Last week, we finished an inspiring three-day training for our Climate Reality Leadership Corps. After meeting so many remarkable people and experiencing their passion, I couldn't be more excited about what lies ahead. Roughly a thousand dedicated volunteers added to their skill sets and have returned home better trained and more engaged than ever to lead the fight to solve the climate crisis.

At the training, our Chairman, Al Gore spoke about the overwhelming evidence of climate change, and how it is "loading the dice" in favor of extreme and destructive weather. We learned about the well-funded denial machine that deliberately misleads the public about this reality, and how to fight back with the truth.

We also heard some valuable tips on how to bring climate change into our everyday conversation. This may sound simple, but we have no chance of stopping the climate crisis if we aren't even talking about it. Bringing climate reality into our conversations is an important step on the way to taking action.

Most of all, this training gave us the opportunity to learn from each other. In an incredible session led by Andy Goodman, we learned how to tell powerful stories about our lives and experiences, as well as the importance of storytelling in advancing our advocacy efforts. The Climate Leaders are teachers, doctors, military veterans, business professionals, and from countless other backgrounds. They live across the United States and came here from Indonesia to South Africa. Each of them is unique, and all of them will enrich and strengthen the climate movement.

That's why the stories they tell and the actions they take will be as diverse as the Climate Leaders themselves. They'll begin by educating others about the crisis and speaking to their peers. Many of the Climate Leaders made clear that their communities are anxious for action, not just talk. So many of them will also include local actions and initiatives in their conversations. And they will appeal to their elected officials and governments for meaningful and immediate action.

This is a critically important time. The impacts of climate change are more visible, more alarming and more severe than ever before. But I'm thrilled that a thousand new Climate Leaders are ready to meet this challenge and help us move toward solutions.