Red (Sky) Means Go on Carbon Regulation

Judging by the sun, I can tell it's time for the regulation of carbon emissions.

Smoke from wildfires turning the morning sun
an eerie red on August 22 in Washington state.

Once a rare sight, sunlight turned hazy red from wildfire smoke has become a consistent feature of Pacific Northwest summers in the last decade. This year, it colored much of August in Washington state, bringing with it hazardous air quality and oppressively low visibility. Suffocating and disorienting, the smoke and the hellish scene it created set off a flight mechanism in the back of my mind. It didn't feel safe, and I wanted to get out of it.

Besides suggesting a need to flee, the flashing red light of smoke-filtered sun carries another message for Washington residents in 2018: Go! And by that, I mean it's a sign to go forward on the regulation of carbon emissions by enacting Initiative 1631.

As I've blogged about before, I-1631 regulates carbon emissions by placing a fee on the big polluters responsible for the majority of those emissions, disincentivizing the use of fossil fuels. It also funds renewable energy and prepares Washington's communities for the effects of global warming, effects like increasingly difficult wildfire seasons and the smoke that accompanies them.

When we're filling out our ballots for this November's election, let's remember the red skies of August and go enact I-1631.