Talking Climate with Conservatives

In this episode, Ralph and Luc chat with Michael Jefferies, Regional Conservative Outreach Coordinator for the Citizens' Climate Lobby. Together, we get out of our filter bubbles and find some common ground.

We discuss Michael's faith-based journey on climate issues, bipartisan proposals on issues ranging from a carbon tax ("Carbon Fees and Dividends") and import tariffs, along with strategies to communicate about the environment to conservatives.

We also listen to excerpts from former Senator Bob Inglis talking about his experience as a pro-climate Republican.

We hear a political advertisement recorded by Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi together on a couch back in 2008.

We read excerpts of:
• Dorothy Sayers' "Why Work?" speech from 1942 and
• Pope Francis' "Laudato si'" encyclical from 2015.

If you'd like to connect with the Citizens' Climate Lobby, you can find them at:
https://cclusa.org/join

Chapters:
0:00:00 Introducing our guest, Michael Jeffries, Citizen Climate Lobby's Regional Conservative Outreach Coordinator
0:02:00 What Michael heard about climate change growing up in a conservative household (Rush Limbaugh)
0:05:38 How Dorothy L. Sayers' "Why Work?" WW2 speech got Michael to consider prioritising nature over growth from a Christian lens
0:13:10 From Saint Francis of Assisi to Pope Francis' Laudato Si: We are Nature
0:17:41 Michael's climate journey: Campus activism
0:19:55 How Michael started working at Citizens' Climate Lobby on pro-climate legislation with Indiana's very conservative senator Mike Braun
0:26:04 Bipartisan Bills with major climate provisions that passed under the Biden administration: Infrastructure and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, the Growing Climate Solutions Act
0:29:31 The PROVE It Act: getting the DOE to measure emissions worldwide
0:33:42 Carbon Tax: the French example of "Gilets jaunes": what went wrong to cause the yellow vest protest against it?
0:36:02 Carbon pricing: Citizens' Climate Lobby's proposal for a carbon fee and dividend
0:44:04 Republicans are scared of getting primaried for introducing a carbon tax
0:46:59 Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi's couch commercial for climate action
0:48:02 How Republican Congressman Bob Ingliss lost his primary to Trew Gowdy after the Koch Brothers shifted their funding
0:52:41 The Bob Ingliss Mixtape: clips of former congressman talking about climate issues
0:59:12 How the climate discourse got polarised and stopped being a bipartisan issue
1:02:32 Michael's approach when talking to a conservative audience about climate
1:05:05 Wrap up: Michael Jeffries points out the contradiction of incremental fixes being insufficient to grapple with the issues of degrowth that moved him in the first place
1:08:11 Outro: Ralph and Luc briefly debrief the interview