Next Weekend: CCL Regional Conference

Finding common ground: inspiring, educating and collaborating around effective climate action

I’m pleased to share that next weekend, March 4th & 5th will be the 2017 Greater Pacific North West Regional Conference – and guess what… I will be a guest speaker!

Citizen’s Climate Lobby advocates for national carbon fee and dividend legislation. This conference will inspire attendees to build political will for a livable world.

I will be facilitating a workshop on social media: how we can increase our presence online and shape the argument to move the needle on climate issues.

State of the City: Mayor Ed Murray

Mayor Murray Delivered the State of the City address to Satellites today with optimism and caution. The Seattle Times article, shares Murray’s comments that while the tech and economic growth of Seattle, “‘reflects the 21st-century dreams of the 1962 World’s Fair: a vibrant city driven by technology and science creating jobs and innovation in everything from transportation to health care,’” it at the same time is weary of a growing population of homelessness which according to the One Night Count found an increase of 19% from last year which is very startling for what the future of Seattle could look like. Murray warns of the, “[fear] from the Great Depression as issues of homelessness and inequity continue despite decades of effort on the part of this city to resolve them.”

 

State Supreme Court: Charter schools are unconstitutional

Friday, the Washington State Supreme Court overturned a law voted in 2012 that allowed for the public-funded support of charter schools for reasons of unconstitutionality.

“Justice Mary E. Fairhurst agreed with the majority that charter schools aren’t common schools, but argued in a partial dissenting opinion that the state “can constitutionally support charter schools through the general fund.” -The Seattle Times

Shouldn’t we explore any and all areas for opportunity for growth and improvement in the public education system? Shouldn’t we welcome new challenges? When there is a waitlist for charter schools, don’t we owe it to the children to ensure everyone has that opportunity? I mean isn’t that what this is all about anyway: the kids?

I still wholeheartedly do not like the fact that this means funds are diverted from public schools who also need them, and it sets a dangerous precedence for what public schools could become (i.e. the “bad” option), but the answer is not by remaining stagnant, we need radical reform and we need it now.

The Really Big One

This article hits close to home for me, quite literally. The greater Seattle-area is home to the majority of my close friends and family, and when the Cascadia Subduction Zone drops, it will have disastrous effects on more people than any other natural disaster in North America.

What can we do with this fear that this article brought to the forefront of our minds? What can we do but live in fear or live in the moment? We can prepare. Know your exits in every situation, keep a backpack packed with food supplies, water, matches, water, flashlights, oh and did I say water? This article points out that it will take a month to a year to restore drinking water. And finally, lobby with cities to ensure that safety evacuations are shared with tenants, and buildings and roads are built with this ensuing threat in mind.

“On the face of it, earthquakes seem to present us with problems of space: the way we live along fault lines, in brick buildings, in homes made valuable by their proximity to the sea.”

The Really Big One: An earthquake will destry a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when by Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker