Hi John

350 Eastside Community Meeting

Date: April 20^th

Time:  7 pm – 8:30 pm

Focus:  Designing and modifying Our Buildings to Reduce Climate Change

Guest presenter:  Court Olson

Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88910047533?pwd=NVZmQ3FtdFdveXBuRzNZK29maFRkZz09

Meeting ID: 889 1004 7533
Passcode: 771389

Buildings account for more than a quarter of Washington State’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, up 50% since 1990.  To meet our state’s GHG reduction goals, we need to change our energy systems significantly.  This will require, in part, using less energy more efficiently and switching to electricity for heat sources. 

Court has been a tireless advocate for green building.  Trained in civil engineering and construction management, he has spent decades designing, constructing and advocating for clean buildings.  A LEED Accredited professional, he has played key roles in passing WA State legislation requiring to upgrade State Energy codes every three years.  He has also led grass-roots efforts to educate, and pressure local governments here in Washington state to address climate change (People for Climate Action, Shift Zero, NW Energy Coalition, Cascadia Green Building Council among others).

Having recently overseen the design and construction of the deep energy efficiency and electrification of his own residence in Bellevue, he is prepared to talk about both residential and commercial changes necessary to address climate change.  We can all learn a lot from Court!

Yes to EKC PUD Campaign  - upcoming opportunities

· The Yes to East King County PUD campaign is moving along with LOTS of signature-gathering opportunities over the next two weeks. Please check the campaign's Events page for more information.

· We're also excited to announce a work party + fundraiser at Super Six in Seattle on April 28th! Come spend time with like minded folks and help us get the word out to voters.

· We're in need of some more social media support. If you have time to donate to helping us be more digitally active, please get in touch.

· Know of any businesses on the Eastside that want to stand on the side of clean electricity?  We would love to reach out! Let us know your ideas and if you have any personal connections.

· Engineering study updates!

UTC needs to hear from you – Don MarshSomerset • Just now

Should PSE be penalized for poor service reliability?

Customers have a rare opportunity to submit comments to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, which recently opened an inquiry into the reliability of PSE’s electric service. If PSE is found deficient, it could face fines up to $600,000.

If PSE has been unresponsive to your electric service issues, I encourage you to help the Commission understand what is happening to customers who have little recourse. PSE claims they have been doing just fine. Do you agree?

You can file a comment with the Commission at https://www.utc.wa.gov/consumers/submit-comment/public-comment-form. It only takes a few minutes (depending on the length of your comment). To make sure it goes to the right place, start your comment with something like this: “I would like to comment on Docket UE-220216 regarding PSE’s service quality.”

As we collectively try to reduce fossil fuel use for our home heating, cooking, and transportation, power outages will pose even greater impacts to our safety and well-being. I’m upset that PSE is trying to charge its customers hundreds of millions of dollars to build Energize Eastside, a big transmission upgrade through Bellevue and dozens of Eastside neighborhoods. Incredibly, the company has refused to provide evidence that this project will improve the reliability of the Eastside’s electric service. We know only that this boondoggle will destroy thousands of valuable mature trees and subject neighborhoods to noisy and invasive construction for many months. And we will pay higher bills for decades.

This is your chance to tell the Commission that regulates PSE that the company should concentrate on the issues that customers care about: increasing reliability, improving customer service, cleaning up our energy supply, and keeping costs under control. PSE is falling short in all of these categories.

Totem Pole Journey, Call for Solidarity

The totem pole journey is committed to standing behind and supporting the on-going intertribal campaign to remove the Snake River dams, and we have a role to play as 350 groups standing behind and supporting this indigenous-led effort.

Here are the details of the totem pole journey where you can find the local dates!

· Snake River to Salish Sea Spirit of the Waters Totem Pole Journey overview

· Overview of messaging and purpose of this event

Grace Hope will be working to get us all connected to the social media materials and promotional efforts that we can all use to amplify these events. Please stay tuned for more details as they become available.

