How we build a better future
How do we bring about a fossil-fuel-free future that leaves no one behind? Projects like Green Buildings Now or, in Oregon, Electrify Everyone, are one part of the answer. We invite you and your friends to contribute to our fund, and we suggest you ask your faith congregation, climate justice or civic group to become a Green Buildings Now partner.
But there is much more that must be done. Here are additional actions you can take:
Tell your elected officials at the local, state and federal levels know that you expect them to create programs that will make it affordable for individuals, businesses and nonprofit organizations to make the urgent transition to clean energy. Progressive legislators at all levels are working to solve the problem, and they need our support.
“As an elder, I feel a deep ethical imperative to respond to our climate emergency. I feel honored to work in partnership with Got Green and grassroots BIPOC groups to see oil and gas removed from marginalized neighborhoods. As Green Buildings Now members, we are following the lead of frontline communities to support a just transition to green non polluting energy. May we all walk more lightly on our living planet.”
— Nora Langan, former director of arts education and community development, for U.S. local arts councils, supporter of Real Rent for the Duwamish Tribe, and a long-time climate justice activist
Tell your Washington state legislators to authorize public utilities like Seattle City Light to use a small increment of ratepayer dollars to help less-affluent homeowners replace their oil and gas furnaces and gas hot water heaters and stoves with non-polluting electric heat devices.
Remove your money from any commercial bank profiting from climate chaos (this includes Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America), and put your money into a credit union or smaller bank that doesn’t fund fossil-fuel infrastructure.
Talk to your friends and relatives — including those in red states — and let them know why you’ve become part of the international grassroots movement for climate justice.
Support groups that are fighting to keep fossil fuels in the ground. In Tacoma, the Puyallup Tribe and allies are fighting the Puget Sound liquified natural gas plant that threatens the tribe’s treaty fishing rights. The Anishinaabe people in Minnesota have struggled for six years against the Line 3 pipeline built through the wild rice wetlands central to their culture and livelihood.
