- Welcome to "Inland Edition," where this season we're having conversations with people who represent nonprofit organizations working to make the Inland Empire a better place.

My name's Joe Richardson.

I'm a local attorney, Inland Empire resident and your host.

And today, we're going to chat with Matt Abularach-Macias, the deputy campaigns director of Envirovoters.

Envirovoters has a vision, [light background music] to solve the climate crisis while fostering a just and sustainable democracy and economy.

They organize and educate voters.

They elect and train leaders who will fight to protect our land, water, and air; and hold lawmakers accountable to policy change.

Originally focused in San Bernardino and Riverside, Matt has expanded this work to statewide organizing efforts.

He graduated from UCLA with a degree in Chicano studies and got his start in the political world as a regional field director on the successful campaign to elect Pete Aguilar to the United States Congress.

Let's meet him now and learn more about how Envirovoters is affecting our community.

[soft piano music] ♪ [gentle upbeat music] ♪ ♪ ♪ - [Joe] So, I'm glad to welcome Matt Abularach-Macias.

- [Matt] Yes!

- From Envirovoters.

How you doin'?

- I'm good.

How are you?

- Thank you so much for bein' here, here on "Inland Edition."

And, I'm always excited about all of our interviews, but this was really talkin' to me big time.

So, I'm excited to get your thoughts and for you to share about your organization.

So, let's build the house a little bit.

Let's talk a little bit about how, you know, and just in your journey you came across what ends up being, you know, just a pretty purpose-driven gig and organization.

But, talk about your background some.

- Yeah.

So, actually I came to California Envirovoters by accident.

- [Joe] Okay.

- It wasn't something that I ever thought when I was in college, "oh, I want to go work for an environmental organization.

This is the issue that I really care about."

This is where my life's taking me.

I grew up out here in the Inland Empire, and then I went to UCLA.

And after graduating from UCLA, I didn't know where I was going.

I just knew that I wanted to do something to fight racial justice, to fight for economic justice- - Right.

- Fight for other social justice issues.

I'm part of the LGBTQ+ community, so that's also very important to me.

And, I knew that the Inland Empire as a region was changing.

It was about 2013, 2014.

There's a lot of change happening demographically, politically, and I knew that I wanted to be part of that change.

I wanted to give back to my community and really like, you know, take the Inland Empire into a future that I could be proud of.

- Sure.

- Growing up, I could say honestly, I wasn't proud of being from the IE.

I was actually kind of embarrassed or ashamed to say, "oh, I'm from the IE."

And then after graduating, realized "Well, then?

It's my responsibility to do something about it."

And so, after graduating, I worked on Congressman Pete Aguilar's campaign.

- [Joe] That's right, okay.

- I was-?

Yeah!

I love Pete.

- Yeah.

- And, politically I knew I was politically inclined; was very interested in politics.

And after the campaign, Pete actually recommended this organization, which was then called the California League of Conservation Voters to me, because they supported him in his campaign.

And they do environmental protection, but they also do politics.

And so, I got the job.

And, when I started working at California League of Conservation Voters, at first I wasn't sure if it was the right organization for me.

But, as I started working on issues of fighting for clean air, clean water, but then recognizing the systems of oppression that have created racial injustice, that have created economic injustice, that have created social injustice, were part of a structure, infrastructure, that was also exacerbating and creating the climate crisis.

And, I recognized the climate crisis is a issue that is the biggest issue of our time.

Our generation has to figure this out.

If not, there is no future for Californians.

There's no future for the Inland Empire.

And so, for me, I realized, "Oh, you know?

The same people that I'm fighting "on these other issues are the same people "that are fighting against, "or who've created this climate crisis.

"And so, if I really want to fight for racial justice "and economic justice, the best pathway to do so is to fight for climate justice."

And so, when I really recognized that and I was doing organizing on the ground and in the community, I started to recognize that, "Oh, I am an environmentalist.

"That what I'm fighting for is not, you know, to hug a tree or to protect this, like, desert tortoise.

Which is important, right?

We're all part of an ecosystem, but what I'm really fighting is for people and for humanity.

And so, that's how I've found my way to be at California Enviromental Voters.

I've been here going on nine years, and I'm just really proud of the work that we're doing to ensure that California has a climate-just future.

That people are gonna have clean air.

