350 Portland

Happy day-after-Election Day!

When we started our Vote for Climate Justice campaign last election cycle, our goal was to infuse every part of Portland’s City Council elections with climate justice. So together, with all of you, we educated voters and candidates on the issues impacting our rivers, our trees, our air, our communities, and our climate, knowing that education and stories can lead to action. We saw the fruits of that work last election, and we see it now.

Thank you. Thank you for voting. Thank you for helping your friends, family, and neighbors vote. Thank you for being a part of our Vote for Climate Justice program. Now let’s continue showing up and speaking up together, for justice and with joy, for our neighbors, our planet, and all of our futures. If you’re feeling inspired, consider supporting us with a donation to keep this successful grassroots organizing going! Rumble on the River: Post-Election Reflection & Directions

Thursday, November 12
Havurah Shalom (825 NW 18th Ave)
Doors at 5:30 PM, Panel discussion at 6:30 PM

Panelists:

• Dr. Tammy Carpenter – OR Representative-Elect in District 27
• Rep. Travis Nelson – OR Representative, District 44
• Angelo Bologna – AFSCME Local 328
• Josie Moberg – Immigration Attorney
• Matt Reed – Oregon Education Association
• Nafisah Ula – Jobs with Justice
• Moderated by: Damon Motz-Storey – Director of Policy & Communications for Portland City Councilor Candace Avalos

Together, We Make a Difference

In September and October, the 350PDX community sent over 1000 emails to City Council, plus dozens of written comments, speaking up about a data center resolution, the transfer of Zenith Energy’s franchise to I Squared Capital, a strong Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub policy with a significant drawdown of fossil fuels, a No Immunity for Big Oil resolution, and an investment policy that excludes all fossil fuels.

•  No secret deals for data centers passed!
• The Zenith Energy franchise transfer went through without additional community protections or industry accountability
• No Immunity for Big Oil resolution passed!
• Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub strong amendments passed! The final draft will come to Council November 5 and 12, we’ll let you know if further action is needed.

We still need to speak up about the City’s investment policy. The proposed policy adds in an Environmental, Social, and Governance framework for ethical investing, but does not exclude natural gas or coal. Speak up for fossil fuel divestment by sending this email, or submitting a written or verbal comment (this testimony toolkit has talking points and links).

Two Upcoming Actions at City Council

Building on our momentum from the last couple months, let’s finish 2026 strong by advocating for two important issues: reducing building emissions in large buildings, and banning tear gas. These policies are both a long time coming, and this is the moment to pass them! However, they’re receiving a lot of push-back, so we need to show major community support. See these and other actions on our Take Action page.

Fight NW Natural: Pass Climate & Health Standards for Existing Buildings

Portland environmental justice and tenant rights groups have been working on a building emissions reduction policy for over 5 years, targeting buildings over 20,000 square feet, and it’s finally been introduced in the Housing & Permitting Committee. Unfortunately, NW Natural and their industry allies have been flooding City Council with negative comments, even though this policy is similar to Building Performance Standards already in place in other cities like Seattle, Denver, Boston, New York, and Washington, DC. Written comment is open through December 1 (this toolkit has talking points and links). Sign up for a testimony training on November 23 by emailing cherice@350pdx.org!

Ban Tear Gas in Portland with a “Right to Breathe Act”

Tear gas and other chemical weapons used for “crowd control” are not only damaging to human health and people’s rights to speech and assembly, but they’re also harmful to waterways, trees, birds, animals, plants, and soil. After a presentation by Portland Police last week where they tried to convince City Council they should continue to be allowed to gas us, they need to hear from the public.  Learn more, submit written testimony by Thursday 11/5, and stay tuned for further opportunities to speak up.

Energy Justice Team:

The Energy Justice Team works together on everything from fighting data centers, Zenith, and the CEI Hub to advocating for PCEF and transportation justice! Our next team meeting is VIRTUAL on next Tuesday, November 10 at 6 PM. Reach out to dineen@350pdx.org and cherice@350pdx.org for the link or to get plugged into the team.

