Climate Careers: Eliza Nemser, Co-Founder of Climate Changemakers
Today's guest is Eliza Nemser, Co-Founder of Climate Changemakers.
Climate Changemakers is a nonpartisan community action network organizing to support climate candidates and ambitious climate policies. The team mobilizes political support by transforming climate-concerned individuals into a community of climate changemakers. Prior to founding Climate Changemakers, Eliza was a consultant for the NRDC Action Fund and spent over two decades working as a geologist, focusing on earthquake engineering and seismology for big oil companies.
In this episode, Eliza walks me through her career path and how she first got political when it comes to climate action. We discuss the inception of Climate Changemakers, how individuals can take action, and why political advocacy is vital to the planet's future. Eliza also touches on advice she has for those interested in getting involved but aren't sure where to start. Eliza is a fantastic guest and a perfect example of the many ways one can fight for the climate.
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 April 5th, 2021.
In Today's episode, we cover:
Eliza’s interesting transition from working with big oil to co-founding Climate Changemakers
The organization’s mission and future goals
The importance of elections and policy in addressing climate change
How Climate Changemakers engages audiences in political action
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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 were listening to the show that weren't just looking for education, but there 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 wanna 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 on the climate career series is Dr. Eliza Nemser, the founder of Climate Changemakers, which is a nonprofit that mobilizes political support for climate candidates and meaningful climate policies by transforming climate-concerned individuals into a community of Climate Changemakers.
Now, Eliza has an interesting story. In that, she has her PhD in geological and earth sciences, and she was working with big oil to help them with fracking. But increasingly, she was concerned about the planet and really wrestled with that. And ultimately, she left to go find a way to put helping with climate change more front and center. That led her to the political realm, and she started convening people to raise money for climate candidates. And she consulted for the NRDC Action Fund, and ultimately, founded Climate Changemakers.
Now, this episode is a great one because it covers what Eliza was feeling, how she went about the transition, the different twists and turns and steps she had along the way. The biggest levers that she's determined can have the biggest impact on bringing about the change that we need, some of the barriers that are holding back that change, and what they're doing at Climate Changemakers to help. Eliza, welcome to the show.
Eliza Nemser: Thanks for having me, Jason.
Jason Jacobs: Thanks for coming. Yeah, it's been a while since we caught up, but you've been such a core part of the MCJ community for so long.
Eliza Nemser: Well, I mean, yeah. As soon as I learned about it, I don't even know, maybe it was Tommy Lee or someone, you know? The whole effort resonated so much, I'm just so excited about what you're building. It's, it's inspired me tremendously. So it's been really thrilling to watch the whole thing unfold.
Jason Jacobs: Well, right back at you. 'Cause you're doing some pretty inspiring things, and that's one of the reasons I asked you to come on the show, both to share with others. But honestly, we've never taken 45 minutes or an hour before and done a deep dive on what you're up to with Climate Changemakers. So selfishly, it's just a good excuse to learn more about it as well.
Eliza Nemser: Cool. I'm excited for the deep dive. Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: Well, I, I mean, we could s- start one of two ways. We could either talk about Climate Changemakers, but I'm kinda curious before we go down that path, how and when, and why, and where did you start caring about climate change? Where did that all come from?
Eliza Nemser: Yes. Okay. Well, to paint the picture, I grew up in New York City. So I'm a, I'm a city kid and I had never-
Jason Jacobs: Even after, what, what we just, we were just talking before we hit record, about how nice it was for you to be out of civilization during the pandemic. Yet, you grew up in New York City?
Eliza Nemser: Right. So this is a tension-
Jason Jacobs: [laughs]
Eliza Nemser: [laughs] This is a tension I've lived with my whole life, right? So yes, a hundred percent. I had never been hiking on a trail. I'd never slept in a tent. I'd never done any of that stuff until I was 16 years old. And I did a summer trip with a whole bunch of backpacking. That totally changed my life, and I was already very interested in science, but I made the decision to be a, an earth scientist. Then when I was 16, went on to study geology, and then get my PhD and do a postdoc. And I was very deep into earth science. Literally, all because of this eye-opening experience I had that summer.
Jason Jacobs: That's amazing. 'Cause when I was 16, I wasn't making any types of decisions with conviction about any type of professional future whatsoever. My head couldn't have been in a, in a more different place than that. So much respect to you and, and to your parents [laughs] for instilling that in you somehow.
Eliza Nemser: My parents probably didn't know what the word geology meant at the time.
Jason Jacobs: [laughs]
Eliza Nemser: And were just kinda like, "We don't know what she's off doing, but hopefully she comes back." Yeah. I remember being about to climb Rainier and calling my mom for a pep talk. And she's like, "I don't even really know what you're about to do, but just have fun and come back." So here's the thing. Yeah, it was always like, "Oh yeah, I get it." And most people don't know what they're gonna do. I'm not one of those people. I know exactly what I wanna do. And I had this very clear picture, and I was gonna be a, basically a professor of geology or a researcher. And of course, that's not what I'm doing today [laughs].
