Guest Editorial: Three Ways Forward for the Northwest Climate Movement in the Age of Trump

The writer, Ahmed Gaya, is a Seattle based climate activist. Above: kayaktivists assemble on a Seattle beach to protest the presence of an Arctic drilling rig at the port in May 2016. Alex Garland

For many this is a time of mourning.

As Donald Trump gave his victory speech in the early morning hours of November 9th, scientists at the UN Climate meeting in Marrakech were delivering their latest findings on the worsening climate crisis.

Scientists and governments now agree: we’re racing towards ecological collapse. The window to avoid catastrophe is narrow and our chances extremely slim.

The assault on our planet and future promised by Donald Trump’s new administration is a sharp turn away from that window. None of our movement leaders or established organizations had a plan to respond to a Trump administration. Most are still reeling from the election.

But climate justice activists have always faced an impossible challenge, and the Pacific Northwest can be a beacon of action and hope in a dark time. These are a handful of ways in which we must adjust to our new circumstances and rise to the challenge:

• Demand immediate and radical action from our governors

Trump just announced that he will appoint climate denier Scott Pruitt to head up the EPA, and it’s likely that his administration will spend the next four years waging all-out war on our climate.

We must change the standards we use to measure action and failure from our local leaders.

To start, that means demanding that the governors of Oregon and Washington publicly pledge to reject permits for any and all new fossil fuel projects proposed in the Northwest, and direct state agencies to follow suit. This must include projects that allow the transfer of fossil fuels or facilitate their extraction elsewhere. The current practice of promising ‘comprehensive review’ is no longer practically or morally sufficient.

Governor Jay Inslee must end his irresponsible legal battle with Washington youth and ensure the inclusion of sharp, science-based cuts to greenhouse gasses in Washington’s clean air rule and other state policies. We also must demand a serious and actionable plan to transition Washington’s economy entirely off fossil fuels in the next two decades. Where legislative action falls short, any leader who claims to care about climate must support passing additional measures on the ballot.

• Put climate justice into practice by fighting for immigrants and refugees

No matter what we do, millions of people will experience the trauma of migration and displacement because of climate change. The United Nations Deputy High Commission for Refugees predicts climate change could become the biggest driver of displacement, and by “the most conservative predictions” cause a quarter billion people to leave their homes by the middle of the century.

The cruel geopolitics of the crisis mean that those from the nations least responsible for the climate disaster will be forced to flee to the nations most responsible, like ours. If we truly believe in climate justice, we must work to make our country and our state as supportive and welcoming to immigrants and refugees as possible.



Climate organizations must make immigration policy, resettling refugees, and combatting Islamophobia and xenophobia core policy priorities. We must help grow the sanctuary cities movement, defend the refugee resettlement program, and support community safety networks for Muslim, LGBTQ, and other communities facing a wave of hate crimes.

Some segments of our movement already recognize that intersectionality is the only way to tackle the climate crisis. Last year, for example, a contingent of climate activists joined a blockade of the Northwest Immigrant Detention Center in Tacoma. But under Trump, we need to see these strategies embraced by all, particularly by well-resourced environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and Climate Solutions. If we succeed, this strategy could also build the broad constituency needed to pass aggressive climate policy.

• Pop the urban bubble

Climate activists and progressives of all stripes need to learn our lessons from the presidential election’s rural and ex-urban backlash, and learn them quickly. We must include our more rural eastern communities in our vision of a sustainable future.

Approximately one in three voters outside of King County supported a carbon tax initiative that failed (for a number of reasons, including disagreement within environmental communities) on the ballot this fall. But these results show that if done right, effective climate policy and clean energy projects can garner support from, and provide prosperity for, communities feeling left behind by the Puget Sound tech bubble.

The Northwest’s thirty rural energy cooperatives could provide a powerful vehicle to develop decentralized, community-owned power. Wind power is the only industry consistently investing in America’s rural west, and new ‘giga-factories’ for solar panels and batteries in Buffalo, New York and Sparks, Nevada are offering thousands of well paying jobs in those communities. Even a few of these wind or solar projects could have a major impact on rural livelihoods in our region.

To make this a reality, we must get out of the city and invest in these communities. Our future may depend on convincing all Americans they have a stake in the transition ahead. This may be some of our most important work.

As we navigate this new and dark era our creativity and hope must be brighter than ever. We must come to terms with what we will lose, and we will likely lose a great deal. We must love what we can save that much more fiercely. We should remember that we have never known leaders who could promise action commensurate with the crisis we face.

Our task now is no different than it has always been: to rise to the challenge of history.

Ahmed Gaya is a Seattle based climate activist and a cofounder of 2015's sHell No! Action Council.