350 Eugene: Join us at the ‘No Kings’ protest June 14

Presenter: You’re invited to  the June 14 anti-Trump “No Kings” protest, to join local environmental group 350 Eugene, one of the many local groups participating in ACES, the Activist Coalition of Eugene Springfield.

The name 350 refers to the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—350 parts per million. The latest measurement, as of May 25, 2025, shows us at 430 parts per million.  350.org was launched in 2008 by students and the writer Bill McKibben. Among those launching the Eugene chapter a few years later was Patty Hine.

Patty Hine (350 Eugene): It was started by six students in Middlebury College in Vermont back in the day and each student took one continent, if you can believe it, to start organizing around the climate crisis.

[00:00:51] Bill McKibben was the first what we want to call ‘fiction nonfiction writer’ who highlighted in his book, The End of Nature, and it was really the first book that we saw that was a popular book about you know, ‘Hey, we’re in trouble here. What are we going to do?’ And Bill thought since he wrote it, you know, people would start learning about it and taking action. That turned out not to be the case.

[00:01:12] So along those lines, back around the Occupy Movement,  around 2011, a lot of us kind of woke up and said, ‘Good grief! What kind of state are we in here?” And the Occupy Eugene movement was a real catalyst, I think, for me and my partner Debbie, who started to notice in social media like, ‘Wow, some organizations like Rainforest Action Network and other big Greens—Greenpeace and so forth—were saying, ‘Yo, we got this situation with the climate. Let’s train some people in Portland to do some actions that are going to make the change.’

[00:01:46] And this was a direct action call to stop the Keystone XL pipeline issue back in 2013. So Debbie, my partner, and I went there to Portland, met a whole bunch of people from the state of Oregon, and we trained in nonviolent direct action and came back to Eugene and said, ‘Gosh, you know what? Maybe that 350 stuff is important.’

[00:02:04] Bill McKibben, turns out he was a United Methodist Sunday School teacher and I and Debbie were raised in the United Methodist denomination and were activists in our own local congregation. And we said, ‘This Bill McKibben, we should have him out.’

[00:02:17] And he came to several conferences in the Northwest. And Debbie and I went and were inspired by him and came back to town and met with Mary DeMocker, who was a local climate mom, harp teacher, who was an artist as well in her own right. And she said, ‘Let’s get together and start a 350 chapter.’ She wrote Bill McKibben on the email and just said, ‘How about it?’ And he said: ‘Do it.’

[00:02:38] So it wasn’t long after that that we established a little group of people, you know, advertised it in the paper, got a cadre of badass, youngish, you know, 50-, 55-year-olds and that was 12 or 13 years ago and we’re older now.

[00:02:52] But that’s sort of the way 350 got started. We copied everything that was in the 350.org playbook. And we started with divestment, which is the ‘Move The Money‘ campaign. And we started just holding weekly webinars on that and seeing who was interested and went from there.

[00:03:07] So that’s kind of what 350 Eugene is about. We do everything from policy advocacy, local and state, relating to climate and other biodiversity issues, and particularly forest protection, ’cause that is the biggest carbon sequestration tool we have here as Pacific Northwesterners, keeping the forests intact, and they are really under terrible, terrible threat now. So we’re spending a good deal of time on the forest campaigns.

[00:03:31] So that’s the gamut, all the way down to direct action. We had a direct action arrestable event down at Sierra Pacific Industries two years ago in June. It was the hottest day of that year. And we locked down in front of the gates up there on (Highway) 99 with six of us and a bunch of other forest defense people and made a lot of racket and a lot of police attention. And then we got out of there before we got arrested.

[00:03:55] But that’s the kind of work that we train to do, want to do, along the spectrum of, you know, getting somewhere with some progress on climate action, because we are way out of time.

[00:04:06] Presenter: The Eugene chapter of 350.org joined ACES back in February. Co-President Patty Hine:

[00:04:12] Patty Hine (350 Eugene): It was started (as you’ve probably heard) from Stan Taylor, a very important figure in our community, an attorney, a political science teacher retired from LCC. I also retired from LCC, so had a relationship with Stan, somewhat.

[00:04:27] And he, back in February, contacted me as the 350 Eugene co-president to say, “Yo, we want to start a coalition in Eugene to fight the autocratic tendencies that are happening in our federal government. We have got to build a movement.’ And I was all for it and sent him a list of groups that I thought he asked for. And that is where we started kicking off everything in the environmental.

[00:04:50] Because I think what we understand is: That is the hugest existential crisis that we have going, and people who have any brain know it. And so it’s sort of taken a backseat, I think we’ll all agree, to fighting what we see here in our federal government, sliding into this autocratic pit. And I think most of us have decided this is the important issue for today. We are going to build the coalition.

[00:05:13] So that’s why ACES is important and why 350 Eugene is important is because they recognize that, Stan and the group. And Stan pulled together a very good diverse group, both demographically and ideologically.

[00:05:27] Presenter: The groups participating in ACES agree on a mission statement with five points of unity.

[00:05:33] Patty Hine (350 Eugene): You can’t be part of ACES unless you agree to having a nonviolent framework. The nonviolence, I think, really is the key that brings us all together.

[00:05:41] The one that we decided to lead with was a anti-white supremacy kind of framework, where we are fighting the imbalance of power, you know, the wealth and income inequality in the country and the spaces where that’s affecting power dynamics, the underemployed, those who are oppressed, and our own white privilege.

