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Climate Justice

Board Blog: Vice President, Renee Goddard

April 10, 2018 by Sustainable Fairfax

By Renee Goddard, Vice President, Sustainable Fairfax

It was July 2006. I collapsed in my chair at the Embarcadero Center Theater, mind and body overwhelmed, and completely terrified. Where normally the credits would roll at the end of a film, instead a list of “Never fear, What To Do’s” filled the screen.

The film was Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. The list was the first of many such lists that I would see and put on the shelf. I felt the tension ease as I read, slowly relaxing enough to begin to absorb what the words were directing me to do.

The movie subsequently inspired volumes of lists, books, and calendars of daily actions, which people initially consumed voraciously. These urgent calls to action, prescribing behavior changes critical to combating Global Warming were published and illustrated with breathtaking photographs of the wonders of nature and heartbreaking photographs of our planet in peril.

My mind raced on that July night as we drove home from San Francisco. What needed to be done seemed so tangible and so achievable. I expected to see the townsfolk of Fairfax out in the street, ready to make the changes the list instructed us to make in order to sustain our ability to live on this earth.

But where was the Town Crier in the Parkade calling us to take action? After seeing Al Gore’s crystal clear depiction of climate science and gripping teaching of the facts underlying human contribution to the massive acceleration of the planet’s warming, it seemed impossible that we were not responding as if our lives depended on it.

As a mother of a 5 and 8 year old I saw no other choice but to mobilize. Certainly other parents of young children would be equally desperate to join together.

I put a homemade banner in the window of The Fairfax Scoop announcing a call to action and community gathering at the Tree Park at the bottom of Cascade Drive.

I called the meeting at dinner time the next day knowing that the time was most likely inconvenient for young families. We would gauge people’s sense of urgency by whether they showed up, choosing to prioritize human existence over serving dinner on time.

50 + adults answered the call and brought their children.

People participated enthusiastically, expressing a collective relief to find others who were ready to combine their individual efforts and knowledge into a larger local movement of people to make a bigger impact impact.

We discovered that we all had lists tacked to our walls, but the number of things that we were told we “SHOULD” have been doing was weighing us down and draining our energy to act.

Our collective was a renewable source of energy and we all tapped in. We became known as The Inconvenient Group, and we gathered weekly.

We made new lists and distilled the larger actions into bite sized pieces. We committed to making homemade yogurt in order to avoid purchasing plastic containers. We learned basic biking skills to encourage biking as a viable means of transportation. We held a screening of “Synthetic Seas”, a film about the Pacific Gyre garbage patch, and learned how plastics are suffocating our oceans. We supported one another’s desire to make lifestyle changes that would decrease our individual generation of greenhouse gas emissions and slow the rate at which our planet is warming. We were discovering distressing truths but were motivated to work for solutions.

Organizations began to seek us out. A group of energetic action- oriented people is a gold mine for a non-profit organization.

I received a call from Pam Hartwell, who was at the time the Executive Director of Sustainable Fairfax. She came and spoke to our group and described the community actions already in progress, as well as the history of the organization whose founder was a key player in the inception of Marin County’s Community Choice Aggregate (Marin Clean Energy). She made very clear the efficacy of combining resources.

With a little courting and a lot of coaxing we joined Sustainable Fairfax.

It has been 12 years since An Inconvenient Truth took the world by storm. Over the course of these 12 years, Earth’s atmosphere has exceeded over 400 parts per million of CO2 warming gases in the atmosphere and the climate is increasingly chaotic, threatening humanity’s ability to survive on our planetary home.  The threat is more pressing than ever, and our message all the more urgent.

Sustainable Fairfax has been and continues to be the Town Crier, the spring board for community action, the hub, the home and the hope.

Please join us!

Filed Under: Board Blog, Climate Justice, slider Tagged With: climate change, Sustainable Fairfax

Reflections on the Women's March on Washington

February 7, 2017 by Jennifer Hammond

FullSizeRender (7)The Women’s March on Washington that took place on January 21, 2017 will go down in the her-story books.

When I learned about the march, I felt a strong urge be part of it and quickly made my travel plans, yet became apprehensive about what to expect: would there be riots, terrorism or violence?

We started the day at a breakfast with the inspiring Rep Barbara Lee (see video). She emphasized the historic nature of the event, the importance of youth involvement, and that we must never return to the archaic policies of the past.

After the breakfast, we made our way to the rally and were astounded by the size of the crowd – we could barely move; it felt like being inside of a mosh pit at a punk rock concert, yet everyone was polite and apologetic for the cramped conditions. We inched through the crowd, shoulder-to-shoulder surrounded by pink pussy hats. I had some pangs of claustrophobia (how would I escape in an emergency?), but let those feelings roll away and focused instead on the significance of the moment.

There was an extraordinary and overwhelming sense of peace, power, love, humanity and kindness that permeated the entire event. The signs were creative, provocative and funny, and speakers were powerful- the message was clear: all people must be respected, valued and celebrated, no matter what group they are or are not a part of; and we must fight against regressive policies that undermine the rights of women, minorities, immigrants, LBGTQ community and under-served populations.

I marched to prove to this administration and the world that democracy is alive, and that people still care about liberty and justice for all.  And that includes “climate justice for all” – an important, yet sometimes overlooked part of climate change activism. FullSizeRender (8)Climate regulation and research is clearly under attack by the new administration. Yet poor communities throughout the US are subject to lethal levels of pollution, or are at risk of sea level rise, such as Marin City right here in Marin County. And there are other countries are in great peril such as drought-ridden Africa.

Sustainable Fairfax is committed to supporting climate activism and climate justice. Stay tuned to learn how you can help resist a dangerous rollback of climate policy. I am confident that the historic marches and activism taking place will keep building. Lets work together towards positive action to support the values we all hold dear.

 

Filed Under: Climate Justice, Policy Tagged With: climate change, climate justice

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