F4CR Holiday Gift Guide 2022

F4CR Holiday Gift Guide 2022

Gift giving is an integral part of the holiday season, but the ‘shop till you drop’ mentality is extremely harmful to the environment. Here at F4CR, we wholeheartedly believe that giving is always more fulfilling than receiving, and we want to make sure that you give your loved ones unique, meaningful gifts that are aligned with your commitment to a safe and healthy climate. In our 2022 Gift Guide, we have curated a range of carbon-negative, -neutral, and sustainably made products.

Here’s a quick preview of what you will find in the Gift Guide:

Feel your best while helping the planet feel its best with these cosmetic essentials brands

Neighbourhood Botanicals is a woman-led cosmetics company that offers carbon negative face lotions, body oil, cleansers, and much more. HIGHR lipstick is the first carbon neutral lipstick — every purchase saves 5.8 lbs of CO2.

Stay warm while keeping our planet cool

Sheep Inc. is a carbon negative clothing company that uses ethically sourced sheep wool for all of its products — donating 3% of annual revenue to biodiversity projects around the world. Another great option for keeping warm is Pangaia. This company’s impact goes beyond clothing, as they employ scientists to develop innovative and sustainable materials and processes to make their products. The 365 Hoodie is our personal favorite!

Indulge (sustainably) in these comforts

Alter Eco is a carbon neutral sweets company making high quality and Fair Trade certified products. Chocolate has never tasted so sustainable! And now, you can relax and enjoy your dessert on furniture from Sabai, a company on a mission to change how we purchase furniture. They upcycle all of their pieces, and even offer repair services to keep them looking their best for a long time. Of course, a new sofa may not be the easiest thing to gift, so we’d settle for a candle!

As we continue to see our environment deteriorate due to harmful habits and systems, it’s extremely important that the decisions we make — for gifts or otherwise — are sustainable. It’s now easier than ever to shop sustainably and make an impact. Shop our 2022 Gift Guide here.

Going Grassroots for Giving Tuesday

Giving Tuesday, held every year on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, is a worldwide philanthropy movement created in 2012 to inspire generosity and collaboration. This year, participants will celebrate Giving Tuesday on November 29th by giving how they can: donating money, participating in acts of service, or using their voice to bring attention to important local causes. For nonprofit organizations like the Foundation for Climate Restoration (F4CR), this global day of giving is a unique opportunity for us to engage with the people who make our work possible: our volunteers and donors.

Giving Tuesday aligns directly with F4CR’s mission to catalyze change and lead with a grassroots approach. Our dedication to both can be seen in the growth of our local chapter program. To achieve our goal of making climate restoration a reality, we rely on the generosity and action of people worldwide who are committed to advocating for greenhouse gas removal (GGR) and the solutions to achieve it. Members of our chapters educate the public, and their local lawmakers, on the need to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. They are our boots on the ground and our loud voices in a crowded room–they are a vital part of our movement for change, and they make a difference daily.

With this in mind, we decided that for Giving Tuesday 2022, we would turn to our chapter members and let them work their magic in a new way. This year, our most dedicated volunteers will be reaching out to their networks and once again using their voices to bring attention to the potential to restore the climate. They will be performing acts of service by writing emails and letters, posting on social media, and sharing why they dedicate their time and energy to this cause. And they will be encouraging their friends and loved ones to donate and support our education and leadership work, so that we can continue to grow our movement. We’re keeping it grassroots, and we’re excited!

Care to join us? We’d love to hear your story. Why is restoring our climate important to you? What drives you to volunteer and/or support our work? Take a minute to think about it, and then share your thoughts with your networks–via email, Facebook, carrier pigeon — whatever you like. Get the word out, and help us grow our movement!

CDR at COP

—Rick Wayman, CEO, F4CR

“Never use acronyms that people might not know.” That’s a motto I try to live by, but when I spell out the title of this post, maybe you’ll see why I did it that way:

Carbon Dioxide Removal at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Last year’s COP26 was my first UN climate conference. I had only been with F4CR for a few weeks when the event took place in Glasgow in November 2021, so I came onto the scene with a fresh set of eyes and ears. I was a little concerned, to be honest, about the scarcity of events talking about carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in a positive way. As a significant pathway to achieving climate restoration, I saw that we had our work cut out to get CDR onto the agenda going forward.

To my surprise, the conversations happening at COP27 are something to behold, with a much more prominent focus on CDR. It’s clear that carbon dioxide removal is becoming increasingly recognized as a necessary component to complement emissions mitigation and climate adaptation efforts. Topics range from full-throated support for CDR solutions to cautious optimism that some solutions may be truly impactful at scale to calls for further research, development, and (eventually) deployment.

While some of the discussion around CDR relates to the declaration earlier this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that we’ll need significant CDR to achieve the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, that’s not the full extent of the conversation. I’m hearing more and more discussion of CDR in the context of climate restoration and the goal of returning our world to 0 degrees of warming.