They're gonna have clean water, and healthy environment to live in.

- How long have you been around?

- The organization is actually 50 years old.

So, first founded in 1973.

- [Joe] No idea!

(chuckles) - Yeah, you know?

I would-- Before 2014, I wouldn't have told you the organization existed, either.

- [Joe] Right.

- Right?

And, for a long time it was, you know, the best kept secret in California for the environmental movement.

California is known as an environmental state.

You know, we're known as, you know, a state that's looking to further environmental protection; go further than even what national standards are for clean air, et cetera.

And, I still don't know, like, "Well, how does that happen?"

Well?

It takes political courage and political will, and political organizing to make that possible.

Things don't happen by accident.

California Environmental Voters has always been the organization working to elect people to our state legislature, to Congress, who are gonna prioritize the environment, who are going to pass good environmental protection and climate justice legislation.

- So, tell me about where we are in the discussion.

By that I mean, you know, for a long time, you know, as I'm growing up in the '80s or whatever else- not to date myself, 'cause hopefully I look younger than I-?

You know-- But, for a long time there's this big discussion about whether or not we got a climate problem at all.

Do you still find that, that is a battle for some people?

It's one thing to say "This is the way we need to deal with the true environmental issues that there are."

But are you still coming across, or in your experience, is part of what you do actually still educating climate deniers?

- Actually, in California, I don't think that's the battle we're fighting anymore.

- [Joe] That's good.

- We don't have climate deniers.

What we have are "climate delayers."

- Right.

Ah!

- People who know climate-- the climate change, climate crisis is a problem.

- Right.

- But, they don't want to let go of fossil fuels.

- Right?

Sure.

- And so, they're doing what they can politically to cling on to, you know, oil, to cling on to fossil gas to make sure-- Which is methane, right?

To make sure that those corporations, those corporate polluters, still are protecting their profit margins rather than protecting people in our environment.

And so, in California, the battle isn't to say, "Oh, is this real or not?"

But, it's to say, "What's the pathway to get to a climate resilient, climate-just future?"

And, the delayers are trying to slow down any progress California is making.

And so, a lot of our work is to stop those-- a lot of those elected officials who receive funding from, you know, Big Oil, who receive funding from fossil gas to-- because they wanna protect them rather than protect people and build the political will within Sacramento and D.C.- we do some work there, as well- to pass good climate legislation.

- So, it was interesting looking at you guys' mission, and I'm gonna read a little bit of it.

I want you to kind of jump into it and tell me about the "legs of the monster."

You know what I mean?

As it were, you know?

- Cool.

Yeah, of course.

- "Vision; fighting to solve the climate crisis "and advance justice.

"Vision is to solve the climate crisis, "build resilient, healthy, thriving communities, and create a democracy and an economy."

So, you're not just talkin' about an environment!

- Right.

- But, "a democracy and an economy that's just and sustainable for all."

Tell me about the-?

- The pillars?

- Yeah!

The legs of this.

It sounds like you got a lot going on and there are a lot of ways that you do it.

- We do.

If I was going to summarize it, this is the best way I would explain it to you.

We know the solutions to the climate crisis.

We know what we have to do and we have the technology and resources to be able to do it.

California itself is a huge economy.

There's more than enough here to figure it out and we have the leadership who cares.

And, what we know is we have the voters who care.

If you ask voters in a poll how much they care about the environment, how much they care about solving the climate crisis, how much they want leaders to focus on this, we get really high results, like, in the 70s.

70% of Californians care about this in a very important way.

But, what we lack is the political will.

- Mm hm.

- And so, our job is to build the political will to solve the climate crisis.

And, we do so by working in elections.

We elect climate justice leaders to the state legislature, to Congress, also to local office.

We also then hold them accountable to passing bold climate solutions.

For example, we have a team in Sacramento that's working with our state legislature to ensure that the bills that are gonna help advance climate justice are moving forward.

And then, we also have teams across the state who are working in communities to build partnerships and help local leaders understand what it's gonna take to move us into a climate resilient future.

- I have a confession to make.

- [Matt] Yes?

- You know, I run a law practice most of the time.

It's actually racial and economic justice.

And, my paralegal, who's smarter than I am, and she'll say, "Joe, we've got, "you know, X or Y or Z you know, that we have to do."

