Episode 192: Caroline Spears, Climate Cabinet
Today's guest is Caroline Spears, Founder & Executive Director of Climate Cabinet.
Climate Cabinet makes local climate change data and policy solutions actionable for policymakers on the frontlines of the climate crisis. The organization ensures critical local climate opportunities are on the map and that key players are equipped to immediately advance bold climate action. Born in Houston, Texas, Caroline studied climate science and clean energy at Stanford University, graduating with her B.S. and M.S. in Atmosphere and Energy Engineering. Previously, she worked in solar energy. Caroline has received the 2021 "Grist Fixer" award, won a Henry Arnold Fellowship, and recently joined the Fast Forward Accelerator class of 2021.
I was looking forward to catching up with Caroline because local elections are essential to addressing the climate crisis. We discuss Caroline's upbringing in an oil & gas Texas family, how she became climate motivated, and Climate Cabinet's important role. Caroline also explains why candidates and races need customizable approaches to climate policy, the Climate Cabinet Score, and how the team determines which races are their top priorities. Caroline is a fantastic guest, and this episode is a must-listen for those interested in making significant impacts at the polls.
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded January 4th, 2022
In Today's episode we cover:
Overview of Climate Cabinet & the work the organization does
Caroline's climate journey & what led her to focus on policy
Caroline's experience growing up in an Oil&Gas family and her climate motivations
Whether races and candidates have a one size fits all climate plan or if we need to customize the approach
Navigating situations when the climate plans and path the getting elected don't match up
How Climate Cabinet determines which elections are top priority and what sways the team to work on campaigns lower down on the priority list
The Climate Cabinet Score
Climate Cabinet's success and progress to date
Climate Cabinet's team and their expertise
The differences between a 501[c][4], 501[c][3], and a 527
Climate Cabinet's funding
What incentivizes current politicians to go against popular will
The scope of the issues that Climate Cabinet tackles and why the organization is not focused on last mile media
Links to topics discussed in this episode:
Climate Cabinet Action: https://www.climatecabinetaction.org/
Climate Cabinet Education: https://www.climatecabineteducation.org/
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Jason Jacobs: Hey, everyone. Jason here. I am the My Climate Journey show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey, or MCJ as we call it, membership option. Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that will listen to the show that weren't just looking for education, but they were longing for a peer group as well. So we set up a Slack community for those people. That's now mushroomed into more than 1,300 members. There is an application to become a member. It's not an exclusive thing. There's four criteria we screen for: determination to tackle the problem of climate change, ambition to work on the most impactful solution areas, optimism that we can make a dent and we're not wasting our time for trying, and a collaborative spirit.
Beyond that, the more diversity, the better. There's a bunch of great things that have come out of that community, a number of founding teams that have met in there, a number of nonprofits that have been established, a bunch of hiring that's been done, a bunch of companies that have raised capital in there, a bunch of funds that have gotten limited partners or investors for their funds in there, as well as a bunch of events and programming by members and for members, and some open source projects that are getting actively worked on that hatched in there as well. At any rate, if you want to learn more, you can go to myclimatejourney.co, the website, and click the Become a Member tab at the top. Enjoy the show.
Hello, everyone. This is Jason Jacobs and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change, and try to figure out how people like you and I can help. Today's guest is Caroline Spears, the founder and executive director of Climate Cabinet. Climate Cabinet gets candidates the information they need to run, win, and legislate on the climate crisis. Caroline was born in Houston, Texas. And she studied climate science and clean energy at Stanford, graduating with her BS and MS in atmosphere and energy engineering. Previously, she worked in solar energy.
She also grew up in an oil and gas family, so we have an interesting discussion about that and her journey to caring about and working on addressing climate change. And we also talk about her journey to working on policy and politics and local politics. We talk about the state of affairs, why local politics matters. We talk about how Climate Cabinet determines which races to get involved with, how they get involved and what tactics they use to be successful and what success even means. We also talk about structurally what we can do to bring about more change and faster change to get more of the right leaders in office. And we talk about the path forward both in the political landscape and addressing climate change in general. It's a great discussion and I hope you enjoy it. Caroline, welcome to the show.
Caroline Spears: Thanks for having me.
Jason Jacobs: Thanks for coming. I've been excited about this one for a while. It's funny, I'm not super savvy on the climate nonprofit world by any stretch, although I've been chipping away at it as I've gotten further in over the last few years. But I definitely gravitate towards nonprofits who are small and emerging and more entrepreneurial and bold. And from a distance, Climate Cabinet is all of those things. But I haven't actually just focused one-on-one like this and, and gotten the brain dump on what you're doing. So I'm so excited for that to happen, finally.
