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Trump is trying to rapidly consolidate power, eliminate checks on that power and operate with impunity; throwing people in concentration camps, gutting our experienced federal workforce, ripping protections from public lands & endangered species, super-charging ICE and deploying US military in our cities. What can we do? We can learn from other moments in history what tactics work, find out how we can fight back together and take action. What works? Undermining support for his regime by removing the “social license” from the institutions that support him or capitulate. We can weaken the corrupt foundation by convincing people we know within these “pillars of support” (schools / universities, media, businesses, elected officials, military, businesses, faith / religions and courts & lawyers) to participate in strategic non-cooperation. That’s our individual & collective work.  There are thousands of ways to do this and they all involve activating people around us. No one on the sidelines. We need critical mass and momentum. And we need you. Time to Skill Up Summer is “skill-up” time. The national coalition, No Kings, who last month brought us the biggest nationwide protests in recent history, has organized three amazing skill-building webinars. The first one ("The Moment and Your Mission") took place on Wednesday, July 16th. You can watch the exhilarating recording with this link. (Over 20,000 people were on the call and over 100,000 registered!) The next one ("How We Make it Happen") is on Wednesday, July 30th at 5:00 pm PT. The final one ("What Now?") is Wednesday, August 13th at 5:00 pm PT. You can register for both here today. The goal is to educate, resource and catalyze people all over the country to hold Resistance Trainings, large & small, to win the change we need. (Five thousand people volunteered in the first webinar to hold a Resistance Training!) This is our moment and this is grassroots organizing at its finest. Register for the One Million Rising virtual sessions on July 30th and August 13th to be one of 1,000,000+ Americans training to stop Trump’s power-grab! Let's see how many local trainings we can organize in our community: your choir, bowling group, book club, bike swarm. Everybody, everywhere. No Kings will help our local organizing with lots of tools and resources and we’ll be doing this together. Register and get started today! Learn more about the One Million Rising plan on their website. Billboards are so cool… Support Indivisible’s billboard campaign to release the Epstein Files, if you're able. Thank you.  We Show Up TogetherWhat’s “Eugene Groves”? Local forest defense organizations are joining in a project called “Eugene Groves” and we’re excited to kick it off on August 7th with a Street Demonstration followed by Happy Hour at a local establishment. What: Eugene Groves Kick-off (all tree-huggers are welcome); Street demonstration with sign-waving & banners; special appearances from our new Tree Puppets, followed by Happy Hour hang-time! When: Thursday, August 7th - Demo at 2:00 pm & Happy Hour at 3:30 pm Where: Begin at 18th & Chambers (near Bimart), then to Hey Neighbor! on 19th & Jefferson. Everything is provided! Come and bring your friends!  Save Some Forests!The second webinar in Pacific Northwest Forest Alliance series on the changing landscape of forest policy & protections is coming up on Thursday, July 31st at noon. It will cover the devastating changes happening via the Executive Branch, focusing on the new National Environmental Policy Act regulations and the redefinition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act. They will discuss what these changes will actually mean for public advocates and for forests, waters and wildlife. RSVP HERE.  If you missed the first webinar, about Congressional attacks on our forests, including the Fix Our Forests Act and Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Budget Bill”, you can watch the recording of it HERE. We can’t let the Trump administration dismantle the public’s ability to engage with federal land management decisions. This is an alarming shift with especially dire consequences for Pacific Northwest forests.  Speaking of public comments… We need to tell the Oregon Department of Agriculture that we don’t want a new factory farm in Central Oregon! The Columbia River Ranch would confine 3,500 cows and use 84,000 gallons of water per day. CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) pollute communities and harm animals! We say no! Sign Food & Water Watch’s Petition today! Thank you. You Were There The Good Trouble Lives On Press Conference & Pocket Protest were a success! Thanks to all who came! The day kicked-off important fundraising campaigns for the local NAACP & Good Trouble Libraries. Good media coverage too! Lookout & Register Guard. Please donate here and drop off books with BIPOC / LGBTQIA+ authors & themes for K-12 at the Clear Lake Community Center / NAACP Office at 4646 Barger Drive. (Campaign ends August 28th.) We’re working for a diverse multicultural democracy! Good News?Oregon PERS Divests from Fossil Fuels? Sort of… Gov. Kotek signed the Oregon Treasury’s “Net Zero” Bill — HB 2081 on June 26th — and it is now Law! This couldn’t have happened without Divest Oregon’s brilliant, dogged and laser-focused advocacy. Although not as good as the bill Divest Oregon put forward (it lacks targets and goal-setting, as well as a focus on nasty private equity investments), the Treasury’s bill is an important step forward. Now it’s up to the Oregon Investment Council (OIC) and the Treasury to implement the bill. You can bet the Divest Oregon team, with your help, will be urging them to move forward with all haste. Stay tuned. OpportunitiesBill McKibben’s “Here Comes the Sun” Book Tour - in Portland on September 17th at 7:00 pm. You can buy your tickets here. He’s been indefatigably promoting the nationwide Sun Day events on September 21st! (Next to the unstoppable transition to clean energy, Bill is the second most unstoppable force we know!) Don’t miss… Celebrate Clean Energy - SUN DAY (Sept. 21st)  When: Sunday, September 21st from 12:30 to 3:00 pm Where: Campbell Community Center, 155 High St., Eugene What: A Sun Day Celebration - Accelerating our Transition to Renewables They are the cheapest sources of power on the planet. Learn how to act individually and collectively to change laws and get this work done! Come join with your people and be inspired, informed and activated!