And, my first question is always- because I'm putting out fires- I've got 80 cases.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- My first question is, "How much time do I have?"

- [Matt] Mm hm.

(Joe laughs) - Now, that ignores the notion that really, ideally, I'd have been on this before.

You know what I mean?

And, everything's important.

And, sometimes, you can't avoid putting out fires.

But, as it pertains to environmental issues- even though we should've been doing all this yesterday- - Right.

- How much time do we have?

- That's a really tough question to answer, because the honest answer is the answer I don't want to share.

- [Joe] Right.

- Which is, "We're out of time."

- [Joe] Right, yeah.

- If you look at the IPPC report- that is the global kind of report that shares, like, where we're at with climate change- what a global temperature's rising is, and there's no more stopping climate change.

It's here.

- Right.

- What we can do, though, and the reason why I'm still in this work and what I fight for is, we can prevent the worst from happening.

- Mm hm.

- We know that global temperatures have exceeded the 1.5 degrees Celsius- that's the global standard that we're fighting to stay under- in this last year for the first time.

- Wow.

- It's not consistent, but we're already hitting that mark.

And, if we wanna stop the worst climate catastrophes from happening or continuing to happen, like extreme wildfires, like the flooding that we've been seeing, the unpredictable weather patterns, stronger than ever hurricanes that are just decimating communities, which are all impacts of climate change, then we need to act and act now.

And, we need our leaders to take it serious and as urgent as it is.

And, unfortunately, we're still not seeing that same sense of urgency from our leadership.

- So, maybe that connects to the next question, and you can confirm it for me.

What do you see as your biggest challenges in what you're doing?

- The biggest challenge, honestly, is fighting the biggest corporations in the world who have all the resources at their disposal, who are setting propaganda and messaging to create fear in voters, to create fear in residents of California.

That any kind of change to our lifestyles, our livelihoods, is a negative one.

We can overcome that and we have to overcome that and say, actually there's a better pathway for California.

And, fighting the climate crisis, adapting to climate change is actually gonna create more economic opportunity.

It's gonna create a healthier future for everybody.

And, that is the future worth fighting for.

Not staying, you know, stuck or married to our gas-powered vehicles or, you know, our gas stoves.

Which, you know, again, people are touchy and sensitive about those things!

(Joe chuckles) And, I understand!

I get it.

Because there's also a cost, a financial cost, right?

And so, the part that our movement has to help be part of is the solutions to ensuring that there isn't increased financial burden on those who are already struggling to get by.

But, in the long run, I'm a believer that actually going into a clean energy future is a more financially secure and safe one and gonna be more affordable in the long run and there's data to prove that.

- [Joe] Right.

- So, for me, the biggest hurdle that we have to overcome is the political will to make change.

- Right.

- People don't like change; they're afraid of it.

But I guarantee that if we do this right, we're gonna have a more prosperous future for everyone that's more just and a healthier future for everyone.

And, that's a future worth fighting for.

- I have a theory.

- [Matt] Okay!

(Joe laughs) - And, sometimes, I get in trouble with my theories, but I feel pretty safe about this one.

And, you can help me verify this.

I've always believed that any negative trend, whatever it might be, to the general, to the specific, disproportionately affects those that are already behind.

- Mm hm.

- So, it's interesting to me how we are talking about-- I loved when we, whenever it happened, the idea that we made the shift to calling this a justice issue.

- Right.

- Because it is a justice issue.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Because who do the missions affect?

Who do the big, you know, the big factories are often in neighborhoods that are disproportionately people of color.

- Right.

- And, everything.

So, it's another example to my mind of an urgency that comes from the fact that, "Whoa!

This is really stepping on folks that are already struggling.

And so, it perpetuates this continuation of worse health outcomes.

Add the economic issues.

And so, you need more fiscally dealing with health issues that you don't have necessarily- from a job justice standpoint- if you don't have jobs with medical insurance and things like that.

It's just a self-perpetuating thing.

Talk about that in the context of the environment.

- I mean, Black, Latino, indigenous communities of color and other communities of color, I should say, have long already been facing the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

As you mentioned in the Inland Empire, for example, we have a proliferation of warehouses, and with warehouses comes a lot of diesel truck traffic.

And, that truck traffic is bringing a lot of pollution that is giving kids asthma, giving families cancer.