So yeah, I ended up switching gears about four years ago. I was doing earthquake hazards research for a big engineering firm. My work had become increasingly about trying to mitigate the earthquake risk from fracking. Whereas I had started out working on natural earthquakes, I had kind of fallen into this really fascinating intellectually field of induced earthquake research and more and more of my clients were oil and gas.
So again, I, I found it intellectually stimulating, but I was uncomfortable basically helping them try to maximize profits. Whereas I was getting more and more stressed out about climate change. So at some point, I just hit some limit on it and I said, "Okay, the climate crisis is much scarier to me than earthquakes are." We had really bad wildfires in northern California in, I think it was October 2017. That, that was kinda my, that was my turning point. The air was terrible here. You know, I had little kids with asthma, and I was just like, "This is ridiculous. I can't, you know, commute across the Bay to do this work, which, you know, my heart's not in it." So I started trying to figure out a way to work on climate [laughs]. And I know you've heard that. Thanks a lot for [laughs]-
Jason Jacobs: And, uh, and were you, were you still employed at the time or di- di- did you leave?
Eliza Nemser: No. I was still ... You know, I stayed on as a kind of part-time employee for a while. And what I did was start ... I had a friend, an old friend from my childhood, who I had reconnected with. And she started dragging me to political events, and I say dragging 'cause it was just like, it wasn't something I would have done on my own. But she started introducing me to candidates.
She was very involved in the 2018 midterms and trying to cultivate some first-time candidates. So I started attending events and ended up in conversations with candidates for the U.S. House about their ideas on climate and science-based policy. And was really stimulated by those conversations and kind of my sense that there was a lot more work to be done to help connect first-time candidates who meant well on climate and science-based policy to the right subject matter experts so they could, you know, win on the issue, you know, speak eloquently ab-, you know, about their passion to, to move us forward on climate.
And then ultimately, get elected and write and vote on legislation. Because I started paying closer and closer attention to the voting records of our members of Congress. This was kinda new territory for me, but I started piecing this puzzle together around that time.
Jason Jacobs: And when you were piecing it together, what did you find? And then, what did you start training yourself to look for?
Eliza Nemser: The crazy thing I found is, I found out about the League of Conservation Voters. LCV maintains this scorecard, this environmental voting scorecard. And they track members of Congress on their votes and anything related to environmental legislation and the confirmations. And the wild thing is that, very few members, maybe none get like a 50%. The vast majority of them get like a 90% and above, like a really good mark, or like a 13% or lower.
I mean, it's this total bi-modal distribution. Right? And I just thought that was wild. Like, just that's wild. You know, and partisan politics aside, that's wild. You know, f- for- forget party affiliation. It's wild that, you know, we have half of our members of Congress who were voting robustly on environmental protections and half who are really [laughs] de- delaying progress at best. Right?
So all of a sudden realized how important elections were, Jason. I just was like, "Whoa, we need to get political. This is ... No, there's plenty of science to be done. And I'm sure plenty of important work on the policy side," which was kinda new to me at the time, "but there are certainly a ton of work to do to just make sure we're electing the right people." So I realized I needed to find a way to get political. And then I, I started attending, there's some huge scientific conferences that I had always attended, like since I was an undergrad. But I started attending different sessions.
Like, rather than the kinda hard science, technical earthquake stuff, I started attending the sessions on, on policy, on comms. And what I would see were just like a handful of scientists who were really comfortable, who were kinda gaining comfort in advocacy, pleading with a room full of scientists to do more to advocate, to get involved.
And everyone was kinda like, "We get it, but how?" And the subtext for me, when it wasn't, it wasn't explicitly stated was, we need to get involved advocating. We need to get involved in the politics here. And then the kind of response was like, "Yuck. Politics are yucky. We're scientists. Like, A, who wants to get political? B, they shouldn't even be political. C, we're not even trained in this type of advocacy that the ... You know, we're scientists. There's just a disconnect here. But yeah, we see what's going on.
It's really bad. And we know that we collectively should do more." So I started thinking about, "Well, how do we take the yuck out of getting political in the name of climate action?" 'Cause that's what needs to happen. I mean, we need to get a lot more people involved in elections and in advocacy, and in the political process. And there are all these people who were kinda ready to do it and don't see how that would work, and are just turned off.
Jason Jacobs: And when was this? Like, what year, if you remember? Just ballpark.
Eliza Nemser: I think this was still about 2017. I think this is all happening about the same time. So I'm referring to the American Geophysical Union, the AGU conference. It's like tens of thousands of PhD, earth and space scientists. And, you know, it's traditionally been held in San Francisco. There was a year it was, we were redoing the, our convention center in San Francisco. There was a year it was in D.C. There was a year it was, it was kinda hopping around it. This was the year it was in D.C. that really kind of got me.
