HOW WE TAKE ACTION
Chapter Co-Chairs
Co-Chairs: Glen Garfunkel and Gary Latshaw Our chapter co-chairs provide a vision for our chapter, plan and develop strategies to guide our programs and campaigns and motivate our members to take action toward our common climate defense goals. They work with The Climate Reality Project headquarters to ensure that our objectives and strategies are consistent with global goals while taking action at the local, state and federal levels. Chair Executive Support Team: Adam Sweeney and Karen Nelson Our Executive Support Team provides valuable support to the extensive requirements of the Chair responsibilities and increases chapter effectiveness. How You Can Contribute
Work on member engagement for specific needs that are on-going and also arise as one-off needs. Support the creation of chapter events, including the monthly chapter meeting. Miscellaneous chapter administration requirements, including organization of chapter data and research on various climate change topics.
Chapter Campaigns and Programs
Chapter program directors play a crucial role in achieving our chapter’s mission and goals. Our leaders are at the forefront of the fight against climate change:
Building awareness of climate change among the public, focusing on both challenges and solutions. Influencing legislation and public policy at local, state and federal levels. Creating opportunities for members to take action, from reducing their carbon footprint to taking citizen action. Building collaborative relationships with other like-minded climate defense organizations. You can support the crucial work they do by volunteering to work with them on a program. To achieve our goal to protect ourselves and the planet from climate change, we need all hands on board!
Communications
Director: Deborah Warner Our Communications team focus is divided into four categories: email communications, social media, traditional media outreach, and our website. Our focus is to keep chapter members engaged and active, inform and educate our followers with content that is actionable and inspiring, and provide thoughtful and informative commentary to the general public via traditional media outlets. Our subscriber base email communications include: a monthly Chapter newsletter, timely legislative alerts, and event announcements. Our social media platforms have grown dramatically in 2021, with a quintupling off Instagram followers and steady growth of our public Facebook followers and Private Facebook members. Our traditional media outreach consists of monthly OpEds and Climate columns, written by Erin Zimmerman, as well as a growing number of Letters-to-the-Editor by chapter members. In addition to our direct outreach to build awareness and support for Climate defense and justice, we also use our communication tools and efforts to support the goals and objectives of each of our Silicon Valley Chapter programs including the Speakers Bureau, Legislation and Policy, Decarbonization Action, Silicon Valley Family and Membership Engagement. How You Can Contribute
Help manage our Instagram account and Facebook pages by creating fresh, timely posts about interesting climate events, happenings and issues. Build lists of media contacts for outreach to help us pitch climate change stories. Write letters-to-the editor and op-eds. Help develop and deliver communication workshops for LTE and OpEd writing, social media, short video creation and more.
Decarbonization Action
Director: Debbie Mytels The Decarbonization Action campaign’s goal is to mitigate climate change by encouraging consumers and businesses to take action to reduce emissions from carbon and other greenhouse gasses (GHG). We are also committed to working towards a just transition to clean energy and GHG reduction to nurture healthy and sustainable communities and ecosystems. Our work encompasses education to build awareness about the important role that reducing emissions from buildings, transportation and other sources plays in climate defense; to create and support ways for consumers and businesses to integrate emission control into their lives and business plans; and to collaborate with other organizations that have established programs to address emission reduction, such as the adoption of all-electric. How You Can Contribute
Join the Decarbonization Action team to make a measurable impact on our Bay Area emissions reduction. Work to add the list of local companies willing to add sustainability actions to their governance efforts. Support our outreach to individuals and organizations regarding emission control which includes doing formal and informal presentations to individuals and groups. Manage a collaborative relationship with a sustainable organization. Track educational opportunities developed by other organizations. Becoming a “Switch Is On” ambassador representative for the chapter. Research and report on topics vital to effective emission control. And other fascinating ways to volunteer both on-going or one-off.
