Tales from the District of Columbia

Hello friends,


Okay, so I wanted to give you a breakdown of what went down at the ol' White House.

Last week I got an email from the White House inviting me to attend a ceremony celebrating the passage of a large new piece of legislation called the Inflation Reduction Act. Don’t let the name fool you, it was basically the same legislation that Biden introduced as the Build Back Better bill last year that died in the senate because one of the democratic senators *cough*  *Joe Manchin* *cough* is a very literal coal baron millionaire and he didn’t want to pass something that would hurt his finances. Somehow they got him on board (maybe he didn't want his legacy to be accidentally leading his political party to the slaughter in the midterms because he couldn't take the smallest of personal financial hits. 

How did I get the invite? I'm not actually sure. Somebody at the White House somehow took note of Climate Town (possibly they wrote my name down in a find-him-and-kill-him file or something), but when it came time to invite climate-relevant media creators to the White House, my name got picked and they invited a group of about 20 of us to Washington. They paid for my train ticket down and back, so I rode down on Monday night and stayed with my friends in D.C.! That sentence didn't need an exclamation point, but I don't know whether to use another period after D.C. (maybe it's D.C..) so if you know, please tell me in the comments. 

On Tuesday morning I woke up and walked to the White House gate, got a rapid covid test, passed, and was allowed in. I met a handful of other video creators - all very cool and nice and most importantly, analog. They took us to the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing and we met with the White House Chief of Staff, the Climate Advisor, the Vice President, and of course the big dog himself, President Joe Biden. Did he have his aviator sunglasses with him? You bet your ass he did. He told us thanks for making videos about climate change and I wondered silently to myself if he watched any of mine because on numerous occasions, I’ve said fairly rude things about him and his administration's reluctance to take climate change seriously. Somehow, I don’t think he has gotten around to watching much Climate Town, but it was nice to be invited.



The basic reason we were called in was to let us know that the Biden administration values alternative media like us and they wanted to tell us how proud they were about the Inflation Reduction Act and that they wouldn't hate it if we wanted to ... I don't know ... tell people what it is and what it does. Apparently it means more coming from real people than it does through a press release from the white house. Also some of the people in the room (not me but some other people) had a larger reach than the White House press secretary. Basically they wanted to impress upon us that they had high hopes for the IRA, and that it always helps when people know what it is. Personally, I think the Inflation Reduction Act is a really excellent start for tackling climate change. It’s being paid for by taxing gigantic corporations who pay like 0% in taxes through various loopholes, so it’s not coming out of our pockets or anything, and I’m curious to see whether they’re able to implement it effectively. If it works, it will be huge. I have every reason to believe it will work pretty well but not perfectly for obvious reasons. 

We gathered around for a picture which I will send whenever the photographer sends it to me, then he asked us each where we were from so he could riff on our hometowns. It was light hearted and pretty fun, though ultimately they weren't taking any feedback or suggestions. I wanted to ask what needed to happen for them to declare a climate emergency, but he only took one question, and it wasn't mine.

Did I shake his hand? Oh yeah, baby. 

Do I feel any differently about the administration than I did a few weeks ago? No, not really. I still have a lot of problems with the way they operate, but it was cool to be in the White House for starting a YouTube channel. And I really really don't want to undersell the Inflation Reduction Act. It has the potential to be a real turning point.

We were ushered out to the White House lawn and listened to several speakers whose average age had to be pushing 90, Joe Biden closed the show with some classic Joe lines, and that was it. I gawked at a bunch of senators from about 15 feet away, got a few napkins as souvenirs for my mom, and walked less than a block before I stumbled across a Cheesecake Factory restaurant. I ordered an espresso martini and pondered what a strange day I just had. I went to dinner with all the other video creators, then caught the 5:55am train back home so I could get back to work on Climate Town. 

It kinda boils down to this: I would never have had the capacity to make the videos that got Climate Town on the radar of someone at the White House if it weren't for all of your support on Patreon. I really really appreciate the push you give me to make this stuff. We've got some cool shit coming soon.

All my love and respect,


Rollie