Washblog

The stakes we're talking about are the planet.  I don't have grandchildren yet.  But when my grandchildren are adults, I want to stand on this spot with them, where we're standing now.  I want Lake Union to stay where it is and not rise to cover this dock.  Getting I-937 on the ballot is a critical turning point in Washington.    In a few decades we can look back to today and feel proud that we accomplished this.  In the beginning of the process, we had serious discussions whether we could pull it off.  Could we really gather 224,000 signatures, mostly using volunteers?   Could we get this rocket off the pad?   But we understood that we had to try.   Our planet is at stake.   And we knew that this was something we could do.  I didn't know about Sam Garst then.   I'd never met him.  But I knew that Sam Garst would  show up.  I knew all of you would show up.

By getting I-937 on the ballot, we have taken a critical step in Washington State toward transitioning from fossil fuels and old technologies that are rapidly increasing in cost.  We are hitching our star to new technologies that are declining in price. We can feel proud that we have accomplished this together.  And when the American Ostrich takes its head out of the sand and turns back into the American Eagle, when we get good energy legislation passed in Washington D.C., I'm going to invite you all to the signing ceremony at the White House.

The 34th District Democrats energy fair was at Madison Middle School on Saturday.   Senator Erik Poulson, last year's recipient of the Northwest Energy Coalition's (NWEC) Conservation Eagle award, moderated.  Sara Patton, NWEC's Director, characterized Poulson as "a model of perserverence in sessions leading up to 2005/2006.  He showed leadership, bravery, strategy, and even wiliness."

The day consisted of two sections.  Four panelists gave the crowd an update in the morning on where we stand now on climate change.  Five presented in the afternoon on positive steps.  There's no room in this post to recount all these presentations.  They're referenced on the fair's web site.

Patrick Mazza of Climate Solutions gave a short, sober summary of some of the deep trouble we're in and uncertainties we face.

My (imperfect) transcription of Patrick Mazza's presentation:

Humans have caused this problem.  Through our ingenuity, we can solve it.  We've warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900.  By the year 2100, it's expected that we'll warm  another 2.5 to 10.4 degrees.  This process is with us now.  We can't stop it. The great priority is to slow it down.   We currently put 8 Mount Saint Helen's worth of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere every day.    The C02 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing rapidly.   Arctic ice has declined by 10% in area and by 40% in thickness over the last century.  Sea level has risen by 4 to 8 inches.  The International Panel on Climate Change estimates we'll have another rise of 4 inches to 35 inches this century.  We are in danger of losing downtown Olympia to the sea.   If we don't slow this down, we can say goodbye to Alki Beach.

Ironically, it is in America's "red states" that we see the greatest rise in temperature levels and other impacts.  Last week, Houston was water bombed with a foot of rain in a day.  Perhaps there is an irony in this, that the oil capitol of the United States would be so hard hit.  But it is not an irony we can celebrate.  People live there.

Our winters in Seattle are going to be warmer and wetter.  Our summers are going to be hotter and dryer.   The keystone of climate impacts in the Northwest is the loss of our snow pack.  This will affect salmon, municipal water supplies, and hydro power supply.  There's a wide range of other impacts.   For example, we are seeing an increase in forest fires in part because the snow melt happens earlier in the year and so our forests dry out earlier in the summer.  We've lost 10% of our snow pack already.  We'll lose 50-60% more by mid-century.  The pine beetle and other insects love the warmer weather.  We have lost an area of forest two times the size of Vancouver Island to the pine beetle here in the northwest, with resulting economic losses to the timber industry of about $4.2 billion.

The second half of the program began with the awarding of the Northwest Energy Coalition's Conservation Eagle award to Jay Inslee.  Here are my notes on his speech. [This is my understanding of what he said, not a verified transcription,]:,

Our country broke the scourge of slavery.  We can break the scourge of oil and gas addiction.

I grew up in White Center and West Seattle.  My parents worked with the Student Conservation Corps restoring alpine meadows that had been disturbed by hikers.  I grew up helping to bring back indian paintbrush and avalanch lilies.   I consider it my family's tradition.  I have a strong personal desire to continue that tradition with my children - and with my grandchildren (if they ever show up).  We see now how global warming is raising Denali National Park's snow line and tree line.  We don't want Washington's alpine meadows to be turned into forest or scrub grass.   Halting climate change is a personal matter for me, it means the preservation of the Inslee tradition.  The personal connection we all have, our personal reasons for wanting to stabilize our climate, this is what we need to help people understand for themselves, one person at a time.