Caroline Spears: Thanks. I'm so excited to be here. And like I told you, I've had a number of friends join the MCJ's community over the last year, year and a half or so. And it's nice to be chatting with you today. It's been such a good force in a few friends’ lives, which has been really nice to see.
Jason Jacobs: Amazing. And if they listen to the show, you won't just be chatting with me, you'll be chatting with them as well. So maybe just take it from the top. What is Climate Cabinet?
Caroline Spears: Yeah, Climate Cabinet, helps candidates run, win, and legislate on the climate crisis. We do this through two things. We do candidate engagement and we do accountability. So we work with folks who are running for office or thinking about running for office, helping them develop the current plan that works for their community. And we also do accountability. We have the largest database on local elections and their climate impact in the country. And they use this to identify overlooked state and local officials that have a big potential impact on climate.
Jason Jacobs: And how did all this come to be? What's the origin story for the organization? And even before that, what's the origin story for you being inclined to, to do this kind of work?
Caroline Spears: Yeah, I grew up in Houston, Texas. So I grew up surrounded by the energy industry and energy growing up. I'm from an oil and gas family in Houston. And I started Climate Cabinet when, started volunteering for folks running for office in my home city where I grew up. And at the time, I was working for a solar company, seeing the massive impact that state and local officials had on our ability to actually build and deploy the clean energy future that we wanted. And I started talking with folks who were running for those offices. And one of them said, you know, "Can you help write a climate plan? How can I write a climate plan for my race?"
And this was right after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston. She was like, "People are talking about this." And I looked at her and I was like, I thought that when you ran for office, a bunch of people would come out and help and, and say, "Okay, like, here's what your plan is on this issue and here's what your plan is on this issue." And that happens in some areas, in some cases, but largely, especially at the time, it wasn't happening for climate, candidates felt very under-resourced. So we, we sat down and I was like, "Great. I got an undergrad and a master's degree in Atmosphere & Energy Engineering. This is what I studied. I work in solar. Let's help you write a climate plan. What does it look like to protect folks from the impacts of climate change, and to also build like this thriving clean energy economy that we want?"
So we sat down, we wrote her climate plan. And this was one of the best-resourced state legislature races in all of Texas, that cycle. And I was like, "If you don't have this, nobody else does either." Got a group of friends together, we sat down, we wrote 181 district specific briefs for every person running for the Texas State Legislature. And we went to the convention and we handed them out. And we talked to, "This is how this started." We just started talking to folks running for office in what do you need in order to be, to have a plan on this issue. I did that, answered follow ups, that cycle, and then did some volunteering. It's another state and local elections, and then started volunteering for presidential races. Remember when, you know, 35 people decided to run for president? What a chaotic time [laughs] in our past.
Jason Jacobs: I do.
Caroline Spears: Yes. So I started volunteering for some of those campaigns. And that's when I realized, I had this moment where one of the presidential campaigns sent me a campaign speech that they were going to give on TV the next day and said, "Hey, could you look over the climate section? What do you think?" And I was like, "Why are you emailing me? I'm some person that you met at one event. This is wild to me." So I helped them ... and then I quit my job, because I was like, "You know what we need is, we need climate campaign staffers at scale. This is a need that we have." And that's how Climate Cabinet started.
Jason Jacobs: Amazing. Now, I have so many questions about that. But we just kind of glazed over the fact that you come from an oil and gas family in Houston and you're working on climate. So can you talk a little bit about how climate fit into the picture in your household growing up and, to the extent that you’re comfortable talking about it, how surprising it was or what the reception was when you cared enough about this area to start devoting personal and then ultimately, professional time to it?
Caroline Spears: Yeah. This has always been an issue that's fascinated me. I think one of the reasons that I'm so drawn to this issue in particular. And I think it, climate change sometimes attracts people who like very complex problems. And that's one of the interesting things about it, is that I love meeting people who are interested in the space because it feels like that community. What always drew me to climate change is that growing up, I had folks who would tell me, that I respected and that I trusted, tell me mutually exclusive things about this issue. And this issue, right, it's on the cover of Time Magazine.
