Calendar

Sponsored by Friends of the Moscow Library. She recently published a book on this subject. PESC tried to set up a presentation from her back at the beginning of this year but conflicts got in the way. Her talk should be interesting and perhaps controversial because she presents climate change from the perspective of geologic history. Flyer about E. Kirsten Peters talk, “The Whole Story of Climate Change.”

While the recent work of climate scientists has added
greatly to our understanding of the fragility of climate, the
public rarely hears from geologists— even though
geologists have been studying climate change for almost
200 years. The typical American has the impression that
climate would be stable if it weren’t for industrialization and
the production of greenhouse gases from smokestacks and
cars. However, geologic history reveals a ceaselessly
changing climate going back millions of years before the
modern economy.

As The Whole Story of Climate explains, several long, cold
spells have been punctuated by short, warm ones. We are,
in fact, currently living in one of the short, warm periods
that the Earth has seen many times before. There is even a
serious hypothesis worth exploring that if it weren’t for the
greenhouse gases created for millennia by agriculture we
would today be headed back into a time of bitterly cold
temperatures worthy of the mastodons and mammoths
many of us read about as children.

Elsa Kirsten Peters grew up in Pullman. She was a geology major
at Princeton and earned her PhD in geology at Harvard. She has
taught undergraduate geology at WSU and is the author of several
books, as well as the syndicated “Rock Doc” newspaper column.
She has also published murder mysteries under the pen name
Irene Allen.

The Hanford cleanup is costing taxpayers billions each year. We regularly hear about radioactive leaks and delays in processing waste. What’s the rest of the story? Ginger Wireman’s presentation, ‘What’s Up with Hanford Cleanup?’ will explain the current status of Hanford cleanup and the State of Washington’s role in cleanup oversight. Wireman has been a community outreach and environmental education specialist with the Washington Dept. of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program since 2001. She has an MS in Environmental Studies and has written and illustrated a children’s book, ‘If Wishes Had Wings’, which explores the animals and habitats of the Washington shrub steppe and Cascade Mountains through a child’s imagination. This presentation will be at 7 p.m., Tuesday, November 12, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse, 420 E. Second St., Moscow. Sponsored by Palouse Group of the Sierra Club and Palouse Environmental Sustainability Coalition. For further information, contact Al Poplawsky.

A presentation that will launch the Palouse Region chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby and explain the case for a revenue-neutral federal carbon fee and dividend. William Barron, Regional Coordinator for Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), will lead the presentation. Saturday, March 29 from 1 pm to 4 pm, Fiske Room of the 1912 Center.

The Palouse Region CCL is officially started now, following a great opening meeting last Saturday with front page coverage in the Daily News on Monday! (One of the first items to discuss will be the best time for everyone to meet.) The following is from an email from Rob Briggs and Pat Rathmann last Thursday:

 

We will have our first regular meeting on Monday April 7 at 7:00 pm in the sanctuary (up stairs) of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse, 420 E 2nd St, Moscow, ID.

 

The agenda for the meeting will include listening to the national Citizen’s Climate Lobby conference call.  These calls are invariably upbeat and informative and provide concrete actions that we can take to move the campaign for effective federal climate legislation forward.

 

Additionally, we will be taking initial steps to organize into interest groups to tackle various educational, outreach, and lobbying activities.  We’re hoping to establish multiple interest groups that feel empowered to act, and then use the monthly meetings simply for coordination and sharing successes.

 

There is a wide variety of productive roles you can play in CCL.  These range from reliably reading local newspapers, to serving as behind-the-scenes climate science advisor, tabling, giving presentations, writing letters to the editor, and meeting with Senators and House members.  There are important roles for all skill sets and comfort levels.

 

As Bill Barron mentioned several times on Saturday, CCL likes things to run on time.  We’re hoping to run our chapter meetings in a disciplined and effective way that is respectful of everyone’s time.  CCL suggests that monthly meetings run for two hours.  We rather like the idea of finishing early and retiring to some gathering place to socialize and strategize informally.  CCL provides great opportunities for us to innovate locally, share nationally, and thereby attach a big multiplier to our creative efforts.

