Whether we’re white or Black, rich or poor, Indigenous or newcomer, we all want to leave future generations a healthy and beautiful Washington. But today, Washingtonians are grappling with multiple, simultaneous crises: a public health emergency, an economic catastrophe, a climate crisis, and a reckoning with our nation’s racist history. Those who benefit from the status quo have tried to silence the voices urging change and asserting our right to have a say over what happens to the land, air, and water we all depend on.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The crises we face are deeply intertwined, and a just recovery will require bold action. We know firsthand that the solutions needed to recover from the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 can also advance climate resilience, a need that remains as urgent as ever. We can expand access to affordable healthcare, housing, and clean transportation. We can have affordable energy options that clean our air and create thousands of good, safe jobs.
Starving our communities of the resources we need to live healthy lives is a choice we don’t have to keep making. We know knee jerk cuts will only perpetuate this crisis by damaging the critical services and jobs families depend on. By joining together, from our farms to our cities, we can rewrite the rules and create a Washington that puts the health, vitality, and prosperity of all its people before profits. By protecting our right to have a say about our future, we can ensure rules made about our air, water, and land serve our best interests.
Our broad coalition calls on state leaders to support the Resilient Future platform, which will set us on a path toward a climate-resilient future for generations to come. Relief and Recovery efforts must invest in the long-term resilience of at-risk workers, low-income communities, communities of color, and tribal communities through the following actions:
- People-Focused Solutions: We must support communities hit hardest by the health, environmental, and economic crisis with direct investments.
- Equitable, Participatory Decision-Making Process: We must engage frontline workers, communities of color, tribal nations, and others most impacted by the health and economic crises in all decision-making processes.
- Progressive revenue sources that drive down pollution: For too long, corporations and large polluters have refused to contribute their share to the schools, roads, and community services we all rely on. We must ensure that corporations and the very wealthy who’ve done well in Washington do right by Washington.
- Climate-Resilient Investments: We need long-term investments that build a clean and resilient economy to support healthy and prosperous communities.
- Clean & Just Approaches: We need strategies that reduce pollution, increase climate protection, strengthen the power and voices of workers, address structural inequalities, and create well-paying jobs with protected collective bargaining rights
Join us in calling on the legislature to look bigger, bolder at this crisis and invest in the critical services, create new job opportunities, and prioritize those most impacted first. The work we are doing together lays out the vision for action. Now, together, with your support, we believe Washington state can and must lead an equitable and just transition to a clean and resilient economy.