Category Archives: All

Contains all blog posts to this site that aren’t on static pages

Hot Off the Wire — 9/18/2020

COVID Resources

Trump vs. Masks:
Attacks on CDC, Doctors & Scientists Undermine a “Pillar of Pandemic Control” — DemocracyNow!

“They are incredibly important,” says Dr. Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco

COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)

Opinion

When Good People Don’t Act, Evil Reigns — The New York Times
Stop thinking that the horrors of the world will simply work themselves out.

Out With Predatory Capitalism, In With a “Life Economy” — Yes! Magazine

Fires Prove the Climate Catastrophe Is a Constitutional Crisis Too — The Nation
The Electoral College and the Senate both marginalize states that are the hardest hit by climate change.

Solutions

REI’s Opt to Act Weekly Calendar / Checklist

Week 41: Skip the dryer. Hang dry your laundry this week. 
Take part: Sept. 6–12, 2020

Please sign up for the Clallam Conservation District newsletter
so that you can participate in a survey
that will help direct our long-range plan

The survey is being modeled after one that was created by the
Whatcom Conservation District
Thank You for your interest in conservation

Regional Actions

Webinar #2 of a 4-Part Webinar Series
Chehalis:
From the Headwaters to the Sea
Wednesday, September 23, 2020
7:00–8:00 pm, PT

National Actions

Eileen Flanagan
Author, Speaker, Activist

I’m offering my first
pre-recorded online course.

Get more information

Course Curriculum

Cruises cannot be permitted to set sail amidst a pandemic. Will you sign the petition calling on the CDC to extend its No Sail Order? — Stand.earth

Stronger than Storms: Climate and Just Recovery Forum — 350.org
Sep 30, 2020 05:00 PM

The Thrive Agend is the bold plan we need for a just COVID-10 recovery
Message your member of Congress in support of the Thrive Resolution today!

Local/Regional News

Weekly Announcements

River Run Farm | Early Fall newsletter

National/International News

Fossil Fuel Research Library

Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration — ProPublica

The Amazon Rainforest Is Burning Again.
Join Forces to Call for an #AmazonCeaseFire!

Amazon: commit to break up with fossil fuels — Greenpeace

As the Arctic thaws, Indigenous Alaskans demand a voice in climate change research — American Association for the Advancement of Science

Fielder Outlines Indigenous Wildfire Plan — SF Weekly
State Senate candidate Jackie Fielder wants California’s Indigenous tribes to play a much larger role in wildfire prevention, as they did before colonization.

Decolonizing Environmentalism — Yes! Magazine

Native Defenders Are Trying to Protect the Arctic Refuge—
And Their Way of Life — Mother Jones
Gwich’in elder Sarah James describes her efforts to fight drilling.

Dams Alter Nutrient Flows to Coasts
New models indicate how dams worldwide influence the mix of nutrients in river water reaching the ocean. As more dams are built, changing nutrient loads may adversely affect coastal ecosystems.

New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States — ProPublica

What’s Up with Banking and Climate
The Latest News
The New York Times

A season of climate-fueled disasters

also

It’s Not Just the West.
These Places Are Also on Fire

Sierra Club Forum on the Environmental Law Program

Climate in Politics

Tell the Commission on Presidential Debates: Put climate change front
and center for Presidential Debates — Climate Hawks Vote

Boosting your local electoral work — 350 Action

Inspiration

Transmutation of Mind and Heart:
Meanderings from a Beach Walk

“This is a call for deep awakening and for a
transmutation of the mind and heart.”

By Jodi Riverstone | September 2020

Category:
Burning Worlds

BOOKS for our time

Nan Bray is an oceanographer and climate scientist
who has farmed superfine merinos near Oatlands since 2000
  1. Carbon dioxide:
    Nature’s tiny solar panels
  2. Take a deep breath
  3. Galileo Fixes Everything
  4. A Silver Lining
  5. If You Don’t Like the Heat,
    Get Out of the Kitchen
  6. Rainfall, Evaporation and Desertification
  7. Runoff and Water Supplies
  8. Of Drought and Flooding Rains
  9. A Sunburnt Country

Note to Yarns from the Farm readers: This is the final regular article in a series on climate change that I’m writing for our local monthly newsletter, the Southern Midlands Regional News (SMRN). There will be a recap article in the next issue, that reviews the whole series. Previous articles can be found in the preceding Yarns from the Farm. The image above was taken after a major fire went through my property in January 2016. And a note to my non-Australian readership: this title and the previous one are taken from a much-loved poem, My Country, written by Australian Dorothea Mackellar at the age of 19, at the turn of the last century.

Transmutation of Mind and Heart

Meanderings from a Beach Walk

By Jodi Riverstone | September 2020

There’s something about spending time present near the ocean that slows the body down to be closer in rhythm with the tide.  A welcome and overdue respite from what has been a trying season.  I relished long walks on the beach the two days I was there last weekend.  The surf line at Kalaloch is strewn with the cast-off exoskeletons of countless Dungeness crabs.  Evidence of a process of shedding of that which is growing too small to occupy and an entry into a period of vulnerability as the hard protective, well-defined external self is released so that the life within can grow into a larger existence of itself.  Crabs do what crabs do. 

As I reflect on the past year that is 2020 thus far and the profound season of change, the global, social and political realities that are present and gravely concerning for us all, I cannot help but see the human species as also in a place of needing to realize the existential “shedding event” we too have already entered.  The profound shift in our lives as we know and live it since the beginning of COVID-19 has certainly been a resounding wake-up call.  Many heard it and have already responded….others side step by evoking blame, decrying “false information” and citing their rights to live as they choose as the fundamental “American Way” and therefore sacrosanct. 

There is a beauty in the synchronicity of the crabs’ collective shed, timed so that all within the species cast their raiments at once.  Orchestrated in time with the right combination of tide, current, nutrient flow and perhaps the pull of the moon…  it may also indicate a group consciousness that our intellects have not yet identified.  For me the metaphorical act of surrender is profound and pertinent for us especially now.  The conscious choice for believing in and acting in hope, for transmuting what may initially appear as a death process into one of life expansion seems the only life-affirming and sustaining choice we have. 

I do believe that humankind is at the moment in which the need to respond to the call to shed and change is here.  Can we as a collective species answer that call?  Unlike the crab, we are not just being asked to shed so that we can expand into a larger copy of our former selves.  We are being asked to grow ourselves as conscious beings in response to the mounting pressures the planet is now facing and to respond in life-affirming ways that support the  health and vitality of not only ourselves, not just humanity, but of all life…to give honor and respect for the life force within each in the multitudinous ways in which it is so miraculously expressed.  This is a call for deep awakening and for a transmutation of the mind and heart.

To transmute: change in form, nature or substance.  “The quest to transmute lead into gold,”states the Oxford Dictionary.  To change one’s mind or have a change of heart requires first the willingness to go there…to let down one’s guard, to risk and trust that what lies beyond what one currently knows or accepts as “truth” might just be the greatest gift we can give not only ourselves but to everyone and everything we encounter and beyond.  First it seems we need to be aware of the lens through which we view our reality.   Antoine de Saint Exupéry in The Little Prince wrote, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”   The resonance of that Truth rings in me like a bell.   It is strangely and beautifully reflected in early neonatal development as the forming of what will be the infant’s head, which with all its complexity of cerebral cortex and sensory components does not separate from the heart until at week three, when the eyes begin to form.  It would seem that the mind and the heart need each other….so that we can “see” rightly.

The opportunities to shift our “inner vision” and thus shed our former smaller selves can begin with seemingly small but significant acts of personal bravery.  Life-affirming choices can start by expanding your capacity to see the other just as you…with their needs to be loved, to feel safe, to be respected beyond the basic requirements for survival.  To have a place in the world.  To be . . . .  All people and all life have a place.  Can we humble ourselves to allow for that?  It seems to me we are in urgent need of doing so.  Can we begin to believe that what we do in our seemingly small lives matters?  We must.  Each of our lives holds significance and each belief, each attitude, each choice makes a difference…and the first one that it makes a difference for is you.  It ripples out from there. 

As a write this, the air outside is yellow-brown with smoke from fires wafting on air currents from Oregon and California–perhaps another of the “new normals” that is a by-product of our global peril.   We do not know what our future lifetimes will contain.  We do not know what we individually or collectively can accomplish or what end can be achieved.  What seems important is that we stay open…of mind and heart.  That is where the juice is.  Then activate the resources of hope within ourselves.   Move that intention into Life-affirming acts.  To answer the call for our own personal transmutation is to respond to that which may seem dire and hopeless and bring to it our larger capacity of envisioning, being and acting in ways we previously thought impossible.  For our children, their children, then their children…and on.  For all of life in its countless forms.

We are the ones living this now moment and there is no one else to wait for but us. The shed must begin.

A picture worth a million votes?

Like our lives depend on it

A color-coded map shows the biggest wildfires raging
up and down the West Coast — Insider.com

Fires on Monday 14 September

The map below shows some of the biggest blazes in the three states, color coded by acreage.


The resultant smoke from the fires

AirNow Interactive Map of Air Quality

Hot Off the Wire — 9/11/2020

COVID Resources

How California can recover from wildfires
without leaving its most vulnerable behind

Opinion

The link between climate change,
health and poverty

For the poor and vulnerable, the health impacts of climate change are already here, says physician Cheryl Holder. Unseasonably hot temperatures, disease-carrying mosquitoes and climate gentrification threaten those with existing health conditions, while wealthier people move to higher ground. — TED Talks

The Benefits of Accepting the Climate Crisis
as Our Forever Emergency — Yes! Magazine

Solutions

REI’s Opt to Act Weekly Calendar / Checklist

Week 42: Wipe wisely: Use Forest Stewardship Council-certified and 100% post-consumer recycled content toilet paper.
Take part: Sept. 13–19, 2020

What’s in a Social Justice Diet?

How do we add climate and social justice to our diet?
— Yes! Magazine

Regional Actions

With all the smoke in the air this is a perfect time to write Letters to the Editor to your local papers connecting the smoke and wildfires to climate change and health.
If you have health credentials please include those and make sure to highlight any stories or personal experiences with patients who have been affected by the poor air quality.
Links to 25 Washington newspaper editors, with guidlines . . .

See what Vashon Island is up to

Ask Governor Inslee to say YES
to Southern Resident orcas;
And NO to a new terminal
less than a mile from WA State!
— Friends of the San Juans

National Actions

Get Ready for the Revolution Training Series — 350.org
More detailed information . . .
Sign Up Now!

