| Welcome to the 3rd Annual Blackberry Edition of the 350 Seattle newsletter! Read on for: Detail about tomorrow’s No 2 Blue Angels protest, Updates from our teams including: Aviation, Artful, Policy Action Team, Book Club, Coming Back to Life, the People’s Echo and more May you avoid the bee stings and the smoke, and may find the ripest batch of berries and go swimming at least one more time before summer’s end. – 350 Seattle |
| No to the Blue Angels! Tomorrow, we are joining our friends with the Seafair Climate Action Coalition to protest the Blue Angels presence at Seafair. This will be the biggest protest of our 3-year campaign–show up if you can!10AM: Gather at Columbia Park green behind Columbia Library 10:30-11:30: March to Genesee Park (S Genesee & 43rd Ave S) 11:30-12:30: Rally and Die-In at Genesee Park These airshows pollute our lungs, the air and the water, as well as serving as a potent symbol of how ubiquitous weapons and war is in our local economy. Please show up if you can! We care enough about this to even send our newsletter two days early.Want to support but can’t make the protest? You can take this survey. 350 Seattle’s Antiwar X Climate Team monthly meetings are on the 4th Wednesday every month at 6:30pm. Get involved with the AWXC team, email Mary or Aedan. |
| Fundraisers & Membership Do you use cannabis products? Or live in West Seattle? Both or neither? What about wanting to support your favorite climate justice organization, 350 Seattle? On August 23rd, Origins Cannabis in W. Seattle is donating 30% of the profit from sales to us. You’ll need to show them the flyer to get this discount between 12-8PM–or you can pull up this newsletter.  Another way you can support 350 Seattle is by becoming a member. And just to say it, thank you to everyone who’s signed up as a 350 Seattle member in the last two months! Humbled to say we now have more than 100 members. Y’all make this work possible, in so many ways. We are proud to be part of such a community-powered organization and to know that we’re building resilience so that we can keep organizing for climate justice, no matter what this administration throws at us. |
| Members-Only Event: Grace Hope with the 350 WA Civic Action Team Have you heard about our legislative advocacy campaign, the 350 WA CAT, that makes it astonishingly easy for people around Washington to take action on sound and just climate policy? This past session in our 9th year of this effort we shattered all of our previous records! We mobilized and equipped advocates across the state to take a collective total of 100,401 advocacy actions in support of over 90 different bills. Have you ever wondered what it takes behind the scenes to pull off this herculean effort? Want to learn more about what’s happening at the state level? And how you can be a part of making a difference in passing the good policies we need for addressing the climate crisis here in Washington? Our twice-weekly Action Alerts contain easy action tools with well-researched positions on a broad variety of bills – and it’s powered by dozens and dozens of incredible volunteers collaborating in CAT and working closely with partners to ensure your voice is being heard in Washington. Meet Grace Hope, our 350 WA CAT Campaign Director! Thursday, September 18, 2-3:30pm RSVP here Have you signed up to be a 350 Seattle Member yet, or converted your monthly donation to a Membership? These “Meet the Campaign Director” events are a special perk for 350 Seattle Members only, and we’d love to see you there! Come with your curiosity and your questions, and let’s take a deeper dive behind the scenes with us to see how all the campaign magic is made. |
| Tesla Divestment Resolution Heads to Council Which is very encouraging. The last three months, alongside Troublemakers, we campaigned to divest the City of Seattle and King County from all Elon Musk – controlled companies. And now, one of Seattle’s council members agreed to sponsor the resolution. With budget season coming up and the general pro business vibe of this council, we are planning on ramping up pressure to make sure this resolution passes. Your help is needed!Join our next Campaign All Hands meeting on Monday 8/4, at 5:30PM, online. We will discuss coordinating calls to CM offices and preparing to show up when council votes, and strategizing other ways to win. Register here. |
| Climate Safe Pensions Our campaign to get the $200 billion of retirement savings managed by Washington state put to work toward a rapid and just energy transition continues. Please sign onto the latest form letter, written by Sierra Club, urging the pension fund to hold banks accountable for their fossil fuel investments today We are looking for support with two research and writing projects. 1. Do you want to investigate the intentionally opaque and shadowy world of private equity? We need support tracking down Washington’s private equity fossil fuel investments. We’ll be using this exciting new tracker from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project. 2. Divest Oregon published an excellent (and long) report on climate risks to pensions. We want to adapt and update sections of this report to make a report specific to Washington.Both of these tasks would come with structure from our (amazing) pensions campaign lead Andrew Eckels. Email Andrew to get connected! |
| Coming Back to Life Remember The Climate Grief and Empowerment Group? We changed our name to better reflect the ways in which we’re engaging to meet this moment. The group is now called Coming Back to Life: Connection, Grief, and Action for these times. Drawing from Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, we engage in collective practices that deepen our capacity for dwelling with difficult emotions and strengthen our strategies for coping in uncertain times. We still meet monthly, but we’ll be meeting on the third Saturday, rather than the second Saturday, of every month, and our online sessions will run from 10 am to noon (rather than ending a little earlier). On a quarterly basis, we’ll be gathering in person for a longer session! You can join us for the first in-person session in November 🙂 The group will take a break for August. The next Coming Back to Life Collective gathering will be Saturday, September 20th, from 10AM to noon. Mark your calendars for October, too–we’ll be meeting on Saturday, October 18th. Register here for each session you plan to attend.We welcome adults (18+) for as many or as few meetings as you would like! The Climate Grief and Empowerment Group is co-sponsored by 350 Seattle and Climate Action Families, out of the recognition that ongoing emotional support is critical in building community resilience and robust social movements. |
