2021 has been a year of extreme weather events in Idaho. Among the worst and most unforgettable was an extreme heat wave.

In the Northwest, including British Columbia, a weather pattern known as a heat dome may have caused 1,400 deaths from the excessive warmth.

Aly Bean, climate campaign coordinator with the Idaho Conservation League, said scientists would typically expect an event like this to happen in the region once every thousand years.

"But climate scientists, after looking into the event and doing some modeling," said Bean, "recognized that this type of extreme heat event is 150 times more likely due to climate change."

Bean said there were other extreme events as well, such as a rise in toxic algae blooms. She also noted that extreme weather has effects on economic drivers like salmon, which came back to Idaho in extremely low numbers this year.

Idaho has also been experiencing one of its most severe droughts in history, which has impacted parts of the economy such as agriculture. Bean said the region is supposed to get more precipitation this winter from a weather pattern known as La Niña.

"If we don't get significantly higher snowpack from this La Nina," said Bean, "the drought from last year will continue for multiple years just because of that soil moisture dryness."

Wildfires once again raged in Idaho and across the West this year, too. But Bean said these events may have a silver lining.

"The really poor air quality index for such a sustained period of time and the huge number of wildfires," said Bean, "really brought attention to what we need to do to adapt for and take care of the health of those that are most vulnerable."

Bean said the state needs to decrease its carbon pollution, including through greater electrification of the transportation system. She also noted the need for changes to the agriculture sector, which is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in Idaho.

"Finding ways that we can work with farmers and ranchers and dairies to decrease methane emissions is really huge," said Bean. "Also finding ways within the agricultural sector that we can sequester carbon and remove it from the atmosphere will be helpful."

On Election Day, a broad coalition of conservationists, labor, and others helped defeat a ballot initiative to repeal Washington State's Climate Commitment Act. The act, passed in 2021, is the state's state's primary vehicle for reducing emissions and pollution and a major source of funding for clean energy infrastructure and climate initiatives.

Billy Wallace, political and legislative director with the Washington and Northern Idaho District Council of Laborers, said passage would have meant the loss of as many as 45,000 clean-energy jobs.

"We started building a coalition, and it ended up being a little over 600 groups, from labor, from environmental. The Catholic Church was on it, We had 21 of the 29 tribes sign on. So it was a very diversified coalition that came together to save this funding." he said.

Initiative 2117 was one of four ballot measures backed by the Let's Go Washington PAC funded primarily by conservative hedge-fund manager Bryan Heywood. Wallace said that over the next 8 years, Climate Commitment Act investments would create 45,000 jobs in Washington State.

Wallace added the coalition faced an uphill battle to help the public understand that jobs and the environment were both on the line.

"These are the investments, even in schools, clean air, clean water. And once we figured out we got to educate the people on what's going on, it was complicated. It was confusing for the general public. So we raised $18.4 million for this campaign from that big coalition," he continued.

Climate Jobs Washington and its member unions formed a coalition to protect the act. Wallace said labor organizations were instrumental in passing the original measure three years ago.

"It was crucial for our members. Our members work in the building trades. About 75%, 80% of the work we do is on prevailing wage work in transpo[rt]. So it was a no-brainer for us to jump in," he added.

New research finds Maryland leading the nation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental Protection Agency data show between 2005 and 2022, greenhouse gas pollution fell in 44 states and the District of Columbia. Maryland saw the largest reduction at 36%, followed by D.C., Maine, New Hampshire and Georgia. Only six states saw emissions increase.

Emily Scarr, senior advisor for the Maryland Public Interest Research Group, said the wide variation between states shows local policy matters.

"It's really evidence that states and regions have a lot of control on their greenhouse gas emissions," Scarr explained. "Showing ways that we can continue to reduce emissions, as well as showing warning signs of things that states do that can actually take us in the wrong direction."

The reductions nationwide are largely attributed to the retirement of many coal-fired power plants. Maryland has shuttered seven coal plants since 2012, with two still operating.

The report looks at emissions data from power generation, industry, transportation, agriculture, residential and commercial sectors. Maryland saw emissions reductions in every category except for the commercial sector, which includes commercial buildings, landfills and wastewater treatment centers. Scarr pointed out fossil-fuel-based winter heating is driving emissions in the commercial sector.

"The majority of those emissions are actually coming from heat for commercial buildings," Scarr observed. "That's a specific place where, if properly implemented, the Building Energy Performance Standards can start holding commercial building owners accountable."

The Maryland Department of the Environment will collect energy-use data from buildings larger than 35,000 square feet in 2025, to develop energy performance standards based on those numbers. The state has set a 2040 target for large buildings to have net-zero emissions.


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Community members in Seattle had a unique opportunity to weigh in on the policies guiding the city's climate goals.

In 2019, the City of Seattle passed the Green New Deal Resolution and Green New Deal Executive Order, with the goal of eliminating climate pollution by 2030.

To help guide that process, the initiative's oversight board supported community assemblies.

Peter Hasegawa is the organizing director at MLK Labor and co-chair of the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

He said the idea behind the community assemblies was to do deep listening with many different community members.

"To have the opportunity to present information and get feedback," said Hasegawa, "and have people think about solutions together over a longer period of time, was appealing to us because we thought we could get higher quality feedback."

MLK Labor and Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle hosted the assemblies.

The goal was to ensure that people on the front-lines had their voices heard, and were at the table as the city crafts policies going forward.

Faduma Fido is lab leader with the People's Economy Lab, which helped support the community assemblies.

She said they're piloting this type of engage at the city level because people are tired of going to listening sessions.

She said the assemblies provide a more empowering setting, with people compensated for their time and eating meals together. Fido said they want to bring democratic practices like these back.

"There's an appetite and willingness now to empower the citizens," said Fido, "empower communities to practice democracy beyond the ballot box, because often that tends to be very polarizing."

Hasegawa said they heard from a variety of people over the three sessions.

In the first, they heard about people's experiences being affected by extreme weather, such as the 2021 heat dome, and a freeze last winter that caused many people's pipes to burst.

In the second session, they heard about wins on the ground to protect people and workers from the effects of climate change.

Hasegawa said in the third, they brainstormed about what the city and local labor movement can do about climate change.

"In certain ways that ended up being the easiest session," said Hasegawa, "because there was a very high level of consensus that what workers in Seattle want is to be protected from extreme weather, they want to be protected from heat and smoke, and bursting pipes, and they want to be protected whether they work in a building or outside or in a home."




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