About Us

Leadership Team

Executive & Legislative Director: J. Todd Fernandez, LLM
Policy Digest Director: Rachel Goodgal
Policy Team: David Ambrosio, Eric Arnum, Thatcher Bell, Jonathan Brady, Megan Candolfi, Regina Cornwell, Cara Gross, Jack Hammond, Luke Hamel, Elizabeth Henderson, Andreina Sofia Himy, Pam Koch, Carolyn Arden Malkin, Rachel Makleff, Derek Perkinson, Sandy Radoff, Lalo Remes, Mark Schaeffer, Gregg Wagner (bios below).
Web Design: Cici Yang
Web Programming: Dylan Hyun
Art Design: Jonathan Saint-Hilaire
Nonprofit Management: Social Good Fund (501c3 Fiscal Sponsor)
Partner: Climate Solutions Digest (Online News): Eric Arnum

Committees

Climate Crisis Policy has several committees working to further our education and advocacy goals. Below are the current committees; please contact us if you’d like to join or learn more.

Advisory Council: Most active volunteer members.
Board of Directors: Manages the nonprofit business.
Policy Review: Help review documents and add solutions.
Education & Promotion: Help teach solutions and promote the Policy Digest.
Outreach & Partners: Join our action campaign to pass federal legislation.
Policymaker Engagement: Help contact 2020 Candidates to Vote on ideas!

Contact: ClimateCrisisPolicy@gmail.com

Voting

The vote option is designed to help identify shared goals and demands for federal policy. We will report back periodically on the results, which will hopefully help to unite activists and organizations in common cause.

Please try to vote in all categories to help identify support across movements and beyond the individual organizational expertise. Only by uniting the many sectors and passions will we have the power needed to win.

You may vote as an individual or an organization. We encourage local and grassroots organizations to vote so we can get a true sense of activists’ priorities.

Digest Process

The Climate Crisis Policy Digest was compiled by over 20 experts and activists from Climate Action Mondays, 350NYC, Columbia University, CUNY, National Association of Organic Farmers, and more. See “Policy Reviewers” below for our great team!

The intention in creating the digest was to help educate policymakers, key industries, the public and relevant movements by presenting a comprehensive picture of the breadth of solutions, so we can unite for action.

Our process was open and transparent, with online and live meetings, and we were policy neutral in that we compiled and excerpted the specific policy ideas directly from sources without editing or curating the ideas. Our underlying research is publicly available for all.

We used Project Drawdown, a scientific report of the top GHG sources and solutions, as our topical outline.

The 130+ source documents (see Documents) are published, online materials, from authors including coalitions, think tanks, legislative bodies, academics, and advocacy groups. Some are deeply scientific, others reflect the consensus of hundreds of groups, and some are from individual organizations. But all are listed equally, so please consult the sources to understand their gravity and backing.

To arrive at the digest, reviewers read documents and excerpted specific ideas that were sorted into subtopics, compared across sources, and translated into plain English. Each was given a number and a designation: Document Legislation (DL) for existing law or regulation, Document Bill (DB) for filed or proposed bill or regulation, and Document (D) for all other sources.

This compilation is not intended to be exhaustive of all ideas but rather presents a strong beginning capturing the core policy actions. Important areas not covered include creating new governmental agencies and implementation at the local level. This is a work in progress and will be updated periodically as new materials are submitted. (Submit new Documents here).

The hope now is to foster deeper discussions to develop shared policy demands that can unite our movements. We all know we must pass major legislation by 2021 to save life on Earth – and we can only succeed together.

David Ambrosio (Food & Agriculture) is a freelance musician, music educator and activist in NYC. His activism is focused in the areas of environmental and food justice, as well as animal rights.

Eric Arnum (Climate Solutions Digest) is a business newsletter editor by day and a climate solutions activist by night. He currently runs the Climate Solutions Digest news service, which collects the world’s best newspaper and magazine articles about greenhouse gas-reducing proposals and rebroadcasts them on Web, Email, Facebook and Twitter feeds (@ClimateSold).

Thatcher Bell (Electricity) is an investor, teacher, technologist, and environmentalist.

Jonathan Brady (Materials, Waste & Recycling, Food & Agriculture) is the founder of the NYC-based St. Monica’s Green Team and serves on the Steering Committee of Indivisible Upper East Side. His background is in business strategy, and he is active in climate policy because of his two little girls.

Megan Candolfi (Partner) is a Research Fellow at the International Center for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD) and holds an MSW from Columbia University. She specializes in international public policy and the intersection of gender-based violence and climate justice.

Regina Cornwell (Land, Water, & Forest) has been involved with the Climate Breakdown for a dozen years. She is a member of a number of groups, including: The Climate Reality Project; Damascus Citizens for Sustainability; Project Drawdown NYC; and Extinction Rebellion.

