The stories after a river trip are almost always about the big whitewater. But in between the frothy stuff, it can be a grunt. Slack water pools can stretch for miles, and headwinds in the afternoon can slow you to a crawl. More often than not, this was what the last quarter century of climate advocacy felt like.

But the pace is picking up now. We’re gathering momentum; we seem to pass big landmarks on the shoreline – the demise of Keystone XL and Shell’s retreat from the Arctic; cost-competitive solar technology and the dawn of electric cars – almost daily now. Like all the big rapids, we can’t fully see this one until we drop over the horizon line where the big water starts. But we can already feel the acceleration; we can hear the roar.

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Can you pitch in your paddle power and help grow this momentum with a gift to Climate Solutions today on #GivingTuesday?

A lifetime presents only a few opportunities to witness the transition from the seemingly endless inertia of entrenched resistance to the fast-moving caldron of dynamic change. Savor this time…by seizing it. The best strategy for a big gnarly rapid is this: point your bow straight in to the big water, paddle forward, and paddle hard.

This #GivingTuesday, you can paddle hard with Climate Solutions by donating to our “Month of Climate Champions” fundraising drive. We are hoping to raise $250,000 by December 16^th, the 350^th day of the year.

We are here now because of climate champions like you. You believed in the power of solutions; you helped make the Northwest a proving ground for them. You straightened up your back and resisted expansion of global fossil fuel trafficking through Northwest ports and communities. You helped state and local leaders develop and implement path-breaking local climate action plans – plans they’ll share at the Paris climate negotiations to help world leaders raise the bar for solutions. By supporting energy codes and clean energy performance standards and transportation choices and clean fuels and energy efficiency programs, you’re clearing the path to a carbon-free future in the Northwest.

But now, as we break free into rapidly moving water, the opportunities grow, and the stakes rise. Now as never before, we have the chance to deliver on our vision – to wage and win our best and only viable future, a clean energy future. Our vision is coming alive, and Climate Solutions is in the center of the action – building healthier communities and sustainable, broadly shared prosperity in a clean energy economy; making further expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure as unnecessary as it is unconscionable.

Climate champions like you got us to this horizon line. Now we need you all the way in the boat, paddling like there’s no tomorrow, as we hit the big water!

Please raise your paddle.  Plunge it in the water and PULL,….and GIVE, with all you’ve got this year. Thank you for considering donating this #GivingTuesday to our “Month of Climate Champions” fundraising drive, and helping us raise $250,000 by December 16^th.

With high hopes for a big step toward peace and climate justice in Paris, and much more in 2016.