You know, when you're growing up, you don't, you know, you're just like, "Oh, it's on the cover of all these magazines. People are talking about this. Inconvenient Truth comes out." It's like a political punch line. People talk about it on SNL. But what all I knew is that there was this issue out there called global warming, called climate change. And that I was told mutually exclusive things about it by my science teachers. So I remember one year, my science teacher saying, "Methane? How could humans be responsible for methane?" Methane is from cows. Like climate change, you know, all these climate folks are so alarmist.
And the next year, the science teacher sat us all down and said, "You know, this is a really big threat to society. Here's some of the math behind it. Let's talk about this from a physics perspective." And that's what interested me. I was like, how are two people paid to teach me science ... And I loved both teachers. These were really really fabulous, fabulous teachers. How are they telling me two completely different things about the same issue? What's going on here? And that was so fascinating. And I just went down this rabbit hole starting in school of how could that possibly be? Why is that the case?
Jason Jacobs: And what did you find?
Caroline Spears: Okay, it's eighth grade. I'm in history class. Ms. Benerito, if you're listening to this, I hope you're doing well.
Jason Jacobs: You need to send her the link if she's not listening to this! [laughs]
Caroline Spears: I know, honestly. You're like [laughs], "I gave you a shout out." She's like, "Write a paper about a current event. You have to use quality sources only." And I'm already kind of getting into climate change and like, "Okay, I'm gonna write my paper about how climate change isn't real and I'm gonna use Ms. Benerito's rules for quality sources." And you know what? I could not write that article because there were no quality sources that said that this thing wasn't happening. Yeah, I ended up citing this random person's blog. Like I don't think I did very well on that paper [laughs]. I couldn't construct an argument in the opposition. And so I just started ... I don't know, I got kind of obsessed in middle school and high school.
Jason Jacobs: And I mean, this is a tangent from Climate Cabinet, but did you ever talk to that first science teacher about your findings in that exercise?
Caroline Spears: You know, like, I wasn't trying to pick fights with my science teachers. But I asked a question, I remember asking a question or two. You know, I think what's been so fascinating about climate over the last five years is this whole movement has gotten wildly more sophisticated. There are so many more people here. I think MCJ is a testament to that. A lot of new climate groups, new climate investing is a testament to that. In 2008, the idea that she went after methane and I was like, "Okay, but CO2 ..." You know, there's just not the level of, this whole movement has gotten a lot more sophisticated over the last 12 years. And now you can say methane and people are like, "Yeah, bad pollutant." But at the time, it's not really clear. We still thought we could pass federal climate legislation pre-Waxman-Markey. And we're now, we're pre-Build Back Better. So we'll see how anything goes down.
Jason Jacobs: And so coming back around to where you sit today, so it sounds like the roots of the organization were that you looked at these local races and these elected officials or aspiring elected officials, recognized the importance of the issue and that they needed to say something and have a platform that stands for something, but they didn't feel informed to put that together. And thus, you stepped in, it sounds like initially, informally, on a one-off basis to help inform them and pull these plans together. And ultimately, Climate Cabinet was started to do that more systematically across a wider range of campaigns. Is that right?
Caroline Spears: Yeah. And fundamentally, this is what we're going towards, right? We know state and local policy is absolutely critical for solving climate change. Whether Build Back Better passes, whether the bill doesn't pass. State and local policy is already responsible for half of all clean energy built. And according to research by Bloomberg Philanthropies, it's probably gonna be responsible for two-thirds of our progress towards our Paris goals. State and local, two-thirds of our progress towards our Paris goals. This area is so critical.
And so what we need is every person running for office at every level of government needs to know exactly what their climate plan is, they need to be ready on day one with a climate plan, with how they're gonna, how they're gonna act on climate in their office and they have a lot of authority to make big changes. And so that's the world we're building towards.
Jason Jacobs: And one thing that I've found, and again, I'm only three years in, so I'm maybe further along than I was two years ago and further along than I was one year ago. And then one year ago, I was further along than I was two years ago. But I still feel pretty wet behind the ears, to be honest with you. But one thing I found is that smart people that I respect, similar to your science-teachers analogy, disagree with each other. And not only that, if you look at like when you figure out what policy to put in place, it seems, and correct me if you disagree or, or if I'm wrong, that you can't just look at what technology is best.
You have to look at the local landscape and constraints and how much the sun shines or how much the wind blows. But also just like what different communities or regions or countries or parts of the world have appetite for politically. And nuclear is a good example of that. And so all that leads to my question, which is, is it one-size-fits-all with a climate plan or does it need to be customized for every single candidate in every single race?