With care,

Grace Hope (they/them)

Leadership Development Director with 350 Seattle 

Network Facilitator with the 350 WA Network

Organizing on the ancestral lands of the Puyallup Tribe and Coast Salish peoples

Cruise Free Salish Sea –

Cruise ships return on April 11th with more sailings planned than ever before, and we need to let the Port of Seattle know this is not an industry we should continue to support.

These massive ships are toxic, and so are their business practices--from the smokestacks harming our health; to the massive fossil fuel footprint; to garbage, human waste, and engine oil dumped straight into waterways; to noise pollution disrupting our underwater relatives; to onboard workers often underpaid and exploited; to tax avoidance while stressing local infrastructure; to bully tactics used on destination communities that push back against these harms. It’s time to envision a #CruiseFreeSalishSea.

We need to urge the Port of Seattle to transition away from this harmful industry. What can you do?

·       Personalize an email here!

·       Spread the message on social media by

amplifying posts by Seattle Cruise Control on Twitter and Facebook
or create your own with this handy #CruiseFreeSalishSea Toolkit

·       Testify at a virtual Port Commission Meeting! (4/12 & 4/26 at 12pm)

·       Fill out this form to sign up for a role at events, online port commission testimony, or get more involved with Seattle Cruise Control!

It’s time for us to prioritize healthy communities, healthy marine life, healthy jobs, and a healthy planet.

Learn more: Watch the 2021 Cruise Free Salish Sea Press Conference, or visit seattlecruisecontrol.org

~Seattle Cruise Control

Power Past Fracked Gas – upcoming coalition meeting, all welcome

Monthly Coalition Meeting for Stand Up to Oil & Power Past Fracked Gas

Wednesday, April 13, 2-3 pm (Always on the 2nd Wednesday from 2-3 pm)

All current and future coalition members are invited to join to hear campaign updates, get to know one another, and hear a presentation on a specific topic or skill-share. Please invite others you’re working with! This meeting is open to all.

RSVP here for the Zoom link

·          Welcome and network in small breakout rooms 

·          Review top presentation topics and speaker suggestions

·          Hydrogen presentation- introduction to the risk and misnomers of hydrogen

Stop the Money Pipeline – upcoming event

 Have you heard about Wall Street's evil twin? It's the private equity industry and it's dripping in fossil fuels.

Join us on Thursday, April 14th at 4pm PT / 7pm ET on Zoom to learn about how private equity is fueling climate chaos and what we can do about it. (Live Spanish & ASL interpretation provided)

As financial institutions face growing pressure to cut emissions, many are selling their fossil fuel holdings — and private equity firms are stepping up as buyers.

Private equity firms and their billionaire CEOs have pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into fossil fuels with little scrutiny. Because these firms are exempt from many financial regulations, they largely operate under the radar. This needs to change.

You might be asking yourself: Why should I care about private equity? What are the community and human impacts of this industry? How can I fight back against big money fueling the climate crisis?

We will give you all the information you need and together, we can shine a light on private equity and stop them from cashing in on climate chaos. RSVP today to save your spot.

This is the third of a 5-part Toxic Money Training Series to expose the financial institutions fueling the climate crisis, and organize collective action to rein them in —for this training, we’re partnering with the Action Center on Race & the Economy, Public Citizen, Private Equity Stakeholder Project, and Americans for Financial Reform.

People For Climate Action - upcoming event

Lake Forest Park Climate Town Hall – Climate Resiliency – a virtual event

Saturday, April 23, 2022, 10 am – 2 pm

REGISTER HERE

The 2022 Town Hall on Climate Resiliency

Speakers: 

State Rep Davida Duerr, District 1update on climate action in 2022 legislative session

Sarah Jaquette Ray author of A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet 
Heather Price examining Individual and community actions to address the fossil fueled climate crisis 

Breakout sessions:

·       e-bikes technology and climate solutions   Gordon Smith, co-owner of Amped Adventure

·       e-vehicles working toward gas-free vehicles Carlos Manzanedo and Erick Frederick, Coltura 

·       How to talk to your friends and neighbors about recycling Republic Services

·       Home weatherization, Adam Wilson, Energy Savers Inc

·       Forest stewardship Judy MacCulley North City Park Forest Steward

·       Reading through the climate crisis, Katelynn Tefft, assistant manager Third Place Books

Meaningful Movies and Eastshore Unitarian Church event

Eastside Climate Challenge – read on

Do you want to help your community to be more resilient, sustainable, healthy, and prepared for disasters? Join The Eastside’s new Climate Challenge Teams Program! All you need is passion for a greener and better world. We will provide you with the support and coaching you need to reduce emissions, save water and money, and make our community more resilient. It will only take about one hour a week from June - December to make a significant impact on climate change. 