This trend is thanks in part to the significant growth in the coalition of NGOs, companies, investors, academics, and elected officials paying attention to CDR. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the “Carbon Removals at COP” coalition. The mission of this partnership is to introduce people “to what is happening in the world of carbon removals — the science, the technology, the people, places, motivations and approaches that are driving the evolution of carbon removals today and working to scale these innovations for a better future tomorrow.”

I’m incredibly proud that the Foundation for Climate Restoration is a partner in this initiative and that so many notable organizations joined together to highlight our common goals. In a world where travel has been minimized for both COVID safety and carbon emissions purposes, it has been enlightening and heartwarming to meet so many colleagues in person and begin to develop a new phase of trust and partnership.

A snapshot of the dozens of in-person and virtual CDR events listed on the CDR at COP website.

Over the next year, my vision is to continue the dramatic scaling up of events highlighting carbon dioxide removal. I’d love to see more events featuring young people, like our Youth Leaders for Climate Restoration and leaders from the Global South, including many F4CR local chapters.

Of course, what is not fully captured by the CDR at COP website is the sheer number of conversations people are having about CDR and climate restoration here at COP27. It’s vital that we continue on this path of bringing CDR and climate restoration forward to work at scale alongside emissions elimination and unavoidable climate adaptation. By the time COP28 rolls around next year in Dubai, I expect to see this much higher on many people’s agendas.

Guest Post: Don Morrill — The power of community outreach to drive climate action

We hope you’ll enjoy this guest post from Don Morrill of Davis, CA. Don and Frances, whose story you’ll read below, embody the power of civic engagement in advancing climate restoration. Our work depends on people like you and like them to take up the mantle of climate restoration and bring it to your elected officials. Your voice matters! This election season, we hope you are as inspired by Don and Frances as we were. To join a local chapter, reach out to our Coordinator, Myra Khan, at myra@f4cr.org.

From Rotary to F4CR

As a 24-year, second-generation member of the Davis Sunrise Rotary Club and a lifelong environmentalist, I was excited that Rotary International added environmental action as an area of focus in June 2020. As a result of that change, Erica Dodds was welcomed to speak to our club about the Foundation for Climate Restoration (F4CR) and its mission of returning our planet to the healthy climate that existed prior to industrialization.

Over the years, I came to sadly accept the increasingly bad news about climate and environmental degradation. In hearing Erica, I had the exhilarating sense that I no longer needed to perpetually fight an uphill battle to constrain human actions that harm our environment. F4CR has an answer to addressing climate change: Restoring the climate by removing the legacy carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Concurrent with Erica’s talk. I had the joy of meeting the newest member of our club, Frances McChesney. Frances is a retired CA State Water Board attorney and a successful four-sport UC Davis athlete with an abiding passion for team play. Together with several others we embarked on an effort to create an Environmental Committee within our Rotary Club that could join with other local clubs on restoration projects in our region and beyond.

Meeting with elected officials

Frances and I embarked on an effort to lobby our political representatives to support climate restoration legislation, specifically the Federal Climate Dioxide Removal Leadership Act (FCDRLA) — HR7434. Our goal was to have our current Representative John Garamendi and incoming Representative Mike Thompson become co-sponsors of the FCDRLA and get it passed.

My connection with Rep. Thompson goes back many years. As co-founder and Board Chair of the nonprofit CalWild, I had the honor of presenting him with the Phil Burton Leadership Award for introducing and leading the successful enactment of the North Coast Wilderness Act of 2006. Therefore, he readily accepted our request to meet with him. Over coffee, we talked about many things, including the FCDRLA, and following that meeting we learned that he has agreed to co-sponsor the bill!

I also made efforts to contact Representative Garamendi’s staff, to set up a meeting. And, in the meantime, Frances and I met with Davis Mayor Lucas Frerichs, who I’ve had the pleasure of supporting for some 10 years through endorsements and donations. We asked for his suggestions on how to approach Rep. Garamendi about the FCDRLA.

Success through the grapevine

Mayor Frerichs and Rep. Garamendi have a collegial long-term relationship, and they met not long after our conversation with the mayor. Mayor Frerichs urged Rep. Garamendi to co-sponsor the FCDRLA based on his conversation with us. Lucas’s conversation was critical: because he was a trusted colleague, his recommendation to support HR7434 held a lot of sway. His role tipped the scale to get an endorsement and co-sponsorship of the bill.

Join us and create your own success stories

To others somewhat new to this process, I suggest you seek a political leader you respect in your county/city, and ask them what organization(s) would be best to support and become involved with. For us, the Davis Democratic Club provided the entrée to the ranks of current and aspiring leaders — like Mayor Lucas Frerichs and others. Support those who you feel have potential to be leaders with endorsements and financial support (even a little bit makes a difference). Bring issues that are important to you to their attention. Letters of support on issues of concern and/or phone calls to their offices are critical to the process and have a real impact.

Another key to success is to build coalitions. Our small F4CR chapter is working to partner with compatible organizations locally to continue the efforts to undertake climate restoration. Furthermore, use every opportunity to connect with your community and the people around you. My partnership with Frances is the perfect example of what can happen when like-minded people come together to drive change. With determination and patience, all of these efforts can go a long way in building towards a habitable planet for future generations!