The renewable transition is UNSTOPPABLE! We’re leaving fossil fuels behind! Be part of the revolution! Sun Day is a national mobilization that will harness the power of the people & culture to accelerate the clean energy transition, and showcase the organizations & people that are already leading the way! If you can, please donate to Third Act to support the fall mobilization. You can learn more about this HUGE campaign at their website. Let’s do this! (Sun Day (Eugene) is organized by Third Act Oregon (Eugene) & 350 Eugene, with partners and allies working for the change we need to build a climate-positive future.) ONE LAST THING YOU SHOULD KNOW… Attention Tax Filers! (From Rewiring America) Make sure you use these tax credits before they’re gone! The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed by a Republican-led Congress and signed into law by President Trump, eliminates popular federal home energy tax credits years earlier than planned, cutting off support for American households facing increasing energy bills. Check out this table with the expiring tax credits and their filing deadlines - easy to understand.  As we think about how we’re going to engage with neighbors, friends and family to build this resistance movement, it can be hard to bring up “climate.” Dr. Rob Winthrop, Dept. of Anthropology at University of Maryland argues that climate change is not an environmental problem. It is a social problem with profound environmental consequences. While acknowledging the soundness of climate science, he questions how the science has been used to shape policies around highly technical objectives (such as “net zero” emissions) that lack social salience and fail to build consensus. He suggests that we should encourage social mobilization for a climate-positive future around shared goals, not beliefs (including a belief in human-caused climate change). Thus, he thinks that rather than focusing primarily on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we should pursue climate action as a co-benefit of other socially desired goals, such as energy efficiency, self-reliance, dignity and respect for everyone, good-paying jobs with benefits and a secure future for our families. These are aspirations we all share. A good place to start. 
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 We’re in the fight of our lives. And like all fights, to take it on, we need to focus, muster our courage and lock arms with trusted allies. Summer is a perfect time to build this movement, hone our resistance and get into Good Trouble. You might not think of yourself as a fighter, but all of us can call on our bravery and protectiveness as guardians of our families and precious earthly home. Unlike those who are cruelly dismantling our hard-fought and hard-won social progress, WE ARE MOTIVATED BY LOVE and we all know that love is an infinite resource and the power of it is greater than that of greed or hate. Let’s get to work. The politics of appeasement are over.  If you’re turning out for the growing local protests (big and small) - THANKS! (Bring friends and family!) That’s part of the solution. But we need to grow our numbers and build sustained momentum. There’s also work needed behind the scenes. Let’s find ways to stand in solidarity with those directly supporting communities being harmed: bring cold drinks, shade umbrellas, snacks and provide encouragement to keep up morale and confuse the authoritarian villains! It’s up to all of us who are not those under attack to stand with them and for them. The Trump Administration is violently divisive, isolationist, and segregationist, and solidarity is our first duty and most profound rejection of their agenda. There’s a place for everyone in this fight. Read on.  Tuesday, July 8th at 1:00 pm Community Defense Action - Eugene All Eyes On ICE Meet at Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza on 8th & Oak, then walk to the Federal Building at 7th & Pearl to hold down a presence through the afternoon. Come when you can for as long as you can. (Organized by the Lane County Immigrant Defense Network.) STAY CONNECTED: To see what’s happening locally, you can always check the website Mobilize.us and filter for nearterm dates in Eugene / Springfield. Bookmark it! Resistance July 13th - 11:00 am -12:30 pm Virtual Resistance Organizing Training - Resistance Lab 1.0 350EUG encourages everyone to get inspired and learn how to resist through Pramila Jayapal’s Resistance Lab series. Consider registering and attending the upcoming live session on Sunday, July 13th. Register here. Gather some friends together and throw a watch party. It’s fundamental to our work ahead. (Read Rebecca Solnit’s piece on the pervasive personal horrors being experienced at the hands of ICE and how civil society is historically the most effective response to this kind of repression.) Good Trouble Lives OnThursday, July 17th - 5 to 8:00 pm  Good