2/11/08

I love weeks like this past one—for whatever reason, I found myself in Gig Harbor, Olympia, Port Townsend, Seattle, Skagit County, and all points between.  Along the way, news of two dramatic “saves” by the Neah Bay rescue tug.  All the excitement around the Presidential race—and its real live candidates—finally coming to Washington state.  And plenty of weather—wind, rain, snow, and rough ferry sailings.

Oceanographer Curt Ebbesmeyer’s lecture the other night was a reminder about how far we’ve come since the early 1980s, when a lot of folks still thought that Puget Sound was so vast, and so “well-flushed” that we didn’t really need to worry about what we dumped in it.  Or have we come that far?  The Puget Sound Partnership’s Ecosystem Coordination Board meeting on Friday was a reminder that every basic issue about the Sound is still up for grabs.

Seeing a lot of Puget Sound’s high points and low points over the last few days, I am struck by the overwhelming reality that even though we talk a good game about containing development within existing developed areas, sprawl is alive and well around Puget Sound.  Are we serious?

Maybe the combined urgency of climate change and Puget Sound’s plight will wake us up.  A lot of the solutions for each of those problems separately are actually “two-fers.”  When the car is no longer our principal transportation strategy, when we conserve our forests, farms, shorelines and open spaces, when we get off oil… we’ll be well on our way to sustaining our region and the planet too.

Can we do it?  Not if we play the political game the way it is usually played—negotiation to the lowest common denominator, finding the compromise between competing points of view, waiting until it’s almost too late.  We’re at a time when only clear vision, bold ideas and gutsy leadership will do the job.

So can we do it?

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