Hilarious speech from Great Lakes Regional Conference.
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Buckle up, kids. This ain't your usual CCL speech.
Before I go any further, I want to say that I love CCL. I love so much of what CCL stands for. I love that CCL embraces relationships and optimism. I love that CCL looks at a choice between addressing climate change and addressing dysfunctional partisanship and says, "Why not both?"
Many of my favorite people on this planet are CCL staff and volunteers, some of them in this very room. Being active in CCL has truly changed my life for the better in ways I never could've imagined just a few years ago.
But I'm not here to talk about all that shit. I'm *not* here to inspire you. And I'm *not* here to tell you some warm, fuzzy story. I'm here to talk about the reality of being a CCL volunteer.
For me, one reality of being a CCL volunteer is having my Millennial friends ask, "Why bother?" It's not that we don't think climate change is an important issue. If all goes well, we Millennials have a good 50 more years to go on this warming planet.
But as a Millennial, I also sat in my 8th grade science class watching live coverage of 9/11 and ate my breakfasts before high school watching news reports about the ensuing wars. I graduated college two years after the 2008 housing market crash. And my wife and I were considering buying a house and starting a family when the pandemic hit. In short, my generation feels like it's been failed repeatedly by the federal government and people in power--or as we like to call it the "system."
And yet, here I am, a volunteer leader in an organization that seeks to work within the "system" to influence the "system"... by being nice. I know that's a wild oversimplification of what we do, but that's how it can look to a jaded Millennial who's
asking, "Why bother?"
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For me, another reality of being a CCL volunteer is wondering, "What do I actually *do*?" I say I'm a CCL volunteer, but what does that even mean? What is the reality of that?
When I talk to CCL staff, they always say to me, "Thanks for all that you do." That's their job. They're supposed to say that. Even though I believe they genuinely mean it, it's still their job. And every time, it makes me wonder, "What do I actually do?"
I have a full-time job. I have a wife I enjoy spending time with. I have a cat, friends, and hobbies. CCL is just one part of my life, and I don't have unlimited time to spend on it. And in many CCL meetings, I'm often one of the only people out of college and under 50, and my already limited CCL time feels even more limited by comparison.
In some of these meetings, CCL does this really great thing where they ask people to share a recent success, and though it never goes exactly like this, this is sometimes how it feels:
"Last week, I saw my Congresswoman at the grocery store, and she smiled at me. So, I chopped down an invasive tree, pulped the bark, made paper, grabbed my locally sourced quill pen, wrote a thank-you note with organic ink, and rode my bike 50 miles to the in-district office that's farthest from my house to hand deliver the note."
If you're this kind of person, please keep doing what you're doing. You're a priceless treasure, and this kind of expression of your advocacy is beautiful.
But I am 100% not that dude. I'm never going to take the time and energy to do something like that. So, again I find myself asking, "What do *I* actually do?"
Well, I guess I'm a state coordinator and a congressional liaison and a group leader. It might sound impressive, but in a
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volunteer organization, all you have to do is keep saying "yes" to stuff.
In those roles, most of my time is spent in front of my computer. I send emails. I attend zoom meetings. I stay up-to-date on CCL news. Sometimes, I just sit there staring at an email from a random volunteer I don't know, that is filled to the brim with a stew of their emotions about climate change, and I have to convince myself NOT to respond with "Please just get a therapist."
As a group leader, I help plan and lead chapter meetings... that could absolutely be better than they are because too many white men talk too much and I haven't done the work to get more women and more people of color involved in my chapter.
As a liaison, I plan and schedule lobby meetings... which could also definitely be better than they are because I don't spend enough time developing a relationship with the office in between meetings, which is why the meetings always get scheduled so late, and then I have to rush to prepare a lobby meeting I didn't think was going to happen, and pray that there are a decent number of available constituents--who I, of course, haven't been staying in touch with since the last lobby meeting.
