alexinwords.com

by Alex Russell

Driving by Seattle’s Town Hall a few minutes before the start of the debates between King County Executive candidates, I saw all the dramatics of a Seattle green event. There was the plastic bag guy and others in costume with flyers and imperatives to share. Men and women wearing posterboard with hastily-scrawled eco-messages front and back. Green issues today are reaching an interesting point–they are slipping from the fringes and coming to rest comfortably in the mainstream. Twenty years ago Earth Day was about all you could get for a mainstream environmental consciousness. Today politicians are finding it’s an easy and almost somewhat non-partisan way to earn votes from either side.

The meaning of this, of course, isn’t so clear-cut. For one, it’s supremely important that environmental issues–climate change in particular–are the kinds of issues that determine public policy. I can go on and on about the problems we’ve created for ourselves with this modern society that can be reversed over time with conscious public policy. However, with environmental issues framing so many public policy issues–transportation and urban development for starters–it’s much easier for politicians to use the rhetoric of environmental stewardship only to continue with business as usual. The only thing that keeps politicians in line is a strong base of committed individuals who force them to take action.

What I expected once I got inside a few minutes late–parking on First Hill is a challenge at times–I expected the sideshow. I expected a whole troop of plastic-bag guys, and people in costume and posterboards smeared with slogans an opportunistic politician might snatch up mid-steam. What I found instead was a nearly-packed hall of conscious citizens of literally all ages. Everybody was engaged, even if knitting in the back row, and nearly everybody stayed for the duration. This is what the environmental constituency looks like when it’s mainstreamed. And perhaps Seattle is an unfair standard for the rest of the nation, but with all four candidates present pandering with equal ferocity for this critical voting group, it’s a standard worth setting.