Tag Archives: Port Angeles

Kudos to Port Angeles High School

They’ve made Climate Change their theme for the year. Here’s their memo to students and parents:

School-wide theme: Educating for Climate Change: Teachers are reporting creative ways that they are incorporating the theme of Educating for Climate Change into their classrooms this year. For example:

  • Ms. Christianson’s French III/IV students found French words/phrases associated with climate change, then read articles in French that use the words. Topics ranged from a comparison of the carbon production of an average American citizen and an average Chinese citizen, to the “gilets jaunes” (yellow vests) protesting French President Macron’s fossil fuel surcharge, to the features of modern electric vehicles.
  • Mr. Brabant’s DigiTools students read 10 Ways to Be a Better Environmental Steward in 2018.
  • Mr. Logan’s Environmental Science class features monthly themes centered on climate change. This week his students are learning about phenology –monitoring how a tree on the campus changes throughout the year. Two years of data collected by his classes suggest that spring is occurring earlier and fall is finishing later.
  • In Mr. Hansen’s Automotive Technology class, students are writing a research essay on a subject that is automotive and related to climate change, such as what the current U.S. automotive industry is doing to reduce vehicles’ carbon footprint.
  • Ms. Helpenstell’s Leadership class discussed the idea of a Climate Action Week: Meatless Monday…Brown Out Day…Carpool Day, etc. Her Money Management class is exploring the rising cost of insurance due to climate change…how the job outlook will change…comparing long term cost of eco-friendly vehicles vs traditional vehicles.
  • students will have a unit on public murals and social change.  We plan to propose a campus mural about envisioning a positive future, highlighting hopeful imagery and references to leaders in the movement to address climate change. Digital Illustration students will have a poster assignment along similar lines, art as a tool for promoting positive social change.  We will focus on addressing climate change this year.
  • In Honors English 9, students are assigned to discuss/explain the value of one aspect of nature that you find important, emphasizing personal connections, current events, and your hopes for its future.

Port Angeles commits to a climate plan

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/port-angeles-aims-for-climate-plan-in-2019/

In a 6-0 vote, the Port Angeles City Council at its meeting on 6/19/18 committed to devising a climate action plan in 2019 with help from a citizens’ committee.

Council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin noted that Port Angeles has heard from citizens [including OCA members] for many years on this issue, with little response, and has missed out on funding opportunities because of its lack of a climate action plan.

Port Angeles Community and Economic Development Director Nathan West committed City staff to full engagement in this process in 2019, noting a full plate of commitments already in place for 2018.

Schromen-Wawrin suggested that “we do this collaboratively with community stakeholders taking the lead with support from city staff and council.”

Once again, local communities are stepping in where the federal government has failed to act.

Vigil for Paris Accord

Olympic Climate Action will hold a vigil for the Paris Accord on Friday, June 2, from 5 – 6:30 pm in front of the Federal Bldg. at First and Oak Streets in downtown Port Angeles.

We will be there to witness this tragic development and express our profound sadness and disappointment in the President’s decision.

Wear black and bring a drum and candle if you have one–we’ll have some there.

Without the federal government to protect us, it’s up to us make progress.

How Trump’s Paris Decision Hurts America, in 5 Graphics

We’re Already Moving Past Trump–NYT

People’s Climate March Olympic Peninsula

Saturday, April 29 was a day of Climate Awareness marches in Washington, DC and around the world.  In Port Angeles, some 600 concerned citizens from across the Olympic Peninsula and beyond came by bike, by foot, by carpool, and by busloads.  Some presumably swam, like this pod of orcas from Port Townsend!

Lys Burden, Dale Grooms, Debra Ellers and Annette Ruzicka of Port Townsend

Lys Burden, Debra Ellers and Annette Ruzicka of Port Townsend

The event was organized by a tireless group of activists from Olympic Climate Action and supported by the Sierra Club North Olympic Group.  Led by members of the Klallam Drum Group of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, this non-violent march moved with good spirit through the sidewalks of downtown PA in the rain.  The majority of bystanders and local businesses showed their support and expressed an understanding of the importance of the issues being raised on this day.

March starts at City Pier
Local musicians keep the rhythm
March monitors assure safety
Drums and Peace
Lincoln and Front Streets
First and Oak Streets
Railroad Ave.
Harbor Art Gallery, Bob and Cindy
Wet but happy!

