By Frank Turner, Cleve Pinnix and Brian Hovis

Our local governments have adopted the Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan (TCMP). That was a heavy lift for the Thurston Climate Action Team, concerned citizens and elected officials. The harder part now begins as the plan is implemented.

How will we know if compromises are made in the plan implementation? Luckily, we will have the Thurston Climate Action Team and other environmental groups to help sound the alarm. That will work well for those that have robust mailing lists and attentive readers. Yet such a communication system might not reach between the silos of our environmental groups to the broader public. Where is our megaphone?  

It is the local newspaper. Climate change is just one type of environmental story which is currently under reported and that could reach a print circulation of 12,014 daily and 20,604 on Sunday. The digital outreach would be even greater. For example, there were 628,000 unique visitors in December 2019 and on average over 3 million-page views per month in 2019. 

A growing group of people are helping The Olympian hire an environmental reporter this fall. We need sponsors. Please click here for information and to watch an interview with John Dodge, our former environmental reporter, to see what we have been missing.

This article was featured in our March 9th, newsletter! Click here to read the rest of the newsletter, or visit https://thurstonclimateaction.org/signup-form/ to subscribe to TCAT’s biweekly newsletter and action alerts.