Congratulations to SacRT on 50 Years of Service!

April 1, 2023 marked SacRT’s 50th anniversary of operation. ECOS celebrates this important milestone with SacRT by looking back at Sacramento’s history and celebrating what is to come. SacRT has played an integral role in generations of Sacramentans. Transit is woven into the fabric of daily life across the Sacramento region.

ECOS supports the insertion of dense development around existing light rail stations and major bus corridors, and the continued expansion of the transit network in our region.

Learn more about the history of SacRT, check out their Anniversary Pop-Up Events and more, please visit https://www.sacrt.com/apps/sacrt-celebrates-50-years/.

Earth Day Speaker Series

Celebrate Earth Day all month with a free series of virtual talks about climate change presented by the Sacramento chapter of The Climate Reality Project, the Sacramento-Roseville chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and 350 Sacramento. Throughout April we’ll offer free talks on different aspects of climate change, including what it will take to tackle the challenge, efforts to end fossil fuel extraction in California, how you can fight climate change and save thousands of dollars with energy upgrades, and understanding climate myths vs. reality. Sign up for one or all of the events!

Celebrate Earth Day every Thursday in April! All presentations will be on Zoom and begin at 7pm.

April 20: How to Save Up to $30k with Energy Upgrades – You can fight climate change and reduce your carbon footprint by replacing old appliances with energy-efficient ones, weatherizing your home, buying an EV, or putting solar on your home. In this presentation, you’ll learn about rebates and tax incentives worth up to $30k over the next 10 years when you go electric.

April 27: Climate Myths vs. Reality – With so much misinformation being spread every day about climate change, it can be hard to know what to believe. This talk will look at some of the common myths and misconceptions and help you learn how and where to find reliable information about global warming.

Registration and additional information is on Eventbrite: https://tinyurl.com/SacCRP

Big Day of Giving 2023!

Sacramento’s Big Day of Giving is right around the corner and ECOS would like to engage you!

The Environmental Council of Sacramento has been a powerful advocacy organization in the Sacramento region for over 50 years. We advocate for aggressive reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. We support green building practices such as using recycled materials and electrification of all buildings and vehicles. We argue for new parks, transit, and “complete streets” in environmentally impacted urban areas, especially near freeways and heavy industry, and in historically red-lined areas. With the climate crisis growing and affordable housing a critical need, our advocacy efforts are needed more than ever.

It’s easy to make a difference in the Sacramento region during Big Day of Giving. Donations as small as $15 add up to make a big impact!

Between now and Thursday, May 4, please donate to keep ECOS advocacy vibrant!

Public Meeting – Lower American River Erosion Construction Update (H St to Howe Ave)

The US Army Corps of Engineers is having a virtual public meeting Thursday, May 4 from 5-6 p.m. In this meeting they’ll discuss why the Lower American River Erosion project is needed, how they chose the design, environmental impacts, what to expect during construction, and future work they’ll be doing in the parkway.

They will post the meeting link here on the day of the event or you can sign up for their mailing list by sending an email titled “American River Levee Upgrades email list” to spk-pao[at]usace[dot]army[dot]mil.

Invitation to PSR/Sacramento High School Essay Contest Luncheon, Sunday, April 30

By Bill Durston, MD, Vice President and Essay Contest Chairperson for PSR/Sacramento

The Sacramento Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility is pleased to announce that after a three-year hiatus occasioned by Covid related concerns, we’ll be resuming the tradition of holding our High School Scholarship Essay Contest Finals in person again this year. The prompt for this year’s contest is the following quotation from the renowned primatologist, environmentalist, and animal rights activist, Dr. Jane Goodall:

You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

The essay contest finals luncheon is at Hilton Arden West, 2200 Harvard Street, in Sacramento, on Sunday, April 30. All are welcome. Please make reservations here Join/Donate page on the PSR/Sacramento website; scroll down to the luncheon reservation at the bottom of the page. The cost is $50 per person. Check-in and “social hour” will be from 11:30 AM-12 noon. Lunch is served at 12:00 and students’ presentations will begin about 1 PM. The program will wrap up by 2:30.