  • Tuesday, Sept. 15: Keeping Healthy and Safe at Protest (5-7pm PT):
    Learn how to be mentally and physically prepared for being on the streets protesting (led by 350 Seattle).
  • Saturday, Sept. 26: Remote Organizing and Volunteer Engagement 101 (11am – 1 pm PT):
    Learn how to maximize remote organizing and engage new volunteers now and following the election (led by 350 Colorado).
  • Saturday, Oct. 10: Digital Organizing 101 (11am-1pm PT):
    Learn digital organizing basics, best practices, tools, and get tips on email and social media strategy (led by 350 Massachusetts).
  • Nov 21-22: Grassroots / Year End Fundraising (date and time TBD):
    Learn how to plan your group’s end of year fundraising campaign. Get tips, templates and info on crowdsourcing (led by 350Vermont).

Tell Chase to end all coal financing NOW. 

Today, many of us in the West Coast of the U.S. woke up to dark orange skies.
The Amazon fires are unnatural acts of criminal arson enabled by global corporations and financial institutions such as BlackRock.

Tell FERC: Time’s up for the Mountain Valley Pipeline

Send in an official public comment
to decision-makers now and tell your story about how air quality affects you and your community!

Local/Regional News

Co-published by The Seattle Times and nonprofit Seattle publisher Braided River, this book by award-winning writer Lynda V. Mapes will be a tool for marine conservation groups across the Puget Sound to educate, inspire and build grassroots support for tangible actions to support orca health
Cover photo by Dave Ellifrit,
Center for Whale Research

See the 2020 State of our Forests and Public Lands Report here — Washington Environmental Council

Screening of Ancestral Waters
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
6:00 PM – 8:45 PM PDT

Hosted by 350 Spokane

Sightline’s Latest Original Work

Weekly Announcements

Record wildfires in California: More than 2.2 million acres have burned in California this year — which is already a record even though the time of the year that’s traditionally most dangerous for fire weather is only now beginning. — NY Times

Crazy weather in Colorado: On Monday, the Denver area was sweltering. By Tuesday, there were several inches of snow on the ground. — NY Times

Western wildfires break records as devastating toll on lives and homes begins to emerge — The Washington Post

Climate change means this wildfire season is here to stay
–The Washington Post

National/International News

Rainforest Action Network

September 17, 2020 | 5:00 PM PT

En-ROADS
Climate Change Solutions Simulator

Living in the Time of Dying director and producer, Michael Shaw
is interviewed by host Peter Melton & Deb Ozarko, Author of Beyond Hope

Energy Consumption by
Source and Country (1969-2018) — Visual Capitalist

Visualizing the energy consumption of 60+ countries by energy source, over the period of 50 years.

Federal report sounds the alarm on climate change dangers to the economy — CNN

“Democratic Public Health”: Big Pharma Relies on Developing World While Limiting Access to Treatment — DemocracyNow!

COVID Vaccine Trials Seek Black & Latinx Participants,
But History of Medical Apartheid Sows Mistrust — DemocracyNow!

What’s Up with Banking and Climate
The Latest News
CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

Sierra Club Forum on the Environmental Law Program

The New York Times

The ‘Straightforward’ Link Between Climate and California’s Fires

also

They led the E.P.A. as Republicans.
Now, they’re backing Biden

Climate in Politics

Donald Trump, environmentalist?

The president signed an order yesterday extending a ban on oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and restricting drilling along the southeastern coast of the United States. And during a campaign stop in Jupiter, Fla., he wasted no time in taking credit for it.

Inspiration

Trees
If you like trees, you will enjoy seeing these amazing specimens

What Can I Do?
My Path From Climate Despair To Action

A call to action from Jane Fonda, one of the most inspiring activists of our time, urging us to wake up to the looming disaster of climate change and equipping us with the tools we need to join her in protest.

Category:
Burning Worlds

BOOKS for our time

Nan Bray is an oceanographer and climate scientist
who has farmed superfine merinos near Oatlands since 2000
  1. Carbon dioxide:
    Nature’s tiny solar panels
  2. Take a deep breath
  3. Galileo Fixes Everything
  4. A Silver Lining
  5. If You Don’t Like the Heat,
    Get Out of the Kitchen
  6. Rainfall, Evaporation and Desertification
  7. Runoff and Water Supplies
  8. Of Drought and Flooding Rains
  9. A Sunburnt Country

Note to Yarns from the Farm readers: This is the final regular article in a series on climate change that I’m writing for our local monthly newsletter, the Southern Midlands Regional News (SMRN). There will be a recap article in the next issue, that reviews the whole series. Previous articles can be found in the preceding Yarns from the Farm. The image above was taken after a major fire went through my property in January 2016. And a note to my non-Australian readership: this title and the previous one are taken from a much-loved poem, My Country, written by Australian Dorothea Mackellar at the age of 19, at the turn of the last century.

25 Washington Newspaper Editors Contact List

Places to submit Letters to the Editor

Follow the links for further instructions

Clallam County:

Clark County:

King County:

Kitsap County: 

Pierce County/ I-5 Corridor:

Snohomish County:

Spokane County: 

Whitman County: 

Yakima County:

Yakima Herald: 200 word limit for print; 500 for online

LSRD Methane Paper update – 30 July 2020

Click to access methane-paper-update-30-july-20201.pdf
Continue reading →

En-ROADS — Climate Change Solutions Simulator

En-ROADS is a transparent, freely-available policy simulation model that provides policymakers, educators, businesses, the media, and the public with the ability to explore, for themselves, the likely consequences of energy, economic growth, land use, and other policies and uncertainties, with the goal of improving their understanding.

Breanna Draxler interviews author Eric Holtaus

Breanna Draxler is the climate editor at YES!

How do we get where we need to go,
from where we are today?

Excerpts from the interview:

“The old world has fallen away,
and there’s not yet a clear vision
of what the new world is going to be,”

“There needs to be a picture of what we’re fighting for,” he tells me,
“not just what we’re fighting against.”

“This is the hardest thing we’ve ever done—
that any generation of people has ever done,” he tells me.
“It’s going to feel like we can’t do it.”

“The next few decades are going to feel like falling in love—
setting aside everything you thought you knew and trusting that you’ll end up in a radically different place you never could have achieved on your own.”

“Climate change is a product of a system of White supremacy and colonization over the past 500 years,” Holthaus says. “A certain group of people felt it was justified to exploit people and land. That’s the simplest explanation of climate change.”

Read the article at Yes! Magazine

An authorized excerpt from The Future Earth at Yes! Magazine

The first hopeful book about climate change, The Future Earth shows readers how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades.
— Harper Collins Publishers

Hot Off the Wire — 9/4/2020

SCIA volunteer Johanna says letter writing is a great parent-kid activity: “Recruit them for attention grabbing and ‘awwww’ inducing envelope decorating!”
— Sierra Club

Can you write some letters to targeted voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, or Pennsylvania?
Learn More . . .

Get Out the Vote with 350.org
Join 350.org volunteers from across the country
to call infrequent voters who care about the environment.
Let’s make all our votes count this year!
September 6, 2020 01:00 PM in Pacific Time

COVID Resources

3 ways you can support a
 Just Response today
— Climate Solutions

Opinion

How do you become an Intersectionalist?

We’re at a Tipping Point—Toward Healing the Climate — Yes Magazine

Solutions

REI’s Opt to Act Weekly Calendar / Checklist

Week 41: Skip the dryer.
Hang dry your laundry this week
Take part: Sept. 6–12, 2020

Discover more

Regional Actions

Let’s talk about volunteer engagement and movement building
350 Washington Network Regional Skill Up:
Movement Building + Volunteer Engagement
With Shemona Moreno of 350 Seattle
Monday, September 7th at 6pm-7:30pm PST | Register HERE

Help us stop the world’s largest fracked gas to methanol refinery from being built in Southwest Washington!
— Sierra Club

National Actions

The FWS is accepting public comments on the administration’s reckless anti-wildlife proposal,
but only until September 4
Submit a comment today

NRDC Virtual Conversation:
The Power of Litigation in our Fights for People and the Planet
Thursday, September 10 | 1 p.m. PT

Get Ready for the Revolution Training Series — 350.org

  • Part 1. Keeping Healthy and Safe at Protests – Tues, Sept. 15th, 4-6 pm PT
  • Part 2. Remote Organizing and Volunteer Engagement 101 –
    Sat, Sept 26th 11 am – 1 pm PT
  • Part 3. Digital Organizing 101 – Sat, Oct. 10, 11 am-1 pm PT
  • Part 4. Grassroots Year End Fundraising – Nov. 21-22 time tbd

The THRIVE Resolution envisions a Green New Deal-aligned recovery.
Ask your representative to cosponsor the THRIVE Resolution! — Sierra Club

Sign the petition to fix the broken U.S. Senate
It’s time to build pressure for ending the filibuster now. 

Get to know Rising Tide

Donate to Rising Tide North America

Oil giant Total is about to build a massive oil pipeline right through the heart of Africa
It would cross more than 200 rivers and 12 protected forests

Local/Regional News

Wet’suwet’en Block Trains in Solidarity with Six Nations

Take a stand. Make your voice heard. Stand with others in any way that you can. Will you put your comfort aside to stand with those who have no choice but to fight?

Cooked salmon: Climate change, dams contribute to lethal habitat
— The Spokesman-Review

To Manage Wildfire, California Looks To What Tribes Have Known All Along
— National Public Radio

USDA Northwest Climate Hub – August Newsletter
Featuring information on Drought in the NW Climate Hub

Sightline’s Latest Original Work

Weekly Announcements

Seattle Cruise Control Update

National/International News

Indian Country’s ANWR

How an Iñupiat Trump Official,
Tara Sweeney, is challenging everything you know about Indigenous environmentalism
— Medium

Standing Rock developing wind farm
near Fort Yates
— The Bismark Tribune

Banks funneled over USD 150 billion into companies driving deforestation since Paris Agreement, new data analyses shows

You’re invited to the online release of Yasuní Man
This is a “must-see” documentary about the Amazon

RENT THE FILM BEFORE SEPT 8 TO SUPPORT THE AMAZON EMERGENCY FUND!

Responding to the Census
The 2020 Census is happening now. You can complete your questionnaire online, by phone, or by mail.

Alaska’s salmon are shrinking, and climate change may be to blame — Reuters

In the Amazon, the coronavirus fuels an illegal gold rush — and an environmental crisis — The Washington Post

Big Oil just isn’t as big as it once was — The Washington Post

RSVP for the 25th annual National Solar Tour!
Sierra magazine September/October 2020
What’s Up with Banking and Climate

Politico
The Long Game

The Latest News
CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
The New York Times

The growing power of hurricanes
also
Getting climate studies into schools

Climate in Politics

Biden declares he’s “not banning fracking” … — Axios Generate

145 Groups Demand Biden Ban Fossil Fuel Execs and Lobbyists From Campaign and Cabinet — Common Dreams

Groups pressure Biden to exclude fossil fuel execs from team — The Hill

Progressive Groups Call on Biden to Ban Fossil Fuel Interests from Campaign and Admin — DemocracyNow!

