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Black Lives Matter sidewalk chalk mural

Yeah, we’re ticked off, and it’s not because of the sun in our eyes, it’s…

THE MAYOR’S VETO

In a stunning “Let them eat cake” gesture last weekend, Mayor Durkan vetoed $86 million in COVID emergency relief, approved by City Council as part of the #JumpStartSeattle spending plan. Thrown under the bus: critical funding for rental assistance, safe shelter space, grocery vouchers, support for immigrant and refugee communities, and small businesses aid.

Amid the overlapping crises of COVID-19, systemic racism, and climate change… Mayor Durkan wants to “wait and see” how bad things get before taking action?

A healthy climate future starts with taking care of our neighbors now. We call on the City Council to override Mayor Durkan’s irresponsible veto.

Three actions you can take:

We don’t have to choose between COVID relief now and having Seattle’s Rainy-Day Fund again next year—JumpStart Seattle more than repays the money spent from Seattle’s emergency reserves. Moreover, direct relief and investment in our communities before things get worse is the best thing we can do for local economic recovery.

As Ruth Kagi writes, “You can’t starve your way out of a recession, but you can grow your way out of it.”

DEFUND SPD

Across Seattle people have been continuously calling, emailing, and tweeting at councilmembers and taking to the streets, demanding that they cut the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) budget by 50% and reinvest that money in community health and safety.

Over the past few weeks, the Council has been voting on various measures that would defund SPD—but votes remain this Monday (8/10) and Wednesday (8/12) on $3 million for a community research process, an end to overtime pay, and the civilian-ization of 911 dispatch.

Keep the pressure on Council this week to support Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now’s demands! Here’s a guide on who to call and what to say.

BLACK LIVES MATTER

There is no climate justice without racial justice and deep systemic change to end state repression. Black Lives Matter.

We are still in the middle of a massive nationwide uprising for Black lives, which is being met by increasing state repression. We stand in solidarity in the fight against anti-Black racism and the police state, following the lead of Black organizers. History shows that sustained and disruptive protest is one of the only ways to bring about the deep systemic change we need. Thank you for all the ways you are participating on and off the streets.

Opportunities

Seattle: Black Lives Matter Solidarity: curated list of Seattle protests, petitions, and donations, updated periodically.

Calendar of all BLM events in Seattle in all neighborhoods, by many groups.

Important protest guides and safety info.

Keeping Yourself Healthy & Safe at a Protest–350 Seattle webinar recording.

The Seattle-King County Black Lives Matter Protest Guide.

A guide put together by local Seattle street medics, with graphics.

350 Seattle Racial Justice Learning Series

Join us for a series of conversations on the deep connections between racial justice and climate justice. Throughout the month of September, 350 Seattle teams will host guest speakers to help us draw the connections between climate campaigns and movements for racial justice.

Sign up here to be sure you don’t miss the registration links! There is no climate justice without racial justice! Have questions? Contact Shemona.

ACTIVIST TRAININGS

Our world is facing many crises at once—the coronavirus, climate change, deep-rooted racism, and an upcoming election where the incumbent has signaled a willingness to do anything to get re-elected or stay in power.

In response, the 350 Seattle Pledge team is upping our activism trainings—as Utah Phillips says, “direct action gets the goods.” We’re following up our two recent trainings on Staying Safe at Protests, and De-escalation/Peacekeeping, with…

Introduction to Security Culture

Tuesday, August 11, 12:00–1:00pm

Online, register here.

In coming weeks we’ll repeat the two recent trainings, and add others: Direct Action 101, Theory of Political Change, and Know Your Rights. We’ll email our list as these are scheduled, but you can also keep an eye on the Trainings page.

And that’s not all! Our global affiliate 350.org has Solidarity School now in session—a four-part political education training series that kicks off with…

Why We Fight for a Just Recovery

Wednesday, August 12, 5:00–6:30pm (local time; registration page gives Eastern times)

Online, register here.

Can you help spread the word on Solidarity School? Here’s a tweet you can share and here’s a Facebook post. See you in class!

