![]() ![]() ![]() “Jay Inslee has been nothing but consistent that this has been his No 1 priority. “There will be a lot of lip service to climate change but a lot of the candidates won’t be able to tell a toaster from a solar panel,” said Nick Abraham, who campaigned for the carbon tax and now works at the Washington Environmental Council. Perhaps a more realistic goal for Inslee than capturing the Democratic nomination would be to help shift focus on to climate change following years of political and media inertia on the issue. “Washington state already has an extremely low carbon footprint.” Inslee is a “kind of a square peg in a round hole because he wants to be a carbon warrior”, said the Washington state senator Doug Ericksen, a Republican. Another setback in this green, economically robust state would raise further questions over the national viability of bold climate policies. The Inslee-backed initiative lost following a hefty campaign against the measure funded by the oil industry.Ī separate cap on carbon is in place but may be removed by the state supreme court in March. In November’s midterm elections, voters in Washington state rejected a fresh attempt to implement the country’s first carbon tax. It’s still unclear, however, whether Americans will want to vote for policies to enable this vision. “It’s about igniting core convictions of Americans, that we can be innovators rather than anchoring ourselves to old industries.” “This is about the American character as much as it is about chemistry and physics,” Inslee said. Inslee, 68, hopes Americans will be similarly inspired by the moon landings when contemplating a scenario in which, scientists say, the world must completely revolutionize the way we farm, transport ourselves and generate electricity within a few decades to avoid catastrophe. “The forest fires were so grotesque last year that we had the worst air in the world in Washington,” Inslee said. These homespun enjoyments are under threat. Inslee is attempting to drape the monumental challenge posed by climate change in comforting, familiar garb, pointing to his love of hiking, gulping in clean air gazing at snow-capped mountains and enjoying salmon fishing. This wouldn’t be a one-note candidacy it touches on everything from national security to asthma.” It raises ambitions and alerts people to the scale of the problem, the scope of it. “We need to blow the bugle on this,” Inslee said. ![]() Many Democrats, meanwhile, have been galvanized by the idea of a Green New Deal, headed by the new congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, although the leading presidential contenders have yet to make climate change a central issue. Clear majorities, when asked, also support levying a carbon tax on fossil fuel companies and agree that protecting the environment is more important than economic growth.ĭespite this, many Republicans continue to ridicule climate science and paint any sweeping remedies as fanciful. He hopes that growing public concern over climate change will encourage people to view it as an existential emergency that requires a vast national mobilization.Ī record proportion of Americans – 59% in a recent Yale poll – say they are alarmed or concerned by climate change, having recently seen colossal hurricanes hurtle into Texas, Puerto Rico, Florida and the Carolinas, record wildfires raze vast tracts of California and a string of warm years spawn unbearable heatwaves across the country. The governor is now looking to an outsider’s run in 2020, centering his campaign on tackling the unfolding disasters of climate change while the worst can still be averted. Inslee was comfortably re-elected in 2016. In a state stuffed with progressives who savor their lush forest surrounds, this agenda has by and large received nods of approval. He’s since attempted to distill these ambitions into policy in Washington – he has been governor since 2013 – by pushing forward plans to expand renewable energy, cut emissions from buildings and promote electric cars. Twelve years ago, as a US congressman, Inslee co-authored a book that compared the effort of eliminating planet-warming emissions to the Apollo space project launched by John F Kennedy. I sense timidity from others because it hasn’t been done before, but we need to go pedal to the metal.” “I think there’s only one potential candidate who views this as the paramount issue, one candidate who wrote a book on it, only one candidate who has experience as an executive doing these things. It’s the largest economic change in history. We literally have to decarbonize our economy in the next few decades. “You cannot overstate the scope of what needs to be done. There’s too much to risk to belittle climate change,” Inslee said. “We need a fundamental shift in our national priorities. ![]()
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