Tmyers

In his inaugural address today, Governor Inslee highlighted the need to reduce the risk of climate change from carbon emissions. He specifically emphasized the need to "replace rhetoric with quantifiable results." This is critical. Washington politicians have been heavy on rhetoric the past several years and the results have been poor.

As the governor and legislature debate various environmental proposals for 2013, here is one fact they should keep in mind: many of the State of Washington's climate policies waste about 99 percent of the money spent to cut carbon emissions. Even those policies that perform better than that standard are only slightly better, missing huge opportunities to reduce carbon emissions.

The Seattle Times recently featured a story on climate change with a sub-headline that declared "Scientists analyzing the effects of climate change say they are surprised to see how much winter has already changed and the cascade of effects that unleashes, from outbreaks of pests and diseases to fewer days of skiing."

It is a bit of a dreary, winter Friday. Since my coffee has not yet kicked in, I will simply plagiarize this excellent paragraph from Alan Durning of the Sightline Institute.

Today is World Food Day, a day designed to focus on reducing worldwide hunger and poverty. According to the United Nations, more than 800 million people worldwide are undernourished. While that number is tragically large, it is a dramatic improvement on where we might have been.

With any luck, Seattle's urban forests will soon be certified dolphin safe. That may seem strange, but it would be just about as meaningful as the city recently receiving a forest certification it promises it will never use.

As a Husky, I should be glad when anyone these days ranks the University of Washington 4th in the nation in anything. I would, however, prefer it if the ranking was actually legitimate.

In the Sierra Club's ranking of the top 10 green schools, or "Cool Schools," it ranks the U Dub at number four. They note the "UW pays compulsive attention to buying local: More than half of the school's food is produced within 250 miles of campus." There's only one problem: this might actually do more harm to the planet than good.