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Paddle!

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.

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 16th, the 350th 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 16th.

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

Author Bio

KC Golden

former Senior Policy Advisor, Climate Solutions

KC shapes policy and communication strategies, with the goal of changing what's "possible" so we can do what's necessary. "Cynicism," he insists, "is capitulation."

He has served as a special assistant to the Mayor of Seattle for clean energy and climate protection initiatives and as an Assistant Director in Washington's Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development, where he directed the state's Energy Policy Office. From 1989 to 1994, he was Executive Director of the Northwest Energy Coalition, a regional alliance working for a clean, affordable energy future.

KC is a leader in the national climate movement, serving on the boards of 350.org (where he is Interim Board Chair) and the US Climate Action Network. He has also been active in the utility industry, helping Seattle City Light become the first major carbon-free electric utility in the late 1990s, and as a Governor's representative to the Executive Board of Energy Northwest, a regional public power consortium. 

KC was one of Seattle Magazine's "Power 25" most influential people, and its #1 "Eco-Hero." In 2012, he received the Heinz Award for Public Policy for his lifetime achievement as a climate advocate and policy architect.

KC earned his Bachelor's Degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and was a Kennedy Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he received a Master's in Public Policy. He retired from Climate Solutions' staff at the end of 2018.

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