Year End Environmental Reports
The fantastic Northwest Environmental Watch has released an essay that ruminates on the region's progess towards sustainability over the closing year and it's pretty positive.
In Cascadia and beyond, the movement for sustainability—for a healthy, lasting prosperity grounded in place—is advancing in a slow-motion revolution. From the Pacific Northwest’s faith communities to its labor unions, from its government leaders to its business executives, we northwesterners are increasingly acting on the values at the heart of sustainability—strong communities, fair markets, and responsible stewardship.
Energy efficiency up, check. Compact, self-contained communities on the rise, check. Organics, certified lumber, hybrid cars, more efficient airplanes, all good. So? Is the Earth saved, then? It then goes on and on about the slow and steady progress towards a goal that world changing movements have to go through, comparing environmentalism to the end of slavery and to women's sufferage.
Slavery and disenfranchisement both became untenable, and their end—long thought impossible—became inevitable. What explains this extraordinary progression? The same two things that explain the success of history’s other great social change movements: an unarguable moral principle—in these cases, freedom and equality—and a corps of people, initially few, who would not rest until that principle was reflected in society’s norms and laws.
The long view is great; an important and necessary perspective and it is a long fight. We wouldn't mind seeing some cheerleading for the region's specific, short-term accomplishments as well, though. Does anyone know where we can find one of those? The article that says x number of tons of recyclable material passed through Seattle and so many tons of invasive speices were removed from the city and water quality has improved by such and such amount in the Sound and rah-rah go team? Alternately, is there anyone talking about how our mayor participated in the killing of the monorail and the salmon run that passed through the locks this year was nearly non-existent? Because we like reading about that kind of stuff.
