Caitlin Marshall: Channeling climate anxiety into positive change locally with PCAT
Every month PelotonLabs founder Liz Trice interviews a community member for The West End News. This month Liz caught up with Caitlin Marshall, a volunteer with the Portland Community Action Team (PCAT).
What is the Portland Climate Action Team and what does it do?
PCAT is a group of folks who live in Portland who want to make change at the local level. It started in 2015 and has about 80 members now. It’s part of Sierra Club Maine, and there are climate action teams all over the state and country focused on action at the local level.
We work to make the Portland-South Portland One Climate Future action plan real and educate Portlanders and council members about the plan. PCAT helped build the municipal solar project on the old landfill off Ocean Avenue in Portland, helped create an energy benchmarking ordinance, and write a monthly Bright Ideas column in The West End News. We’ve helped with the city’s Electrify Everything program, making it easier for people to buy heat pumps and e-bikes.
What is your background and how did you get involved?
I’ve been in Portland for over a decade. Before that, I lived in California and Texas. My husband’s family is from Freeport. We live in North Deering now with our two kids. Having grown up in Dallas, which is a large, car-oriented, paved city, it’s a treat to live in a city that has lots of green spaces and is close to the ocean. I want to help protect this place and keep it a livable climate for my children when they grow up.
I’ve always loved being out in nature and growing things. I just started working for the Wild Seed Project teaching people to know the native plants from our region and to restore our ecosystems. Before, I worked at Rosemont, then Revision Energy, and I designed websites.
I’m going back to school for environmental science. I want to respond to the climate crisis with an ecological and community engagement approach. Working and volunteering with environmental groups helps me to take my anxiety about what’s going on in the world and channel that energy into taking action. I’ve learned that paying attention to local politics matters, and it feels good to take part in things where you can see results.
What is PCAT working on right now?
We’ve been working on a Climate Action Fund. The idea is to create a sustainable income stream to fund more sustainable energy projects. After the city built the solar array off Ocean Avenue it helped develop other renewable energy projects around the state. It started making energy and also earning the city RECS (Renewable Energy Credits).
These RECS can be sold to create a funding stream for the City of Portland. So we helped create an ordinance to direct that new stream of money towards getting off fossil fuels and onto renewable energy sources. So revenue could pay for feasibility studies, build more municipal-owned solar on schools or parking garages, or pay for transportation projects, energy upgrades for buildings, and/or coordinate to get more Federal money. We hope the City Council will vote on the ordinance in July.
How does change actually happen?
There’s an episode of the podcast “How 2 Save A Planet” that sums it up well… The author said, “Sometimes, you have to be okay with going to some boring meetings!” and I think that’s true. City Council meetings might not be exciting, but they are where real change happens.
PCAT sets priorities each year and we educate our councilors – especially those on the Sustainability and Transportation Committee – on the threats posed by climate change and the strategies in the One Climate Future plan. We get items on the agenda, work with neighbors to get the word out, build relationships with staff in the sustainability office, and advocate for change.
What’s it like to volunteer with PCAT?
People show up with their strengths and do what they can. Some people go to a lot of city council meetings, some write, some table at events. There’s a monthly meeting, a google email group, and subgroups work on things they are passionate about. For me, I’m a parent with two kids at home, so I stay in touch with people by phone or email.
Everyone is welcome and we always want new voices. If you don’t have a lot of time, just get involved a little bit. Even if that’s just getting our group emails and responding when something interests you or writing a letter to a councilor or a newspaper. Every little bit helps.
PCAT meets monthly on the fourth Tuesday, 6-7:30 p.m. Alternating every other month in person at Reiche and via zoom. FMI: PortlandClimateAction@gmail.com.
This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
