TCAT Blog
The Complications of Online-shopping vs In-store Shopping
By Samara Almonte In our last newsletter, Lynn Fitz-Hugh shared with our readers different options for lowering your emissions during the Holiday season, especially when it comes to gift-giving. Although she strongly suggested looking towards acts of service (following COVID-19 regulations of course) as gifts to reduce your carbon footprint, we understand that there may still be…
Read MoreGetting to Action: Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan Update
By Tom Crawford, TCAT President At its November 5th meeting, the Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan’s (TCMP’s) Steering Committee learned about public comments on the draft plan, and reviewed a draft agreement and scope of work for Phase 3 of the effort. Public input on the plan was very high, and very positive. The Steering Committee…
Read MoreA Low Emissions Holiday
By Lynn Fitz-Hugh All of us are going to experience the holidays differently this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. From Thanksgiving, to Christmas and New Year’s, big family gatherings may be trimmed down or not happening at all. There will be no office Holiday parties or even Christmas parties. Concerts and plays and other…
Read MoreComments Needed: Stop Tumwater from approving the cutting of 2,547 Trees:
By Pat Rasmussen Tumwater just issued a new State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) determination: MDNS (Mitigated Decision of Non-significance) approving the Site Plan for Puget Western at 2311 93rd Avenue SW, called Puget Western East Distribution Center. Puget Western would build a warehouse 65 acres in size, 50 feet tall, with 584 parking stalls for…
Read MoreThe Importance of Trees
By Lynn Fitz-Hugh | TCAT Community Engagement Director Most of us think of trees as sort of friendly ornamental objects. Unfortunately, we are not taught in school about all the very important things trees do for us: Storm water management by sucking up water and preventing flooding Air pollution reduction and removal Drawdown of greenhouse…
Read MoreLessons Learned About Climate Change Communication in Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior
By Rebecca Mcmillin Barbara Kingsolver is a prolific writer whose favorite topics are class divides and social inequalities. It seems inevitable therefore, that she write a book on climate change. Flight Behavior, published in 2012 by HarperCollins, is a masterful realistic fiction example of the Bildungsroman genre- which Merriam Webster defines as a depiction of…
Read MoreWhy Outdoor Education Is Important
By: Karina Greenlee In preschool, on what we called forest days, our tiny school took the city bus to evergreen college and spent all school day in the woods. We made houses inside of rotting logs, ventured through the underbrush, and dug for clay by the creek bank. At lunchtime, we sometimes hiked down to…
Read MoreMovie Review: WALL-E
By Elsie Sabel Out of the many films I watched as a child, Wall-E is one of the few that I distinctly recall. I remember watching it on long car trips and boring Sunday afternoons. So, I decided to watch it again to see if it still had the same magic with an older audience.…
Read MoreFood Waste: Bigger Than You Think
By Kaylee Shen I guess you could call me the Olympia High School dumpster diver. Well, I don’t dive in the dumpster for food to eat, but I do “dive” through our school’s compost, trash and recycling in order to sort items into their correct bins. Every Tuesday and Thursday at lunch (when we still…
Read MoreReview of “Down to Earth”
By Bahar Bouzarjomehri In this Netflix original series, Zac Efron and health and wellness expert Darin Olien traveled the world searching for communities that have been leading the sustainability movement. Each place Efron and Olien visited demonstrates how locals are working with their natural resources in order to make the world a healthier place to…
Read More