Earthkeepers: A Circlewood Podcast on Creation Care and Spirituality · Forrest Inslee

Standing Up for Nature: The Power of Ordinary People, with Jennifer Godfrey | Ep. 136

·28 min·1 clip

Jennifer filed the appeal with 20 minutes left, 13 percent battery, and wrote it in about three minutes.

1. Earthkeepers: A Circlewood Podcast on Creation Care and Spirituality centers this episode on Jennifer Godfrey and her work for orcas, trees, and Puget Sound. 2. Host Forest Inslee interviews Jennifer Godfrey, a Seattle Symphony musician and ordinary citizen whose advocacy for the Orca Appeal matters because she is not a scientist or elected official. 3. The episode asks what it means to take a stand for creation where you live, and whether one person can help endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales. 4. Jennifer says she moved to Seattle in 1999 to play with the Seattle Symphony and first saw the Olympic Peninsula’s old-growth rainforest and clear cuts. 5. She describes seeing Southern Resident Killer Whales on a whale-watching boat and feeling an unforgettable bonding experience as they sent babies away to safety. 6. The Orca Appeal began when she read a 2024 environmental impact statement for the One Seattle Plan and found no mention of orcas or killer whales. 7. She says the Southern Resident Killer Whales are the only population of endangered orcas in the world in Puget Sound. 8. Jennifer explains that NOAA’s Southern Resident Killer Whale Recovery Plan calls for reducing polluted runoff in areas of highest population on Puget Sound. 9. She says Joe Olson pointed out an appeal process, and she concluded that the whales deserved a seat at the table. 10. She filed the appeal during a work break with 20 minutes left before the deadline and only 13 percent battery on her phone. 11. Jennifer says scientists, legal counselors, and a longtime public-interest attorney offered help after the appeal became public. 12. She argues that Seattle’s plan ignored how tree removals affect stormwater, because trees reduce runoff and can pull out toxic chemicals that treatment plants cannot remove. 13. She gives a specific comparison: a 30-inch Douglas fir absorbs 5,468 gallons of stormwater annually, while a three-inch replant absorbs 296. 14. She says it takes a minimum of 25 years for a three-inch tree to become a 30-inch tree, leaving a long gap in stormwater services. 15. Jennifer says architects have shown alternate site designs that can save most trees without reducing density, including rotating a building 90 degrees or using shared walls. 16. She describes hosting an educational event with Lynn Barry, who wrote the Southern Resident Killer Whale Recovery Plan, and Jeff Donovan, a forest economist at the USDA. 17. The interview style is conversational and reflective, with Forest Inslee connecting Jennifer’s story to hope, courage, and local action. 18. Jennifer’s tone is practical and persistent, and she repeatedly returns to fact-checking, public access to information, and the idea that “Love is action.” 19. Listeners interested in local climate action, urban trees, orca recovery, and citizen advocacy would likely appreciate this episode. 20. Listeners looking for a purely technical policy debate without personal activism may be less interested.

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