Caroline Spears: It's both, right? There are fundamental principles of climate change that we know that aren't gonna change no matter where you are. If you're in a place we know renewable energy is gonna be key, we know what we need to do on renewable energy, batteries, transmission. We have the solutions to climate change already. What we do at Climate Cabinet is work to build political will towards those solutions. And so that's what we do. Yeah, there are gonna be variations depending on where you are. The biggest place you see this is in transit systems. Like the design of a great public transit system that meets people's needs, it's gonna be really customized.
You know what the biggest barrier to public transit systems are? It's political will and funding. And so, you know, there are a lot of ways that folks kind of take this, that folks customize this to make this local. And that's what we do. We help folks figure out a climate plan that works for their community with their basic principles that guide everyone we work with along the way.
Jason Jacobs: And there are certain times when doing so I would imagine, doing what's best for the climate also does what's best for getting elected. But then I would imagine, there's also other times where you have to choose between the boldest climate plan or the thing that your voters want to hear. So how do you navigate in those situations where getting elected and both climate plans are not aligned?
Caroline Spears: Yeah. Well, we have one big ally on our side here, which is that the American public is already down. You look at any poll in any area of the United States, you go to the reddest county in America, guess where solar polls? It's above water. People love renewable energy, and this is true across the country. And you look at, okay, you take just renewable energy. You look at electric vehicles, you look at different technologies, you look at reducing air pollution in schools and increased air pollution monitoring. And all of these things are popular with folks. It's elected officials who were running behind the American public on what we should be doing on this issue.
And we know this, anecdotally, we know this broadly. We also know this because there's some great political science research that's been done. There was this great paper that interviewed congressional staffers about how popular climate policies were in their district. Congressional staffers underestimated the popularity of climate solutions in their own district by 20 points. So for us, the question isn’t, are we gonna find any climate solutions that are popular? We know in every community in America, no matter where you are, there are climate solutions that are popular for that community. Question is, let's find them. And why aren't our public officials doing more to push for this?
Jason Jacobs: But popularity factors into the components of the plans that you propose?
Caroline Spears: I mean, what we do is we work with ... Climate Cabinet helps folks run, win, and legislate on climate. There's a really important word in that, which is win. Our goal is, every candidate should be equipped with the boldest climate policy possible that will help them win. So yeah, when we're working with a candidate, we'll talk to them they'll say, "What issues are you running on? Tell us about your plan to win? What issues are, are polling really well in your district?" If it's kids' health, guess what? We know a lot of ways of making kids’ health better with climate solutions. Big one is electric school buses. Do you really want diesel buses idling at the bus stop spewing diesel into where kids are? You really don't. So there are, in every community, no matter where you're running, there are things that align with climate that can help someone win. And it's a matter of figuring out what those are and talking to folks.
Jason Jacobs: And it sounds like you work more on a specific campaign-by-campaign basis and put real work into personalizing for that campaign. Am I hearing that right? It's not an overall education mechanism, but it really is focused around specific campaigns?
Caroline Spears: Our goal is climate campaign staffer at scale. So we use, we do one-on-one candidate engagement. We'll do larger events with a variety of different candidates. We'll show up at State Legislature conventions. So we use a wide variety of ways to reach folks that are both scaled and unscaled. So there are a lot of groups, for example, that support folks running for office, we send them all our resources. So we have a white-labeling program as well as a one-on-one program.
Jason Jacobs: And do you formally engage with specific campaigns? Or is it more just informal advisor to the extent that it's helpful?
Caroline Spears: What do you mean by formally engage?
Jason Jacobs: Is there an actual engagement where you decide, "Yes, I will work with you"? Or you just, or do you just help anyone that asks you for it?
Caroline Spears: We do both. We have different levels of support for priority states. And thanks to this massive data set of elections that we've put together, we know what our top targets are. So we will know ... Actually later this month, we're coming out with a climate slate of top local elections that you may not have heard of and have a massive climate impact. Elections like a city council election, and that city happens to own a very old, decrepit natural gas plant that they're still running. And no one's ever heard of the city council, but it's critically important for climate change.
Jason Jacobs: It's like the Billy Beane of climate elections [laughs].
Caroline Spears: Look, there are 500,000 ...
Jason Jacobs: Moneyball. Moneyball.
Caroline Spears: There we go. Yeah, totally [laughs].
Jason Jacobs: Yeah [laughs].
