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For more than 290 Fridays, Michael Allen has stood outside city hall in Florence, Oregon. Armed with posters, a stuffed octopus gifted to him by his wife Pat, and a bullhorn, he spends anywhere between one and four hours advocating for climate change and chatting with anyone curious enough to ask him what he’s up to.
Allen’s not here as a protestor, but as an educator. In 2019, he wrote a letter to the Florence mayor and city council, requesting that the local government implement a climate action plan and increase public education about climate change after President Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreements. There was no response. So, instead, The Allens, doubled down, increasing public awareness by getting out into town — namely, standing in front of city hall — to speak directly to other Oregonians and to gather signatures. Allen figures that if enough people sign a petition, the local government will have to produce a climate action plan.
Allen created the petition in July 2019, requesting that the Florence City Council “produce a resolution that pledges to join forces with community, county, state, and federal entities to address our climate emergency” and implement climate education in public schools in Florence.
Michael and Pat Allen aren’t alone in their efforts. In 2022, the Oregon Educators for Climate Education began advocating for HB-3365. If passed, the bill would mandate that climate education become a core subject in classes for grades K-12, and require teachers to be equipped to teach it. The state of New Jersey was able to successfully implement this mandate in their public schools in 2022. According to the Yale Climate Opinion Map, 78% of residents in Lane County, including Florence, believe schools should teach about global warming as recently as 2023.
The community seems to be on the same page, which is why Allen has had such an easy time gathering over 1,850 signatures. The real challenge comes with making a stand at a city council meeting and speaking up in person. “It’s hard, it's really hard to go to the next step,” says Allen.
Allen has found his courage from someone he’s never met: Greta Thunberg.
Inspired by her Friday Climate Strikes, Allen parlayed his previous experiences in advocacy and activism earlier in his life to pick up the banner for climate change solutions and awareness in his seventies, after experiencing and seeing the impacts of climate change firsthand. He says that people like Al Gore and Thunberg showed him the impact humans can have on the environment.
“Our state is lucky,” Allen says. “We do have some really good [policies] coming down from the state level, but they're not necessarily reaching us here on the coast or in rural towns that have their elected leaders that are [climate] deniers.”
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Originally from Harrison, New York, Allen was recruited by Admiral Hyman Rickover, the “father of atomic nuclear Navy,” to teach science and math to sailers at a nuclear power school in the 1960s. He always wanted to be a school teacher, so he enrolled in the Master of Science in Teaching program at Colorado College. That’s where he met Pat. While this path from the Navy and teaching diverged, his passion for educating young people stuck with him.
Around 17 years ago, while living in New Mexico, Mike and Pat decided they wanted to explore more. They bought an RV and were on the road for seven years, visiting far-away destinations like Alaska and Canada before deciding it was time to settle down again. When looking for a new home, they knew they wanted to live somewhere progressive. Oregon fit the bill. But after they made their new home in Florence, the pair couldn’t help but think of all the impacts of climate change they’d seen firsthand while traveling in their RV.
“We’ve seen it all.We’ve seen the ravages of the hurricanes that hit New Orleans. We’ve seen fire and tornadoes, believe it or not, in Florida. We’ve seen the flooding in the Midwest. But the most dramatic thing that we saw was when we were in Alaska, seeing the retreating glaciers.” — Michael Allen
He got more deeply involved in climate activism in 2017. Two years later, in 2019, he created the Florence Climate Emergency Campaign and presented the petition to a city council meeting, struggling to get support from the local government because he didn’t have enough support or signatures. Rallies have helped gather traction, but Allen’s still aiming to create awareness around his organization.
Family is at the forefront of Allen’s activism. His daughter has an intellectual disability, which led to him leaving the defense industry and his work in science to become a community organizer around disability-related activism. “I think in many ways, that’s where I learned and had the passion for community organizing, which, in a sense, I’m doing right now,” Allen says.
Michael’s daughter has shown him just what the youth is capable of. He says, “I mean, this gal has gone to places like London, to San Francisco, all over the country, to speak on behalf of the issue that they were pursuing, but I've seen her in action locally here, and it just amazes me to see how far somebody can go when they're given the opportunity.”
Allen believes in bridging the gap between generations, old and young, to come together to fight the climate crisis. He has invited students from Siuslaw High School out to the rallies.
One student in particular, named Storm Kurth, showed immense dedication to the cause, eventually becoming one of four students selected to represent the student body at school board meetings.
“One of the things that I found from some young people is that they want opportunities to be heard,” says Allen. “And when they say ‘be heard,’ they really mean it. They don't want to just be tokens.”
“I’ve seen my home on the Oregon Coast change, the summers getting hotter, rain becoming more infrequent, and colder winters where snow is a regular occurrence. The changes I see, and the encouragement from elders around me, have encouraged me to be more active in the climate justice scene.” — Storm Kurth
Allen stays motivated by other successful youth climate justice groups along the Oregon Coast that have won local battles. In Coos Bay, an organization called Rouge Climate, which is led by young people through internships, has formed a Youth Climate Justice group that combats local issues, such as fracking.
“They’ve done some wonderful things,” says Allen. He attributes their success to internships and older groups of young people, such as college students, getting involved to facilitate the work.
Allen hopes for more groups like the one in Coos Bay, along with opportunities for young people to get involved with climate activism all the way up and down the Oregon Coast, from Lincoln to Coos Bay.
In the meantime, Allen stays dedicated to his work every Friday at the Florence City Hall, with Pat and his octopus by his side. “I want to get youth, elders, and others to think in terms of climate justice and what we can do to ensure all the needs of the planet and us are met.”