Lots Going On:
1. 350 Humboldt Book Club invites everyone to attend. This week we are reading All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis by Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth, K. Wilkinson, Katharine. We are reading the first four chapters this month, and the second four next. Each chapter is made up of a number of essays and poems by women activists.
However, for this book the group is organized so that people can participate without having read the book: each of the book club members will summarize and lead a discussion on one of the essays.
January 25, 7 pm. Meetings are regularly on the fourth Monday of each month at this time. Here is the link for Book Club meetings. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87104876080?pwd=Q1Z2Z0d3K3V0UE9EN2Z0TlFweTZndz09
2. General Meeting 6pm Thursday January 28. Our meetings have switched to the fourth Thursday of the month. An agenda is at the bottom of this email. Here is the zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84370554552?pwd=V2phMDBOUlNiS3hLL1BQSHNIVDFTQT09
3. Speaker series: Rabbi Naomi Steinberg on Restoring the World and Restoring the Soul. Monday February 1, 7pm. Sign up at: https://actionnetwork.org/events/naomi-steinberg?
3. Write letters to influence policy on your own or you can join 350 Humboldt members every week at 7pm Sunday at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85643874306?pwd=Tm1yeXJBVVhWMGt5ZjZXVTVYbGFoZz09 See suggested letters below or bring your own ideas.
Earn money for yourself and 350 Humboldt by joining Ohm-connect; and/or plant trees by using the Ecosia search engine
Ohm-connect
One hour a week the Ohm Connect folks determine when “peaker” gas plants would ordinarily have to be used. By getting thousands of people to reduce their energy use to a minimum in that hour they avoid having to turn those dirty plants on. PG&E pays them for the reduction and they pay us.
Signing up is free and they offer prizes and money for participating. Over 125,000 people participate, getting rewarded for helping reduce CO2 emissions.
Right now Ohm Connect is paying a $10 bonus to you if you are recruited through an existing customer and a $40 bonus to the existing customer. So sign up using Steering Committee member Dan Chandler’s sign-up link and he will transfer all the customer bonus money to 350 Humboldt: https://ohm.co/dwchandl
Thanks very much to the five 350 members who have already signed up. That’s $200 going to 350 Humboldt.
Here is the Ohm Connect website if you want to check it out first:https://www.ohmconnect.com/how-it-works
And here is an article explaining how it works and why it is going big.
Ecosia Search engine
Switch to the Ecosia search engine. Ecosia uses its ad revenues to buy tree planting through grass roots organizations (not monoculture). Does not sell your data. (It is also easy to use Google for any specific search, just add #g to your search string.)
Independent verification below (we heard about it on the podcast “How to Save a Planet”, which also investigated it.)
https://greenstarsproject.org/2019/10/12/green-search-engine-ecosia/
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ecosia-use-profits-to-plant-trees/
https://www.patharoundtheworld.com/ecosia-review/
LETTER WRITING THIS WEEK
Letter 1: Axis Capital becomes the first North American insurer to pledge that it won’t underwrite oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. “We believe climate-related risks are among the most serious issues facing the world today,” Conrad Brooks, the general counsel and corporate secretary of the Bermuda-based firm, wrote in a letter to the Gwich’in Steering Committee. The Gwich’in people have won a series of remarkable victories in persuading financiers to back away from Arctic drilling, which the Trump Administration had tried to force through.
Write to thank Axis Capital: Conrad Brooks
General Counsel & Corporate Secretary
Executive Committee Sponsor, AXIS Corporate Citizenship program
AXIS 10000 Avalon Blvd. Suite 200 Alpharetta, GA 30009
Write to the Director of these agencies asking for these policies to be overthrown.