Yeah. So it was 2017 or 2018. And I just realized, "Okay, there's this new crop of candidates, you know, it's a really important midterm election." They mean well on climate. They don't necessarily know what they're talking about [laughs]. Or, you know, they're not, they don't know enough to be compelling yet. They're on these really steep learning curves as first-time candidates, you know, trying their best to fundraise and win an election, and get up to speed on a whole host of issues.
You know, they're not PhD scientists. I happen to know a bunch of PhD [laughs]. You know, I, I ... And then there are all these scientists who are just, "Whoa. Look, the data's getting scarier and scarier." You know? And then another big factor was Trump, but also his appointment of Scott Pruitt to head up the EPA was another, that kinda really got me. And of course, Wheeler took over. But just this taking the protection out of the environmental protection agents. I mean, that deeply got me.
And I have to say that, you know, now with Reagan at the head of the EPA and Deb Hall and ... I mean, it's almost like, "Well, do I still need to do this stuff?" But it turns out I still need to do this stuff. But yeah, no, I, it, it was, the health piece was a really big piece. So about that time, I just started getting really interested in learning more about environmental health and, and the intersection between climate and air pollution, and human health. And again, just realizing that to make a dent, I needed to figure out how to get political and how to help more people get political.
Jason Jacobs: Okay. And so, when you came to that realization, what did you do?
Eliza Nemser: So I started organizing. I, I didn't think of myself as an organi- ... I, I started, I started hosting what I called climate candidates. And basically, asking everyone I knew to come meet them and help support them in their election. And, and everyone I knew came. Or, you know, like people kinda came. It turns out that a lot of people I know were concerned. Were reading the news. Were not happy with the state of affairs. Were eager to kinda do more.
They realized it was an important election, even though, you know, historically, people kinda ignore midterms or some people ignore. But they didn't know what to do. They wanted to be told something very specific to do. And having someone that they trusted and liked, give them something very specific to do, just, "Come meet this candidate," it turns that that resonated.
So I started organizing events for candidates, and I moved to bigger and bigger venues. And I, you know, started with just folks I knew. And then, all of a sudden I knew new people and they invited people. So I just really started growing a network of people who were eager to, to support what I call climate candidates. Right? But there's all kinds of reasons people get involved in politics. For me, it's always been trying to promote science-based policy. And that's what I started doing.
And then I learned about GiveGreen [laughs]. I actually, I had been a long time member of the NRDC, but I didn't know that the NRDC had a sister organization called the NRDC Action Fund, which is kinda their political arm. But I didn't even know the whole, you know, nonprofit structure, how some orgs have a political arm. That was all kinda new to me. But I ended up connecting with those folks and getting involved with them and organizing using GiveGreen.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. So what's GiveGreen?
Eliza Nemser: GiveGreen is, it's a portal, like ActBlue. You can send contributions to support a candidate directly through GiveGreen just like ActBlue. GiveGreen doesn't take a cut. GiveGreen kind of stamps the money as climate concerned. So when I learned that this portal existed, and here I am trying to rally support for climate candidates in all forms, not just financial support, but I'm trying to rally, you know, get out the vote support. Um, but certainly, some piece of that is fundraising. And if we're sending money to support the candidates, let's stamp that money as climate concerned. It just made perfect sense to me that the goal is to build and demonstrate the political power of climate concern for generating support for candidates.
Jason Jacobs: Got it. And so, you started organizing these events, and you uncovered GiveGreen and the NRDC Action Fund. So now, as this was starting to occur, were you still employed at that time, or had you fully left?
Eliza Nemser: I don't remember exactly where that, when that transition happened. But I was on a, as a consultant for the engineering firm for some time and I would just kinda help out a little bit with projects. But it was dwindling. And then the NRDC Action Fund hired me as a consultant to do the advocacy work and the organi- ... I mean, they, they were basically like, "Well, will you advocate for our policy priorities when you have the opportunity?"
And I said, "Well, that's what I'm doing [laughs]. Yes, with pleasure. 'Cause I'm bas-, that's just formalizing what I'm already doing." It was, uh, a really exciting opportunity for me. And at that point, I, I moved on from the engineering firm and I realized that this was kind of now my career. So yeah, I, I should say that also the events that I held always had a climate theme, and they were often kind of climate con-, even billed as climate conversations.
And the point of them was for everyone to come away knowing more things, both the supporters and candidates, and everyone. And I just wanted everyone to, you know, not only get together and support these candidates and realize that they plan to go bigger, bolder on climate than their opponent, which were largely incumbents who had done very little to help with progress, but also to, to learn more. You know, so support the candidates, learn more while we're at it, everyone goes home smarter was kind of my plan.
So yeah, I, I had some great success with that and ... I should also mention, Jason 'cause it's just so important to my approach and, and this is also something that's really resonated for me with what you're doing at, at MCJ. One of the things I realized, if we're gonna take the yuck out of politics, and if we're gonna get political in the climate action, let's get that partisan stuff out of there.
