Chris Wiegard is a volunteer with the Richmond Chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby. His current role is to serve as State coordinator for the group, along with two other volunteers in the north and west of the state. He works to assist groups of fellow volunteers who are using the five levers of power to carry out the CCL mission of building political will for climate solutions- and more specifically to help move our revenue neutral carbon pricing bill through Congress.
By profession, Wiegard is the Assistant Director of Appomattox Regional Library in Hopewell Virginia. He makes no claim to technical expertise on climate science or climate economics, but accepts the established research on both. He became concerned about climate change in 1989 when Dr. James Hansen spoke to Congress on it. In the three decades since, he began to write letters to the editors of newspapers. Following his involvement with CCL, his focus changed from resisting and disputing fossil fuel propaganda to building support for solutions to the carbon emission crisis.
Wiegard is a political progressive who no longer uses that vocabulary on climate communications in order to remove partisanship from the discussion. He is an atheist who welcomes Christian stewardship in the climate struggle. His understanding that time is short leads him to reject discussion that is unproductive. He is all solutions, all the time.
He has written a few commentaries for the Richmond Times Dispatch and Virginian Pilot newspapers in recent years. Those interested can visit Richmond.com and pilotonline.com and search by his name.