- The Department of Transportation proposed to keep the penalties paid by car companies for violating fuel efficiency standards artificially low, and the Environmental Protection Agency proposed to exempt oil and gas producers from clean air regulations (story by L.A. Times columnist Michael Hiltzik);
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opened 3 million acres in the Pacific Northwest to timber harvesting, by removing land from the protected habitat of the northern spotted owl (Lisa Friedman and Catrin Einhorn, New York Times);
- The Interior and Commerce departments issued a rule that would allow for logging or road-building projects on federal lands even if those projects threaten endangered species (Martín Macias Jr., Courthouse News)
- The Bureau of Land Management stood by a plan that would benefit oil and gas drillers by relaxing protections for sage grouse in western states(Matthew Brown, Associated Press);
More pipeline actions
- DAPL / Dakota Access Pipeline: Two of Trump’s first presidential actions were to approve both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Dakota Access is currently operating without a permit and in violation of key environmental laws, endangering tribal nations for the sake of oil profits. President Biden can stop this illegal pipeline with a stroke of a pen, and should take action to do so immediately. Sign the petition urging President Biden to shut down DAPL
Agenda for January 28th meeting, Thursday at 6pm
Facilitator: Katy Gurin Notes: Dan Chandler
Check in
Poem: Chosen and read by Hayley
Land Acknowledgement
350 Humboldt would like to acknowledge that where we live and hold our meetings in Humboldt County is on unceded territory and ancestral homeland of indigenous nations which include Tolowa, Hupa, Karuk, Mattole, Wailaki, Wiyot, and Yurok.
We thank indigenous nations who have been caretakers of the land. Additionally, we recognize that the well-being of all people is bound up with that of indigenous peoples, and we must all take action on the climate.
This acknowledgement compels us to take action by supporting the Anishinaabe peoples to resist the Line 3 Pipeline that is designed to carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin. I encourage you now to sign this link to add your name to the petition to President-elect Biden to halt Line 3 construction immediately. CLICK HERE
*For more information on Land Acknowledgements we recommend watching Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy’s presentation on What Good is a Land Acknowledgement.
New Committee: Off shore wind. Report on developments to date, and some members for the committee. We are also looking for participation by people very knowledgeable about or very interested in offshore wind.
Speaker series. Rabbi Naomi Steinberg on Restoring the World and Restoring the Soul, Monday February 1, 2021. 7 pm on Zoom. What are the dynamic connections between political activism and spiritual practice? Rabbi Steinberg will explain Hebrew terminology, share stories and songs, and discuss how efforts towards environmental protection and social transformation interface with personal and spiritual transformation. Sign up: https://actionnetwork.org/events/naomi-steinberg?
Regular committee reports
· Local – Katy
· Legislative/national/regional – Dan and Mary
· Art – Hayley
· Letter writing party: Deborah
· Book club: Reading All We Can Save by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson. However, you can participate without reading the book since book clubbers will each summarize a section and lead a discussion.
Please contact Deborah for more information, [email protected]
The zoom link for the, 7pm book club meeting is: HERE
Presentation: Guest speaker from the Humboldt State University’s OLLI Sea Level Rise Special Interest Group
Good news:
“Avangrid Inc.’s New York utilities have agreed to limit the growth of natural gas use in their territories, as state regulators continue to challenge gas distributors to evolve their business model.” MORE HERE
“Researchers in Britain unveil a new method to convert carbon dioxide into jet fuel. Researchers led by the University of Oxford published a study on a new scientific process that would transform carbon dioxide in the air into an alternative jet fuel that could be used by existing aircraft and result in “carbon-neutral” emissions. Using oxides of iron, manganese and potassium as a catalyst in flowing hydrogen, the researchers pioneered a process that pulled carbon dioxide out of the air in a laboratory setting and resulted in a liquid they think could act like jet fuel.” CLICK HERE
Lee Dedini spotted this article showing that feeding cows a special seaweed can reduce the methane the cows emit by 98%. Lee has contacted the UC Agricultural Extension here for follow up. CLICK HERE
And of course Joe Biden was sworn in as President and he has appointed an all-star cast to work on climate change, making it a priority in every department not just the EPA.