Like, stop that. I mean, we're all perpetuating this ridiculous narrative that it's a partisan issue. Every single time, you know, we invoke party affiliation. Like, let's just cut it out with the language. You know, let's look at elections through a climate lens. Let's figure out the all, we have all kinds of common ground to stand on. Let's stand on that. You know, and you've done a really good job of cultivating this really inclusive community at MCJ. And it was just exactly what I was trying to do.
Like, I'm gonna get political, but not partisan. Like, we're gonna take the yuck out of it. I mean, so anyway, that's been really important for me this whole entire time in terms of bringing folks along on this journey and taking productive action together, which is really what I had started to do.
Jason Jacobs: But if you go back to that, the LCV scoring that you mentioned where there's, some candidates are super strong and some candidates are super weak, but there's not a lot in between, I mean, I would imagine and correct me if I'm wrong, but, but that was broken down on party lines. Is that not correct?
Eliza Nemser: Heavily. I also don't see a ton of utility in beating that drum. It seems to me it is what it is, and we don't want the future to look like that. So by beating the drum over and over, and being derogatory and punitive, we're not gonna get where we need to go. Just, I just don't, I don't espouse the kind of hyper partisan rhetoric and lens. I'm not gonna, you know, the facts are the facts. It's just that I don't see the utility in talking about that with that framing.
I see u-, the utility in talking about elected officials who have made environmental protection a priority, and thanking them, and asking them to do more. And identifying elected officials who have not made climate action a priority, and asking them to do more, and looking to replace them at the polls. So that's, that's where I see utility.
Again, like, you're a climate champion or you're not. I don't care so much, you know, what letter you have next to your name. And I, I sure wish people cared a lot less. 'Cause, this is a big emergency we're looking. You know, there's a big emergency, and to me, it should just truly transcend all the partisan stuff. You know, I, it feels like we're, we're not helping out if we're, if we're kind of underscoring, you know, where partisan affiliations fall on that bi-modal distribution.
Let's just call it what it is. We have half of our elected officials dragging their feet, whereas we have a majority of Americans. Right? So we have, I think it was, uh, Ari Melber who coined this term, I think. People bipartisanship exists on climate. Politician bipartisanship, it's a different story. It's, you know, it has, it's taking some forms as you know very well. It exists on some level, but it's nowhere near the people bipartisanship we have.
We obviously, all want to breathe clean air. We all want our kids to breathe clean air and our neighbors. And, you know, it's just, and future generations. Let's talk about that. Let's just elevate this as a priority across the board as best as we can, without spending so much time in a punitive mindset.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative], um, so it'd be great to know a little better, as you were going through this transition, at what point did MCJ come into the picture? And how, and also, at what point do Climate Changemakers come into the picture? And how, which we haven't even talked about yet in this discussion.
Eliza Nemser: [laughs] So I fell into the MCJ community, I started listening to the Pod. Gosh, I don't even remember now how I, I met Tommy. But I'm pretty sure it was Tommy [Wee 00:27:20] who said, "Yeah, you've gotta check out this pod." And I, I started listening and I was just really excited by, yeah, it was just kinda a breath of fresh air. Like, "Let's learn together. Let's talk about it." You know, this idea that there's so much to learn. It's true, there's so much to learn. And I think it's really cool that you're doing all the learning out in public and bringing all these people along with you.
I've also always been concerned, and now, so this is my bias as someone with a PhD [laughs]. So in earth science, not climate science, right? So earthquake like an adjacent field. Like, I like to say I went to grad school in the same program. Like, you know, I listen to their talks. Like I, and like I, by osmosis learned more about climate science in grad school than most people. Right? Again, like I went to the talks and I, but that was not my, my specialty. But as someone who has this academic lens facing such a massive problem with so many people concerned about it, it's always been concerning to me that so many people think they need to be an expert to engage.
Like that, it just seems like a problem. Like, "Oh no, I've got this stack of books I need to read about it. And climate's daunting. And climate's this. And I got all these podcasts." And it's like, "Yikes. No, no, no. I'm gonna learn just enough." I remember, I think I said to, Cody made a joke that, when I first met him [laughs]. We, we had a random, we met through MCJ, and he was telling me about his climate journey. And, and I think my response was like, "Awesome. Do the journey. Cap it at like three months, and then figure your stuff out [laughs]. But I think, uh, it maybe didn't sound exactly like that. But, you know, "Figure it out and do some-, do a thing." Like, "Don't like do a year's-long journey. We don't have that kinda time." Like, I just ...
But so, you know, I was in, in your community, in the Slack and seeing all these amazing people, looking around for big levers and learning a lot from them. But like, it didn't seem like there was a lot of attention to the big lever that is elections [laughs]. And in particular, the big lever that was the upcoming 2020 elections. And I remember coming to you, I don't know, this is probably 2018. Maybe early '19 and saying, "Hey Jason, can I start a channel called Political Climate Action? And I think you were like, "Yeah, that's cool." And I was just like, "Let's talk about connecting the dots between political action and climate action. Because I, I get it that that's not the whole point of this community, but surely there's a space for it."