Inspiration

Climate Justice Now: Art Inspiring Action
Art project theme:
Exploring the relationship between health, climate, and race.

Think Outside the Box

9 unconventional moving bridges

Water Vapor in September 2006

Also, NASA visualization of the European jetstream

Category:
Burning Worlds

BOOKS for our time

Nan Bray is an oceanographer and climate scientist
who has farmed superfine merinos near Oatlands since 2000
  1. Carbon dioxide:
    Nature’s tiny solar panels
  2. Take a deep breath
  3. Galileo Fixes Everything
  4. A Silver Lining
  5. If You Don’t Like the Heat,
    Get Out of the Kitchen
  6. Rainfall, Evaporation and Desertification
  7. Runoff and Water Supplies
  8. Of Drought and Flooding Rains

This is a series I’m writing on climate change for our local monthly newspaper.
I wanted to go back to the basics of the science behind climate change. Nan

Seattle Cruise Control Update

Greetings, Seattle Cruise Control Supporters!

The COVID-19 pandemic has had at least two positive consequences:

  1. The entire 2020 Seattle-to-Alaska cruise season — all 233 ships — has been cancelled.
  2. Work has stopped on the new cruise terminal at T46! However, a pause is not the same as a cancellation: the Port of Seattle Director has stated that “when it’s safe to cruise again, we want to be ready.”

Now is a good time to double down on our demands for action in the face of climate collapse, public health emergencies, and systemic racial inequities:

  • Please ask five to ten of your friends to sign the petition that you signed (the last paragraph has changed to reflect the new circumstances). We’d like to get a whole new slew of folks to sign by September 15th.
  • Please also sign Stand.earth’s petition to the CDC to extend the no-sail order for cruise ships until they clean up their act!

Numbers matter! Last February, an approved plan to expand an airport in Bristol, England, was stopped when more than 8,000 people objected! They successfully argued that the damage the expansion would cause to the climate, the health of local residents, and plant and animal life outweighed the narrower benefits the expansion would bring. This is exactly our stance regarding expanding the cruise industry in Seattle.

Follow us on Facebook to stay informed with related news articles and calls to action, and check out our website for in-depth info!

Thank you for adding your voice to the growing groundswell of objections to these monster ships and the damage they cause everywhere they sail.

In solidarity,
Stacy, for 350 Seattle and Seattle Cruise Control

p.s. Seattle Cruise Control in the news: A recent hour-long interview on Portland radio station KBOO featured Seattle Cruise Control member Elizabeth Burton and climate scientist Heather Price! Tune in to hear our wide-ranging discussion of the harmful impacts of cruising and why we oppose a third cruise terminal in Seattle.

How do you become an Intersectionalist?

It starts within each of our guts, hearts, minds and souls.  It is the “White Supremacy, Colonialist, Industrialist, Militaristic, Mysoginistic, Zenophobic, Capitalist, Consumerist, Patriarchal, Power-Over”  STORY. 

Each of us has to take an unsparing look into our own “frameworks” of basic beliefs and HOW THESE FEED INTO SUPPORTING the systems we have all come to think of as “normal” (at least in this Country and the “modern” Western world).

While we each might be “sparks of the divine” in our energetic selves . . . our physical bodies are OF THIS EARTH and FOR THIS EARTH.  We are here to be “Care-takers” of this Earth, ALL Her “more-than-human Beings”, and our fellow humans.  We first must truly integrate this TRUTH, then “look thru this lens” in everything we do and all the systems that we interact with.

This means that the “world” we “Western modern” countries have known MUST CHANGE from the very FOUNDATIONS  . . . not just in the ways we narrowly, and comfortably want them to . . . but at some very basic ways that will be very uncomfortable for those of us that have benefited from this “story” (whether we wanted to or not . . .whether we realized it or not….)

For me, Indigenous Wisdom and ways of looking at our world have been very powerful in helping me “shift” my perspective and change “the story” I feel in myself. It has brought clarity to being able to SEE this old “power-over” story where-ever it manifests, and consider how I might dis-engage from those systems/structures and choose the more integrated, connected “story” option. The Pachamama Alliance (Pachamama.org) is the group that for me integrates this.

No one can do it all . . . AND there is so much good showing up in the world . . .We are living in transformational times . . so we must “buckle up” (emotionally) and learn to “dance” with the changes . . . . 

Humbly,

Written by an OCA member under the pen name, Shambhala Warrior Emerging

Click to access us_call_to_action.pdf

Hot Off the Wire — 8/28/2020

Flu Virus Resources

Smoke, heat, and COVID-19: Californians are caught between public health crises

LA’s homeless communities are avoiding cooling centers, and it’s not just because of COVID-19

Opinion

The Climate Window

“Nothing feels possible and Everything feels possible.”
-Dr. Katharine Wilkinson

More about the complex history of our past economic recoveries from depression and recession

We Need to Talk About the GOP’s ‘Black Friends’
The Republican National Convention has been all about using Black people to convince white people it’s OK to vote for a bigot. — The Nation

Solutions

REI’s Opt to Act Weekly Calendar / Checklist

Week 40: Sip more soundly and take a closer look at your beverage choices
Take part: Aug. 30–Sept. 5, 2020

Join on Tuesday, August 25, 7 p.m. CDT for a 1-hour panel discussion about veganism, vegetarianism and the #BoycottBigMeat campaign

A Fun Way to Stop Buying Things You Don’t Really Need
A few years ago, illustrator and editorial cartoonist Sarah Lazarovic felt like she was buying too much “crap.” So she stopped shopping for a year, then documented her withdrawals and, eventually, all the lessons and tips and tricks she learned about not buying things. — Yes Magazine

Regional Actions

13th Annual Symposium

September 17, 2020, 9 AM – 4 PM
Creating a Model for Global Decarbonization through Washington State Science, Engineering, and Technology
— WA State Academy of Science

National Actions

Pass the Native American Voting Rights Act Now!

Demand an Amazon Ceasefire:
Tell BlackRock to Stop Financing Amazon Fires!

Tell Toyota & General Motors Make Clean Cars and End the Attack On Clean Air! — Sierra Club

Liberty Mutual: Drop Trans Mountain Now — Rainforest Action Network

Tell big banks to STOP investing in climate-busting coal plants — NRDC

Local/Regional News

Heat is turbocharging fires, drought and tropical storms this summer
— The Washington Post

Weekly Announcements

National/International News

350.org — 2019 ANNUAL REPORT

United Nations Climate Change Annual Report for 2019

What’s Up with Banking and Climate
The Latest News
The New York Times

How racist urban planning left some neighborhoods to swelter

Climate in Politics

OCA Signs letter to DNC
for a ban on fossil fuel executives,
lobbyists, and representatives having any advisory or official position
in the Biden campaign and administration

When It Comes to Climate Change, It’s Joe Biden Versus the DNC

The Democratic presidential nominee knows that halting fossil fuel subsidies is imperative. Why doesn’t the DNC?

— League of Conservation Voters Action Fund

Since we can’t safely gather in person, virtual events provide a unique opportunity to hear from and interact directly with environmental champion candidates. Below is the latest list of upcoming virtual events with links to RSVP and contribute.

  • 8/31, 8:00pm ET: Rev. Raphael Warnock (candidate for US Senate, GA), Dr. Al Gross (candidate for US Senate, AL), and Dr. Barbara Bollier (candidate for US Senate, KS). Click here to RSVP.
  • 8/31, 5:30pm MT: Gov. John Hickenlooper with special guest Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/1, 5:30pm MT: Clean Energy 4 Biden hosted by CO Chapter. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/1, 6:00pm ET: Clean Energy 4 Biden hosted by the National Chapter. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/2, 7:00pm ET: Dr. Cameron Webb (candidate for US House, VA-05). Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/2, 8:00pm ET: Clean Energy 4 Biden with special guest Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/2, 7:00pm ET: Clean Energy 4 Biden with special guest Rep. Eric Swalwell. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/3, 6:00pm ET: Clean Energy 4 Biden hosted by Tom Steyer with special guest Nicole Systrom. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/8, 5:30pm MT: Clean Energy 4 Biden hosted by CO Chapter. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/8, 8:00pm ET: Clean Energy 4 Biden Trivia Event. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/9, 5:00pm PT: Clean Energy 4 Biden Low Carbon Fuels Event. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/10, 6:00pm ET: Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01) hosted by LCV Action Fund and other green groups. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/15, 7:00pm ET: Clean Energy 4 Biden Event with members of the Obama Administration. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/2, 7:00pm ET: Clean Energy 4 Biden with special guest Rep. Eric Swalwell. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/16, 7:00pm ET: North Carolina State Candidates with special guests Gov. Roy Cooper and Tom Steyer. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/16, 5:30pm ET: Clean Energy 4 Biden hosted by PA Chapter. Click here to RSVP.
  • 9/17, 5:30pm ET: Margaret Good (candidate for US House, FL-16). Click here to RSVP.

Inspiration

Category:
Burning Worlds

Nan Bray is an oceanographer and climate scientist
who has farmed superfine merinos near Oatlands since 2000
  1. Carbon dioxide:
    Nature’s tiny solar panels
  2. Take a deep breath
  3. Galileo Fixes Everything
  4. A Silver Lining
  5. If You Don’t Like the Heat,
    Get Out of the Kitchen
  6. Rainfall, Evaporation and Desertification
  7. Runoff and Water Supplies
  8. Of Drought and Flooding Rains

This is a series I’m writing on climate change for our local monthly newspaper.
I wanted to go back to the basics of the science behind climate change. Nan

More about the complex history of our past economic recoveries

Although COVID-19 emerged as a new challenge, the disproportionate impacts of crises such as COVID-19 on black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are not new. Rather, disproportionate health and economic impacts on BIPOC communities directly correlate to a history of structural and institutional racism. From housing segregation to community disinvestment to the criminalization of poverty, our history is polluted with structural barriers to economic opportunity for BIPOC communities. 

With an economic recession on the rise, policymakers and impacted communities alike are calling for a large-scale economic recovery. As Washington state prepares for an economic recovery, it is vital that we look back at our country’s past economic recoveries to explore how recovery policies of the past have many times exacerbated institutional racism and economic inequality and work to ensure we do not make the same mistakes. 

Continue reading →

OCA Signs letter to DNC for a ban on fossil fuel executives, lobbyists in campaign and administration

You can Tell Joe Biden: Keep Fossil Fuel Influence Out

Dear Vice President Biden,

Congratulations on your nomination as the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. As you have said, this is a historic time for our nation. Over 175,000 Americans have lost their lives to the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to ravage the nation. Millions are rising up to demand racial justice and an end to white supremacy. Donald Trump has put our democracy on the line with his attacks on our right to vote and threats to contest the election. Meanwhile, the climate emergency is ravaging our country, as supercharged wildfires burn across western states, climate-intensified floods and derechos slam the Midwest, and sea level rise threatens our coasts. 

