Events and Updates
- We exceeded our $4,000 Sustaining Donor Drive Goal! Thank you, Donors, for contributing to this successful campaign.
- Sacramento County’s draft Climate Action Plan (CAP) draft has dropped. Our team is reviewing the CAP and will respond with our own action plan for ensuring that the County’s CAP is what we need. For details about the draft CAP, see the recent blog post about the draft CAP.
- The Climate Justice Rally is September 25. 350 Sacramento will have a booth at the rally. To volunteer to table, email info@350sacramento.org.
- The City of Sacramento’s New Building Electrification Ordinance Technical Panel on the infeasibility waiver is looking for members. If you or someone you know wants to be part of the panel, apply on the City of Sacramento website. Applications are due by Wednesday, Oct. 6.
- Katharine Hayhoe’s September 10 talk was a tremendous success. Approximately 1,600 people registered.
- Environmental Justice groups turned out in Sacramento to call for cleaning up contaminated sites. For more about the August 30 action, see the Environmental Justice Protest Press Release.
Update on Sacramento County’s Climate Action Plan (CAP)
Sacramento County has published the final draft of its Climate Action Plan. Although the CAP is artfully framed, the County is doubling down on its ten-year, delay-and-defer climate strategy. The County now intends to adopt the CAP without normal environmental review and the legal requirements that would include. For an explanation of this dubious process and why we’re concerned, see 350 Sacramento’s Heads Up blog.
The CAP “streamlines” permitting for future development. Unfortunately, its measures are mostly conceptual, deferred, non-enforceable, and based on unsubstantiated data and assumptions. Projections of future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—the basis for reduction targets—are derived from obsolete 2012 data and exclude the vehicle miles travelled (VMT) impact of planned 55,000 new homes of sprawl development. The CAP’s gestures to VMT reduction and infill development appear to be sketchy window dressing. And the CAP relies heavily on SMUD achieving carbon-free electricity by 2030, which is uncertain.
Without full environmental review, Sacramento County can avoid disclosing the cumulative impact of its sprawl plans. As a result, the County doesn’t have to reconcile the CAP’s inconsistencies with the County’s previous promises, the State’s current GHG/VMT reduction goals, and the County’s own Climate Emergency Declaration. This lets the County avoid a meaningful response to a climate emergency that’s no longer a distant threat.
350 Sacramento’s CAP Team will detail these concerns in official comments and call on you to tell the County the CAP’s not good enough. We’re creating a comment portal for you to tell the County we need a strong CAP developed through full public process and review. Comments are due by October 8. Stay tuned. We’ll be in touch.
You can read Sacramento County’s draft CAP here. You can also get more background about the CAP at 350 Sacramento’s Heads Up blog.
Getting Biden’s Attention at Mather Airport
350 Sacramento joined in to remind Biden that it’s a climate emergency. Kudos to everyone who turned out.
Photo courtesy of Oil & Gas Action Network (@oilandgasactionnetwork)
Dirty Dollars
Check out the August update on campaign contributions to politicians from the fossil fuel industry. Find out who your California assembly member is, check their record on the Tracking Dirty Dollars list, and then tell them you care!
Greenpeace has published a report on how consumer goods companies fuel demand that leads to a major oil-to-plastics money and materials flow. Be sure to read their report.
If you are skeptical that carbon capture technology can have a real impact on climate chaos mitigation strategies, you will enjoy this brutal assessment of its wins so far in this playful video.
If you track direct air capture (DAC) technology, you may have heard of Climeworks in Iceland, where they unveiled their latest project, Orca. To find out more, check out this podcast from Columbia Global Energy Policy Institute.
Climate Happenings
- Friday, Sept. 17 Virtual Climate and Air Quality Luncheon @ 12 noon
Register here to participate. - Thursday, Sept. 23 Building Electrification Team meeting @ 12 PM – 1 PM
Join the Zoom meeting here. The passcode is 350350. - Thursday, Sept. 23 Volunteer Orientation @ 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Register on our actions page. - Wednesday, Sept. 29 Legislative Team Meeting @ 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Register for the Zoom link. - Saturday, Sept. 25th Climate Justice Rally
We will have a booth at the rally. To volunteer to table, email info@350sacramento.org. - Every Friday, Fight Back Fridays @ 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
At the Robert Matsui Courthouse in Sacramento. Find out more and sign up here. - Every Wednesday, The Climate Report @ 12 noon!!
Tune in every Wednesday at noon for the Climate Report with host Dale Steele on KUBU 96.5 FM. You can also listen at access.org or get the new KUBU app (Google | App Store) to listen from anywhere.
Our Organization’s Guiding Principles
It’s worth reviewing not only what we are doing as 350 Sacramento, but how we do it. We invite you to review this list of principles and, as always, welcome your input. Thank you.
- Bold and Science-based. Our role is not to be climate experts, but to be advocates guided by the scientific consensus.
- All-of-the-above strategy. There is no silver bullet and we must embrace every solution that gets us closer to a just and sustainable future.
- Equity and Anti-Oppression. Climate solutions must center the needs of frontline communities.
- Systems Change. We know that the current system was built to benefit a few polluters at the top, leaving the rest of us with bad choices.
- We do what we can. Personal lifestyle changes are necessary but not sufficient to solve the climate crisis alone.
- Self Care. We know this fight is a marathon and we encourage each other to take breaks and care for ourselves and one another.
- Distributed Leadership. No one person is responsible for everything, we carry responsibility together.
- We are a community. We take time to celebrate, learn, mourn, and have fun together with our members and with other organizations. We come from all walks of life, backgrounds, and experiences to unite for our shared purpose.