And you are gracious. And then, and then I remember coming back to you and being like, "Let's take this a step further. Can I do a series of conversations [laughs] to help folks in this community connect the dots between political action and climate action?" And you were like, "Sounds good. What would that look like?" I don't know. Maybe you have a better memory in terms of when this all happened, but-
Jason Jacobs: Mostly, I just remember it. Whenever anyone said like, "Hey, I wanna do stuff to help the community move forward," Then I pretty much didn't need to hear any more. I would just say, "Yes." 'Cause I, I, there, you know, there's only so much any one person can do. And we knew that in order to have the kind of impact that we aspire to have, especially with a problem as big and as, as complicated as this one, that we've, we need all the help, all the help we can get. To that, I definitely have a default yes mindset.
Eliza Nemser: Well, let me just-
Jason Jacobs: It's not always yes, but it's a default yes mindset. Yeah.
Eliza Nemser: Well, let me just say that now with Climate Changemakers, I relate to that one hundred million percent. Right? So, but at the time, I was like, "Let's talk politics." I think first I hosted a panel, and I basically just wanted to spotlight Climate 501[c]4 work. Like, I wanted the spotlight the folks doing the work. And I wanted to showcase a kind of, uh, across a political spectrum. So I did, I had Tiernan Sittenfeld from LCV. And I had Tamara Toles O’Laughlin from 350 Action. I had Kodiak, I think, Hill-Davis from the Niskanen Center. You know, which is right of center. You've done some great conversations with them. And it, it was kinda like, "Let's just talk about what Climate [c]4 work looks like. You know what? What are ..." I mean, 'cause there's a lot of ...
And that was so exciting that folks in the MCJ community started coming to me and saying, "Well, I wanna know more about what you're doing," and how I do it. And that's when [laughs] we started having conversations about like, "What does it look like to scale the organizing work that I'm doing?" It was really prompted by that series. I mean, it was Cody Sims. It was Parker Thomas, Stu, Kristin Winslow. I mean, "What exactly are you doing, and how do we do it?" And so, basically, the MCJ community became a model. Like, "What's the political action version of this look like? What if we really build communities specifically about, around taking political action?" And then we got this notion of, "What if we asked folks to spend an hour a week taking political action in the name of climate action? What if we take the partisan stuff out and, you know, really kinda crack open the door and build a big tent?"
And I'll say the, the Clean Energy for Biden effort was spinning up around that time. Um, Audrey Lee was a friend of mine. I was really excited by what they were doing. It was very clear that they were just gonna focus exclusively on the presidential election. And I was very much fixated on the, on the Senate elections. Because, flipping the Senate to a pro-climate-action majority, which we successfully did, was obviously such a key piece of the puzzle. And so I said, "Let's just do what they're doing, but organize for the climate candidates who were running for Senate." And that's was kind of the or- original incarnation of, of Climate Changemakers.
Jason Jacobs: Nice. And when was that? And tell me about where you're at today and wha-, and what's happened between then and now.
Eliza Nemser: That was in about August 2020. We lifted off a Slack community and put out the invitation. "Join us, spend an hour a week channeling your climate concern into productive action with us. We are not going to reinvent the wheel anywhere. We are gonna partner with everyone. We are just another tool. We're kind of trying to harness climate concern human power and throw it there, and amplify the work those folks are doing over there. And throw it there and amplify the, the work those folks are doing." And again, it was initially just on the election side. And we also, you know, we're like, "This is gonna be community-driven. This is kind of gonna be an organizing platform. We're not gonna even tell you which candidates to organize for. We'll give you some context. This is what the Senate landscape looks like. This is what the polls are telling us. Now go."
Like, "Get a critical mass together, pick a candidate, and just pick an hour a week that works." And so, like, you know, we had Team [Cal 00:33:54], meeting at 4:00 PM on Thursdays. And, you know, we had Team Jamie Harrison, meeting at 2:00 PM or whatever, 4:00 PM on Tuesdays. And Sarah Ge- ... We had just, and it, it just kept spinning up. Some raised their hand to lead a team. We knew who the candidates were in the important races that were, looked winnable. Of course, the polls were, in my opinion, misleading. Some of the races seemed a lot more winnable than the ultimately, the, the margins ended up reflecting. But we just started building momentum and we never focused on really marketing, uh, the community.
It was just kind of organic trickle growth. "Bring a pal. Bring a pal. You know, we're gonna phone bank with these guys. We're gonna write letters with these guys. You know, vote forward. We're gonna text bank with NextGen. We're gonna do all the things and we're gonna have options. So show up." And like, "If you wanna write letters, cool, do this. And if you wanna make phone calls, cool, do this. And if you wanna help raise money, let's do that. Using GiveGreen where possible." And yeah, the, people got fired up. People were fired up. And so, we started to wonder, "Are people here for the elections or the climate?" And was kind of not entirely clear, and like, "Are there some folks who came for the politics and staying for the climate? And some folks came for the climate, staying for the politics?" And I guess that's never been entirely clear. But what is clear is that we've tapped into really a new segment.
