As we head into spring, our campaigns and solidarity organizing are heating up! With lots of art builds, actions and community events this month, we hope to see you soon.

ELECTRIFY SEATTLE

Seattle is gearing up to pass a policy that sets deadlines for when our city’s biggest buildings need to move off fossil fuels. The policy could bring about major benefits for our communities, our health and our shared climate future by: eliminating a major source of Seattle’s climate pollution; creating hundreds of good, green union jobs; bringing life-saving cooling capacity to thousands of homes, workplaces, schools, libraries and university buildings across our city; and significantly reducing harmful indoor and outdoor air pollution. 

But big corporations and real estate giants are actively lobbying behind the scenes to dramatically weaken this policy. So far, they’ve been successful in pushing for too-little, too-late timelines like net-zero by 2050, loopholes for false climate solutions like “renewable natural gas,” and cutting the fines for inaction by 50%.  

Should corporate giants like Amazon and Vulcan have until 2050 to decarbonize their buildings?! 

We say no way! But YOU need to get involved if we’re going to have the power to beat them and win a just and rapid transition off fossil fuels! 

Electrify Seattle Welcome Party and Art Build 

Sunday, March 12,12:00-4:00pm; show up at 12pm for campaign welcome & drop-in anytime for art 

3940 Fremont Ave N, Seattle

RSVP here

Can’t make it on the 12th? No worries — fill out this campaign onboarding form and an organizer will reach out 1-1 to get you plugged in! 

HOUSE OUR NEIGHBORS CELEBRATION: WE WON!

After more than a year of hard work and support, the 350 Seattle family helped to carry I-135 for Social Housing in Seattle over the finish line! Together, we did a LOT: contributing to early drafts of the legislation, hosting educational events, getting the word out on social media, recruiting for canvas events, text-banking, hosting the U-District ballot printing station, and more. 

We are celebrating this huge win for green, affordable housing. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the campaign!

And the fight’s not over! We have important work to do in the year ahead to ensure social housing becomes a reality in Seattle. The next step is to set up the governing board (more about the board’s makeup and role here). And critically, we have to fight for funding for both the initial board and to create the Public Developer. Our next opportunity to win city dollars is the summer supplemental budgeting process in July 2023. Stay tuned for how you can join this next push for social housing! 

Looking back at the start of the initiative, many said something this transformational could not pass, even in Seattle — but the community came together and proved the power of grassroots organizing. Just look at what we can accomplish when we come together and resist the opposition while pushing for the community investments we want and need!

STOP THE MONEY PIPELINE

Help Stop Big Banks from Funding the Fossil Fuel Industry: National Day of Action 

Third Act has called for a National Day of Action to Stop the Dirty Banks on 3/21. Stop the Money Pipeline, 350 Seattle, 350 Eastside, and other local groups are helping to coordinate local actions to pressure the Big Four US banks – Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and CitiBank – to stop funding fossil fuels.

Nationally there will be targeted, fun, and family-friendly actions to deliver a strong message:

Move your money out of fossil fuels, or we will move our money out of your banks. In Seattle and Bellevue there will be rallies, marches, and bank actions, including closing accounts and cutting up credit cards at Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo.

Seattle — National Day of Action

Tuesday, March 21, 12:00pm followed by a march and actions at 1:00pm

East Thomas and Broadway, Capitol Hill, Seattle

RSVP by Signing Up on Third Act’s website

To join, contact Scott. 

Bellevue — National Day of Action

Tuesday, March 21, 12:00-1:30pm

Bellevue Downtown Park, 10201 NE 4th St, Bellevue, WA 98004

To join with 350 Eastside, contact Lin.

Shareholder Showdown

This April and May, shareholders in major US banks — Citi, Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America — will vote on four climate and Indigenous rights resolutions. If passed, they will push banks to move away from fossil fuels and toward respecting Indigenous sovereignty. That’s why over the next two months, we’re joining the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition in a new campaign: Shareholder Showdown.

We’ll be campaigning to get major investors in banks, such as the Washington State pension fund which has more than $1.5 billion invested in Wall Street banks, to vote yes on critical climate resolutions. There’s one quick and easy step you can take to help us right now: Sign the petition to public pensions demanding that they vote yes on climate justice & Indigenous rights this spring.

And if you are a member of the Washington state pension fund, please fill out this form. We’d love to get in touch and talk about how you can help.

