The Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Its mission is to build and mobilize a powerful grassroots movement in this unique region that surrounds our nation’s capital to call for state, national and international policies that will put us on a path to climate stability.

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network was officially launched on July 1, 2002 with a seed grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. For more than a year prior to that date, director Mike Tidwell was organizing and advocating around global warming issues in the Maryland/Virginia/DC region. Principle among these early activities was the conversion of Mike’s home almost entirely to renewable energy and the initiation of Saturday open houses every other month. These clean energy open houses drew early supporters to the cause and helped launch CCAN’s email/networking database.

Since its inception, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network has been central to every climate and clean energy victory in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Working with a large and growing network of allies, the group has helped pass Clean Cars bills in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Through ligitation, CCAN has helped reduce mercury pollution from a coal plant in Wise County by 94 percent. And it has helped pass one of the strongest statewide carbon caps in the country in Maryland.