Climate Action Shoreline: Start over every Sunday

By Diane Lobaugh

I love living in Shoreline. In the 90’s I lived near the Crest, then moved to our house in Echo Lake 24 years ago. I live here with my husband and daughter who will soon graduate from Shorewood.

Climate change and increasing damage to the earth has been occurring since before my lifetime. While learning about the growing climate crisis, my daughter had an idea that helped me take climate action seriously. She wanted to get people to go one day without using fossil fuels. I started talking with a neighbor about how we could organize a day like this locally. She invited a few other friends from Shoreline to join us. We listened and shared ideas with each other.

Our initial focus on fossil fuels expanded to include water use, food, plastics and recycling. We did a lot of learning and networking, including visiting Recology, exploring the information provided by the City, and tapping the knowledge of the group members and others. We wrote a calendar of daily activities from home: what to do, to not do, to learn, and found a graphic artist who designed a colorful easy-to-read brochure. We became Climate Action Shoreline, my daughter designed our logo, and we printed 1000 copies.

Cedar tree in Shoreline. Photo by Diane Lobaugh

We shared our brochures at a school science night, to environmental grade school students and to our Echo Lake Neighborhood Association. We planned for more outreach at farmer markets and festivals, with the goal of listening to people and sharing our brochure. We received an environmental mini grant from the City of Shoreline that paid for more brochures, t-shirts for volunteers, and a banner. (PHOTO)

Our ideas for sharing our brochure publicly, ended with COVID. Many of us did stop driving and flying, decreasing the personal use of fossil fuels. We currently share our brochure with environmental students. Writing in the Shoreline Area News is a wonderful new opportunity to inspire our community to climate action.

People always ask me: What can I do? Will anything I do matter?

Everything we do makes a difference. We can focus on having clean air, water and soil for ourselves and future generations. People do a lot of good in the world. People also do a lot of damage, often without knowing it. Our actions have had a global impact. We can learn and change, in our homes and neighborhoods. Maybe our actions will spread to the 55,000 residents in our city. Why not try?

OUR BROCHURE begins with: Start every Sunday:

Do enjoy your home, your neighbors, and the many forms of life and beauty that surround us. The earth is bursting with life: the fragrant spring air, the singing birds, the new buds, blossoms and leaves everywhere. Take a few moments to notice. And chat with a neighbor or two.

Think about who has lived on and cared for this land before you. Learn what it could mean to reconnect with and give back in gratitude to the earth. This Cedar that lives just around the corner was here long before we were.

We get to face the future together, connected to our neighbors, and to the natural world around us. There are many people working to protect and heal our earth. We can join them.

I look forward to sharing another action with you next month. See you then… and in the neighborhood.