The “Bipartisan American Affordability & Jobs” Bill (U.S. Senate Bill 5653) is a fast-moving threat to public advocacy, sovereign Tribal nations, and our climate and environment. It would dismantle the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Endangered Species Act. All of the legal and regulatory tools we’ve used over the past decade in our region to stop pipelines, energy terminals, and power plants could be erased by this bill. It’s a giveaway to Big Tech and the fossil fuel industry.

350PDX and over 60 other organizations across the Pacific Northwest sent a letter opposing the bill to US Senators and Representatives in Oregon and Washington. Use this tool to send a message to your Senators and Representatives urging them to oppose this bill, and check out this Opposition Guide for more ways to take action.

Forest Defense Team:

This week the Forest Defense Team continued our campaign planning. The discussions have been detailed, exciting, fruitful, and challenging due to the current threats facing forested land. One campaign we advocating for is the continuation of funding for the Trees in the Curb Zone pilot project which has aims to create infrastructure and increase tree canopy in low-canopy neighborhoods. Additionally, the team plans to continue the ongoing push to get long-term funding for street tree maintenance.

Learn about Portland’s new Street Tree Care program from Parks & Recreation Urban Forestry staff on November 13 at 9 AM. This pilot program is the culmination of a 5-year campaign by 350PDX and partner organizations to provide proactive tree care, first called for 80 years ago. RSVP to noelle@350pdx.org

The Forest Defense Team meets on the first and third Monday of each month, alternating between virtual and in-person meetings. Our next meeting will be on November 16 from 6 – 7:30 PM. Reach out to tyler@350PDX.org for details.

Art Team:

Last month, the Art Team brought our mourning mothers to the No Kings protest and passed out flyers encouraging attendees to engage with 350PDX’s upcoming actions! Additionally, we have been hard at work on a surprise project for our end of year fundraising.

The Art Team meets twice a month. We host our art builds on the second Sunday of every month and our monthly planning meetings on the last Wednesday.

• Next Art Build: November 8, 1 – 4PM
• Next Planning Meeting: Wednesday, November 25, 6 – 7:30 PM

Meetings are held in the 350PDX workshop (3639 N Mississippi Ave). RSVP to arts@350pdx.org.

Book Club:

The 350PDX Book Club meets every month on the first Wednesday of the month at 6:30PM, alternating between virtual and in-person. Reach out to books@350PDX.org with any questions or to join our list, and please RSVP so we can inform you of any meeting changes.

Lots of Book Club announcements this month: our virtual meetings are BACK, we are meeting MONTHLY again, our in-person meetings are back home at the 350PDX Offices, and we’re excited to welcome our newest co-facilitator, Ian Murdock. Welcome!

Join us on Wednesday, December 2 at 6:30 PM for our next fiction in-person meeting. We’ll discuss A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger; based on traditional Lipan Apache storytelling structure, this young adult novel weaves an unforgettable tale of monsters, magic, and family. RSVP at books@350PDX.org.

Save the date for our other upcoming discussions:

• Wednesday, January 6 at 6:30 PM (free pick; Google Meet): Book to be selected in December

• Wednesday, February 3 at 6:30 PM (nonfiction; 350PDX Offices): The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street by Mike Tidwell

Milwaukie Advocates for Climate Justice:

The Milwaukie Advocates for Climate meet monthly on the third Monday from 5:30 – 6:30 PM at Milwaukie City Hall — all are welcome! To get connected, sign up here or email MAC@350pdx.org.

Join us on Friday, November 6th at 6:30 PM for a documentary screening of “The Little Town That Could” at the Ledding Library in Milwaukie. This is an inspiring documentary of a community in New York working together to reduce emissions. It will be followed by a panel discussion with filmmakers and local climate activists.