I think one of the most exciting things is that, 70, it's actually greater than 70% of the folks who enter the Climate Changemakers community, check a box saying they've never taken political action before. I actually just revisited the website. I think it, it defaults to, "Yes, I have taken political action before." They actually have to take the time to go to the dropdown menu and be like, "Actually, no. I've never taken political action." It's not just like sheer laziness. So that's really exciting. So now we've got like 560 folks in the Slack, again, 70% of whom have never taken political action before, committed to this idea and showing up to take political action together for an hour a week, which is super exciting. So of course, we all thought the elections were gonna end in, in November. But they didn't, they dragged on until January.
At some point, we had the entire community just like focused on the Georgia races. Which was clearly a rallying cry across a lot of the country, and actually the world. And after that, I mean, obviously, we had some foresight [laughs]. But after that, we were like, "All right, it's time to keep these folks engaged." Like, "This is a lot of climate concern human power, an hour a week." Like, "We could really make a big difference, and there's plenty of work to do. We need to funnel the, the energy towards advocating for, for climate policy." So we developed this whole framework, and we have been working with partner organization. 'Cause we are distinctly not a policy shop. Right? We're not writing policy. We're not even saying, "Okay, these are the number one, you know, two and three and four policy priorities for 2021."
There are plenty of orgs doing that work. We kind of exist to amplify their work. So we developed this monthly partnership model, where we partner with an existing climate organization and say, "Cool, we're gonna spend a month amplifying the policy priority that we kind of collectively decide on." So that's been really exciting. We spent February focused on electric vehicle incentives with Environment America. We spent March advocating for clean energy tax incentives with EDF Action. And we are just about to dig in on our April priority, which is kind of democracy reform in the name of climate action with a focus on the For The People Act. Which is, of course now S1, sitting in the Senate. And our partner is RepresentUs. So we're really excited about that.
Jason Jacobs: Well, it's amazing. The groundswell, and it's so organic as well. I mean, 560 people is no joke. How do you know if your efforts are working?
Eliza Nemser: That's a good question, and one that we have been trying to, you know, understand in a lot of different ways. So one thing I'll say is that, and Cody says it eloquently, we are not just a Slack community that meets on Zoom once a week. There's a [laughs] whole bunch more happening behind the scenes, and it is this ridiculously impressive, all-volunteer, like superstar hand raiser situation. And we have this, for instance, we have this team of data scientists, who are phenomenal, who have built out this dashboard. Like, it's, it's very impressive. And we have a whole series of key performance indicators, and we collect a lot of data. And we are monitoring the health of our ...
Well, we're focused on, our focus to date has been community health, not growth. There's always been this notion that at some point we pivot from cultivating the health of the community that we have, to thinking about how we decentralize and scale and to a focus on growth. But to date, it's been a focus on the engagement of folks in our community.
So y- yeah, I, we, we, we can measure impact that way. The other thing we have been doing is, as part of our monthly cycle, once a month, we meet directly with a member of Congress. And we have a climate conversation, which is, it's a direct advocacy opportunity. And we can, you know, just talk with a, a member of Congress and, and hear about where they are. And, you know, nudge them to go further and express our climate concern. And one of the things we do, one of the actions we take actually, is to workshop personalized talking points to make us more effective advocates. Like, you know, "Jason, the reason you care about EV incentives is different from the reason I care." So, you know, put that in your words, bring in your personal narrative, and that makes you a much more compelling advocate.
So we kinda do that work over the course of the month, and then we have an opportunity to bring it to a member of Congress. And we've gotten, really, we've gotten very exciting feedback so far [laughs]. I'll say that there's a lot that we can measure numerically in terms of our quantitative impact. We also have a tremendous amount of qualitative impact. And we now have a recently anointed director of qualitative impact to try to make sense of all of this, and, and transform it into something more numerical. But a lot of that comes in the form of folks bringing their friends. Folks bringing their entire wedding party. You know, it, like, it's just kinda this relational organizing. But also, the, the comments. The kinda the testimonials we get from the members of Congress. Like, you know, "So excited you guys are doing this. This is, you know, we'll stay in touch." And, "This is the community I've been looking for."
And, "It's just so exciting to see you also engaged together. You know, so much of, uh, political influence happens outside the Capitol, and we need to hear from you. And we need to hear about your concern." So that's been very exciting, just trying to wrap our heads around how to, how to make a sense of that. And then, I will say that there's, there's a, a group, an outside group that we're talking seriously about partnering with as kind of using our community as a Guinea pig to ask these questions. How do we know when communities like this are building power? How do we optimize that? How do we help build more power? So that's a really exciting collaboration we'll, we'll, we'll be able to bring in if that happens. Which it, is looking pretty good, a lot of outside expertise to, to bring to bear on, on those questions.
Jason Jacobs: Great. And, uh, and you've come such a long way from the world of manmade earthquake monitoring for oil and gas clients to, to climate action at a pretty meaningful scale. Given that, I guess I have two questions. One is just, what's next for you on, on your journey? And, and then a follow-up is just looking backwards. What advice do you have f- for others that are maybe just setting out on the path that you did several years ago?