| Artful Activism Join our Artful team! Art, performance, and music are critical parts of movements for social change. Got skills you want to share? Or just enjoy making art, singing, or drumming? Or want to do some back-end non-art type of art support role? We need you! Sign up here to get on the Artful email list for monthly info on upcoming community art opportunities and to let us know your still sets! (Scroll all the way down that web page to sign up.) Skills welcome and appreciated! AND… no art skills yet? no problem! Join us! We’ll teach you as you go! You’ll love to be part of making the art for our actions in a supportive, learning, fun, and connecting atmosphere with other people who care enough to show up, and who accept you as you are. Come have fun with us, building powerful beauty for the movement! RSVP for Upcoming Art Builds to get the details and updates! No experience needed, just energy and smiles! Join us for camaraderie, snacks, and music while doing meaningful, beautiful and powerful art work! Location TBD, hopefully outside at a park if the weather is willing. Mark your calendars: August 23, Saturday, 1-5pm September 6, Saturday, 1-5pm Put Art into Action – Saturday, August 2nd, two actions on one day!! 10am-1:30 pm, No to Blue Angels: Many needed to help hold beautiful orca, heron, and salmon props, signs, and banners! 6-8:30pm: Lake City Parade ensemble: Celebrate Immigrants Animate a giant 23’ diameter community-painted earth/people/nature parachute for kids from the crowd to play under, or many beautiful monarch butterflies to fly over the crowd as we lead them in joining our Migration is Beautiful – We Are One message. 20-30 people will make this a wonderfully empowering and moving experience for the diverse Lake City community audience! Please sign up and join us! Saturday, September 20, 7-10 pm Luminata – a beautiful Fremont Art’s Council outdoor lantern and light festival for the Fall Equinox at Greenlake, where we will have an installation either for immigration justice, or something else TBD pressing at the moment. Whatever calls you to the Artful Team, this team is for you! Contact Lisa at art@350seattle.org. |
| More trees = colder water After literally decades of study, negotiation, compromise and delay, the Washington State Forest Practices Board is considering a proposal to widen forest buffers along non-fishbearing streams in Washington forests, many of which are the headwaters for our most important salmon habitat. Wider buffers are essential for keeping water cold, protecting downstream habitat, and helping forests adapt to a warming climate. Sounds like a total no-brainer, right? Nope! The timber industry is opposed, and they’re mobilizing. Your voice is needed — use this handy comment guide to speak up for healthy streams and forests by August 12th! |
| Policy Action Team In July, our Policy Action Team leaders met with Representative Jayapal’s local and WA DC environmental policy staffers. Our group members felt uplifted to see that there are still people in our government working relentlessly on the issues that matter the most to us. The staffers advised us that it is worth it to continue pushing the best bills even in a disadvantageous political climate because, among other reasons, it builds relationships with our representatives and our community. The horrors persist, but we will not stop dreaming and working towards a better future. Rep. Jayapal’s staff informed us that one of the most important things to be doing right now is to reach out to 10 people you know in moderate/conservative areas to educate them on the energy costs that will be rising due to the recent passage of the One Big {Horrible} Bill. Do not let people forget how horrible the OBBB is. People who are impacted by the bill can and should share their story on Jayapal’s website: https://jayapal.house.gov/share-your-story-with-congresswoman-jayapal/. 350 Seattle volunteers are drafting an organizational comment on Washington State’s Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP). If you are interested in contributing, please email Linnea! The deadline to comment is August 22, so we will be sending a guide for individuals to comment via email to the whole 350 listserv on Monday, August 18th–keep your eye out so you can comment individually! Organizing locally for good climate policy is one of the most important things we can be doing right now given the ongoing destruction of federal climate policy at the hands of the current Republican administration. Join us at our next meeting on Aug. 6th at 5PM to take more actions! To get the link, sign up for our listserv or contact Beth or Linnea. |
| The Aviation Team Guess what? The FAA is trying to roll back environmental review procedures and undercut environmental laws that protect communities. The Aviation Team says NO WAY FAA! Please submit a comment by August 4 at this form: Start your comments with: “I strongly support the Federal Register comment authored by the Aviation-Impacted Communities Alliance (AICA), submitted under Document ID: FAA-2025-1571-0005.” Add any personal message about why you care about upholding environmental protections, if you like. We will be protesting the Blue Angels and their noise pollution, proven community health impacts, and climate harms, not to mention glorifying militarism! Join us at the Airshow Climate Action march and rally to push for a graceful retirement of the Blue Angels and for re-imagining Seafair. See full details at the top of this newsletter. The Aviation Team will online on August 12 at 7PM. Please join us then to find out how you can join our work! Or you can contact Laura at aviation@350seattle.org. |