And, it's something that's already hurting a lot of low-income and communities of color.

And, that is something that is not new.

You know the history of redlining and environmental racism.

And, we see that happening still to this day.

But it's also, like, happening at a global scale.

If you think about the refugee crisis that's happening with migrants at the border, that is something that's being driven by climate change.

There's economic reasons why they can no longer live in the places that they're from and they're making the choice to take the risk and try to come to the United States for a better life.

And, that's gonna continue to happen tenfold in the years to come.

Because as climate change makes water more scarce, farming and agriculture more difficult, yielding lower results, people are gonna be hungrier.

There's gonna be fights over resources, and it's gonna drive a lot more migration globally.

And so, a lot of these communities, not just here in California and the Inland Empire, but globally, are already dealing with these consequences.

And, unless we do more to address the crisis, it's only gonna get worse.

- What-?

Are there any specific programs that you guys carry out or that you connect with that you do as part of your job, as your organization that you are particularly proud of?

I'm sure you're proud of all the work you do, but tell me something that really sticks out.

- So, one of the big things that we do each year is called our scorecard.

We usually release it early in the year; January, February.

And, what it does is it rates all of our legislators on how they voted on environmental legislation.

And, (ahem) why that's important is because, so many times we elect people to go to Sacramento, make decisions on our behalf, hoping that they're making the best decisions.

But, who's watching what they're actually doing?

And, letting the voters know "This is how your legislator's performing on these issues that you care about."

Well, that's what our scorecard does.

It shows voters, "This is your legislator.

This is how they performed on the environment."

And if they're doing great, great.

Congratulate them.

If they didn't do so great, hey, maybe you should talk to them because you care about the environment and you want them to care about the environment the way that you do and make their votes consistent with that.

So, our scorecard comes out each year.

I love that.

The other big program that we have that I'm super excited about is what we call our Ambassador Program.

What we do is we train about 10 to 15 young folks in our communities.

It's based here in the Inland Empire.

We also have a cohort that's based in the Central Valley.

We train them on how to organize, what's happening in politics, what's happening in their communities with regard to environmental injustice and climate change.

And then, they work together, design a campaign so that they can fight and have their voice heard as young people for what they wanna see happen.

And, they have a campaign called "WE CAN: Water Equity, Clean Air Now", that they're fighting to get youth advisory councils at each of their county levels, so that they can have a voice in the policy that our leaders are making locally.

- Tell me about our causes for optimism.

Sometimes, you know, in what we do in our work from day to day, you're so busy trying to slay dragons, and- - Yeah!

- And, make progress on things.

For all of the things that you made progress on, there are other things that maybe you didn't or there's always something to do, particularly once you try to-- once you know what your work is and your calling related to that, you find that, that work is everywhere.

Right?

- Mm hm.

- But, I also think this is a good exercise because it allows you to step away from a little bit, from your day to day, even though this is part of it, to find that optimism in what it is that you're talking about and what it is that you're doing.

And, how illuminating it is for people like me and us to understand that there's this organization that's doing this.

So, give us some causes for optimism.

- Yeah.

Well, there's several things that make me optimistic in the work we're doing that I really-- that drive me every day.

Because how do you get up in the morning without having a sense of hope?

And so, for me, first and foremost is young people.

Like I mentioned to you earlier, young people care so deeply about climate action and solving the climate crisis.

And, they are fighting day in/day out.

You see young people organizing huge marches, strikes, getting national, global attention for their fight for their future and all of our futures.

So, seeing the organizing and power building that young people are doing is one of the best things that I think that I'm like, "Okay.

"Well?

If they're doing it, I'm doing it, too.

Right?

I'm in it with them."

The second thing is, knowing that we can do hard things.

We can pass tough legislation that is gonna have a positive impact on people immediately.

For example, a couple years ago we passed a piece of legislation that created health buffer zones between where oil and gas drilling was happening and where people live, work and play.

And, that's gonna actually be on the ballot as a referendum in November.

- Wow.

- But, knowing that once that bill's passed, which it took a long time; like, five-six years for us to get that actually passed from the legislature.

And once it's implemented, people are no longer gonna have the worst health impacts from having oil drilling in their backyards.

And, that kind of change where you can make change in people's lives like that, gives me a lot of hope and optimism.