Caroline Spears: There are 500,000 ... America elects 500,000 people to office every six years. And around 85% of all climate dollars go towards the 535 that sit in Washington, DC. And they're important but we think they're like, at best, responsible for half of all the carbon emissions reductions that we need. So okay, the question becomes how do you tackle that other half? You need approaches that scale and you need a different, you need a different strategy, and that's what we're focused on.
Jason Jacobs: And is it quantitative, or qualitative, or a mix, in terms of what makes an election a top target? And how do you define, how do you know, when you evaluate an election, if they’re a top target or not?
Caroline Spears: It's two things. We look at their Climate Score and we look at their political vulnerability. So we look at what's their Climate Score, it's just how they voted on major climate and environmental injustice issues in the past. And the political vulnerability is, how tough of election are they in next cycle. So you really take the statistical outliers from both of those. You have someone who's voting terribly on climate and is really running a tough race this year, they're gonna make our list. Because they, that’s an opportunity for a massive climate win. You take someone who's incredible on climate, there are Climate Champions in the state legislature that they're in and the city council that they're in, they're running a really tough race, they make the list. So that's how we determine it.
We look at climate votes. So we're looking at solar and electrification, we're also really looking at what they're doing to clean up air pollution and clean up air pollution specifically in frontline communities and toxic hotspots. These places where we've said, you know, low-income communities and communities of color are gonna get the brunt of all of our pollution. We look at how they voted on plans to specifically fix that harm. We look at their plans for when a climate disaster hits, are they gonna ... Do they vote for things that help us build back equitably or do they vote for things that make systemic problems worse?
So when a climate disaster hits, a lot of the ways the current dollars are set up is there's a lot of cost benefit analysis. When a climate disaster hits and someone says, "Okay, who's gonna get the federal relief dollars?" There's a lot of things that really shut renters out of the process. There's a lot of things that shut low-income folks out of the process. There’s very high barrier to entry for filling out all this government paperwork and following up on it a lot. And all of these things mean that when climate disaster hits and federal money gets to folks, it goes to wealthier communities, it goes to whiter communities. It's making all of the systemic problems we have as a society worse. So we also look at, for example, how they're voting on, on issues like that.
Jason Jacobs: The Climate Score, is that something that's proprietary to Climate Cabinet or is that coming from a different source?
Caroline Spears: Go to ClimateCabinetAction.org and you will be able to see a Climate Score for 3,300 state legislators across the country. And there are, basically, very knowledgeable in-state experts and in-state partners that we work with to put that score together. And they're all, they're all there. They change depending on what state you're in but check them out. Go to their websites, too.
Jason Jacobs: Was there any question when you were setting this up about whether this should be a nonprofit or a for-profit service provider?
Caroline Spears: Yeah, there were some questions. You know, one question that I got is candidates should pay for this type of information. And my response is, "Look, we're trying to find the highest ..." Think about the Climate Slate. What are we trying to do? We're not trying to tell you what's the most high-profile race, political race this year. You already know the high, most high-profile political races here. You wanna know the US Senate races that are gonna be really contested this year? I can tell you. What you don't know is where your money will have the greatest climate impact. You don't know where every dollar will maximize your climate impact. You don't know the climate ROI. And so that's our goal.
So when we're talking some of the ... Some of these races are like $15,000, $20,000 races. Where a Joe Biden for President race is about a $10 billion endeavor. So we're intentionally targeting a group of folks who are running ... Like we're intentionally working with a group of people who are running very tough races on a very low budget. And that kind of took us out of the for-profit conversation, but I have been asked that many times.
Jason Jacobs: And give us a sense just how big your team is and how many races, on average, just ballpark, you're supporting in a given year.
Caroline Spears: It actually depends on what you mean by support. We have a variety of different levels of support, we worked with around 130 campaigns this past year. We've worked with ... And about a similar number the year before. We, you know, put candidates on our endorsement page, we fundraise for candidates. We have a variety of levels of support for folks. And then we, like I said, we have a white-labeling program. So we make sure that folks have access to our information. Even if we're not being ... They have, at least, they have access to all the tools they need to write a great climate plan for their community. So we'll make that accessible to a couple thousand campaigns this cycle, and we did last cycle as well.
Jason Jacobs: And how big is the team?
Caroline Spears: Nine people. How big's MCJ?
Jason Jacobs: MCJ is one, two, three, three plus a couple part-timers.
Caroline Spears: Yeah. Plus, I feel like you all have a very active group of community members who were ...