Washington County Team:

The Washington County Team invites all to our next monthly online meeting at 6:30 PM on Tuesday November 10. We are looking forward to discussing election results that could impact improving climate action policies and catching up with each other online.

Last month we enjoyed talking with Tualatin City Council member Bridget Brookes regarding a win for the Tualatin Climate Action Plan. The City recently completed work on the activation of a new micro-power turbine that will improve City building & fleet power while using cleaner energy and reducing Tualatin’s expenses. It will also capture power from the local drinking water source that’s been latent for decades. Embracing this innovation will make Tualatin more resilient in many ways.

We welcome guest presenters who would like to share their programs and local climate actions! Please reach out to us at 350washco@gmail.com if you would like to engage and educate our group on a future Tuesday evening!

We always welcome newcomers to our events and to our (mostly) monthly online meetings (6:30 PM on the second Tuesday of the month). For the link, join us here or contact us at 350washco@gmail.com.

Southwest Neighborhood Team:

The 350PDX Southwest Neighborhood Team includes neighborhoods on the south and west sides of Portland. We work together to raise awareness of the climate emergency.

Our street corner demonstrations continue weekly in November every Friday. New time is 3 – 4 PM at SW Terwilliger & SW Taylor’s Ferry. Some parking is available in the Chez Jose and Anytime Fitness lot, or reach us via bus or bike.

Our monthly meetings happen on the third Monday of the month. To get involved, please contact Pat Kaczmarek at patk5@msn.com.

Before closing our newsletter, a few reminders:

• Check out our Take Action page, which we update regularly. It includes actions that may not be in our newsletter.
• Join the 350PDX community Slack channel! This is a great way to stay connected on an ongoing basis. Contact to info@350pdx.org and we can add you.
• 350PDX is still searching for a wonderful, new home. Please reach out to info@350PDX.org if you have ideas for a space where we can have meetings, our arts team can create show-stopping puppets, and more!

Thank you for reading our monthly newsletter. We hope to see you soon!

With gratitude,

Cherice, Dineen, Jessica, Maeve, and Noelle

The post 2026 November Newsletter! appeared first on 350PDX: Climate Justice.

We have had an eventful first few weeks of fall! Thank you to everyone who came to our Candidate Forums. A combined 200 people were educated at these forums and helped make them a big success. Thank you to our co-sponsors, to the great moderators from the Portland Mercury, and to the candidates. In case you missed out, you can now watch the Forums on our Youtube, thanks to KBOO Locus Focus host Barbara Bernstein!

Click here to watch District 3 Forum Click here to watch District 4 Forum Photo Credit: Dana Schot

Ballots have now been sent out to voters and there are only 20 days until Election Day. If you want to fill out your ballot together with others in the 350PDX community, join us at a Ballot Filling Party on Tuesday, October 27 at 6:00pm at our Climate Justice Workshop (3639 N Mississippi Ave). This will be a casual space to be with others where you can hang out while you individually fill out your ballot, ask questions about ranked choice voting, and view our Voter Guide. There will be pizza! Please RSVP to Dineen so we get enough food: dineen@350pdx.org.

——————————————————————————————————————————- Welcome Amanda!

Last month, 350PDX welcomed Amanda Conroy to the team as our new Director of Development! For close to two decades, Amanda has led development and marketing efforts for mission-driven organizations across California and Oregon. A passionate nonprofit leader, she specializes in relationship-based fundraising, strategic communications, and building organizational cultures rooted in philanthropy and community impact. Read more about Amanda here.

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Energy Justice Team: Celebrate CEI Hub Policy Wins!

Thanks to great collaboration among community-based organizations, Bureau of Planning and Sustainability staff, and the leadership of Councilors Green, Pirtle-Guiney, Kanal, Koyama Lane, and Clark, Portland City Council is set to pass a Critical Energy Infrastructure (CEI) Hub Policy with many of the amendments our community coalition suggested! We’re ensuring the CEI hub is safer and less risky in the future than it is currently, and we also started a plan for drawing down the amount of fuel stored at the hub. There will be one more vote on the final draft of this policy on or around Nov. 5, incorporating approved amendments. We want to see this whole package passed as amended with no changes — feel free to let your councilors know this!