Incredible changes are happening in Congress.  We have made incredible progress in Congress in the last 12 months.  People are beginning to understand and come around on climate change and clean energy.  The ice is breaking (an ironic turn of phrase to describe political progress on climate change -- nm). HR 2828, the New Apollo Energy Act, is 450 pages long.  It is the most comprehensive energy bill every introduced in congress.

There are three things we emphasize with this legislation.   First, is energy independence through clean and renewable energy.  Second is economic, three million new jobs.   And, third, we're addressing climate change.  In 1961, when President Kennedy issued the challenge to go to the moon within the decade, computers were as large as this auditorium.  Our rockets were blowing up.   We hadn't even invented Tang yet.  It seemed impossible. But Kennedy understood the American character - he understood that we are optimists and that we are creative geniuses.  We need this kind of vision, optimism, and unity to meet our energy and economic and climate change challenges.

This bill follows six principles:

1. The best energy to generate is that which you don't waste.  The impulse may be to build a new coal plant to meet energy demands.  But efficiency must be pursued first.  We know that at least 40% of the increase in demand for energy we're going to see in this country can be met with energy efficiency.  Under Jimmy Carter, between 1977 and 1983, this country increased its energy efficiency by 70%.  Do you want to know something really pathetic?  If we had simply continued on that path, where Jimmy Carter had us going with fuel efficiency, we would now be free of Middle Eastern Oil.   Since then, we have created the Internet.  We have mapped the human genome.  But our cars get less mileage than in 1983.
2. Don't be a prisoner of the tyranny of the present.  People say, well, cellulosic ethanol - we're not ready yet!  This is a mentality that locks us into today's technologies.  Projections based on frozen technologies are not realistic.  Technology continually improves.
3. We need to hitch our star to energy sources and technologies that are coming down in price - not sources that are going up in price.  Solar energy, cellulosic ethanol, sources like these are now more expensive than oil.  But oil is going up and these prices are coming down.  The single most effective thing we can do this year is to get I-937 passed.
4. There is no silver bullet.  There is no one technology or  change that is going to solve our problems.  The advocates of various technologies should not be battling it out.  This is truly a case where we can have 1,000 flowers blooming. We just won approval of my amendment to our current energy bill that triples the rate of investment in this country in wind and tidal energy.  And we just got the votes for another amendment - this one on our fisheries bill, to study acidic changes in the ocean from climate change.  There are many directions we need to move in at once.
5. Everyone is going to have to participate.  Everyone has to get on the bus.  It is the fair and patriotic thing to do.  All citizens must be engaged in this effort.
6. We have to stress that clean energy is probably the best economic development strategy that America can invest in.  There will be $billions made in these industries as we respond to climate change and declining oil supplies.   We need to be among the early responders in the world.

British Petroleum CEO, Sir John Henry Browne, is a leader.  He "gets" efficiency.  He has brought British Petroleum's corporate activities to meet Kyoto Protocol Targets for carbon dioxide emissions.  As a result, British Petroleum saves $300 million per year in energy costs.  This is a smart business decision.  This is the direction we need to go in our business community.

On the policy end, we need to continue with tax incentives for clean energy, we need to develop procurement policies that support these goals, we need to support green buildings, put adequate funding in the budget for research.  And, the single most important step, the pivotal step we need to take is that we must end the most massive subsidy ever given in history, the subsidy of trillions of dollars to the oil and gas industries.  I'm not referring to the $7 billion we're giving in royalty relief to Exxon and other companies.  That's peanuts.  The real subsidy is in the trillions of dollars.  And that is the right to dump their carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  They're using our atmosphere as their free dumping ground.  We've ended the atmosphere dumping subsidies for other industries.  It's no longer possible to dump sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter for free.  But the oil and gas companies still have this subsidy.  As soon as we end this subsidy, we will see all these other technologies become competitive in price, like that!

It's not all good news in Washington.  I'm on the House Committee for Energy and Commerce.  This committee launched an investigation into climate change.   You'd think we'd investigate why the Bush administration is blocking climate protection. But instead they chose to challenge the climate change science (See here for an account of this investigation NM). I come back to Washington State and it is a heavenly spot of genius and good ideas.  Then I go to Washington and I talk with the climate change Neanderthals.  We are going to have a new House of Representatives in 2006.

Congress just reauthorized the Voting Rights Act.   We are in a time of transition now, just as we were at the height of the civil rights movement in this country.   We are in a time when must help each other.  I am trying to show my respect for that movement when I say that we can be "free of oil at last, Thank God Almighty, free of oil at last!"