We want to thank you for your bold plans to combat the climate crisis and create millions of good-paying, union jobs in a clean energy economy. We applaud the ways in which you have put environmental justice at the heart of your plans, making sure that the communities of color who are on the front lines of this crisis are at the forefront of its solutions. Implementing your plans would be a major step toward putting this country back on track to meet our global commitments under the Paris Agreement while centering the communities most harmed by environmental injustice. 

Your leadership on climate and environmental justice is why we urge you to ban
all fossil fuel executives, lobbyists, and representatives from any advisory or official position on your campaign, transition team, cabinet, and administration.

Continue reading →

Hot Off the Wire — 8/21/2020

And you think we have a heavy lift. We can do it.

A neighbor of an Amish family had a large metal pole shed that they no longer wanted. The Amish Family said they wanted it. How will you move it they were asked???  They replied that some of their friends would help them move it to his property about 800 yards away.?? 250 friends showed up!

Flu Virus Resources

— A Grist Series
Join Grist on YouTube

Umbra is Grist’s advice columnist who tries to provide well-researched answers to a wide variety of climate-related questions

Global COVID-19 Containment: Confirmed Cases, Updated Daily

This continuously updated chart provides a more complete look at the efficacy of COVID-19 containment strategies.
— Visual Capitalist

Opinion

Together, You
Can Redeem the Soul
of Our Nation

Though I am gone, I urge you to
answer the highest calling of your heart and
stand up for what you truly believe.
By John Lewis | July 30, 2020

What Have We Done to the Whale?

The creatures once symbolized our efforts to save the planet; now they demonstrate all the ways we have devastated it.
By Amia Srinivasan | August 17, 2020

An Update to the 2916 Paper
“The Lower Snake River Reservoirs Generate Significant Amounts of Methane, a Potent Greenhouse Gas” | July 2020

Is Economic Growth the Wrong Goal?
A podcast by Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics

Roots Deeper than Whiteness: Remembering who we are for the well-being of all
White Awake
Waking ourselves for the benefit of all

Solutions

REI’s Opt to Act Weekly Calendar / Checklist

Week 39: Celebrate the 104th anniversary of the National Park Service by getting outside
Take part: Aug. 23–29, 2020

Regional Actions

OCA Joins 41 Organizations
Asking Governor Inslee to Oppose
Roberts Bank Terminal 2 near Vancouver, BC

Transformative Climate Advocacy –
Engaging the Personal and the Political

Select Fridays,
September 11 – December 4, 2020,
9–10:30 am Pacific

Email Patrick Barredo, to get the link to the Zoom meeting.

View the movie now | Reinventing Power: America’s Renewable Energy Boom

National Actions

We’re trying new campaign tools this cycle and we want to hear from you — Climate Hawks Vote

Popular in Online Events

First of four mass calls happened Wednesday, August 12th at 5pm PDT,
with three more meetings taking place through November elections

Sign this petition to the Senate to pass the HEROES Act and fund USPS right now. 

Local/Regional News

Forest Carbon Management Report

The Status of Science
on Forest Carbon Management to Mitigate Climate Change
(June 1, 2020)

Do Mountain Forests Hold the Answers for Climate Science? — Yes! Magazine

Foresters Could Lead on Carbon Drawdown
Most standard, plantation-style commercial forests in the region hold less than a third of the carbon of old-growth stands. In the face of mounting pressure to reduce emissions, this shortfall offers an opportunity. Sightline profiles one forester in Oregon who is leading by example.

Professor in a tree over TransMountain Pipeline vows not to come down
— The Seattle Times

Sightline’s Latest Original Work

Weekly Announcements

Community Solar Basics
Links to the recorded sessions:
Consumers (Episode 1)
Programs/Policy (Episode 2)
Project Development (Episode 3)

National/International News

Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education is now offering a new online program Climate Change Policy: Economics and Politics — October 5-9, 2020

Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico,
called for urgent climate action
— The New York Times

COVID-19 Lockdown Demonstrates How Economy-Wide Transformation Can Halt Climate Change

What’s Up with Banking and Climate
The Latest News
CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

The New York Times

We’re already down to 0% for the year

Climate in Politics

Vote Safely and Securely!
Volunteer to text voters in battleground states

Sign up today
All you need is a computer and an internet connection
— NRDC Action Fund

Join a phonebank party with Greenpeace and Flip The West every Thursday to get out the vote

Inspiration

Emotional Resilience Toolkit for Climate Work

From Climate Therapy Alliance via Grace Hope of 350.org

Join Hank Lentfer for Raven’s Witness:
Lessons From a Life in Alaska’s Wilderness.
— Sponsored by the Alaska Wilderness League

Tuesday, August 25, 2020 4:00 –  5:00 PM

Burning Worlds

INTERVIEW WITH EDITOR JOHN FREEMAN

“Why focus on climate change in your third anthology?”

Nan Bray is an oceanographer and climate scientist
who has farmed superfine merinos near Oatlands since 2000
  1. Carbon dioxide:
    Nature’s tiny solar panels
  2. Take a deep breath
  3. Galileo Fixes Everything
  4. A Silver Lining
  5. If You Don’t Like the Heat,
    Get Out of the Kitchen
  6. Rainfall, Evaporation and Desertification
  7. Runoff and Water Supplies
  8. Of Drought and Flooding Rains

This is a series I’m writing on climate change for our local monthly newspaper.
I wanted to go back to the basics of the science behind climate change. Nan

OCA Signs Letter to Gov. Inslee for Whales

41 Organizations Ask Governor Inslee to Oppose
Roberts Bank Terminal 2 near Vancouver, BC

Read the letter to Governor Inslee | August 20, 2020

RBT2_41_orgs_ask_Gov_Inslee_to_oppose_8-20-2020Download

E-MAIL language and links to include in your own letter

rbt2-action-email-language-8-20-1Download

Ask Governor Inslee to say YES to Southern Resident orcas & NO to a new terminal less than a mile from WA State!

Sign the Petition to Governor Inslee

Get more information about the Roberts Bank Terminal 2

Continue reading →

Forest Carbon Management Report

Forest Carbon and Climate Change
Proposed Solutions
Citations

Lawetal2020Download
Continue reading →

Climate Girl knows too much!

Comix by OCA member Cathy Lear, recent Climate Reality training grad:

Stranded in Paradise: http://Pixton.com/ic:jlwcpvfm

Pesky visitors: http://Pixton.com/ic:1f0dz96k

Hot Off the Wire — 7/31/2020

Position Announcement:

Washington State Climate Assembly
Program Assistant

The Climate Assembly Washington Initiating Team is looking for excellent candidates to serve as Program Assistant for the first-ever “Citizens’ Climate Assembly”
in the United States!

Flu Virus Resources

Understanding the Disconnect Between Consumers and the Stock Market
— Visual Capitalist

Trump’s October Surprise:
A Vaccine for Covid-19?
What do we have to lose by rushing a vaccine into production? A longer pandemic, a colossal waste of money—and the risk of undermining public confidence in all vaccines.

Democracy

— Visual Capitalist

Opinion

Prisons Are An Environmental Justice Issue
By Brad L. Blackburn III, Advocacy and Community Outreach Intern | July 23, 2020

Letter: We need PUD’s help in saving our salmon
Norman Ritchie of Rockaway Beach | July 24, 2020
— The Tillamook Headlight Herald

Solutions

Join the National Academies for a series of virtual workshops on Enhancing Federal Clean Energy Innovation from July 27 – August 7
— Eventbrite

REI’s Opt to Act Weekly Calendar / Checklist

Week 36: Shop in person,
locally and seasonally
Take part: Aug. 2–8, 2020

EV Batteries: An Overview of the Impacts and Solutions

Plug In America Webinar
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
9:00–10:15 am PDT – FREE

Climate Justice Now! How? | Jill MacIntyre Witt | TEDxVail
What One Person Can Do About Climate Change | Ella Lagé | TEDxHamburg

Environmental Activism Tips with Jared Mead
Time: July 31, 2020 06:00 PM 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84437982269?pwd=RFN0ZWhwekVOdmJBZkF6LzJWVHAzQT09
Meeting ID: 844 3798 2269 |Passcode: 646828

Regional Actions

Help ensure bold climate policy is passed
this next legislative session in Washington
350 WA Civic Action Team is hosting a meeting for state-wide volunteers
interested in climate policy and citizen advocacy!
When: Friday, August 7, 2020, 9:00 AM PDT  | Register in advance

Too many Washington communities face high levels of pollution, lack economic opportunity, and are overlooked in decisions that affect their lives
The stakes in 2020 could not be higher

Our Climate Leaders Live! series is back next month with a look at the future of the built environment

Building Electrification
August 13th at 10am PDT

National Actions

Conservation cannot be done
with chainsaws

Add your voice to #SaveEboForest

After receiving an “F” in sustainability (for the 2nd year in a row),
Procter & Gamble (P&G) made a flashy announcement last week — Stand.earth
Help expose Procter & Gamble’s greenwashing

Send a message to Facebook: Climate disinformation is hazardous to our health!
— Climate Solutions

Local/Regional News

Inslee puts Chehalis dam on hold, calls for non-dam fixes for river’s woes
— KUOW npr

Weekly Announcements

Community Solar Basics
Links to the recorded sessions:
Consumers (Episode 1)
Programs/Policy (Episode 2)
Project Development (Episode 3)

National/International News

Record-Breaking Lightning Bolts Spark Excitement — Smithsonian Magazine

Voices on the Forefront:
Youth climate activists and the fight to protect the Arctic
Wednesday, August 5, 2020 4:00 PM –  5:00 PM ET

Join Us on August 3rd to Celebrate a Decade of Our Children’s Trust

August 3rd, at 12pm Pacific

New Mexico PRC embraces 100% renewable future for Four Corners
Coal-fired power plant to be replaced with 100% renewable energy
— Western Environmental Law Center

How to Bring About Catastrophic Climate Success — Yes Magazine

What’s Up with Banking and Climate
“Vote for the Earth” series
An Election Report

Sierra magazine’s July/August
CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
The New York Times

It’s Summer. Let’s Talk About Hockey.

Also this week, health benefits from cutting emissions

Climate in Politics

Tell the DNC: Tackling the Climate Crisis Means Tackling Toxic Fossil Fuels
Target: Democratic National Committee — 350 Action

Thanks to you, the DNC platform is being improved!

