I got this in an email from Melissa so I thought people might like to see the response I sent —

Nyasia, Taryn, Liberty, and Jordan:

Thank you all for the great questions. I’m glad you’re interested. Most of what I work on is for you.

I’ll try to answer each of your questions but I think there’s one response that might help with all of them. The Division of Sustainability would be a consolidation of lots of different work already being done, under leadership that will require additional employees. For example, we have people working on water pollution, landfills and recycling, wetland protection, and conservation lands. What we don’t have is someone leading all these efforts, advocating for sustainability within the administration, and making recommendations to the Council. While I’m certainly well read on these issues, I’m not an expert and need staff to help develop and implement our strategy. It’s been my experience that if nobody is in charge of something, it doesn’t get done. That certainly seems to be the case here, and that’s not acceptable to me.

One of our concerns are about efforts Thurston and King Counties might have already made and another is about how our dependency on fossil fuels, like natural gasses might affect this project. Do you know what efforts the surrounding counties have already made? If they have, how does this affect your plans? Maybe working with those counties might be beneficial for everyone.

We do work with neighboring counties quite a bit and learn from each other as well. For example, I sit on the Local Integration Organization (LIO) for both South Sound and West Sound. LIOs are made up of cities, counties, tribes, and conservation districts with the goal of planning Puget Sound restoration projects. I also represent South Sound on the Ecosystem Coordination Board for Puget Sound Partnership which has representatives from all over Puget Sound with the same goal in mind. So we both borrow ideas from each other, but also try to cooperate to improve things for everyone.

More directly on your question about fossil fuels, there’s no question we need to stop using them as quickly as possible. We’re not ready yet and need our state and federal governments to make changes that will spur development that will electrify our system. For example, I ride the bus because it reduces my impact (ok, also because it’s cheaper) but that bus runs on compressed natural gas. While Pierce Transit would like to go electric, the grid isn’t capable of supporting all those buses charging at night… yet.

Ultimately climate change is what we call in economics, a collective action problem. That means individual or localized choices aren’t enough. We have to do it all together so that it impacts the market.

While I want the Division of Sustainability to recommend ways we can reduce carbon emissions in Pierce County (smart land use and transportation investments) we are already experiencing the impacts of climate change and it’s only going to get worse. Adaptation is critical and that will require a lot of effort from County government.

We also have concerns about our dependency on fossil fuels. Your article talks about how polluted our area is and how Puget Sound needs help. How are we going to go green and recover the Puget Sound and clean the air if you approve of things that are ruining exactly what you are trying to save?

This is a tough one because you’re right and I wish you weren’t. There’s no good way to stop growth that increases pollution from our streets. It’s coming and we have to respond to it as best we can. That means pushing growth more towards transit oriented development in urban areas while protecting rural working and wild lands. But we also can’t just so no, completely. I can’t order people to stop driving alone to work in a gas powered car, but I can make it easier for them not to. We can use land use to shorten those commutes.

The best thing we can do is make it as easy and cheap to make good choices as possible, and hope people take to it.

Finally, to get more political for a moment… elections matter. Not all of my colleagues even agree this is a problem. I’m constrained less by what I want to do on sustainability, but how far the Council majority will let me. A few hundred votes in a couple key races has meant all the difference. If you care about these issues, there’s quite a movement of young people building. I would encourage you to get involved.

If you’d like to talk about this in greater detail, I’m happy to set up time to visit your group or have a phone call.