Welcome to our February edition of Evergreen.
How are you enjoying the end of February? Personally, I'm hoping March brings with it some sunny days so I can spend more time outside!
This edition we have an update on our Southern Resident orca and Chinook salmon, an article on our commitment for #ORCAforAll, and some thought-provoking articles for Black History Month. We also hope to see you at 350Seattle's equity workshops, Our People Gonna Rise!
Thanks for all that you do,
Jesse Piedfort
P.S. Thank you to everyone who submitted an entry to our Picture of the Month contest! We had many wonderful submissions--keep 'em coming! |
Mount Index
By Anita Rancatti
(@arancatt) Location: Occupied Coast Salish, Snohomish, Tulalip, and Puget Sound Salish lands (Index, Washington)
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In late January, we received word that the Southern Resident orca, Mega (L-41), was presumed dead. While there are many reasons our Southern Resident orca are on the brink of extinction, the main contributor is because their main prey, Chinook salmon, have significantly declined across the Northwest. Here's how you can help support this work.
By Bill Arthur, Vice Chair Conservation Committee • 476 words / 4 min
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Every 30 seconds, the US loses a patch of nature the size of a football field. This is the kind of factoid we’ve heard repeated so frequently that we are almost desensitized to the meaning. Now, in an era of climate change, people are thinking about the loss of ecosystems – and the values they provide - in a different way.
By Alex Craven, Our Wild America Organizer • 359 words / 3 min
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The winter of 2012 was an intense one. I was a busy extrovert struggling to adjust to new motherhood, exhausted by sleepless nights, bored by endless days at home, and feeling crushed by the unremitting grey of the weather. I longed to get out, to see friends and move around the city. But I had a newborn, and that newborn hated - HATED - the car. I could easily have been trapped, confined to my house and my neighborhood. But I had a secret weapon.
By Brittney Bush Bollay, Seattle Group Chair • 491 words / 4 mins
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The annual election for Sierra Club’s Board of Directors is now underway. Those eligible to vote in the national Sierra Club election will receive ballots in early March by mail (or digitally if you chose the electronic delivery option). Your participation is critical for a strong Sierra Club.
By Tony Fuller, Board of Directors • 270 words / 2 min
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On February 4th, the Federal Court of Appeals in Canada dismissed Indigenous legal challenges to the Trans Mountain project: a disappointing decision that vitally affects the First Nations on the pipeline and tankers route, and cuts deep for many of us. Since 2017, we have raised over 400K together for this stage of the battle, so we know that this issue is important to all of us. That’s why we won’t back down.
By Victoria Leistman, Dirty Fuels Organizer • 428 words / 3 mins
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Our People Gonna Rise
You’re invited to attend this series of anti-racism workshops! These 6-hour workshops will create a safe space for difficult conversations as we come together and commit to ending racism in our climate justice work.
March 7: Undoing Anti-Black Racism.
March 28: Allies to Immigrants.
March 7 & March 28, 2020
12 PM – 6 PM
El Centro de la Raza
2524 16th Ave S Rm 310
Seattle, WA 98144
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Our Reading List:
I’ll grant that we’ve never seen an existential threat to all of humankind before. But history is littered with targeted — but no less deadly — existential threats for specific populations. For 400 years and counting, the United States itself has been an existential threat to Black people.
Despite being perceived as the least environmentally concerned, all minority groups surveyed — African Americans, Latinxs, Asians and Native Americans — self-reported higher environmental concern than the White people surveyed in the same study. Though African Americans compose 13% of the U.S. population, they received only 2.8% of the nation’s total environmental science degrees in 2016,
Seattle Globalist: Farmers of color reclaim farming as a place of healing, but there is much work to do
Williams says that bringing in educational models to farms is what will help show young people of color that a career in agriculture is accessible and beyond the complicated history of land labor and race. “That is the curriculum work that needs to be done,” Williams said.
To say that Black History Month is meant to celebrate racial difference posits that this country and its capitalistic bases are not fundamentally tied to racial, gender, and class differences. That black Americans have a month set aside to honor them — outside of a white lens that has often framed them as criminal, negligent, or unworthy of historical referent — isn’t racist against anyone. It’s a form of reparations.
NBC: Black History Month: 17 LGBTQ black pioneers who made history
In celebration of Black History Month, we honor black LGBTQ pioneers of the past and the present and celebrate their oft-forgotten contributions.
The industrial dairy farms that produce RNG are mostly located in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the poorest areas of the state, where African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans make up the majority of the population. It is home to the nation’s worst air pollution, the highest rate of asthma in children, and nitrate-laced drinking water.
A new report from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has found that the most popular Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) ship engine, particularly for cruise ships, emits between 70% and 82% more life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the short-term compared to clean distillate fuels.
Medium: An open letter to our elected officials
It’s clear that there’s an urgent need for our region to come together to find solutions to restore salmon and steelhead, honor tribal needs and way of life, and strengthen our electricity and agricultural legacies that communities rely on.
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