Inspiration

Category:
Burning Worlds

Nan Bray is an oceanographer and climate scientist
who has farmed superfine merinos near Oatlands since 2000
  1. Carbon dioxide:
    Nature’s tiny solar panels
  2. Take a deep breath
  3. Galileo Fixes Everything
  4. A Silver Lining
  5. If You Don’t Like the Heat,
    Get Out of the Kitchen
  6. Rainfall, Evaporation and Desertification
  7. Runoff and Water Supplies

This is a series I’m writing on climate change for our local monthly newspaper.
I wanted to go back to the basics of the science behind climate change. Nan

Climate Emergency Movement

The global tally for Climate Emergency declarations is up to 1,755, within 30 countries. In California, the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD) Board of Directors adopted a Climate Emergency resolution and committed to achieving net zero emissions electricity by 2030, becoming the first utility company to commit to a timeline that is in line with what is necessary to address the emergency. SMUD has a legacy of leadership in the energy sector and with this declaration, demonstrates that they are committed to serving the 1.5 million people in their service territory, which includes the California State Capitol. Special shout out to our California ally Chris Brown who has been an invaluable champion for Climate Emergency Declarations in California and around the U.S. 

Menlo Park, CA has adopted a plan to become carbon-neutral by 2030, building on their Climate Emergency Declaration from 2019, and instituting one of the most ambitious plans in the United States. Their resolution makes explicit connection between the Climate Emergency and the demands of the Movement for Black Lives that investments be made to support communities that have historically borne the brunt of environmental injustice and racism: 

The City’s current Climate Action Plan (CAP) includes a 27 percent greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal by 2020. In 2019, the City Council declared a climate emergency (Resolution 6525) and committed to addressing climate change by adopting a new CAP that provides significant actions to reach carbon neutrality (Resolution No. 6493.) Recently, the City Council also proclaimed in a Black Lives Matter resolution (Resolution No. 6563) an action to prioritize climate action and empower the City’s environmental leadership, recognizing that the City’s most vulnerable residents are the most affected by this global issue.

These two policy actions demonstrate the ongoing impact of the decentralized Climate Emergency Campaign and the continued leadership from the people of California.

Biden Climate Plan

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has published his new climate platform which focuses on environmental justice, clean energy, jobs, and sustainable infrastructure. While we commend Biden’s prioritization of climate and environmental justice, his 2050 deadline for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions is disastrously insufficient.

We cannot afford another disastrous emergency response that prioritizes profits over human life, as we have tragically seen with the failed response to COVID-19. Biden must commit to a 2030 zero-emissions timeline and a full-scale emergency mobilization to restore a safe climate in order to prevent runaway global heating and to build a better future.

Online Events

Next Monday, July 27 at 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern, please join TCM’s Strategy Director Cris Lagunas, along with folks from the Institute for Policy Studies, Mexican Network of Mining-Affected People, and others for No Warming No War: Connecting Militarism with the Climate Crisis. Click here to register. 

Join System Change Not Climate Change, the Ecosocialist Network, Labor Network For Sustainability and 10 others for Strike! Using our Power to Stop Climate Disaster and Create a Just World with Jeremy Brecher — this Sunday, July 26 at 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern. Click here to register.

Thank you for being a part of this movement.

Onward!
The Climate Mobilization Team

The Climate Mobilization
275 9th Street, Suite 150387
Brooklyn, NY 11215
United States

The DNC platform is being improved!

Thanks to you, the DNC platform is being improved! At the end of a long day of amendments, hearings, and markups, we’re pleased to report that most of the amendments supported by Climate Hawks Vote folk like you have been approved!

Here’s a sampling of the amendments where your public support made a difference:

— We won a commitment to 1.5 degrees! Perhaps the single most important amendment, where we collaborated closely with the DNC Climate Council, this language reflects science, the Paris Agreement, and equity among nations. The language: “Democrats will immediately rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, commit the United States to doing its fair share and leading the world in the effort to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and convene a world summit aimed at new and more ambitious global targets to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.”

— We’ve added climate finance language, building upon bills proposed by Congressional climate hawks Elizabeth Warren and Sean Casten. The platform now includes this language: “Democrats recognize that climate change poses serious risks to the economy and the financial system. We will require public companies to disclose climate risks and greenhouse gas emissions in their operations and supply chains.”

— We added #ExxonKnew language: “We will hold polluters and corporate executives accountable for intentionally hiding or distorting material information and for affecting the health and safety of workers and communities.”

— We’ve succeeded in adding in fossil fuel language and a pledge to end their subsidies! Although an early draft of the platform only mentioned “fossil fuels” once, the new platform adds, twice: “Democrats support eliminating tax breaks and subsidies for fossil fuels, and will fight to defend and extend tax incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy.”

— And we’ve won a small victory on electric cars. The Biden campaign rejected our main request for a sunset on gasoline-powered car sales. However, the campaign acknowledged a point we’ve hammered on social and earned media: the increased domestic manufacturing base envisioned by the platform must be in service of electric vehicles.

Thanks again to the thousands of Climate Hawks Vote folk who’ve signed last week’s petition and engaged with the important work of the DNC Climate Council. Your voices made a huge difference in negotiations. 

Anything that you can chip in fuels the next phase of this critical work.  And yes, there will be a next phase.

Your fellow climate hawk (and DNC member-elect),

RL Miller

P.S. The final platform hasn’t been compiled yet, but here’s the original draft, the “manager mark” of agreed-upon amendments, and a separate package of 18 amendments getting votes (not all passed).

Climate Hawks Vote
PO Box 141
Agoura Hills, CA 91376-0141
United States

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Timothy Snyder | March 2017

An idiot’s guide to tyranny: Some thoughts about Timothy’s Snyder’s ‘On Tyranny’
— The Berkshire Edge

“Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the twentieth century. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so.” — Timothy Snyder, from ‘On Tyranny’ | 2017

The Original article from Mr. Snyder’s Facebook Page

20 Lessons from the 20th Century on How to Survive in Trump’s America
A history professor looks to the past to remind us to do what we can in the face of the unthinkable.

BY Timothy Snyder – This article first appeared as a post on the author’s Facebook page.
His most recent book is “On Tyranny — Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century”
(Please note the numbered order is different in the book.)

“Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.”

Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are 20 lessons from across the fearful 20th century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom. 

Continue reading →

Hot Off the Wire — 7/24/2020

Position Announcement:

Washington State Climate Assembly
Program Assistant

The Climate Assembly Washington Initiating Team is looking for excellent candidates to serve as Program Assistant for the first-ever “Citizens’ Climate Assembly”
in the United States!

Flu Virus Resources

  • A Walk to Remember
  • This is Us
  • The Princess Bride’s “inconceivable” remake

— A Grist Series

Baseball’s Stadium Workers Are Getting Peanuts From the Billionaire Owners
When baseball shut down, 39,000 stadium workers lost their jobs, and the MLB has done little to help them out. — The Nation

Democracy

A message from Sierra Club President, Ramon Cruz, announcing a forum on systemic racism in the history of the Sierra Club.

An idiot’s guide to tyranny: Some thoughts about Timothy’s Snyder’s ‘On Tyranny’ — The Berkshire Edge

“Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the twentieth century. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so.”
“6. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.”
— Timothy Snyder, from ‘On Tyranny’ | 2017

The Original article from Mr. Snyder’s Facebook Page

Trump’s Occupation of American Cities
Has Begun
Protesters are being snatched from the streets without warrants. Can we call it fascism yet?
— The New York Times | Opinion or Portside.org

Portland officials decry
aggressive tactics of federal agents in their city

By Emily Gillespie, Devlin Barrett, Katie Shepherd and Mark Berman
–The Washington Post

Trump’s agents are sweeping peaceful citizens off the streets.
This is not America.
By Ruth Marcus — The Washington Post

Portland mayor tear gassed
after speaking with protesters

We must take action for the
people of Portland right now
Message your Member of Congress!
–Greenpeace

Healthcare vs. Military Spending, by Country

Isreal has the highest rate of military spending per capita, and has the distinction of being the only country on this list to invest more in defense than in healthcare.

6 Badass Acts of Resistance
Erased From History
There are entire generations of social justice activists and environmental protectors that we don’t learn about in school.
Yes Magazine —

Opinion

The Next Election Is About
the Next 10,000 Years

By Bill McKibben | July 20, 2020
— Yes Magazine

A Brief (and Frustrating) History of the
Carbon Footprint

“Minimum Viable Planet” is a weeklyish commentary about climateish stuff, and how to keep it together in a world gone mad. This week, on blame-shifting.

Solutions

Why the Planet Needs You to Repair Your Broken Stuff
–Yes Magazine

REI’s Opt to Act Weekly Calendar / Checklist

Week 35: Find a moment this week to be awed by nature
Take part: July 26–Aug. 1, 2020

“Eat to Live” Blog by Dr.Furhman
Save C02, save money, save your lives

Oats cost:
$0.89/pound as thick rolled oats at Sunny Farms;
$5.00/pound in the form of Cheerios at Safeway.

Government advice on diets
ignores climate change

“If we fail to rein in emissions, the catastrophic climate change that will follow will undermine attempts to tackle the other (food systems) dimensions we care about.” — Food Weekly

Regional Actions

Webinars on Demonstration Safely

Keeping yourself healthy and safe at a protest
Thursday, July 29th, 7-9pm

De-escalation/Peacekeeper training
Sunday, August 2nd, 11am-1pm

Community Solar Basics:
Consumers (Episode 1)
Project Development (Episode 3)
July 29 at 4:00 PDT

New nationwide case to protect public health and clean water rights

Join the Virtual Rally to Stop the Trans Mountain Pipeline
Thursday, July 23rd at 2pm PDT– Rainforest Action Network

Tell insurers to drop Trans Mountain — Stand.earth
Trans Mountain must secure insurance by August 31st

Tell Liberty Mutual, No Trans Mountain Pipeline!
— Rainforest Action Network

Tracking the Growing Wave of Oil & Gas Bankruptcies in 2020
— Visual Capitalist

National Actions

Zurich is now the third insurer to drop the Trans Mountain pipeline
since we stepped up our pressure just a couple months ago
Add your voice Now! — Stand.earth

Monday, 27 July 2020
5:00 – 6:30 pm PDT

Stop Fossil Fuel Development On Public Lands! — NRDC

We must take action for the
people of Portland right now
Message your Member of Congress!
–Greenpeace

EVERY GIFT DOUBLED: Protect Public Lands from Fossil Fuel Development!

The Amazon is in crisis

Local/Regional News

The City of Portland, Oregon, recently passed The Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF), the nation’s first successful climate justice ballot initiative

City of Port Angeles Climate Change Resilience Plan
Request for Proposals

Voters Candidates Forum of July 16
Patti Morris & Rick Paschall

Weekly Announcements

National/International News

Stories from the Youth Climate Movement in the Global South — Yes Magazine

Where Will Everyone Go?
ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, with support from the Pulitzer Center, have for the first time modeled how climate refugees might move across international borders. This is what we found.