PHONE JAM

Speaking of recoveries, The Poor People’s Campaign is holding its second Moral Monday McConnell phone-jamming, calling on him to allow passage of a just and compassionate stimulus plan.

Moral Monday (virtual) March to Stop Misery, Meanness, and Mayhem

Monday, August 10, 12:30pm Pacific

RSVP here or just join in on Monday, here.

JOIN THE SOLIDARITY TEAM

Fighting climate destruction means fighting against all the systems that fuel the destruction of our planet, including white supremacy, colonialism, heteropatriarchy, classism, ableism and more. We invite you to join the Solidarity team as we work to build coalition across justice-oriented movements.

Using our node model, smaller groups partner with organizations and communities pushing forward specific issues, like immigration justice. Nodes meet at least once a month, in addition to a larger monthly meeting for the whole Solidarity Team.

We seek real power shifts and transformational change. We engage in both action and reflection as we work to avoid recreating the same systems we seek to change.

To get involved, contact Anna or Meg O. for more information or a Zoom link to our next meeting.

GREEN-A-THON

We’re still collecting donations (and surpassing our goal) for our ally Got Green, a climate justice organization led by low-income and communities of color which fights for transformative change by building community power in South Seattle. Donate here: 350 Ways to Love Got Green.

SEATTLE MUTUAL AID: NEIGHBORHOOD PODS

Building the network of neighborhood mutual aid pods continues as the pandemic drags on and state repression escalates while help dwindles.

We invite you to take leadership to help community grow within your own neighborhood so that we can help each other where there is need. The pods are being used to build relationships, hold documentary watch parties and discussion groups, gathering with social distance to chalk the streets, and more.

Neighborhood captains are in contact with each other, so resources, information, and support of all kinds can be distributed between different pods across the city. These pods should last well beyond the current crisis and create the kinds of resilient communities we will need to face future climate challenges, as well as to help organize for solutions and build leadership capacity for the overlapping crisis we will continue to face.

Join a neighborhood pod here, or better yet, sign up to be a pod captain and lead your neighborhood organizing efforts! We’ve got lots of tools and people to help you get it going and figure things out along the way! Contact Lisa if you are interested in other volunteer opportunities.

TACOMA LNG RESISTANCE

Join our 350 Seattle Tacoma LNG Resistance Team! With a legal appeal against Puget Sound Energy’s fracked gas refinery, storage, and bunkering facility coming up this October, we need all hands on deck. Whatever your skills, we’ll help you plug into a workgroup like Artful Actions (more on that below), Education and Outreach, Social Media, or even individual projects. Just fill out this form, or join us for our next team meeting:

LNG Resistance Meeting

Thursday, August 13, 12:00–1:00pm

Online, register here.

We’re also looking for people to become part of our amplification squad. We need to reach the hearts and minds of those not already involved in the cause. You can help by sharing our social media posts to your profile or network to help spread the word. This only requires about 5 minutes per week! Our people power is working! The recent coalition effort to clap back at the tone-deaf ad campaign Puget Sound Energy aimed at our children succeeded in getting #FrackOffPSE trending on Twitter in Washington state.

To learn more about what the Tacoma LNG facility is, how it will impact our communities, and why you should get involved, check out this recording of our recent informational workshop or visit nativedailynetwork.org/ancestral-waters for news articles, videos and frontline footage. Tacoma LNG Resistance will also be a focus at 350 Seattle’s September monthly meeting, so mark your calendars:

September General Meeting: Tacoma LNG Resistance

Wednesday, September 2, 7:00pm

Online, register here.

STOP THE MONEY PIPELINE

Trans Mountain and Insurance

The campaign to peel insurers away from the destructive Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline got a big win last month! Zurich, which has been Trans Mountain’s lead insurer for years, is dropping the pipeline, following years of Indigenous-led engagement and campaigning. Now is a crucial time to ramp up the pressure on Liberty Mutual, which has not yet said if it will keep insuring the pipeline when its policy expires on August 31. Send Liberty Mutual executives in Canada a message, and then give them a call at (857) 224-6655 to demand that they cut ties with Trans Mountain.