Defunding Environmental Racism in the Gulf South

Right now, the Gulf South is the site of the world’s largest build-out of new LNG terminals. As usual, Black, Indigenous, and low-income communities are bearing the brunt of the fossil fuel industry’s toxic buildout. To learn more join the Defunding Environmental Racism in the Gulf South Online Rally on Weds, March 15th, where we’ll be joined by frontline community leaders and learn how we can stand in solidarity with them no matter where in the country we are.

The State Legislature

Thank you to everyone who sent emails and made phone calls last month to champion HB 1283, a bill that would push the $192 billion WA state pension fund toward treating the climate crisis like the emergency it is. Unfortunately, the bill never made it for a hearing. But in good news, we were able to work with legislators and the State Treasurer’s office to turn the bill into a budget proviso. The proviso was approved by the committee and, if implemented in the final budget in May, will mean that the State Treasurer has $500,000 in his budget to focus on climate work and the risks posed by the fossil fuel-backed attacks on climate-responsible investing. We think that would be a small but important win!

AVIATION TEAM

The Aviation Team, as part of the King County International Airport Community Coalition, needs your help in support of a King County ordinance that would create a community-led advisory committee and establish a community benefits agreement to address the harm caused by the county-owned KCIA airport, aka Boeing Field. 

After many years of advocacy by the Coalition, this ordinance must move out of committee this month! Please sign this petition to show your support. The form is on the right side halfway down the page. You can leave the Organization blank. Contact Laura if you would also like to join advocacy with your King County Council Member or get involved in any of our activities. 

Aviation Team Meeting

Tuesday, March 14, 7:00–8:00pm

Online, register here 

ARTFUL ACTIVISM TEAM

We’re doing LOTS of community art builds this and next month! Join us in community for a fun time making powerful art. Skills welcome, and definitely not at all required. Collaborative team tasks like tracing, cutting, twisting ties, and painting in between the lines, are always a welcoming and fun way to drop in and be a part of the powerful art at our actions. We’ll teach you as you go! Other roles like DJ, snacks, setup and cleanup are also available. Bring smiling eyes, masks, clothes to get messy in, snacks, and water.

Whatever calls you to the Artful Team, this team is for you! Contact Lisa at lisamarcus@350seattle.org to join us!

Community Art Builds:

Electrify Seattle Welcome Party and Stop the Money Pipeline

Sunday, March 12, 12:00-4:00pm

3940 Fremont Ave N, Seattle

RSVP for alerts to changes

Electrify Seattle and Stop the Money Pipeline

Saturday, March 18, 12:00-4:00pm

3940 Fremont Ave N, Seattle

RSVP for alerts to changes

Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and People

Saturday, March 25th, 12:00-4:00pm

Cal Anderson Park, 1635 11th Ave, Seattle, 98122 

RSVP for exact location and changes

Join the Art Deployment Team
Sign up here! With art leads’ support, the newly forming Deployment Team will bring our collaborative, powerful, and beautiful art to events for both 350 Seattle and requesting partner orgs. Learn how to transport, set up, position, animate, and take down art at events. Volunteers play a crucial role in all the logistics that make the magic happen! 

Join us in deploying art on March 21 at Third Act’s National Day of Action to Stop the Dirty Banks. That day we’ll have a rally, march, and bank actions, including closing accounts and cutting up credit cards with giant scissors at Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo.

THE PEOPLE’S ECHO

Songs for Liberation with Liz Digitale Anderson

Sunday, March 12, 3:00-5:00pm PT

On Zoom! Link to Join

We are excited to host Liz Digitale Anderson to share their songs with us! Liz writes songs for the streets, to keep us going in the struggle for justice, songs to remind us another world is possible and carry us through to liberation. Get a taste of her music on Soundcloud.

Stay connected to The People’s Echo for updates on community singing opportunities!

Linktree | Facebook | Song Book | Soundcloud

For questions, email thepeoplesecho@gmail.com

STORY CIRCLE

350 Seattle’s Story Circle team is making our second zine, and we’ve extended the submission deadline to April 15th. The theme of our 2023 zine is home, inspired by themes and questions raised by Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass. We invite you to submit your creations — fictional, visual, poetic, or otherwise! — inspired by this theme. 