At the essay contest finals event, the 10 student finalists will present their essays orally and a distinguished panel of judges from the community will choose the first, second, and third place winners. We’ll be awarding a total of $15,000 in scholarships again this year, with all 10 finalists receiving at least $1,000, and with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners receiving $3,000, $2,500, and $2,000, respectively.

Our essay contest finals event has traditionally been one of the most inspiring and enjoyable PSR events of the year. In addition to the benefits that members of the progressive community will derive from attending the luncheon, including listening to the students’ presentations and socializing and networking with one another, we believe that it’s particularly important that we have a good turnout this year in order to affirm the importance of the views expressed by this year’s finalists, who are members of a generation of students who have been subjected to unprecedented isolation during their high school careers.

This is the 19th consecutive year that we’ve hosted the PSR/Sacramento High School Scholarship Essay Contest, and with this year’s awards, we will have given over $240,000 in scholarships to deserving high school seniors thanks to the generosity of our supporters, who include not only health care professionals, but also many other members of the greater Sacramento progressive community. The prompts for past essay contests are appended below, and the winning essays from past years are posted on the High School Essay Contest page of the PSR/Sacramento website. We believe that the essay contest is an important way of fostering and rewarding critical thinking on the important issues of our time among high school age youth, and we believe that anyone who reads some of the past essays – and particularly, anyone who attends this year’s essay contest finals luncheon – will agree.

Quotations Used in Past PSR/Sacramento Essay Contests

2005: “War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today.” John F. Kennedy

2006: “Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.” Martin Luther King

2007: “We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can’t bomb it into peace.” Michael Franti

2008: “War is a racket with the profits reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” Maj. General Smedley Butler

2009: “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” Albert Einstein

2010: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Native American Proverb

2011: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” President Dwight Eisenhower

2012: “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

2013: “Firearm regulations, to include bans of handguns and assault weapons, are the most effective way to reduce firearm related injuries.” American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Injury and Poison Prevention, April 2000

2014: “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela

2015: “The world is over-armed, and peace is under-funded.” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

2016: “Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.” The 14th Dalai Lama

2017: “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

2018: “The connection between women’s human rights, gender equality, socioeconomic development, and peace is increasingly apparent.” Mahnaz Afkhami

2019: “We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it.” President Barack Obama

2020: Peace is not only the absence of war. As long as there is poverty, racism, discrimination, and exclusion, we’ll be hard-pressed to achieve a world of peace. Rigoberta Menchu Tum

2021: “The story of nuclear weapons will have an ending, and it is up to us what that ending will be. Will it be the end of nuclear weapons, or will it be the end of us?” Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

2022: “Americans cannot teach democracy to the world until they restore their own.” William Greider

30 x 30 and the CA budget, Apr 3, 2023

Image: https://www.californianature.ca.gov/pages/resources

Our partners with the Sierra Club are working to advance the adoption of four sites in Sacramento County into the Statewide plan for the 30×30 conservation plan. The intent of this plan follows President Biden’s proposal, adopted by Governor Newson for CA, to set aside 30% of open lands for conservation by 2030. The stated goals are to:

  • Protect and restore large, intact landscapes and wildlife corridors.
  • Support the conservation and stewardship vision and priorities of Tribal Nations.
  • Support Climate resilience.
  • Conserve more open lands and parks near communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities.

The local sites include the Blue Oak Woodlands in the Southeast portion of the county – affected by rapidly diminishing forest and wetlands due to development, 20 acres on the American River Parkway in Rancho Cordova between River Bend and Gristmill County parks where completion of the parkway trails is needed, the Stone Lakes Wildlife Refuge (one of the most threatened refuges in the nation), and the Natomas Basin where development threatens completion of the existing Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.”

For more information on how you can help visit the Sierra Club website:
https://www.sierraclub.org/california/sierra-clubs-california-30×30-campaign