Eliza Nemser: Okay. Yes. The short answer is, is more of the same. So in December, the Yale Center for Climate Communications released a report. And they, you know, they, it, it, kind of have this Six Americas model. I'm sure you know about it. Like, certain segment of Americans are alarmed about climate, the climate crisis. And a certain percentage are concerned. And some are dismissive, and there's this whole, and they kind of monitor. So they found that, amongst the Americans who are either concerned or alarmed about the climate crisis, 1% of them are currently engaged in political action around climate. Whereas 29% of them probably would or definitely would participate in political action to advance progress on climate if someone they, I think it's, the quotes are liked or respected, nudged them and brought them along. Right?
So that's 29 minus one, that's 28% of Americans who are just ready to do more. They're concerned enough, they're waiting for that person they like and respect to nudge them to do more. Now I feel like we have a full-on mandate to just reach as many of that, you know, as many Americans that fall into that 28% as humanly possible. So next steps for, for me and for Climate Changemakers involve really like working to effectively decentralize and scale our models so we can reach more and more of those concerned and alarmed, you know, climate concerned people who, who are voters presumably, who wanna become voters-plus. And give them something simple and concrete, and productive, and high impact to do with an hour a week, and just really package this up.
We're actually talking closely with the League of Conservation Voters about a potential partnership, and even a potential deep collaboration, where we could actually roll this offering out to their membership. So we have different ideas around what this might look like to scale it. But I think at this point we've proven that there's, you know, we have a viable model here. An hour a week seems to be a sweet spot for people. There's a lot of climate concerns folks out there. And we know, you know, it, it's very clear what best practices are from, you know, grass tops and grassroots engagement. In the advocacy space and on the electoral side, we know what we need to do. So it's about helping to connect. More dot-connecting, Jason. Lots of connecting dots.
So wha- what's next for me is to try to figure out how this was not about more friends for Eliza. This was never about more friends for Eliza. This was kind of more Elizas. Like, more folks kind of prime to connect the dots for people that they know. So that's the next step, kind of really the decentralizing and the handing off. Your question about advice.
Jason Jacobs: And I, I think the advice is two-part, now that I can ask it again, after we just did this little segment. I think it's one part advice for people that wanna get more, that wanna take political action in climate. And then it's another one for people who might long to put some aspect of climate front and center of the way you've put political action front and center, but may or may not be people who the political action lever is the one that they wanna put all their weight behind.
Eliza Nemser: Yes. Okay. Bottom line is, follow your gut. If your gut is telling you that we have a huge problem and you're not doing enough, do more and just figure out what it is. And I would say, Jason, your podcast is amazing. And you should listen to Jason's podcast, but you also should not feel like you need to listen to d-, another podcast before you do something. I mean, I'm very much like, there's amazing books and there's amazing podcasts. And these climate journeys, they need to be action-oriented. I very, very much want folks to not be concerned that they need to do more to end up working on climate. And if it's not gonna be your day job, there are so many volunteer opportunities. Climate Changemakers is one of them.
One thing that we're trying to do is make it cool to reach out to your members of Congress. Like, do you call your members of Congress, Jason? I mean, I'm gonna be honest. If I didn't have Climate Changemakers holding me accountable, and we're doing it together, I'm not sure I would do it. I liken it to lifting weights, right? Like, I know I should do it. I definitely am not going to do it, unless I have a friend who's like, "We're meeting at 8:00 AM and we're lifting weights."
And to me, calling my member of Congress, now I know there's a lot of folks who are actually like, are regularly [laughs] reaching out to their members. But I'm gonna guess that there's a lot of people who aren't. We're trying to make it cool. Like, we're trying to make it a team sport. Like, something we actually do together. Civic engagement in the name of climate action is definitely what we all need to be, well, we all need to be taking part in no matter how busy our lives are. We need to make that space to do it.
So in terms of, you know, how to pitch in, I would say, just follow your gut. Follow your heart. You need to be doing something you're completely passionate about. If you're not doing something you're completely passionate about, I feel like, figure out a way to roll that into your life. If it's not your paid job, it's gonna be your volunteer work. But we all have a role to play. Every single one of us. And then the other thing I would say is, take all kinds of individual action. You know, and, and watch your carbon footprint. And do all those things.
But at the same time, remember that this notion of a carbon footprint comes from BP. You know, and this was a, a marketing strategy designed to deflect attention for what was really happening and kinda make it your fault. You know, make it my fault. We should all be mindful of our carbon footprint. Like, we should do it. We should fly less. You know, we should be efficient. We should be mindful. And at the same time, let's not take our eye off the real prize, which is big, structural change that we get. It's government-level change. So getting involved in politics, um, is, is an imperative.
Jason Jacobs: So for people that wanna learn more about Climate Changemakers specifically, what should they do? How do they find you?