As a state coordinator, I help plan and lead IL Leadership meetings... that could 100% be better than they are because I often send the reminder email too late, and I'm bad at effectively communicating that the meeting is on the Tuesday ten days after the second Saturday of each month--which is sometimes the third Tuesday of the month and sometimes the fourth Tuesday of the month--and I always forget one really important thing that CCL National wanted me to communicate to group leaders and liaisons.
And I spend a lot of the rest of my already limited CCL time dreading tasks, subconsciously worrying that I'm not doing enough, and mixing up legitimate frustration with anxiety-driven self-loathing. And of course, I only tell my therapist and my
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wife about all of this because they're the only two people who know enough to understand but who also can't do too much about it.
So, when my friends ask me, "Why bother?", I don't have a convincing answer for them. And when I ask myself, "What do I *actually* do?", the answer always seems to be "very little, done poorly." At the end of the day, it's really just "never enough." Whatever Congress does is "never enough." Whatever I do for CCL is "never enough."
I will sit in this mental state, sometimes for weeks at a time. I will accept that "never enough" is the reality of being a CCL volunteer.
And then one night, I'll be playing a video game--which is my way of avoiding CCL tasks--and my phone will light up. I'll look over and see the name of any one of the amazing CCLers in Illinois. Or maybe it's one of our amazing regional coordinators Elizabeth Dell or John Sabin. And I answer that call or that text because those people truly are amazing, and I want to hear from them.
And I'm reminded: *that* is the reality of being a CCL volunteer.
Yes, the reality of being a CCL volunteer is also doing work--the emails, the meetings, the learning, the answering questions from skeptical friends, family, and strangers. It's not all bad, but it is all work. But I do all of that work so that when one of these amazing CCLers calls me, I can pick up the phone, answer their questions, encourage them to keep going, and thank them for the work they're doing. In short, I empower *them* to keep doing *their* thing.
It doesn't matter if I forget one of the steps of motivational interviewing in my lobby meeting. It doesn't matter if I forget the "correct" way to structure a request of a volunteer. It doesn't matter if I send a reminder too late or miss some of the
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info or forget to send it at all. It doesn't matter if climate legislation passed through Congress isn't exactly what we want. And it doesn't matter if this speech isn't exactly what Elizabeth and John thought they were signing up for when they asked me to do this.
I'm not advocating for us to be careless in our CCL work. I'm just saying that it doesn't matter if it's not perfect--whatever you imagine is a perfect idealized version of that lobby meeting or email or climate legislation.
What matters is that we're doing this together. What matters is that we're doing it shoulder-to-shoulder, phone-to-phone, and yes, zoom square-to-zoom square. We are people empowering each other.
Because in the end, all we really have is each other, in this very moment. Some of us may not see Congress pass legislation that definitively puts us on the path to net-zero, and even fewer of us will see net-zero and beyond. You will always be chasing that perfect lobby meeting, and there will always be something about your chapter that you feel is deficient in some way. You will never do every CCL task that you feel needs to be done. Worse yet, you will never do every CCL task that you told someone else you would do. I don't know, maybe you will. But I definitely won't.
And like it or not, you'll keep moving forward through time. Tasks, problems, what-ifs, and could-haves will pile up and probably fade from memory. Missed opportunities will fly past you, many of them without you even realizing it. And all your to-do lists, process documents, and good intentions can never change that.
But rather than all of that being a reason to worry or despair, it's actually a reason to rejoice. Because it means that what's most important--right now and forever--is each other.
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As we go forth through this conference today and then out into our lives, I encourage you to revel in the people around you. I encourage you to be open to them--open to their ideas, open to having your opinion changed, open to making a friend.
And try to be honest with yourself and with other people. No matter how scary it may seem, tell them how you're feeling. Maybe you're nervous at your first big CCL event, or maybe you're excited to learn more, or maybe you're tired. Maybe you'd wish the 8:55am keynote speaker would shut up.
In fact, I invite you to turn to the person next to you right now, greet them however you're comfortable, and share with them how you're feeling in this very moment.
Ah! Now *that* right there is the reality of being a CCL volunteer!
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