Election Day is TOMORROW, y’all. 🫠
So, a note before we get to this episode: If you are looking for ways to volunteer to help get out the vote in this home stretch, join me in phone banking with Environmental Voter Project! ☎️ I’ve been a fan since day one — literally, I was the first donor who wasn’t a friend or relative of the founder. EVP’s mission:
“We identify inactive environmentalists and transform them into consistent voters to build the power of the environmental movement.”
YES, PLEASE! And I’m obsessed with their strategy (more about it in our episode #2), which is based on rigorous social science (A/B testing, etc.) IT’S SO EFFECTIVE! So far this election, EVP has mobilized over 561,000 *first-time* environmental voters to cast their ballots. 🫨 These are folks who campaigns don’t bother to reach out to because they are so unlikely to vote.
There are phone bank shifts all day today and tomorrow. Sign up here! You, too, could have lovely conversations with disaffected young guys in Arizona who say to you, “You know what, maybe I will go vote. I do care about the environment and how my tax dollars are spent.”
If you, like me, are an introvert who hates talking to strangers on the phone:
Do it anyway, it’s worth it! And you’ll be in a Zoom with 100 other volunteers all doing this together. 💛
EVP has a great script you use that’s tested for max impact. 🤓
EVP will train you and be there in the Zoom chat/breakout rooms to answer any Qs along the way. 💁🏽♀️
Because you aren’t calling on behalf of a campaign the conversations are generally friendlier — you are just encouraging them to vote and helping them find the info they need to do it. 🥰
This:
So, sign up! And let’s build a powerful environmental electorate not just for this election, but for the long term. Okay, and now for...
TODAY’S EPISODE
I thought the best conversation to share with you right now would be one about really important progress the Biden-Harris administration has made on ocean and climate policy — progress totally at risk if Trump and his fossil-fuel funded, climate-denying cronies end up back in the White House.
This conversation took place in Washington, DC with two White House staffers, climate policy experts and dear friends of mine: Maggie Thomas, special assistant to President Biden for climate in the Office of Domestic Climate Policy, and Dr. Miriam Goldstein, director of ocean policy in the Council of Environmental Quality.
One of the things I think doesn’t get talked about enough is who the next president will appoint to key positions like this. Personnel is policy, as the saying goes. It’s been such a thrill to cheer on Maggie and Miriam and watch from the outside, and to now share with you a bit of what’s been happening on the inside — from the Blue New Deal (aka how can we make sure that the ocean is included in federal climate policy) to the American Climate Corps to key lessons they’ve learned in the White House. It’s a wonky one. You’re welcome!
CREDITS
Thank you Maggie and Miriam. Thank you Politics and Prose bookstore for hosting us and Ellen Rolfes for recording the audio. Thank you people of DC for appreciating our nerdiest jokes — only there will Federal Register quips get a laugh!
This episode was produced and edited by Nora Saks and me. Thanks also to Jenisha Shrestha, my chief of staff and tour producer.
You can find links to the Blue New Deal and Ocean Justice Strategy on Urban Ocean Lab’s website, on our resource hub. And you can find all the work the White House Climate Policy Office and Council of Environmental Quality are doing at whitehouse.gov/cpo and whitehouse.gov/ceq.
Thank you so much for listening! And as a parting gift, to help get you through election week, my Anti-Apocalypse Mixtape. 🎶
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