You should get involved

There’s no one right way to beat climate change, although pretty much everybody agrees we need to build a shit-ton of renewables, batteries, and energy grid infrastructure. 

Similarly, there’s no one right way to get involved in this fight. But I believe we should all do the following to the best of our abilities:

1. Pressure politicians to think big and act fast, or elect ones who will
2. Model a climate-conscious, politically engaged lifestyle for others
3. Financially support worthy climate causes
4. Talk to our friends and families about the clean energy transition: the benefits, the obstacles, and the solutions

Maximizing your contributions will of course depend on your circumstances: the time and energy you have to give and the money you’re willing to spend, invest, and/or donate. Every little bit helps build the people-powered movement we need to make a better world.

I’m keeping this relatively short so as not to be overwhelming, but there are of course many, many worthy organizations to support and actions to take. Here are a few: 

Pressure your politicians 

1. Calling is better than emailing

Make a habit of calling your politicians every day. I had some anxiety about doing this until pretty recently, but I got over it after leaving a few awkward messages and not immediately dying as a result. Calling, I’ve been told, is more effective than emailing because a staffer has to listen to your call and then fill out a form about what you’re mad about. If enough people call about the same topic, it takes up a lot of time and they have to deal with it.

Advice for effective calling:

A. Download the 5 Calls app
The app covers more than just climate issues, but they’ve always got something climate-related. You pick the issue you want to call about; they provide you with the phone numbers and a script to read from. Reading from a script is definitely the way to go until you feel comfortable enough to freestyle. 

B. Embrace your righteous anger
Without directly threatening anyone, I think it’s totally reasonable to express how mad you are that the world is being destroyed and nobody in power gives a fuck. These people are supposed to be our leaders! Their salaries are paid for by our tax dollars. They work for us, so make them work for us. 

Once you get over the initial awkwardness, you may find it’s quite cathartic to vent your frustrations. 

C. Make calling a habit
Set a repeating weekday phone alarm for sometime between 9 and 5pm to make your calls. Combine calling with the work break you should really be taking once an hour. I like to make my calls while on a walk around the neighborhood. 

2. Engage with your state’s Public Utility Commission (PUC)

Every state has something called a Public Utility Commission. Their job—at least in theory—is to regulate utility companies on behalf of the public. PUCs actually wield a huge amount of power: they determine how much you pay for your utility bills, how your utilities invest your money, and the quality of your service. They can force utilities to build more renewables. 

 Generally speaking, PUCs are insanely corrupt—the commissioners often come directly from long careers at utility companies, or they go on to work for the same utilities they’re supposed to regulate after their term is up. It’s a rotten system. Yet very few people even know these supposedly regulatory bodies exist. 

If this pisses you off, as it should, here’s what you can do about it:

A. Attend a public PUC meeting
PUCs regularly host public meetings that nobody goes to, because they’re not advertised. But you can find out when yours is by doing a little Googling. And then you can show up (or join via Zoom, usually) and tell them to stop being craven dickheads (if craven dickheads is what they're being).  

FYI, ‘PUC’ is a generic name for these groups. In New York, for instance, our PUC is called the Public Service Commission. Their meeting schedule is on the website.

B. Call ‘em up
They’ve got listed phone numbers. Let them know you’re paying attention.

While there aren't prewritten scripts for calling your PUC (that I'm aware of), there is an organization called PowerLines doing the important work of PUC education and fostering public support. I'm hoping they will add more resources like scripts and upcoming meetings to their site soon.

C. Expose their asses
The reason nobody knows PUCs exist is because they do not want us to know they exist—perhaps this is what Republicans are referring to when they talk about the 'Deep State'? But you can change that. Find out who sits on your state’s PUC and whether they’ve got ties to the utility companies they supposedly regulate. Start talking about it.  

3. Join a local climate group

The very best way to get more involved is to join up with the people who are actively working on climate solutions in your community. I can guarantee there’s meaningful work going on somewhere near you—groups fighting for better laws, to stop pipelines, to build community solar projects, to hold polluters responsible. These volunteer groups would love to have you, trust me. I’ve had nothing but extremely positive experiences in the climate orgs I’ve joined here in Brooklyn.

A few with national footprints that I recommend:

350.org has nearly 300 working groups scattered around the world. In Brooklyn, they’re co-leading the fight to pass the NY HEAT Act and the GAP Fund, organizing rallies in Albany, hosting workshops and phone banks, and lots more. 

Climate Changemakers hosts a weekly Hour of Action at 14 locations around the country and online. In Brooklyn, we get together on Wednesday evenings at Threes Brewing to dedicate a lightning-fast hour to taking direct action on behalf of worthy climate causes. It’s really fun. I always drink a big beer.

The Environmental Voter Project is an awesome option for anyone unable to find or join an in-person org. They’ve got a really brilliant approach: they identify folks who don’t regularly vote, but for whom the environment is a top priority, and then they transform them into consistent voters through outreach campaigns. If you’re interested, there’s an excellent Volts podcast episode with EVP’s founder. 