Learn more and register HERE to become a Climate Challenge Team Leader. 

Want to hear more before signing up? Attend a 45-minute climate challenge workshop to get more details and see if this opportunity is right for you! Sign up for any of the workshops here!  

Wall Street's Moment of Truth, Campaign Rally: Recording, Actions and More!

In case you missed it, here’s a recording of the event and the Slidedeck.

During the rally, we took several actions. If you missed them, you can take these actions now:

Donate to support the frontlines of climate justice. We’re raising money for  the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE) and The Vessel Project. CONFENIAE represents approximately 1,500 communities of Amazonian Kichwa, Shuar, Waorani, Sapara, Andwa, Shiwiar, Cofan, Siona, Siekopai, and Kijus nationalities. They organize to defend the rights of Indigenous peoples and confront the social and environmental impacts of resource extraction in the Amazon.  The Vessel Project of Louisiana is a small mutual aid organization located in Southwest Louisiana that was founded in the aftermath of several climate disasters. They support vulnerable community members in finding safe shelter, housing, food, healthcare, and other expenses like medical and phone bills. Last night, we raise nearly $5,000 for these two powerful, frontline organizations. Can you help us hit our goal of raising $7,500 by making a donation? Every cent we raise will go to these two powerful groups on the frontlines of climate justice.

1.     Send a message to the CEOs of Wall Street banks and insurance companies. Your email will go directly into the inboxes of 20 top executives.

2.     Demand that BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street vote YES for climate. It’s critical that they vote the right way this shareholder season. Let them know you’re paying attention.

3.     Write a letter to your state treasurer. State Treasurers have huge power to decide critical climate votes at banks & insurance companies. Email yours & let them know you expect them to vote the right way.

4.     Sign the petition to stop the destruction of the Amazon.
 

5.     Sign the Customers for Climate Justice open letter. If you bank with Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo or Bank of America, join the 35,000+ customers who are demanding climate action.

6.     Share the Customers for Climate Justice launch on socials. 35,000 customers are calling out their banks. Let’s make this travel!

You can also find the full Banking on Climate Chaos report here. And all of the music that we listened to during the rally can be found on the People’s Echo SoundCloud. The People’s Echo is writing original music for the climate movement. Feel free to take it with you next time you’re out on the streets. 

With gratitude for all your dedication and passion for climate justice
- Alec

 Pledge of Resistance ~ 350 Seattle

Sometimes, we have to get in the way of destruction in the most direct way possible: with our bodies. 

Direct action (DA) has a long history in social movements, and its combination of escalation, disruption, and sacrifice can be a potent tool for change.

This week in the Understory blog, Paul Chiyokten Wagner talks with us about his experience in the forest defense resistance camp at Ferry Creek on Vancouver Island—the largest direct action in Canada’s history, with over 1200 arrests so far. We think you’ll enjoy the interview…and we hope it will inspire you, too.

This summer, we’ll be running an even better regional Agents of Change, an expanded reprise of the DA training series we held last year. The format will be similar: an in-person kickoff in July, 3 weeks of once-a-week webinars, and then a 2-day action camp towards the end of August, followed by a day of action. The webinars and the action camp will be broadly useful for many kinds of direct action, but this year, our focus will be on regional forest defense, which is one of the most important climate fights in the Northwest (as well as one of the most beautiful and pandemic-safe).

Sign the Pledge of Resistance to make sure you’re in the loop! More details will be coming later in spring.

In solidarity,
Emily, for the Pledge of Resistance team

We are grateful for your commitment to this ongoing work,

Emily, Lin, Lynn, Marilyn, Phil, and Sara

350 Eastside