We’re All in This Together
A Life Dedicated to Climate Solutions
By Peter Dugas
Climate advocacy has lost one of its best. Sarah Braik, longtime Portland Chapter Co-Chair, passed away this summer after a long battle with cancer. For over a decade, Sarah was the foundation of our active Citizens Climate Lobby in Portland. She organized monthly meetings, coached new members, and brought more voices to ask for robust climate solutions from the highest levels of policymaking.
I first got to know Sarah in the summer of 2018 when I attended my first CCL meeting. I was floored by how efficient and respectful the organization was about the precious hours volunteers were giving. Sarah immediately connected with me and my wife for coffee, got to know us and our interests and skills, and explored how we could help locally build support for ambitious national and international climate policies.
Building Community for a Safer Future
After many years of working with like-minded progressive groups, I was impressed that CCL was going out of their way to expand the conversation. They actively reached out to moderates and conservatives who we needed in the conversation given the current make-up of Congress. Sarah’s grounded faith in humanity helped her break out from common restrictions on who could advocate for a safer future.
Sarah was incredibly unique and her climate advocacy was only one facet of her dedication and tenacity. In some ways, her personal story epitomizes the evolution so many of us have in our advocacy. Her vast reading made her increasingly concerned about climate decades ago, so she did all she could to reduce her personal culpability. She renounced all the major sources of greenhouse gas: driving, eating meat and dairy, delivery, air travel, and probably a lot more. I’ve never met anyone who scored better on a personal carbon calculator.
And yet, Sarah knew that personal action was never going to be enough to move us to a safer future. So, she dedicated countless hours to tirelessly advocate for robust climate policy and was an incredibly dependable organizer and advocate.
We at the Portland Chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby will miss her terribly. Her example will forever inspire us to do all we can to, as Citizens Climate Lobby’s mission states, build the political will for a livable world.
Be part of the solution!
Join Citizens Climate Lobby at cclusa.org/join. Or join us at an upcoming CCL Portland Chapter meeting at 9 a.m. on the second Saturday of each month. Next meetings are August 8th and September 12th at the Portland Media Center, 516 Congress Street or online.