- Older folks- - [Matt] Mm hm?

- in my demographic?

- Mm hm?

- We're scared to death.

You said it yourself; we don't wanna change anything.

What are some of the things that, you know, "I've got a good gas-burning car "and, you know, it's fine.

And, when it doesn't run, I can always push it!"

I had something happen where someone couldn't get up to pulling their Tesla because there was low clearance, you know, at this place.

This is a perfect example of, you know, are we really ready to change?

The guy's car sat there for three days!

Put us at ease, if you can, about the idea of how will we do some of the things when we change and become more environmentally conscious; the things that people are so unwilling or reticent to give away, or to let go of.

How are we gonna do some of these things?

You know, talk to us old fogies!

Keepin' it real, right?

You know, hey!

(Matt laughs) You know, it is what it is!

That are just scared to death of change, even though in areas where we've embraced change, we're always better for it.

- Yeah.

I think it's stuff that you already are probably familiar with.

- [Joe] Right.

- You know, renewable energy is sourced from a lot of different places, but the two cheapest and fastest growing forms of renewable energy are solar and wind.

And, it's expanding those and getting those onto our grid.

Offshore wind is something that California's currently looking to invest in in a big way.

And then, also, there's gonna be some geothermal, some, you know, other mix of solutions; battery storage.

But, things that a lot of the big companies and energy providers, they're already thinking about.

They have plans for how to get there.

- Right.

- The individual change, some of the, you know, your individual cars and all of that?

That is gonna also get some support.

There's going to be some more subsidies for people to convert to electric vehicles if they want.

But, even then, there's more that we have to do to make public transportation and transit more of an option.

Make our cities more walkable, make them more bikeable, get people out of cars, 'cause cars can't be the only solution, either.

I recognize that, you know, living in the Inland Empire, a lot of people have to and need it because the public transit here is not good enough to just get around yet.

But, I say "yet".

We'll get there.

We need to get the infrastructure changes, so that it's easy for people.

It's not a-- You know?

Oftentimes we think, "Oh, we have unlimited choices."

No, actually there is a limitation of choices- - Right.

- That we have.

It's getting that limitation of choices, the clean energy choices.

- Right.

And interestingly, when you come to cars and biking, and I was on the planning commission in Redlands and we passed a lot of things that, hopefully, would go along with making us more walkable and seeing it that way.

This change that we're asking for actually is something that's good for your health.

- Absolutely!

(Joe laughs) There is so many other benefits, right?

Like to get out of your vehicle, to transition to clean energy, there's so many other benefits, mainly health benefits that I think are so important for our communities.

- How does somebody that's watching this that's, like, "Oh my God, you know?"

Like the light came on.

You know, the sun came out and the-?

You know, the music went up an octave in the background.

Somehow, you know, maybe somebody's been saying it forever, but they got it from you.

How do they follow up and get more information and get involved?

- The best way to stay engaged in what California Environmental Voters is doing is to follow us on our social media, our social channels.

Sign up, go to envirovoters.org Sign up and be a member.

You can sign up our email list.

We send regular communication to update our members on what's happening in California politics, what's happening on environmental policy, what's happening locally.

We also put out a lot of content that's educational on our social channels through Instagram, Twitter, X.

You know?

Whatever it is now!

Yeah.

(Joe laughs) But, you know, we're on all of them, LinkedIn?

But, you can follow us there and keep up with what we're doing.

And, also, just also as a resource.

Get educated and learn what's actually happening in environmental politics in California.

- Matt Abularach-Macias, thank you so much for comin' on.

Thank you for what you do, and thanks for being with us on "Inland Edition."

- Thank you.

I really appreciate this platform.

It's so important to share the work that we're doing and I really appreciate how inquisitive and curious you've been to really share with the public this important issue.

- Yeah.

Well, you are more than welcome.

Thank you, again.

And, we thank you guys for joining us.

You know, we have a wonderful opportunity here in the Inland Empire to talk about great organizations that are helping us change for the better.

This is another one of those shows and another one of those opportunities.

So, you can check out this show and other shows on YouTube.

Meanwhile, make sure that you catch us the next time as we continue to show great organizations making great change here in our Inland Empire area.

And, we'll do it one conversation at a time.

Until next time, Joe Richardson here for "Inland Edition."

Thanks for coming.

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