Eliza Nemser: So yeah. This is always my call to action. Take action with someone, right? So climate Change Maker-, uh ... I- if Sunrise is calling you, take action with Sunrise, take action with 350, take action with RepresentUs. Take action with any of these groups, Environment America, NRDC. I mean, there are so many important groups out there. If you haven't yet found your, your home that really resonates, come take action with us at Climate Changemakers.
The call to action is, take action. Find your people and just get engaged. Make the commitment to, you know, alongside meditating or whatever else you've been pushing down on your list that's really important for self-care, make a commitment to taking action. If you wanna take action with us, we would love more folks taking action with us. Really excited about building the power of our community. And the way to do it is, go to our website at climatechangemakers.org, and you'll see an invitation to our Slack.
Right now, we're taking action every Thursday. We just switched. Thursday is the new Sunday. It used to be Sundays, now it's Thursdays. Thursdays at 5:00 PM on the west coast and 8:00 PM on the east coast. We're together on Zoom taking action. So really, there is so much power in collective real-time action. It's fun. It builds community. It builds accountability. I mean, you have a, really an outsized impact when you take action together and bring more folks in.
And we also have ways, you know, for folks to take action. We call them anytime actions, more autonomously. But I also invite folks to join our Slack. It's a very, uh, robust, dynamic place to exchange support and ideas. And it's truly a, a welcoming and inclusive space, where there's a very explicit focus on the intersection of climate and politics. 'Cause there's so much space there.
So yeah. I would say taking action with us, which you can also check out our Luma calendar. The best way to get there is through our website, climatechangemakers.org. And just, yeah, join us. I, I feel like we have a lot of folks who take action with us and realize how, you know, it, truly productive it was and come back for more. And that's, that is a sign that we're doing something right.
Jason Jacobs: Is there anything I didn't ask you that I should have? Or any parting words for listeners?
Eliza Nemser: Hmm. You could have asked me, let's see. No. I feel like you covered it, Jason. You've got this whole interviewing thing down. I-
Jason Jacobs: I should have asked you that-
Eliza Nemser: [laughs]
Jason Jacobs: ... before you just went on that last monologue. 'Cause that last monologue, you stuck the landing. And then it would've just been a clean break, rack, wrap up the episode, put a bow on it, done. But then I have to come back around and say, "Anything I didn't ask or any parting words," when that, that was your parting words. You-
Eliza Nemser: Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: You could have dropped the mic right then.
Eliza Nemser: [laughs] Uh, no. I, I mean, we all have to step up, right? And so, this is actually something very stressful about getting involved in elections. And I was just asking my husband like, "The people who have been in this a long time feel like each successive election is like that much more important, and that there's that much more on the line. Like, this is insanely stressful." And his best guess was, "No, I think this is probably [laughs] a now thing.
I don't think it used to be the case that each election like, now we're looking at the midterms. Like, so much on the line yet again," right? So I, this is just really a quite a intersection right here and right now of, you know, the impacts from climate change being so here and now, and big, and scary, and so much opportunity to accomplish a ton in this window.
And then elections coming up that they're gonna be so critical, where things can kinda turn the wrong way again. So if there was ever a, you know, a good time to get involved in politics, it's right now. And I will, I guess, as my parting call to action, the For The People Act. It is sitting in the Senate. It is critically, critically important. You know, voter suppression has no place in America. And unless we can wrap our arms around some substantial democracy reform and, you know, getting dark money out of politics, and dealing with the crazy gerrymandering system, we're not gonna make the progress we need, need to make on climate.
So this is a great moment to dive in. You know, whether you're concerned about racial justice, social justice, climate justice, just straight-up de-carbonization, whatever you're concerned, whatever your lens is, all of these pieces are critically important and they all converge in the For The People Act. Really, really encourage anyone listening, if it hasn't already come to a vote in the Senate, by the time you're listening, pick up the phone and call your senators. Pick up the phone, um, get on Twitter and start making noise.
Just make noise about the For The People Act. It, it is critically, critically important. And again, do it with us. Do it with someone else. Do it on your own, but make the noise. And we are actually having our first Clubhouse [laughs] conversation this Thursday during our hour of action. So 5:00 PM Pacific and 8:00 PM Eastern, and that is going to be a conversation about how democracy reform equals climate action. So excited to be doing a monthly conversation on Clubhouse as we kinda get our feet wet on that medium.
Jason Jacobs: Awesome. Well, you wear your passion on your sleeve, Eliza. And it's so inspiring to see everything that you've accomplished and everything that I know you're gonna accomplish from here. So thanks so much for all the important work you do, and thanks for making time out of your busy schedule to, to come on our show as well.
Eliza Nemser: Thank you, Jason. You've been, you have been truly a really, really important role model, for me personally and for Climate Changemakers. So thank you for the really important work you, you're doing as well. It's huge.
Jason Jacobs: Well, that's so nice of you to say. So I'm, I'm honored to have you as a collaboration partner and a friend.
Eliza Nemser: Me too. I'm glad we got to talk [laughs].
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 my climatejourney.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.