Jason Jacobs: Actually, three plus three part timers. If I'm, if I'm being ... And if you count a couple of, you know, finance/operating people, that may be five.
Caroline Spears: Yeah. And they are all funded based on the membership model?
Jason Jacobs: Uh, no, I mean, we, we have dues, but the dues are really just to offset some of the costs. I mean, it's not like a profit center for us. I mean, today, we're, we're really funded primarily by fees from the fund. And they're, they're pretty modest. So we're pretty lean but we have big ambitions, and increasingly a clear path to what we would do with more resource. And it's just a question of determining what business model or business models will enable us to have the biggest impact over time, which is what drives us.
Caroline Spears: Yeah, cool. Are any of those public plans? Like, what are your thoughts so far?
Jason Jacobs: We're planning. Yeah.
Caroline Spears: Okay. The mid plan.
Jason Jacobs: So we, we have more questions than answers. But I think similar to everything else we've done with MCJ over the last few years, we'll be sorting through it publicly. In fact, like, we're doing a branding and positioning exercise now. And as we get back drafts from the design firm, we're publishing them in a channel in Slack. And then there's a group of volunteers in the community who are weighing in with feedback and helping us. So we're, so we're ... Yeah, we're, we're trying ... And then the newsletter now, and I do wanna come back to Climate Cabinet in a minute, but the newsletter now, it used to be that I wrote the little blurb up top, and now we started giving platforms to different people from within the community to do that.
Which is great for them, but also great for us, because it means less work, our small team scales, we deliver a higher quality product. But then for them, it gives them a platform. And then for listeners or readers, they get, they learn more, right? And they're getting higher quality content, so everybody wins. So we're, we're increasingly looking for like philosophically, how do we leverage all the smart people in the community to grow in a way that helps them and helps us.
Caroline Spears: Yeah, I really empathize [laughs] to that. It's like sitting down looking at all of your projects and being like, "Okay [laughs] here's our strategy and then here's the tactic we're using to achieve that strategy over the next 12 months. Here's our monthly goal. What resources do you have?" And I think one trap that you can fall into is, "How much money do you have?" But it's not money, you need capacity. It's like, "What is the capacity to achieve the goals and then how do you help?" Everyone who's trying to help you achieve the goal has something else that they're trying to achieve personally. And it's like how can you orient them all towards the same thing, which I find fun. And, like, I love the project management element of running a startup, but it is like very complex Lego blocks that you're always trying to put together.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, totally. And we're, we're right in the, in the thick of that. But really excited about the future. There's just a lot of moving pieces and open questions, I would say. And so back to Climate Cabinet. So those nine people from an expertise standpoint and also tactically, I mean, is it mostly writing? Is it mostly research? Is it science? Like what type of expertise do you have in-house and tactically, where's most of that being applied?
Caroline Spears: Yeah. I mean, when you think about our goal, it’s to help folks run, win, and legislate on climate, we have folks who are really specialized in each of those categories. So we have our legislative director, who has experience supporting legislators in multiple state legislatures in multiple states. And we have folks who run political campaigns in state senates. We have folks who are, you know, in their free time, are the environmental advisor for their state legislators back home. We have folks who got a degree in, a degree in climate science or a degree in energy engineering.
And we have folks who know a lot about behavioral science and behavioral psychology. So we're drawing from a wide range of different ... The thing about climate that makes it so interesting, it's interdisciplinary and you need climate knowledge underlying it. So that's what we really look for as a team, is folks who have different skill sets but have that strong basis in what we need to achieve from a climate perspective.
Jason Jacobs: And so given that you're in the political realm, is it a 501(c)(4)?
Caroline Spears: Oh, man. This is where the legal stuff gets interesting. So like many environmental groups, like many groups advocating for issues that we care about, we have a 501(c)(4) and a 527. And we also have a 501(c)(3), there's also a 501(c)(3).
Jason Jacobs: And which, which ones are doing what? And selfishly, I just wanna also understand this for better. 'Cause I know what a (c)(4) is, I know a (c)(3) is, but I've, I've never even heard of a 527. And also, some listeners might not know, by the way, if there's a way to succinctly just give an overview without getting into the weeds, then we should, but if it's too much, then we can just keep going.
Caroline Spears: No, there is. Basically, there's both political work and non-political work that needs to be done to solve climate change. And so we do both political and non-political work. And they're different. You wanna get into the legal entities? That means that we have a PAC, it also means we have a 501(c)(4). And those have very different roles that they play and very different things that they do, and different, completely different ways that they fundraise.
