We need your help to pass climate-friendly farming legislation!

Will You Invest in Climate-Friendly Farms Today?CarbonWA's campaign for sustainable, climate-friendly farms and ranches needs your help!Last legislative session SB 5947 moved through the Senate with bipartisan support led by Senators McCoy (D) and Schoesler (R) and testimony in support from many in the farming community. However, after passing the Senate the bill stalled in the House for reasons discussed here. Senate Bill 5947 is the first step towards Carbon Washington’s goal of supporting our farming economy while maximizing the potential to use farm and prairie lands to fight climate change. You can learn more about the bill here and here.To get the bill over the finish line, we are launching a campaign to cultivate interest among farmers and rural communities while collecting input to perfect the bill for 2020's legislative session. As a first step, we have hired a campaign manager to spearhead our work to build support and awareness in the farming community. We've raised roughly $30,000, but are short of our fundraising goal to support other critical elements like rural outreach coordinators, media support, lobbying and more.That's why the CarbonWA Board is matching gifts up to $5,000!The beauty of focusing on farmland is that we can tackle climate change and help our farmers and improve our land for wildlife. We can reduce the fertilizer use which leads to algae blooms, help farmers buy new equipment that reduces air pollution, and store more carbon in our soils — which leads to increased yields and microbial activity.Will you click here to join Bale Breaker and Verhey Peaches in backing this campaign?As our campaign grows, we'll be featuring farms and food producers that are partnering with us to advance climate-friendly practices. Verheys peach farm and Bale Breaker Brewing are two of the first! Verhey's peaches are in Puget Sound farmers markets right now, and you can probably find Bale Breaker Beers at your local supermarket or at their tasting room in Yakima.In case you missed last month's newsletter, we shared the graphic below outlining our progress towards tackling climate change. It shows we still have a lot of work to do despite good first-steps last session. You can review the analysis here. This is why our sustainable agriculture campaign is so important. Not only do we need to do more to reduce emissions, we also need to be using our farmland and forests to sequester carbon.LCPI Model of 2019 Legislative Climate ImpactClimate in the NewsLow Carbon Prosperity, a regular CarbonWA partner, is spearheading a webinar series about 'cap and invest' legislation, which we expect to see reintroduced next legislative session.Governor Inslee has dropped out of the Presidential race. He forced additional attention on climate change, which we applaud him for. In part because of Inslee's advocacy, CNN just held a climate change town hall with presidential candidates.UN report: We have to change how we eat and grow food to fight climate changeNew IPCC Report Shows How Our Abuse of Land Drives Climate ChangeThis Land Is the Only Land There IsBrazil fires: Why the Amazon is burning and what it means for climate changeJuly was the hottest month humans have ever recorded, data showsEthiopia plants 353 million trees in one day to restore forests and fight climate changeTree planting 'has mind-blowing potential' to tackle climate crisisAs always, your donations power our progress — and we spend every penny carefully. Thanks so much for your support.Onward!From the whole Carbon Washington team