Please find attached a draft agenda for our meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5:30 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse (downstairs), 420 E 2nd St, Moscow. We will be serving pizza early during the meeting.

If you can listen to the national CCL call in advance of the meeting here, that will be helpful but is not essential. I found Jay Butera’s story particularly inspiring.

For each month’s call, CCL prepares an action sheet here for the month. Writing members of congress is the top action this month, and I will bring materials so that we can generate letters and postcards to our members of congress during the meeting (time permitting).

Please try to arrive promptly. We will need to finish before 7:00 pm, as many of us will be participating in the planning session (7 pm in Fiske Room, 1912 Center) for community activities to complement the Years of Living Dangerously series showing at the Kenworthy.

The meeting will be held in the Hecht Room of the Neill Public Library at 210 N. Grand Ave, in Pullman from 5:30 to 7:00 pm, Wednesday, June 11.  Pizza  will be served.

The next meeting of the CCL-Palouse will be from 5:30-7:00 p.m. on July 16. We will meet at Bucer’s (back room) at 201 S. Main Street in Moscow. Bucer’s offers a variety of snacks for sale if you want to eat. Many of you will probably continue on to the 7 PM meeting of the YLD group at the One World Cafe in Moscow. (Spanning the length and cultural spectrum of Main Street, eh?)

The meeting will follow the National Call on Saturday July 12 at 1pm by Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, climate change evangelist. (More about this on the CCL website.)

Our big success of the month is that the Idaho Democrats Convention approved a platform that included this statement: “For the sake of future generations, we are committed to taking proactive measures to prevent and mitigate the effects of climate change.” While the subject was not addressed in the platform draft that was presented at the beginning of the convention, CCL-P urged Latah County delegates to introduce a plank on Climate Change. Nancy Nelson carried the ball, and after some discussion (e.g. “climate disruption” vs. “climate change”) at the Platform Committee Hearings , this final wording passed with no objection from the convention delegates.

The Palouse Chapter of the Citizen’s Climate Lobby will meet from 5:30-7 p.m. on Wednesday August 6 at the Daily Grind on Main Street in Pullman. The Grind has a variety of beverages, sandwiches and pastries if you would like to eat there.

We will send the agenda and July’s minutes with our next reminder, but the focus of the meeting will be a Power Point presentation from the national office on climate change. Members, please come with tough–even adversarial–questions so we can hone our skills at giving presentations to local organizations.

The next national call is on Saturday, August 2 at 10 a.m. Retired general Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander will discuss the impact of climate change on national security. To listen to the call go to http://citizensclimatelobby.org and on the opening page, scroll down to National Call. If you are registered, you can listen live, or the call will be available as an MP3 by about 1 p.m. that day under the button “Listen to the August Call.” We hope you can listen to this prior to the August 6 meeting.

Please mark your calendar for the next Citizens’ Climate Lobby meeting to be held Wednesday, September 10, 5:30 – 7:00 pm at Café Artista at 3rd and Main St. in Moscow. Café Artista offers teas, coffees, croissants and muffins. (Sorry, we’re not permitted to provide pizza at this venue.)

This week’s national CCL call will feature Retired Naval Rear Admiral Len Hering talking about the impact that climate change is having on national security. A link to the recording of the call will be available by mid-day Saturday (9/6) here: [http://citizensclimatelobby.org/resources/monthly-conference-calls-and-actions/]. Past national calls have been highly informative, and I encourage everyone to listen to the call if they can.

We’ll again have a quick letter-writing activity as part of this month’s meeting. I like this quote from Former Congressman Billy Evans (D-Georgia):

“Legislators estimate that 10 letters from constituents represent the concerns of 10,000 citizens. Anybody who will take the time to write is voicing the fears and desires of thousands more.”

Hope to see you next Wednesday.

Rob Briggs
Co-Group Leader
Palouse Region Chapter, Citizens’ Climate Lobby
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eMail: palouseregion@citizensclimatelobby.org