We can impact the world our kids will live in

I’ll never forget my first visit to Mount Rainier in 1980. I was new to Washington and I had never seen a volcano, a permanent snowfield, or a glacier. My friends and I explored the Paradise Ice Caves, their eerie blue light staggeringly beautiful. When I returned in the mid 1990s, I stood on glacial outwash in the very spot where the Ice Caves had been. I’d read about climate change, but the outright vanishing of the caves hit me with terrible clarity: Climate change was not some future threat, it was upon us.

Fast forward to 2018, and we see more changes in our beautiful state. The Nisqually glacier has retreated to a fragment of its former self. The shells of our local shellfish are now fragile and easily broken because of ocean acidification. Summers are smoky, and some winters don’t provide enough snow for skiing. Clearly, we have a problem, but we can start addressing it by voting for Ballot Initiative 1631! This clean air, clean energy initiative will charge the largest polluters in the state a fee for carbon emitted and use those funds to support clean energy and transit, efficiency improvements for homes and businesses, and protection for our forests and water-sources. The initiative prevents hardship to businesses, fossil-fuel industry workers, low-income individuals, and communities by providing funding to ease the transition to cleaner fuels.

Look for details at: yeson1631.org, and please vote, for our kid’s sakes. We cannot afford to wait!