Todd Fernandez, Esquire (Founder/Executive Director) served as General Council and Legislative Director for the MA Office of Economic Affairs, the Governor’s Brownfields Ombudsman, and has a Masters of Law in Human Rights and Democracy from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. In 2018, he launched Climate Action Mondays demanding Congressional climate legislation with Sunrise Movement, DSA, Food & Water Action, Climate Hawks Votes & 350NYC, fostering the Green New Deal. He also led efforts for The MA Brownfields Revitalization Act, The LGBT Equality Act, The Climate Emergency Media Standards, Extinction Rebellion’s NY Times action, and The NYC Chase Coalition.

Rachel Goodgal (Digest Director) is a longtime member of 350NYC who became involved with federal climate policy activism as the entertainment producer for Climate Action Mondays last year. She co-led the effort to create the Policy Digest and is thrilled to present this compendium in the hopes that it will spark discussion and collaboration in the movement.

Cara Gross (Women’s Health & Education) works in publishing and has also worked as a farmer’s market manager and on organic farms. While earning her B.A. in English from Clark University, she spent a semester in Namibia studying globalization, and she received highest honors for her thesis on imaginative representations of climate change.

Jack Hammond (Environmental Justice) teaches sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Luke Hamel (Electricity) is a climate activist currently based in NYC with experience in both the fossil fuel divestment movement and youth climate strike movement. With a background in Environmental Sciences, he is most interested in identifying solutions that can simultaneously address the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Elizabeth Henderson (Food & Agriculture, General Farm Policy) farmed at Peacework Farm in Wayne County, New York and represents the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Interstate Council on the Board of the Agricultural Justice Project. Author of Sharing the Harvest: A Citizen’s Guide to Community Supported Agriculture (Chelsea Green, 2007). View her blog here

Andreina Sofia Himy (Food & Agriculture) is a literature student, climate activist and aspiring environmental lawyer.

Dylan Hyun (Web Programmer) is a user interface designer and developer at Prudential Financial, who has a great love for the environment. In the past, he’s worked with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh to develop interactive CUSP action kits on the Anthropocene.

Pam Koch (Food & Agriculture, General Farm Policy) is the Executive Director of the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy in the Program in Nutrition at Teachers College Columbia University. She works at the intersection of sustainable food systems and healthy eating doing research, education, and advocacy.

Carolyn Arden Malkin (Research & Editing) has an academic background in earth science and journalism. She is passionate about educating the public about climate change and the science behind it. Carolyn has more than 30 years of experience writing and editing science content for magazines, web sites, museums, universities, and book publishers.

Rachel Makleff (Materials, Waste & Recycling) has affiliations with Climate Reality, Drawdown, Food and Water Action, 350NYC, Sierra Club, and Jewish Climate Action Network, and works on immigration, hunger, sustainable agriculture, and, most passionately, services for disabled people. She is also a founding member of Let’s Talk Democracy, which teaches civics for free at local public libraries.

Derek Perkinson (Partner) is a passionate Social Justice Advocate working on climate and environment, voting rights, criminal justice reform, and economic justice. He is the NYC Field Director for the National Action Network, managing the House of Justice, a member of Community Board 10 in Harlem and One Hundred Black Men, and on the Advisory Board for S.T.O.P., Surveillance Technology Oversight Protection.

Sandy Radoff (Transportation) has a 40-year career doing quantitative research, a masters degree in statistics, and completed the coursework for a master’s degree in political science. For the past several years, she has been very active in progressive causes, most notably, the environment with Rise & Resist.

Lalo Remes (Land, Water, & Forest) is a video enthusiast and hydroponics rookie, advocating for a greener, more united world with Science for the People.

Mark Schaeffer (Environmental Justice, Transportation, Buildings) previously led 350.org actions in Albany and is currently active in PAUSE, a 350 affiliate. He was a graduate student in Energy and Environmental Policy at Washington University; a researcher for Missouri Coalition for the Environment and D.C. Environmental Action Foundation; and served on the Editorial Committee of DSA’s Democratic Left. Mark is currently on the NYS Board of Citizen Action, and the NY Renews Policy Development Committee.

Bernie Tuchman (Buildings) was a Senior Policy Analyst for New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection from 1969 to 2002. After retiring, through 2012, he became Co-Chair of the Environmental Sciences section of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Gregg Wagner (Buildings) brings a wide-ranging skill set to his newly found passion for climate activism. He is an architect, designer, art fabricator, carpenter, auto mechanic, and tree climber. Gregg also loves to sail and to fix anything he can get his hands on. Gregg lives in Queens.

Cici Yang (Web Designer) is a digital designer who has deep love for the Earth. She cares about the environment and animals, and she hopes that one day there will be no plastic on the Earth. She works to have our voices out there via the power of the internet. View her portfolio here