This CEI Hub Policy is stronger because you participated — through public comments, rallies, phone calls and emails to councilors, questions at town halls, and much more this year — and for the last decade! THANK YOU! This policy instructs staff to return to City Council next September with a modified drawdown plan based on the companies’ data about tank fill levels, so we’ll keep working on this in 2027, and beyond, until this area is safer.

Speak Up to Support Healthier Buildings for a Healthier Climate!

Portland is taking a major step toward decreasing building emissions and increasing regional climate resilience through a new policy: Climate and Health Standards for Existing Buildings. Buildings account for nearly half of Portland’s greenhouse gas emissions, and this policy would address the largest of these (>20,000 square feet) to create healthier homes, lower emissions, and provide greater transparency and protections for renters. This is big!

October 20 at 2:00 pm there’s a public hearing in the Housing & Permitting Committee, and community voices matter. Show your support through testimony!

• Modify and send this email to City Council

• Use this toolkit to draft a written or verbal public comment

Support No Immunity for Big Oil

We’ve been involved in various strategies at the local, state, and national levels to hold Big Oil companies accountable.

In September, a No Immunity for Big Oil resolution passed the Portland City Life Committee! It will likely come to the full City Council this month. This resolution states that it’s vitally important to continue to have the right to take Big Oil to court, and support legislation such as the Make Polluters Pay coalition’s climate superfund bill.

Now, federal lawmakers and the American Petroleum Institute are trying to give polluters immunity from accountability. Our Members of Congress have the opportunity to stand against this by indicating their opposition to these immunity bills, and a resolution in Portland gives them extra backing.

 You can help by: 

• Urging your US Senator and Representatives to give No Immunity to Big Oil (Sen. Merkley and Reps. Bonamici and Dexter have already made statements in opposition to such immunity bills)

• Encouraging City Council to pass the No Immunity for Big Oil resolution

Fight for the Right to Breathe

On October 29, a Right to Breathe policy will have its first hearing in the Community & Public Safety Committee. This will prohibit the use of chemical weapons (such as tear gas) in Portland. You may recall the Action Night we had in February about the environmental and public health concerns around tear gas and other chemical weapons (where we premiered this incredible and informative short film, “Gas Me, Teddy”), and this has been an ongoing issue 350PDX has worked on since we signed onto a lawsuit in 2020. In addition to concerns around rights of free speech and assembly, chemical weapons pose health problems for our rivers, trees, and wildlife. Check out our Take Action page for this and other current actions you can take today, and read more about this policy and the overall concerns around chemical weapons here.

Reach out to dineen@350pdx.org and cherice@350pdx.org to get plugged into the Energy Justice Team. We work on everything from fighting data centers, Zenith, and the CEI Hub to advocating for PCEF and transportation justice!

 Forest Defense Team:

This week the Forest Defense Team joined forces with organizations and community members from across Portland to say NO to PGE logging of Forest Park’s ancient trees. On Wednesday, we attended a rally at City Hall and hosted a watch party at the 350PDX workshop!

Last year, Portland City Council voted unanimously to deny PGE’s permit to log five acres of Forest Park. Now, PGE and the City of Portland reached a backroom agreement to allow PGE to seek a new permit. We need another unanimous vote opposing this permit from City Council!

The Forest Defense Team meets on the first and third Monday of each month, alternating between virtual and in-person meetings. Our next meeting will be on October 19 from 6 – 7:30 PM. Reach out to tyler@350PDX.org for details.

Art Team:

Are you attending No Kings this Saturday? Make sure to stop by and say hi to our puppeteers this weekend as they bring joyful activism to the Vote Early Rally downtown. Interested in becoming a last minute Puppeteer? Email: arts@350pdx.org.

