Washblog

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Numerous bills that affect climate have been filed in the WA legislature this year, from encouraging the use of alternative fuels in school buses to incentives for community-based solar energy projects. A number of them have passed both houses, including SB 6001: Mitigating the impacts of climate change, and SHB1303, the Clean Air – Clean Fuels bill. Senator Poulson, one of the 6001's sponsors, gives background and context here Also see: WA House Passes Climate Change Measure, The Longview Daily News, 4/12/07.

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This music beckoned us into Occidental park from several blocks away. A crowd gathered there as we got ready to march.

 

I'd just entered the park when I asked this couple if I could take their picture. I hadn't yet noticed that the event had something of the flavor of a procession of the animals (and plants) -- with signs and costumes for cats, whales, fish, owls, polar bears, trees, and so on. So I was a little puzzled at first at the mushrooms. Is there some special impact that climate change is known to have on fungi, I asked? No, they answered. Everything's affected by climate change.

Then I remembered Northwest mycologist Paul Stamets' book, Mycelium Running, and thought of the complexity of the networks of fungus underground and the unknown functions they serve and relationships they have with other plants and organisms. There's no way to predict in advance how a global environmental change like the one we've set in motion will affect complex natural systems. We talked a bit about the mysteries of mycelium -- and generally of the natural world, how much we have to learn. I thought of the opening lines in Stamets' book: "I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like the pageantry often visible at peace demonstrations, the whimsical costumes and props at Seattle StepitUp had serious purpose.

 

 

 

Several church and religious groups were represented at the event. In addition to this one, I noticed Earth Ministry, one of the event sponsors.

 

 

We're still in Occidental Park here. This guy's dancing and I catch a few blurred shots of the edges of his wings before I get this one.

 

 

We start off from Occidental and walk toward the water, a giant earth leading the way. A tiny slice of the viaduct can be seen in the distance. Along the way, we parallel the viaduct for about a mile. It roars the whole time. Why, I wonder, is climate change not a much bigger part of the viaduct debate?

 

 

Some crowd shots. My tall husband takes some of them. Along the way, a woman dressed in checkered high-tops, tie-dyed skirt, and maybe pink or green hair and/or nose rings, asked me: "Do you know why the sea levels are rising?" Yes, I answer, somehow not wanting to engage with her, though usually I'm a sucker for the eclectic look. She calls out to my retreating back: "because Al Gore jumped in!" Later we found out she was a LaRochian. They were quite visible at the event. But I didn't see any other naysayers.

Despite the rain, someone throws a blue beach ball into the crowd and it gets batted back and forth. But I didn't catch a picture, in fact, it rained too heavily to take pictures during most of the march.

 

I very much enjoy the expressions on the faces of the people in the crowd and the interactions between them. This photo has a painterly feel to it.

 

This photo has a painterly feel, too. Is that a cat or a squirrel in the upper left?

 

Here comes the sun! We didn't get to stay for the rally. Maybe someone else can provide a review of that. The polar bear was a charming touch. I like the last picture, with the PI globe in the distance, beyond the earth carried for the rally. John Roberts, whom I wrote about in this post: Visionary Asthma Project Helps Children Breathe and Learn, and a member of event sponsor Seattle League of Women Voters, is on the right with a green backpack in the final picture. It was fun to see familiar faces, including several from the sponsoring Sierra Club, Washington State Apollo Alliance, 2people, and my own Saltwater Unitarian Church.

 

 

The growing climate protection movement has been likened to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. After all, as I heard an evangelical Christian explain at a recent Highline College event, the poor and vulnerable will bear the heaviest burden. James Hansen, the Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA testified on the suppression of climate science by the Bush administration last March. I thought of some of his words on the moral dimension of our leaders' political intransigence. And as I did, the event that my son and husband and I were taking part in seemed to me something of historical significance, an important step toward making the cause of climate justice and mainstream public cause.

From Political Interference with Government Climate Change Science
Testimony of James Hansen, Director, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA
The most troubling impact of the political interference with climate change science is the potential burden that we leave for our children and grandchildren. The administration continually points to China, which will soon pass the United States as the largest emitter of CO2, as a reason for minimalist action by the United States on greenhouse gas emissions.

However, the science unambiguously shows that climate change is driven by cumulative emissions, not current emissions. Cumulative emissions of the United States are more than three times that of any other nation and will continue to be the largest for decades. Furthermore, rather than negotiating on the terms of the international accord designed to reduce emissions in developed countries and slow the growth of emissions in developing nations, the United States walked away, thus preventing effective implementation.

One consequence is that, as indigenous people must abandon their land to rising seas or shifting climatic zones, they will be well aware of the principal source of the problem. Thus if we continue on this course, failing to effectively address climate change, we will leave a heavy moral burden, and perhaps a legal burden, for our children.

If the science and communication of the science were not interfered with, and if our children were allowed to express a preference, would they choose the current path of our government for energy and climate? I think not. Even with knowledge that fundamental changes will be needed to phase into a different energthe United States to play a leadership role.

Next up: This coming spring, summer, and fall, Focus the Nation is coordinating teams of faculty and students at over a thousand colleges, universities and K-12 schools in the United States, to collaboratively engage in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion about "Global Warming Solutions for America". This will culminate on January 31, 2008, in the form of national symposia held simultaneously at over a thousand campuses, places of worship, businesses, and other venues across the country.