Trouble Lives On is a national day of nonviolent action to respond to the attacks posed on our civil and human rights by the Trump administration and to remind them that in America, the power lies with the people. On July 17, the anniversary of Congressman John Lewis’s passing, organizers across the country are planning various commemorations and actions to carry forward his legacy of Good Trouble.. Locally, organizers are planning a book drive for the Good Trouble Library and a fundraiser for NAACP Lane County. Stay tuned and check back at this website link for details. (Subject to change.) Forest Defense is Climate DefenseAlthough the news coming from the Climate Forest campaigners across the country is awful, nobody is giving up! We’re taking a minute to assess the damage of the administration's attacks on our public forest lands and refocusing our efforts on next steps.  Wednesday, July 9th from 7 to 8:00 pm - Fix Our Forests Act and Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Budget Bill” Webinar - Part 1 of 3 Many of the tools we have relied on for decades to avert the most destructive and ecologically damaging extractive projects are currently being shredded. What do the dizzying & overwhelming onslaught of new policies and changes mean? The PNW Forest Climate Alliance and partners are hosting a 3 part webinar series this summer to examine the extreme ways federal forests are under attack by the Trump administration, and what it means for efforts to preserve a healthy environment and livable climate. RSVP for the July 9th (Part 1) webinar here.  What’s “Eugene Groves”? What’s “Eugene Groves”? Local forest defenders are joining together in a project called Eugene Groves and we’re excited to kick it off on August 7th with a Street Demonstration followed by Happy Hour at a local establishment. What: Eugene Groves Kick-off (all forest defenders are welcome); Street demonstration with sign-waving & banners; special appearances from our new Tree Puppets! When: Thursday, August 7th - 2:00 Demo / 3:30 Happy Hour Where: Begin at 18th & Chambers (near Bimart), then to Hey Neighbor! on 19th & Jefferson. Everything is provided! Come and bring your tree-hugger friends! More Forest Defense News: and it's good...Industrial Biomass Surrenders Various proposals to sell off public lands have been struck down by the courts, which, if passed, would have cleared the way for Drax and other climate villains to turn our forests into wood pellets to be shipped overseas. In California, our allies fighting biomass plants have defeated Golden State Natural Resources, which proposed to build two industrial-scale wood pellet plants and a storage and export terminal in Northern California. Read the press release here. Burning wood to produce electricity may be the single most perverse plan on the planet. We’re celebrating the wins! State PolicyThe legislative session finished on June 27th, working late into the night. We did not make strong climate progress and notably, the transportation package that funds the Oregon Department of Transportation wasn’t approved. Several of the bills we supported did pass, including HB 2081A, which required the Treasury to analyze and manage climate risk in our state’s PERS investments (big thanks to Divest Oregon), as well as several bills related to a more efficient electrical grid and to utilities oversight and affordability. And farmworker disaster relief received a bit of funding as well. All this to say, lawmakers chose to delay further necessary actions to transition to a more sustainable social and economic system, postponing what will cost more tomorrow. Thanks for all your efforts to get what we could over the finish line. Read Climate Solutions Director, Nora Apter’s analysis of the climate wins and losses in the 2024-25 Legislative Session here. GOTVIf you want to write postcards for special elections, send Deb an email at [email protected] with “Postcarding” in the subject line. Time to get going. Save the Date - Sun Day When: Sunday, September 21st from 12:30 to 3:00 pm Where: Campbell Community Center (155 High St, Eugene) What: Rise-up for a Sun-Powered Planet! Stand Up to Fossil Fuels! Organized People Can Accelerate the Transition to a Clean Energy Future! 12:30 Music - Moon Mountain String Band 1:00 Speakers 1:30 Rotating Teach-ins Organizations’ Tables & Sustainability Experts 3:00 March with banners & signs to the Ferry Street Bridge We can have the clean energy revolution we need in America in spite of Trump’s Big Horrible Bill, but it’s going to take grassroots community focused activism to demand it and make it happen. That’s what Sun Day is all about. Save the date!  This is no time to despair. It is a time to remember who we are, connect to each other and nature, and realize no regime can uproot these connections. There are cracks in their plans, and with solidarity we can let the light stream in through those cracks!   |