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Episode 1: Beginnings and Transformations

M&M

CCL’s Founder Marshall Saunders and Executive Director Mark Reynolds share the genesis of the organization on the first episode of Citizens’ Climate Radio.

Citizens’ Climate Radio Episode One — Beginnings and Transformations

Welcome to the first episode of Citizens’ Climate Radio. In this podcast we highlight people’s stories, we celebrate your successes, and together we share strategies for talking about climate change.

Our theme this month is Beginnings and Transformations. We bring you an intimate, moving, and at times hilarious conversation with Marshall Saunders, founder of Citizens Climate Lobby, and Mark Reynolds, the executive director. They reveal their origin stories. Highly ambitious and successful businessmen, they seemed unlikely candidates to head up an organization that puts relationship-building and climate advocacy at its heart.

We also go to the Art House, a section in the show where we highlight creative ways to talk about climate issues. Show host, Peterson Toscano, shares a comic monologue with five of his wackiest characters. Together they reveal the Five Stages of Hot Climate Action!

Also, hear about our monthly Citizens’ Climate Puzzler. Check out this month’s puzzler and send us your best answer!

You are at a party, perhaps a graduation party or something for work or it really doesn’t matter. You are chit-chatting, and you let drop that you are concerned about climate change. You say you are involved in a group that is pursuing solutions. The person you are chatting with, let’s call her Claire, smiles and says, Well, I too am concerned about climate change, but really I think there are much more pressing issues that we need to address.

How might you respond in a way that opens up the conversation? See if you can offer an answer that affirms Claire while moving her closer to climate change advocacy.

Get back to Peterson by July 15,  2016. You can email your answers to  or call  and leave a voicemail at 570.483.8194.  Peterson will read/listen and respond to all of your messages. He will then share the best answers in our next episode which airs July 25, 2016.

Citizens’ Climate Radio is a monthly podcast and a project of Citizens’ Climate Education. Please subscribe to the Citizens Climate Lobby iTunes channel or wherever you listen to audio programs, and please share, rate, and review.

Steve Valk is Communications Coordinator for Citizens' Climate Lobby. Steve joined the CCL staff in 2009 after a 30-year career with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow him on Twitter at @valklimate.