Legislation and Public Policy
Directors: Glen Garfunkel, Karen Nelson and Adam Sweeney Our mission is to drive urgent action at the local, regional, and state levels of government to promote and support climate change related legislation and policies for sustainable communities and ecosystems. We do this by informing and educating members about pending legislation and policies to drive their support and action. As a result, our members have been active and effective in influencing legislation and policy decision-making: writing letters to the editor, attending and commenting at City Council and government committee meetings, sending letters and petitions to government officials, participating in Climate marches, making phone calls, sending emails, posting to social media, and more. As an organization, we also work to build strong relationships with elected officials and policy leaders, including meeting with elected officials to support very targeted policy and legislation that reduces emissions. How You Can Contribute
Track bills. Research legislative bill “backgrounders” that we can use to inform and educate our members and audiences about the impact of pending climate legislation that will underscore the importance of taking action. Write letter and email copy our members can use as templates for their own letters to elected officials and media outlets (Letters-to-the Editor, OpEds, etc.). Attend meetings with elected officials. Write and organize online petitions. Develop legislative asks for the Climate Action Now app.
Membership Engagement
Director: Karen Nelson Our membership committee works to encourage our members and trained leaders to take an active role in our Chapter’s climate defense activities and to provide them with opportunities for action in protecting ourselves and the planet from global warming. How You Can Contribute
Welcome new members with phone calls and emails to discover their climate story. Identify ways they would like to participate in the Chapter, and answer general chapter questions. Facilitate the bi-monthly New Member Welcome Meetings - developing the agenda and facilitating the Zoom call. Help recruit member support for high priority actions by making phone calls, sending emails, posting to social media, and more.
Silicon Valley Family Campaign
Director: Sean Mendelson Children are feeling anxious about the state of the world when they learn about the climate crisis. The best antidote to climate anxiety is action. The Silicon Valley Families campaign seeks to empower parents and grandparents to learn about the climate change crisis, so that they can intelligently guide their children and grandchildren and show our next generation that there are adults, including their own parents and grandparents, who care about restoring the climate to a livable future. Our work will also prepare the future generation to use critical thinking and systems awareness to evaluate the climate change and environmental impacts of our current way of life and develop evaluation skills and an action-oriented approach that allows them to take charge of issues affecting their future. How You Can Contribute
Join our committee of passionate people who want to prepare schools for the upcoming climate crisis challenge. Connect us with schools, PTAs, and homeschool groups, where we could provide a Climate Reality Project presentation or talk, either to parents or to students. Help us create and update a list of climate defense actions that families can take. Help us plan (post-COVID) in-person events for families. Work with our committee to monitor school funding and curriculum development related to climate change resilience and mitigation. Let us know of community events that are appropriate for CRSV families - whether targeted to parents or kids.
Speakers Bureau
Director: Campbell Scott Our Speakers Bureau is one of our Chapter’s key priorities. In keeping with the origins of The Climate Reality Project, informing and educating our community members to the realities of the climate crisis, is a central pillar of our mission. We provide climate change presentations to a wide range of audiences from schools and universities, to church and civic groups, business organizations, library patrons, and more. Our Climate Reality Leadership Corp presenters offer presentations on a wide array of topics including introductory education about climate change to more in-depth topics such as technological solutions, legislation and policy opportunities and challenges, climate justice, and ways you can take action to make a difference. The Speakers Bureau is always open to new topics – whether as a request for a presentation or as an offer to develop new topical presentation materials.
How You Can Contribute
Become a speaker: We need presenters to cover several different content categories and audience levels. From audiences new to climate change who need a basic overview, to more informed audiences wanting presentations that delve deeper, into scientific, economic, political, and lifestyle change solutions, for example. Becoming a presenter is one of the most powerful ways you can contribute to the goals of the Chapter. Provide Speaker assistance: Not ready to be a speaker, yourself? You can support speakers by facilitating Zoom presentations: monitoring the chat, facilitating Q and A, and just being there to help solve the occasional technical difficulty that may crop up. REQUEST A PRESENTATION Our bookers research and identify potential audiences and reach out to them to pitch and schedule talks with our presenters. Share your presentation skills: If you have a talent for public speaking, online presentation, Zoom capabilities and more, we can use your expertise to build a more robust Speakers Bureau team. Provide research assistance into new topics that our audiences request and assist in the preparation of new slide deck presentations.
