Seattle, Lead Again

Seattle, WA -- "Seattle's Climate Solution": That's the headline that greets me here in the Post-Intelligencer. Beneath the headline is big front-page photo of bicyclists, and most of the text on the front page and page four is devoted to Seattle mayor Greg Nickels's 2012 Action Plan to bring Seattle into compliance with the Kyoto agreement to reduce global-warming emissions, along with coverage of new studies showing huge threats from higher ocean levels, a new ad campaign by Environmental Defense and the Ad Council, and a discussion of the regional impacts of global warming.

I'm here to help launch the mayor's plan -- Greg Nickels initiated the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, and with the help of the Sierra Club's "Cool Cities" program, 219 mayors representing more than 40 million Americans have already signed up to comply with Kyoto, even as Washington dithers. (The latest signup is the Republican mayor of Arlington, Texas, home of George W. Bush's former baseball team. As Nickels says, global warming concerns are not a partisan issue.)

The Sierra Club is committed to doubling the number of cities signed up and to making sure that those mayors who do sign follow thourgh and implement. Former Vice-President Gore is also in town to hail Seattle's leadership; he spoke the day before to the city's business community, delivering his famous PowerPoint presentation, and journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert spoke to a broader public audience as part of her tour for her new book Field Notes From a Catastrophe.

What's most impressive about what's happening here this week is the breadth of support for action; earlier in the week King County Executive Ron Sims put out his county's plan to curb emissions, effectively getting into a competition with the mayor for who could lead most boldly.

We all agree before the event that Vice-President Gore's PowerPoint presentation to the business community and Kolbert's speech have focused people on the problem. Now we need to energize them around the solutions, so the Post-Intelligencer headline couldn't be better. When it's my turn to speak, my message is to thank Seattle (and Vice-President Gore) for leading and to tell them about the incredible response our Cool Cities program is getting in recruiting new partners for Seattle (including Arlington), but also to remind them that this is the beginning of our journey, not the end:

"Kyoto, my friends, is not big enough," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. "We need a bigger dream, we need a higher bar. ...

"Seattle, lead again."