350 Colorado October Climate Heroes of the Month!
For October, the 350CO team is honoring the powerful speakers who participated in our Oct. 5, 2026 “Boulder v. Big Oil” Press Conference and Rally! You can watch videos and see photos of the speakers at the rally and press conference here. You can watch the Facebook livestream of the event here.
All of these people are doing incredibly important work to shine a spotlight on the impact of the fossil fuel industry’s impact on our communities’ well being, safety, health, economy and quality of life. They shared powerful statements about their experiences and those of our fellow community members who are living with the impacts of the climate crisis as a result of the deception of the fossil fuel industry, which knew, but hid the truth about the impacts of burning fossil fuels to protect their profits. We are paying the price with worsening wildfires, droughts, floods and more extreme weather. Polluters must pay their fair share of these costs!
Tremendous thanks to these climate heroes for sharing their stories and being such important leaders in our community!
Boulder Mayor Aaron Brocket is an exemplary community leader who is supporting the City of Boulder and Boulder County’s efforts to hold Suncor Energy and ExxonMobile corporations responsible for climate damages and impacts to our community through the lawsuit.
“Eight years ago, Boulder County and the City of Boulder filed this lawsuit because we believe our community deserves the opportunity to hold ExxonMobil and Suncor accountable for their fair share of the costs of harms their products have caused and the deception we allege concealed those harms. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the companies’ arguments to stop our case before we ever have our day in court. We are asking the Court to let us have that day, because this is not an abstract issue for Boulder. It is a reality for our community. People across Boulder have experienced the impacts of a changing climate, from hotter summers and extreme heat, to drought, declining snowpack, worsening wildfire risk and devastating fires. And every time those impacts intensify, our community pays.” – Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett
Erica Solove is the Community Program Manager with the non-profit group Extreme Weather Survivors, and she is a Marshall Fire Survivor. Erica and her team help with grief counseling and other support, and they offer training to help those impacted by extreme weather to share their stories.
Learn more at https://www.extremeweathersurvivors.org/
Kelly Watt is a Marshall Fire total loss survivor. She serves on the board of Marshall Together, a nonprofit by and for the Marshall Fire communities in Louisville, Superior, and Unincorporated Boulder County, as well as on Community Foundation of Boulder County’s Wildfire Fund Committee.
“My family’s life has been changed forever by the Marshall Fire. We have spent nearly five years dedicating every spare moment to rebuilding our home, all while managing the work of our daily lives: working full time jobs, raising our children, and constantly fighting on behalf of the entire Marshall Fire survivor community.” – Kelly Watt, Marshall Fire survivor and Vice President of Marshall Together
Penny Seguin is a 5th grade elementary student and youth amicus brief signer. Her bravery, especially at such a young age, to speak publicly about the impacts of climate change on young people and all of us is an inspiration.
“I did not create the climate crisis, but I’m living with the consequences.” -Penny Seguin, Youth amicus brief signer and Classrooms for Climate Change advocate.
Muriel Soutiere is also a youth amicus brief signer. She’s a senior at Fairview High School and delegate of the Boulder Valley School District Sunrise Movement hub, advocating for climate legislation and environmental sustainability education in Colorado schools. She is also the Policy Director for Good Trouble Climate Network, organizing annual Youth Climate Lobby days, working with legislators, leading student workshops, and more.
“It is a painfully hard truth to face as a high schooler that fossil fuel companies like Suncor have been able to evade accountability for years, fueling wildfires, drought, severe wind, and more. They have caused our loss of education & homes, and declining health. Climate action has been largely left to young people, and while that is terrifying, it is a necessity that we continue to fight for our communities’ right to be heard because we, and countless others, shouldn’t be paying for climate impacts we aren’t at fault for.” – Muriel Soutiere, Good Trouble Policy Director and Sunrise BVSD leader & delegate
Doyle Albee is co-founder and managing partner of Prolexity, a Boulder-based communications agency. Doyle served on the Boulder Chamber board for six years. He has spent more than 30 years helping businesses tell their stories, including their own fight to keep the lights on through smoke days, heat waves, power outages and rising insurance costs.
“Like companies around the globe, Boulder’s small businesses have been paying the cost of climate impacts for years — lost revenue on smoke days and power outages, shortened shifts in the heat and insurance bills that keep climbing. This effort simply asks that the companies who knew this was coming help cover the bill.” – Doyle Albee, a co-founder and managing partner of Prolexity, a Boulder-based communications agency, who served on the Boulder Chamber board for six years.
Hannah Berman is the Director of Sustainability and Philanthropy at Aspen One, an important leader in Colorado’s winter sports industry that shows the connection between climate change and this important part of our state’s economy, cultural identity and quality of life. Aspen One also owns the beautiful Boulder Limelight and other hotels. Hannah is also the youngest person that has been elected to Basalt Town Council and is now the Mayor Pro Tem of Basalt.
“Fossil fuels companies have known for decades that their products would cause damages to communities like ours. Any kid can tell you that if you make a mess, you clean it up. Because of Suncor and Exxon, Boulder has seen one heck of a mess. The year of the Marshal Fire, Suncor and Exxon made billions in profits, while our Boulder neighbors lost everything.” – Hannah Berman, Director of Sustainability & Philanthropy at Aspen One.
Dar-Lon Chang was a research engineer at ExxonMobil for 16 years, and after working on decarbonization research projects that were canceled, he could not in good conscience continue working for ExxonMobil as it doubled down on profiting from fracking while influencing governments to delay climate action. He left the oil and gas industry in 2019, and he is currently Board President of Colorado Rising, a non-profit pushing back against oil and gas fracking.
“ExxonMobil emphasized uncertainty in climate science to policymakers while recruiting researchers on the promise of clean energy transition work in their careers and also internally engineering facilities to withstand rising sea levels and severe weather events predicted by climate science for business-as-usual fossil fuel dependence.” – Dar-Lon Chang, former research engineer at ExxonMobil for 16 years. After working on decarbonization research projects that were canceled, he could not in good conscience continue working for ExxonMobil as it doubled down on profiting from fracking while influencing governments to delay climate action. He left the oil and gas industry in 2019 and is currently Board President of Colorado Rising.
Jan Douglas is a retired Family Physician who worked for over 35 years in health clinics and systems serving communities with poor access to health care. Since retirement in 2018, she has volunteered with both the Colorado Sierra Club and Colorado Physicians for Social Responsibility working with each organization in their efforts to protect our climate and environment.
Rabbi Ruth Gelfarb represented Colorado Jewish Climate Action. Rabbi Ruthie Gelfarb has been serving Boulder’s Congregation Har HaShem since 2012. She has also served our nation as a NAVY chaplain. Rabbi Ruthie uniquely married Spirituality and Science as her husband is an Atmospheric Scientist (NCAR).
Huge thanks to these wonderful humans and to everyone who joined in solidarity and showed support for our community in the climate deception lawsuit against Suncor and Exxon! We know that we are on the right side of history, and we hope that our voices will be heard by the US Supreme Court justices and that they will give us our day in court!