Climate Column: Cool parade for a cool city

The Butter and Egg Days Parade always falls very close to Earth Day, so it was exciting that this year’s theme was “Greener Pastures – Sustaining Petaluma’s Future,” a message intended to celebrate “Petaluma’s march towards a brighter, eco-conscious tomorrow.”

In the Argus-Courier, Marie McCusker of the Petaluma Downtown Association elaborated on that theme: “We believe that the parade’s message aligns with the values and interests of Petaluma’s ongoing commitment to climate action.” Yes, please!

Feeling inspired, Cool Petaluma responded to this call by building our first-ever float. Our theme: “Climate change is no yolk! Protect your nest! The cluck is ticking!”

In preparation, we attended a green float-building workshop hosted by the Petaluma Downtown Association with key insights from Marie Kneemeyer of Recology. We learned that it is best to find materials headed for the landfill and divert them to your project where they can have a second life.

It turns out this can be even better than building your float out of recyclable or compostable materials (which was our natural inclination) because once you’ve painted or glued them, they are then immediately destined for the landfill anyway. So you saw things on our float that may have seemed uncool, like artificial turf and plastic piping, but that’s because those were found objects that were already headed for the landfill – we simply rescued and beautified them.

Thanks to an enthusiastic team of volunteers who spent many weeks hard at work in the studio at Life on Earth Art, we built a papier mâché egg-shaped planet and placed it in a nest on a flatbed trailer, pulled by a Rivian electric truck from Amy’s Solar. With Cool Petaluma’s John Crowley leading the effort, it was a fun and successful endeavor.

The parade was a great opportunity to showcase our collaborations by inviting additional community groups to join us. Safe Streets Petaluma people rode their bicycles, demonstrating how we can transform transportation. The Refill Mercantile owners dressed up as mason jars, inviting us to reuse more, while 350 Petaluma people supported more food and less plastic, which all feeds into our mission to rethink consumption. Mayor Kevin McDonnell and council members Dennis Pocekay and Brian Barnacle also walked with us, representing the City Council’s support of community-led climate action.

Get involved

If seeing all this got you thinking about climate change and inspired you to get involved, we have an event for you: Cool Petaluma, in partnership with the City of Petaluma, welcomes you all to our third annual Resource Expo at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds from 5 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, May 21.

This year will be bigger and better than ever, with a new live stage for demonstrations and mini-workshops. We are excited to bring you face to face with the amazing local resources our community has to offer as we continue on our journey to becoming more resilient and more planet friendly, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood.

It may seem as though our individual actions won’t make a difference, but finding ways to align our actions with our values not only brings personal satisfaction, it can also have a huge ripple effect, influencing those around us. And when we are all in it together, we can find creative ways to make life easier and more enjoyable as we protect the planet for future generations.

That’s why community building is so important to Cool Petaluma. When we are connected, we can share more, learn from each other, and provide mutual support. And who wouldn’t want that?

Please join us at the Expo and bring your friends and neighbors, too. Everyone is invited to this free event. See details at coolpetaluma.org/expo2024. And be sure to RSVP so you can enter the drawing for exciting door prizes worth hundreds of dollars.

Natasha Juliana is the campaign director for Cool Petaluma. She can be reached at natashaj@coolpetaluma.org. For information on how to get involved, visit coolpetaluma.org.