Beyond the Bag Challenge — OPENIDEO

How might we transport goods from retailer to destination in a way that is compatible with diverse retail systems, delivers ease and convenience for customers, and reduces environmental impact?

How China’s Plastics Ban Threw Global Recycling into Disarray
— Visual Capitalist

The Amazon and its peoples
are in crisis

Huge win for clean air,
our climate, and communities

BNP Paribas close to adopting
global coal exit policy

What’s Up with Banking and Climate
The Latest News
CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
The New York Times

Gas Flaring and Preterm Births

Also this week, a corruption case in Ohio that’s all about energy

Climate in Politics

Climate Action Voters – July Conversation
Winning an Environmental Majority in the Senate
Featuring Senate Candidate Cal Cunningham
Tuesday, July 28 at 1 pm PT

The DNC has released its draft platform, and it needs work on science,
clean energy jobs, fossil fuel finance, and cars.
Let’s tell them to make the platform stronger on climate.
— Climate Hawks Vote

Upcoming Washington State Energy Strategy Advisory Committee Group Discussion Sessions

Weekly Clean Energy Transformation Act Bulletin

2020 Census: Everyone Counts
Learn more about what you can do to promote participation where you live.

Inspiration

Baby Beluga
for Climate Mobilization
Last week Raffi released a 40th anniversary rendition of the song with music legend Yo-Yo Ma in a new video and soon to be released song whose proceeds will benefit The Climate Mobilization!

Category: Burning Worlds

INTERVIEW with
author and scholar
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson

Nan Bray is an oceanographer and climate scientist
who has farmed superfine merinos near Oatlands since 2000
  1. Carbon dioxide:
    Nature’s tiny solar panels
  2. Take a deep breath
  3. Galileo Fixes Everything
  4. A Silver Lining
  5. If You Don’t Like the Heat,
    Get Out of the Kitchen
  6. Rainfall, Evaporation and Desertification
  7. Runoff and Water Supplies

This is a series I’m writing on climate change for our local monthly newspaper.
I wanted to go back to the basics of the science behind climate change. Nan

A Platform for Creative Exchange

Creative Summit & Fundraiser Replays
available through July 26!

Accurate Weather and Climate Reporting on KNKX Jazz Blues & NPR News

Thanks for signing our petition, “Accurate Weather and Climate Reporting on KNKX Jazz Blues & NPR News”. We were successful in modestly moving KNKX with respect to Cliff Mass’s minimization of the climate crisis. Station managers arranged for a scientific review (conducted pro bono by Dr. Tad Anderson, a former colleague of Mass and a member of 350 Seattle) and a journalistic integrity review (conducted by former NPR Public Editor Elizabeth Jensen). Both reviews were too narrow in scope, but KNKX has agreed to taking three steps:

  1. Removing mentions of Cliff Mass’ blog on the KNKX website and on the air during Weather With Cliff Mass. “A commentary slot should not be a platform for self-promotion,” the journalistic ethics reviewer wrote, “[and] Mass’ blog increasingly covers far more than weather.” This is an understatement, given one of Mass’ blog posts about I-1631, in which he compared the underserved, overburdened communities who would have benefited from some of the fees raised to pigs at a trough; the disrespect he shows Greta Thunberg, Jamie Margolin, and 350.org in another post; or the critique he makes of Washington state’s response to the pandemic.
  2. Requiring KNKX’s regular commentators to disclose if they plan to take a public political position; if they do, KNKX will disclaim it online or on-air. The public editor writes that “if Mass, or any other regular commentator, gets actively involved in a political campaign, KNKX should be transparent about that and make clear that such activism has no effect on its reporting.”
  3. Possibly creating additional programming dedicated to climate change.The journalistic integrity evaluation included a recommendation that “KNKX could consider making a place for dedicated reporting on local environmental issues, and give it as much prominence as it does its weather commentary.”

This third recommendation may be the most impactful for KNKX’s 350,000 weekly listeners throughout Washington and beyond. It would be terrific to hear a new feature on the station — “Climate with Kate Marvel” (or Elizabeth Kolbert or Jennifer Francis!) in which the climate minimalism of “Weather With Cliff Mass” would be counterbalanced by the perspective of one of the women in the field of climate science and climate journalism! If you support the idea of a new “Climate Science” feature centering the voice of a woman scientist or someone from the BIPOC scientific community, please let KNKX know by emailing Content Editor Matt Martinez. If you are a donor of KNKX, please also let the station managers know how important it is for them to develop additional climate reporting — distinct from weather or environmentalism reporting — ASAP!

Many thanks.
Mary Paterson with  350 Seattle, 350 Tacoma, 350 Eastside, and 350 Everett

The Washington State Climate Assembly needs your help!

Position announcement:
17 July 2020

Washington State Climate Assembly Program Assistant

The Climate Assembly Washington Initiating Team is looking for excellent candidates to serve as Program Assistant for the first-ever “Citizens’ Climate Assembly” in the United States!  

Continue reading →

Hot Off the Wire — 7/17/2020

Flu Virus Resources

It’s Time to Tell a New Story About Coronavirus—
Our Lives Depend on It

Dr. Beak: During the plague years, doctors wore iconic get-ups that included masks filled with scented herbs to protect them from dangerous miasmas.

The way we talk about contagion matters.
It shapes how societies respond—and whether many of us will survive.
By Sonia Shah | July 14, 2020
— The Nation | History

DemocracyNow! Interview
The Nation Weekly

How a coronavirus vaccine
will get to market
— PBS News Hour

U.K. summit calls for
freely available virus vaccine
— PBS News Hour

“The Pandemic Could Get Much, Much Worse”
if we don’t take bolder action now
This interview with John Barry contains a brief history of the
1918 “Spanish” Flu. Fascinating!
— DemocracyNow! interview

The Pandemic Could Get Much, Much Worse.
We Must Act Now. — The New York Times

It’s time to get serious about the causes of pandemics: UN report

How to Stop the Next Pandemic: U.N. Report Links Outbreaks to Climate Crisis & Industrial Farming — DemocracyNow! interview

Opinion

Water Column: Resetting the rules

by Ann Soule | Wednesday, July 8, 2020
— Sequim Gazzette

“Defund the police” and “cancel rent” aren’t reforms,
but paths to revolution.

The Left Is Remaking the World
By Amna A. Akbar | July 11, 2020
— The New York Times

Ms. Akbar is a law professor who studies leftist social movements.

DemocracyNow! Interview

10 ways social change organizations can support the
Black Lives Matter movement
The difference between being an anti-racist and not being a racist
has never been more stark — By Todd Paglia, Executive Director, Stand.earth

The Climate Emergency Won’t Wait for the Press to Play Catch-Up — Moyers on Democracy

Mayabel Rents waits for a bus next to a flooded street on Sept. 29, 2015 in Miami Beach, Florida

What Do the Racial Wealth Gap, Police Brutality, and the Climate Crisis Have in Common? Wall Street
By Alec Connon — Common Dreams

The biggest banks, it turns out, are every bit as complicit in the climate crisis as they were in the slave trade.

Philadelphia Delays Unhoused Encampment Eviction as
CDC Says “Let Them Remain” & Stop COVID Spread — DemocracyNow! interview

Solutions

Fix Our Planet: Electrify Everything!
Let’s enable our Makers to Make a Better Now

REI’s Opt to Act Weekly Calendar / Checklist

Week 34: Use your windows and shades to heat and cool your home. 
Take part: July 19–25, 2020

Political Climate – Vote For Your Future

Regional Actions

OCA joins the 350.org Washington Network!
The Network will help our group speak with a strong statewide voice but still leave us the flexibility to voice our own opinion.

On July 20th, US Climate Strike is mobilizing with the
Service Employees International Union and the
Movement for Black Lives to present a united front against injustice a month out from the Democratic National Convention

Join Washington Conservation Voters and State Senate Candidates T’wina Nobles, Ingrid Anderson, and Helen Price Johnson for a virtual Town Hall next week,
July 21 from 5 to 6 p.m

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) Is a Bad Actor
Right now, PSE is targeting children with coloring pages for a “gas town” and a racist mascot called Don Fuego.

When you care about Walrus,
tell ConocoPhillips to leave them alone in the Arctic
— Alaska Wilderness League

National Actions

Rainforest Action Network

Don’t bail out plastic recycling! — Greenpeace
Support real solutions, like the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act! 

Urge the Senate to pass this amendment to cut the Pentagon budget by 10 percent — Win Without War

Tell your Senators: Vote yes on Amendment 1788 to cut military spending by 10%

Urgent Federal Climate Bills and Strategy Webinar | July 2 — 1:45

Local/Regional News

Sightline’s Latest Original Work

Weekly Announcements

National/International News

Bill McKibben transitioning off the 350.org board
at the end of the year

A parting message from Bill McKibben

Center for Biological Diversity

Celebrate 3 Key Victories Over Oil and Gas Pipelines

MARCHWOOD, PENNSYLVANIA – OCTOBER 5: Private homes surround Sunoco’s 20 inch gas liquids pipeline along a right-of-way October 5, 2017 in Marchwood, Pennsylvania. Many nearby residents are aware of the possible well water contamination they could experience from the horizontal drilling with Sunoco Pipeline’s $3 billion Mariner East 2 expansion project. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

Understanding Trump’s Harmful Attack on NEPA
The National Environmental Policy Act gives us all a voice. The Trump administration is trying to silence it. — NRDC

The Trump Administration Is Reversing 100
Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List.
— The New York Times

How to Travel at Home: Finding New Routes Through Our Daily Lives

Fool’s Gold: Financial institutions waste billions undermining climate action
Financial institutions risking our renewable energy future by supporting the European coal sector

How Facebook Handles Climate Disinformation
Critics say a company policy that exempts opinion articles from fact-checking amounts to a huge loophole for climate change deniers. — The New York Times

COVID-19 cases continue to explode from the U.S. to the Amazon
What’s Up with Banking and Climate
The Latest News
The New York Times

‘The city I love’ and climate change:
A Miami story
also
What oil and gas bankruptcies leave behind

The fallout from last week’s epic pipeline defeats continues.
Phoenix is trying to combat Climate Change — The Washington Post

Climate in Politics

3 unexpected ways Joe Biden plans to
tackle climate change — Grist

Biden Announces $2 Trillion Climate Plan
Joe Biden’s plan connects tackling climate change with the economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis, while also addressing racism. The proposal drew praise from his onetime critics. — NYT

Joe Biden unveils aggressive $2tn
climate and jobs plan
Proposal outlines $2tn for clean energy infrastructure and climate solutions, to be spent as quickly as possible in next four years
— The Guardian

Pipelines, Politics and the Power of Indigenous Protest
By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Inspiration

THE NEW GROUP

NRDC is joining forces with The New Group, a New York-based theater company, to host FACING THE RISING TIDE — a digital series of readings and conversations about the climate crisis, environmental racism, and hope.

