Friday, June 28

Dear Reader,

On this Feel-Good Friday, I’m sharing a story, told by former presidential candidate and Biden’s former Special Presidential Envoy to the UN for Climate, John Kerry, to John Doerr. The conversation was about organizing to demand action on climate change, and it underscored Kerry’s “unfettered optimism on climate.” 

It was the 1970s, Kerry recalled, and “we targeted the 12 worst votes [by congresspeople] in the U.S. Congress. We labeled them ‘the dirty dozen.’ We raised money, and we advertised, and we went out to those districts and campaigned.” Activists knocked on doors and handed out leaflets. “We defeated seven of those 12 members of Congress. And as a 28-year veteran of the U.S. Senate, I’ll tell you that there’s nothing like watching your colleagues slinking out, defeated, to stiffen your spine.”

Within a few years of that election, Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed a wave of environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Marine Animal Protection Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, and the Endangered Species Act. Kerry emphasized that organized public outcry about the environment had propelled the president at the time, Richard Nixon, to sign the legislation. He added, “Richard Nixon, because he saw it was a voting issue, signed it into law.”

Optimistically,

Dot