Become a climate supermodel 

By modeling a climate-conscious lifestyle, we can inspire others to make greener choices and even to get involved in the fight. I’m not saying you should become a TikTok influencer. I'm also not saying that changing our little lives is going to fix these huge, systemic problems. But I do believe that the more visibly green your life, the more you normalize and incentivize better behaviors and new ways of thinking.

1. If you’re a homeowner: electrify your home

Do you own your own home? Congratulations, landed gentry! You’re in a position to do more for your household’s energy self-reliance than anyone else in our stupid society—and by doing so, you’ll become a role model for everyone else in your community.

Investing in green energy is not cheap (although it generally pays for itself in the long run), and I’m aware not all homeowners are in a position to do so. But if you can swing it, you should seriously think about getting rooftop solar panels and a home battery system. Also: a cargo e-bike or an EV (if you need to drive), a heat pump, an induction oven, an electric water heater, and professional insulation. 

If you’re new to the world of green energy, that to-do list is probably overwhelming. I can’t get into each item here, but I’ll definitely be writing about all of those topics in future posts, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, head over to Rewiring America, an organization dedicated to making home electrification easy and breezy. Their free planning tools are especially useful.

2. If you rent: look into community solar

The sad truth is that convincing your landlord to go green is pretty much impossible, unless they’re really cool or they pay your electric bill. 

There are alternatives, however. One that’s growing in popularity is called community solar: large-scale solar panel parks that provide cheap renewable energy to locals. Lots of states now have community solar projects up and running or are in the process of legalizing them. 

I’m not aware of a database that lists all the current community solar projects—let me know if you’ve got one—but Google should work for this. If there’s no community solar option near you, well, consider starting the movement to make that happen. A good resource for learning more is the Coalition for Community Solar Access.

FYI: Participating in a community solar project doesn’t guarantee the clean energy produced by said project will flow directly to your house. The grid just doesn’t work that way. However, there’s still a good chance it will! Why? Because of physics. 

Feel free to skip this explanation, but I think it’s cool: Electricity always flows through the path of least resistance. That means a solar panel’s power output will supply the nearest ‘demand’—i.e. flipping on a light switch—before it travels any further along the grid. Therefore, a community solar project’s electricity is mostly consumed by its nearest homes and businesses. In this way, local green power generation helps communities build resilience: if the grid goes down, your handy community solar project will still send its power to those closest to it. Local generation also reduces the need to get your power from far away, which means less power is wasted in transmission, which means your electricity bill should theoretically get lower.

Invest and donate

There are plenty of worthy purchases, investments, and causes to support with your hard-earned greenbacks. Here are a few cool ones I’ve found:

1. Invest in green energy projects, earn up to 10% annually

Climatize has raised over $8 million to fund green energy infrastructure projects around the country, such as community solar, EV charging hubs, and heat pumps. I think it’s a great idea: a common theme among green energy tech is that, while the upfront cost is high, the project pays for itself over time. Crowdfunding to cover that initial cost is really clever.

By investing, you stand to make an annual return if the project succeeds and starts to generate revenue. Please note that returns on your investment are not guaranteed—but Climatize claims they have yet to default on a payment.

2. Donate to youth activist groups 

The young people of the world are leading the fight against climate change, taking on the crisis with the urgency and seriousness it deserves. I find their work to be incredibly inspiring. But their ranks are mostly comprised of broke high school and college kids, and they need our support. 

One group I’m particularly fond of is Climate Defiance. They pull stunts like dressing up as demons to demonstrate outside fossil fuel executive galas, or bussing hundreds of folks to DC to demand Democrats elect better party leaders. They’re constantly getting arrested. Help bail ‘em out.   

3. Donate to counter Big Dystopia’s bullshit

Greenlight America, a nonprofit org, is combating one of the biggest obstacles to building more renewable energy projects in this country: a few irate NIMBYs/conspiracy theorists/paid protestors/uninformed folks screaming about 5G from windmills or whatever at the community meetings where the fates of many clean energy projects get decided. 

Their solution: mobilize the clean energy advocates in these communities and get them to show up to the meetings, too. Makes sense to me!

Spread the green gospel

Nobody wants to talk about climate change. It’s too depressing. Green energy tech, however, is exciting! And learning that Big Dystopia wants you to die is infuriating! 

That’s what we’re doing here at Green Juice: getting pumped up for the Cool Shit and pissed off at the Sick Fucks. It would really mean a lot if you shared this newsletter with your friends and family.

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If you’ve made it this far, I’ll let you in on a little secret: your boy is a full-fledged radical Socialist. I joined the Democratic Socialists of America back in January 2017, fresh off the Bernie campaign’s strangulation by the oil-soaked hands of corporate Democrats. 

I knew then what I know now: accruing wealth is not the only thing that matters in this life. It just isn’t. Look at Trump and Musk: they’re two of the unhappiest men I’ve ever seen. But those guys and others like them will never be convinced to give up what they’ve got, no matter how much good they could do.

So those of us with a conscience need to build power together. That’s what DSA is all about: building collective power for the working class, so we can live in the type of world we deserve. Consider joining your local chapter.