Collage and Co-Creation Time

Friday, March 31, 6:30pm–8:00pm

5031 University Way NE, Seattle 

RSVP to StoryCircle@350seattle.org

PHOTOS WANTED FOR OUR PHOTO LIBRARY

We want your photos! Did you take photos at a recent 350 Seattle event, art build, or action? Are you willing to share any great shots that you captured with our community? Submit your best images to our Photo Library to share them with our community for use in our organization’s storytelling, including our outreach, communications, and fundraising efforts. Here are our guidelines and the email address for submitting photos to our library editors. 

VIDEOS!

Check out the 350 Seattle YouTube page for events content and DIY Art how-to videos, recordings of past general meetings, webinars, and awesome trainings.

ANTI-WAR EFFORTS

March is a big month for the 350 Seattle Anti-war workgroup. We held our first organizing meeting of 2023 in early March and will be holding another one in April – look out for a meeting invite coming soon! In the meantime, join us at one of these upcoming community events to learn more about our advocacy for climate justice and peace. 

Discussion with Medea Benjamin of Code Pink on her book, War In Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict 

Tuesday, March 14, 6:00-7:30pm

University Bookstore, 4326 University Ave NE, Seattle 98105

Peace in Ukraine rally organized by ANSWER Coalition Seattle, Veterans for Peace – Chapter 92, Seattle AntiWar Coalition, and others

Saturday, March 18, 2:00pm, 

Westlake Park, 401 Pine St, Seattle 98101

Seattle AntiWar Coalition (SAWC) in-person organizing meeting

Tuesday, March 21, 6:00-7:30pm 

Northeast Branch Seattle Public Library, 6801 35th Ave NE, Seattle 98115

Rally and march to Resist US-Led War and Climate Destruction! – Cut Ties with War Profiteers! – Resist Boeing’s War Production! Initiated by Resist US-Led War Seattle (UW) and Veterans for Peace – Chapter 92. 

Sunday, March 26, 1:00pm,

Museum of Flight, 9404 E Marginal Way S, Seattle 98108

You can read more about the campaign to cut the University of Washington’s ties with Boeing here.

For more info or discussion, please contact Mary.

CLIMATE GRIEF AND EMPOWERMENT

Times of crisis remind us that we need each other; that life is precious, and we have much to be grateful for. Let us find ways to come together and find our way through this. Let us be a part of the solutions, of the new ways forward when collapse threatens us and media feeds our fears and anxieties. Let technology help us connect, and build a better world, together. You are invited to feel, digest, and move through grief together at the next Climate Grief and Empowerment gatherings.

Climate Grief and Empowerment

Saturday, March 11 and April 8, 10:00–11:45am
Online, register here separately for each one you will attend

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE OFFERINGS

Do you have a skill or service you would like to offer at very reduced or no charge to the 350 Seattle activist community as a way to take part in and support the work we do?The climate movement requires many skills and talents. You don’t have to be an organizer, protest-goer, phone-banker, or someone who’s ready for civil disobedience to get involved in climate justice. We need you: teachers, carpenters, gardeners, personal trainers, mechanics, therapists, accountants, lawyers, nutritionists, hairdressers, herbalists, storytellers, knitters, comedians, acupuncturists, midwives, bakers, chefs, child and pet care providers, care-givers, doctors, dentists, massage therapists, healers, nutritionists, farmers, all the arts (which we link with our Artful team), and MORE! 

Or do you know of any businesses in our community who might want to be added to this list of BIPOC businesses? 

Please fill out this form with your own offerings, or with other local Black, Indigenous, or People of the Global Majority (BIPGM) businesses we could be patronizing, and we’ll get back with you! Thanks!

SOLIDARITY & EDUCATION

SAVE THE DATES: MMIWP SOLIDARITY

Join us in solidarity with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP) for the annual march and gathering of survivors and families on May 6th. This is a local event connected to the National Day of Awareness for MMIW. 

Roxanne White, lead MMIWP Families organizer, has asked for our support with many of the logistics in preparation ahead of the event, as well as during the day on May 6. Our logistical support and presence is very helpful for Roxanne to be able to focus on creating the powerful space for families and survivors to be able to connect, share their deep grief and experience some community healing with each other while raising broader awareness to improve public policies and stop this cycle of violence.

Here’s how you can support in the lead-up and day-of for this powerful action: 

MMIWP Volunteer Launch Event and Art Build

March 25th, 12:00-4:00pm

Cal Anderson Park, 1635 11th Ave, Seattle, 98122 

RSVP for exact location and changes

Please fill out this Volunteer RSVP form if you feel called to participate in any number of ways in this deeply moving and powerful solidarity effort. There are many types of roles with greatly varying time commitments. We also need loans of physical items, and donations to Roxanne, the lead organizer, are hugely appreciated. This event is powerful for all of us supporting, witnessing, and learning, as well as for the participating indigenous people and families. Questions about volunteering? Contact Chris D.

