By EVELYN ADAMS
Voices of the Valley


The Skagit County commissioners are to be commended for passing a resolution addressing climate change and establishing a task force to guide carbon-cutting efforts.

Skagit Beat the Heat, which supported the resolution and had a hand in crafting it, was described in the Skagit Valley Herald as the “anti-global warming group.” I’m uncomfortable with such a narrow and somewhat silly description (“pro-global warming,” anyone?) and would like to share what this all-volunteer group is for.

Yes, we are for cutting carbon emissions as quickly and as deeply as possible to avoid worst-case climate change. But we are also for building a world worth living in once we step off the fossil fuel treadmill.

There are those who believe that acting to decrease carbon emissions means traveling a grim path to a candlelit cave. Nothing could be more wrong. What would lead to a grim outcome, far worse than any economic implosion, is if we fail to act.

Our top scientific academies and organizations all tell us that man-made emissions are giving the planet a fever and if we do not act soon to reduce them, we will be living in a much less hospitable world. Already, major ice sheets are melting faster than predicted, permafrost is melting, acidic waters are dissolving the shells of sea life that form the base of the ocean food chain, extreme weather events are becoming the norm — one could go on and on.

As if all that weren’t enough, oil has hit $140 a barrel. Global demand is starting to outstrip supply, a situation that is already sending shock waves through a society dependent on oil not only for transport fuels but also plastics, paints, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, metals — again, on and on.

Dwindling oil supplies and global warming are two sides of the same coin, which is this: We must reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and step boldly into a new energy age. A tidal wave of change is coming and we need to find new ways of doing things or else be engulfed.

Skagit Beat the Heat is for preparing now to make this transition as positive as possible. Will we need to give up some things? Yes. Does that mean a dismal future? No.

What we lose in mobility and consumer goods we can make up for with a renewed sense of self-reliance, healthier food and bodies, and more time to connect with family, friends and the natural world. We can focus on building a robust economy here at home through the local production of energy, food and goods. We can achieve energy security, which rests not on trying to increase the supplies of finite resources but on reducing our energy demands, maximizing energy efficiency, and investing in renewable energy.

The county is starting across the bridge to a more sustainable future. The climate resolution lays out steps that not only will decrease carbon output but also will save money in reduced energy and transportation costs, and create benefits such as better air quality, less traffic congestion and wiser land-use policies.

The county will also seat a citizen’s task force by Aug. 1 to develop a long-term climate action plan. The task force will consider such things as the impacts of warmer temperatures and new pests on local crops, or how a shrinking snow pack will affect salmon runs, agriculture and the public water supply. Applications for the task force will be on the county’s Web site.

Instead of feeling numbed by the challenges ahead, let’s embrace the possibilities they point us towards. We have the opportunity to re-energize not only our infrastructure but ourselves by doing the most important work imaginable — re-building our world.

That will require not just a few people changing light bulbs but everybody’s best effort (for how to help, see http://www.skagitbeattheheat.org). It will mean slowing humanity’s reproductive rate, and passing climate legislation with teeth.

And yes, China and India will need to do their part. At December’s climate talks in Bali, the two countries indicated a willingness to proceed, if they receive the needed technology and the U.S. leads the way.

It is time to “power down” — to transform our oil-based agricultural, transport and manufacturing systems to more sustainable, less damaging models — but it is also time to “power up” with the resolve, courage, ingenuity, and leadership that are our heritage.

Let’s not give our grandchildren cause to curse us. Instead, let’s work together to build a world for which they will bless us.

<b></b> Evelyn Adams is chair of Skagit Beat the Heat.