And we’d love for you to join us for these special online events
the week of July 20-24.
Get more information and register to attend this online series for free.

Facing the Climate Emergency
A Radical Self-Help Guide to Become the Hero Humanity Needs
By Margaret Klein Salamon,Clinical Psychologist & Founder of The Climate Mobilization

Category:
Burning Worlds

Nan Bray is an oceanographer and climate scientist
who has farmed superfine merinos near Oatlands since 2000
  1. Carbon dioxide:
    Nature’s tiny solar panels
  2. Take a deep breath
  3. Galileo Fixes Everything
  4. A Silver Lining
  5. If You Don’t Like the Heat,
    Get Out of the Kitchen
  6. Rainfall, Evaporation and Desertification

This is a series I’m writing on climate change for our local monthly newspaper.
I wanted to go back to the basics of the science behind climate change. Nan

Bill McKibben Steps-down from 350.org Board

First of all, enormous thanks for being part of 350.org’s family over the years. We’ve all depended on you, and I think together we’ve done useful work.

As 2020 ends I will transition from active to emeritus status in my work at 350.org, both in my role as ‘senior advisor’ and as a member of the board. Please read my full letter about this transition.

Second of all, I’m still going to be doing what I can to help 350.org, and to back up the climate fight. I’ve known from the very start that one of my jobs was to train the next generations of climate fighters, because this is going to be a struggle that takes place over decades. I’m proud of the people running 350.org these days, and know that with the proper support they will make enormous progress. It’s especially clear in their decisive embrace of the idea that we need to think about a just world even as we think about a safe and working one; the fusion of these ideas will produce enormous changes.

I won’t tell you we’re winning this battle: it now looks like 2020 will turn out to be the hottest year in the earth’s history. But I will say that, with your great help, we’ve accomplished at least a little of what I set out to do. The fossil fuel industry is no longer the colossus it was a decade ago, capable of blocking change. Increasingly we have it on the defensive, which means there may finally be room to start making the changes we should have embarked on three decades ago. The young people now leading 350.org will help make those changes happen!

The main thing I’d like to say is: thanks. These have not always been easy years for me—though it’s nothing compared to the violence experienced by environmentalists elsewhere. At times, the counter-attack by the fossil fuel industry has felt almost unbearably fierce, especially since they also went after my family. I’m truly grateful for the support of my wife and my daughter. And I’m truly grateful for the friends that I have made these past decades in this fight—they are so many in number, and spread so widely across the earth, that I can’t begin to list them. But they know who they are, the companions in this fight who have done so much, against such great odds. I look forward to supporting them, and those who will emerge, in every way possible in the years ahead.

Onward,
Bill McKibben

P.S. Please read more about 350.org’s new board members here.

Climate justice is racial justice.

A message from The US Climate Strike Coalition

On July 20th, we are mobilizing in solidarity with the S.E.I.U and the Movement for Black Lives in order to present a united front against injustice a month out from the Democratic National Convention. As environmental organizers, it is our responsibility to put action behind the phrase “Climate justice is racial justice.” Climate strikes in the past have done a fantastic job of worldwide attention. We must show the world that movements for justice are in unanimous agreement: Black Lives Matter and we will not stop until both our leadership, policy, legal systems, workplaces, and schools reflect this truth. On July 20th, we strike for these four demands:

  1. Justice for Black communities, with an unequivocal declaration that Black Lives Matter.
  2. Elected officials and candidates at every level must use their executive, legislative, and regulatory authority to ensure the safety of voters and workers given the pandemic.
  3. Corporations must take immediate action to dismantle racism, white supremacy, and economic exploitation wherever it exists, including in our workplaces.
  4. Every worker must have the opportunity to form a union, no matter where they work.

Find or host an event here

We’ve compiled resources for you to take action on Monday, linked below.
Kickoff call deck, recording.

How you can get involved on July 20th:

  1. Take the 8:46 Pledge.
  2. Host an event (in-person or digital). Events can include strikes, walk-offs, protests, digital events such as teach-ins, workshops and webinars and make sure to encourage attendees to register to vote in November!
  3. Apply for funding from the Youth Direct Action Fund to support your event.
  4. Attend an event in your area.
  5. Help promote the event on social media and through your email lists.
  6. Read the Black Leadership Toolkit to make sure your allyship is authentic and representative of the US Climate Strike Coalition’s theory of change.
  7. Attend office hours for more support.
    1. Tue, July 14th @ 7pm EST
    2. Wed, July 15th @ 9pm EST
    3. Thurs, July 16th @ 7pm EST

In solidarity,

The US Climate Strike Coalition

OCA joins the 350 Washington Network!

OCA members Ed Bowlby, Ed Chadd, and John Cambalik attended the virtual Retreat at which this Network was formally created.
The Network will help our group speak with a strong statewide voice but still leave us the flexibility to voice our own opinion.

Kudos to Grace Hope, our 350 PNW Organizer, and to Alec Connon,
who facilitated in stunning fashion!

You can be involved too! From 350 Washington

  • Join the 350 Washington Network listserv! This is our broadest communication platform, open to all active volunteers in the 350 Washington Network (email me pnworganizer@350.org to be added) 
  • Join the conversation! Our weekly 350 Washington Conversation series is open to all active volunteers in the 350 Washington Network and is where we build the relationships and connections that sustain our community. Weekly on Monday nights from 6pm-7:30pm PST. You can register here for this call, and attend the ones you’re available for.

Washington’s Environmental Justice Task Force

Dear Friends: 

Thank you for your ongoing interest and engagement in the mission of Washington’s Environmental Justice Task Force. Its body of work will provide a policy blueprint for how Washington State can provide the highest standard of environmental health protection to every resident.

Since September 2019, the Task Force has been collecting public input through regional meetings and drafting policies to fulfill the Legislature’s request to produce recommendations on how State Agencies can incorporate environmental justice principles into their work. These recommendations are due to Governor Inslee and the Legislature by October 2020. 

I’m pleased to share a draft of the recommendations on this Google Word document. Please identify yourself in your comments and provide them by July 27 so they can be considered before the Task Force’s last scheduled meeting on August 7. We encourage each of you to review these recommendations and leave any thoughts, concerns or suggestions for improvements in the document. These comments will be shared with Task Force members and guide the discussion the Task Force will have before finalizing them. 

We also invite you to a public listening session the Task Force will be hosting via Zoom on Thursday, July 16, from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. to get your feedback on them.  

Meeting Details

Continue reading →

Water Column: Resetting the rules

by Ann Soule | Wednesday, July 8, 2020 — Sequim Gazzette

If you’re into games of intricate strategy and tales of suspense and mystery, you’d probably enjoy water law. You just have to be extraordinarily patient for the solution.

I attended an online workshop about the future of water banking and water trusts in our state last week, and witnessed many clever minds honing sophisticated arguments pro and con for each proposed policy, dissecting the strengths and weaknesses of this angle or that tack.

Water law evolves via serial legal challenges these days, so it makes sense that a state agency would get multiple bright legal minds to weigh in before its policies get quashed in court battles. It appeared to be a very productive workshop.

Water law came about in our state originally a century ago to settle conflicts of demand for a resource whose supply varies by season and year. It was written in Olympia by politicians without nearly enough data or input from stakeholders – but try inserting new information now and you’ve got an instant court case.

Water is a political hot potato, so most rules are made in court.

Continue reading →

A Demand sent to Trans Mountain Insurers from OCA

To the CEOs of AIG, Chubb, Energy Insurance Limited, Liberty Mutual, Lloyd’s, Munich Re, Starr, Stewart Specialty Risk Underwriting, W.R. Berkley, Zurich, Amlin, ANV, Arch, Argo, Ironstarr, Lancashire, and QBE:

The 2019-2020 certificate of insurance for the Trans Mountain pipeline names your company as a provider of insurance coverage from August 2019 through August 2020.1  

We, the undersigned organizations, demand that you publicly rule out insuring Trans Mountain immediately. With the policy expiring at the end of August, now is the time to decisively say no to this destructive project.

Continue reading →

Whipped by the ‘Long Tail’ of the Coronavirus

“When the E.R. nurse asked if I’d been short of breath that day,
I replied that I’d been short of breath for 65 days.“

By Jodie Noel Vinson | July 13, 2020 — The New York Times

On day 45 of our illness, my husband, Marc, and I woke up and looked at each other. Our symptoms had always been eerily in sync. Now the constriction in our chests was unmistakable. It was back. It was worse.

Read the article for free at The New York Times . . .

Hot Off the Wire — 7/10/2020

The Climate Impacts Group (CIG) at the University of Washington is hiring an
entry-level Research Scientist.
You can learn more about the position here . . .

Flu Virus Resources

Why kids should be in the classroom this fall
— and how to keep them safe there
How should schools reopen?
Pediatricians offer these guidelines
To save American jobs, we must bring virus to ‘screeching halt’
How doctors are innovating to treat COVID-19
What doctors know about lingering symptoms from coronavirus
Scuba gear, coffee makers inspire inventors in design challenge for a cheaper ventilator

How to Stop the Next Pandemic: U.N. Report
— DemocracyNow!

Opinion

Letter — Supports Jim Waddell’s position on lower Snake River dams
— Peninsula Daily News

Anti-Racist Tools for your consideration

Diversify the all-white Port Angeles
Public Safety Advisory Board
Take the next step! Sign the Petition

The Port Angeles Racial Justice Collective on Facebook

Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness;
A Short List of People in America Who Were Not Freed in 1776
By Arleen Jenson

Racism Is Killing the Planet
The ideology of white supremacy leads the way toward disposable people
and a disposable natural world
By Hop Hopkins | Jun 8 2020 — Sierra Club Magazine

White people own 98% of rural land. Young Black farmers want to reclaim their share. — Grist

Across America, Activists Work at the Confluence of LGBTQ Rights and Climate Justice — Inside Climate News

Making Sure ‘Normal’ Is Never the Same Again
By Claire Elise Thompson | June 30, 2020 — Moyers on Democracy
5 environmental justice leaders from across the country share their thoughts on how to address racial injustice, climate change and COVID-19

8 Must-Reads by Women Who Take on White Supremacy and Patriarchal Power
These authors pull no punches in tackling head-on the topics of race, gender, and justice — Yes Magazine

Oprah Winfrey leads a conversation
speaking directly about systematic racism

Part 1

Part 2

Part 1

Solutions

REI’s Opt to Act Weekly Calendar / Checklist

Week 33: Repair an item instead of purchasing a new one
Take part: July 12–18, 2020

Climate Leaders Live! series

  • Clean and Safe Buildings through Electrification on Aug 13, 2020 @ 10 AM PDT Register here
  • The Big Issue: Transforming Transportation on Sept 10, 2020 @ 10 AM PDT Register here

How do you deal with 9 million tons of suffocating seaweed? — The Guardian

Regional Actions

You are invited to the
Washington
Clean Air & Climate Caucus!
— Climate Solutions

Language access program registration for your group — 350.org

National Actions

Thursday, July 16, 2020 | 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM PDT

Youth4Climate Summer Camp (Virtual)

Session II:  July 27 – August 21, 2020

Send a message to P&G top executives. Charmin gets an “F” for sustainability.