[00:06:03] So demographically, ACES is a very white group. There’s a little bit of diversity, not very much. We have some younger groups that are involved, which is really fun. So I would say those appeal to me a lot because white groups are characteristically oblivious to the fact that people of color and BIPOC groups and others are not very at home among us and we have to consciously really fight that. And then to put it up front and center is, I think, really admirable.

[00:06:35] The groups are very compatible, collaborative, and it’s good to be working with them. And so we believe that coalition work is the best way. Progressive movement has never been done by the government. It’s not individuals who can make it happen. It’s the people who make it happen and so we are all about that and really glad to have an opportunity with Stan’s leadership and this new organization ACES to really build on something, build a lasting, stable, convivial group of people who can make stuff happen in a pace and scale that is needed. And so building power in the grassroots that’s where it’s at and that’s why 350 is glad to be part of this coalition.

[00:07:16] Presenter: The No Kings protest will be held at the federal courthouse kitty-corner from Whole Foods.

[00:07:22] Patty Hine (350 Eugene): It’s called specifically the Wayne Morse Federal Courthouse. It’s at 405 E. 8th, on the east side of town—that big, new, silvery, shiny building. Beautiful venue for a great big, huge protest.

[00:07:34] So in big capital letters, we want to say, it is the No Kings Day PROTEST. We’re not over there to have a good time. We’re over there to speak truth to power and that’s what’s going to be happening. And it’s going to be really kind of a beautiful event and we’re part of it because our work is intersectional: climate, democracy, anti-racism, fighting white supremacy.

[00:07:56] The immigrant issue is very high right now with the Gaza massacre that’s happening. There’ll be a contingent of people who are going to exemplify that particular problem that we have and it’s going to be loud.

[00:08:07] There’ll be some street theater folks who are doing spoofs on the ‘commander in thief’ and other things like that.

[00:08:14] We’ll be collecting money and funds. Part of the mission of the 14 June protest is to raise funds for the Trans Alliance of Lane County (TALC) and as well as the Community Alliance of Lane County (CALC).

So those two organizations need funding now, peace and justice, protecting our trans rights people who are really terribly under attack. And so that and the immigrant issue as well as environment, those are the four things that we’re holding up: trans rights, environment, immigration, and white supremacy too, in there.

[00:08:45] You can feel that there’s this energy in the country where people are popping up everywhere. If you’re just paying attention to the Eugene Weekly and the Activist Alert, and you can see where autonomous groups all over town are popping up various times, sometimes regularly, with different styles and ways to express their frustration and their anger and their concern.

[00:09:04] Presenter: 350 Eugene is well known for its ‘artivists’—artists who are also activists. Patty Hine.

[00:09:11] Patty Hine (350 Eugene): We have a group of people who are very creative. They understand how to sell a point and bring in the hearts and minds of people through art, theater, and things like that.

[00:09:20] So, I mean, we have been running ads in the paper that are educational, that have to do with environmental issues, including electrification of buildings and homes and keeping cars off the road and having more transit and things of that nature. But we also run ads in theaters and we have built huge paper-mache trees that have forest animals coming out of them in 3D that talk about forest protection and forest defense.

[00:09:47] We’ve created huge banners. And so at this event, we’re bringing three, four, five, 20-foot-tall banners that exemplify the things that have to do with protecting our democracy, getting into good trouble (John Lewis saying) and so on and how important our democracy is and how standing up for it right at this moment has never been more important. We have created a big ‘No Kings’ banner with a picture of you-know-who on there looking awful.

[00:10:14] And we’ll be bringing our two dozen or so monarch butterflies to create some beauty around the event. That’s called, when they flock, ‘a flutter of butterflies.’ They’re monarchs, and then we have a big sign with the motto, ‘These are the only monarchs we need.’

[00:10:32] And so that’s the kind of the contribution that the 350 Eugene organization brings people in: to animate all of these things, to bring life, and pull in the hearts and minds of people and remind us that together we can do this.

It’s our country. It’s our democracy. It’s up to us. And I’m very proud of the work that our group has been doing. There’s a mural out on 27th and Willamette that talks about the fragility of the atmosphere and how important it is that we protect that. So I just want to appreciate that that’s the kind of thing that we are able to bring with our group.

[00:11:05] The framework is nonviolent civil disobedience, how to move the dial. This is how we build people power and we really rely on their leadership nationally. And Stan and Indivisible Eugene Springfield group specifically is really the key player locally for the ACES coalition to funnel all that guidance and resources and information to the ACES coalition who’s bringing these events to Eugene and Springfield.

[00:11:31] Presenter: You can get involved today at their website, 350Eugene.org. Patty Hine:

[00:11:36] Patty Hine (350 Eugene): There’s a Facebook page with 350 Eugene, also 350Eugene.org will get you to the website which has a calendar that is very important. And we keep that updated with ways that we show up in town. We’re almost always in the streets at least once or twice a month.

[00:11:51] We also have a social time after that where everybody is invited. Pizza is provided and we frequent local establishments and get people to know each other that way. And if there’s an event that is a coalition or an ally group, we also turn out for that.

[00:12:05] We also go field checking with Cascadia Wildlands. There’s a number of ways that we are active on a regular basis in the community and that’s all on our calendar website and you sign up for our blasts and you’ll know particularly what’s happening in that month with more detail.

[00:12:21] Presenter: Art, street theater, and nonviolent civil disobedience are coming to Eugene Saturday, June 14. You can join  the No Kings protest from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the federal courthouse, 405 E. 8th.