Hello and welcome to the end of the week, Saturday-eve as I like to call it. We have our swim team divisional championships tomorrow, so wish us luck!
This week’s must read: We’re conservatives and we’re fighting against climate change (USA Today). EcoRighters Rep. John Curtis and Heather Reams from Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions teamed up to co-author this op-ed.
They write: “Republicans may not have all the answers on our own, but we have excellent ideas. It’s high time for us to share them and for Democrats to work with us on meaningful policy that can have a positive impact instead of writing each other off as the villains.”
EcoRight Speaks, Season 3, Episode 1: Welcome back! We are so thrilled to kick off season three with our guest, Cori Wittman Stitt. As I have been previewing the last few weeks, she brings all her agricultural savvy to the show. I find her take on farmers and climate change both refreshing and inspiring.
Cori manages the human resource, finance, marketing and administrative functions of Wittman Farms, which has been in her family for five generations. She is a graduate of the University of Idaho and holds an MS-Agribusiness from Kansas State University. Cori worked in the agricultural policy arena of Washington D.C. for six years, including positions with the U.S. Grains Council, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Association of Wheat Growers and she served as Legislative Assistant for former Idaho Senator Larry Craig. (Fun fact: we overlapped in the Senate those many moons ago.) She spent five years in Thailand as founding director of Breakthrough Thailand, a community development organization working toward prevention of sex trafficking before returning to a primary role on the farm in 2015.
Listen to her explain sustainability measures, including practices like no till farming and use of cover crops that her father started before they were really a thing. She’s a fierce advocate for farmers being part of the climate solution. Her most recent op-ed was published in March and she has testified on the Hill.
Take a listen!
Coming up next week: our first repeat guest! Andrew Holland, formerly of the American Security Project, is back with us talking about his newest endeavor, leading the Fusion Industry Association.
In the meantime, if your ears crave more from the EcoRight, you can listen to this interview of Bob Inglis (I’m telling you, I heard stories that were new to me) on the Two Reporters podcast.
This week’s must watch: Utah Senator Mitt Romney’s opening remarks at a subcommittee hearing on combating climate change in East Asia and the Pacific is worth your five minutes.
“I know that sometimes we’re tempted to politically get behind initiatives that sound good. Doing things here, that people here feel like, ‘boy, we’re doing green things here isn’t that wonderful?’ But the reality is that those things won’t make a hill of beans worth of difference to reducing global emissions,” Romney said at the hearing. “Now we understand the consequence of this CO2 going into the environment and not acting would be extraordinarily shameful.”
Meet our latest EcoRight pup: Our social media manager, Alex Dove, recently adopted Kobuk (who totally supports free enterprise climate solutions) and they are pictured above.
Alex and Kobuk are rocking the vibe I want to project into the weekend so with that, stay cool, have a good one.