • Iowa Soybean Association, Practical Farmers of Iowa, Center for Rural Affairs and Iowa Farmer’s Union are groups that would be good to reach out to

EarthFest

  • Barbara and new member Chad are going to work together to produce videos of our inclusive climate pamphlets read in each language by a native speaker and we’ll submit those for our entry at EarthFest

Voting in Johnson County in 2020

There are a number of options to voting in Johnson County.

You can vote in person on November 3.  To find your voting site go to:
https://gis.johnsoncountyiowa.gov/pollingplaces/

Type in your address and it will tell you your polling location and show it to you on a map.

You can vote early in person beginning 29 days before election day.  The first day to vote early is October 5. Voting will be at the parking ramp north of the Health and Human Services Building, 855 S. Dubuque St. Please enter from the west off Clinton Street.

You can also vote by absentee ballot.  Absentee ballot request forms were sent with your information preprinted. Do not use these as there is a lawsuit to invalidate them.  If you have already sent one in send another form which can be downloaded from the web.  You may have also received a blank form. You can fill that out and return it. 

Absentee ballot request form can be downloaded and printed from:
https://www.johnsoncountyiowa.gov/auditor/voter/absreq.pdf

This form must be received by the Johnson County Auditor’s Office by Saturday October 24 at 5 pm. 

You must request an absentee ballot by mail. It cannot be obtained in person at the Auditors office. 

After you have returned your absentee ballot request form you can determine if it was receive by calling the Auditor’s office or by using the following web site: https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/absenteeballotstatus/absentee/search

Johnson County Auditor
Phone (319) 356-6004
913 S Dubuque St
Iowa City, 53250

Office Hours
          Monday – Friday
          7:45 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

2020 Environmental Voter Guide

In light of the 15 million environmentalists who didn’t vote in 2016 (source), members of ICCA/Iowa City Chapter of CCL have compiled a voting guide regarding federal candidates on the ballot in Johnson County.

Research

US Senate

Joni Ernst (R)

Voting Scorecard:
https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/joni-ernst

Full Voting Record:
https://www.ernst.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/voting-record

From the candidate’s website:
https://www.ernst.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/key-issues

Endorsements by Environmental Groups:
None.

Theresa Greenfield (D)

Voting Scorecard:
Not Available. Environmental scorecards are typically done for people who have served in elected office at the state or federal level, which is why some candidates don’t have an environmental scorecard.

From the candidate’s website:
https://greenfieldforiowa.com/issues/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIg5jLz-Pu6wIVE9bACh1I3Au7EAAYASACEgLWhPD_BwE

Endorsements by Environmental Groups:
League of Conservation Voters – https://www.lcv.org/article/lcv-action-fund-endorses-theresa-greenfield-u-s-senate/ 

US House of Reps

Mariannette Miller-Meeks ( R )

Voting Scorecard:
https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/sce/iowa-chapter/political/2019-2020Scorecard.pdf

From the candidate’s website:
https://millermeeks2020.com/issues/

Endorsements by Environmental Groups:
None found.

Rita Hart (D)

Voting Scorecard:
Not Available. Environmental scorecards are typically done for people who have served in elected office at the state or federal level, which is why some candidates don’t have and environmental scorecard.

From the candidate’s website:
https://www.ritahart.com/issues/

Endorsements by Environmental Groups:
League of Conservation Voters – https://www.lcv.org/article/lcv-action-fund-endorses-rita-hart-j-d-scholten-congress/ 

US President

Donald Trump ( R )

Environmental Scorecard:
https://www.lcv.org/trumpyearone/

From the candidate’s website:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/

Endorsements by Environmental Groups:
None found.

Joe Biden (D)

Environmental Scorecard:
https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/joe-biden

From the candidate’s website:
https://joebiden.com/#

Endorsements by Environmental Groups:
– Environment America – https://environmentamerica.org/feature/ame/biden-endorsement 
– Sierra Club – https://www.sierraclub.org/iowa/2020-candidate-endorsements
– Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund – https://www.nrdcactionfund.org/news/nrdc-action-fund-endorses-biden-for-president/

Here’s how to vote in Johnson County in 2020:
https://iowa-city-climate-advocates.org/2020/09/23/voting-in-johnson-county-in-2020/

September 2020 Meeting Notes

ICCA September 2020 Meeting Notes

Action Items:

  • Will summarize Johnson County Voter Information
    • Absentee Ballot due dates, clarifications, how to track, dropbox vs mail
    • How to become a poll worker

  • Will summarize each candidate’s environmental record
  • Peter will provide a list of candidates to research

  • Eric will send out an email asking for donations to support this effort 
  • Work with Dawn to create our ad campaigns to share Elsa’s and Briana’s information
  • Also, create ad campaigns to promote the Environmental Voter Project “postcard” we sent in August
  • We will spend between 50% to 100% of our current funds on the ad campaign

July 2020 Meeting Notes

CCL National Meeting

Dr Renee Lertzman -> Project Inside Out

  • We need to understand the emotional harm of climate change
    • My thought: similar to how we miss life before COVID
  • Jumping from the “problem” of climate change straight to the “solution(s)” is problematic
    • We need to express our feelings in confrontation of hard truths
    • We are in denial when we choose not to deal with our feelings at the moment
  • We need to not be “cheerleaders” because people can tell when we’re trying to sell something or when we’re sugarcoating things
    • “People don’t resist change, they resist being changed”
  • We need to be “guides”, where we listen, listen, listen, and make sure the person is being understood
    • A “guide” provides a “relational home” or a “container”.
      • A container can be a narrative, a media campaign, or a group interaction
  • Embrace the ambivalence

CCL Fall conference is in early December this year.

Local Meeting

John gave a tour of the CCL website and all the resources you can find there (how to go from “I know nothing about climate change, to a fully informed advocate”, and even how to from “I know nothing about meeting with Senators and Congressmen” to “I know how to have a successful meeting with my elected leaders”.

Peter gave an update with our recent meetings with Grassley, Ernst, and the staffs of Axne and Finkenhauer, and they were all positive. We’ll target meeting with them again in September or October.

We’ll be having a state of iowa CCL meeting on Aug 6 which everyone is welcome to attend.

Peter outlined the Monthly Calling Program and what it would take to for a new volunteer to step up and run the program for Ernst both in the steps and time (only 10 minutes a month after the first month).

We explained the IOWIND program and how people can get involved and why it’s important (because Grassley is the “grandfather of wind energy” in Iowa).

If anyone has a contact in western or southwestern Iowa, we’re looking to start chapters there.

Writing “letters to the editor” is a great way to take action for climate change, especially now

A couple other items I had on the agenda that we didn’t get to:

  • How can we support Black Lives Matter?
  • I’m an organizer of the GoGreen team at my workplace (a company of 2700 people)
    • I’m trying to work on an endorsement or weaving CCL into “going green”

Links