We’re a Nerdy Movement Study Group – 12-week online program

Local/Regional News

Sightline’s Latest Original Work

Weekly Announcements

National/International News

Learn about the Citizen’s Assembly in detail in upcoming webinars
Learn about the CITIZEN’s ASSEMBLY ON CLIMATE – what Washington can accomplish through deliberative democracy
MONDAY, JULY 13th – 10-11 AM | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89272139818

Press Release from Reclaim Finance
BNP Paribas commits to no longer finance companies with no strategy to exit the coal power sector
— BankTrack

What’s Up with Banking and Climate
The Latest News
The New York Times

Another Reason to Cut Down on Plastics

Also this week:
Face masks for the environmentally conscious

How Wildfires Make Covid More Dangerous

The fracked gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline project is dead — Sierra Club

Supreme Court Won’t Block Ruling to Halt Work on Keystone XL Pipeline
— The New York Times

Standing Rock Elder Hails Order to Shut Down DAPL
— DemocracyNow! interview

Supreme Court reinstates fast-track pipeline permitting except for Keystone XL — The Hill

Some new climate models are projecting extreme warming.
Are they correct?
— Yale Climate Connections

Why Is the South Pole Warming So Quickly? It’s Complicated
Much of the warming is linked to natural climate cycles happening thousands of miles away in the tropics — E&E News

How COVID-19 Creates Food Waste Mountains That Threaten the Environment — EcoWatch

Pipelines are becoming a pipe dream — Grist

Inside Climate News

Climate in Politics

League of Women Voters
Clallam PUD District 2 Candidate Forum – July 16 at 6:00pm
Zoom link to Forum

2020 Election Strategy Survey — 350 Action Team

Inspiration

Category:
Burning Worlds

Nan Bray is an oceanographer and climate scientist
who has farmed superfine merinos near Oatlands since 2000
  1. Carbon dioxide:
    Nature’s tiny solar panels
  2. Take a deep breath
  3. Galileo Fixes Everything
  4. A Silver Lining
  5. If You Don’t Like the Heat,
    Get Out of the Kitchen
  6. Rainfall, Evaporation and Desertification

This is a series I’m writing on climate change for our local monthly newspaper. I wanted to go back to the basics of the science behind climate change.

Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness;

A Short List of People in America Who Were Not Freed in 1776

By Arleen Jenson
(“Jenson,” They/Them)
Farm Manager and Co-Owner, SisterLand Farms

Independence Day celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence in particular, but has become a holiday celebrating American freedom in general; complete with patriotic merchandise, eating outdoors, the wearing of nationalist symbols, and fireworks displays.

What often goes unmentioned during the holiday is: Very few Americans were free on July 4th, 1776. Many more are—even now—still fighting for the most basic freedoms we claim to cherish: The freedom to vote, to live healthy lives, and to pursue happiness.

The Indigenous American: Referred to as “savages” in our Declaration, native inhabitants of America (and their families) were denied their autonomy, voices, lands, resources, and prosperity. Fifty years after July 4th, 1776, the Indian Removal Act forcibly pushed eastern tribes into unknown federal territory; robbing them of ancestral lands, farms, and wealth—all so that their collective land could be resettled by white land owners. It has not been returned. Tens of thousands died during what is now considered a completely American act of genocide. Moreover, the racist treatment of the Indigenous American continues today; with many living without access to the wealth, legal freedoms, or reparations they are owed.

Black Americans: Frederick Douglass was once asked to speak on the 4th of July, and chose to speak on exactly this—that the celebration was not inclusive of Black America; that the struggle for independence was one being fought against the same sort of person who authored and signed the Declaration itself. It would take nearly 100 years for slavery to be abolished, and over 200 years for every state to ratify the 13th Amendment. Black communities have the least access to voting stations in the US, and 1 out of 13 Black adults are denied the right to vote due to disenfranchisement. Today, a Black adult is five times more likely to be incarcerated than a white adult—and incarcerated peoples have almost no independence at all; often working in the American textile and agriculture industry while captive—for around $.33/hour. This begs the question: Did slavery end, or just adapt?

The Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated: Despite the fact that federal and state laws can change and evolve (not to mention cultural and moral shifts,) the imprisoned population serving time for non-violent crimes is staggering; with America having the highest rate of incarcerated citizens in the world. Over 6 million Americans are not allowed to vote because of a felony on their record; robbing us of valuable insight into our own system of criminal justice. Moreover, the American prison system radically impacts the health and wellness of even liberated prisoners; with the likelihood of death-after-release spiking just weeks after leaving prison.

Minority Americans: America maintained racist immigration laws long after the Declaration, limiting the number of incoming migrant families if they were non-white; an idea that has recently resurfaced. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, America built and filled concentration camps to intern Japanese American families against their will. After the September 11th attacks, Sikh Americans bore the brunt of a wave of domestic terrorism by white citizens. During the COVID-19 epidemic, Asian Americans are—again—the subject of harassment and abuse. Despite changes made to abhorrent naturalization laws in the 1960s, subtler laws exist today that cap the influx of migrants from countries like Mexico. Once legally within the US, minority citizens are still often the victims of hate crimes, assault, discriminatory policing, and racist hiring practices.

Women: No woman in America was allowed to vote until 1890—over 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence—and voting was not a federally granted right to women until 1920. Women received the right to equal pay in 1963, and to education access in 1972. In 2020, women earn about 82% of what a man earns doing the same work. 90% of adult rape victims are women, with 94% of those reporting detrimental PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

And more: Because who is truly free when so many of our peers, our coworkers, and our loved ones are not? How limited is our view and vision of America if so many Americans are kept forcibly on the outskirts of freedom?

If we’re not fighting for the independence we claim to love, what are we celebrating?

Greta Thunberg: Humanity has not yet failed

Sommar & Vinter i P1 | Jun 20 – 75 min.

Spotify URL – https://open.spotify.com/episode/7E2Wz3C5XwtEw3Pi96tLQA?si=gOHyk4gOSMGxKcgdaoc4lg

Episode Description

Climate activist Greta Thunberg urges world leaders to do more. Doing our best is no longer good enough. We must now do the seemingly impossible, Thunberg says in the Swedish Radio show Summer on P1 where she takes us along her trip to the front lines of the climate crisis.

We don’t accept these odds. That was Greta Thunberg’s principal message while speaking before the General Assembly of the United Nations last year. It referred to the remaining CO2-budget of humanity.

Continue reading →

Hot Off the Wire — 7/3/2020

The Climate Impacts Group (CIG) at the University of Washington is hiring an
entry-level Research Scientist.
You can learn more about the position here . . .

Flu Virus Resources

Quarantine bubbles – when done right – limit coronavirus risk and help fight loneliness — PBS News Hour

Opinion

Making a Planet Worth Saving | By Bill McKibben | June 9, 2020 — New Yorker

Anti-Racist Tools for your consideration

You Want a Confederate Monument?
My Body Is a Confederate Monument
By Caroline Randall Williams | June 26, 2020
Ms. Williams is a poet

white supremacy culture — Dismantling Racism

DemocracyNow! Examines Our National Reckoning

“What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?”: James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass’s Historic Speech

Angela Davis on Abolition, Calls to Defund Police, Toppled Racist Statues & Voting in 2020 Election

“America’s Moment of Reckoning”: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor & Cornel West on Uprising Against Racism

The Untold History of Mount Rushmore: A KKK Sympathizer Built Monument on Sacred Lakota Land

AFP via Getty Images

What are gender pronouns?
Let’s talk gender: A guide for using pronouns
Justice Ameer Gaines | Daily Kos Staff

Solutions

REI’s Opt to Act Weekly Calendar / Checklist

Save money and energy.
Switch to LED light bulbs in one room
Take part: July 5–11, 2020

Climate Leaders Live! series

  • Carbon Pricing 101 on July 9, 2020 @ 10 AM PDT Register here 
  • Clean and Safe Buildings through Electrification on Aug 13, 2020 @ 10 AM PDT Register here
  • The Big Issue: Transforming Transportation on Sept 10, 2020 @ 10 AM PDT Register here

The Hopeful Work of Turning Appalachia’s Mountaintop Coal Mines Into Farms
–Yes Magazine

What to Say When People Say “It’s Impossible”
10 smart conversation starters to address some standard defenses of the status quo.
— Yes Magazine

West Coast Gears Up For Electric Big Rigs — OPB
Electric semis are starting to hit the highways along Interstate 5

What Kelp Forests Can Do for the Climate
Cultivating algae empowers coastal communities while storing CO2 deep underwater.

Regional Actions

A vision toward an equitable, just, and healthy future for all
You are invited to the Washington Clean Air & Climate Caucus! — Climate Solutions

New Blog: Caring for Washington’s Agricultural Workers
— Washington Environmental Council

Organize a FridaysforFuture shoe strike in your community

OCA Signs Letter to Big Oil:
Protect the Arctic Refuge

National Actions

The AfrikaVuka Caravan Webinars
join us live online every two weeks as we connect with frontline groups exposing the fossil fuel and finance industry’s role in accelerating the climate crisis

2nd annual Climate Policy Summer Camp
From July 23 to 26, Our Climate will host virtual workshops, networking events, creative actions, state based breakout groups, and even a dance party in support of the Movement for Black Lives. 

Youth4Climate Summer Camp (Virtual)

Session I: June 29 – July 24, 2020
Session II:  July 27 – August 21, 2020

Stop the Money Pipeline Webinars — 350.org

Communities are sounding the alarm that some of the oldest and biggest trees in Canada are slated to be logged this summer — Stand.earth

Are fashion companies keeping their renewable energy promises? — Stand.earth

Thank AG Ellison for his leadership on holding Big Polluters liable
— Corporate Accountablilty

SIERRA CLUB PRESENTS HD SCREENING AND DISCUSSION
THE CONDOR & THE EAGLE – GROUND ZERO FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE
Tuesday, July 7th – 4 pm PT | SLIDING-SCALE TICKETS HERE

Local/Regional News

Justice for Black, Brown and Indigenous Lives: A message of solidarity from RAVEN

Sightline’s Latest Original Work