More photos available on OCA’s Facebook page.

Climate change is real and now. Most of us get it. Humans must act in ways to limit its effects, and deal with surviving the changes that are here and/or on their way.

cleanup

Give a rousing cheer for the many unsung citizens who took an afternoon out of their lives to make this a worthy event.  Even the clean-up crew!

Check out the Peninsula Daily News story about this March for Climate, and some of the interesting commentary that follows.

LETTER: Trump threatens to substantially turn back the clock on climate change progress

Peninsula Daily News

Tue Jan 31st, 2017 1:30am, Letters to the Editor

Far from making America great again, Donald Trump may in fact threaten human civilization by setting in motion runaway climate change beyond the capacity of civilization to cope.

The trickiest concept about climate change is the lag time between cause and effect, whereby we won’t see the worst of the impacts from our current behavior for many decades.

The science indicates that what we do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next few years is crucial, and if we don’t start acting decisively now, disaster awaits.

But what we will see of those impacts in the next few years, substantial as they may be, will pale in comparison to what’s to come a generation or two down the line.

Our president has called climate change a “hoax” and threatens to “cancel” the historic Paris climate accords and unleash a bonanza of oil and coal extraction that would dwarf the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines.

He has murmured about being “good stewards,” but his Cabinet nominations are down-the-line “climate skeptics” who risk turning the clock back to a place where we can’t afford to go.

Their proposed deregulation plans would discount the future and expose future generations to untold misery, undoing the substantial progress America has made toward a booming clean-energy economy, which truly would make America great again.

Tell Trump and the U.S. Senate that we need a leadership team that will carry us forward to this future, not send us backward.

For more information, go to http://www.olyclimate.org.

Ed Chadd,

Port Angeles

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ed Chadd is on the executive committee of Port Angeles-based Olympic Climate Action.

Port Angeles adopts climate planning policy

On January 17, 2017, Resolution #02-17 was finalized after OCA appealed to the City Council for action following up on the climate adaptation plan. Here is a paraphrase of that resolution:

“It is incumbent on all local government agencies on the Olympic Peninsula to prepare for natural disasters, sea level rise and potential emergencies related to climate change.  In 2015 representatives of the City of Port Angeles participated in a regional effort to consider climate change impacts on the Northern Olympic Peninsula.

“In 2016, with input from OCA and dozens of jurisdictions, agencies, businesses and residents across the Northern Olympic Peninsula, the City adopted a new Comprehensive Plan that includes 18 new policies around climate change and adaptation to sea level rise. Areas of the new policies include climatic impact on land use, conservation, capital facilities, and economic development.

“The City should utilize the Climatic Change Preparedness Plan in attracting businesses, to demonstrate a proactive approach to climatic change inthe area.

“The City affirms its dedication to planning for climate change and for the needs of our community as we face these changes.  Its planning will be founded on the Comprehensive Plan.  The City will support a regional, co-operative approach and it directs City staff to ensure that new development, both public and private, take into account and  proactively mitigate changing environmental effects.”

To read the whole of Resolution 02-17, click here.

OCA comments on Port Angeles Comprehensive Plan

Urges consideration of climate change in guiding the City’s future

OCA delivered these comments to the Port Angeles Planning Commission, which is charged with taking public input and drafting a periodic required update of the Port Angeles Comprehensive Plan.  This plan guides decision-making of the City as it strives to meet its mission to enhance the quality of life of its citizens, now and into the future.

OCA members believe it is critically important for the City to come to grips with climate change, both to help mitigate its impacts and to proactively deal with the impacts we will not be able to avoid.  Going into the future, we can expect longer and more intense fire seasons, droughts, and floods, as well as sea level rise and ocean acidification.  Now is not the time to put our head in the sand and pretend nothing is happening.  While this past year of drought, wildfire, flood damage, and the dead zone off our coast was an anomaly, it was a good illustration of what the climate models predict for our area in the coming decades.

Fortunately, our area has been able to complete a scientifically rigorous and community-based Climate Preparedness Plan recently published by the NOP Resource Conservation & Development council, with help from community groups such as OCA.  This plan can serve as an excellent guide to our community as to how best to prepare for what’s to come.

One quick way to show your support for a proactive climate stance in the City’s Comp Plan is to answer their short survey:  “Speak Up PA!” Questionnaire.