Wall Street and Police

Tackling the climate crisis and environmental racism goes hand in hand with defunding the police. Last week, a report revealed that fossil fuel companies and their financial backers are some of the largest donors to police foundations, which buy weapons, equipment, and surveillance technology for police departments with little public oversight.

It’s no surprise that the same companies polluting Black and brown communities are bankrolling police departments that brutalize and criminalize those very communities—but it does make it even more clear that we cannot address the climate crisis without undoing the racist and extractive systems at its root.

Sign this petition from Color of Change to demand that Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and other corporations stop supporting police departments.

Webinars

Over the last three months, Stop the Money Pipeline has organized webinars covering topics on the links between White Supremacy and Wall Street; BlackRock’s role in fueling climate migration and deportations; and how Wall Street drives the climate crisis. You can check out recordings of all eight webinars, and sign up to stay informed of everything that Stop the Money Pipeline is doing, here.

YƏHOW!

Co-directors Pamela Bond (founder and co-director of Salish Sea Environmental Education and Action) and Sara Holzknecht (co-founder of 350 Eastside) are pleased to announce the premiere of Yəhow, a 13-minute documentary about two women coming together to fight a pipeline expansion project in Snohomish County. The film’s premiere will be hosted by Native Daily Network. 350 Seattle volunteer Katherine Leggett produced and edited the film.

Yəhow

Thursday, August 13, 7:00–8:30pm

Trailer and premiere information here, and a shareable event page here.

Join us for the virtual premiere of Yəhow. In addition to screening the film there will be time for Q&A with the filmmakers and discussion.

CRUISING TOWARDS CLIMATE COLLAPSE

Yes, the Port of Seattle has pressed pause on their efforts to build a third cruise terminal at T46 due to the collapse of cruise business during the global pandemic. But contrary to media reports, the project is not dead, and the Port has not yet committed to taking health, climate, and equity into consideration as factors when the project is eventually reassessed. Public comment, via phone, is still needed at upcoming Port Commission meetings. Details here.

And while cruise activity may be on hold, there is still reason to keep the pressure on! Tell the Center for Disease Control that we are not ready to restart passenger cruises. How can we possibly justify letting cruise companies operate the large and mega-ships that travel from Seattle to Alaska when trials of small cruise ships are already having outbreaks?

Sign up here to receive campaign email updates (more details coming soon), and learn more at 350 Seattle Maritime and Seattle Cruise Control.

CLIMATE ASSEMBLY

Now here’s some welcome breaking news: the Washington State Climate Assembly is on schedule to take place this fall. Five legislative committee chairs have invited one hundred demographically representative Washington residents to come together in a series of facilitated meetings to learn, reflect, and deliberate on how Washington State can contribute to climate-change mitigation.  Assembly members will then formulate policy recommendations to be incorporated into legislation for the 2021 session. The support of a broad spectrum of residents represents an approach that could break through our past political legislative logjams. Assemblies such as this have been effective in climate victories in France and England.  Learn more and join in supporting this effort via the website Climate Assembly US.

YOU CAN DO BETTER, WA DEPT OF COMMERCE

Large commercial buildings are major contributors of greenhouse gases. And last year the legislature passed the Clean Building Act to reduce GHG emissions in large commercial building sector. It was a strong bill requiring these buildings to meet energy use targets by 2026.

Unfortunately, the devil is in the details! Our state’s Department of Commerce is developing the rules for this process, including the targets for energy use reduction, but they’re proposing only a 15% reduction from the current average energy use in these buildings. Meanwhile their own experts say these buildings can achieve 25-35% reductions, and other experts say a 50% reduction in energy use can be achieved.

Send a message to the state Department of Commerce—tell them to get their act together and set standards that accomplish what we need: significant energy use reductions!

TRANSPORTATION TEAM

The transit systems our economies depend on—even in this crisis—need more support to survive. Here are two ways to take action at the national level:

Working from home is a climate-friendly commute!

Are you working at home during COVID-19? And having Zoom meetings instead of business trips? Now is a great time to talk to your employer about making it permanent. Let us know how it goes, or if you need help explaining the commute/climate connection: email Alice.