And then mark your calendars: 

MMIWP March and Gathering

Saturday, May 6th 

Cal Anderson Park, 1635 11th Ave, Seattle, 98122

ACTION ALERT: SEATTLE CAN’T WAIT FOR SAFER STREETS

We’ve got a great opportunity for taking action with Cascade Bicycle Club. 

Riding a bike, walking, or rolling to our destination can be a joyous and energizing way to get around. Yet in the last week, 20 people were injured, or worse, while getting around on Seattle’s streets. This is not acceptable, and our city must do better. 

On Tuesday March 7, Seattle City Council will gather to talk about next steps for safer streets. This is a moment for visionary action. But that won’t happen unless the council knows the community wants safety as the top transportation priority. We need caring neighbors like you to tell our leaders that safe streets matter and that we need action, not words. 

Send a message to City Council: We Demand Safe Streets for Seattle

STATE BUDGET: EVERYONE SHOULD BREATHE CLEAN AIR

This action is from our friends at Climate Solutions. We need climate investments in whole-home retrofits and heat pumps, and it’s state budget advocacy season!

Climate pollution from our buildings is growing at a faster rate than any other sector, so we must move quickly to use our clean grid to electrify our buildings. Existing buildings produce the vast majority of carbon emissions, and using fossil gas appliances produce toxic indoor air pollution.

Send a message to your legislators today asking them to fund the following programs:

Low-and moderate-income heat pump program

Many low-and moderate-income households (LMI) need support beyond appliance retrofits, including crucial weatherization and safety upgrades. A comprehensive whole-home approach, beginning with a full energy audit, has yielded opportunities for deeper energy savings in programs in other states. This approach would also ensure that LMI households can also receive subsidies for accompanying costs such as electrical panel upgrades. 

Rebate program for heat pumps in schools and businesses 

Burning fossil fuels in commercial buildings is responsible for an estimated $110 million dollars in health impacts annually. This is particularly true in schools, where indoor air pollution disproportionately impacts children. Children have developing lungs, and breathe larger volumes of air relative to their body size. Reductions in indoor air pollution, as well as improvements in energy efficiency and lighting, bring tangible improvements to student health and performance, particularly among our youngest and most vulnerable children.

SAVING OUR CARBON WORKHORSES (FORESTS!)

Thanks to Conservation Northwest, there’s a great opportunity for us all to take action on forests. Washington State’s older state-owned forests are carbon workhorses, storing and sequestering carbon at remarkable rates. But these forests are scheduled to be logged under current state policy — 4,000 more acres in the next year! 

Every time one of these rare forests is logged, we’re eradicating a powerful tool in our toolbox to fight climate change — and we don’t have time to waste. Between now and April 24, the last day of the 2023 Legislative Session, our State Senators and Representatives have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in our most carbon-dense publicly owned forests, ensuring that these older trees keep doing their job of storing and sequestering carbon and protecting our future. Click here to email your legislators — it just takes a minute!

SHOUTOUTS AND APPRECIATIONS

I’d like to give a shout out to Celeste, Rosemary, and Martha who take part in the agriculture group in the Federal Policy Team. Celeste has dug in and studied up on the ways we need to improve agricultural policy with respect to climate, and Rosemary and Martha have joined her. All three have presented proposed policy changes to several Congressional offices. Thank you Celeste, Rosemary and Martha! -Selden

I’ve seen Alice L. go all in these past few weeks with ensuring that the Seattle community is showing up in solidarity with stopping Cop City in Atlanta. She’s been sharing great resources in Slack and Signal on the intersections of Cop City, abolition and climate justice, and encouraging folks to be out there with her. Thank you, Alice! -Anonymous

GET INVOLVED

Do you care about climate justice? Want more general information about 350 Seattle? Then check out this handy Welcome Guide for new volunteers.

Here are some really great ways to start on that path of engagement! Check out our updated Volunteer Opportunities List and our event calendar. 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? Come hang out with us at our monthly virtual orientation and get connected with real people! 

Monthly Intro to 350 Seattle Call

Monday, March 20, 6:00pm

Online, register here.

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