The environmental movement today is eroded by a deep divide between urban and rural conceptions of the natural world. Varying understandings of land and stewardship have exacerbated these cultural and economic dislocations - GrizzlyCorps reorients focus onto educating the next generation of young climate leaders around the state by sending them to rural farm and forest communities across California to learn, collaborate with, and promote climate-smart approaches in environmental development. With regenerative agri-food systems and forest & fire resilience placed at its center, GrizzlyCorps helps create innovative, practical approaches that have been shown to promote biodiversity, carbon sequestration, responsible land management, conservation, and protection of working lands. GrizzlyCorps members conduct research, build the capacity for planning, and help implement these techniques. This knowledge is essential to the development of climate policy moving forward. GrizzlyCorps is an AmeriCorps program designed by Ken Alex of Project Climate and housed within the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment. Ken Alex, director of Project Climate, was a senior policy advisor to Governor Gerry Brown in California, the director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, and the chair of the Strategic Growth Council. Under his guidance, GrizzlyCorps was modeled after CivicSpark, a Governor’s Initiative AmeriCorps program founded in 2014. Our first GrizzlyCorps cohort launched September 2020.

The Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) is located within the University of California, Berkeley. Established in 2006, CLEE has made outstanding progress in advising and coalition building between government leaders, academics, legal practitioners, businesses, and non-profits. With its long history of groundbreaking research and policy development in critical issues of energy and environment in the environmental domain, CLEE combines the compassion and expertise of the Berkeley Law community with collaborations all around the world. Faculty and researchers guide climate policy both domestically and abroad, pioneering creative and innovative solutions to deeply complex environmental issues facing our society today. Through the publication of tedious policy reports and regularly curated legal scholarship, CLEE is a consistent and important figure in Legislative reform in California. 

The rise of new solutions -- electric vehicles, solar & wind energy, methane digesters, concrete that captures carbon, to name a few -- are unprecedented in its scope, but have fallen short in regards to policy implementation and application.  Project Climate is spearheaded by GrizzlyCorps' own Ken Alex, and focuses on moving these promising climate solutions quickly to policy and scale. Working with partners in government, NGOs, business in California, and around the world, Project Climate seeks to define the urgency of the climate crisis while connecting resources around 8 main areas: 1. Methane, 2. Low Hydrocarbon Plastics Standard, 3. Procurement, 4. Drawdown Marin, 5. Trump Environmental rollbacks, 6. Environmental Enhancements, 7. Climate Center at Lake Tahoe, and 8. Climate Corporate Risk Disclosure. Because each climate solution faces its own set of barriers and hurdles to large scale adoption, each requires its own plan -- Project Climate legitimizes these solutions.

Part of a larger initiative within California Volunteers, the Civic Action Fellowship partners California universities to create and promote civic engagement amongst students. The fellowship is is represented by the Office of the Governor and seeks to build the next generation of civic leaders by connecting college students with solutions to some of the most pressing issues of our time, while additionally giving them a scholarship to cover student loans. This is done in 3 main ways: 1. Students who dedicate time to public service will receive financial support to obtain a college degree for success in career and in life, 2. Ensure a new cohort of California citizens committed to addressing public concerns and a life of public engagement, and 3. Address state and local priority challenges by establishing a new model for partnership between the State of California and those universities dedicated to civic engagement. Some areas covered include environmental stewardship, education, economic opportunity, and healthy futures.