Jason Jacobs: And I don't know if I'm asking anything that you don't want to share. So if I am, then don't, then don't share it. But, but how are you funded in terms of ... Is it individuals? Is it foundations? What does that look like? And also, how has that process been?
Caroline Spears: Yeah, fundraising has been an interesting process. We are funded by individuals, we are funded by foundations. The thing about running a PAC is that PACs aren't secret. So we report every year to a variety of state and federal agencies on all of our funding. And that's been the largest learning curve, is figuring out the fundraising landscape for climate. It's in a space right now, much like the rest of the climate movement, where everything's changing really rapidly, our ground game's changing really rapidly. There's this recognition that we need to do so much more to achieve the goals that they have.
And so the funding landscape has, there are some big players that are kind of the key players of the last 10 to 30 years, but it's also a space that's rapidly changing and expanding. So I think of how we design our strategy as, assume that the climate landscape is gonna get exponentially more complex every single year and then how do you design with that in mind? What do you design a strategy like? How do you design a strategy if you know about the exponentially increasing complexity in everything you're trying to achieve? So, and that's true in the fundraising space as well.
A lot of people doing a lot of stuff and it's very complicated [laughs]. And you have to ... How do you sort through the noise? And I think that's the big challenge that we have as a nonprofit community, is that the role of nonprofit, the role that government should have is to figure out how we align towards our longer-term goals in a way that other actors in the space are not going to be thinking about 2050. And, and how we're gonna take care of folks and how we're gonna build a, a stable economy in 2050. Like very few other actors are incentivized to think about that time scale. So that's our, that's our job.
Jason Jacobs: And Climate Cabinet aside, if you just look at the landscape of these local races that matter for climate, if you had a magic wand and you could change one thing that would most dramatically improve the outcomes in the aggregate for climate, what would you change and how would you change it?
Caroline Spears: I would create political will for climate solutions. And that's why I started Climate Cabinet, like this is how I would change it. Do you mean like a more specific flip? I mean, you know, this is what I did over the past couple of years was I was like, wow, we need to figure out political will. This is the piece that I think is holding us back.
Jason Jacobs: Now you've mentioned that there's, there's popular will and you've also mentioned that the politicians' increasingly undercount the popular will. Given that human beings are selfish creatures by nature and that politicians selfishly want to get elected, if that's really true, then what incentive do they have to do so and why is that occurring?
Caroline Spears: Yeah. You're asking the fundamental question underlying a lot of fierce debate right now, which is the American people are down for a lot of stuff that politicians aren't. And so there's this gap between what politicians do and what people want to see happen. You look at something like minimum-wage increases that are incredibly popular. You look at things like the Affordable Care Act, which, you know, by the time it tried to get repealed and that repeal attempt happened in 2018, was an incredibly popular piece of legislation. I mean, having healthcare for people with pre-existing medical conditions? That's really popular. And you know what? It almost got repealed.
So you're asking a question more fundamental about what's going on with American democracy such that our elected leaders are not in tune with what individual folks want to have happen. And I think a few things are going on there. I think the radicalization of the Republican Party, you know, there's a lot of reasons for it. I think the radicalization we've seen from the Republican Party is, is not helpful. We're almost at ... January 6th, it is in two days. You know, that was a year ago. If you're asking politicians to act rationally, we had a lot of state legislators storming the Capitol on January 6th. So I wish I had a beautiful answer to that question of why politicians aren't doing things that the American people want. But you're asking a very rational question in an irrational landscape.
Jason Jacobs: But even take that radicalization of the Republican Party, you know, if the Republican Party is getting radicalized, then how can that be if it's against the will of the people given that the people elect the politicians to office?
Caroline Spears: Let me put it this way. You live in Massachusetts.
Jason Jacobs: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Caroline Spears: Can you name all of your state senators and state legislators?
Jason Jacobs: No.
Caroline Spears: Can you name your city council member?
Jason Jacobs: No.
Caroline Spears: Do you know what they voted on last session?
Jason Jacobs: No.
Caroline Spears: Great. So what are you making your decision on when you vote for them in November?
Jason Jacobs: I cram before I go in there to try to at least have some semblance so that I can make sure I can semi-intelligently fill out the ballot with far from perfect information.