| Book Club The peak of summer is here and now is the perfect time to pick up a book or listen to a podcast and join the 350 Book Club! This August, we are reading some solarpunk short stories and listening to some podcast episodes from adrienne marie brown. In August, we will be meeting in Cal Anderson Park to enjoy the nice weather together. We meet from 2:30-4:30PM and you are more than welcome to join us even if you haven’t read or listened to anything!8/10: Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation, “The Trees Between” by Karyn L. Stecyk (pg. 130 in free online PDF) through END 8/24: How to Survive the End of the World by adrienne marie brown, Autumn BrownChoose 2-3 episodes that interest you! We will share what we each heard and aim to pull out common themes.We are also looking to plan a Book Club Social in August. If you would like to be kept in the loop about upcoming book club events, please sign up for our email list! Hope to see many of you pop in on a conversation or join one of our socials this summer! |
| Holler Book Release at Third Place Books “Holler is a truly beautiful account of the beautiful people who have waged a beautiful fight for a beautiful piece of a beautiful planet. Read it and learn how to fight!”—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature Holler: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance 17171 Bothell Way Northeast #A200 Lake Forest Park, WA 98155 Wednesday, August 13th, 7pm RSVP here Third Place Books and 350 Seattle welcome climate organizer and artist Denali Sai Nalamalapu to our Lake Forest Park store for a conversation about their remarkable new book, Holler: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance — a collection of stories of everyday resistance to the construction of the 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline through Appalachia.Meet the author and connect with 350 Seattle! This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book! |
| They’re Coming for the Roadless Forests The proposed rollback of the 2001 Roadless Rule jeopardizes nearly 58 million acres of undeveloped backcountry forestland managed by the U.S. Forest Service, comprising around a third of the territory in our national forest system. These forests have only remained intact because of the Forest Service’s nearly 25-year-old commitment not to build roads in these areas for harmful activities like major logging operations or oil-and-gas drilling. So of course this administration wants to blow that up — and fast. So get ready for an absurdly short comment period: see which areas are affected here, read about the potential impact to Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest here, and learn how this idea makes no fiscal sense, here. Four WA reps have cosponsored H.R. 3930, the Roadless Area Conservation Act. Yay! But that only holds the line — write your senators and representative here and ask them to support stronger and more permanent protections for our roadless forests. |
| Community Resilience Here’s another way you can participate to create a more resilient activist community: We’re rebuilding our community resources list! Do you have a skill or service you would like to offer at low or no cost to the 350 Seattle activist community? Feel free to think outside the box! Skills could include:Gardening, Tax prep assistance, Childcare, Pet sitting, Meal prep, Career coaching, or any kind or life, technical, or wellness support! No matter your strengths and skills, there is a place for you! All skills are needed and welcome. Offering up skills to the resource list is a way to support one another to continue taking part in the work we do. Please fill out this form with your own offerings, and we’ll reach out to confirm details. We’re excited to hear from you! Consider patronizing local Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) -owned businesses! Here is a list of some local community BIPOC businesses to support, with additional lists linked at the bottom. Please take a minute to bookmark our Community Activist Resource List (this one for all in our broader movement), full of helpful resources of all kinds. Feel free to share with others in our broader movement community who may be interested!If you have any questions about the resource lists or offering up skills/services- please reach out to Jordan. |
| The People’s Echo The People’s Echo is a healing-centered song collective based on Coast Salish Lands. We catch and share songs as medicine for these times, and tend to community resilience through the practice of joining our voices in song. Our mission is to heal ourselves and the world through the practice of community singing and to reclaim our voices as instruments for personal and collective liberation. Sign up for our newsletter here! |
| And Finally, Want a way to search all of the ways you can be involved with 350 Seattle? We compiled a (nearly) comprehensive list that is deemed the Volunteer Opportunities Doc. Our teams keep this document updated so if between newsletters you are scratching your head, this resource is for you. If you are still looking for ways to get involved with your 350 Seattle community, head to our website or just reply to this newsletter. And a final shout out and thank you from Jess: “Big appreciations for 350 Seattle’s Welcome Team: Bob, David, Acacia, Jacob, Tara and Tiffany! These hard-working folks reach out to *every* new person who signs up with 350 Seattle, to offer them a phone call to get connected in the community and plugged into a volunteer role, and are also at our Climate Community Nights to meet those new folks in person. In a world where so many organizations just ask people to sign petitions, this kind of relational organizing is gold. And as someone who started out as a 350 Seattle volunteer many years ago, I can say from experience just how meaningful this kind of personal outreach is – I wouldn’t be here without it!” Have a lovely summer! 350 Seattle |