Transportation and Racial Justice Learning Group

This learning group is off to a great start—and we’d love to have you join us! Our aim is to explore how to do transportation organizing with a deeper racial justice lens. We are reading and discussing texts at the intersection of race, transportation, COVID and climate justice. Whether you want to simply read and debate with us, or write follow-up letters to the editor, blogposts, or other social media, we’d love to have you with us. Together we will engage in new learning for the climate movement, and hope to push the movement conversation on climate justice forward. Email Ingrid for more information, or to join our learning group on Zoom, alternate Mondays, 4:00–5:00pm.

Seattle Corona-Cycleway

Bikes are a crucial tool in the fight against climate pollution, economic injustice, and COVID-19. Bikes are not only a zero-emissions alternative to virus fears in crowded indoor spaces like buses, but also they prevent the traffic and climate pollution that is already surfacing around the world as folks choose cars over transit. Bikes are also the cheapest transportation available: a monthly bike commute is half the cost of a low-income ORCA lift card. Cities around the world get it, and are massively building out bike infrastructure. Seattleites get it too—every bike store we talk to says commuter bikes are selling at multiple times the usual number. Seattle will join this cycling surge if we make biking a safe alternative to cars.

Seattle’s Bike Master Plan (BMP) is a community-vetted, city-wide bike network that would help make bicycle commuting safe for all. Yet the Mayor and SDOT keep cutting this plan.

Join the Transpo Team’s efforts to press the city to build out the BMP with cones and bollards to create an emergency, pop-up corona-cycleway for COVID-safe errands and commutes. Email Ingrid for more information.

ARTFUL ACTIVISM

Join our No LNG chalk stenciling dispersed art party! The No LNG Arts Team is excited to start up a project with stenciling and spray chalk this next week. We are having a breakout session on Thursday as part of the LNG Resistance Meeting where we will talk about how to make stencils from home for slogans like “Frack Off PSE”, “Honor The Treaty”, “Stand with Puyallup Tribe”, “No LNG”, ”Power Past Fracked Gas”, and any others that speak to you… If you’d like to join, we would love for you to hop in with us!

LNG Resistance Meeting

Thursday, August 13, 12:00–1:00pm

Online, register here, or connect directly with Bee.

Join our virtual “Protect What You Love” Banner!

There is still an opportunity for a couple more folx to creatively make a letter, photo yourself with it, and be part of the virtual message. Contact Bee.

Join the Artful Workgroup and get on our email list: we welcome all skill levels in any art form. During these stay home, stay healthy times, we can still be impactful and connected with art across distance! We’re working from home putting art on the web, or in small socially distanced groups or individually making art outside.

We’re looking for people with tech, graphic design, and video skills, for folks comfortable with Zoom, webinar, and web presentations, since that’s the main way we’re gathering in large numbers and sharing ideas these days. Contact Lisa.

We’re also looking for those with creative guerilla art ideas, for those ready to do painted mural, chalk art, and other creative outdoor social distance art forms at any skill level. Contact Lisa.

Do you have skills in any art form? We are always building out our teams in photography/videography, graphic design, music, sewing, prop building, and visual arts. And we’re looking to build teams in dance, spoken word, guerilla art, and theater. Sign up here to be added to our general Artful Activism List and tell us what skills and interests you have!

350 Seattle’s YouTube page is growing! Check out this recent training we did on Keeping Yourself Healthy and Safe at a Protest and the How to Edit a Video on Your Phone webinar. In the coming weeks we’ll be adding more DIY how-to videos, webinars, trainings and other awesome content!

GET INVOLVED!

Here are some really great ways to start on that path of engagement! Check out our updated Volunteer Opportunities List. Opportunities range from low commitment to high, introductory to skilled. All you have to do is find something you’re excited about and reach out! Unless otherwise noted all opportunities can be done from home!

Unsure what you want to do? Still have questions about who we are and what we do? Schedule a time to chat with Shemona either by phone or video chat.

No time? Well, never fear—you can support the work we do at 350 Seattle by becoming a monthly donor! Sign up here!

Stay sane, beautiful people! Together we’ll change this broken world!

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