Caroline Spears: Totally. Your experience is the experience that most people have. And so, are you voting really on the policies that they're passing? Do you know about the policies that they're passing? Are you voting based on those policies? No. You're voting on other stuff. You're voting on what you hear. The last mile ... And I think when you look at last-mile media, when you look at most radio stations in the country and what the content of those radio stations are. You look at Fox News, a classic punching bag. When you look at the top 10 shares on Facebook every week ...
You know what the top 10 shares on Facebook every week are? There's this reporter who tweets them out. It's like Breitbart, Breitbart, Donald Trump, Breitbart, Breitbart. People aren't tracking what their state legislator’s voting on. They're tracking what they're hearing, and that's what they're making their voting decision on. So yeah, that's why I'm sort of like ... this is like a democracy problem, which is we need accountability based on what our elected officials are doing to make people's lives better. So people can have a lot of opinions on policies. But those policies aren't translating at the ballot box and that's a, that's a fundamental problem. And it's a mile media problem.
Jason Jacobs: And is that part of the scope of issues that Climate Cabinet is signing up to tackle over time?
Caroline Spears: We like scoping our issues pretty narrowly. We are not signing up to tackle a larger systemic problem with last-mile media. And the fact that last-mile media is, people are hearing a lot of conspiracy, they're having doubts about democracy in last-mile media, that's not something that we're set up to solve. What are we set up to solve? We're set up to help every candidate, every person run, win, and legislate on the climate crisis and have a plan on day one when they step in office of how they're gonna use this specific authority of their office to solve climate change.
And so our goal is to help that elected official understand the popularity of what they're doing and narrow that gap, that 20% gap between what folks want and what elected officials can do. And we also ... You know what? We help folks running for office explaining what they've done, you know. Like some of these bills that folks are passing on climate are so incredibly popular. And so that's what we help with. Create a climate plan that helps you win, create a climate plan that works for your community. That's our goal. We can't solve last-mile media all by ourselves, but we're taking up a very small slice of that and that's what we're focused on.
Jason Jacobs: And if you look out ... I mean, it's kind of arbitrary, but let's say 10 years and you have been more successful than you ever could have dreamed with Climate Cabinet, what have you achieved?
Caroline Spears: Every candidate who wants to is running on a climate plan that works for them. And we have a system in place where tens of thousands of folks elected to state and local office have a climate plan on their very first day they step into office. That's the future we're headed towards. That's the future that we need in order to solve this problem. State and local is so critical for our ability to solve climate change. We're gonna do that in partnership with other groups, that's the goal. That's how we're gonna get there.
Jason Jacobs: And for anyone listening who is inspired about your work, how can we help? And who do you want to hear from?
Caroline Spears: Yes, if you want to learn more about Climate Cabinet, go to ClimateCabinetAction.org, you can sign up for our mailing list. I would do that ... Every two weeks, we'll send you what we're watching at the state and local level and big opportunities for taking climate action both personally and what else is going on. Great way to stay updated on some niche state and local climate opportunities that you may not have heard of.
Jason Jacobs: And is there anything I didn't ask that I should have or any parting words for listeners?
Caroline Spears: I would say, if you're listening to MCJ because you work in climate investing or you work in the cleantech space, think about ways that you can get involved in policy. It's a space that I think the clean energy and the cleantech space ... Policy gets undervalued by the clean energy industry broadly. And there are, look, there are a lot of reasons for that. It does not get undervalued by the American Petroleum Association, American Gas Association. Are you investing in companies that do building electrification? Well, 19 states passed bans on building electrification last year. And you know who ran those bills? The American Gas Association.
So you now may not be investing in this but it has a really high impact. And if it didn't, the American Gas Association would not have passed legislation in 19 states to protect their interests. So get out there and protect yours. If you want to talk about it, reach out. We're always thinking about new ways to tackle this. So whether you're investing in climate or thinking about building a climate startup, figure out a way to design policy and proactive policy pushes into what you're doing, because it'll help.
Jason Jacobs: Amazing. Well, that is a terrific point to end on. So, Caroline Spears, thanks so much for coming on the show. And best of luck to you and the Climate Cabinet team.
Caroline Spears: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me. And good luck with your strategy planning.
Jason Jacobs: Oh, thank you. Yeah, excited for it. That, that's in the next few weeks we get together as a team. Well, thanks again, Caroline.
Caroline Spears: Yeah, thank you. Have a great rest of your day.
Jason Jacobs: Hey, everyone. Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. Note, that is .co, not .com. Someday we'll get the .com. But right now, .co. You can also find me on Twitter @jjacobs22. Where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that. Thank you.