Last month, the Art Team hosted the Forest over Profits conference for a combined Art Build! We also screen printed small flags that were used by the Energy Justice Team at City Council to fight for better CEI Hub regulation, saying, “Rose City wants our river back!”

In an exciting update, our team leads have introduced monthly planning meetings in addition to our regular art builds. These meetings are an opportunity to meet the team in a more relaxed setting and a chance to help us brainstorm our plans for the next art build. The planning meetings will be on the last Wednesday of every month while our regularly scheduled art builds will continue as usual on the second Sunday.

• Next Planning Meeting: Wednesday, October 28, 6-7:30 PM
• Next Art Build: November 8, 1-4 PM

Meetings are held in the 350PDX workshop (3639 N Mississippi Ave). RSVP to arts@350pdx.org.

Book Club:

The 350PDX Book Club meets every month on the first Wednesday of the month at 6:30PM. Every other month is in person and the others are virtual. Reach out to books@350PDX.org with any questions or to join our list, and please RSVP so we can inform you of any meeting changes.

We are in the process of deciding our next few books! Email Kami and Lizy at books@350PDX.org to recommend a read (all genres welcome) or to sign up to vote.

Save the date for our upcoming discussions:

• TBD November meeting

• Wednesday, December 2 at 6:30 PM (in person; fiction) — book to be selected in October

• Wednesday, February 3 at 6:30 PM (in person; nonfiction)

Milwaukie Advocates for Climate Justice:

The Milwaukie Neighborhood Team has two events this month. We hope folks will join us and help spread the word!

Last Saturday, October 10, we hosted our kick-off potluck event with a featured presentation and guided conversation on how to reduce fossil fuels facilitated by our friends on the SW Neighborhood Team. We enjoyed connecting with people in Milwaukie who are interested in learning more about climate justice and getting involved, and those who are already passionately engaged!

Next Monday, October 19, we will be hosting a PGE Rate Increase workshop with Citizens Utility Board from 6:00-8:00PM. This workshop will take place at the Ledding Library Community Room (10660 SE 21st Ave, Milwaukie) directly after our abbreviated monthly meeting from 5:30-6:00 PM.

The MAC team meets monthly on the 3rd Monday from 5:30 – 6:30 PM at Milwaukie City Hall — all are welcome! To get connected, sign up here or email MAC@350pdx.org.

Washington County Team:

The Washington County Team invites all to our next monthly online meeting at 6:30 PM on Tuesday October 13. We are currently working on getting out the vote and defending democracy, and look forward to catching up with each other online.

We always welcome newcomers to our events and to our (mostly) monthly online meetings (6:30 PM on the second Tuesday of the month). For the link, join us here or contact us at 350washco@gmail.com.

Southwest Neighborhood Team:

The 350PDX Southwest Neighborhood Team includes neighborhoods on the south and west sides of Portland. We work together to raise awareness of the climate emergency.

Our street corner demonstrations continue weekly in October every Friday from 4:00 – 5:00 PM at SW Terwilliger & SW Taylor’s Ferry. Some parking is available in the Chez Jose and Anytime Fitness lot, or reach us via bus or bike.

Our monthly meetings happen on the third Monday of the month. To get involved, please contact Pat Kaczmarek at patk5@msn.com.

Before closing our newsletter, a few reminders:

• Check out our Take Action page, which we update regularly. It includes actions that may not be in our newsletter.
• Join the 350PDX community Slack channel! This is a great way to stay connected on an ongoing basis. Contact to info@350pdx.org and we can add you.
• 350PDX is still searching for a wonderful, new home. Please reach out to info@350PDX.org if you have ideas for a space where we can have meetings, our arts team can create show-stopping puppets, and more!

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Thank you for reading our monthly newsletter. We hope to see you soon!

With gratitude,

Amanda, Cherice, Dineen, Jessica, Maeve, and Noelle

The post 2026 October Newsletter! appeared first on 350PDX: Climate Justice.